Beta: paleseptember10

REPOSTING because of the issue with the website. I hope everyone can see this now.

Thank you for all the PMs and reviews from the previous chapter!

IX

March 2020

Taylor closed the door shut with a little more force than necessary, but when he was using all his efforts to maintain a neutral expression he would have to take his anger out elsewhere. Thankfully, the boss was in a world of his own because he wanted nothing more than to lock the car up and just leave it at the curb to be towed.

Stomping up the steps, he was aware of the fearful looks sending his way but there was no way for him to rein in what he was feeling right now. He knew that people were probably ready to call the cops on him if he started screaming gibberish so he jabbed at the elevator's close button forcefully willing it to fly up quicker.

In his hands was another thin manila folder that contained a copy of the NDA she had signed, and a letter of recommendation that Christian had promised her. Lastly, a personal note from the bodyguard himself delivered verbally.

"If I were you, I'd take the next flight out, and never look back."

There was so much more that he wanted to say to the woman still in her robe, probably still naked beneath the clothing, however as fuming as he was at the moment he still respected her as a human being.

He was furious at the boss, the cheese, and himself. He felt betrayed by the boss because he vouched for him so many times, to Sawyer and to everyone that asked; he had defended him with his honor only for him to do exactly the opposite. However, thinking from another point of view, maybe there could be a better way to steer him away from the poisonous cheese and that he just took too long to come up with a method. Then, there was the cheesy blonde girl that he honestly never trusted but also was never given a tangible proof to classify her as a threat.

There was no way to protect the boss from her other than to forcibly remove her or him, and that would result in another fight that he just could not win.

He was mostly frustrated about this situation that he got stuck in. The trip back to the SUV couldn't be shorter, and he really just wanted to knock some sense into Grey's head because everyone's life improved when he and Ana got serious, and Taylor thought despite the ups and downs that all relationships would inevitably endure, they wouldn't impact the staff like it used to. He wouldn't have to tidy up Christian's mess after his ass like a nanny.

Lately, he knew that he failed epically as a babysitter to Christian. With one last sigh, he schooled in his expression and approached the car. One look in the rearview mirror and he knew that the man in the backseat was on a self destructive path.

He could almost hear the man thinking. Despite the impassive poker face and the hollow eyes staring mindlessly out of the window, Christian's mind was actually subconsciously going through everything that could possibly lead him to where he was at the moment.

He didn't talk, nor did he move an inch since he crawled into the back seat of the car, and he had no energy to do so. He was so numbed by everything that he couldn't even freak out like he would had his mind actually caught up to the present time. He would give Taylor the opportunity to look elsewhere because he knew that the bodyguard must be disgusted by his behavior by now.

No matter what excuse Taylor had to convince himself that the man he had known the last four—almost five—years was still the good man he vouched for so many times in the past. Christian still felt like he had just turned his back on everyone that cared enough about him, and lost his trust to everyone he'd ever cared about and loved.

His mind couldn't even think about the repercussions when Ana finds out, because it had been too busy hating himself for even letting his guard down. He had absolutely no idea how it ended the way it did, it was completely different than what he had imagined. He didn't know what went wrong, or how could a friendship so innocent become so toxic so quickly; or perhaps he had been the oblivious one since the beginning being so focused on himself and his problems.

Maybe Brie wasn't manipulative but just with a personal goal just like he made her stay for his personal gain. Perhaps during their efforts to use one another for their own benefit the situation took a turn that none of them realized had occurred until it was too late.

The only thought other than the stone cold truth about his infidelity to Ana was the fact that he was probably taking too long, and it was now too late… he had probably missed her and she had probably moved on, if not accepted the fact that he had been taking too long.

He knew that he didn't deserve to even step foot back into their Ivory Tower but for once in his life, he had to really fight for the one thing that he thought he had been fighting for. He now knew that what he had done was called avoidance. And this realization on his own was enough to make him feel embarrassed, for the very first time; too embarrassed to even tell Flynn.

