The Day I Died ,My Husband Finally Cried

(Aria's POV) "Six years," I whispered to the cake in my hands. "Six whole years, and you still can't remember, can you, Damon?" No one answered. It was just me, the rain, and a white-frosted anniversary cake slowly being destroyed by the downpour. I had spent twenty minutes writing Happy Anniversary in pale blue icing. The letters were bleeding now, dripping down the sides like they were crying on my behalf. I stood at the front steps of Cross Mansion and told myself to move. Just walk in. It is your home. You live here. But the laughter pouring out from inside nailed my feet to the ground. It was not quiet laughter. This was the full, warm, bouncing kind that filled every corner of a room, the kind this house had never once produced in the six years I had been its mistress. I shifted the cake in my arms. My fingers had gone numb from the cold. Through the tall glass panel beside the front door, I could see them. The entire Cross family was gathered in the main hall. Damon's mother, dressed in ivory, was clapping her hands together like a delighted child. His aunts stood clustered near the staircase, all wide smiles and bright eyes. Felix, his younger brother, was pouring champagne into tall flutes and passing them around like it was New Year's Eve. I searched for Damon. He was standing near the fireplace. The warm light caught the sharp line of his jaw. He was smiling. Actually smiling, in a way I had not seen in months, maybe longer. My chest did something painful at the sight of it. Then I saw her. Livia Hart. She was even more beautiful than the photographs I had found buried in Damon's old desk drawer two years into our marriage. Tall, effortlessly put together, her dark hair falling in soft waves over her shoulders. She laughed at something Felix said, and the sound carried right through the glass like it belonged there, like she had always been the one living inside these walls. My grip on the cake tightened. I had cooked dinner tonight. Lamb with rosemary, his favourite. I had set the long dining table with candles and the good china, the set his grandmother had left behind. I had even put on the green dress he once said looked nice on me, back when he still bothered to say things like that. I had done all of it quietly, carefully, carrying the small and fragile hope that maybe today, of all days, he would sit across from me and remember what day it was. Instead, there was a party. For her. I pushed the front door open and stepped inside. The warmth hit me first. Then the smell of perfume and food and laughter all mixed together. A housekeeper walked past me without a glance. One of Damon's aunts moved so close that the sleeve of her blouse grazed my wet arm, and she did not even turn around. I stood in the middle of my own home, soaked to my skin, holding a ruined cake, and not one single person in that room looked at me. Then I heard the small, running footsteps. Leo came tearing around the corner of the hallway, his little arms already stretched wide open, his face split with pure joy. "Mommy!" he screamed. "Mommy, you're finally back!" He ran straight past me. He ran past me and threw himself at Livia, wrapping both arms around her waist and burying his face in her stomach. She caught him and spun him once, laughing, and the whole room broke into warm, collective noise. I did not move. Leo was six years old. He had been in the Cross household before I even understood what kind of marriage I had walked into. No one had ever explained whose child he was. No one had needed to. But in all the time I had lived here, in all the mornings I had made him breakfast and tucked his school shirt in and kissed the top of his head before the car came, not once, not once had he ever called me that word. And here he was giving it to her like it was the most natural thing in the world. No one corrected him. Damon's mother smiled so wide her eyes disappeared into her cheeks. Felix raised his glass. The aunts made soft, delighted sounds. Livia pressed her lips to the top of Leo's head and whispered, "Mama missed you so much, baby." The cake slipped. I grabbed it before it hit the floor, but my hands were shaking so badly I nearly lost it again. I pressed it hard against my chest to hold it steady and felt the cold frosting smear across the front of my green dress. My throat had sealed itself shut. My eyes burned. Don't cry. Not here. Not in front of all of them. I was still standing there, wet and invisible and trembling, when Damon finally looked up. His eyes found me across the room. For one thin second, something passed across his face. Not warmth. Not guilt. Something closer to mild inconvenience. He crossed the room in long, unhurried strides and stopped directly in front of me. When he spoke, his voice was low, flat, and completely empty. "You're blocking the entrance. Move." That was all. No happy anniversary. No question about why I was soaked. No glance at the cake pressed against my chest. Four words, delivered like I was a piece of furniture placed in the wrong spot, and then he was already looking past me. I stepped aside. He walked past me without looking back. I went upstairs. I do not even remember deciding to. My legs simply carried me away from the noise and the warmth and the terrible brightness of a celebration I had not been invited to. I sat on the edge of the bed and set the cake on the nightstand and stared at the wall while the party went on below me. The anniversary dinner was still on the dining table. I knew without going to check. The candles had probably burned halfway down by now. The lamb was getting dry. I sat there until the voices below softened into murmurs. Until the laughter settled. Until the house began to breathe quietly again. I should have gone to sleep. Instead, I got up. I walked down the hallway toward the stairs, thinking only of getting a glass of water, when I noticed the door to Constantine Cross's study sitting slightly open. A thin strip of warm light fell across the hallway carpet. I heard his voice, low and certain, and my feet stopped moving on their own. I should have kept walking. I know that. "It has gone on long enough," Constantine said. "Livia is back. Everything returns to how it should have always been." A pause. Then Damon's voice, quieter. "I hear you." "I don't think you do." Constantine's tone carried the kind of weight that did not leave room for argument. "That girl has served her purpose. The Harrington shares have been tied to our name long enough. We no longer need the arrangement." My hand found the wall beside me. "It's time to end that useless contract marriage." The air left my lungs and did not come back. I stood in the dark hallway, completely still, and I did not breathe.