After the Last Tear: Rising from the Ashes of a Broken Marriage novel Chapter 75

The hallway was dim, narrow, and heavy with the scent of rain. Faint droplets tapped against the windows, the muffled hum of water slipping through cracks in the pavement outside filling the silence between us.

I froze.

For a brief, breathless moment, I thought this was it.

The moment the truth would slip out.

That Pax would finally piece everything together.

That my plans to leave would be dragged into the open, no longer something I could quietly pack away with the rest of my belongings.

But instead—

He smiled.

"Of course we are."

His certainty was effortless, unwavering.

He thought she was talking about Norway.

Relief flooded through me, but it came tangled with something heavier—something I didn't want to name.

The girl parted her lips, as if she wanted to say more, but her boyfriend—quicker, sharper—seemed to sense the sudden shift in the air.

He grabbed her hand lightly, pulling her back, offering a quick, polite farewell before leading her away.

And just like that, the moment passed.

The silence stretched again, this time thinner, more fragile.

Pax had originally planned for me to move into his place tonight.

But I was exhausted.

"Let's wait until we get back from Norway," I said, my voice careful, steady.

He hesitated, lingering at my doorstep as if searching for a reason to stay.

Then, as if conceding to an unseen compromise, he tried again.

"Then at least have dinner with me tonight?"

I opened my mouth to refuse, but he cut me off before I could speak.

"Cecilia, if you're still angry, hit me, yell at me, do whatever you want."

His voice was quieter now, rough at the edges, like he wasn't used to speaking this way—like he wasn't used to pleading.

Eventually, it would stop hurting.

So that night, weary from his persistence, I agreed to dinner.

What he hadn't told me—Was that we wouldn't be dining alone.

The restaurant was elegant, warm with the flicker of candlelight, shadows dancing against polished silverware and crystal glasses.

A long table stretched between us.

And at the far end of it—Sat his mother.

Pax's mother.

She had to be in her early fifties, but time had only made her more striking.

There was a quiet radiance about her, an elegance that made her presence feel inevitable—like the slow turn of seasons, like something that had been orchestrated long before I even stepped into this moment.

Her every movement was poised, deliberate.

And when she smiled at me, there was something knowing in the curve of her lips.

"So, you're Cecilia?"