…

Sawyer opened the door to the backseat and reached inside to scoop her up. His heart stopped when he was met with no resistance. Instead, not only did she feel faint in his arms, her limbs were also dangling around her.

While he would fear for his job and the wrath of Grey before, all he could feel right now was blind rage for the man that signed his paychecks.

He stared at Ana's chest hoping for a sign—any indication that she was still alive—and his stomach dropped to the pit when he couldn't make out the rise and fall movement of her chest under her loose fitted dress. He lifted her head slightly tilting her mouth to his ear, until he felt light steady air hitting his earlobe from her nose, did he let out the breath he was holding.

For security reasons, he put Ana in the backseat instead of the front where he could keep a better eye on her. Hence, he had no idea when she had dozed off, and her immobile state was also what concerned him as he knew that unless she was with Christian, she would never fall into a deep slumber.

So when her eyes still didn't even flutter when he gently placed her in the bed in the guest room where she had been staying, he nearly panicked and was ready call 911 when Gail scurried in, her face pale and marred with worry as she took in the limp form of her hostess.

"This… this can't be normal right?" Sawyer stammered, pointing to the woman splayed out in the middle of the bed with his phone on the dialing screen with 911 already typed out.

"What has the poor girl done to herself?" Gail sighed helplessly, shaking her head back and fro. She cautiously approached the bed to sit on the edge.

"She…" Sawyer exhaled, even this was hard for him to say, and he was only a bystander. "She terminated it."

Gail gasped at the heavy meaning behind these three simple words, and her hand flew to her face covering her gaping mouth as tears sprang into her eyes. If this was any other situation, Sawyer would be summoning Taylor and Grey to look after their women, but as lost as he felt at the moment, he didn't want to leave.

"She… she- what?" She stuttered. "A- are you sure?"

Sawyer nodded once, his lips were pressed into a thin line.

"Oh the poor girl. Why would she do that?" Gail said to herself, and her hand caressed Ana's in a motherly manner as she gazed at the girl.

"She's been out since I put her in the car, and," he ran his fingers through his hair, the whole development had only solidified his decision to remain unmarried for life. "I don't think she's supposed to be like this. She'd always been a light sleeper when Grey wasn't around."

"Call her OB and ask before you panic and jump to the wrong conclusion. I imagine she'd be okay."

Without a second to spare, he had the phone against his ear, his fingers pulling at his hair aggressively and drumming on his side nervously.

…

April 2020

March couldn't drag out longer but when the first day of April came, they couldn't even know who had the other fooled. It certainly intensified the claustrophobic feeling for everyone as the lockdown was now in execution.

Her eyes fluttered open mere hours before midnight and she was met with utter darkness reflecting the exact emotion that she was feeling. Her surrounding was empty which only emphasized how void she was beginning to feel.

She had remembered the room being spacious but in this total darkness, she couldn't help but feel like the walls were infinite, and she could just stare into space and see the room stretched beyond its physical limits extending into never ending spaces. It only fueled her mind as she tried to convince herself that she was trapped inside a room instead of feeling like she was exposed to the world, defenseless to all the attackers that could hurt her anyway they could.

She was like the animal awaiting to be butchered, only she couldn't see the knife but she could feel it coming.

Her eyelids closed and blinked opened ever so slowly, and despite the droopiness she was feeling, they just couldn't remain shut.

Reaching around her, she sought for a pillow but it was beneath her head and her whole body felt heavier than ever as she felt like she couldn't even control her arms to be lifted let alone her head to release the pillow underneath her. With the fakest attempt, she gave up and allowed her arm to go limp beside her head once more.

The shades in this room were closed, and the heavy blinds were thick enough to block out every ounce of light that could possibly penetrate through the windows. She was sick of this boring dark place where she couldn't see clearly, she needed some light even if it wasn't any kind of guidance that she was seeking for, she still wanted to look out from the building feeling like she was on the top of the world.

As she dragged her feet to the library across the hall with her arms crossed in front of her, resting atop of her still distended stomach, and despite feeling much better as she stepped into the corridor where lights from outside illuminated the walls and the ground near the window, the ache in between her legs made her acutely aware of what she had just been through.

