Zeroed Out

I was nine months pregnant and days away from my due date when my husband vanished without a trace, leaving behind nothing but a handwritten note. 'Babe, there's a planetary alignment that only happens once every 77 years, and I just got pulled through a time portal. Don't miss me. See you when I see you.' In our three years of marriage, he had made a habit of inventing some absurd excuse just to take Fiona Crest on another vacation. That same night, the rage and heartbreak sent me into premature labor. My water broke, and I was rushed to the hospital. While I was suffering through contractions so brutal that I wanted to die, he was in Nordvalen watching the aurora with Fiona. While I hemorrhaged on the delivery table and barely clung to life, he was riding a hot air balloon with Fiona above the clouds. While I fought my way back from the edge of death to bring our son into the world, he was kissing Fiona under a cascade of fireworks at the foot of the Aurelian Tower. A few days before the baby turned a month old, he sauntered back carrying a two-dollar bootleg action figure and announced, "Babe, I'm back! Look what I brought our son. We're all going to be so happy together." I finally saw through every last lie, and whatever hope I had left died on the spot. On the day of the celebration, I vanished too, leaving behind a single note of my own. 'The Gamma homeworld has summoned me back to my planet. I'm taking the kid and ditching the dad. Don't miss me. Don't wait up.' Chapter 1 I was packing my hospital bag, weighed down by my belly, when I noticed a note sitting on the table. 'Babe, there's a planetary alignment that only happens once every 77 years and I just got pulled through a time portal. Don't miss me. See you when I see you.' The bag slipped from my hands and hit the floor. My husband, Jasper Wynn, had snuck off again behind my back, abandoning his wife who was days away from giving birth. In our three years of marriage, the excuses he came up with were getting more and more ridiculous than the last. I pulled out my phone and checked his location. He was already abroad. I knew exactly what that meant. He was off traveling with Fiona Crest again. Three years together, and none of it mattered more than the woman who still lived rent-free in his heart. A wave of suffocating fury hit me, and a violent pain tore through my abdomen. Warmth flooded between my legs in an instant. I doubled over while clutching my stomach and collapsed to the floor. I managed to dial emergency services before everything went black. My consciousness drifted in and out. The contractions came in relentless waves, drenching me in cold sweat. The warmth between my legs kept spreading, and my body grew colder with every passing second. The paramedic shouted, "She's showing signs of major hemorrhage. Get her to the OR now!" My vision started to blur. A nurse grabbed my hand and called out, "Where's your family? We need a signature before we can operate." I bit down on my lip hard enough to draw blood. My voice was barely a rasp. "It's just me." "You're about to deliver. Where's your husband?" My lips trembled, and tears slid down the sides of my face. "He's dead." Pity flickered across the nurse's expression, and she softened her voice. "Don't worry. The mother's life always comes first." After three years of indifference and cruelty, he might as well be dead. Just before they wheeled me into the operating room, my phone buzzed. The private investigator I hired overseas had sent the latest photos of Jasper. In the photos, he had his arm around Fiona. The two of them stood beneath the Nordvalen night sky, gazing up at the aurora together. He had once promised to take me to see the northern lights for our honeymoon. Work always came first, though, and the trip kept getting pushed back. Now, I finally understood. I was simply never the one his heart wanted. The oxygen mask came down over my face, and the agony spread through every inch of my body. As blood drained out of me, a cold so deep that it felt cellular crept through my limbs. Bag after bag of plasma was pumped into my veins. One raw, guttural scream tore out of me, and then the sound of a baby crying filled the room. On my phone, the screen was still frozen on one last image. Jasper and Fiona were locked in a kiss beneath the Aurelian Tower. I held my crying son and let the tears fall without stopping. Chapter 2 I had barely survived, and I pressed a gentle kiss to my son's head. From that day forward, I was going to keep the child and cut the father loose. I was extremely weak after giving birth. I was forcing myself out of bed through the pain when my mother-in-law, Nancy York, pushed the door open. "Where's Jasper?" she asked in that passive-aggressive tone of hers. "How could you not tell him about something as important as the birth of the baby?" A cold smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. "Jasper said he traveled through time. He's gone." Her expression soured. She knew perfectly well it was just another one of his excuses, but somehow, the blame still landed on me. "Honestly, you can't even keep your own husband in line. What good are you?" In the very next breath, she turned to the bassinet beside me and broke into a grin. "Oh, my grandson is so handsome. He looks just like his daddy." I was long past the point of being bothered by her jabs. My