Sweet Romance14 min read
I woke up in his life — and he never stopped watching me
ButterPicks14 views
"I need you to sign the divorce papers. The child stays with me."
Those were the first words Gabriel Hanson said to me.
I blinked. The restaurant around us blurred, then sharpened into something else, like a film reel skipping frames.
"You — you said what?" I managed.
Gabriel didn't look surprised. He only held the toddler tighter, as if the child might float away if not gripped.
"Sign," he repeated, voice steady. "It's easier this way."
I stared at the paper bag in his hand, at the tiny bundle of toys peeking out. The man in front of me was the same Gabriel Hanson I'd admired for seven years from afar—same square jaw, same quiet eyes—but now there was a child folded into his chest like part of his silhouette. A child with my eyes and his nose. A child who, a beat ago, had waved at me and called out, "Mama!"
"I—" My voice failed. "Gabriel, this can't be real."
"Isn't it, Jayden?" he asked. "Do you remember getting married?"
I opened my mouth, but all I could hear was the buzz of people at other tables, the hum of fluorescent lights. The room felt foreign. When I'd sat down for dinner with friends—just a simple dinner—I hadn't expected to leave married, to return to a home I'd never lived in, or to speak a language that fit my mouth wrong.
"Maybe you lost your memory," I blurted.
Gabriel's face went still. "Lost your memory? Convenient."
"It could be," I said. "It could be a concussion. Or—"
"You're saying you don't remember your own wedding night?" he asked, voice clipped.
"I'm saying I lost track of reality for a minute," I said. "We all do. Right?"
The child reached up, tiny fingers patting at Gabriel's beard. "Mama," he said again, soft as cotton.
Gabriel's mouth tightened. "Call me whatever you want later. Right now, read the agreement."
I stood in a restaurant that had shifted into a Sichuan place—sudden heat, new aromas—watching my life rewrite itself. Around us, my friends were gone. The server passed by without looking at me. The people at the next table smiled, oblivious.
"You didn't even say hello," I said to Gabriel, the old ache of seven years twisting sharp.
"People change," he said. "We agreed on this before."
"Before what?"
"Before things got messy."
His shoulders were rigid. I thought of all the nights I'd sat up, rewatching the memory of him helping me find a lost stack of books at the campus library. He'd told me once to say what I felt, to stop shrinking. Now he felt unreachable in a different way—present and closed-off at once.
"You have a child," I said slowly, like testing a cold pool with my toe. "His name—?"
"Ezra," Gabriel said. "Call him 'Mumu' if you like."
Ezra blinked at me. "Mama," he whispered.
My knees went weak. I crouched down on reflex. Ezra's face lit in that electric, uncomplicated way only two-year-olds can manage.
"Say hi to Aunt Jayden," I laughed, heart full of something that wasn't yet terror. "Say hi."
He smiled and waved, then hid his face against Gabriel's shoulder.
"Why are you talking to him like he's not your son?" Gabriel asked, gaze sharp.
"You make it sound like it's my crime," I said. "What did I even do? I walked into a bathroom and—"
"—and now you call him 'Mumu' and half the house thinks you're extravagant with your wardrobe," Gabriel finished. "The wardrobe's a problem, Jayden."
It should have been absurd enough to make me laugh—words about clothes while clutching a resignation agreement—but Gabriel's tone had an edge that didn't allow for humor.
"You told me you were moving out," I said. "That was your choice."
He smiled, but it was small and brittle. "Some choices are mutual."
The house we went back to was uncanny in its order. Gray sheets, a closet arranged from dark to light like a strict librarian had been sorting mood. There were no traces of me—no sweaters folded with familiar edges, no hiding places for sweatshirts with holes in the sleeves. My clothes were gone because in this life, the woman who had lived here dressed in a way that shouted, not whispered.
"I don't have anything to wear," I muttered to him. "Where are all my clothes?"
Gabriel peered into the wardrobe, expression unreadable. He stepped closer than seemed necessary, as if to test my reaction.