Her ears stood up as she stood before the closed door to the library—her office—as if she was hoping to hear the sound of the piano that would tell her that everything in the past few months were all part of a nightmare that she was about to wake up from.

Her hand reached out to the doorknob and she twisted it, pushing it open, gradually revealing a brightly illuminated carpeted floor and shelves to the sides.

Time was now meaningless to her as she made her way to the full length glass that provided the single best lighting in the entire penthouse, as well as warmth all year long. She hadn't even think about glancing in the direction of her office table where everything was still neatly organized just like how she left it the day before. It was as if she had blacked out for two days only to come back noticing that nothing had changed.

She leaned against one of the book shelf frames and her hands steepled before her lips. Her face was lit in an orange color by the lanterns on the street down below. Most of the buildings were pitch black just like the room she just came out of, and for once, she was hating the silence and the peace. She disliked how everything seemed so dead and lifeless, and the only indication that she was still living in a perfectly operating world was the few cars rushing down the highway every once in a while.

Her forehead touched the glass, and the coolness slowed her racing thoughts and quieted her pumping heart. She couldn't even figure out if she was still breathing at the motionless view surrounding her. Her arms returned to the previous position, crossed at her midsection.

She blew out a large breath, steaming up the glass for a short time as she recalled the protruding stomach that her forearms were currently resting on. There was a life in there sheerly six hours ago, and now nothing was left. She knew that her soul went with her little girl the moment she was taken out of her, and she knew that her heart had already died when she had that injection that stopped her baby girl's heart.

And right now, after insisting on the procedure and almost forcing Dr Greene to perform it at her earliest convenience, she had no idea what to feel anymore. She was numb but she had an inkling as to how she was supposed to feel. She had read enough stories online to relate to the moms that were in her shoes.

Perhaps the magnitude of the abortion had yet to caught up with her, or maybe she was refraining herself from feeling what she truly wanted to feel after the abortion, her mind was refusing any kind of strong emotion and rejecting all the tears that she was anticipating but never arrived.

I'd be alright. She told herself, and she was beginning to believe that she was probably tougher than most women online, and she would come out less scarred and less scathed than all of them, because she was stronger.

…

Christian sat before his piano under the strict order from his shrink to allow himself to experience all the mixed up emotions that he was feeling, and to express them as much as he could. What Flynn did not know about was how he had sat in his office facing his window the minute he got back just staring into the sky, and watching it turn dark as night fell.

He had no idea how long he had been doing so until he eventually remembered that he had made an appointment with his therapist, and that was when he registered the ringing phone in his pocket with an incoming call from said shrink.

The entire session went way shorter than he had expected. While he knew that he wouldn't be talking a lot as he still couldn't even figure out what to say to his mind let alone out loud to another human being, he was anticipating the session being filled with shrink talks as Flynn did the majority of the talking most of his sessions before. Case in point the incident that brought his shady relationship with Elena to light, which incidentally ruined yet another milestone in Ana's life, as it was the night of their engagement.

Was his marriage, his relationship with Anastasia set up for failure? Were they meant to fail so miserably despite how strongly they felt about one another, how passionate they were about their love, or how envious everyone had been about them since the start because they had such incredible chemistry.

His mind was miles away and all he could interpret with his mind was the fact that Flynn's mouth was moving but he couldn't even hear the sound much less read his lips. His eyes were just staring at the screen, unfocused and soulless. He didn't want to get off the conference with his psychotherapist but he wasn't given a choice.

He was in shock, and that much was obvious but what his mind had not acknowledged until he was sat on his piano stool with his elbows resting on the lid and his fingers steepled beneath his chin was the explanation as to why he felt weak in that moment before he committed adultery—the one crime that he never thought he was capable of doing.

There were footsteps coming from upstairs but he couldn't hear it as the thoughts in his head were obnoxiously loud, and he didn't think he would hear a bomb going off right next to him until he turned to dust. He could remember a few words and phrases scattered over his brain that only started to make sense until now, and he wasn't sure he understood them the way he should.