grandfather and Jasper's grandfather were brothers in arms. Both of my parents had died in the line of duty, so on his deathbed, my grandfather entrusted me to the Wynn family. That was the only reason they had agreed to the marriage. For years, I stayed out of respect for Jasper's grandfather and the promise I had made to give the Wynns an heir. Now that I had fulfilled that promise, I would leave the Wynn family for good on the day of the baby's one-month celebration. Nancy took one more satisfied look at the baby and left me alone in the hospital to take care of the child by myself. I went without sleep for the entire stay. Jasper never showed up, not even on the day I was discharged. Photo after photo of him and Fiona arrived on my phone, each one more intimate than the last. When I got home, Nancy had already dismissed the housekeepers. "A mother should raise her own child," she said with a smile. "That's how you build a real bond." Between my recovery and round-the-clock feedings, my body was completely hollowed out. The baby cried nonstop, and my hair came out in clumps. For an entire month, I teetered on the edge of a breakdown. Fiona even sent taunting messages. [Tessa, so what if you married Jasper? The one he really loves has always been me.] She had attached a video of the two of them tangled together. The video was filled with his heavy breathing and her soft moans. The sounds were unmistakable. Late at night, I watched my son sleeping peacefully and let the grief wash over me in silence. My social media feed was flooded with photos Fiona had posted of her and Jasper traveling the world. Every new destination came with another photo. I scrolled through hundreds of them in a kind of masochistic daze, unable to stop myself. The comments section was full of their friends chiming in. [Living it up, huh? Your wife's at home having a baby and you're out globetrotting.] [Seriously, what was the excuse this time?] Jasper had replied underneath: [I told her a once-in-77-years planetary alignment opened a time portal and I got sucked through.] [Man, only you could come up with something like that. Aren't you worried she'll lose it?] [She's put up with it for three years. This time's no different. She'll be at home waiting for me like she always is.] Three years of patience and forgiveness, and all of it had become a running joke between him and his friends. Not this time. I was done. I cried alone through the rest of the night until a series of sharp knocks rattled the front door at dawn. "Babe, I'm back! I brought something for our son." When I opened the door, Fiona was standing right next to him, dressed to the nines. She gave me a sweet, condescending smile. "Oh, honey, you look terrible. A woman really should learn to take better care of herself." I was standing there in a shapeless house dress, the front still stained with dried breast milk. Fiona wrinkled her nose, pulled a perfume bottle from her bag, and spritzed herself. "What is that sour smell? God, it's awful." Chapter 3 Fiona followed up with a sugary smile. "I have a really sensitive nose, so don't take it personally." Jasper gave a slight frown of his own and said, "Babe, I know things have been rough for you these past few days. I just got back from the time portal. Here, I brought something for our son." He reached into a bag and pulled out a cheap bootleg action figure, placing it in my hands. If this had been any other time, I would have thrown it in his face on the spot, the way I always did with whatever half-hearted gift he used to brush me off. Not today, however. I did not care anymore. Glancing back at Fiona, he added, "I ran into her on the way. She said she wanted to come see the baby, so we came together." When I said nothing, Jasper assumed I was sulking out of jealousy the way I always used to. However, I soon smiled. "That's fine. Come on in." Confusion flickered in his eyes, but it passed quickly. "Look at you. Motherhood really does change a woman. You're so much nicer than before." In the past, every time he brought Fiona to our home, I would lose my temper. Every fight between us circled back to her, and it always ended badly. However, I had seen through all of it now. None of it mattered anymore. Fiona clicked her way inside in her heels, and Jasper immediately rushed to the bedroom to see the baby. That left me alone in the living room with Fiona. A sneer curled at the corner of her mouth. "Tessa, look at yourself. You look older than most middle-aged women. Looking like that, how do you expect to hold onto Jasper?" I picked up a baby bottle and began sterilizing it without sparing her a single glance. My silence clearly got under her skin because she tried to escalate things. "You know Jasper doesn't love you, yet you're still clinging to his family like a leech. It's pathetic." I almost laughed. "I'm Jasper's lawfully wedded wife," I said coldly. "Who exactly are you? The mistress?" Fiona's face twisted, but she recovered fast. "Don't think that just because you gave him a child, he'll suddenly become a loyal husband. I can give him children too, so what does yours even count for?" I ignored her and calmly calmly prepared the formula and the bottle. Being shut out of the conversation left her visibly rattled. Just as I reached for the kettle to pour hot water for sterilizing, she snatched it from me and splashed the scalding water