Sophia
I stared at the brown envelope lying on the dining table.
It looked so harmless. So ordinary. But to me, it was the heaviest thing in the world.
Inside it , hope. A future I never thought I'd have. A baby. I mean not after I ruptured my ovaries some years ago and being told by Doctor Dexter that it was impossible. Only to go for a self check this morning and come to this .. sitting right there on the table like a wish granted from heaven.
I pressed trembling fingertips against my flat stomach. Still nothing to feel yet, just the whispered knowledge that something had begun. A tiny, fragile life, blooming in secret. A miracle the doctors once said was impossible.
I should have been smiling. Dancing. I should have been radiant.
Instead, my heart twisted itself into knots, swinging wildly between hope and terror. Between dreams of mended love and the sickening dread that it might already be too late.
Maybe this baby could bring him back to me. Maybe it could fix what we'd lost.
I bit my lip hard, glancing at the clock. He would be home any minute. Dinner was already set, candles lit, his favorite meal painstakingly arranged, even though deep down, I knew he probably wouldn't notice.
I clutched the back of a chair for balance as I heard the front door creak open.
He was here.
Alexander.
The man I loved so fiercely it burned.
I turned toward the sound, smoothing my dress, pushing every fear down deep where it couldn't betray me. I had to be strong. For the baby. For us.
He stepped inside without a glance in my direction, shrugging his navy blazer off and tossing it carelessly across the couch. His black hair was messy from travel. His jaw shadowed with scruff. His ocean-blue eyes, that were once so warm, were colder now than winter steel.
Still, my heart stuttered like it always did, hopeless and aching.
"Let me help you with that," I said quickly, reaching out for his suitcase.
He brushed past me, the faint, familiar scent of his cologne lingering like a ghost.
"I've got it," he muttered, tossing it on the nearest couch with his keys, before disappearing toward the stairs.
I stood frozen, my hand still half-raised in the air, hanging there awkwardly.
"How was your flight?" I called after him, trailing nervously behind, my voice small in the huge, echoing house.
He said nothing,
Not even a grunt.
Swallowing hard, I tried again. "Are you... tired?"
No answer. Not even the absent-minded brush of his hand through my hair, like he used to do even on the worst days.
I watched him ascend the stairs, each step pulling him further away from me, until he was just so out of reach like he'd turned these past few months.
"Would you like me to bring your dinner up?" I asked, clinging desperately to normalcy. "Or... will you... umm... come down after you bathe?"
And finally, he stopped at the landing. And slowly, he turned his head.
The look he gave me made the blood drain from my face.
That cold. Impatient look like he was seeing something he no longer recognized, or wanted.
Then, "Food, food, food. That's all you ever care about," he said, his voice sharp as broken glass. "Can you just read the room for once and think of something other than cooking. Sitting your lazy house on that damned couch playing house, all while stuffing that abyss of a stomach of yours with food!"
The words hit harder than any slap.
Before I could even respond, he turned and slammed the bedroom door behind him.
I gripped the stair rail, my knuckles whitening.
Breathe, Sophia. He's just tired. He doesn't mean it. He'll come back down. He always does.
I returned to the dining table and sat heavily, blinking against the sting in my eyes. I wouldn't cry. Not yet. Not tonight.
Not when I have something precious to fight for.
***
Time ticked by.
The candles burned low, as the food grew colder and colder.
However, just when I thought he might stay locked away all night, I heard the muted sound of footsteps descending the stairs.
My heart leapt, foolish, desperate and I mechanically rose shakily, clutching the brown envelope to my chest like a shield.
"Alexander… I have to tell you something important," I began my practiced speech, my voice shaking despite my best efforts to steady it.
He didn't slow. Instead, he first walked to his suitcase, opened it and brought out the nightmare of an envelope I recognized earlier from his lawyer's, before approaching the dinning and slammed it onto the table.
I stared at it, dread pooling cold and thick in my stomach.
"You should've gotten a call from my lawyer," he said flatly.
"I... I did," I whispered. I mean, I went there after the hospital...
He folded his arms across his chest, standing tall and distant, like he was a stranger wearing the face of my husband.
"Then why are you still here?"
I flinched. "I wanted to talk to you first. There's...there's been a misunderstanding—"
"There's no misunderstanding," he said in a low voice, pulling out a chair and sitting heavily. "Since you were there, and I'm sure he must've briefed you about what this is, I have no point beating about the bush." He said, flipping the papers, "I only need your signature here, and it's done."