He had no recollection of ever making a decision to actually allow Brie to come onto him but as Flynn had pointed out by correctly reading his mind, he never actively rejected her advances either, and the question to ask here was why? Why didn't he do anything? He just surrendered to fate, and that was not him. He would say that he was caught in a moment of weakness, and she caught him off guard, but even he knew that it was bullshit because even when he was hungover, he knew who he was in love with and he would've snapped out of it before he was stripped half naked with a condom rolled on his dick.

"I just told her that I don't want her to leave," Christian tried his damn best to explain to his doctor that he hadn't given any indication to Brie that he wanted sex or anything physical. However, it had proven to be difficult to explain to someone that knew his thinking process so well, so evidently there would be a lapse of judgement and some kind of misunderstanding. "I… fuck! I don't even know how to explain it but I thought she'd understand that."

"Do you see her as your backup plan?"

"No!" Christian wretched. "I don't want a backup plan because there's no way that I'm going to let Ana walk away from me."

"So why do you need her around you?"

"Because she has helped me. She told me how women think, and what Ana might mean when she did something. I'm just trying to understand how relationships work, and she's experienced in those."

"So, how much has she helped?"

"A lot! She's around people every day, and she has a psych degree but that's beside the point. She has told me what to do to fix my damaged relationship."

"And have you managed to fix your relationship?"

"No."

"So, again, in what way did she help you?"

"She was there when you weren't," he mumbled petulantly. "I didn't tell her everything, I only told her what was necessary and I even lied a bit about what was actually going on."

"Does that change the outcome?"

"What outcome?"

"Has your relationship been mended?"

"No, I think it's now been damaged beyond repair."

"So, what benefit did you get out of conversing with this lady? You said she's been helpful but in what ways?"

"She gave me advice."

"Again, we're talking in circles. What specific advice has she given you?"

"To apologize first?"

"Did that work?"

"Until I freaked out on Ana again," he nodded.

"You went back to her after you freaked out, then what?"

"She let me vent and said all the right things that made me feel better."

"Exactly, you went back to her because talking to her was easy. She's saying all the things that you want to hear, and all the reassurance that would boost your ego. I'm not saying that she's manipulative or that she's taken advantage of you because you're both equally manipulative and you both have taken advantage of each other's situation."

"She's willing and she blurred the lines."

"It's not totally on her, Christian. You were testing the limits, and she was receptive. There was nothing wrong for a single woman to not reject the advances of a willing man, and I can imagine that you've sent her mixed signals, thus it would be very hard for a young single lady like her to refrain from betraying her own morals."

"She should've backed off."

"Just like you should've, too."

"Oh, so now you're saying that I consciously cheated on my wife? That I deliberately ruined my marriage?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm only saying that she made you depend on her emotionally because you two met when you were at your worst mentally. She may not have done it purposely, she was just being nice and friendly, and maybe she was trying to help but what are you expecting a stranger to say to you unless it was to make you feel better? You wouldn't fare well with someone calling you out on your shit, much less someone who doesn't know you and said stranger was only there to listen to your rants."

"So, I shouldn't have talked to her? I didn't divulge anything other than what I assumed the problems that every other married man has."

"You don't know what kind of problems married men have. You're a newbie to marriage and even relationships. Brie knew that you're a rookie."

"So she took advantage of me?"

"Subconsciously, maybe. You wouldn't be so receptive of her advances if it wasn't subtle because then you'd know that she's hitting on you."

"So how did I end up in her bed?"

"What did you say to her that morning before she put her moves on you?"

"I told her to not leave me as this is a crucial moment in my life, and I'd like her to be there no matter the outcome with Ana. I know that I won't let Ana leave me but I also know that I won't win her over with just one meeting, and I'd have to work hard to win her back. I just thought Brie would be able to help me with the process."

"Christian…" Flynn shook his head. "You shouldn't be so naïve to think that a man like you could just simply be friends with another woman. If you weren't so emotionally fragile then I don't see a problem with your friendship but you're already so dependent on her that you don't even know until she was ready to pull the rug from underneath your feet."

