October, The Odd Ones

​I returned home to stillness.​

The nanny opened the door, her eyes tired but gentle. " Only Jimmy is still awake," she murmured. "Didn't want to sleep till you got home."​

I thanked her softly and went upstairs. The hallway was dim. Jimmy's door was cracked open, a soft golden light spilling through.​

Inside, he was on his stomach across the bed, sketchpad open, pencil dancing across the page in quick, practiced movements. The room smelled faintly of graphite and cedarwood from his diffuser. Comfort. Safe.​

He looked up when I entered, his brown curls falling into his eyes. "Hey, Mom."​

"Hey, sweetheart," I said, my voice quieter than usual.​

I walked in and sat at the foot of the bed. He didn't stop drawing—he never did, not even when he was talking. His hand moved in wide, sure strokes. I glanced at the paper: he was sketching waves. Violent, curling, beautiful.​

"You're home late," he said casually, but I could hear the edge in it. The question buried underneath.​

"I know," I said. "Rough night."​

He nodded, still not looking up.​

"You okay?" he asked after a second. His voice cracked a little on okay, like he wasn't sure how much he really wanted the answer.​

"I will be," I said.​

He was quiet a moment, shading in a shadow beneath a rocky cliff.​

"You're good at pretending things are fine," he said finally.​

That hit harder than anything else tonight.​

I didn't speak. Just looked at him. My boy.​

He kept drawing, a little more focused now. Still not looking at me. He finally looked up. His eyes were soft and serious.​

"You don't have to be strong every second. I'm not a little kid anymore, Mom. You can be real with me."​

I felt the air leave my lungs.​

I reached over, brushing the curls from his forehead. He ducked his head, a little shy, and smiled.​

"I know you're not" I whispered.​

"Good," he said, returning to his sketch.​

I kissed the top of his head and sat there for a while longer, watching him draw. Letting his words settle in me like balm on a wound I hadn't realized was still bleeding.​

Eventually, I stood and told him to get some rest. He gave me a little salute with his pencil and grinned.​

"Night, Mom."​

"Goodnight, baby."​

Before I turned to leave, his voice, soft and uncertain, reached me:​

"Do you need a hug, Mom?"​

My breath caught. That was my line. My armor cracked.​

"Yeah, baby," I whispered.​

He rose, feet padding across the floor, and wrapped his arms around me—tight, brief, and full of grace. Then, without a word, he returned to his bed, as if nothing had happened.​

He'll never know what that hug did. How it stitched the torn edges of my heart. How it reminded me that even in the depths of despair, love endures.​

In that simple embrace, my child gave me the strength to face another day.

I walked back to my room with his voice still echoing in my heart. I didn't even take off my shoes. I just sat on the edge of the bed.​ And then, as if the universe couldn't let me rest, I heard the sound of keys in the door downstairs

Thomas burst in, breathless, calling my name like it still belonged to him.​

I didn't answer.​

He found me in the room, chest heaving, eyes pleading.​

"October—please, just let me explain—I have a lot to say..."​

I turned to him, my voice low and steady.​

"If you don't leave this house right now," I said, "I will."​

He froze, as if struck.​

"Please, I—"​

"NOW!"​

He stood there a moment longer, stunned, and then turned and left.​ The door shut behind him with a quiet finality.​

The morning unfolded in a blur. I moved on autopilot—preparing breakfast, packing lunches, ensuring the kids were ready for school. Their laughter and chatter were a comforting backdrop, momentarily distracting me from the turmoil within.

Later, I met August at the gym. The rhythmic cadence of the treadmill provided a temporary escape, allowing me to process the events of the previous night.

Upon returning home, the house was quiet. Then, my phone buzzed. Jeanine's name flashed on the screen.

"October," she said, her voice steady, "I'd like to see you."​

We met at my house.  She stepped inside slowly, carefully, as if the weight of what she was carrying might crack the floorboards. Her posture was impeccable—spine straight, shoulders drawn back—but her eyes gave her away. They were red-rimmed, stormy, blinking too much.​

She didn't speak at first. Just looked around my living room as though seeing it for the first time. Finally, she gestured for me to sit. She settled across from me on the edge of the armchair, knees together, hands clasped tightly in her lap like she needed to hold herself in.​

"He wasn't always like that, you know. I met James when I was twenty-three," she began softly, her voice roughened at the edges. "I'd just started my first job—marketing, downtown. He walked into that office like he owned the air, like the world bent to him without effort."​

She smiled, but it was an old, cracked smile—one that didn't reach her eyes.​

"He made me feel seen. Not just noticed—seen. Like everything about me was fascinating. I used to think he could read my mind."​

Her voice wavered with the memory.​

"In the beginning, he was all grand gestures and stolen kisses. He used to leave me poems—terrible ones, too many metaphors—but I'd keep them in drawers. He'd bring me soup when I was sick, pick flowers from the roadside on our drives. He once carved our initials into the bark of a cypress tree and told me it meant we were 'written into the bones of the world.'"​

