She sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed my hair back like she used to when I was sick as a kid.
“You don’t have to be strong for me,” she said quietly.
I stared at the ceiling.
“I’m afraid,” I admitted.
“Of him?” she asked.
“Of everything,” I whispered. “Of being alone. Of having this baby. Of… what if I can’t do it?”
My mom’s hand tightened around mine.
“You can,” she said simply. “You already are.”
I turned my face into the pillow and cried silently so I wouldn’t wake the whole house.
It wasn’t dramatic.
It was grief leaking out through the only crack it could find.
2. The Attempt to Rewrite the Story
By morning, the fallout had expanded like a stain.
Blake’s mother called my mom’s phone before she called mine. I guess I’d been blocked by her too.
My mom answered and listened for thirty seconds before her face hardened.
She held the phone away and whispered to me, “It’s Blake’s mother.”
My stomach tightened.
I sat up slowly, heart pounding.
My mom put the call on speaker.
“Rowan,” Blake’s mom said immediately, voice high and shaking. “Sweetheart, please tell me that was some kind of prank.”
Her tone wasn’t angry at first. It was desperate. Confused. Like she could still rearrange reality into something survivable.
I swallowed hard.
“It wasn’t a prank,” I said.
Silence.
Then a broken sound—half gasp, half sob.
“Oh God,” she whispered.
Behind her, I heard another voice. Blake’s father, low and rough.
“Put Blake on,” he said.
Blake’s mother’s tone shifted. Defensive now. “Rowan, this isn’t how we handle family issues.”
I stared at the wall, feeling my pulse in my throat.
“How would you have handled it?” I asked.
She hesitated.
That hesitation told me everything.
She would have handled it privately. Quietly. With apologies and pressure. With “think of the baby.” With “don’t throw away a marriage.” With “people make mistakes.”
Blake’s father spoke again, louder.
“Blake, get in here.”
Then Blake’s voice came through the line—hoarse, strained.
“Rowan,” he said, like he still had the right to say my name softly. “Can we please talk?”
My hands clenched on the bedspread.
“We did talk,” I said. “With your phone. With your texts. With your ‘she doesn’t suspect anything.’”
Blake exhaled sharply. “Rowan, I panicked. It was stupid. I—”
“You didn’t panic,” I cut in. My voice sounded calm, but it was ice on steel. “You planned. You scheduled. You wrote ‘same place as always.’”
Blake’s voice rose, edge of anger slipping in. “You didn’t have to humiliate me like that.”
There it was.
Not remorse.
Not shame.
Not apology.
Outrage that I’d exposed him.
