fields of dandelions || prologue
Summary: Jake's life falls apart in less than an hour and he's left trying his best to pick up the pieces.
Warnings: Swearing, cheating
Word Count: 1.6k
Pairings: Jake Seresin x OC
Authors Note: And we're back with a new series! This has been sitting in my drafts forever and I finally found the motivation to finish off the prologue. I just think the world needs more single dad!Jake, don't y'all agree?
Thank you to my betas @a-reader-and-a-writer & @green-socks and for letting me ramble on about this!
Jake spent a good twenty minutes staring at his own house through the windscreen. He remembered when he and Sarah first bought it. A lot had happened since. And now it looked like it was all coming to an end.
Sarah was on the phone as he entered the kitchen, talking quietly as she flipped through a magazine. He shoved his hand into the pockets of his jeans, leaning against the doorframe and waiting for her to notice him. When she didn’t acknowledge his presence, he cleared his throat.
“Sarah.”
She looked up, eyes widening as she saw him. “Jake. I didn’t realise you were going to be home yet.” She ended the call without saying goodbye and Jake noticed how she chose to put the phone with the screen down.
He gave her a tight smile before sitting down across from her. “Half day. They’re running drills with the kids so Mav sent us home.”
“That’s nice. Did you pick up the boys?”
Jake shook his head. “Javy picked them up. They’re trying out his new pool.” The boys had been on their case since they found out their uncle Coyote was installing a pool in his backyard.
She hummed but offered no other answer. An uncomfortable silence filled the space, neither of them speaking. Sarah shifted in her seat, eyes darting back and forth between him and her phone.
Jake felt his stomach turn but decided to jump the gun. “I think we need to talk.”
He had expected some sort of fight, some sort of protest, so when Sarah only sighed and twisted her face in what resembled a smile, it was like a punch to the gut.
“How did you find out?” she asked, completely unbothered as she inspected her nails. She didn’t bother denying it, even though Jake hadn’t asked about it directly. But it was enough to confirm what Jake already knew but hoped he was wrong about.
Jake dragged a hand through his hair, baffled at her lack of reaction. “How did I find out? Is that all you have to say?”
“What do you want me to say?” Sarah shook her head, manicured nails tapping the table. Jake dragged a hand down his face.
“I want you to say that you didn’t fuck him. That you didn’t invite him into our house while our boys were home. I mean, what the fuck?!”
If his words affected her, Sarah didn’t show it. She twisted her wedding band round and round, her silence telling him everything Jake needed to know.
“If you’ve been unhappy -”
“It’s not about that. It’s complicated, Jake.” Sarah sighed.
Jake scoffed, clearing his throat. “Uncomplicate it for me then. Tell me why I had to find out from our son that you’ve been inviting another man into my house. How many times, huh?”
“How many times what?” she countered, staring at him. Jake could barely recognise his own wife. She didn’t seem to care that their five-year-old had seen her with another man.
“You know what I’m asking, don’t play dumb. How many times did you bring him here?” Jake pushed away from the table, unable to sit still anymore. Sarah’s disinterest only served to make him more agitated.
As if his question finally affected her, Sarah looked up at him but her face showed nothing. “Just one time. And the kids were supposed to be asleep.”
“How long?” It hurt to ask but he needed to know. How long had she been cheating on him? He could piece it together, track back to when she started to become distant but he wanted her to admit it. As if it would feel better.
Sarah pressed her lips together, hands clasped on top of the table. “Couple of months. I don’t know.”
He laughed at the absurdity of the situation. Of all the possible scenarios he had of the future when he asked Sarah to marry him after high school, this one had never crossed his mind. How had they ended up here?
“Why? Tell me why.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know.”
Shaking his head, Jake gripped the back of the chair he vacated earlier. “Stop saying that. Tell me the truth. If the last 18 years have meant anything to you, you’ll be honest with me,” he paused, drawing a shaky breath. “You owe me that much.”
“I don’t know what to say, Jake! It’s done, okay? I can’t pinpoint the exact fucking moment, alright? One moment everything was alright and then it wasn’t. And he was there for me. Stop questioning me, this isn’t an interrogation.” Sarah spat, anger seeping into her voice.