onto her own hand. She screamed, "Why did you pour boiling water on me?" Jasper came running out of the bedroom at the sound. Behind him, the baby started wailing. I turned to go to my son, but Fiona was already sobbing against Jasper's chest. "She just splashed boiling water at me out of nowhere. I don't even know what I did to upset her." Before I could get a word out, Jasper raised his hand and slapped me across the face. The force of it knocked me to the floor. My head spun, and before I could steady myself, he was already yelling, "I thought becoming a mother might have finally taught you to behave. But you're still the same vicious person you've always been!" I staggered to my feet and made my way toward my crying son. I had given up on Jasper a long time ago, but the sting in my chest was there all the same, sharp and impossible to ignore. Jasper scooped Fiona into his arms and carried her out of the house. As the door swung open, I caught the smirk of triumph on her lips. I went to the bedroom and held my son, whose face was flushed from crying. My own tears came flooding out with his. Just a little longer. Three more days and I would take him away from all of this for good. That night, Jasper brought Fiona back to the house again. I held my son in my arms while the sounds from the guest room next door bled through the walls. Neither of them was trying very hard to be quiet. It was desire without restraint, and it was Fiona's way of rubbing my face in it. "Jasper, do you think she can hear us right now?" Chapter 4 Jasper laughed, his voice dripping with contempt. "So what if she hears us? She scalded you. Consider this her punishment." Thunder rolled, and lightning split the sky outside. I held my son and did not sleep at all that night. I had just started to drift off when the bedroom door was kicked open. Fiona stood in the doorway with a taunting grin. "Tessa, get up and make breakfast. Jasper's waiting." When I did not answer, she moved closer on purpose, letting the red marks scattered across her skin speak for themselves. She leaned in and whispered against my ear, "Jasper told me last night that just looking at you makes him sick. He said you smell sour all the time and that it makes him want to gag." I ignored her completely and walked toward the bathroom. Then, my son started screaming. My blood ran cold. Fiona's fingernails had left deep crescent marks on the soft skin of his arm. Touching my child was the one line nobody could cross. Every protective instinct I had ignited at once. I grabbed a fistful of Fiona's hair and was about to drag her down when Jasper kicked me to the floor. "Are you ever going to stop?" he shouted. "You're acting like a lunatic." He grabbed the glass from the nightstand and smashed it over my head. The world tilted. Blood ran down my forehead in a warm, steady stream, dripping onto the white floor one drop at a time. Whatever was left inside me died in that moment. When Jasper saw the blood running down the side of my face, his gaze lingered for just a second. However, Fiona whimpered, "Jasper, it hurts so much." Whatever flicker of concern that had been there vanished instantly. He turned back to me, his voice flat and cold. "The baby's one-month celebration is tomorrow. Don't be late. As long as you stop making scenes, your place in this family is secure." Then, he picked Fiona up and walked out, slamming the door behind him without a single backward glance. Jasper had always assumed that what I cared about was the title, the status of being his wife. However, all of that had stopped meaning anything to me a long time ago. Fighting through the throbbing pain in my head, I called the host who had been hired for the celebration. "Tomorrow, at my son's party, could you play a video for me? It's a surprise I put together for my husband." I had compiled every photo of Jasper and Fiona from their trips together, as well as every hotel check-in, into a single montage. The highlight was the video Fiona herself had sent me, the one of the two of them that left nothing to the imagination. After the call, I packed everything I needed and opened the safe to retrieve the will that Jasper's grandfather had left before he passed. It was a property transfer agreement. The old man had been worried about me until the very end, and he had put 60% of his personal assets in a trust for my unborn child. On the day of the baby's one-month celebration, I would officially inherit controlling shares in the Wynn family's company and become its largest shareholder. Once everything was in order, I gathered every gift Jasper had ever given me and burned them all. Under cover of darkness, I took my son in my arms and boarded the next flight out of the country. The following day, the banquet hall was full of guests who were here for the celebration, but there was no sign of me anywhere. Jasper called my phone over and over again, but every call went straight to voicemail. Panic crept in. Something felt very wrong. He raced home but found nothing on the nightstand but a single note. 'The Gamma homeworld has summoned me back to my planet. I'm taking the kid and ditching the dad. Don't miss me. Don't wait up.' He crumpled the note and hurled it to the floor. A second later, his phone rang. His friend was barely able to get the words out. "Jasper, you need to get back here right now. The party's a disaster."