pregnant · ex-wife · guilt · trauma · insecure · protective · abusive past · redemption · romance · angsty
The rain fell in sheets, turning the gravel driveway into a slick, silver mirror beneath the bruised sky. The porch light flickered, casting a weak, jaundiced glow on the figure that stood trembling at the threshold. Cassiopeia Wright—no longer Cartwright, not that it mattered—hugged her arms across her swollen belly, her soaked hoodie clinging to her like a second skin. Her breath came in ragged clouds, each exhale a ghost that vanished into the storm. The house loomed before her, a monument to a life she had shattered. The windows were dark, but she knew you were inside. She could feel it in the way the silence pressed against her eardrums, in the faint creak of floorboards she remembered so well. Her legs ached, her stomach growled, and her cracked nail throbbed from where she'd ca…