"Lost your memory, huh?" he said.
"Maybe," I said. "Maybe this is a dream."
He handed me a robe—silk, too thin for my usual comfort—and almost like a challenge, asked, "Which one do you want to wear?"
My mouth opened. "Why would I have to choose in front of you?"
He shrugged. "Because you always make sudden choices."
The robe was scandalous in someone else's life—thin straps, the kind bloggers wore in photos. My face heated. The bed in the guest room had someone's imprint in the sheets.
"You're really not subtle," I whispered.
"What do you want me to be?" Gabriel asked. He sounded tired.
That night, we slept in the same bed for the first time. I took it like a dare. He woke and pressed close, and for an hour the steady rhythm of his chest kept me anchored. "You smell like stability," I told him.
He did something only once: he kissed my forehead and said quietly, "Sleep."
Over the next week, being someone else felt dangerous and delicious at once. At eleven each morning, nurses at Gabriel's department would greet me with a mixture of curiosity and warmth. "Mrs. Hanson," they called. I would flinch at my reflection in the hospital window—my profile in a face I'd never learned how to carry confidently.
"Who are you before dinner, Jayden?" Gabriel teased one afternoon.
"An imposter," I replied.
He scoffed. "That's lazy. Be more creative."
And then the others arrived—people who built the borders around the life I had to walk through. Katharina Dubois from pediatrics, all polite smiles and perfume that smelled of confidence, came by with a stack of patient forms and a tone that slid between teasing and judgment.
"Darling," she said, patting my hand in a way that felt rehearsed. "Gabriel's doing so much. How do you manage the brand on top of being a mother?"
"Brand?" The word hit me like cold rain.
"Your label," Katharina said. "You're not only a mother. You're J&K. Everyone knows."
I had to laugh, a tiny, disbelieving sound. "J&K?"
"Your label," Katharina repeated. "You and 'Jin'—you've been killing it online."
She smiled like someone showing me a catalog. Her eyes had a habit of ending sentences with what-are-you-even-doing? and it made me small in a room of larger women.
I found my phone tucked into a clutch bag that wasn't mine. Notifications screamed. Comments, mentions, tags—my name, Jayden, but a version I didn't recognize. Video clips of me, I thought, because I had been dabbling in fashion on a side account in my real life. But the clicks were massive—millions—my face bold and confident in ways I didn't remember learning. A brand pitch, scheduled product collabs, ad contracts. My stomach twisted.
"You have followers," Gabriel observed one evening, a corner of amusement in his voice. "Millions."
"Millions?" I echoed, dizzy.
"Seven figures," he said. "Don't freak. You planned it."
"Planned what?" I demanded.
"To leave him," Gabriel said, matter-of-fact. "To write the audios about 'freedom.' To be big on camera."
The word 'leave' landed like a stone. Katharina had said "weird things" about me before—about dressing too loud for a child—but she hadn't seemed outwardly venomous. Then a phone call came that night.
"Who is this?" I asked, listening.
A woman's voice snapped over the line: "Jayden, you're destroying the campaign. Stop going off-grid—you're losing the brand partners. If you don't get your act together, I'll post the footage."
"Who are you?" I demanded.
"Destiny De Santis," the voice said before I could ask. "You earn as we plan. You cancel now, we lose everything."
"You're threatening me?" I asked, cold.
"Someone has to protect the investment," Destiny said. "Get back on schedule, or I will make sure the press remembers you're married to a hospital doctor."
It was like someone slammed a heavy door shut. My brain raced—what had I done in the other life? Who had I been? I had been a small, quiet version of myself. Here, I was large and visible. People had expectations. And some of them were ready to punish me for not fitting them.
The rot showed itself fast. A video of me with a wardrobe that Gabriel had earlier denounced—leggy, daring—surfaced online. Comments poured like rain. Some applauded. Some desired. Others derided. Destiny's voice threaded through like a guillotine: "If you keep this up, Jayden, the brand goes. And I'll tell everyone about your marriage trouble. Maybe then, your little life will look the way it belongs."
