(JARED’S POV)
Eight months-it’s been eight months, but it feels like an eternity. My life has spiraled in ways I never anticipated, and not for the better. Sofia and I… we were never meant to be. I see that now.
What started as an escape-maybe from my own demons-has become another prison, one I built with my own hands. Regret gnaws at me, but it’s too late. Too late to fix what I’ve broken.
The moment Sofia lost the baby, everything changed. I wasn’t ready for it not for the life she carried, and certainly not for its loss. But as the weight of the grief sank in, I realized it wasn’t just her child I was mourning. It was the child I lost with Arielle.
The one I could have had. The one I wasn’t there for.
I can still hear Sofia’s voice from that day-shrill, desperate. It rings in my ears even now, haunting me in quiet moments.
(Flashback)
I was knee-deep in paperwork, trying to escape into the dull routine of the office when my phone buzzed on my desk. Sofia’s name flashed on the screen, and I felt a sinking feeling in my gut before I even answered. “Jared, my water just broke!” Her voice trembled, fear tightening each word.
I froze for a second, then bolted out of my chair. “I’m coming!” I practically shouted, my heart already pounding.
The drive home was a blur. I don’t even remember how I got her into the car-only that I was driving like a madman, panic gnawing at me with each second. I had to get her there in time. I had to make sure this didn’t go wrong.
But it did. Everything went wrong.
The baby… the baby didn’t make it.
The doctor’s words were a haze of medical jargon and apologies, but all I heard was the finality of it: gone. Another life I couldn’t save. The suffocating weight of it wrapped around my chest like a vise. My mind flashed back to Arielle. To the night she lost our child, alone. To my own absence.
This-this was my punishment, wasn’t it? For neglecting her. For not being there when it mattered. Now, I was here, but it didn’t change anything. The universe was making me pay for what I’d done. Another child, gone. Another failure on my shoulders.
I felt sick as I walked into Sofia’s room, the grief too raw to contain. How was I supposed to tell her? How was I supposed to be the bearer of that kind of agony?
She opened her eyes, still groggy but searching, hopeful. “Where’s my baby?”
I couldn’t speak. My throat closed up, the words stuck behind the thick wall of guilt. “Sofia…” I began, but my voice cracked. “The baby didn’t make it.”
I’ll never forget the way her face crumbled. She screamed. Sobbed. Wailed until the sound of her grief filled every corner of the room, sharp enough to pierce through my bones. She shattered, and I just stood there, helpless.
I couldn’t save her from this pain any more than I could have saved the child.
The doctors brought the baby’s body. Sofia clung to it, rocking back and forth, whispering desperate prayers into the baby’s cold skin. I thought I’d seen the depths of pain, but nothing prepared me for that.
Her grief was wild, uncontainable, and it only dragged me deeper into my own.
I had failed again.
And things got worse from there. Sofia’s grief metamorphosed into anger and bitterness, making her a total stranger I could barely recognize.
******
I was still lost in thought, replaying the painful memories, when a knock on the door jolted me back to reality.
“Come in,” I said, trying to compose myself.
My new secretary, Brooke, walked in with a disturbed expression. “Sir, I’m sorry to disturb you, but your fiance is here to see you. And, she’s threatening to cause a scene if we don’t let her in.”
My heart sank. I remembered the
last incident where Sofia had
slapped my previous secretary and demanded I fire her. After the
incident, had given strict orderen et
that she shouldn’t be let in unless on my orders. But the pleading book on Brooke’s face made me reconsider. If I didn’t give the order to let Sofia in, my staff would suffer for it, and I didn’t want that.
“Let her in,” I said reluctantly.
Brooke nodded and left.
A few minutes later, Sofia walked in, her face twisted in anger. “Why was I denied access?’ she demanded.
I ignored her question and asked, “What brings you here, Sofia?” I tried to maintain a neutral demeanor.
“Don’t play dumb with me,” she snapped, her eyes flashing red. “But before we talk, you need to fire that stupid secretary of yours.”
My brows shot up. “You’re kidding, aren’t you? That would be the eleventh secretary I’ve fired in six months because of you. No way.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she leaned
on the chair So, you’re sleeping with her, aren’t you? You fired the other one just last week, and now you’re with this one. Tell me, is that
why you’ve not been home intwo days?”
I rubbed my temples, trying to stop the impending headache. “Sofia, that’s not true. Can you please not start?”
“Not start, you say?” Her voice rose. “You’ve been avoiding me for two days, and now you do not want me to voice my displeasure?”
I sighed again, the headache now at
the surface. Speaking about leaving home, I left home in anger after Sofia set my phone to factory reset mode, making me lose important
files and contacts because Sted
suspected a call I made and
me to lose all my contacts, who she suspected were mostly females. Before I did something stupid, I had left the house, and not returned in two days.
Worse, was a far cry from what Sofia had turned into. She was now extremely violent, insecure, and overly clingy. She would attack any woman who dared stare at me a little longer than a second. “You expect me to come back after what you did?”
“Why not? You’re just looking for excuses to be with your whores, but I won’t let you.”
I clenched my fists, struggling to remain calm. “That’s enough, Sofia. You can’t keep accusing me of things without evidence. And you can’t keep disrupting my work.”
“Really?”
“I mean it, Sofia,” I said firmly. “You can’t keep acting this way. You’re destroying everything.”
“Destroying everything?” She repeated, her eyes flashing with anger. “You’re to blame, Jared. You’re the one who’s destroying us.”
“That’s not true,” I countered. “You’re the one who’s changed. You’re not the same person I was in love with.”
“So you don’t love me anymore? You don’t care about me?”
“I do care about you, Sofia,” I said, trying to reason with her. “But I don’t know how to deal with this…this version of you.”
“Are those reasons to sleep around? You can never understand because you’re not the one who lost a child. Maybe, just maybe, if the child was yours, you might have been able to relate to the pain.”
Now that’s it, she was reverting to emotional blackmail. In the past, I would fall for it, but not anymore. I was beginning to see through her, through her facade.
I took a deep breath, deciding I was done with going back and forth with the conversation. “Go home, Sofia. I have work to do,” and with that, I turned my eyes back to my laptop.
“You can’t fucking ignore me,” she spat, her hand reaching to grab the laptop.
“Sofia, no!” I warned, but it was too late.
The laptop was in her hands now, her stance threatening. “You think you can just sit here and ignore me? Do you think you can just work and pretend I don’t exist? I will smash this laptop instead…”
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