"Then what am I supposed to say?"

"Do you see how you are sending her mixed signals? You are confusing her because you have made it clear to her that you're not available, and yet here you are pleading her not to leave you."

"Well, I should've been more specific."

"No, you should've let her go because she's no one important. Your priority is to fix your marriage and win Ana back, correct?"

"Of course."

"So Brie's irrelevant."

"How?"

"Like I said, you were emotionally dependent on her, and when she announced that she's leaving it was like her pulling the rug, and you panicked because you feel like she's abandoning you."

"I don't feel like that," he defended automatically hating it when he was being told that he was weak in any way shape or form.

"You've felt like this before when your own birth mother overdosed on you, and left you defenseless. Then, there's your wife whom you assumed has left you for your unborn child. And now, when you thought you've finally found someone who you could somewhat rely on, she told you that she's not a permanent fixture in your life. Suddenly, you felt like there's no one to lean on."

"I don't depend on anyone. I don't have to lean on anyone."

"You've been leaning on Ana since you met her."

"That's because I love her! I don't even have feelings for Brie."

"Maybe not remotely similar to what you feel for Ana but you have made her feel wanted and desired."

"I have not!" Christian protested but he was drained, too exhausted that he couldn't even come up with sufficient words to form a sentence to defend himself. His mind was a jumbled mess, and he had given up trying to make Flynn see his perspective.

John continued to talk but it wasn't making sense to Christian anymore, and now, as his vision refocused on the performance piano before him, there were only two words that were still swirling in his head.

Abandonment issues.

He bolted up from the stool and headed to the one place that he felt would be spacious but not too empty for him and his brain that was now spinning in high speed. Taking the stairs two at a time, his long quick strides brought him pass the library and the guest rooms to a halt before the double glass door that led him to his own gym.

…

Gail had been tossing and turning all night and she knew for a fact that Taylor had been laying wide awake next to her despite remaining motionless. She was rather clueless about the details as to what really went down between her bosses because Taylor wasn't telling her anything specific, and Sawyer had been skirting around the topic, but the both of them were constantly stressed out lately, and she knew that something serious was going on.

Taylor breathed out a long sigh, and Gail knew that her constant movements had now officially annoyed him to the brink, so she threw off the covers and went out of the room pretending that she needed a drink but what she needed was some answers.

She opened her door just in time to see Sawyer with his knuckles raised ready to knock on her door, and her heart sank at that.

"What's going on, Luke?" She questioned warily fully aware that Taylor probably had an ear standing up trying to eavesdrop all the way from the bedroom.

"You need to check on her… I- this is so out of my depth," Sawyer rubbed his face tiredly. He was supposed to be off duty already but he had no intention of heading back to his apartment and leaving Ana like this because he knew the other men wouldn't know what to do any more than he did right now, so he stayed in the security room just staring at the live footage from the library.

"Where is she?" Gail was already donning her robes and tying her sash and about to push past Sawyer.

"In the library," he sighed once again. "She's been there since she woke up like around midnight, and it's been like four hours."

"It's the crack of dawn," she agreed. "What's she like? Have you been in to see her?"

"I have but I don't think she's noticed me. I'm not sure what's better, her bawling her eyes out or standing in front of the glass as if she was looking down from heaven."

"What do you mean?" She asked, walking toward the library with Sawyer trailing behind her closely.

"She basically floated into the room like a ghost and she had been staring down the streets since she got there, and a couple of hours later Grey darted to the gym and somehow, it startled her. Or something in her snapped or something. I don't understand, and I can't. I swear she had no idea that he's even here but it somehow just affected her."

"They're one of a kind," she shook her head having witnessed their relationship since the start.

"I don't think she even know that I moved her to the couch."

Gail was confused at the panicky description from Sawyer but she wouldn't get anything more until she had witnessed the scene herself. And, man, it was not pretty.

The door had been left ajar when Sawyer left for Gail, and Ana had been curled up in the couch in the same position that he had left her in. Her eyes were opened but her orbs were black, pitch black. Scary as it was, they both knew that she was alive but in shock. However, there wasn't even a tint of blue in her normally bright colored eyes, and that was what gave both of them a heart attack.

