Building His Dream to Break It

My husband nursed his first love through her entire pregnancy. And me? I was carrying his child. The prenatal report sat on his nightstand, in plain sight. He never saw it.

Three months. He never knew. The night my fever wouldn't break, he lay beside me with his phone out, searching: how to ease severe morning sickness. For her.

On the anniversary of my mother's death, he stood outside his first love's delivery room, praying. Mother and child, both safe. That day, his first love came through just fine.

The one who lost his mind was him. Chapter 1 Damien kissed me, reeking of whiskey, and I turned my face away, one hand shielding the baby he didn't know about.

Heat crawled up my face anyway. He noticed.

He hauled me back against him, voice sanded rough. "What are you dodging for?" I pressed my lips together and gave him a hint. "Turn off the light first." The only light left was the lamp on his nightstand.

Next to it, exactly where I'd placed it, lay my prenatal report. I was pregnant. Tonight, I was going to tell him. But his phone beat me to it.

Any other night, he'd grab it and kill the call without looking. Not tonight. His arm stopped midreach, hovering right over my report. The caller ID glowed with one name. Viv.

Vivian. Damien's first love. The arm holding me loosened on its own. "I need to take this." The door clicked shut. I stared at the ceiling.

Calls had come in before while we were in bed. He always took them right there, in front of me. Vivian was the exception. A long while later, the door opened again.

He came back smelling of cigarettes and bent to kiss me. I thought of the baby and turned my head. His mouth landed on the corner of mine.

He frowned. "You're being weird tonight." Then he was up, changing clothes. "A case just came in. Urgent. Don't wait up." Damien owned his own firm. He never took urgent cases.

At the door, he suddenly doubled back and leaned in close. "Do I still smell like smoke?" I blinked. "They say pregnant women shouldn't be around it," he murmured, brow creased.

My heart stuttered. For one second, I thought he knew. Then he straightened up and ruffled my hair. "Why am I even telling you?

You're not pregnant." He walked out without looking back. I lay there, staring at the report on the nightstand. If the pregnant one wasn't me, then who was? Later, I understood.

The pregnant one was Vivian. After he left, I called my best friend Frankie, ready to tell her my news. "I have to tell you something.

Don't freak out." She cut me off. "I have to tell you three things first.

Don't freak out." "Vivian got divorced." "Vivian's back." "Vivian is pregnant." Three sentences, like stones into still water. Spray everywhere. My brain went static.

I was quiet for about half a minute. "Huh," I said. "So what were you going to tell me?" I grabbed the first excuse in reach. "I've been craving dumplings." Just like that, I didn't want to tell anyone anymore.

I'd been in love with Damien since high school. We ended up at the same college. We kept in touch. Barely. Senior year, he showed up out of nowhere at our graduation sendoff.

He didn't say a word all night. He just drank, eyes rimmed red. I took him home, blind drunk. Wasted, but not gone. "Celeste?" "Damien.

It's me." He said, "Let's give it a try." Back then, I thought years of loving him in secret had finally paid off. Only later did I learn what day that was.

He told me not to wait up. I didn't get him back that night. What I got instead was a notification. A follow request. From Vivian. Chapter 2 I accepted it. She didn't message me.

She posted instead. A fulllength mirror selfie. Vivian's caption: [Thank you for helping me set up my new place in the middle of the night. A new start. A new me.

And you.] In the photo, her hand rested on her stomach. The barest curve there. But that wasn't the part that cut.

In the mirror behind her, the camera had caught half of a man's arm. And on that wrist, a watch. The watch I gave Damien for our first anniversary. I checked the time. 12:43 a.m.

My husband was helping his first love decorate her new apartment. On the night I'd planned to tell him we were having a baby, he drove across the city for Vivian. Funny.

The year I graduated, I'd sweated over apartments and moving too. Damien and I had just started dating. I didn't dare bother him with it, so I whiteknuckled the whole move alone.

I was broke. I rented a cheap studio on the wrong side of town. One night, a drunk man wouldn't stop pounding on my door. I was terrified.

