One Night Stand, Eight Surprises: Pampered by My CEO Husband --- - Chapter 132: Chapter 132

The pen shook slightly in her hand.
Not from fear, or even from fatigue. From something more elusive—rust. The kind of rust that settled into the bones of a writer who hadn’t written in too long. A soul that had held its breath for months, years even, trying to survive when it was made to feel.
Arielle stared at the blank page in her worn leather journal, the one Damien had tucked beside her pillow the morning after their playlist night. A small gesture. A quiet invitation.
She dipped the fountain pen into ink, the tip hovering like hesitation itself.
Then—slowly, like peeling bandages—she began.
Poem 1: The Scar
They stitched me back together but no one taught me how to move. The mirror speaks in echoes now— not of beauty, but of proof.
I lived.
But what of the woman who died that day? The one who bled silently through her smile?
I want to mourn her. I want to thank her. I want to become someone she can rest inside.
A tear dropped onto the ink, smudging the last word.
She didn’t wipe it.
Arielle moved through her recovery with a new rhythm—sleepless nights, slow healing, laughter over spilled cereal and half-dressed toddlers—and in the pockets of silence, she wrote.
Not for an audience.
Not even for Damien.
But for herself.
For the part of her still raw and reaching.
Poem 2: The Bed
We made love here. We made babies here. I almost died here.
Now I wake up afraid of the sheets.
They whisper of what I survived. They know the weight of a man’s grief. They remember my name when I didn’t.
Damien holds me. And sometimes I flinch. Not because I don’t trust. But because I’m still relearning what it means to be touched without breaking.
She tucked that one into an envelope.
Left it on Damien’s pillow.
He didn’t say anything the next morning, but he made her tea without asking how she slept. Held her a little longer when they kissed goodbye. Whispered, "Thank you" when their eyes met across the room.
He was reading her poetry with the reverence of someone holding holy scripture.
Poem 3: Mother
I am a garden and a grave. Life bloomed in me, yes. But so did loss.
I gave them breath and bone and lullabies. But I lost softness in the process. My spine now bends under the weight of need.
Yet still I sing. Still I rise for them.
Not always like a goddess. Sometimes like a ghost.
Arielle watched the kids one afternoon—Elijah reading out loud to the twins, the baby gurgling in Damien’s arms. A snapshot of joy. But in her chest, the ache still stirred.
So she wrote.
Poem 4: Want
I want more.
Not diamonds. Not grand gestures.
I want a room with morning light and silence. I want words to come when I call them. I want to stand naked in front of the mirror and not flinch. I want to touch Damien and not wonder if he sees my wound before he sees me.
I want to stop apologizing for needing rest.
I want joy to stop feeling like a loan I have to repay.
That night, she left the journal open on the kitchen table. On purpose.
Damien read it.
He didn’t interrupt her when she came in. He simply walked to her, kissed her cheek, and whispered, "You’re still the bravest person I know."
Then he knelt and kissed her scar.
Poem 5: Rebirth
I’m not trying to go back. There’s no map to who I was.
But I am slowly building someone new. Someone with cracks and light. Someone who knows pain and still sings. Someone who mothers herself, too.
Damien sees her. I’m learning to as well.
The last page she didn’t write with a pen.
She typed it. Printed it. Folded it into her journal.
A letter.
To her future self.
Dear Arielle,
You didn’t fail. You bent, you bled, but you didn’t break.
You’re still here. And that is everything.
There will be days you forget how strong you are. So read these words again.
You are poetry. Even when you don’t write.
Even when you only survive.
Love, Me.