The Call He Never Answered

It took three days after our son died for Adrian to finally show up at the funeral home.

He walked in looking jet-lagged, his skin still holding the windburn from the ski slopes where hed been with his first love. He frowned at me, impatience etched into the lines of his forehead.

Sorry, he said, checking his watch. "Chloe was waiting for me. I didn't see the calls."

I stared at the man I had loved for five years and let out a broken, jagged laugh.

He had no idea.

He didn't know that the calls he ignored weren't just check-ins. They were Judes final, desperate screams for help before the crash.

And right now, the ground beneath Adrian's feet was the place where we were holding his son's funeral.

Chapter 1

Mourners flowed in and out of the memorial hall like a black tide. Their faces wore masks of practiced grief, offering condolences that felt as thin as paper.

Lies. All of it.

I stood in the kitchenette, hands trembling as I poured a glass of water. Behind me, the low hum of conversation sharpened into a blade.

"The kids been dead for days. Still no sign of the father?"

"You didnt hear?" A conspiratorial whisper cut through the air.

"Hear what?"

The voice dropped to a hush, barely audible but striking my ears with crystal clarity. "Adrian took Chloe up to the mountains. Zero cell service up there. The family blew up his phone, but he never picked up a single call."

"Or maybe he just didn't want to." A cruel, stifled laugh followed. "Everyone knows she only trapped him because she got pregnant. If it wasnt for that kid, Adrian would have been with Chloe years ago. That marriage is a joke."

The room spun.

The malicious noise swirled together, a cacophony of judgment until my vision blurred. My knees gave out, and blackness swallowed me whole right there in the middle of the funeral hall.

When consciousness clawed its way back, I was greeted by a splitting headache.

I rolled over, burying my face into the pillow to shut out the world. A damp, salty scent filled my nose.

My own tears.

I had cried enough to soak the fabric, yet the space beside me remained cold. Empty.

Adrian still wasn't here.

The murmuring outside suddenly died down, silenced by the heavy, rhythmic thud of leather shoes against the floorboards.

"Adrian youre finally here," someone in the crowd murmured.

Adrian?

My heart stuttered.

Impossible.

He was miles away, wrapped up in a winter getaway with Chloe. Why would he come back?

More importantlywould she even let him?

Chloe had calculated it perfectly. She dragged Adrian onto an international flight the exact day Jude turned five.

I closed my eyes, the memory searing my mind.

Jude, sitting in the dim light of the dining room, his small head bowed. The candles on his cake were melting into wax puddles, the flickering flame dancing in his dark, sad eyes.

He was a child who lived for sweets, yet he hadn't touched the frosting. He just looked up, his voice small and trembling.

"Mommy? When is Daddy coming home?"

He didn't cry. He didn't throw a tantrum. At five years old, he had already learned the hardest lesson of his short life: Daddy didn't love him. And he certainly didn't love his mother.

Five years.

That was Jude's only wishto have his father at his birthday party.

He died waiting.

The chair beside the bed scraped against the floor, snapping me back to the present.

A weight settled onto the mattress.

Cedarwood and cold air.

I knew that scent better than my own skin. After five years of sharing a bed, my body recognized his proximity before my brain even processed it.

Once, I would have leaned into that warmth. I would have begged for a crumb of his affection.

Now?

I didn't even turn my head to look at him.

Adrian adjusted his cuffs, his voice flat and devoid of emotion.

"Sorry."

That word again.

Chapter 2

The memory of the day he left played on a loop in my mind.

I had blocked his path to the door, my fingers gripping the expensive fabric of his sleeve. I was pathetic, begging him.

"Cant you go tomorrow? Please, Adrian. Its Judes fifth birthday. He just wants his dad here."

I knew the rules of our marriage. I knew I had no right to ask him for anything. This wasn't a union he wanted; it was a cage hed been forced into.

But for Jude? I would shred my pride.

Predictably, Adrian didn't even flinch. He pried my fingers off his arm, his expression blank. Cold.

"Sorry. Chloe is waiting for me."

Chloe was waiting.

But his son was waiting, too.

Only this time, Jude wouldn't be waiting anymore. He was done.

A deep chill radiated from my bones, making me shiver violently under the covers. I curled into a tight ball, knees to chest, trying to hold myself together.

Adrian sat in the chair nearby.

He knew I was awake. He was a paranoid man, hyper-vigilant. Over the years, he monitored my every movenot out of love, but out of suspicion. He was terrified I would scheme against him again, or worse, hurt the woman he actually loved.

"You're up?"

