Marie-Rose composed a message for Jayden, inviting him to meet her at their cherished pub. Although she had deferred sending the message for a week, this morning brought a sudden revelation: she was pregnant.
The discovery catapulted her panic levels into the stratosphere, evoking the same despair she had experienced eighteen years ago—a realization that left her disheartened once again.
Women over twenty with steady, secure jobs dared to voice their grievances about being left alone with a grown-up child in their arms. Marie-Rose, however, had to summon all her strength to survive without any assistance. She faced a formidable clique of monsters determined to seize her child for their covert gov project.
Despite the challenges, here she was once again, on the brink of raising another child entirely on her own.
How could this have happened? Marie-Rose couldn't recall Jayden completing the act; their intimacy that night was abruptly halted by the unexpected arrival of a police squad ringing the bell at Cedric's door. It seemed impossible. She spent a considerable amount of time staring at the walls, searching for an answer to this perplexing mystery.
Overwhelmed by distress, fear coursed through Marie-Rose's veins as a suffocating sensation gripped her, her lungs struggling for a breath of the life-sustaining element. In the engulfing darkness of the universe, she felt an acute sense of isolation, yearning desperately for something to anchor herself to. In these moments of terror, it was Jayden's embrace that she craved, seeking solace.
Perplexed by her own irrational reaction, she questioned why a simple plastic stick with two red stripes could make her feel so utterly lost, especially when she had already weathered similar experiences.
She reminisced about that night when they playfully joked about having kids—a secret desire buried deep within the core of both their minds. What had begun as innocent teasing naturally evolved during their lively face-to-face discussion in the secluded bedroom of Cedric's apartment.
"Jayden, what are your thoughts on Margarita and Lucas?" she inquired curiously, seeking his approval for their relationship, just as she did.
"What about them, Marie? I like them. Is there anything else you want me to say about them?" he replied, seemingly aware that there was more to this question than she had let on.
"Well, yes, I was curious about your perspective on their age gap," she asked, hoping to draw parallels to their own situation, with him being ten years younger than her. Despite their appearances not giving it away, this age difference discomforted her.
"I have no particular point of view on issues like this, Marie. Everyone is free to do whatever they please, to make their own choices," his voice was a little coarse, revealing a hint of discomfort regarding this question.
"Jayden, what is the age difference between you and your wife?" she ventured into the heart of her own discomfort concerning their age gap.
"Former wife. Five years," he responded.
"Five years?" Her eyes widened with a questioning gaze. "Is she only twenty years old?"
"No, she's thirty. She was five years older than me."
"Older than you? Really?" She expressed surprise, as this response caught her off guard.
"Why did you leave your wife, Jayden?" she asked, immediately drawing a connection to their own situation. Fear crept in as she worried he might leave her for the same reason he left his wife, the five-year age gap included.
"Why did you leave Alexandre, Marie?" he countered with a mirrored question. A smile, stretching from one side of his face to the other, played on his lips.
Undeterred, she seized the initiative and responded with her usual courage. The unfolding conversation promised to be eye-opening.
"Alexandre and I started our relationship as an agreement for me to help him, as he was my patient. However, I fell into his trap and ended up falling in love with him like a naive young girl. He, on the other hand, only wanted to overcome his fear of intimacy. Despite our initial agreement to end things once the attraction faded, breaking free from this obsession or attachment proved challenging," Marie-Rose confessed.
"Did you guys have any issues that led to the cancellation of the agreement?" Jayden inquired, his eyes betraying unease. Marie-Rose sensed the hidden intention behind his question. She was willing to wager that Jayden and his ex-wife had encountered marital problems of their own.
"No, Jayden, our intimate life was intense, but, you know, intimacy is not always the answer; it's not a universal problem solver. Sometimes, people lack more than just intimacy," she paused, momentarily at a loss for words before continuing, "I don't know how to explain this in a few words… But back to your question, we were already distancing ourselves by the time I met you."