"Ana," Gail whispered trying to get her attention but only more tears flooded out of her eye sockets. Other than the shuffling of their feet, they couldn't hear a single sound from Ana, and if it wasn't for the light coming from the outside, they wouldn't even know that she was in here.

"She's been like this since he went by, and she had never made a sound. It had all been silent, it was just tears."

Gail could feel tears prickling the back of her eyes as she heard it because this wasn't just the waterworks, this was Ana draining her last bit of energy to make up for the loss that she had suffered today. It would've been better if she had cried hysterically, screamed, smashed stuff around, or simply lashed out… all of the actions would be so much better than her silence.

They couldn't even hear a sniffle from her, and it was as if she was leaking beyond repair because even her breathing was steady and normal, and one wouldn't even think that she was crying given the gradual rise and fall of her chest.

But what they couldn't see was how soaked her dress had been, and how dehydrated she was at the moment. She was already weak, and all the tears had only took out the last bit of energy from her. She wasn't feeling anything anymore because she was ready to merge into the darkness that was now surrounding her.

"Ana," Gail took the glass of water from Sawyer's hands and put the straw near her mouth. "You have to drink some water."

Obediently, Ana opened her mouth and mechanically sucked in a straw full of water before letting the plastic go. When Gail nudged the straw closer to her mouth again, she took another sip.

"Finish it," Gail instructed gently, and Ana did as she was told. By now, her brain had stopped functioning and everything she was doing relied on instincts.

If she didn't know better, she would say that she had blacked out because there was nothing in her mind other than her body telling her that she should go lay down in her bed because she was exhausted.

So, she did. She stood up from the seat robotically and trudged to the door.

As her luck would have it, she was just in time to run face to face into the one person that she had been hoping to see but not anymore. Her eyes widened but there were still no emotions in them, as his did, too, only with one emotion—surprise.

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as he counted silently in his head.

When neither of them made any move or attempts to start a conversation, the awkward silence dragged on and Christian couldn't take it any longer so he stepped away from her. Her eyes followed his back and he could feel it burning into the back of his head. Yet, he kept on walking because he just needed that tiny bit more time to come up with a way to talk to her or some kind of way to make sure that he hadn't lost her completely, and that he still had a chance.

"Is that a hickey?"

He was so lost in his mind reassuring and convincing himself that despite the fact that he was already walking on thin ice, he was at least still on the brink of losing her.

"Excuse me?" He turned around slowly as he growled, thoroughly affronted, his anger masking his panic just as his self defense mechanism kicked in.

Her voice was heavy with tears but not hoarse like it normally would had she been crying aloud. He glared at her almost venomously, but only because his own guilt had been so profound that he got scared the moment she questioned him even though she hadn't exactly accused him of anything.

She stared at him, and him her. They were at a standstill once again, both studying the other's facial expression and reading each other's thoughts like they used to under the dim lighting shone from the window at the end of the hall as well as out of the library.

The tension was enough to make Gail and Sawyer freeze inside the library as they daren't even breathe once. They could feel the strain rolling off of the couple in waves, and they didn't even dare move to the entrance as it would block their light source and consequently startle them both.

Ana read into his soul, and all she saw was guilt that just sold his façade out. There were so many other emotions that she could and could not make out but the guilt, albeit a small portion, was at the forefront of her mind, and it was all she could focus on and all her brain could process at the moment.

Christian saw the exact moment she connected the dots, and he knew that his silence was the last nail to his coffin. He thought he had seen a flash of guilt or something flashing across his eyes but it was gone the next moment, and with his rising panic, he couldn't figure out whether he imagined it or if it was really there.

She opened her mouth to say something but he acted quicker as her words sank into him.

Hickey?

He had been so careful to not leave marks on her because while he knew that what he did was wrong, he also couldn't shake the helplessness he had been feeling when he was in the act. His subconscious was battling with his body as his brain shut down on him yesterday morning. At that moment, he only remembered that he had lost complete control over his body and he had lost the ability to think. He had half an idea of what he was doing but at the same time, he had none.

