October, The Odd Ones

She took a step closer, eyes big and glistening, mouth tugged into an imitation of concern. "Look, I know you hate me. But this isn't about us. I just... I need you to talk to Thomas. Just tell him to reconsider. A statement, a character reference, anything. It could really help me."

I looked at her, forcing my voice to stay even. "Are you out of your freaking mind!?"

She ignored that, voice dripping with false humility. "Please, October. You know him better than anyone. He'll listen to you if it comes from you."

"Absolutely not,"  I said, "It's disgusting you'd even ask me. Leave me alone."

Something flickered across her face then like glass cracking. The sweetness fell away, and what was left was sharp, brittle, venomous.

"You think you're so much better than me," she sneered, stepping closer, her perfume cloying, too sweet. "Don't you dare pretend he never wanted me. I had him. I had your precious Tommy in my hand, and he liked it. You were just convenience, a habit. You really think he loved you? He stayed because it was easier, that's all. You are pathetic."

Her words sliced clean through the air, sharp, hot, humiliating. They lodged somewhere in my throat, heavy with bile. I wanted to cry, to scream, to vanish. Instead, I stood frozen, letting the shame crawl over my skin like something alive. I turned to leave and call the girls, but this is MY battle. Yes, it would've been easier to walk away. To let her feel like she won but then I heard Dr. Mireille's voice in my head again, calm and unwavering: Silence doesn't erase pain; it preserves it.

"No," I breathed aloud, turning slowly, deliberately, until I was facing her fully, "You know what's pathetic, Laura?" I said, my voice low, cold enough to frost the air between us. She tilted her chin, trying to hold on to that practiced smirk, the one she wore like armor but I saw the flicker in her eyes. A tremor, quick as a blink.

"That you think having scraps of a man makes you powerful," I went on, my words slow and deliberate, each one landing like a stone dropped into deep water. "You think being the woman in the shadows makes you chosen. It doesn't. It just makes you disposable. You weren't loved, you weren't chosen. You were just... easy."

Her smirk faltered completely now, "You have no morals, no loyalty, no self-respect," I said. "It wasn't enough to betray a marriage, you had to do it twice. Father and son. You call that power?" I shook my head, letting the disgust bleed through. "It's not power, Laura. It's emptiness. Being so hollow inside that you'll do anything to fill it. You don't know how to be alone, so you crawl into the cracks of other people's lives and then you act like it makes you special."

She opened her mouth again, breath catching, but I didn't let her speak.

"You dress it up in lipstick, a tight dress, and a practiced laugh. You call it confidence," I said, my voice dropping, turning almost pitying. "But it's just desperation, Laura and no matter how many times you pretend otherwise... deep down, you know it too.  You're just a horrible decision. The worst chapter in his life, yes, but that chapter is closing."

Her jaw tightened, but I didn't stop, "He's been working to come home to me. To earn his place again and it's working, Laura. Slowly. Carefully. I'm learning how to let him back into my heart," I said, feeling the burn of it in my chest. "But you? You're doomed to your own long, lonely, pathetic 온라인카지노게임. I won't let you crawl back into my life. I won't let you keep trying to burn down what's left of it, either.  You're just a footnote in my 온라인카지노게임, Laura. A blur, so don't you ever think you can use me to get to him again. Don't speak my name like it gives you leverage. You're not worth the breath."

I turned. I didn't need to see her face anymore. Whatever satisfaction she used to pull from mine, she wouldn't find it now. I walked out, heart pounding, fingers trembling from the aftermath but my spine was straight. My steps were solid. I went back to where Beth and August were still sitting. The noise of the place felt suddenly too loud, too chaotic. The laughter, the clinking glasses, the music pulsing through the speakers, it all pressed in on me, like the room was shrinking.

"I'm leaving," I blurted out, my voice higher and shakier than I meant it to be.

They both turned sharply, alarm flashing in their eyes. "October?" August said, already half-rising from her seat. "What happened?"

"I just..." I swallowed hard, arms tightening around myself. "I want to go home."

My hands were trembling, so I tucked them beneath my arms to hide it. Beth and August exchanged a look—silent, quick but neither asked the questions waiting on their tongues.

Beth stood without hesitation. "Come on. I've got you." She slid an arm gently around my back as we walked out, shielding me from the world like a quiet barrier. The ride back was nearly silent. Beth kept glancing at me in the rearview mirror, concern carved deep into the lines of her face. August said nothing, just shifted slightly to give me more space, sensing that words wouldn't help.

