I Aborted Our Baby The Day He Celebrated His Mistress Birthday Chapter 12

I Aborted Our Baby The Day He Celebrated His Mistress Birthday Chapter 12

Julian went back to Northridge and didn’t leave the apartment for weeks.

He stayed in the empty studio he’d rented – curtains pulled shut, bottles piling up around him. He’d wake up

and drink. Drink until he blacked out. Wake up and do it again.

He couldn’t accept it. Alcohol was the only thing that made the hours pass.

At least when he was unconscious, he could still dream of her. Could still pretend, for a few stolen hours,

that she loved him.

But eventually even that stopped. She hated him so completely that she wouldn’t come to him even in sleep.

She wouldn’t even give him that much – not even a lie his own mind made for him.

Julian shattered. When he wasn’t drinking, he sat with their photo album, turning pages like each one was a bruise he couldn’t stop pressing.

He replayed every memory on a loop – the good ones hurt the most.

The apartment reeked of liquor. Julian dragged himself to the kitchen one morning, opened the deep freeze,

and found a container of leftovers Eleanor had made him before she left. It was completely freezer–burned.

–

He couldn’t bring himself to finish it. Only on the worst nights – when missing her was unbearable – would

he chisel off a piece and eat it slowly, like he was rationing the last of her.

Then he’d hunch over the toilet and throw it all back up.

At first it was bile and acid streaked with pink. Then the pink darkened. Then it was just blood.

Julian didn’t have the strength to stand. He lay on the bathroom floor, limbs splayed, and let himself go still.

Dying here seemed fine. Better than thinking about her for one more second. Better than losing control again

and showing up at her door.

“Eleanor…” “I miss you…” “God, I miss you…”

Her name was the only word left in him. He said it until his throat tore, until his voice gave out, until there

was nothing but silence.

The housekeeper found him. Facedown on the floor, lying in his own blood. They rushed him to the ER.

Alcohol poisoning. They barely pulled him back.

“Don’t bother…” Julian’s smile was empty. He pushed the oncology report to the side of the bed, pulled the

divorce papers from his pocket – worn soft from being carried too long and signed his name.

Then he handed them to a nurse. “Please… I need you to mail these somewhere for me.”

A package arrived for me.

Inside: the signed divorce papers, a property transfer deed, and a handwritten letter.

I don’t know where Julian went. He vanished. From that day on, I never saw him again.

I accepted everything he sent. He owed me all of it, and more.

After that, we were done. The love, the hate – all of it finally settled. We would not cross paths again.