My Cheating Mate (Emma and Jeremy) novel Chapter 51

Chapter 51

My Cheating Mate

Jeremy pov

The house was too quiet.

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I sat in my car in the driveway, staring at the dark windows of the home Emmaa and I had shared for six months. The home she’d fled from. The home that still smelled faintly of her vanilla and honey scent even though she hadn’t lived here in over four months.

I should go inside. Should eat something, shower, sleep. Basic human-wolf-functions that Dr. Chen kept reminding me were important for healing.

But the idea of walking through that door, of being surrounded by reminders of what I’d destroyed, made my chest tight with anxiety.

So I sat. Like I’d been sitting for the past twenty minutes. Paralyzed by the weight of my own guilt and loneliness.

My phone buzzed. A text from my father: “Council meeting tomorrow at 9 AM. Don’t be late.”

I typed back: “I’ll be there.”

Another buzz. This time from Dr. Chen: “Reminder: Your individual session is tomorrow at 2 PM. Please complete the journal exercises we discussed.”

The journal. Right. She’d asked me to write about my feelings, about my triggers, about the moments when I felt the guilt becoming overwhelming.

I’d managed maybe three sentences in the past week. Each time I tried to write more, I’d just stare at the blank page, overwhelmed by the enormity of what I’d done.

How do you journal about destroying the best thing in your life? How do you put into words the self-loathing that consumed you every time you saw the hurt in Emma’s eyes?

I finally forced myself out of the car and into the house. The kitchen was exactly as I’d left it this morning-dishes in the sink, coffee mug on the counter, the overwhelming silence of a space meant for two people occupied by only one.

I’d been staying at my office more and more lately. Working late into the night on pack business, sleeping on the couch in my office rather than in the bed where Emma should be. 1

The bed where I’d promised her forever and then systematically destroyed that promise.

My phone buzzed again. Emma this time: “Did you do your journal exercises?”

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Despite everything, a small smile crossed my face. Even when she was angry at me, even when she looked at me with that mixture of hurt and disgust, she was checking in. Making sure I was doing the work.

“Working on them now,” I typed back, which was technically true even if “working on them” meant staring at a blank page

“Good. See you at couples therapy on Thursday.”

Thursday. Two days away. Two days until I’d sit across from Emma and Dr. Chen and talk about all the ways I was failing at healing, at moving forward, at becoming someone worthy of a second chance.

Two months. We’d been in therapy for two months, and some days it felt like we were making progress. Emma could look at me without flinching. We could have conversations that didn’t end in tears. She’d even laughed at something I said last week-a genuine laugh that made my heart soar.

But other days, like today, she’d looked at me with such disgust that I’d wanted to disappear. Had wanted to stop existing just so

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alie wouldn’t have to see the face of the man who’d hurt her.

It had been during our session, Dr. Chen had asked me about Vanessa, about what I’d found attractive about her, about how the affair had made me feel

I’d answered honestly. Too honestly, maybe. Talked about the familiarity, the comfort, the fantasy I’d built up over years.

And Emma’s face had transformed. The careful neutrality she’d been martaining had cracked, replaced by pure disgust and pain.

“You loved her,” she’d said, not a question. “All those months, you loved her, not me.”

“No,” I’d tried to argue. “What I felt for Vanessa wasn’t love—”

“It was close enough,” she’d interrupted, her voice cold. “Close enough that you chose her over me every single day for six months.”

She was right. The realization had hit me hard then and was hitting me again now as I stared at the blank journal page.

I had chosen Vanessa. Not because I loved her, but because she was easy. Familiar. Didn’t challenge me to be better or different or honest with myself.

Emma had challenged me from the beginning. Her presence, her goodness, her patient attempts to build a real partnership-all of it had been a mirror showing me who I really was. And I’d hated what I saw.

So I’d run to Vanessa. To the comfortable lie. To the fantasy where I was still the person I’d imagined myself to be instead of the cruel, selfish bastard I actually was.

I finally picked up my pen and started writing:

*Today Emma looked at me with disgust. We were talking about Vanessa in therapy, and I saw the exact moment Emma realized how much I’d chosen someone else over her. Not just physically, but emotionally. Mentally. In every way that mattered.

*

*I want to make excuses. Want to explain that I was confused, that I didn’t understand what I was doing. But that would be a lie. I knew exactly what I was doing. I chose comfort over growth. Chose fantasy over reality. Chose selfishness over the mate the Moon Goddess gave me.*

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she wouldn’t have to see the face of the man who’d hurt her.

It had been during our session Dr. Chen had asked me about Vanessa, about what I’d found attractive about her, about how the affair had made me feel

I’d answered honestly. Too honestly, maybe. Talked about the familiarity, the comfort, the fantasy I’d built up over years.

And Emma’s face had transformed. The careful neutrality she’d been mattaining had cracked, replaced by pure disgust and

pain.

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