The “Something Old” - 2031 - Part 11
The soft glow of dawn crept through the curtains, casting warm streaks of light over the bedroom walls. The house was quiet, wrapped in the serenity of early morning, save for the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of Dorian’s breathing beside her. He was sprawled out, one arm stretched over the empty space where she should have been, completely oblivious to the fact that Jess hadn’t closed her eyes once all night.
She was exhausted.
But she didn’t want to sleep.
Not yet.
Not when her daughter was curled against her, her tiny fingers fisting the fabric of Jess’s shirt after feeding, her breaths warm and steady against her skin.
Not when, in just a few hours, her mother was going to tell her everything.
Jess exhaled, shifting slightly as she adjusted her hold on Shay. The baby stirred briefly, her dark lashes fluttering, before settling again with a soft sigh. Jess pressed a kiss to the top of her head, inhaling the faint scent of baby lotion.
She was beautiful. So beautiful.
And Jess had spent the last few hours talking to her in hushed whispers, her voice steady even when her mind wasn’t.
“You know, Shay, I used to think history was boring.” Her voice was soft, a faint smile tugging at her lips. She glanced down at the open journal in her lap, its pages slightly crinkled from how tightly she’d been gripping it earlier.
“The present alwaysssss felt more important. And the future? It was exciting to think about. But the past? That was just… there. Something people obsessed over for no reason.” She smirked slightly, shifting Shay in her arms. “But now? Now I get it. It’s not about the past. It’s about the pieces of it that still follow you.”
Her fingers ghosted over the ink-stained pages, pausing at the last line she had read before she’d been pulled away by Shay’s hunger cries.
𝒽𝑒 𝒷𝓇𝑜𝓀𝑒 𝓂𝑒…
Jess swallowed.
The words were small, scrawled hastily in the corner of the page, as if her mother had been too afraid to admit them, even to herself.
Jess had spent the entire night reading.
Reading about the love that had bloomed between her mother and Leo. The happiness. The warmth. The way Addie had written about him like he was the only thing that mattered. Like he was the air she breathed. God, it felt like he was—just like Dorian was to Jess. Just like Shay was to her now.
And then it ended.
Not with a fight. Not with a grand declaration.
But with silence.
Her mother had just… stopped writing.
And when she finally did again, the tone had changed. The love that had been so certain, so all-consuming, had turned into something else—something hesitant. Careful.
Jess had sat there for what felt like hours, staring at that last sentence, unable to turn the page just yet.
Because she knew what came next.
She had spent days unraveling the past, peeling back the layers of the carefully constructed story her mother had told the world. And now, she was at the part where it all fell apart.
And she wasn’t sure she was ready to read it.
Shay made a soft noise in her sleep, her tiny lips parting as she nuzzled closer.
Jess smiled, brushing her thumb gently over her daughter’s cheek.
“I can’t wait for you to get to know her… really know her… your grandmother, I mean.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “She’s crazy. The best kind of crazy. And she loves you already… she wasn’t always like that… but she’s been trying for you… and for me.”
She paused, glancing at Dorian, still fast asleep beside her, completely unaware of the storm raging inside her mind.
“And she’d probably kill me for still reading this,” she muttered, a faint smirk playing on her lips, “especially when she said she’d tell me everything in a few hours.”
But she had to.
Because the more she read, the more she realized—she didn’t know her mother at all.
Not the real her.
And she wanted to.
She needed to.
Jess exhaled slowly, her fingers tightening around the journal as she turned the page.
She didn’t stop to think.
Didn’t stop to prepare herself.
She just read.
And as the words unraveled in front of her, she felt her throat tighten, her heart pounding harder with every sentence.
Because this?
This was the beginning of the end.