The next morning, Amelia woke with a heaviness in her chest that hadn’t faded since the previous night. She stared at her coffee cup, the dark liquid swirling as her mind replayed the scene at her door.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the twins entering the kitchen. Damien’s gaze was guarded, his movements slower than usual. Debby climbed into a chair, her bunny tucked under her arm, and looked up at Amelia with curious eyes.
“Why was Dad here last night?” Debby asked, her voice soft but insistent.
Amelia hesitated, setting down her cup. “He… wasn’t feeling well, sweetheart,” she said carefully.
Damien frowned. “Is that why he was acting weird?”
Amelia’s chest tightened. “Your dad loves you both very much,” she said, leaning forward to meet their eyes. “Sometimes grown-ups have bad days, and they don’t always handle them the right way. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about you.”
The answer seemed to satisfy Debby, who nodded and turned her attention to her cereal. But Damien’s frown deepened, a hint of skepticism in his expression.
After dropping the kids at school, Amelia found herself seething as she replayed Ryan’s drunken plea in her mind. The audacity of it—showing up unannounced, putting the kids in an uncomfortable position, and dredging up emotions she’d fought hard to bury—stirred a fire within her.
By the time she arrived at her office, her anger had reached a boiling point. Grabbing her phone, she scrolled to Ryan’s number and called.
He answered on the second ring, his voice rough. “Amelia?”
“How dare you?” she snapped, skipping any pretense of civility. “How dare you show up drunk at my house, in front of our children, and ask me if I’m happy with someone else? Do you have any idea how selfish that was?”
“I wasn’t thinking straight,” Ryan admitted, his tone laced with regret. “I just needed to see you. To talk to you.”
“Talk to me?” she repeated, her voice rising. “You didn’t want to talk, Ryan. You wanted to make your mess my problem. And you scared the kids in the process.”
“I didn’t mean to,” he said quietly.
“Well, you did,” she shot back. “And I won’t let you put them through that again.”
There was a long pause on the line before Ryan finally spoke. “I’m sorry, Amelia. For everything.”
His words, though sincere, didn’t ease her frustration. “Sorry doesn’t fix this, Ryan. You need to figure out what you’re doing with your life. Because right now, all you’re doing is making mine harder.”
She ended the call before he could respond, setting her phone down with a sharp exhale. For the first time in a long while, she felt the weight of boundaries she’d fought to establish—and the strength to enforce them.