The “Something Old” - 2031 - Part 12
The exhaustion hit her all at once.
One moment, she was sitting up in bed, her back pressed against the headboard, the dim glow of her bedside lamp casting long shadows across the room with the light from the sun peeking through. The journal lay open in her lap, pages crinkled from how tightly she had been gripping them, her fingers tracing over the jagged edges where pages had once been.
Torn. Ripped. Gone.
She had been staring at them for what felt like hours, willing the missing words to materialize, filling in the gaps with her imagination. But the more she searched, the more she realized—she wasn’t going to find the answers here. Not in this book.
Jess had seen fragments. Words scattered like broken glass across the remaining pages.
“disappeared…”
“I’m numb…”
“I killed them…”
That last one had been scribbled so hastily it looked like her mother had been shaking when she wrote it. Jess’s chest tightened at the thought.
She exhaled shakily, rubbing a hand over her face before glancing toward the crib in the corner of the room.
Shay had finally drifted off after fussing for over an hour, her tiny chest rising and falling in the rhythmic peace of sleep. Jess had rocked her, humming quietly, feeling the weight of her daughter in her arms. It had helped. A little. The steady warmth of her baby, the soft scent of her skin, the way she curled so trustingly into Jess’s chest.
It reminded her what mattered.
She had kissed Shay’s forehead before laying her down gently, adjusting the blanket around her before turning back toward the bed.
Dorian was still asleep, his breaths even, his arm sprawled over her side of the mattress as if reaching for her even in sleep. The sight of him should have comforted her. It usually did.
But tonight, she still felt unsettled.
And as soon as her head hit the pillow, she felt Dori shift and within his arms, the exhaustion won.
The dream wasn’t random. It never was when she fell asleep with her mother’s words in her mind.
It took her back to the journal—to the last thing she had read.
Except… the pages were missing.
She could see them in front of her, the ink bleeding into the torn edges, but they were unreadable. Every time she tried to reach for them, they slipped through her fingers like sand.
Jess felt the absence of them like a gaping wound, a hollow space where answers should have been.
Her subconscious tried to fill in the blanks.
The ink blurred and shifted, forming shapes—then faces.
Leo.
Or at least, what she imagined him to look like.
She had only ever seen photos. Faded clippings her mom had. He had been so untouchable in her mind, larger than life, a man whose name alone carried weight.
But this wasn’t the man she had read about in Forbes articles or the father of the boy she had once loved.
This was the boy her mother had loved.
The boy who had looked at her mother like she was the only thing that mattered.
His blonde hair was tousled - making him look so similar to Kai… but Jess couldn’t explain it… he looked different too… his suit slightly wrinkled as if he had been running his hands through it all night. His sharp blue-grey eyes—so eerily similar to Kai’s—weren’t cold or calculating like in the articles. They were raw. Pained.
He was speaking, but Jess couldn’t hear him.
His lips moved, his expression tense, but the sound was muffled, distorted, like someone had pressed pause on the world around him.
She tried to focus. To understand. But it was slipping away.
Then, suddenly—his face twisted, his expression darkening.
And the dream cracked apart like shattered glass.
The steady rhythm of Harry’s breathing filled the space beside her, slow and even, but Addie was awake.
Wide awake.
She had been staring at the ceiling for hours, her body still, but her mind running in endless circles.
Jess was going to ask today.
Her daughter—her relentless, brilliant daughter—was going to sit across from her, journal in hand, waiting for an explanation. Jess would ask questions the way only she could, peeling back layers, digging for the truth like she always did.
And Addie had no idea where to start.
She knew Jess had at least read the beginning. Had pieced together enough to know that her mother had once been engaged to Leonardo Azure—the same Leonardo Azure who Jess knew as a ruthless businessman, and, more personally, the father of a boy Jess had once loved.
But bloody hell, there was so much more to the story. So much more that Addie often tried to forget.
Her gaze drifted to Harry beside her. His face was relaxed in sleep, but she knew the weight he carried, the years etched into his features. The years they had shared. The ones before him.
For a fleeting moment, she considered waking him.
Letting him hold her.
Letting him ground her the way he had done so many times before.
The way he had done in the more recent years at least…
But some things—some memories—felt too heavy even for him to carry. Some were heavier than she could carry with him. Some nightmares, after all, had been caused by Harry.
But more often, they were caused by herself.
So what was she supposed to tell her daughter? That she had loved and let go of a man?
That she had walked away from the life she thought she wanted, only to find herself lost?
No. That wasn’t enough. That wasn’t the truth.
So instead, she closed her eyes.
And let herself slip back.
The moment when everything changed…
That was the one that hit her first.
The memory was sharp. Too sharp.
Leo.
His name curled through her mind before she could stop it.
She thought of him too often. Even after all these years. Even after everything.
She thought about the last time she had seen him. The weight of his gaze across the room. The briefest brush of fingers against hers before they were pulled apart again.
She thought about his touch. His lips.
The stolen moments.
The nights when guilt and longing tangled together into something she couldn’t name.
But more than anything—she thought about that night.
Mexico.
The memory lurked beneath the surface, waiting to pull her under.
And this time, she let it.
1999 - Dream
The headlights cut through the darkness, illuminating the empty road ahead. The only sound was the low hum of the tires against the pavement, steady and relentless, mirroring the rapid beat of her heart.
Justin’s hands gripped the wheel tightly, his knuckles pale against the leather.
He had long stopped asking questions.
The silence was suffocating, but what could he say?
What could she say?
Addie sat in the passenger seat, knees drawn to her chest, arms wrapped around herself as if that could keep her from unraveling completely.
Her hands trembled.
Her lips felt numb.
Her chest ached.
She could still feel the weight of the ring on her finger.
Could still taste the lie in her mouth.
Could still hear the words that had sent her running.
Leo’s words.
Richard’s words.
“Just get that fucking girl pregnant so she realizes where her place is.”
A sob clawed its way up her throat, but she swallowed it down.
Her stomach twisted violently, bile rising, but she forced herself to stare ahead, her eyes locked on the endless stretch of road in front of them.
The road that led them south.
She clenched her jaw as the memory slammed into her like a punch to the gut.
She was pregnant.
She wouldn’t be for long.
She couldn’t be.
The thought made her vision blur.
Her hands curled into fists in her lap, nails digging into her palms until the sting grounded her, until the pain kept her from breaking apart entirely.
Justin glanced at her from the corner of his eye, his mouth parting like he wanted to say something.
But he didn’t.
Because what was there to say?
The road stretched ahead, endless and unforgiving.
They kept driving.
She wasn’t ready.
Not yet.
But eventually, she would have to be.
Eventually, she would have to face what came next.
And tomorrow—she would have to tell Jess.