Jayden remained contemplative for a while, his desire to open up evident, yet he chose to stay silent. Marie-Rose, in reality, hoped her response would coax him into sharing, allowing her to offer support. Despite lacking formal education in sociology, she worked in the department due to her training as a psychologist. Therefore, Marie-Rose did her best to keep the conversation open; both of them needed these answers.
However, she avoided directly asking about their specific problem. Instead, she chose a different approach.
"Jayden, were you sleeping with your wife while you were involved in a relationship with me at the same time?" Her voice teetered on the verge of shaking, but she needed to know. Despite the fact that the answer would have no bearing on her future choices, she felt a pressing need to confront the fears she had avoided at that time.
"No, Marie. What kind of person do you think I am? Ex-wife, by the way," he responded, a hint of irritation in his voice. However, the irritation only served to make him look cuter, especially when he lost his bad boy grin. "Once I took a firm decision to end the marriage, there was no turning back. I don't do such things. I didn't do such things, neither with her nor with another woman…"
"But… I'm trying to find out what could have salvaged your marriage…"
"Marie, don't talk if you don't know what the issue was… I'm not here to be counseled by you to make up with my former wife or to tell me what could have gone better. I'm not interested," he silenced her with his resolute stance.
"Besides, I didn't leave her for you. I was already free when I met you," he concluded in an insistent tone.
"I didn't leave Alexandre for you either, Jayden. I'm not accusing you of anything. I just don't like being a homewrecker. Forgive me for wanting to have this clear in my mind, that I didn't break your marriage."
"Break my marriage in two weeks when we didn't even sleep together once? That would be a world record. Besides, you made it clear from the beginning that you didn't want to rush and that you wanted a serious relationship. Otherwise, you'd kick my butt if you discovered I had different intentions. Remember?"
His words, though harsh, were softened by the sweeter tone of his voice. He suddenly adopted a more affectionate demeanor, drawing closer to her until she found herself in his embrace.
"You want to know why I left her, don't you, babe?" he loosened his emotional walls. "I'll tell you if it helps you, but please expect more shockwaves along the disclosure."
He searched for the right words in the cadence of his voice, then proceeded to explain.
"I was never happy in that marriage. I was tricked into marrying my former wife because of the son we had together."
"Oh, you have a son… How old is he?" she asked, and he noticed a glimmer in her eyes, as if it was a secret longing—an elusive place she couldn't quite reach. He assumed she wanted to have children of her own but hadn't been able to so far.
"He's three but I was young and naive, only twenty-two when she tricked me into knocking her up…" At this point, he was filled with pent-up rage, and she struggled to find the right words to comfort him.
"Tricking you? You can't possibly state something like this, Jayden. She didn't force you not to use condoms…" But before she could conclude her defense, he interrupted her, reclaiming the conversation.
"No, she didn't force me not to wear a condom, neither did she sabotage or break one to get pregnant, but she took advantage of me being drunk to manipulate me into sleeping with her." He presented the situation quite bluntly, the frustration evident, like someone who had something stolen from him. "She got pregnant in one try, and then she came begging to my door not to desert our son." She could swear he was on the brink of tears, so she gently caressed his face. All the while she pondered the situation as something was amiss, asking herself why didn't he request a paternity test.
He nestled his head on her chest, and when he regained his composure, he whispered in her ear, "I want to make kids with you tonight."
She burst into hysterical laughter, seemingly without any apparent reason, leaving him puzzled.
"What did I say that's so funny?" He felt a tinge of frustration at her reaction.
"Nothing, baby!" she reassured him, caressing his cheeks and hair, still amused at his expense. "It's just that I don't feel comfortable having sex with another person in the apartment. Sorry, baby!"
"But if you care so much for Cedric, why don't you invite him with us, if you're so worried he'll hear you from a three-room distance?" he was exasperated, unsure if this was just part of the game or if she had simultaneously turned him down and turned him on.
"Jayden, enough with your silly jokes!" she said, sounding offended, and the balance tilted more towards genuine offense. "I'll call Cathy to keep him company; they seem to be attracted to each other. Perhaps you, too have some secret wishes with her that you want to refute." She appeared visibly insecure at this point.
