The silence in the room felt suffocating, leaving behind only the rumble of the rain fading outside the window.
Raina slowly turned her head. Her eyes stared straight through Hadi’s pupils. So cold, so blank, without even a flicker of the love that used to welcome him.
“Why, Mas?” Raina whispered. Her voice sounded hollow, like dry wind slicing through the air. “How could she be here?”
Hadi lowered his head deeply, unable to keep looking into his wife’s empty eyes. His hands gripped his own pant legs.
“I... I lost control, Raina,” Hadi said, his voice trembling and hoarse. “When I first met Ayu... I was blind. I was captivated at first sight. I got swept up in the moment until everything went this far...”
Hadi lifted his disheveled face, trying to find an opening for forgiveness in Raina’s expression. “But I swear, Raina... no one could ever replace you in my heart. You’re still my first wife, the home I return to. My love for you hasn’t diminished even a little.”
At those words, the corner of Raina’s mouth lifted slightly. A bitter, lifeless smile. Those words felt like the sweetest and deadliest poison of all.
Before the wound had even had a moment to ease, Hadi opened his mouth again. His guilt was buried beneath the desperation and selfishness still surrounding him at that moment. “Raina... Ayu’s belly is already big. Just like you, she’s eight months pregnant,” Hadi said softly, his pleading tone painfully selfish. “Tomorrow I’ll start calling in the builders to put up a second house for Ayu. Right next to this one, in our spacious yard...”
Hadi swallowed before making the most despicable request ever to leave his lips.
“But until that house is finished... let Ayu stay here with us for now, okay? Her condition makes it impossible for her to go back and forth alone. Please, for the sake of the child she’s carrying...”
The words struck Raina’s ears like invisible hammers. Raina did not cry. She did not scream or throw a pillow. She simply turned her face back toward the ceiling. Beneath the thick blanket, both her hands clenched tightly around her swollen belly, feeling the faint movements of the baby inside her who would one day be born. A child who had not even entered the world yet, but was already being forced to share a roof and a father with another woman.
“Why should I?” Raina hissed. Her voice trembled as she held back such intense anger that her entire body shook. “Find a rental nearby! Haven’t you hurt me enough, huh?!”
Raina’s breathing came in ragged gasps. Her cold hand rose and pointed straight at the exit.
“Get out, Mas! Get out!” she screamed, her hoarse voice cutting through the room.
“Raina, just listen...” Hadi panicked, his hand moving quickly to grab and clutch Raina’s trembling wrist. “Raina, calm down, think about the baby—”
“LET GO!”
Raina yanked her hand away with all her strength, violently rejecting Hadi’s touch as if the man’s skin were burning her. “Get out of my room! Go!”
Seeing Raina grow increasingly hysterical, her breathing racing wildly out of control, Hadi finally backed away slowly, his steps weak and his face ashen. He was forced to leave, gently closing the master bedroom door behind him and leaving Raina to collapse into Auntie Nyai’s arms in unbearable anguish.
That night became the longest and coldest night the house had ever known.
Hadi left the master bedroom where Raina lay. His footsteps did not take him to the guest room occupied by Ayu. Instead, the man chose to stretch out on the stiff, long sofa in the living room. He curled up, hugging his knees, but his eyes never truly closed.
From behind the master bedroom door, which was only half-closed, the sound crept out and struck Hadi in the chest without mercy. Raina was howling. It was not ordinary crying, but a muffled, anguished moan buried in a pillow. The breathless sound of a wife whose entire world had been shattered into pieces in the blink of an eye.
Her breathing came in gasps, her sobs violent, as if the air inside the room refused to enter her lungs. The pain was so dense that it made the walls of the house seem to tremble with it.
Inside the room, Auntie Nyai sat on the edge of the bed, holding Raina’s violently trembling body close.
“Ina... let it all out, sweetheart. Let it out with me, but remember to seek forgiveness...” Auntie Nyai whispered, her voice wet with tears. Her warm hands never stopped rubbing Raina’s back and wiping the cold sweat from her forehead.
“I’m here with you... I’ll stay by your side forever, Ina. You’re not alone...”
Raina clutched Auntie Nyai’s sleeve so tightly that the fabric wrinkled, burying her face in the lap of the woman she had come to regard as her own mother. Her pain was not only about being betrayed, but also about the bitter reality that she had to keep breathing for the baby moving inside her womb.
Every howl, every sob, and every broken call from Raina to Auntie Nyai reached Hadi’s ears clearly as he lay in the living room. Hadi squeezed his eyes shut and pressed both palms over his ears, but the sound of Raina’s destruction still pierced his head like a dagger. Tears of remorse streamed down and soaked the sofa cushion. That night, he finally realized that his mistake had not merely ruined a marriage; it had crushed the soul of the woman he respected and loved most—and that wound would be carved into this house forever.