Return Of The Abandoned Wife

Eight

I stepped out of the orphanage with my heart both heavy and light. Heavy with grief, knowing that I may have just said my last goodbye to the woman who had saved my life in more ways than one. Light with the hope she’d given me, a small house, a fresh start, and the strength I wasn’t sure I still had.

The driver stood by the car, leaning against the door, hands tucked into his coat pockets. His brows lifted as he caught sight of me.

“Where to now, ma’am?” he asked gently.

I hesitated for a beat, staring at the old building behind me, memorizing the crooked wooden sign above the entrance and the smell of fresh bread that always lingered in the air like a hug.

Then I turned back to him. “The bus station, please.”

He blinked, clearly caught off guard. “The bus station?”

I offered a tight smile. “Yes.”

I could see the questions forming in his eyes. I knew why he was confused. For as long as I had lived in the Reed mansion, I had never used public transport. Every trip,whether to the next city or across the country, was arranged through the family’s private jet or chauffeured vehicles. I wasn’t trying to be extravagant. That was simply how things worked in Jaxon’s world.

But that world no longer belonged to me.

The driver, bless his heart, didn’t question me. He just nodded and opened the door for me. “Alright then.”

The ride to the station was quiet, filled with memories and invisible threads of things I didn’t want to tug at. We passed shops I used to frequent, streets I knew like the back of my hand. They looked unfamiliar today. I was shedding my skin, layer by layer, and these places no longer felt like mine.

When we arrived, the driver quickly got out and opened the trunk, pulling out my suitcase.

“Need help carrying it inside?” he offered.

I shook my head. “No, thank you.”

He handed it to me anyway and looked uncertain. “Are you sure? Do you need anything else? A phone? A number to call? Anything?”

I paused. My throat tightened with emotion. I didn’t know how to explain that I needed everything and nothing all at once.

“I’m okay,” I said softly. “You can go now. Thank you, for everything.”

He nodded slowly, clearly reluctant to leave. “You take care of yourself, ma’am.”

“I will. You too.”

He stood there a moment longer, then tipped his hat and returned to the car. I watched as it disappeared into the street traffic, the last remaining thread tying me to my old life finally snapping.

The bus station was small and a bit worn down, but clean. It smelled of old leather seats, engine grease, and instant coffee. I walked up to the ticket counter, where a bored-looking woman in her forties sat behind a glass pane, flipping through a magazine.

She looked up. “Where to?”

I unfolded the paper Sister Catherine had given me earlier. It read Fort Worth.

“Fort Worth, Texas.”

She typed into her computer. “Next bus leaves in thirty minutes. A one-way ticket is forty-eight dollars.”

I pulled a few bills from the leather pouch Sister had given me and passed them through the slot.

“Change?” she asked.

“No, thank you.”

She printed the ticket, slid it to me, and pointed toward the bench just outside the waiting area. “Boarding starts in about twenty-five.”

I thanked her and walked over to the bench, dragging my suitcase behind me with a soft wheeling sound that echoed in the almost-empty space.

The bench was cold and a little hard, but I sat down anyway, folding my coat around me as I watched the bustle of the small terminal. People came and went, a few carrying backpacks, others with large duffel bags. There was a sense of motion, of people moving forward with purpose. I didn’t feel like I was one of them. Not yet. I was still somewhere in between, hovering between the life I’d lost and the one I had yet to build.

I reached into my handbag and pulled out the small silver frame that held our wedding photo. Jaxon and I looked happy. Young. Naïve. My smile in the photo was soft, almost shy, and his arm was wrapped around my waist in a way that once felt protective. At the time, I thought my love would be enough that, at some point, he would fall for me and love me just as much as I love him. I truly believed it.

Now, looking at that picture, I saw the cracks I hadn’t noticed before. The way his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. The slight distance in his posture. The kind of things you only notice when you’re looking back through the lens of pain.

I clutched the photo tighter, the cool metal digging into my fingers.

Across the terminal, a young couple caught my attention. They couldn’t have been more than twenty. The girl sat sideways on her boyfriend’s lap, giggling as he whispered something into her ear. He brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and kissed her temple.

I looked away.

The ache in my chest returned, sharper than before. Not because I envied them—but because a part of me wondered what that felt like. To be wanted. To be chosen. To be someone’s first thought, not their regret.

My gaze shifted back to the entrance of the terminal. My heart, traitorous and foolish, began to hope.

What if Jaxon walked through those doors right now?

What if he ran up to me, eyes wild, breathless from the sprint, and pulled me into his arms?

What if he said, “I was wrong, Mary Jane. I’m sorry. I know you didn’t push her. I know the truth. I love you. Come home.”

I closed my eyes.

In my mind, I could almost see it. I could feel it. The way his hands would tremble. The way his voice would c***k. How I would cry and forgive him because I always forgave him.

But when I opened my eyes, the door remained closed.

There was no Jaxon.

There never would be.

He had made his choice.