That's the kind of person who must be called out in public. Later, I'd learn the rules of this life were rigid—reputations were currency, and brand managers like Destiny counted every cent.
But the true betrayal came from one that hid behind a smile: Katharina. She'd sown seeds—casual comments, small laughs, offhanded suggestions about "the kind of woman who shirks responsibilities." Rumors became tweets became whispers in the hospital corridors.
"You can't let her make your choices for you," Gabriel advised, his voice a low thread. "Stand up when she crosses the line."
I didn't know how to. I had never been good at confrontation. But when Destiny's threats escalated—an anonymous message with a video clip and the caption, "What kind of mother are you?"—something broke inside me. I couldn't be a ghost in someone's public life.
At the weekly department luncheon, with doctors and nurses and visiting staff packed into the cafeteria, I decided to go public.
"May I?" I asked Gabriel, who had been standing beside me.
He nodded.
I stepped onto a low platform where interns usually stood to present cases. My heart was loud as a drum in my throat. "Hello," I said. "I'm Jayden Hanson."
Silence.
"I'm going to talk about some things that have been said about me. About who I am and who I've been."
Heads turned. Phones tilted. Someone started a live stream.
Katharina sat at a table with a smile like a knife. Destiny lingered at the back, hands clasped. I felt small and huge at the same time.
"This week," I said, and my voice didn't shake now, "someone told lies about me. Someone decided to turn my private choices into gossip to steer public attention."
"This meeting is about department budgets," a nurse muttered, but others hushed her.
"I'd like to ask Katharina Dubois to tell everyone what she told them about my parenting," I said. "And I'd like Destiny De Santis to explain why she sent anonymous threats to my phone."
People shifted like waves.
Katharina's smile thinned. "Excuse me?"
"Start with the tweets," I said. "The ones about my wardrobe, about my 'unsuitability' as a parent. You said it was 'for Ezra's sake'—that my social presence was harmful."
"That's absurd," Katharina snapped. "I care about the child. We all do."
"Do you?" I asked. "Or did you care about your place in Gabriel's circle? Did you want to prove you were a better mother because you could be a colder professional, because you could knock someone else down a peg?"
There were pockets of murmur. Gabriel's jaw flexed. I brought out my phone and pulled up messages—screenshots I'd been compelled to gather. There were texts where Katharina forwarded my videos with a mocking caption. There were texts with Destiny's name, arranging when to leak a clip for maximum damage.
Katharina's face had that moment of shifting color—white to red to something else. The spectators leaned forward.
"You can't just—" she started.
"Yes, I can," I said. "You called me irresponsible to people who trust you. You suggested my child needed a more 'proper' mother. You judged me without knowing me. And you coordinated with Destiny to make sure the worst parts of my public persona were highlighted."
"That's not true!" Katharina's voice rose, sharper now. She looked around, seeking allies.
A nurse pointed at the messages. "Is this you, Katharina? Did you send these?"
Katharina's eyes flicked to the screen and then to the assembled crowd. "Those could be doctored," she said.
"Or we can call your phone," someone offered. "Do you want us to call?"
A silence fell that was louder than any shout. People pulled out phones. In seconds, the room was alive with a new sound—the dialing of numbers.
Katharina's face changed again. She tried to force a smile, but it broke like thin glass. "You're being dramatic," she said. "This is petty—"
"Is it petty to manipulate people's reputations?" I asked. "Is it petty to threaten a mother with ruining her career if she doesn't fall in line?"
"Jayden, calm down," Gabriel said, low and steady at my side. "We can sort this out."
Gabriel's presence steadied me. He turned to the room and, in a quiet voice that carried, said, "We're professionals. If there are accusations, let's handle them properly."
A hand went up—one of the senior nurses. "Professionalism includes not blackmailing people," she said. "If those messages are true, it's harassment."
