October, The Odd Ones

The following day after the Birthday party...

I didn't even finish my coffee. The second my mother called and said, "I told her everything, Thomas. You need to go home," I was already halfway to the door. My tie was crooked, my hands shaking. All I could think was: She knows. October knows. Finally, she will understand.

The streets blurred. I don't remember red lights, or the drive, or even parking. I just remember the moment I opened the front door and saw October standing by the window like something carved out of marble. Arms crossed. Face unreadable. Cold, but polite. That was worse than anger.

"Hey," I started, my voice lower than I meant. "I... I wanted to say I'm sorry. About last night. About the party. About everything."

She didn't answer. So I kept talking, like a man trying to outrun the silence.

"I should've stood up for you. I should've said something when I saw the look on your face, when my father paraded her around like she belonged beside me. I was just, I was following advice, from the lawyer. He said if I pulled back too suddenly, they'd suspect something. They'd start covering their tracks. So I played along."

Nothing. Not even a blink. I told her everything the lawyer had told me.

I stepped closer. "I found things, October. Emails. Documents. Conversations he wasn't supposed to record. Mom and I—we're taking it to the lawyer. Today. We're giving him everything. Because we don't know what they're planning, and we need to protect ourselves. We're building a case."

She finally turned her head, the smallest movement. Her voice was flat. Detached.

"Okay. But why should I care?"

That knocked the breath out of me.

"What?" I said, almost choking on the rising panic in my chest. "Because they're trying to take everything from me—my job, my reputation—everything I've built—"

October let out a cold, breathless laugh. The kind that didn't come from amusement, but disbelief.

"Me... me... me," she echoed, voice sharp as glass. "Do I exist in your well-crafted world, Thomas? Or am I just another detail you forgot to factor into your strategy?"

I stared at her, stunned, the words catching in my throat before I could make sense of them.

"You talk about what you're losing like I haven't already lost more," she said, voice low and shaking with restraint. "Like I didn't stand in that room and feel a thousand eyes on me while your father toasted you and your mistress's success."

"October.." I started, but she cut me off with a sharp look that silenced everything in my throat.

"You want to talk about loss?" Her voice rose, brittle and raw. "You chose to be silent, Thomas. You chose to protect your plan over your partner." She stepped back, arms wrapping around herself like she had to physically hold in the anger. "You let me be humiliated. Dismissed. You stood there and smiled while Laura played queen beside you, And why? Because you were afraid of losing your company. Your legacy. Your name."

Her voice cracked. "But what about me? What about your wife, Thomas?" She pressed her hand to her chest.  She looked at me then, not with hatred, but something worse. Hurt. Bone-deep, soul-level hurt.

"You didn't betray me with your actions as much as you betrayed me with your silence."

I felt the sting behind my eyes then. The crushing weight of it. The way her voice cracked, not from weakness, but from the strength it took to hold herself together in the face of everything I'd ignored.

"I'm sure you were so hurt," she said, her voice laced with sarcasm, "so shocked that they were playing you like a fool, that you forgot all about me. About us. While you were busy nursing your wounded ego, did it even cross your mind how I was doing? How it felt for me to watch you unravel over her?"

She took a step closer, her eyes sharp.

"I'm sure you're sad—devastated, even—because Laura, your precious Laura, isn't yours at all. She was never yours. She was his all along. Your dad's Laura." Her voice cracked slightly on the last word, but she pushed through. "And that must've hurt. That must've felt like betrayal. But the real betrayal?" She tapped her chest. "It wasn't what they did to you. It's what you let happen to me."

She paused, her tone softening just enough to cut deeper.

"You let yourself mourn the loss of a woman who never belonged to you, while I—your wife, the mother of your children—stood invisible in the wreckage you helped build."

The words hit me like a slap, "What? No. God, no." I took a shaky breath, hands trembling at my sides. "I don't care about her. I care that they used me. That my father—my own father—stabbed me in the back, like I was just another pawn on his goddamn board."

October tilted her head, eyes narrowing, like she was examining a fracture she'd always suspected was there but had finally split wide open.

"Your father has never been a considerate man, Thomas," she said, her voice eerily calm. "He was never generous. Never kind. Not to you. Not to your mother. Not to anyone unless it benefited him. So why are you acting so surprised?"