I called Damien, and the second I heard his voice, everything I'd been holding down broke loose. I cried until I couldn't breathe.

He got the story out of me, called the police, and then showed up himself. It wasn't until the next day that I learned he'd been away on business.

He had driven two hours through the night to get back. I fretted about his work. He was too busy being quietly furious about where I lived.

Then he found me a new place in a safe neighborhood and fronted a year of my rent. I didn't know what to do with that. Redeyed, I mumbled, "Thank you.

I'll pay you back." He laughed, the angry kind, and yanked me into his chest. "Celeste. I'm your goddamn boyfriend." I used to think that was a privilege reserved for girlfriends.

And now. Vivian had posted it for an audience of one. So I gave her exactly what she wanted. I hit like. Damien never came home. Sometime before dawn, I drifted off.

The next morning, on my way to work, I found his message. Damien: [Got back too late last night, didn't want to wake you. Heading straight to the office.

I'll pick you up for dinner tonight.] My thumbs hovered over the screen. I typed and deleted. Typed and deleted. Do you know about Vivian. Were you with her last night.

You're going to be a father. None of it made it out of my phone. My stubborn streak won. Whatever was going on, Damien should be the one to tell me. Himself.

Me: [Sounds good.] Just before the end of the workday, Frankie called and dragged me along to IKEA. "Damien's picking me up for dinner after," I said. "So the man has a shred of conscience left.

At least he's not sprinting back to Vivian." I said nothing. The second I hung up, his call came in. "I'm sorry, Cece. Clients tonight.

I can't make dinner." I looked down at my shoes. "Okay." At IKEA, Frankie went hunting for a kids' desk for her niece. I wandered off on my own.

One turn around a corner. "Dee, I don't want to change it. This outfit looks all wrong with slippers..." Vivian. And the man standing in front of her was Damien.

The same Damien who couldn't make dinner because of clients. Chapter 3 Damien stood there with a pair of flat slippers in his hand. Vivian whined that she didn't want them.

He ignored it, crouched down, and slipped the stilettos off her feet himself. "You're pregnant. You shouldn't be walking this long in heels." Her mouth kept protesting.

Her feet obeyed. She let him swap the shoes out, her face glowing. "Dee, you're going to be such a good dad someday." Damien paused, somewhere in his own head.

Then one corner of his mouth lifted. "Mm." The words went in like a needle. I had said that exact sentence to him once.

Back when he decided he wanted a baby, I'd rambled on about the nursery I wanted. Messy, halfformed, all over the place.

He'd pinched my cheek, longsuffering. "Describe it to a designer like that and nine out of ten will quit on the spot." But a few days later, he showed me sketches.

He had taken every scattered, jumbled little wish of mine and pieced them into a whole world for a child. My eyes burned.

My chest went full and swollen, like it was stuffed with cotton. I told him, and I meant every word: "Damien, you're going to be such a good dad someday." He never answered.

Now the man saying he'd be a good dad was him too. I should leave, I thought. If I made a scene, the one who ended up looking pathetic would be me. Not Vivian.

But Vivian saw me. "Cece?!" Her eyes lit up like she'd spotted a longlost friend, and she came at me fast. And in that instant, I watched Damien's hand shoot out to steady her.

Slow down, he was murmuring. Careful. Like she might break. The pathetic one really was me. Vivian insisted on clutching my hand to catch up on old times.

I stood there quietly boiling. At Damien. He had lied to my face, and now he faced me without a flicker of shame. One second of guilt. One second of panic.

That was all I wanted from him. Then maybe I wouldn't have counted for nothing at all. I pulled my hand back. There was no force in it. I was only taking my own hand out of hers.

But in those flat slippers, her whole body tipped. Hard. Damien caught her. He frowned at me. "Celeste. Viv is pregnant." And whose fault was that? My nose stung.

I dug my nails into my palms and held the tears back with everything I had. At the very least, I would not look pathetic. I dragged up a smile. "My fault.

I'm sorry." "Are we done here, Damien?" At my first job, I got bullied. We were prepping a bid, and two days out, someone found a problem in the proposal.