His voice held no grief. Only impatience.

"The crowd downstairs has cleared out. Get up and eat something."

How could he be so calm?

It was as if the body in the other room wasn't his flesh and blood.

But then again, maybe to him, it wasn't. For five years, he never treated Jude like a son, and he certainly never treated me like a wife. If not for my mothers scheming, I never would have ended up in Adrians bed. I never would have become Mrs. Pei.

He hated me. He hated my mother.

He once called us parasitesthe snake that bit the farmer who saved it.

The thought of Jude sent a fresh wave of acid up my throat. I pressed my face harder into the sodden pillow, my voice sounding like it had been dragged through gravel.

"Did you did you see Jude?"

"Yeah."

"Good." I swallowed the sob threatening to rip my chest open. "Now get out."

Adrian didn't move. His voice remained as light and unaffected as a breeze.

"I didn't get the calls, Tessa. Once we got into the mountains, the signal died I'm serious."

Serious?

Was he emphasizing the truth, or trying to absolve himself of guilt?

It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

"Okay. Get out."

He still didn't leave. The air in the room grew heavy, shifting from indifference to accusation.

"Tessa the kid was five years old. How could you let him go out alone?"

My breath hitched.

"I'm his father," he continued, his tone hardening. "Don't you think I deserve an explanation?"

An explanation?

A dry, hollow laugh scraped its way out of my throat.

"Ha."

I forced my stiff, aching limbs to move, pushing myself upright.

I knew exactly what I looked like.

Hideous.

My face was a map of tragedytear tracks crusted on pale skin, deep creases from the pillow etched into my cheek, eyes sunken into dark, hollow pits. I looked like a skeleton wrapped in skin.

And then there was Adrian.

Chapter 3

He sat there, immaculate.

Suit pressed, tie perfectly knotted, posture rigid. His face was a mask of glacial indifference. No red rimmed eyes. No swollen lids.

He looked like a detective interrogating a suspect. And I was the criminal on the stand.

"What's funny?" Adrian frowned, the expression sharp with annoyance.

"I'm laughing at you."

I leaned back against the headboard, feeling like old parchmentdry, brittle, ready to crumble into dust, yet the edges remained sharp enough to cut.

"Do you know where Jude was trying to go when he left the house?"

Adrian stared at me, waiting.

"He was going to find you."

I let the words hang there.

"He called you. Over and over again. Not a single one went through. He told me, 'Daddy might be lost. Daddy can't find his way home.' So he went out to find you."

Adrian hesitated, a flicker of somethingdefensiveness, maybecrossing his eyes. "You didn't stop him?"

"I could trick him once, maybe twice. But he was worried about his dad. He waited until I"

I stopped.

Suddenly, the absurdity of it all choked me. Why was I explaining this to him? Why did I still care what he thought?

I exhaled, the breath shaking in my lungs.

"My fault."

Two words.

They hit the cold air of the room like a gavel strike. Adrian's eyes narrowed, scanning me, dissecting me.

I met his gaze, my voice steady, slicing through the silence.

"My mistake was loving you when I had no business doing so. My mistake was marrying you through a twist of fate and having Jude. My mistake was giving birth to him, letting him suffer through a life where he was unwanted, and failing to protect him."

The pressure in the room mounted, heavy and suffocating. I forced the corners of my mouth up into a broken smile.

"But my biggest mistake? Thinking we could ever go back to how we were before."

Adrians expression went blank. The air left the room.

Crack.

Neither of us saw it coming.

The slap connected with my cheek before I even registered the movement.

A figure stormed in from the hallway, a whirlwind of sobbing and screaming. After the slap, hands clawed at my shoulders, shaking me violently.

"You couldn't even watch one child! Do you even deserve to be a mother?!"

Patricia.

Adrian's aunt.

She was loud, arrogant, and vicious. She had never liked me, and she despised Jude even more. I remembered the times shed "accidentally" shoved him, fed him rotten peaches, or whispered poison into his little ear: Your daddy hates you.

But now?

She was wailing, a performance worthy of an Oscar, putting on a show of grief strictly for Adrian's benefit.

I sat there, numb.

Another slap. Then another.

The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth as my lip split.

Adrianmy husband, the father of my dead childsat there and watched.

He didn't move. He didn't speak. His eyes were voids of indifference. Just like always. In the moments when Jude and I needed him most, he was never a participant, only a spectator.

Patricia grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking my head back.

Pain radiated across my scalp, sharp and hot. Through the tears and the chaotic screaming, I locked eyes with Adrian.