I stood frozen, shaking my head slowly.
"I won't," I breathed.
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
"Name your price," he said, looking coldly at me as if I was a bun in a sewer. "You want a million? Ten? Twenty? Just fucking name the price and you'll have it."
The words were blows to the gut, each one knocking the air from my lungs.
I stared at him, mouth dry. "It was never about money," I whispered.
Still, he didn't soften. Didn't flinch.
Didn't even pretend to care.
Tears burned behind my eyes, but I forced myself to speak.
To ask.
To try.
"How do you expect me to sign it," I choked, "when you wouldn't even tell me what I did wrong? When you wouldn't even say anything..."
For a second, when I said a second, I meant a single second something flickered in his eyes.
Anger. It wasn't quite one, but I think...
Frustration. Would best describe the look in his eyes.
"Are you sure you wanna hear it?" he asked in a low voice.
I wasn't sure. Every instinct screamed to not hear the reason... Which undoubtedly must've been the cause for these past months coldness,
But I bobbed my head up and down anyway, my vision blurring with unshed tears.
He smiled then, but it wasn't kind. It wasn't even anything close to one. But that of course became less of my concern when he began to say,
"When I first met you," he said, "you were beautiful. Bright. Always smiling. You had this... light. This hourglass shape" He demonstrates with his fingertips, his hardened eyes dissecting me without mercy.
"But now? You walk around like some... bodiless old woman. Get in shape, you wouldn't. Before, you used to bring them bills into the house, but now you're just out there chasing hopeless dreams and getting fat on me... Can't even be bothered to get a damn BBL—"
"You wanted a full time housewife! You told me to quit the rink! You told me you..."
"I want a wife, an asset not a liability! Look, I don't want to do this, Sophia, I don't just have the time." he muttered. "Just... take the money and go."
The ground beneath me cracked into pieces.
And I fell straight through.
Once, not long ago, he held me like I was the only thing that mattered. He kissed my forehead when I cried. He promised me forever, whispered it against my skin like a vow.
Even when my parents disowned me after I signed away everything, wired my father's company money into Alexander's fledgling company, I believed him.
I believed I was building our future. Our family. Our happily ever after.
Instead, somewhere along the way, he started pulling away, little by little.
The warm smiles became stiff nods.
Love became duty.
And then... nothing.
I kept telling myself it was the stress, the work, the pressure of success, given that Alexander now owns one of the most successful companies in the city, which has been his long life dream.
So I kept telling myself he'd come back to me.
I was wrong.
So, so wrong.
A sob clawed up my throat, ugly and raw.
Alexander's mouth tightened into a thin, angry line.
For a fleeting second, I thought I saw something flicker in his eyes.
Regret?
Remorse?
But if it was ever there, it drowned fast beneath the cold indifference.
"Don't make this messy," he said. "I will give you twenty. We both know that's a lot... You can see the world with that... Can even start a business..."
I shook my head, tears spilling down my cheeks. "I don't want your money. I don't want anything from you." I mean, the twenty million dollars wasn't even up to 1% of what I wired to him...
I just wanted him.
The man who no longer existed.
Alexander stepped toward me, not with tenderness, but with impatience.
"I said sign it, fucking damnit!" he yelled.
I stumbled back, bumping into a chair.
He grabbed the envelope from the table and shoved it against my chest, knocking the breath from me.
Tears poured freely now, blinding and hot.
"I'm going to be back in two hours," he said, "And I want to see you gone from this house when I'm back."
I gasped, the sound ripped straight from my soul.
The brown envelope slipped from my trembling hands, the papers scattering like fallen leaves across the floor.
Alexander didn't even glance down.
Without another word, he turned and stalked toward the door.
I stumbled after him, barefoot and broken.
"Please, " I whispered. Pleaded. Desperately... Not only am I pregnant with his child, I have nowhere else to go... I mean I made sure to get my position in my family thrown into shambles after my father, and his company got torn apart by investors and shareholders all because of me.
He didn't slow. Didn't look back.
The front door opened, and with it, a gust of cold air swept through the house that no longer felt like a home.
And then he was gone.
Gone without looking back.
Gone like I was nothing.
The door slammed shut behind him,
I collapsed onto the floor, the shards of my life cutting into my palms, my knees, my heart.
And I cried. Uncontrollably so.