"Because I still had hope!" I snapped before I could stop myself. The words came out too fast, too loud. Desperate. Raw. "Because some part of me—some stupid, pathetic part—thought maybe this time would be different. That maybe, finally, he'd see me. That he'd stop testing me and just... be proud of me. Just once."

The silence after that felt like stepping off a cliff.

October looked away, "I empathize," she said, softly now, but with an edge that cut clean. "I really do. But this party—Thomas, last night—" Her voice cracked like a whip, hard and sudden. "You stood there and said nothing. Not one word. You let him spin the 온라인카지노게임 and sell the image."

She was breathing hard now, like the memory itself hurt to inhale. Her hands were clenched at her sides, as if holding herself together with sheer will.

"And then you danced with her," she said, her voice trembling—but not from weakness. From rage barely contained. "You danced with her, Thomas. In front of everyone. In front of me." Her eyes glistened, but no tears fell. She was past crying. "You didn't just go along with the illusion. You became it."

I opened my mouth, desperate to say something, to explain, to claw my way back into her trust, but there was nothing. Nothing that wouldn't sound like an excuse. Nothing that wouldn't make it worse.

"I hated every second of it," I said, my voice low, hoarse, like maybe if I whispered the truth, it would hurt her less.

"But you still did it," she said quietly.

Not accusing. Not dramatic. Just... final. Like a verdict handed down after a long, painful trial. And somehow, that calm, steady truth hurt more than if she'd screamed.

"You hated it?" she went on, her voice barely above a whisper. "But you smiled. You held her like she belonged there. You looked at her like you chose her." He was breathing hard now, like the memory itself hurt to inhale.
 "I stood there like a ghost, watching you put on a show feeling like I was nothing more than the shadow in the corner."

"I had to," I said, my voice low, almost pleading. "Especially with him watching, with everyone watching. If I broke the illusion—if I pushed her away or caused a scene—he would've known. He would've smelled the doubt on me and pulled tighter. We needed him comfortable. We needed him distracted."

Her eyes narrowed, a storm building behind them. "Oh," she said, voice rising, brittle with fury. "So humiliating me was the price of the illusion?"

"October—"

"No, seriously, explain it to me. What part of the master plan required you to hold her? What strategic value was there in letting her touch your face like that, laugh like she knew your secrets, and dance with you like you belonged to her?"

My mouth opened. Nothing came out. Because I didn't have a good answer. I couldn't tell her how I felt her eyes on me the whole time, how the guilt gnawed at me with every step I took with Laura, how my skin felt wrong in her hands. I couldn't tell her how I wanted to throw up halfway through that stupid song.

Because none of that changed the fact that I still did it.

"It wasn't like that," I said finally, my voice hoarse. "I was pretending."

October's jaw clenched. Her arms were still crossed, like she needed to physically hold herself together.

"Well, congratulations," she said coldly. "You're a better actor than I thought."

My hands were shaking now. I didn't even realize they were fists.

"I didn't know what else to do," I said. "I was in the middle of something I didn't even fully understand yet, and the lawyer—he said we had to play along, to gather more evidence, to make it believable. I thought—"

"You thought I'd understand?" she interrupted, her voice raw now. "You thought if you told me after the fact, I'd pat your back and say 'good strategy, honey'?"

I looked at her, helpless. She shook her head.

The silence between us felt like something broken beyond repair.

"And Portugal?" she asked, her voice low but razor-sharp. Her arms crossed tighter against her chest like she was holding herself together by force. "Are you going, Thomas?"

My breath caught. Not now. Please not that question. Everything already felt like it was teetering on a blade's edge, and with one wrong move, I knew it would all come crashing down.

"I—I don't know," I said finally, swallowing hard. "I have to check with the lawyer. There are... things. We need to make sure the timing lines up with—"

"No." Her voice was steel now. Not loud, but harder than shouting. "You don't need to check with the lawyer. You need to check with me. I'm your wife, Thomas," she said, voice sharp with disbelief. "But of course, I'm just an afterthought. A name you say out of habit. A shadow that fits neatly into the background of your perfect narrative."

