Chapter 3Back to Eighteen, I Met My Teenage Son Instead of My Ex

Watching his retreating figure, I couldn't help but think of John.

That was a lifetime ago. When John had been a young punk, he was far wilder and rougher than his son. Foolish and untamed. He could never grasp the tutoring material, and the moment his friends called, he would run faster than the wind. Nine times out of ten, I would catch him in that alleyway downtown and drag him back by his collar.

We lived across the hall from each other back then. Once I started tutoring him, his mother gladly handed full authority over to me. She had given me a feather duster. She had used it on him so many times that all the feathers had fallen off, yet he never changed.

By the time it reached my hands, it was just a bare wooden stick. Yet, somehow, that plain stick worked wonders. John was terrified of it. Every time I held it up, he would quietly follow me back to study.

During his senior year, he finally settled down and worked hard, eventually getting into a good college.

The day the results came out, both he and his mother broke down in tears. John held me tight, his tears soaking into my shirt. His quiet thank-you carried a weight that left me breathless. "I'll listen to you from now on," he had whispered.

During our early years together, whenever he stayed up playing video games, I would cut the internet cable. If he skipped class to go to a gaming café, I would drag him back to the classroom myself.

When he got a fake sleeve tattoo, I grabbed his ear and threatened to scrub it off. He had scrambled to peel off the sticker, begging, "It's fake, it's just a temporary tattoo! Please, I surrender, babe!"

I kept him on a tight leash like that for four years.

By graduation, John had won numerous academic awards and secured recommendation letters from top professors. Everyone knew he had a notoriously strict girlfriend.

But that was the only way. Pulling a delinquent up to the top was never an easy task.

After graduation, he started his own business. Once the company began to grow, his way of blowing off steam became drinking. The pressure was immense, and he spent night after night drowning his stress in alcohol. His medical reports were covered in red ink: severe stomach lining damage, frequent bleeding.

One night, I dragged him out of a bar. Before I could even speak, he violently threw my hand off his arm.

He glared at me, his eyes cold. "Brooke, you're suffocating me. Don't you ever get tired?"

I stared at him, unable to speak. After a long silence, he let out a heavy sigh. "I'm tired, Brooke. These years under your thumb... I'm exhausted."

Tears welled in my eyes, but John no longer had the patience to comfort me. He turned and walked away without another word.

I stood there alone, watching his shadow disappear as tears dripped onto the back of my hand.

I thought about it for a long time after that night. Truth was, during all those years of keeping him in line, he wasn't the only one who was tired. I was exhausted too. I knew what people called me behind my back: overbearing, aggressive, nagging.

I even knew that he had once agreed with those voices in quiet conversations, murmuring, "I'm tired too. I should have ended up with someone gentler."

Once he became successful, his circle expanded, and rumors started finding their way to me, even when I tried to ignore them. I never asked, and he never explained. I simply kept quiet, retreating further and further into my own shell.

Then, I got pregnant. I thought the baby would bring us back to how we used to be.

Until one day, I went to his office to find him. A young girl was sitting there. She looked gentle and sweet, speaking in a soft, timid voice. When she saw me, she scrambled to her feet, her eyes instantly turning red.

I asked her a single question: "How long have you been with him?" She burst into tears of panic.

When John rushed in, his jaw was tight and his fists clenched and unclenched. The look he gave me was heavy and cold. In the end, he said nothing. He simply took my hand in silence and led me home.

That night, he slept in the study. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to close my eyes. Some things didn't need explanations anymore.

At that moment, I made up my mind to leave this world. From eighteen to twenty-six, I had stayed by his side, watching him go from having nothing to having everything. I was done.