Years ago, I tripped and scraped my knee. Just a scratch. He had panicked, his brow furrowed, asking over and over if I was okay, if it hurt.

Time changes everything.

Now, I was being beaten in front of him, and he looked at me like I was a stranger.

From the innocent crush of my youth to the careful, walking-on-eggshells obsession after he turned cold it all led to this. The schemes, the forced marriage, the title of Mrs. Pei.

It was all a joke.

Chapter 4

I used to have so much for him. Love. Hope. Guilt.

But the string had been pulled too tight for too long.

Snap.

I bolted upright. My hand shot out, gripping Patricias arm.

I didn't think. I just swung.

Crack.

My palm collided with her cheek.

Patricia froze. She clutched her face, eyes bulging, staring at me in total, paralyzed shock.

In this house, I owed nothing to anyone. Except Adrian. But I definitely didn't owe her. And I certainly didn't owe an apology for Jude.

That slap was payback. Long overdue.

By the time we arrived at the cemetery, my face was a wreck.

My left cheek throbbed, swollen and hot. Scratches from Patricias nails marred my chin.

The damage would have been worse if Adrian hadn't intervened.

But he didn't pull her off me to protect me.

He had shoved me away.

Inside the town car, the heater blasted, but a glacial chill seeped through the windows. I stared out at the passing grey landscape, feeling absolutely nothing. Hollow.

Adrian sat next to me.

He was on the phone.

Chloe.

It was the day of his son's burial. We were minutes away from lowering a small casket into the ground. And he was taking a call from her.

His tone was loose, relaxed. He had a specific kind of patience reserved only for her.

"Yeah. I'll be busy for a few more days."

"You go back first."

"Her?"

I turned slightly. Adrians gaze flicked toward me, cool and detached. He pulled the phone away from his ear and extended it to me.

"Chloe wants to talk to you."

If this were the old methe Tessa who still had fight left in her veinsI would have smashed the phone against the dashboard.

But now? With Jude gone?

What was the point?

Adrian watched me with a flicker of surprise as I took the phone. I didn't scowl. I smiled. A broken, jagged thing.

I pressed the device to my ear.

The screen was still warm from his face.

Once, that warmth was my drug. I used to crave his scent, the sound of his voice, the heat of his skin. I wanted to be close to him so badly it hurt.

Now, that lingering body heat just made bile rise in my throat.

"Tessa?"

Chloes voice floated through the speaker. Classy. Cheerful. Unaffected.

"Are you doing okay?"

I didn't answer.

Beside me, Adrians presence was a heavy, suffocating weight. The threat was unspoken but loud: If you say one harsh word to her, you're walking.

Hed done it before.

Two years ago. A blizzard. Late at night.

All I had done was call Chloe and tell her to stop destroying my family. Adrian found out. He exploded. He smashed my phone and kicked me out of the car in the middle of a snowstorm.

I walked for two hours in the freezing dark.

I ran a high fever for a week. Adrian never checked on me. Not once.

It was Jude.

My baby boy had knelt by my bed, his small, cool hand resting on my burning forehead, whispering, "Mommy, Mommy."

I survived that night for Jude.

Because if I died, who would protect him from the wolves in this family?

Chapter 5

But now? I was the one who was gone.

The air in my lungs felt thin, insufficient. Every breath was manual labor. The engine that kept me fighting for survival had sputtered and died.

Chloes voice drilled into my ear, low and soft, designed to fly under Adrian's radar.

"Tessa. You lost the kid. How are you holding up?"

She paused, letting the silence fester.

"It must be bad. You lost your only leverage."

Leverage.

Thats all my son was to them. Jude was the chip I played to get through the Pei family gates. Without him, I was nothing. Without him, staying in this house was a meaningless torture.

I didn't want this place. I never did.

My throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper. I forced the words out.

"Then I'm giving him back."

Chloe paused. "What?"

"I'm returning him to you." I corrected myself, my voice void of any fight. "Sorry. He was yours to begin with. Adrian he's yours."

The phone was ripped from my hand.

Adrian ended the call, his face twisted in a scowl that promised violence.

"What the hell are you spouting to Chloe now?"

What could a mother who just buried her child possibly say to her husband's mistress?

There were no warnings left in me. No curses. Only surrender.

I was letting go. I was stepping aside so the lovers could finally reunite. I didn't have the strength to hold the line anymore. I didn't even have the strength to keep living.

Jude was buried in a drizzle that chilled the skin.

The photo on the gray headstone was taken when he was three. We had booked a session for a family portrait. Jude and I arrived early. We waited from morning until the sun began to dip.

