Double Regrets: My Boyfriend Is My Ex’s Boss

Three blocks out, Amelia finally stopped.

Cold air. April wet pavement. Bare feet on the curb.

A little gold pendant, warm against her collarbone, was the only thing on her body that still felt like hers.

It was her grandmother's. Her great-grandmother's before that. Four generations of women had worn it through wars and winters and worse.

Family lore said the pearl held luck. That whoever wore it would be watched over.

She'd been pressing it against Leo's forehead every night since the day he came home from the NICU. He'd been born too early - so small, blue around the mouth, with a heart that whistled when he breathed.

The doctors had said wait and see. She'd whispered every prayer she knew into that pearl and laid it against her son's chest until he fell asleep.

Five years. He hadn't been sick a single day since his second birthday.

She heard them before she saw them.

Two sets of shoes. One big. One small.

"Amelia!"

"Mommy!"

She closed her eyes. Turned around.

Adrian was holding Leo's hand. A united front. Two against one.

"What the hell are you doing," Adrian hissed. "Are you trying to ruin me?"

Amelia ignored him. She crouched. Held out her arms to her son.

"Leo. Baby. Come to Mommy."

Leo did not move.

"You ruined Aunt Sera's party," he said. "You crashed it. In your ugly dress."

"Baby, I didn't - "

"Aunt Sera is nicer than you. She's prettier. She doesn't make me eat broccoli." His chin came up. "And she doesn't show up in gross cheap dresses to important places."

"Leo - "

"I want her to be my mommy. Not you."

Amelia's knees hit the pavement.

She wasn't sure when that happened.

"Why," she whispered.

"Because you came to make her cry on her special night." Clear. Proud. "That's not nice, Mommy."

Adrian sighed, like she was being difficult. "He's right, Amelia. Sera has ALS. Two years, maybe less. And tonight was supposed to be her one good night. You showed up uninvited and embarrassed her in front of four hundred people. Where is your humanity?"

Amelia stared at him.

For a second she could not even breathe.

"I didn't say a word, Adrian."

"What?"

"Tonight. In that ballroom. From the moment I walked in to the moment I ran out - I did not say one word. Not to her. Not to you. Not to anyone."

"That isn't - "

"I stood there. I got cake smashed in my face. My son told four hundred people I was the cleaning lady. And I never opened my mouth."

Adrian's jaw twitched. "You showed up. That was enough."

"I showed up to my husband's office to find him."

"In a sundress with a grocery store cake - "

"I came from daycare, Adrian. Where you took our son without telling me."

"You should have known better than to walk in. The moment you saw the cameras, you should have turned around. Instead you stood there. You let yourself be photographed. You made a scene."

"I made a scene."

"You think the press won't pick up that footage? You think Sera won't see it? She's going to spend the rest of her dying life knowing she was the reason a strange woman cried in a ballroom on her one good night. That is on you, Amelia. You did that to her."

"I - " Her voice broke. "I didn't say one word - "

"You didn't have to. You knew exactly what you were doing the moment you stepped off that elevator."

She looked up at him.

He was looking down at her, calm and clear and certain, the way you look at a child who has spilled milk and is now trying to lie about it. He believed it. He had said it three times and he believed it now.

That was what gaslighting looked like, she realized. It didn't shout. It didn't scream. It just stood over you in a tailored suit and rewrote what had happened in front of four hundred witnesses, and dared you to disagree.

She was about to say something - she didn't know what - when his eyes dropped.

To her throat.

To the small gold pendant resting against her collarbone.

Adrian's face changed.

"Is that the necklace."

Her hand flew up to it.

"Adrian - "

"That necklace." He took a step closer. "Your grandmother's necklace. The lucky one."

"Don't."

"Sera has been sleeping two hours a night, Amelia. The doctors say stress is the worst thing for ALS. It accelerates the decline. Two years could become one." His voice softened, careful and warm. "You said yourself the pearl protected Leo. Five years and he hasn't been sick. You have your son. He's safe. He's strong. The necklace did its job for him."

"Adrian, no."

"Just for a few months. Until she stabilizes. It's a piece of jewelry, Amelia."

"It is my grandmother's."

"It is a freshwater pearl worth two hundred dollars."

"It is the only thing my mother left me."

"And Sera is dying."

Amelia's hand closed over the pendant. "No."

Adrian's jaw tightened.

"You would let a woman die," he said quietly, "to keep a trinket."

"If she is that sick, she should see a doctor. Not you. Not my son. And certainly not my grandmother's necklace."

The street went quiet.

Adrian stared at her like he had never seen her before.

Then -

"Mommy."

Leo. Small voice. Wobbling.

She looked down at her son. He had taken a step toward her. His eyes were wet. His lower lip was shaking.

"Mommy, I'm sorry."

Oh.

Oh.

Her arms opened before her brain caught up.

He came right to her. He pressed his small body against her chest. He wrapped his arms around her neck.

She buried her face in his hair. "Baby - "

His small fist closed around the chain.

And yanked.

Snap.

Amelia froze.

Leo stepped back.

He held the pendant up high, the broken chain dangling, the freshwater pearl spinning slow under the streetlight.

He was not crying anymore.

He was grinning.

He turned to his father. "I got it, Daddy! I got it for Aunt Sera!"

* * *