Chapter 2

The next few days were a blur of hushed phone calls Ethan made, of sympathetic, pitying looks from his mother, Eleanor, when she visited. The story was out. Sarah Thompson, the quiet country girl, had a wild, shameful secret. Online gossip started, faceless comments painting me as reckless, unfit. Ethan kept reassuring me it was temporary, that Olivia was grateful, that things would go back to normal.

Normal. Nothing felt normal.

Then, Ethan dropped the next bomb.

"Olivia needs a place to stay for a bit," he announced one evening, not meeting my eyes. "She' s too traumatized to be alone. Her place... it has bad memories of the festival aftermath, the calls she got."

I stared at him. "Here? You want Olivia Hayes to live here? In our home?"

"Just for a little while, Sarah. Until she' s stronger. She needs support."

"And what about me, Ethan? What support do I get? I' m the one being publicly shamed for something I didn' t do." My voice trembled.

"Don' t be dramatic," he said, a flicker of annoyance in his eyes. "It' s the guest room. It' s the least we can do. She' s been through a lot."

Olivia arrived the next day, a small suitcase in hand, her eyes wide and tearful. She looked like a frightened bird. She barely looked at me, just clung to Ethan' s arm, whispering her thanks to him.

Our house, my sanctuary, suddenly felt alien. Olivia' s presence was a constant reminder of Ethan' s betrayal. She' d stay in her room mostly, but I' d hear her soft weeping, or Ethan' s low, comforting voice talking to her. He brought her tea, made sure she ate, treated her like delicate glass.

I tried to talk to him, really talk.

"Ethan, this isn' t right. She shouldn' t be here. This is our home, for our family."

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Sarah, you' re making this harder than it needs to be. Olivia is my friend. She' s in trouble. I' m helping her. Why can' t you understand that?"

"I understand you' re putting her before me, before our baby," I said, my voice flat.

"That' s not true! I' m protecting her from a scandal that wasn' t her fault, not really. She just made a mistake. A single woman, it' s different. You' re my wife. We' re a team."

A team? It felt like he was playing for the other side.

Olivia started to venture out of the guest room more. She' d sit in the living room, wrapped in a soft blanket Ethan had bought her, looking pale and lost. If I entered, she' d flinch, as if my very presence was an accusation. Ethan would then shoot me a look, a silent plea to be gentle with the "fragile" Olivia.

I felt like an intruder in my own life. The air was thick with unspoken things, with her supposed trauma and my very real, very public humiliation. My home was no longer a haven, but a stage for Olivia' s victimhood, with Ethan as her devoted protector. And I was forced to watch, an unwilling audience to their drama. The anger inside me grew, a cold, hard knot in my chest. This couldn't be my life. I couldn't bring my child into this.