Phones lit up and recorded. An intern's live stream had already reached thousands. Whispers grew into an audible tilt of disapproval.
Katharina's expression flicked through anger, fear, then denial. "I didn't—" she started, but the room no longer listened.
"Destiny," I said, turning to the woman in the doorway. "Why did you threaten me?"
Destiny's face was a mask of pristine certainty. "I was protecting investments," she said smoothly. "Brands can't survive if their face is inconsistent."
"Investments?" someone echoed.
"Do you realize what it's like," Destiny said, voice rising, "to spend months growing a partnership and then have someone pull it apart with her unpredictability? We had to protect the sponsors."
"You did it by threatening a person," I said. "You do realize threats are illegal, right?"
She did something then that sealed everything: she laughed. "You think you're above consequences because you have followers. We did what we had to do."
Phones flashed. People leaned in. Someone whispered, "That's blackmail."
Destiny's eyes narrowed. "You're overreacting."
"Is that what you call it?" I asked. "We have text messages. We have calls. I have a recording of a voicemail where you threatened me."
"That's fabrication!" Destiny cried.
"Call your assistant, Destiny," Gabriel said. "Ask them to confirm the message you left. Better still, check your call logs."
She fumbled for her phone. Her assistant's number rang; then someone in the room—one of the junior staff who'd been cc'd on the planning emails—stepped forward.
"It was Destiny," the assistant said quietly into the speaker held up by a nurse. "She told me to 'make an example' of Jayden."
Destiny's color drained. She looked at the crowd and then at the live stream, which had already racked up tens of thousands of viewers.
The mood shifted. Faces that had been curious now hardened. Katharina tried to speak, but her words tumbled out in a scrambled mess. She clutched at a napkin, knuckles white.
"You're both trying to make me look like a wreck," I said. "You're trying to make my marriage the spectacle that proves you right. But the truth is this: I was human. I made choices. And you—" I pointed at Katharina, then Destiny—"made choices to manipulate those who trust you."
Phones recorded every moment. The stream comments filled with outrage. "Shame on them," one read. "Stop bullying mothers," another said.
Katharina's face crumpled. The arrogance drained out of her in an ugly, visible way. "I—" she choked. "I didn't mean—"
"Meaning changes nothing," Gabriel said, crisp and cold. "You will apologize publicly. You will retract your tweets. You will write a formal apology to Ms. Hanson and to the staff." He looked at Katharina without pity. "And you will undergo mediation."
The room erupted into murmurs of agreement. A handful of staff applauded, just enough to make the sentence official. Katharina turned white, mouth working.
"Please," she managed. "It was a mistake. I—"
"A mistake that nearly ruined someone's career?" the senior nurse said, voice tight. "You will appear before the board next week."
Destiny began to sway. "You can't—this is my work. My reputation—"
"Your reputation is now public," Gabriel said. "You've used your position to threaten and manipulate. We'll make a complaint. We will also alert the brands you represent; they should know who is blackmailing talent."
The word "blackmail" hit the air like a bell. Phones clicked. People murmured. Someone took a photo; another recorded the shaking of Destiny's hands as she tried to deny.
Her demeanor shifted: smugness to shock to frantic denial. "No—this is a setup," she wailed. "I didn't—"
"All of this is being recorded," I said. "Your words, your calls, your threats. People are watching."
She dropped into a chair, face hidden in her hands. "Please," she begged, voice small. "I'll lose everything."
"You chose to risk others for your gain," Gabriel said. "That's on you."
Nearby, a nurse whispered to me, "Good for you. She deserved it."
The crowd's reaction was a chorus: anger, disbelief, relief. Some people clapped quietly. Phones buzzed with messages, recordings already making the rounds.
Katharina's bravado had collapsed into a small, shaking figure, pleading and apologetic, while Destiny's professional mask had crumbled into raw, desperate fear. The goddess of control had been undone in the bright light she thought she'd never be seen in.