When he got back, he had been so concerned with the aftermath that he had never thought about the visual proof as only now did he recall Brie's assault on the back of his neck.

He spun on his heels and sprinted down the steps almost ending up rolling down.

Ana momentarily forgot the ache in between her legs as she charged after him, and she got there just in time for the door to be slammed right in her face but she bravely shoved against it. When she regained her balance, her attentions were brought to the only light in the bathroom. She moved over, this time cautious of the pain and discomfort shooting up her center with each step she took until she was leaning against the bathroom frame appearing in the mirror that Christian was so busy staring into.

His entire body went rigid the moment he noticed the intruder in his reflection, and his eyes met hers from the glass.

"What have you been up to, Christian?" She muttered quietly, her voice even and neutral just like her expression was, but that was only because she was totally drained both physically and mentally, and there was nothing left of her. There wasn't even a fight left in her.

His eyes lowered as he thought of an answer appropriate enough to suggest that it wasn't his intention, and it was beyond his control that this had happened. He wanted to tell her all that went through his mind but he doubted that she would understand the mindset he was in.

"I have trapped you, then?"

"No," he shook his head firmly, and was quick to deny it.

"Who is she?"

"She's…" he wanted to say nobody but even the amateur that he was knew that it would be bullshit. "She was someone that I naïvely thought could be my friend. I thought she could help me improve my relationship with you but I know how that sounds now."

"I'll bet your relationship has improved significantly with her. Shame that you didn't meet her sooner."

"Ana, don't be like this. I- she…"

"She didn't mean anything," she finished for him but that was exactly what he had been refraining to say because it was cliché and overused and quite frankly, useless. "I'm not a fiction editor for nothing. I've read it all."

"I can explain."

"It's not what it looks like," she mimicked. "Yeah, I know. Obvious, isn't it?"

"I honestly thought talking to someone would help. It's what everyone says, and I wanted to try it since I am really out of my depth here."

"When did you meet her?" Completely ignoring his pleads, she continued with her line of questioning.

"At the bar the night you told me that you're pregnant…" his voice trailed off and he didn't even know how much more he should say even though he knew that he would have to dilute everything at some point.

"How long?"

"Ana…"

"How long have you been sleeping with her? How long have you been seeing her? How long have you been telling her that you'd leave me for her? How. Long?" She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists as she hissed at him, her body leaning away from the door frame and leaning toward him.

"I never told her that I'd leave you, in fact, I've made it extremely clear that I am not giving us up!"

"She clearly didn't get the memo. So, answer me."

"Just this once," he confessed quietly. "Since the bar until now."

"You weren't at Flynn's all this time, then."

"I was…" he trailed off once more and Ana knew that he just wasn't always there.

"Well, I guess we're even then," she pushed herself back to her two feet as she gave him one last impassive glance.

"What do you mean?" He could already detect the eeriness of the next sentence that she was going to deliver.

"I got an abortion. No more baby, and no more playing house with me. You are a free man with nothing but a wedding band binding you to me, and feel free to take that off, too."

"What? Ana!" He screamed but she was already out of the door, shutting them on her way out. He got to her door as quick as he could but he was still a fraction too late, and he swore he heard his nose crack accompanied by the sound of the lock being inserted into the socket.

…

"Do you want a divorce?"

"No," Anastasia sobbed into the bunched up napkins clutched tightly in her hands as she debated whether to enlist her therapist's idea or not. "I don't want a divorce," she said loud and clear but the tears just wouldn't stop flowing. "And, it's not like I can get one with the lockdown anyway."

"It's just a suggestion, but the lockdown can act as a good platform for the two of you to really talk without flying off the handle each time, and without any influence from the outside world, it would just be you and your husband, and you might just find your way back. I would recommend writing your feelings down just to organize your thoughts. Perhaps that would be a better presentation to your husband. Or maybe all you need right now is a different kind of communication method."

X

Saph T