When we turned onto my street, I saw him immediately.

Thomas.

He was on the porch, pacing. Phone in hand. Face pale and drawn tight with worry. He looked like he hadn't taken a full breath since I left. His gaze flicked to the road the second he heard tires, and he stopped pacing, frozen in place like a deer caught in a spotlight.

Beth must have texted him. The moment the car came to a halt, I shoved the door open. "Goodnight girls," I muttered, voice hollow, nearly lost in the wind. "Thank you."

I barely waited for a response. Thomas took a step forward, relief breaking across his face like sunlight through stormclouds but I didn't slow. I brushed past him, just grazing his arm, and headed for the door like he wasn't even there. He followed me inside, the door clicking shut behind him.

"October, what's going on?" he demanded, his voice rough with fear. "Beth said something upset you, did someone hurt you? Tell me."

I turned to face him, eyes stinging, jaw trembling with the effort not to cry or scream or both. "Yes," I spat, my voice sharp and brittle. "You."

He flinched. "What? October, I...I know I've hurt you before, but tonight, what happened?"

I took a breath. It burned on the way in, like it scraped the inside of my ribs raw. "Your mistress approached me," I said, the word mistress tasting like poison.

His face shifted instantly, shock cracking through it, then rage, fast and furious. "She did what?"

"She cornered me in the restroom," I hissed, fists clenched at my sides. "Tried to convince me to talk to you. To help her. In her case. Like we're all just characters in some twisted 온라인카지노게임 she's still writing."

He looked like he couldn't breathe. "October..."

"She looked me in the eye," I continued, voice rising, trembling. "Like she had the right to speak to me. The audacity, the shameless, calculated gall of that woman!"

Thomas's mouth opened, then closed, shoulders slumping like something inside him had collapsed. "God, I'm so sorry," he murmured. "I brought her into our lives. This is my fault. I am so so sorry."

He didn't waste another second. He pulled out his phone, his fingers flying across the screen. He brought it to his ear, turning away slightly but not enough that I couldn't hear the tension in every syllable.

"Graham? It's Thomas," he said, voice clipped, barely restrained. "We need to talk. Laura Fisher approached my wife tonight. She cornered her in a public space."

He paused, then snapped, "No, I don't care if there was no physical threat. She ambushed my wife. Can we file for a restraining order?" His hand was white-knuckled around the phone now, jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscle twitch.

"Great! I don't want her within ten feet of October. I don't want her name in the same room. I don't care how you do it, just find a way. If she so much as breathes in her direction again, I want it documented, reported, and shut down."

When he hung up, he turned to me slowly, as though afraid I might break under his gaze.

"I swear to you, October," he said, voice low, unsteady. "She will never come near you again. I will burn every bridge she tries to cross if I have to. I'm so sorry you had to see her. That you had to hear her voice. That she ever made you feel less than whole."

I didn't respond right away. My chest was still heaving, my hands still trembling.  Just as Thomas finished apologizing, his phone buzzed on the nightstand, screen flashing: Unknown Number. We both froze. My heart kicked hard against my ribs. "Do you think...?" I whispered.

Thomas didn't answer right away. His jaw clenched, eyes fixed on the screen. His thumb hovered over the Decline button, then, quietly but firmly, he said, "I'll answer. I'll put it on speaker, okay?"

I nodded, breath caught. "Okay," I murmured, barely more than a breath.

He answered with the faintest, humorless smirk,  "Laura." His voice was low, flat, dangerous. There was a small gasp on the other end, then her voice, sticky-sweet but tight around the edges.

"Oh... you answered. Thomas, I'm so glad. I just, look, I know you're upset, but I had to. I saw your wife tonight and she was just... she was awful to me. So mean, so rude.. I really, really need your help. Just to explain to the court, or your lawyer..."

He didn't even let her finish.

"My wife," he cut in, his voice suddenly sharp as a blade, "wasn't mean. She was merciful."

Silence on the line. It crackled between them like static before a storm. "You want mean?"  he went on, "If you dare come near her, near me, near my children? You'll see just how cruel I can be."

"Thomas..Listen..," she answered.

 "You're so pathetic, Laura. Pathetic and disgusting. But the worst part? That's on me. I let you in. I opened the door. I gave you proximity to a life you were never worthy of and no matter what happens with October, no matter if she finds a way to forgive me—I won't. Not myself. Not ever. Because you?" He let out a bitter laugh. "You're the living embodiment of the worst thing I've ever allowed to happen."

