Elena sat on the edge of the bed, her thumb moving over the dark screen of her phone, Every time it vibrated, her heart could skip a little bit, but it was never it was never him, instead they were phoenix notifications, she stared at the door, hoping for Tom to burst in and tell her he was just having a bad day at work.
"He' was just panicked maybe at that time," she told herself, the lie tasting bitter in her tongue inside her mouth that she wished to stop thinking and guessing and consoling herself.
"He's just stressed about work right, hee didn't mean it," she kept making excuses for him, clutching her phone like her life thewhole of it depended on it waiting for a "sorry" that was never going to come, it's not like she didn't know she knew its just that she didn't want to believe it.
But by 10:00 PM, the apology she was waiting for didn't come, yet the text was from him only a single, cold text message appeared on her screen, the text was so cold the she felt chills running down her spine, like somebody had pour on her a cold water.
"Don't wait up. I have a late night with the investors."
A late night.
Elena looked at the half-eaten dinner on the gas cooker the food she had spent an hour cooking while battling the first waves of nausea. A sudden, sharp instinct flared in her stomach the adrenaline's took over.
'Has he been cheating on me?'
"Hahaaaa, I think I am thinking too much he can't possibly do that to me right," she convinced herself.
'But why would I think like that in the first place? Could it be that I am becoming mad because of how he talked with me?' She thought.
These were not just nausea, they were intuition of a woman who has been sidelined for to long, she has been abandoned for too long and this second pregnancy was a wake up call, but she needed to prove herself wrong, she needed to understand why he is suddenly cold , before she thought that she was useless but right now hahaaa no, that was not the case.
She grabbed her pajamas put on her coat to shieldher from the cold, kissed sleeping Maya on the forehead, and called her sister to come over to help her do something in thirty minutes. She didn't have a plan, she didn't know what to expect at the same time but today, she wanted to prove herself that she was never the problem, she had an address to that place, where Tom's "investor meetings" always happened at the same upscale lounge just some rounder about distance away from the company.
"What is wrong with you Ell, why did you wake me up at this time, can't that thing wait until tomorrow?" Her sister said the moment she arrived.
"I don't have that time to wait, all I want is to prove to myself that I have never been the problem l, and I want to clear my suspension and have my answers tonight," she said to her sister.
When they arrived, the city air was cold, her heart was beating so fast against her ribs. She spotted Tom's car immediately how can she not spot the the sleek black sedan she had helped him pick out when his business started to gain the spotlight.
She wanted him to have something cool and low key like a boss and a CEO that he is. She loved the model, it speaks and shouts boss vibe.
She walked around and found the lounge and right thrrough the glass windows of the lounge, she saw him, Tom her husband was there, he wasn't surrounded by a group of investors, or his employees, not even his secretary he wasn't even looking at spreadsheets, he was leaning across what look like a circular marble table, with his hand resting not so strongly on the arm of another woman, Elena couldn't recognize because the woman had her back turnd in their direction.
The woman was happy and laughing not like a stranger or a business partner but she look like she was with her boyfriend or fiancee, her hair was falling perfectly over her shoulders curling with waves, she was indeed looking expensive, she was looking like someone who has never spent a single day scrubbing the floor and crayon marks off a wall or worrying about a single child.
Tom was wearing a perfect smile, It was the same bright, smile she had long forgotten that this man her husband had many years ago, he used to give her that kind of smile before she became "stressful and a liability"
"Sister, sister! Isn't, isn't that my brother-in lae?" Her sister asked.
But right now Ekena could not hear her at all.
Elena felt the world spinning around her, She walked step by step until she got closer to the window, her hand with insticts covering her small baby bump. Through the window she saw Tom lean in and whisper something into the woman's ear and the woman could not help but push him away tisingly and kissed him on his cheek.
At that moment everything that happened on that day made sense, the phone call from earlier finally made sense, the reason as to why he grew cold and distance in their marriage of 6 years made sense to her now.
He wasn't stressed because of the pregnancy no! He was stressed because Maya, her and the new life inside her were the biggest obstacles to the secret life or rather we call it the secret affairs he was building with someone else.
She took out out her phone from her small handbag and took a single photo of them together, her hands weren't shaking anymore though they were cold.
She told her sister, "Go in and snap a photo of the two of them, act secretly don't let him see you,"
"You are not going in to confront them? Are you just leaving these two like that? Allow me to teach them a lesson that they will never forget in their entire life,"
"No listen to your sister," she said her voice sounding tired.
As she was walking back toward her car, she realized she wasn't just walking away from the restaurant, she was walking away from a version of herself that had died the moment he hung up the phone and called them 'you people '
Didn't Tom wanted a life without stress? Elena's hands gripped on her keys tightly, she e was going to give him exactly what he wanted.
She was going to take his daughter, his unborn child, and her dignity, and she would disappear into the silent nights of the city.