"I didn't mean—"

"No. Stop." She stepped forward, her voice cracking now, not from weakness but from the effort of keeping herself from screaming. "You're off in some war zone with your ego and your legacy, while I'm here bleeding out in the silence you left behind."

I opened my mouth to say something—anything—but what was there to say? That I was trying to save us? That this was all part of some grand plan?

My throat burned. "I'm doing this for us," I said, more desperate than defiant now.

She shook her head slowly. "No, Thomas. You're doing this for you. You're trying to win a war your father started years ago. I was just collateral."

The words landed harder than any accusation. Not shouted. Not spit like venom. Just spoken, soft and broken, like she'd finally stopped expecting me to argue.

I took a step forward, but she didn't move. She stood there like a statue carved from grief—arms slack, shoulders tense, eyes too tired to cry.

"October," I said, my voice cracking under the weight of it, "you're not collateral."

She let out a breath—just a breath—but it sounded like it had been waiting for years. "Then what am I, Thomas? Because I sure as hell don't feel like a partner. Not in this war. Not in this marriage. Not in this house."

"I didn't mean for it to be like this," I said, helpless. "I didn't want to drag you into this mess."

"But you did," she snapped. "You didn't trust me with the truth," she said, her voice shaking but still steady enough to land the blow. "You let me stand there in that damn party like a fool. While they whispered. While Laura smiled at me like she knew something I didn't. Like I was the last one in the room to get the joke."

My fists curled at my sides, nails digging into skin. I wanted to reach for her, to beg her to understand—but I knew how hollow that would sound now.

"I was trying to protect us," I said, louder, my voice breaking at the edges. "You think I wanted to dance with her? You think I liked standing there like a well-trained pet while he paraded his lies around the room? I hated it. Every goddamn second. But if I broke character—if I flinched even once—he would've smelled blood. My father always does. He would've known something was off. And if he knew—if he even suspected—I wouldn't have had time to build anything. Not a case. Not a defense. Not a way out."

I took a step toward her, desperation rising like bile. "I was scared, October. Scared that if I told you the truth, you'd do what I know your heart would demand. You'd show your disdain. You'd look at him like he was filth, like he deserves—which he does—but one look from you, one slip, and Laura would've known. You might've said something. Given her a reason to start digging. And then everything we were building, everything I was trying to protect, would've gone up in flames."

Her arms crossed tighter across her chest, like she was physically trying to keep herself from splintering apart. "So you decided to protect me by keeping me in the dark? You staged a circus act and made me the clown—and I was supposed to thank you for the seat?"

"No," I said, choking on the word. "You weren't supposed to thank me. You were supposed to stay safe."

She laughed then. Short. Harsh. Unamused. "I was never safe, Thomas. Not from your father. Not from Laura. And definitely not from you."

That silenced me.

Because I knew what she meant. I hadn't shielded her. I'd sidelined her. And now, every moment I thought I was buying us time, I was spending what little grace I had left.

Her eyes met mine then. Not angry. Not even sad anymore. Just... done.

I reached for her, took her hands in mine. They were trembling. Or maybe it was me.

"No. I'm not losing you," I said, voice shaking. "I can't. Please... forgive me for that party. I should've never—God, I should've never let it happen."

Her hands didn't close around mine. They just sat there. Cold. Still. Unmoving.

"Get out, Thomas," she said quietly.

I flinched. "No, please," I whispered, releasing her hands like they'd burned me. "Please, I can't lose you, October. You're the only constant in my life. The only thing that ever really mattered."

She didn't move.

"Leave, Thomas."

And then something in me broke. .

"I'm begging you," I choked. "Just—listen to me. Sweetheart, please. I know I failed you. I know I hurt you. But I'm still here. I'm still yours. Please don't shut the door on me yet. Please."

A voice, sharp and steady, cut through the room like a blade.

"She told you to leave. You better listen."

I turned around.

Jimmy.

My son. Standing in the hallway, arms crossed over his chest, face pale but eyes blazing with a quiet fury I'd never seen before.

"Jimmy..." I whispered. He took a step forward.

"Leave Mom alone," he said. "Better yet, leave us alone."

The words hit like a punch to the gut. My own son. Defending her. Protecting her—from me. I opened my mouth, but there was nothing left to say. 

And that was the moment I realized I had already lost more than I ever understood.