It would have to be redone. That was a given. But the senior staff wanted the blame off their own desks, so they closed ranks and dumped it on me.

I kept saying it wasn't my mistake. Nobody believed me. Not the staff. Not the boss. In the end, I took the fall anyway. I was furious. I was wronged.

But I'm stubborn, and in front of them, I did not shed one single tear.

It was Damien, when we met up after, who took one look at my face and asked, "What's wrong?" If no one had asked, maybe I could have swallowed it forever.

But he asked, and the dam broke. I hiccuped through the whole story, the bid, the blame, barely in order. He listened all the way through. Then he wiped my face dry. "Don't cry.

As long as you're with me, no one gets to treat you like that." Not long after, the news broke. The company had been cheating on its taxes. It wasn't a big firm to begin with.

The IRS took it apart, and when they were done, there was nothing left. I froze when I heard. And then I understood. That had been Damien.

Damien and his firm. "No one gets to treat you like that." The man who said it was him.

And the man who held another woman, frowning, while I apologized in the middle of a crowded store? That was him too. Chapter 4 Remembering it all, the tears finally slipped loose.

Not because the moment was so humiliating. I just couldn't understand how a person could go back on his word this easily.

The one who swore no one would ever treat me like that was him. And now? I believed hearts could be true. Apparently they could also turn overnight.

Seeing me cry, panic finally hit Damien's eyes. He let go of Vivian and reached for me. "Cece, just now, I—" I stepped back and put my hands behind me.

Everything in me recoiled. "Don't touch me," I said. His hand froze in midair. Vivian glanced at me, then gently pressed that empty hand back down. "Cece, I'm Dee's client now.

He's handling my divorce.

I just moved, and I needed furniture, so I asked him to come help." "If it upsets you, if it feels inappropriate, then Dee and I will stop here for today." "Dee, I'll take a cab home.

You drive Cece. Explain everything properly. And don't lose your temper with her." And with that, Vivian walked away, graceful as ever. God, she was good.

The fragile one who's so understanding? Everyone's heart breaks for her. The wife who won't let it go? She's the unreasonable one.

Back home, Damien held his phone out to me. "Vivian is just my client. I don't even follow her. There is nothing going on between us." Tired. Bonedeep tired.

I had zero desire to look through his phone. I didn't fight. I didn't yell. I simply stopped talking to him. He was the one who lost his temper.

One evening of my silence and he couldn't stand it.

He gritted his teeth and hauled me out from under the covers. "Celeste, how long are you planning to keep this up?" "Viv left today because she was afraid of setting you off.

A pregnant woman is tiptoeing around you. Tell me. What exactly do I have to do to make you happy?" My whole body was burning. The room swam. And still, I wanted to laugh.

Now I was the unreasonable one. Vivian's pregnant. And what am I? My prenatal report was still sitting on the nightstand. In plain view. Damien was a lawyer to the bone.

He noticed everything in this house, down to the smallest change. I once threw out a single wilted stem. He noticed.

The next day he came home with a fresh bouquet and replaced every flower in the vase. And now the proof of his own child sat within arm's reach of him, and he could not see it.

I could say it out loud, of course. Damien, I'm pregnant. And then what? Wait and see if he'd come back to me? See if he'd give Vivian up?

Pretend that whatever made Vivian special would simply stop existing? Whether I was pregnant or not didn't matter anymore.

Something cold and very clear began to take shape in my mind. "Damien, I don't want to talk about this right now. I'm exhausted.

Can I please just rest?" The Damien the world saw was mature. Steady. But when he dug in, he could be exactly like a child. "We settle this first.

Then you sleep." I sighed, took his hand, and laid it flat against my forehead. "Damien, I think I'm running a fever." He went still for a beat.

Then he shot up and tore through the medicine box. "Why didn't you say something sooner?" He pressed a cooling patch to my forehead and shook pills into my hand.

I touched my stomach, eyes down. "They're bitter. Could you find me a piece of candy?" There was none in the house. Damien went down to the corner store to buy some.

The second the door shut behind him, I got up and flushed the pills down the toilet. Chapter 5