CHAPTER 2
1202 Words
Mia
After Damon walked out last night, he never came back.
I lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, watching shadows crawl and stretch like they were alive, my chest tight with thoughts I couldn’t silence. Every minute dragged like punishment. Every creak of the house made my heart jump—until it didn’t anymore. Until the awful truth settled in: if he cared, he would have come home.
The thought that he might be with someone else lodged itself deep in my chest and refused to move. It split something open inside me, raw and bleeding.
The tears came quietly at first, slipping down my temples into my hair. Then they turned heavy, shaking my shoulders, stealing my breath. Each one felt like it carried something away—my dignity, my certainty, the future I thought was safe. By the time my body finally stilled, my eyes burned and my head throbbed, but the ache inside me felt endless. Permanent.
Morning came without relief.
I tried to distract myself—scrubbing countertops already clean, scrolling mindlessly through my phone, letting the TV drone on—but everything circled back to him. To his voice. To the way he looked at me last night like I was an inconvenience instead of his wife.
I hated myself for wondering if agreeing to his idea would have made him stay.
But deep down, I knew better.
He had already left me long before the words open marriage ever crossed his lips.
And now… now I couldn’t stop thinking that maybe he hadn’t just wanted permission.
Maybe he’d already been cheating.
Maybe he just wanted to stop pretending.
I despised how much it hurt. How much power he still had over me. How I was unraveling over a man who clearly stopped choosing me a long time ago.
This house—our house—felt cavernous and hollow. Every room echoed with memories of arguments over paint colors, furniture we picked together, plans we made like promises.
I swallowed hard.
I refused to let him see me like this.
I wouldn’t spend the day breaking over a man who walked out without looking back.
So I forced myself to move. Breakfast. Something normal. Something grounding.
I was halfway down the stairs when the front door opened.
My heart slammed violently against my ribs.
He’s home.
For one reckless, humiliating second, hope surged through me so hard it made me dizzy.
Maybe he came back to apologize.
Maybe he missed me.
Maybe—
I turned the corner.
And everything inside me shattered.
Damon wasn’t alone.
Standing beside him, her hand laced possessively through his, was a blonde woman I recognized instantly.
Anna.
His childhood friend. The woman who was supposed to be overseas with her fiancé. The woman whose eyes had always followed Damon too closely, whose smile never quite reached me, who acted like she already belonged where I stood.
The same woman I’d told myself I was being paranoid about.
She looked at me now with cool assessment—like I was the unexpected problem.
My throat closed, panic and disbelief tangling together. “What… what is this?”
Damon didn’t flinch. Didn’t hesitate.
“Anna just got back into town,” he said, his gaze flicking to her instead of me, “and she doesn’t have anywhere to stay. I told her she could stay with us for a while.”
With us.
The word landed like a blow.
Anna laughed softly and pressed her palm flat against his chest, her fingers spreading like she had every right.
“Baby, you don’t have to hide it anymore,” she said sweetly. “Tell her the truth. Tell her we’ve been seeing each other for a while.”
The triumph in her voice made my stomach churn.
She turned her attention to me, lips curving into a smirk. “He was going to tell you last night. I just thought it’d be nicer if we did it together.”
I looked at Damon, desperate, searching his face for anything—guilt, shame, regret.
There was nothing.
Just distance.
And somehow, that hurt worse than the betrayal itself.
I braced myself for tears—for my knees to buckle—but instead heat roared through me, sharp and furious.
“You gave me your word last night,” I snapped, my voice shaking despite my effort, “and now you’re standing here with your f*****g mistress in my home.”
Anna laughed—loud and cruel.
“Oh, honey,” she said, tilting her head, “if I hadn’t left, he never would’ve married you.”
The words lashed across me, stripping me bare.
I turned to Damon, my heart pounding painfully.
“Is that true?”
He said nothing.
Anna answered for him, voice syrupy and vicious. “Of course it is. He couldn’t have what he really wanted, so he settled. You were always so desperate—following him around, hoping he’d choose you. He felt sorry for you.”
“Enough,” Damon muttered—but he was looking at me, not her.
Then, like he hadn’t just destroyed me, he said calmly, “Anna is here to stay. You need to learn to get along with her.”
Something inside me went cold.
The anger drained, replaced by a numb stillness so deep it scared me.
“Fine,” I said, barely recognizing my own voice.
Anna slid her hand up his jaw, eyes gleaming. “Did you tell her yet? I’m not sharing a bed. The master is ours.”
He kissed her forehead tenderly, like she was precious.
“You can have anything you want, baby.”
Then he turned to me, detached, casual.
“Clear your things from the master.”
My chest tightened so painfully I thought I might suffocate—but I refused to give them the satisfaction.
“Fine,” I whispered.
I walked upstairs.
For hours, while Damon and Anna laughed and cooked and played house, I packed my life into bags and carried it into the guest room—the one he never let my mother use.
The stale air hit me like rejection.
Perfect.
I cleaned furiously, scrubbing away dust and memories, letting the anger keep me upright when the sadness tried to drag me down.
I had loved him. Defended him. Stood beside him when no one else did.
And he repaid me by bringing another woman into our home.
Into our bed.
Was I ever anything more than convenient?
When everything was finally done, I lay on the bed, exhausted, hollow.
He never came to check on me.
Not once.
Then I heard it.
Moaning.
From upstairs.
My body went rigid.
The sounds grew louder—unmistakable, deliberate.
They wanted me to hear.
I pressed a pillow over my ears, but it didn’t help. Their voices seeped through the walls, carving into me with every breath.
Each sound was a fresh wound.
But beneath the pain, something hardened.
A promise.
They would not destroy me.
They may have taken my marriage, my home, my heart—
But I would survive this.
And one day, they would regret underestimating me.
- Writer