Around us, other families laughed. They wore matching outfits. Fathers tossed sons in the air; mothers fixed daughters' hair. The photographer captured joy, frame after frame.

Their happiness made us look like a punchline.

I could handle Adrian's cold shoulder. But Jude?

In the photo, Jude wasn't smiling. He was holding back disappointment, trying to be brave so I wouldn't be sad.

Now, standing in the mud, someone held an umbrella over my head. I stared at the stone and prayed.

Don't come back to me, baby. In your next life, find a mom and dad who both love you. Find a dad who looks at you. Don't suffer like this again.

Rain blurred my vision. A shadow moved across my peripheral.

Adrian.

His black wool coat brushed against the damp air. He bent down, placing a box at the base of the headstone.

When he stood up, I saw it.

A Lego race car set.

My blood ran cold.

I grabbed his sleeve, my grip like iron. He stiffened, glancing around at the relatives, terrified I would cause a scene.

"Not here," he hissed. "We'll talk at home."

"What is that?"

My voice was terrifyingly calm.

Adrian looked back at the grave, his expression unreadable.

"A birthday present. He asked me for it. I didn't get the chance to give it to him"

"He asked you for it?"

"Yeah," Adrian said, buttoning his coat. "We had a deal."

Chapter 6

The look on my face must have terrified him. It was the look of a woman watching her world turn to ash.

Adrian grabbed my wrist, his grip tight. "Whats wrong?"

My knees buckled.

I collapsed into the mud in front of Judes headstone, a knife twisting violently in my gut.

My baby

On his very last birthday, he held a fake gift in his hands and smiled like it was the greatest treasure in the world.

He knew.

He had to know that the watch I gave himthe one I swore was from his daddywas something I bought myself. But he accepted it. He smiled. He thanked his father.

He protected me from the truth: that for five years, his father didn't love him enough to buy him a single birthday gift.

And now, only in death, did he get a real gift.

What was the point?

The air inside the Pei manor was thick enough to choke on.

Franklin was waiting in the main hall.

The old man stood tall, his knuckles white as he gripped his cane. His thick brows were knotted together in fury, but when he looked at me, his expression softened.

"Tessa. Go upstairs."

I knew that tone.

He was going to discipline Adrian.

Franklin was the only person in this house who actually wanted me here. He was the one who championed this marriage. Years ago, my father died saving Franklins life.

When the pillar of my family collapsed, the Pei family stepped in to repay the blood debt. They gave my mother a job as a housekeeper with a salary that secured our future.

Franklin put me in the same private school as Adrian. He told his son, Take care of her. Treat her like your own sister.

Adrian did exactly that.

My mistake was falling in love with him.

Now, Franklin had cleared the room. He knew Adrian was late to the funeral. He was going to extract payment in pain.

Lupe, the housekeeper, intercepted me on the landing. She was frantic, practically dragging me toward the stairs.

"Mr. Pei listens to you! You have to go down there and beg for mercy! Please, Tessa, go!"

Beg for him?

Why?

In the past, I would have thrown myself in front of that cane. If Adrian got a papercut, I bled. But that was when I loved him.

I had spent years watching him run himself ragged for Chloe. The love had rotted away, leaving only guilt and self-loathing.

How many times had I wanted to pack Jude up and leave?

And how many times did Franklin look at me with those old, weary eyes, begging me to stay? For Jude, hed say. For your mothers dying wish.

I never should have listened.

I walked into the bedroom and stripped off the costume of Mrs. Pei.

I put on my simplest clothesjeans and a sweater. I opened a suitcase. I didn't pack a single thing of mine. I only packed Judes belongings.

I unclasped the diamond earrings from my lobes and set them on the vanity. I checked the room one last time.

Nothing coming with me belonged to Adrian.

A breath I didnt know I was holding released from my chest.

I dodged Lupe and walked down the stairs.

Adrian was already on his knees.

He was propping himself up with one hand, his breathing ragged, biting back a groan of pain. He looked up as I descended. His eyes were red, rimmed with shock as they locked onto mine.

I didn't pause. I didn't look at him for a second longer than necessary.

Franklin tossed the cane aside.

He was the person I respected most in this world. He gave me an education. He gave my mother and me a roof over our heads when we had nothing. Even now, through the wreckage, I was grateful to him.

"Uncle Franklin," I said softly.

Chapter 7

"Uncle Franklin."

I used the title deliberately. Not Dad. Never again.