"Don't be silly, babe!" he kissed her on the cheek. "I promise not to make stupid jokes again. Forgive me?" he inquired as he returned her caresses. Then, as if he remembered something, he asked her straightforwardly.
"Why didn't you marry until now, Marie? Have you been married before, babe?" His eyes widened with curiosity. "It's something that has been bothering me for a while," he admitted candidly.
The answer mirrored the confession she had prepared for him when he revealed he had a son. Despite her claims of openness from the start, the existence of her son had been a secret she kept from him until now.
"I never married because… I had a child out of wedlock. Nobody wanted to marry me with a... how they would call my baby... a bastard. They all avoided me like I had the plague…" Her own pain was audible in her confession to Jayden.
"Marie," he pulled her closer to ease her pain. "You had a son… I would have married you, babe, no matter what."
Marie-Rose couldn't resist spoiling their affectionate moment with: "When, when you were seven?" She laughed wholeheartedly, as if he had just told a good joke. "Or fifteen? Or when?"
"How about now?" he maintained his serious demeanor, not realizing the purpose of those numbers in her joke. "I didn't know you had a son, Marie. You didn't tell me."
"Sorry, baby. It seems I was not the open person that I thought I was. But you know now."
"Yes, I know now," he tightened his grip around her. He tried to maintain his calm demeanor, to act maturely, not to reproach her for anything. After all, revealing a secret like this was a difficult choice.
"I'm so sorry for what you had to go through. How old is he?"
"Eighteen years old!"
"Eighteen years old?" he did a rapid calculation, then he asked as if he had just received a heavenly revelation: "Marie, were you a teenage mom?"
She nodded in response, as words became a rare luxury in the moment.
He sighed, his vulnerability more pronounced.
"How did the two of us find each other, both betrayed by those who should have been our most beloved ones, both with similar backgrounds, both with the same story?"
Since she didn't say anything, silently cuddling deeper into his arms, he asked her a question that he found natural:
"Where is your son now, Marie? Does he live with you?"
"No, baby. He never grew up with me."
"Is he adopted?" he pressed on, seeking to unravel the complexities beneath the surface.
"Sort of…"
"But, Marie, you should… try and meet him, babe… Don't you want to see him again?" It was curious to him that she hadn't thought about this and didn't seem to feel the need. "Do you know where he is?"
"I do, Jayden. But he doesn't know I'm his mother."
"So what? Don't you want to reunite with him…?"
"The truth is… is… the truth is quite dark, Jayden…" she left the answer hanging, a heavy pause in the air.
After a long silence, while she still hid her face from him, he drew another conclusion:
"So, babe, what happened? Did that prick fool you into sleeping with him? Did he leave you after taking advantage of you?" His fists clenched, silently threatening that unknown person who dared to ruin his love's life.
"No, baby. Unfortunately, it wasn't like that at all, my sweetheart." She gathered her words. "I actually did it benevolently."
"Knowingly? Did you do it on purpose? Did you want to have a child at such a young age? Why? Did you want to escape your family?" He was caught in the verve of something akin to anxiety, eager to know the cause of such a strange happening and situation.
"No… The truth is much darker than that."
When he gave her a shocked look, she explained: "I offered myself…" She looked into his eyes to make sure he understood her right. "Jayden, baby, you know that I was part of that coven, right?"
"Yes, sure, I was told. Cedric gave me all the information I needed to know, and I asked a lot, believe me… They have ties with the army, too." He told her something she already knew.
"Well, I was involved in a secret project with them…" She finally told him what she had been wanting to say.
"A project?… That involved you having a baby? With whom, for goodness' sake?" he rolled his eyes. "I also took part in their projects, but something like this… is beyond my understanding and imagination." He was thoroughly shocked.
Marie-Rose reached a point where she could no longer explain in simple concepts what she got into back then. She just remembered the anger with the outcome.
"Who's the father, Marie?" he said, as if ready to go and confront that person.
"Well… That's something that I can't reveal at this time, baby."