She paused, eyes glistening. Her hands unclenched just a little.​

"I thought I had found a love worth fighting for. I vowed to be his partner in all things. To walk beside him in ambition, in failure, in triumph. And I did. God, I did."​

Jeanine drew a breath, deeper now, heavier.​

"But love like that... it can make you blind. You don't see the rot creeping in. Not until the walls start to crack."​

Her gaze grew distant.​

"The first time he raised his voice at me, I told myself he was tired. That his job was hard, that I should be more understanding. The first time I found lipstick that wasn't mine, I convinced myself it was innocent. A colleague. A mistake. We had a fight—he cried. I believed him."​

Her voice hardened slightly, as if she were pressing against something sharp.​

"And then came the second affair. And the third. They stopped being accidents and became patterns. But by then I was already too deep. Too wrapped up in the image of us. The power couple. The perfect house. The dinner parties with crystal glasses and charcuterie boards. I was performing happiness, convincing everyone—including myself—that it was still real."​

She looked directly at me now. Her voice low, clear, heavy with the truth.​

"I thought staying was noble," she said, her voice soft, almost a whisper, but steady in its pain.

"I told myself that loyalty meant weathering storms. That real love—the kind you vow to protect through sickness and health, richer or poorer, better or worse—meant endurance. Patience. Sacrifice. That if I just held on long enough, if I just smiled enough, forgave enough, made the house warm enough, the man I married would come back."

She paused, looking not at me but beyond me, as if the truth she was about to speak lived somewhere far off—across the years, hidden in the folds of a faded wedding dress or the corners of a love letter yellowed with time.

"I used to wait by the window in the early days, you know? Whenever he worked late. I'd make his favorite tea, light a candle, put on the perfume he liked. Because I believed that love was a kind of lighthouse. That if I stayed lit—steady, visible—he'd find his way back to me."

She drew in a shaky breath, her eyes flickering toward mine.

"I gave him the best years of my life thinking I was being virtuous. But I was just slowly disappearing. Bit by bit. Smile by smile."

Her voice faltered, just for a second—just long enough for me to hear the depth of what she meant. Not just disappearing from the relationship, but from herself.

"I thought I was being strong," she continued, almost as if trying to convince herself. "I thought compromise was love, that shrinking myself to make room for him was what a good wife did. Every time he ignored me, I told myself to be patient. Every time he looked through me like I was wallpaper, I reminded myself that love was quiet, not loud. That it was sacrifice. Endurance. That it meant putting him first."

Her hands trembled, but her voice grew steadier.

"I smiled through anniversaries he forgot. I swallowed tears in rooms where I didn't feel welcome. I learned to say 'it's fine' when it wasn't. To smooth out my dress and my voice and my expectations. I used to think if I just held on—tight enough, long enough—he would come back to me. That the man I married, the man who once looked at me like I held the sun in my hands, would return."

A single tear slid down her cheek, but she didn't wipe it away.

"But he didn't come back," she whispered. "And somewhere in all that waiting, I lost myself. I wasn't being loyal. I was being erased."

She turned her head then, slowly, deliberately, her eyes meeting mine with a clarity that was both heartbreaking and electric.

"A woman knows when she's vanishing," she said, her voice low and sharp like broken glass. "We feel it. In the silence after dinner. In the empty side of the bed. In the way our names stop being said aloud. I stayed because I thought that's what love demanded. But all it did was train me to survive on crumbs."

A silence settled between us—thick, breathless, aching.

"But here's what they never tell you about leaving," she said, fiercer now, like a woman standing at the edge of a cliff and finally choosing to jump. 

"It's not just about packing a bag or closing a door. It's about severing the invisible threads that have woven themselves into your very being.​ You stay because the silence between fights feels safer than the silence of an empty home. Because the echo of their footsteps, even in anger, is less frightening than the echo of none at all.​

You stay because the idea of starting over feels like learning to breathe underwater. Because the memories of better times whisper that maybe, just maybe, those days will return.​"

You stay because your identity has become entangled with theirs, and untangling it feels like losing a part of yourself. Because the fear of the unknown looms larger than the pain you've come to know so well.​

But staying comes at a cost. A slow erosion of self-worth, a gradual dimming of your inner light."​

Another breath. A bitter laugh, tight in her throat.​

"Last night... ", she paused, her voice trembling with the weight of betrayal. "He didn't just betray me in private; he made a spectacle of it. In front of everyone, he stripped away the façade, leaving me exposed and vulnerable. The man I thought I knew—the one who whispered promises and held my hand through storms—was a mirage. A carefully constructed illusion that shattered under the harsh light of truth."​

Her eyes welled with tears,"It's as if I was dancing alone, believing in a duet. Every memory, every touch, now feels tainted. The laughter we shared echoes with mockery, and the silence between us was filled with unspoken lies."​

She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. "The hardest part isn't the betrayal itself, but the understanding that I loved someone who never truly existed. I mourn not just the relationship, but the loss of my own reality."​

Her voice softened, filled with a mix of sorrow and resilience. "But in this devastation, there's a sliver of clarity. A painful awakening."

