Divorce Before Valentine's

Chapter 2

(Caroline’s POV)

Martin and I spend two hours on the phone with the printer, going through every detail, making sure the reprint order is perfect. By the time I pull back into my driveway, it's almost eleven. The house is dark except for the porch light and a dim glow from somewhere inside.

Guilt twists in my chest. I missed the countdown to midnight. I couldn’t tuck Charlie into bed and wish him a happy new year. Some mother I am.

I let myself in quietly, setting my keys in the bowl by the door. The Christmas tree lights are still on, casting their gentle rainbow across the empty living room. We haven’t gotten around to taking them down yet, and we probably won’t anytime soon.

I sigh, spotting Wendy's shoes by the door, small and pink. She must have fallen asleep here too.

The house is silent in that particular way that makes you aware of every small sound—the hum of the refrigerator, the tick of the clock in the hallway, the creak of the floorboards under my feet.

I need to check on the kids first. At least, see Charlie, and make sure he's okay before calling it a night, even though I know Hailey would have taken care of him.

I climb the stairs carefully, avoiding the third step that always squeaks. Charlie's room is at the end of the hall, and when I push open the door, my heart settles. He's there, curled up in his bed, his favorite blue blanket tucked under his chin. Wendy is in the small bed we keep for her sleepovers, her thumb in her mouth, sleeping just as peacefully.

I smile, and gently close the door. I'm about to head back downstairs when I hear a sound.

It's coming from Samuel's study, the room at the other end of the hall. He tends to work late, has been sleeping at his office more frequently. Hailey is his secretary, after all. Maybe he came back tonight to go over work related stuff with her.

My feet move on their own, carrying me toward the study. The door is cracked open, just a sliver. The sound comes again, and something about it makes my heart pound so hard, I hear it in my ears.

That sound…why does it feel wrong?

Holding my breath, I look through the crack, and my entire world shatters.

Samuel has Hailey pinned against his desk, her skirt hiked up around her waist, his hands everywhere they shouldn't be. Her head is thrown back, her eyes closed, her mouth open in a whimpering gasp that stabs a knife between my ribs.

The floor seems to tilt beneath my feet.

Everything I thought I knew, everything I believed about my life, my marriage, my friendship—all of it shatters to pieces.

I can’t move. Can’t breathe. I should do something other than stand here frozen in the hallway like a statue, watching my entire life crumble through a crack in the door.

But it’s as if I’ve been frozen to ice. My body won't obey. My mind is screaming at me to turn away, to unsee this, but my eyes stay locked on the scene in front of me like I'm watching a car crash in slow motion.

Samuel's completely lost in her. His hands are tangled in Hailey's hair, his mouth on her neck, and he's making sounds I haven't heard from him in years. Sounds he used to make with me, back when Charlie had still been a baby.

"God, Hailey." His voice is rough, breathless. "You're so—"

"Better than her?" Hailey's voice cuts through the air, sharp and clear. There's something in it that makes my skin crawl. "Better than Caroline?"

My heart stops.

Samuel pulls back just enough to look at her, and even from here I can see the smile on his face. That same charming smile that made me fall in love with him seven years ago when he walked into the bookstore where I worked and asked me to help him find a first edition of Pride and Prejudice.

"You're absolutely wonderful," he says, and each word cuts me like a blade to the gut. "Perfect."

Hailey traces her finger down his chest, her voice dropping to something almost playful. "Then why do you still go home to her every night? Why not just—"

"It's complicated." Samuel's hands grip her waist tighter. "You know that."

"But you don't want her anymore." It's not a question. Hailey says it like a fact, like something they've discussed before and she already knows. How many times? How many conversations have they had about me, about my marriage, while I smiled at her across the kitchen counter and called her my best friend?

Samuel makes a sound that might be a laugh. No. Not a laugh. Disgust. "Want her? I can barely stand to look at her anymore."

The words hit me like a physical blow. I press my hand against the wall to steady myself, my legs suddenly weak.

"But she's so beautiful," Hailey says, and I can't tell if she means it or if she's fishing for something. "Everyone says so. Perfect Caroline with her perfect face and her perfect—"

"She's the mother of that boy." Samuel spits the words out like poison. "Every time I look at her, all I see is Charlie. That stupid, boring kid who can't even hold a normal conversation. Do you know how unlucky I am? To have an autistic son? To have people look at me with pity because my kid is broken?"

Something inside me breaks.

Not cracks. Not bends. Breaks completely, like glass hitting concrete.

How could he?

Charlie is his son.

No matter what he feels or doesn’t feel for me, how could he despise his own son? How could he label him as broken?

My sweet, brilliant boy who sees the world in colors and patterns that most people will never understand. He did nothing to deserve—

"Charlie makes me sick," Samuel continues, and I watch through the crack as he moves Hailey, changes her position, presses her harder against the desk. "Every time I have to take him somewhere, every time someone asks about him, I want to crawl out of my skin. He's an embarrassment. A constant reminder that I got a fool for a son."