She tried to speak, voice faint, trembling. "Thomas, please, don't—"

"No," he said, voice low and clipped.  Another beat of silence. And then his voice dropped, low, deadly calm.

"You approached my wife without warning. In a public place. You cornered her. That wasn't a misstep, that wasn't misjudged affection or a 'moment of desperation', that was predatory. You crossed a line you are never coming back from. I've already contacted my lawyer. Tomorrow morning, we file for a restraining order. You'll be served within the week. After that, every interaction, every word, every glance in her direction becomes admissible evidence. You so much as show up within 500 feet of her, and we'll have you arrested. Don't test me. You know I have the reach."

He let the words hang before continuing, quieter now, more terrifying in its control.

"I will dismantle your credibility," he said, voice controlled, almost bored. "Quietly. Completely. Right now, you're facing five to seven years  mostly for fraud but after this call? I'll make sure it's worse."

"Thomas, don't you dare. I will ruin you and that pitiful little wife of yours."

He let a breath out slowly, then replied, calm and clinical: "Noted. That's a direct threat — to me, to October and this call?" A small pause. "It's being recorded. So thank you, Laura. You've just made my case airtight."

"You bastard," she snapped, venom rising. "You think this is going to scare me?"

"No," I said, my voice flat now, final. "I think it's going to finish you. You're already under investigation for fraud.  Your credibility's in shreds. But this? This is a cherry on top. You've handed me legal ammunition."

He hang up and then he slowly set the phone down on the stand. He didn't look at me right away. Instead, he stood there for a moment, head lowered, shoulders heavy with something between shame and exhaustion. Like all the years of denial, guilt, and silence had finally settled on his back.

His chest rose and fell once, shaky, uneven. Then he turned to me. His eyes were glassy, rimmed with a kind of vulnerability I hadn't seen in him in a long time. His voice was low, barely more than a breath. "Can I hold you, please?"

For a heartbeat, I hesitated. Then I nodded. He crossed the space between us and wrapped his arms around me, slow and careful, like he was afraid I'd shatter. His warmth pressed against me, his heartbeat hammering just as fast as mine.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered into my hair, voice breaking. "You should never have been put in that position. It's my fault. I brought her into our lives. I will regret that for the rest of my life."

My hands moved, almost of their own accord, gripping the back of his shirt, bunching the fabric between my fingers. His scent, faint cologne, warm skin, and something soft and familiar, wrapped around me and pulled something deeper from my chest: a sob I'd been swallowing for too long.

"It's not fair," I whispered, voice raw. "It's so unfair. I didn't do anything to deserve this, Thomas."

"I know," he murmured, voice shaking. "You didn't. You were only ever good. Only ever mine and I was... careless. Blind and it hurt you. I'm so, so sorry, mon amour." His hand came up to cup the side of my face, thumb brushing away a tear I hadn't noticed had fallen. His gaze was so open, so painfully earnest, it almost hurt to look at him.

Then he pressed his lips to my forehead, not in a rushed or possessive way, but slow, almost reverent like he was asking for permission, not taking it. I closed my eyes, letting the heat of him seep into the cold places inside me. Then, still holding me, his voice dropped lower, almost hoarse. "You are the best thing that ever happened to me and I'm sorry I didn't protect you better."

I leaned my forehead against his chest. For a while, we stood there, breathing the same air, hearts beating against each other, both a little broken but still here. Then gently, Thomas pulled back just enough to look at me, his eyes rimmed red but soft.

"Come," he murmured. "Let's go sit down. Just let me take care of you, even if it's only tonight."

Once I sat on the edge of the bed, he knelt before me and took off my shoes, his touch careful, reverent. He undressed me in silence, layer by layer, his eyes never wandering, only watching my face as if making sure I was still here. Still with him.

He helped me to the bathroom. Ran the water. Chose the scent I always reached for when I needed comfort, he had noticed that.  As the tub filled, he wrapped his arms around me from behind, his cheek resting against my shoulder. The steam curled around us like a veil.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, his voice low and shaking. "For all the ways I failed you. For the silences, for the times I let you carry the weight alone. You are everything to me, and I'll spend every day proving it." I leaned into him, eyes closed, and let him lower me into the water like something breakable.

Later, warm and drowsy, I climbed into bed while he pulled the sheets back. He got in behind me, his chest pressed to my back, one arm anchoring me to him as if he was afraid I'd vanish in the night.

"I've got you," he whispered into my hair. "Sleep. I'll be here when you wake up."

 I did. I let go.