Page 19 of The Anniversary Betrayal
She let out a shaky laugh. “Sorry doesn’t fix the mess we’ve made.”
“No,” he agreed, voice low. “But it’s all I have.”
Rebecca looked at him for a long moment, her face unreadable. Then she straightened, tugging her bag higher on her shoulder. “I put in for a transfer. Another hospital in another city. I’ll be gone in a few weeks.”
His chest eased, just slightly. “That’s probably best. For both of us.”
She nodded once, sharply. Then her eyes softened for just a second, old echoes of the girl he once dated. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Kingston. Though I think you already had it, and you let it slip away.”
He couldn’t argue. He only watched as she turned and walked down the hall, her footsteps fading. When she was gone, he leaned against the lockers, pressing his forehead to the cool metal. The spark was gone. The affair had burned itself out, leaving only ashes and the ruins of his marriage. For the first time since it all began, he felt clarity. No more confusion. No more excuses. He had loved Ashley, still loved her, and everything else had been a betrayal of that truth but clarity didn’t mean redemption and he didn’t know if he’d ever get the chance to prove it.
Kingston hadn’t slept in days. His eyes were bloodshot, his jawline shadowed with stubble he hadn’t cared to shave. Every time he walked into the hospital, the smell of antiseptic clawed at him, too close to the night everything broke apart. He scrolled through his phone obsessively, rereading the unanswered messages he had sent Ashley. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t replied. His thumbs still tapped out desperate words, hoping one day she’d read them.Ash, please. Talk to me.I made the worst mistake of my life. I’ll do anything to fix this.Don’t shut me out. The kids need us.I need you.The last one sat unsent in his drafts. Too raw. Too exposing.
Ashley, meanwhile, was trying to stitch her days together into something livable. Mornings began with Leah’s cheerful insistence on making pancakes, flour dusting the kitchen counter while Susan kept little Will occupied with crayons. Ashley had never been good at mornings, but now she forced herself to rise early, to breathe through the ache in her chest and pretend normalcy for the children’s sake.
At the hospital, she buried herself in patient charts, leaning on her colleagues for the kind of steady presence she used to get from Kingston. Sometimes she caught herself reaching for her phone, wanting to share a funny case note or vent about a long shift, only to remember there was no “them” anymore.
Leah was her anchor. Every night, her sister would sit with her on the couch, feet tucked under a blanket, tea steaming in her hands.
“You don’t have to figure it all out right now,” Leah said one evening, voice gentle but steady. “One day at a time, Ash.”
Ashley nodded “I just… I keep wondering what I did wrong. Was I not enough? Did I miss the signs?”
Leah squeezed her hand. “You were more than enough. This isn’t about you, it’s about him. His choices. His weakness. Don’t carry his sins on your shoulders.”
Susan, too, became a quiet source of strength. She showed up on weekends, whisking the kids away to the park, giving Ashley hours of solitude she didn’t know she needed. Kingston tried calling again that night. She didn’t answer, but she read the messages that followedI told Rebecca it’s over. For good.I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m asking for a chance to be in your life. In the kids’ lives.I know I broke us. But I don’t want to lose us forever.
Ashley stared at the screen for a long time before setting the phone down. Her chest tightened, but this time, she didn’t cry. Instead, she whispered to the empty room, “I don’t know if we can ever come back from this.” And for the first time since the night she found out, she meant it.
Kingston lay awake, staring at the ceiling of his lonely apartment, her silence echoing louder than any rejection. He thought of Ashley’s laugh, the warmth of her skin beside him at night, the way she always knew how to calm his storms. He thought of their children’s faces, the family dinners, the rituals of love that had once seemed unshakable and he realized, with brutal clarity, that no amount of begging could undo the shattering.
Ashley wasn’t the one drifting away. He was the one who had let go first. Now he was left with the wreckage, praying she might one day let him back in not as her husband, maybe, but as something. Anything. The dawn came cold,both of them staring into different horizons, bound by grief yet pulled by the slow, relentless tide of moving on.
Chapter Sixteen
Ashley hadn’t wanted to be here. The small counseling office smelled faintly of lavender and leather, the shelves lined with books on marriage, trust, and forgiveness. A single box of tissues sat on the coffee table like a silent prediction. She sat stiffly on one end of the couch, arms crossed, her gaze fixed on the floor. Kingston sat beside her, though not close enough to touch.
They hadn’t sat this near to each other since the night everything fell apart. The counselor, Dr. Harris, smiled gently, clipboard balanced on his lap. “Thank you both for coming. This is the first step, and it matters.”
Ashley wanted to scoff. It didn’t feel like a step forward. It felt like she had been dragged here by well-meaning family members who still believed marriage could be patched with enough effort.
Her mother’s voice echoed in her head:“At least try, Ashley. For the kids. For yourself.”
So here she was, trying. Or at least sitting in the chair. Kingston’s hand twitched against his knee, as if he wanted to reach for hers but thought better of it. His voice was low when he spoke. “I know I don’t deserve to be here but I’ll do whatever it takes.” Ashley kept her eyes on the carpet, jaw clenched.
Dr. Harris leaned forward. “Maybe we start with honesty. Kingston, tell Ashley what led you here. Not just what you did but why.”
Kingston inhaled shakily, his chest rising and falling as if the weight of his confession pressed on his lungs. “I was exhausted. Lonely. I convinced myself Ashley didn’t see me anymore. That she cared more about the kids, her job, everything else and then Rebecca, she was there. She made me feel noticed. Desired. I told myself it was harmless. Just dinners. Just talking but it wasn’t.”
His eyes filled, voice breaking. “It was selfish. It was betrayal. I destroyed the one person who ever truly loved me.”
Ashley’s throat tightened. She didn’t want to cry in front of him, not now, but the tears burned anyway. She forced herself to speak, voice trembling. “Do you have any idea what it felt like? To see our marriage, the life we built reduced to nothing more than ‘I was lonely’? Do you know how small that makes me feel? Like I wasn’t enough. Like our family wasn’t enough.”
Kingston’s hands balled into fists. “It wasn’t you. It was me. My weakness. My blindness. I see it now, Ash, I do.”
Her laugh was sharp, bitter. “You see it now because you lost me. Not because you cared enough to stop before it happened.”
The silence that followed was heavy.