There was a long silence.​

Jeanine's jaw tightened. Her hands unclasped and fell into her lap, palms up. Empty.​

"James mistook my love for permission. My forgiveness for silence. My grace for consent. He underestimated me. But I was never blind. I saw everything. And now, I hold the keys to his kingdom."​

She leaned in, her voice sharper now. Colder.​

"You want to know something?" she said, eyes fixed ahead, voice low but unwavering. "He's always thought I was weak. Sweet. Decorative. Someone to show off at fundraisers and ignore at board meetings. He thought I was stupid. But I wasn't. In the silence, I was sharpening my knives."​

She turned to look at me then, her gaze piercing. "Years ago, I started moving money—tiny amounts at first, amounts no one would question. Just enough to disappear into the noise. I funneled them into accounts he doesn't even know exist, in banks that don't ask too many questions, in places where my name stands alone.

I hired my own lawyers, not the polished ones he parades around, but quiet sharks—discreet, loyal only to me. Everything was off the books. No paper trails, no names that could be traced back to him. And while he was busy pretending I was oblivious, I changed the terms of the trust. The very one he thought would bind me forever. I rewrote the clauses, buried them under legal complexity so dense he'd need a team of forensic accountants just to understand what he lost.

And I didn't stop there. I shifted the ownership structures of the properties—every house, every piece of land, even the one his father built with his bare hands.  On paper, it still looked like his kingdom—but in truth, the ground beneath his feet had already begun to shift."​

I sat in stunned silence, the weight of her confession sinking in.

"But the money's only one piece," she continued, her voice steady now, sharper—like a blade that had finally been unsheathed. "The real power was in the truth. And I collected it, bit by bit, year after year, like a woman gathering kindling—knowing someday, there would be a fire."

She leaned in slightly, her eyes fierce, unwavering.

"I documented everything. Every lie, every transaction.. I took screenshots when he wasn't looking. Recorded conversations under the hum of small talk. I kept emails, voicemails, drafts he thought he deleted. I even paid someone to pull the server backups. Nothing is gone—not really. It all lives somewhere. And now... it lives with me."

Her breath caught, but she kept going, her voice rising with the weight of years unspoken.

"I know about the shell companies. The ones buried three layers deep behind corporate facades with meaningless names and dead-end addresses. I know about the falsified contracts, the ones he doctored to siphon funds through back channels. I traced the offshore accounts—Belize, Luxembourg, even that one hidden under a cousin's name in the Caymans. He thought he was untouchable."

She smiled then—cold, tired, triumphant.

"I know the aliases he used. The fake charities set up to launder money under the guise of generosity. I know about the bribes—the judges, the city officials, the procurement boards. The wire fraud, the tax evasion. It's all there. Dated, backed up, printed, locked away in places he'll never find.

A bitter smile played on her lips.​

"He thought he was the puppeteer, but I was the one pulling the strings. And now, the show is over."

Then she added, calm, controlled.

"Now, I'm going to join Thomas."

My breath caught. "What?"

She smiled faintly. "Join Thomas. To bring James down. He has recently discovered the truth, when he finally decided to make the right choice."

I shook my head. "Wait—what? Join him? What are you talking about?"

She leaned back again, eyes softening just slightly. "You need to talk to your husband."

I stared at her. "I don't understand."

Jeanine's voice dropped, almost a whisper. "I know how you felt last night, but Laura isn't Thomas' mistress."

My mind whirred. "But last night—Jeanine, he let her—"

"I know what you saw," she said, interrupting gently. "But Laura isn't Thomas' mistress. She's James'."

The room tilted around me. My heart slammed in my chest.

"I—what?"

Jeanine's mouth curled into a bitter smile. "Your husband didn't betray you the way you think he did. But he betrayed you all the same. He's at the lawyer's office right now," Jeanine said, her voice low but steady. "I called him. Told him to come talk to you and you need to hear him"

She stepped closer, her gaze fierce, unwavering.

"After that, you do whatever you want. Leave him. Fight him. Forgive him. That choice is yours, and now... you don't have to make it alone. You have me. I'm on your side now, no matter what."

She reached for my hand, held it tight.

"Just remember this," she said, her voice catching. "I married a wicked man, October. A man who wore his cruelty like a crown. There's nothing left in him but ambition and rot. He is beyond redemption. But you..."

She paused, her lips trembling with the weight of what she was about to say.

"You married a weak man. A man who spent his life chasing shadows, contorting himself into the shape of someone else's expectations. Every word he spoke, every decision he made—it was all filtered through the lens of a father who never loved him, only molded him. Like clay pressed into the shape of someone else's ambition, he forgot the feel of his own skin. He is broken, yes—but not beyond repair. Because weakness is not wickedness. 

I made a mistake, October—God, I made so many. So learn from me, sweetheart."

Then she held my hands ans whispered,

"Break the cycle, my dear. Burn it down if you have to. Be bigger than I dared to be. Be bolder. Be you. And don't apologize for the space you take up in this world. It's yours.

Always was."