Page 38 of The Regrettable Mistake

“Hutch said she was medicated and not conscious. I need to see what he was talking about.”

Caleb pulled a U-turn and headed in the opposite direction, toward the house I once shared with my family. The minute he pulled into my driveway I bolted from his car and ran for the door.

It shocked me that Steph hadn’t changed the locks or the security code on the front door. I figured the first thing she would have done, considering how angry she was with me, would have been to change those things to keep me out. I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth though. Without hesitation, I tore off through the house until I came to the disaster of our living room. Only after glancing at the mess on the floor did I notice the walls were almost bare. Every single wall, shelf, and the mantle had been stripped of pictures of us, as well as family photos. The only ones that remained intact were ones with just my son and me.

There had been none with just Steph and Denmark, I realized. I’d never taken any for them. The ones that had Steph and me in them, she had ripped herself out of each and every photo. Some of her images were shredded beyond distinction, others laid there on the floor as far away from the pictures of my son and me as she could probably get them from where she had been sitting.

The space she had occupied was obvious, if not for the clear spot amongst the chaos of shredded pictures, then for the blood that stained the throw rug that I had put down just last winter after Steph complained about her cold toes on the wooden floors.

“Holy shit!” I turned to see a blurry image of my best friend who stood there and gaped at the scene we walked in on.

Caleb walked around the mess and found Steph’s cell phone on the floor in front of the couch. He picked it up and handed it to me and then took a seat beside me on the floor as I unlocked it. She hadn’t changed that code either.

As soon as the screen unlocked, my own face and upper body were front and center. My head was thrown back as my climax hit me and my hands, which were out of the frame, gripped Julia’s hips.

“Looks like she watched a lot of video. Might want to back it up to the beginning, so you can get the full scope of the damage done.”

I did just that and watched with my best friend as Julia called out my relationship for what it had been in the beginning. Then, to my complete horror, I realized that I’d fed into it instead of denying her claims. I’d basically mocked Steph for being so stupid as to believe I loved her. Not in so many words, but the point of what I did say wouldn’t have been missed by her.

Then, Julia and I both talked about how I hadn’t had a decent blowjob in so long and that just dug the hole I was in even deeper. Steph wasn’t bad at blowjobs, she had just been very inexperienced. I’d taught her a few things, but never got rough with her the way I could allow myself to with Julia. What Steph wouldn’t understand is that I was able to be that rough with my ex because it was a hate fuck. I didn’t respect Julia. As I had come to realize, I hadn’t even liked her much, let alone loved her. So, I treated her like she was any whore on the street who I had picked up to satisfy an urge. Not that I had ever done that, but that’s about all the feelings I had for Julia that night.

“Fucking hell, Ollie. If you ever stood a chance of getting Steph back, it’s safe to say that will never happen now.” Caleb stared at me with disappointment shining in his eyes. Then, anger took over. “That bitch sent this to her,” He reminded me.

“How do you know?”

“Hutch said she sent the text to him that she got before, but he didn’t mention a video.” He tipped his head toward the cell phone in my hand. “Check it.”

I closed the video out and sure enough, there were texts that came in before it. They were from an unknown number, but considering the context, and the fact that the video was included, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that they had been sent by Julia.

“What can we do about this?”

“Steph already had plans to get a restraining order against your ex. My guess is that Hutch will use this, and how it affected her pregnancy and overall health, as reason enough to push for that in court now.”

“Will he be successful?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Considering the things you said in that video, they might also be successful in having one issued against you as well.”

“We could delete it.” It was a knee-jerk response that I wasn’t exactly proud of.

“The courts will compel the phone records and Julia, if need be, to produce the video.” Caleb shook his head at me as he stood. “Besides, now that she did this damage and knows that Steph was sent to the hospital, where she might garner sympathy of her own for losing a baby, I wouldn’t put it past Jia to release the video. If you’re lucky, she’ll leave out the parts where you’re talking.”

“What the hell am I going to do now? If she lost the baby, not only will she never forgive me, but I’ll never forgive myself.” I stood and once again took in the destruction of all our family photos. This was what it looked like to lose everything that mattered. Steph had painted a very vivid picture for me, even if she never intended me to see the mess.

“I’m going to kill Jia.”

“Funny, that’s the first time I’ve heard you use her stage name. Maybe, you should have thought of her as Jia all along and you could have salvaged the mess you created in your marriage from the beginning. I hate to tell you, Ollie, but Jia was just the messenger. You are the problem in your and Steph’s marriage. The only problem, as far as anyone else with half a brain can see.”

“Get me to the hospital. I need to check and see if she’s awake.” I couldn’t bring myself to wonder if the baby had survived. If it didn’t, that was on me. There would be no shifting the blame to my ex-girlfriend, even though her texts were what sent Steph into an emotional tailspin. I knew better. It was what I’d said and done on that video that truly destroyed my wife.

Caleb was right. I set all this in motion with my fucking idiotic beliefs that my son would somehow be better off with the mother he shared DNA with than the one who actually loved him.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing here?”

“That’s my wife and baby in there.” I pointed to the door of the hospital room that Steph was in. “I need to make sure they’re okay.”

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