And even if he did come running in now, begging me to stay, I wasn’t sure I could believe him. I wasn’t sure I could ever go back to a life where I constantly had to prove my worth, to beg for his trust, to swallow my own voice just to keep the peace.

The loudspeaker crackled overhead, announcing the boarding of my bus.

My hands trembled as I gripped the strap of my handbag. I stood slowly, knees weak, and picked up my small suitcase, dragging it behind me as I approached the gate. Every step I took echoed louder in my chest than on the floor. My heart pounded like it was trying to get my attention, like it was screaming at me to stop, to turn around, to wait… just a little longer.

I kept looking at the terminal entrance, the way you look at a door you desperately want someone to walk through.

Jaxon.

God, even now, I hated myself for hoping. For wishing he’d come.

That he’d suddenly appear, breathless and desperate, shouting my name like in those ridiculous romantic movies he always said were unrealistic. That he’d finally realize everything I was to him. That he’d come to his senses and say he was sorry. That he’d tell me to come home.

But the door remained closed.

There was no rush of footsteps.

No shouting.

No Jaxon.

Just a mother trying to calm her crying child, a group of college kids laughing too loudly, and a man with a coffee-stained shirt cursing at the vending machine.

Dragging my suitcase behind me, I walked toward the gate. My steps were slow, measured. With every inch I moved, I left behind the version of me that had lived in the shadows of someone else’s love.

The bus driver nodded at me as I handed him my ticket. “Long trip ahead,” he said, glancing at the town printed on the stub.

“I know,” I replied, stepping onto the bus.

He stepped aside, and I climbed the few steps into the bus. It was mostly empty. A few people were already seated, scattered throughout, some with earbuds in, some scrolling their phones, others just staring out the window with that tired, worn-down expression of people who had seen too much and said too little.

I walked halfway down the aisle and slid into a window seat.

I didn’t sit like I was on my way to something good. I sat like I was trying to bury something. Trying to disappear into the cracked leather of the seat and never be seen again.

I put my bag in my lap and stared at the terminal through the window. My breath fogged the glass, but I didn’t wipe it away. I wanted the blur. The haze. The disconnect from reality.

The driver got on last, greeting a couple of late boarders. Then he pulled the doors shut with a loud hiss. That sound… that awful sound, it was like a closing casket lid.

The engine roared to life a moment later, and the vibrations from the floor traveled up into my legs.

And that’s when it hit me.

Really hit me.

It was over.

The life I had clung to, the love I had fought for, the pain I had swallowed every single day, it was behind me now. There was no going back. No last-minute “Wait!” from the man I had once given everything to.

No soft apologies.

No change of heart.

No miracle.

Just the low rumble of the bus as it pulled away from the station and into the street.

I felt a tightness in my throat, like someone had reached into my chest and was twisting my lungs, trying to crush the air out of them.

Tears threatened behind my eyes. I blinked fast, trying to hold them back. I was so tired of crying. I had cried enough for a lifetime.

But it was hard.

Because this was the first time I had ever truly chosen myself.

And choosing yourself… It’s beautiful in theory, but in practice?

It’s lonely. Terrifying. It feels like walking off a cliff and praying the wind will catch you before you hit the ground.

I pressed my forehead to the glass and watched the city blur by. The buildings. The people. The pieces of my past.

I wondered what Jaxon was doing at that exact moment.

Was he still beside Vivian’s hospital bed? Was he praying and hoping for her recovery? Without a single thought of me?

When he realizes I was gone would he care?

I hated that I wanted the answer to be yes. I hated that some small, fragile part of me still clung to the fantasy that he would show up. That he would come after me.

But he didn’t.

He hadn’t.

And that silence? That absence?

It told me everything I needed to know.

I reached into my bag and pulled out the envelope Sister Agnes had given me. Inside were the house keys and a copy of the deed. A simple home in a small town. A town where nobody knew me. Nobody pitied me. Nobody had seen me broken, humiliated, unloved.

A clean slate.

It should have felt liberating.

And maybe… deep down, it did.

But right now, it just felt like grief.

Grief for the girl I had been. For the woman I tried to become in a marriage that never truly welcomed me. For the family I never got to build. For the child I had once dreamed of cradling in my arms, rocking to sleep in a nursery Jaxon had promised to decorate himself.

All of it, gone.

I closed my eyes, trying to calm the storm inside me.

I thought of Sister Agnes’ hand in mine. Cold but comforting. Of her soft voice as she told me she believed in me. Of the way she had smiled, even in pain, and given me the tools I needed to rebuild myself.

Her gift wasn’t just a house.

It was freedom.

A quiet, gentle kind of freedom.

The kind no one had ever offered me before.

Maybe that was enough for now.

Maybe that would carry me through.

The bus continued down the highway, mile by mile taking me farther away from my past and closer to whatever future was waiting for me.

And as the city disappeared behind us, swallowed by distance and time, I let out a long, shaky breath.

It’s over.

It’s really over.