The Abandoned Wife's Second Chance (Scarlett and Jasper) novel Chapter 119

Chapter 119

(Jasper’s POV)

+25 Points

It’s been days since she cut me off. Since she stopped answering my texts, my calls, my emails. But I keep trying. I tell myself every time that this is the last time. But the cycle never ends. I can’t stop.

I try to tell myself to let her go. To respect her space. But every time I think I’ve gotten through it, every time I try to move on, something drags me back.

I wonder if she’s doing okay. I wonder if she thinks of me, even a little. I wonder if the emptiness inside her is as heavy as mine.

“Scarlett. Please, just let me explain. One call. Five minutes.”

Delete.

“Scarlett, it isn’t what you think.”

Okay, she’ll definitely not reply to that.

“I am so sorry. I know sorry isn’t enough, but I am losing my mind. This silence is driving me crazy. Please, baby, tell me what to do to fix this.”

Delete.

Too groveling. She’d hate that. She always said she hated the word “baby” when people used it out of context.

I finally settle on a simple, agonizing truth and hit send, the screen flashing the dreaded “Delivered” acknowledgment:

“Scarlett, I need to see you. I’ll be at the old coffee shop tomorrow morning, ten o’clock. If you don’t show up, I’ll go to your apartment. Don’t make me do that. Please.”

I toss the phone on the couch, and lay in a daze.

I wish I can stop thinking about her. But I don’t know how.

I try to keep busy–work, friends, anything—but it’s like I’m moving through a fog. Every moment feels hollow, muted. Even the things I used to enjoy don’t matter anymore.

The worst part is how much I regret not doing things differently. Not being the man she needed. Not being enough.

1/5

<Chapter 119

+25 Points

The next morning, I arrive at the coffee shop at nine forty–five, and order a black coffee, though the caffeine only makes my hands shake more. Sitting at the booth by the window, the one that looked out onto the street, I watch the clock tick by.

Nine fifty. Nine fifty–five. Ten o’clock.

The bell above the door jangles, and my head snaps up, my heart hammering against my ribs. In the next second, though, it comes to a still.

A young couple. Not her.

Ten fifteen. Ten thirty.

She isn’t coming. The sick, heavy certainty settles over me.

I leave the coffee and drive aimlessly for an hour, the city a blur of indifferent faces and towering buildings. I needed air. I needed to breathe. I find myself pulling up to the park, the one with the huge oak tree where we spent our first anniversary.

I sit on a bench, head in my hands. Who ever knew the feeling of powerlessness can be so all–consuming?

I’m about to leave, to head back to the purgatory of our empty house, when a sight slams into me, knocking the breath from my lungs and making the blood rush to my ears.

Scarlett.

She is across the street, emerging from an expensive–looking French bistro.

I don’t stop to think, to consider what she’s doing at a French shop, when I’ve been waiting for her for hours at the coffee shop.

I plunge into traffic, the blare of horns and the screech of tires a distant, irrelevant noise compared to the thunder of my own pulse.

“Scarlett! Scarlett!”

I know the second she hears me. Her laughter dies in her throat, and she turns, her face a mask of shock, which quickly transforms into a cold indifference that slices deeper than any

anger.

I try not to let that bother me, focusing instead on her, her, and only her.

The woman I’ve been dying to talk to for days:

I reach the curb, gasping, my shirt clinging to my back. “Scarlett, thank God. We need to talk. I need you to listen,” I plead, ignoring the man standing beside her.

2/5

< Chapter 119

+25 Points

The next morning, I arrive at the coffee shop at nine forty–five, and order a black coffee, though the caffeine only makes my hands shake more. Sitting at the booth by the window, the one that looked out onto the street, I watch the clock tick by.

Nine fifty. Nine fifty–five. Ten o’clock.

The bell above the door jangles, and my head snaps up, my heart hammering against my ribs. In the next second, though, it comes to a still.

A young couple. Not her.

Ten fifteen. Ten thirty.

She isn’t coming. The sick, heavy certainty settles over me.

I leave the coffee and drive aimlessly for an hour, the city a blur of indifferent faces and towering buildings. I needed air. I needed to breathe. I find myself pulling up to the park, the one with the huge oak tree where we spent our first anniversary.

I sit on a bench, head in my hands. Who ever knew the feeling of powerlessness can be so all–consuming?

I’m about to leave, to head back to the purgatory of our empty house, when a sight slams into me, knocking the breath from my lungs and making the blood rush to my ears.

Scarlett.

She is across the street, emerging from an expensive–looking French bistro.

I don’t stop to think, to consider what she’s doing at a French shop, when I’ve been waiting for her for hours at the coffee shop.

I plunge into traffic, the blare of horns and the screech of tires a distant, irrelevant noise compared to the thunder of my own pulse.

“Scarlett! Scarlett!”

I know the second she hears me. Her laughter dies in her throat, and she turns, her face a mask of shock, which quickly transforms into a cold indifference that slices deeper than any

anger.

I try not to let that bother me, focusing instead on her, her, and only her.

The woman I’ve been dying to talk to for days:

I reach the curb, gasping, my shirt clinging to my back. “Scarlett, thank God. We need to talk. I need you to listen,” I plead, ignoring the man standing beside her.

2/5

< Chapter 119

+25 Points

“What are you doing here, Jasper?” she asks, her voice cool, detached, devoid of the warmth that used to be a hallmark of her very being.

I swallow hard, the words clogging in my throat. “I… I’ve been trying to reach you…”

“Why?” she interrupts, crossing her arms. There’s a certain finality to her tone that stops me cold.

“Why? Of course, to explain. Virginia…”

“I don’t care.”

The words hit me like a punch. I thought–hoped–that she’d care. But hearing her say she doesn’t… it cuts me deeper than I ever expected.

“It’s just a house,” she continues, her voice quieter, but somehow colder. “Just bricks and wood. Nothing I can’t let go.”

“You’re joking, right? You’ve got to be joking. That’s your childhood home, Scar. The place you grew up in. The house you built memories…”

She looks at me then, truly looks at me, and what I see in their depths isn’t pain, or regret, or even fury–it’s a chilling, empty acceptance.

“I don’t need that house anymore, Jasper.”

“What are you talking about? I’m going to buy it back. I’ll offer them double what they paid. I have the money, Scar, I just need a little time, but it can be ours again. Our home.”

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