When the meeting ended, the cafeteria buzzed with aftershocks. People circled and commiserated. Some made quiet apologies to me. A few staffers who had looked at me with judgment now lowered their heads, murmuring contrition.
"Thank you," I told Gabriel later, back in the quiet of his office.
He took my hand. "You stood up."
"I couldn't let them decide my life," I said.
"You weren't alone," he answered.
The next weeks were a strange patchwork. The brands that had been wavering before withdrew rather than engage with the scandal. Destiny's professional contacts thinned. Katharina was required to make formal apologies and attend workshops on professionalism. Publicly, they both lost status. Some of the junior staff who'd once been her allies now kept distance. It wasn't the theatrical collapse of a villain on the front page, but it was precise and public and irrevocable in one way: their reputations suffered where they'd built them.
Months later, when I stood in front of a small room to announce that I was keeping Ezra—our Ezra—and that I chose to believe in this version of myself, people nodded. Not everyone forgave. Not everyone forgot. But the threads of power had changed. People who had once whispered now looked at me with a new, reluctant respect.
"Do you regret it?" Gabriel asked one night.
"Sometimes," I admitted. "But not the standing up."
"You did well," he said.
Weeks folded into a routine. I learned to pack lunches and check booster seats. Ezra called me 'Mumu' and jammed Cheerios in my hair. Gabriel recommended herbal remedies for my headaches and lectured gently about posture. He teased me about my early mornings, and I mocked his obsession with neat socks.
One night, I slipped into Gabriel's study and found, hidden between books, a travel guide with post-it notes folded into picturesque weekend getaways. He'd been searching "family-friendly trip ideas" when I had glimpsed his screen. He looked up and smiled.
"Hiding plans?" I asked.
"Maybe," he said. "Maybe trying not to be terrible."
We married again quietly on a winter afternoon. Ezra smeared cake on our vows and then licked it off our hands. It felt honest in a way that made everything else hold.
When, finally, the other life returned to its own orbit—when for a brief dizzy moment I saw another me in a red dress striding away in the corridor and then blinked into my plain apartment all at once—I realized I had been stealing other people's hands for a while. The other Jayden who'd lived loud and bright had lived her life with boldness I had never owned. Returning to my ordinary world felt like stepping into a gray coat.
But when I stepped into Gabriel's clinic and found him there, in the neat white coat, waiting for me, the light shifted. He looked up and said, "Not everyone gets a second chance."
"Neither do you," I said.
He smiled. "I went looking for you."
A month later, with a nervous laugh and a tired body, I told him in his quiet office that the tests were positive.
"What?" Gabriel asked, eyes wide.
"I'm going to be a mother," I said.
He reached across the desk and took my hand, like he had a map of where I needed to be. "Then we'll get you the best prenatal care. We'll make sure you sleep. And we'll go out for a family trip to the woods when the weather is better."
"Family trip?" I echoed, heart tripping over itself.
"Yes. There's this little cabin by a lake I marked in that travel book," he said.
I thought of the travel guide, of the way he'd been looking for small, ordinary happiness. I pressed my forehead to his shoulder and felt it—the world finally aligning in a way that made sense.
Later, before the first autumn wind, Gabriel and I sat on the couch and he turned my phone to show me a saved draft—an outline for a small line of handmade scarves he wanted to support me in launching, modest and warm and mine. Near the bottom, someone had stamped it with a name: J&K.
I laughed, then touched the screen gently. "We should keep it," I said.
He nodded. "We should."
On the inside of my nightstand I kept a small wooden fox Ezra loved—its ear chewed. I slid it into the drawer, next to a folded sheet of paper where I had written one simple thing: "I will tell you the truth."
We had been two people in different universes for a short wicked while. We left pieces of ourselves in both. But in the quiet of our little home, with a child snoring on the couch and hands linked across the small divide between us, I felt like I belonged, not because I'd taken anything, but because we'd decided together to try.
The End
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