It felt like a dark echo of my wedding day. Back then, Franklin had taken my trembling hand and placed it on top of Adrians, his voice thick with emotion. "Tessa is a good kid. Treat her well."

It was the exact same request he made the day my mother first brought me to the Pei estate.

"Tessa is your sister now," he had told a teenage Adrian. "You go to school together. You come home together. You take care of her."

And back then? Adrian actually smiled.

In those high school days, he was my guardian. He walked me to the cafeteria. He waited for me by the school gates. He dragged me to the bleachers to watch him play basketball, ignoring the legions of girls who would have killed to hold his water bottle.

He was a supernovabrilliant, magnetic, the center of every room.

And I was invisible.

I was the charity case in the washed-out uniform that I wore until the fabric thinned. I kept my head down, my ponytail tight, my eyes on the floor. I was too shy to meet his gaze, too plain to stand next to him.

Everyone knew the score: Adrian Pei was only nice to me because his father owed my father a life debt. He tolerated my awkward silence and my social ineptitude because he was a "good guy."

Then came Chloe.

I don't remember exactly when she slipped into the frame, but suddenly, the balance shifted.

She was the one cheering on the sidelines. She was the one sitting across from him in the cafeteria, laughing at his jokes.

I was too dense to notice at first.

It took a overheard conversation in the girls' bathroom to shatter my delusion.

"Does Tessa have zero self-awareness?" A voice sneered from the mirror. "Adrian and Chloe are dating. Why is she still tagging along like a third wheel? Its embarrassing."

Third wheel.

Dating.

The words hit me like a physical blow.

I got the message. I took the hint overnight. I stopped walking with him. I declined the lunch invites. I hid in the library. I avoided him at home.

I thought I was doing the right thing.

Then came the day I sat with a male classmate in the cafeteria.

Adrian materialized at our table. He loomed over us, his shadow swallowing my tray. He looked at the boy, then at me, his eyes dark with a possessive, arrogant heat.

"So," he drawled, his voice dripping with disdain. "You're too busy to eat with me because you're dating this?"

I didn't understand it then. I just didn't want to be the third wheel.

But years later, through a twist of fate and family pressure, I became the villain. I broke up the golden couple. I stole his future.

Now? It was time to return the seat to its rightful owner.

In the living room, Adrian stood up.

He dusted off his knees, wincing only slightly. The beating hadn't broken him; it barely slowed him down.

He looked at me. I looked at Franklin.

"Uncle," I said, my voice steady. "I left everything in the bedroom. The jewelry, the clothes it's all there. I'm leaving today."

"Tessa" Franklin's voice cracked.

I had warned him days ago. I told him I was filing for divorce. He had begged, pleaded, used the same guilt trips he used to keep me here for years.

But he saw my face now. He knew. Without Jude, the cage was open. I wasn't staying in this prison my mother had built for me.

Adrian blinked, looking back and forth between us like an outsider.

"Leaving?" He frowned, genuinely confused. "Going where?"

The question snapped the last thread of Franklins patience.

"You animal!" Franklin roared, raising the cane again. "Shut your mouth!"

Chapter 8

Adrians brows twisted, his eyes a storm of conflicting emotions I had no desire to decode.

"Tessa is my wife," he said, his voice dropping to a low, territorial growl. "Do I not have the right to ask where she's going?"

My wife.

So he knew. He knew the title, but he had never learned the role.

Franklin let out a choked gasp, his hand clutching his chest as his face drained of color. The stress was hitting his heart.

I stepped forward, supporting the old mans weight. "Uncle, please. Calm down."

"Tessa" Franklins voice was wet with regret. He looked at the wreckage of my marriage, knowing exactly where the fault lines lay. "This is my mistake. I didn't raise that animal right. I let you suffer I let Jude" He shuddered. "If your mother knew, shed never forgive me."

"Uncle, stop. Don't say that."

I helped him sit, my movements mechanical. When I straightened up, I collided with Adrians gaze. He was studying me, looking for a crack in the armor.

"Take care of your health, Uncle," I said softly.

My face was dry. The tears were gone. And that terrified them more than the weeping ever did.

I turned to leave.

As I passed Adrian, his hand shot out, clamping around my wrist.

"Clear this up," he demanded, his grip tightening. "Where are you going? Why are you leaving?"

There is a specific kind of grief that transcends sadness. Its called indifference. Its the death of hope.

Adrian didn't understand that concept. He thought he was still playing a game where he held all the cards.

I didn't even look at him.

I ripped my arm out of his grasp with a violent jerk and walked out the door.

Three days after I left the Pei estate, my body finally gave out