“No. You don’t get to be angry. You’re the one that fucked up. You do not get to tell me I don’t get to ask questions.” Jake spat back, his own anger surfacing. She had no right to play the victim.
Sarah rolled her eyes, a humourless laugh leaving her. “Alright, fine. Do you want the truth? I’m so fucking tired of this life. I’m tired of staying home all the fucking time whenever you get deployed, putting my own career on hold for you. I’m tired of it all. I’m tired of you. For once, I want to do something for me, have something for myself.”
“And to achieve that you decided that cheating on me was the best course of action? Why haven’t you talked to me about this?” Jake demands all the anger and hurt clashing together.
Sarah shakes her head. “Like talking would do any good.”
He thought it would hurt more, to hear that his own wife was tired of him but all he could feel was a numbness spreading through his body.
The woman sitting in front of him wasn’t his wife, wasn’t the mother of his children. She sounded cold, detached, almost like Jake felt.
Jake scoffed. “Well, you could have said something, instead of fucking someone else. We could have tried couples therapy -”
“It wouldn’t have made a difference. And now it doesn’t matter. What’s done is done.” Sarah interrupted.
He stared at her, trying hard to remember the girl he once had fallen in love with. But she was nowhere to be found. Instead he saw someone he didn’t even recognised anymore. Sarah stared back, neither of them breaking eye contact. He knew it was the end. She knew it too.
“Are you leaving?”
Sarah lowered her gaze back to her hands. “Yes.”
“What about the boys?”
Sarah didn’t say anything. She stayed quiet, once again twisting her wedding band round and round. Jake sat down again, exhaustion seeping into his bones. “Sarah. What about the boys?”
“What about them?” She kept her eyes on her hands, refusing to meet his eye.
Jake threw his hands up in frustration. “What do we tell them?”
Sarah pulls the wedding band off along with the engagement ring he’d given her all those years ago. He could do nothing but watch as she ended twelve years of marriage right in front of his eyes. Eighteen years together, right down the drain.
She leaves them laying on the long abandoned magazine and Jake couldn’t make himself pick them up. He didn’t want to touch them. “We need to tell them.”
“They won’t understand,” Sarah argues.
“So we shouldn’t say anything? They’re old enough to understand that something is wrong. We need to sit down together and talk to them,” he reasons but Sarah seems disinterested in continuing their conversation.
“No. You can tell them whatever you want. I’m not doing this,” Sarah snaps, blindsiding him. What the fuck is she saying?
When he asks her as much, Sarah simply shrugs her shoulders, that cold, hard exterior back in place. “I’m leaving. You can tell them whatever you see fit. It’s honestly not my problem.”
Jake explodes. “You’re not even going to say goodbye? How am I supposed to go pick up our children and explain to them why their mother isn’t home? How is that fair? To me? To them?!” He wants to grab her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her.
The chair scrapes on the floor as Sarah stands and Jake follows suit, anger coursing through his veins. “You can’t just leave.”
Sarah simply levels him with a glare, challenging him to make another move. After a tense minute Sarah folds, shoulders slumping. “Fine. Pick up the boys and we’ll talk.”
“I swear to God, if you’re not here when I get back -”
“I’ll be here,” Sarah promises, sitting back down and flipping the magazine open again. The rings clatter onto the table and down onto the floor but neither of them makes an effort to get them.
As he pulls out of the driveway, Jake prays that she’ll still be there when they get back. He doesn’t believe her but at this point, he doesn’t have a choice. He chooses to believe that she wouldn’t abandon their sons. She might be tired of him, their marriage, but Jake knows Sarah loves Josh and Levi. She wouldn’t just leave. She couldn’t.
After exchanging a few words with Javy and making sure the boys are safely strapped in their seats, Jake rushes back home. He drives slower than he’d like to but with the boys in the car, he’s not willing to risk it.
Dread fills him when he pulls into the driveway. The garage is open and Sarah’s convertible is gone. After bribing the boys with ice cream if they promise to stay in the car just a little while longer, Jake jogs up the porch, heart sinking in his chest.
The house is eerily quiet when he steps inside and he berates himself for trusting Sarah to stay true to her word. Because all that is left of the woman he’s loved for eighteen years, the mother of his children, is a note on the fridge.
“Tell the boys I love them.”
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