I was soaked through, shivering with cold.

The farther I walked, the more wronged I felt.

Not long ago, Charity had run a fever.

The moment Jim heard, he'd been frantic.

He'd charged out into the pouring rain in the middle of the night, gone to Charity's place, carried her on his back all the way to the hospital.

Waited on her hand and foot, sat with her the whole night through.

And now? Would he come and take care of me?

I opened our chat.

I was still hesitating over whether to tell him I was pregnant.

Then a voice message came in from Charity.

"Since Jim worked so hard to cheer me up today, I'll do him the favor of staying for dinner."

"We won't be coming back tonight. Take care of yourself, get some rest."

At the end of the message, Jim's voice cut in, irritated.

"Why are you even telling her all this? We're not even married yet and she throws fits all day long. I can't keep indulging a nasty habit like that."

I hadn't sent my message yet.

But the answer was already plain.

Jim wasn't coming.

The hurt surged up again, and the words came out on their own.

"Doctor, you don't need to write the prescription."

"This baby. I don't want it."

This relationship. This man.

I didn't want them either.

The doctor frowned.

"Have you thought this through?"

"You're not in good health. If you terminate this pregnancy, it may be very hard for you to conceive again."

He seemed to read the conflict in my face, and he sighed.

"It's normal for young couples to quarrel. Don't gamble with something this important."

"You two clearly care for each other. Go home, give it some time, and come back once you're sure."

I nodded.

I took the medicine he prescribed and walked back in a daze.

It took forever to get an Uber.

By the time I got home, I was lightheaded with hunger.

I saw a bowl of porridge on the table.

Without thinking, I picked it up.

I'd barely taken one bite when Jim frowned and slapped my hand.

"Mary, what's gotten into you, scrounging like this?"

"That's for Charity. Her period's almost due and she's not feeling well."

"If you want something to eat, order your own takeout."

Charity came out of the bathroom right behind him.

Toweling her hair, she shot Jim a glare.

"You awful jerk, picking on Mary again."

"It's just a bowl of porridge. If Mary wants it, let her have it."

Jim quickly untied his apron and went to her side.

He took the hairdryer like he'd done it a hundred times and started drying her hair.

"It's not about the porridge. It's that I can't keep spoiling her."

"There was food earlier and she wouldn't eat. Now she comes back and tries to snatch things from you. There's no excuse for that."

"If she's got the nerve to give me attitude, then she can go hungry. A few empty stomachs and she'll learn her lesson."

A while back, when Charity's reconciliation with her ex fell through, she couldn't eat.

I ordered takeout for her a few times, and she threw every bit of it back out.

Jim, afraid her body couldn't take it, kept finding new things to bring her.

Trendy designer cakes. West End bagels.

Charity only had to post on her feed that she felt like a New York steak dinner.

And Jim would take time off, ride the bullet train, and bring it back for her.

Now it was me.

And all I got was, "Then she can keep going hungry."

The back of my hand had gone red from the slap.

And my heart had gone cold all the way through.

I looked at the two of them and couldn't hold it in.

"Jim, which one of us is actually your girlfriend?"

Jim froze for a second.

Without thinking, he let go of the hand resting on Charity's shoulder.

But he recovered fast, and put on that displeased look again.

"Mary, are you out of your mind?"

"Charity is your best friend."

"You're the one who told me she was heartbroken, that she was in a bad way, so I looked out for her a little extra. For your sake."

"It's bad enough you're suspicious of everything all the time, but now you're jealous of your own best friend?"

"With a personality like yours, no wonder you've never had a single friend your whole life!"

Back when Charity first broke up with her ex, I'd told him about my childhood. About being shut out, being pushed away, being the girl Charity took in. Back then Jim had sworn to me, hand on his heart.

"It's okay. From now on, you have me."

"Your best friend is my friend too. I'll help you carry it."

And now he was calling me paranoid.

Saying I deserved it.

A thousand things rose up in my chest and stuck there, and not one of them would come out.

All I wanted was to get out of that suffocating room.

I was about to turn away when Charity beat me to it and burst into tears.

"Mary, why would you say that about me?"

"My boyfriend abandoned me, and now you're abandoning me too."

"Is that really all I am to the two of you? Someone that worthless?"

"Fine. If there's no room in this world for me, then I'll just die."

"Once I'm dead, no one will ever get in the way of you and Jim's happy little life again!"

With that, she shoved me hard and ran for the door.

My lower back slammed into the corner of the table.

I sucked in a sharp breath and grabbed at Jim's arm without thinking.

He flung me off.

He glared at me, and the anger in his eyes wasn't even hidden anymore.

"Go on, Mary. Make your scenes, keep making them."

"Charity's the only friend you'll ever have in this life. If anything happens to her, let's see what you do then!"

He didn't spare me another glance.

Jim went after Charity and slammed the door behind him.

The one making scenes—was that me?

My lower back ached badly.

I slid down and sat there on the floor.

For a long time, I couldn't pull myself together.

I spent the whole night sitting with the pregnancy report, miserable.

I turned it over and over, and in the end I decided to sit down and really talk it through with Jim.

Seven years together. That wasn't easy to come by.

I opened my phone, and the first thing I saw was Charity's new post.

"Love is acceptance. It's having someone to lean on. It's a shoulder that holds you up, steady and sure."

Posted five minutes ago.

Location: a high-end private screening room.

Charity, eyes still red, was leaning on Jim's shoulder.

The lighting was dim and yellow, but you could still make out their fingers laced tight together.

A mutual friend had commented below.

"You and Jim are together now? Does Mary know?"

Charity didn't reply.

Jim didn't explain.

It seemed like the answer had been there all along.

My heart gave one hard, twisting clench.

I deleted the long, careful message I'd written out.

I replaced it with one short line.

"Jim. Let's break up."

When I refreshed, the post was gone.

Right after, Jim's call came through.

"Mary, don't read too much into it."

"That trash ex of Charity's has a new girl, and she couldn't stand it, so she just asked me to play her boyfriend for a bit."

"We only saw a movie together yesterday. Nothing else, I swear."

Whether they'd done anything, I didn't know.

What I knew was that the movie they'd watched was the surprise I'd planned for Jim.

I'd ached for how hard he'd been working lately.

I'd wanted to carve out some time and give him a real evening, just the two of us.

But in his evening for two, there was no me.

I slid my hand slowly to my belly, and when I spoke, it was with everything tangled up inside.

"It has nothing to do with that."

"It's that your Charity's care has already outweighed mine."

I didn't want to be the spare part in this relationship.

I'd had enough of being shut out and pushed aside back when I was a kid, and I was done with it.

Jim sighed.

There was anger threaded through the exhaustion in his voice.

"Mary, can you stop being so unreasonable? I'm exhausted, all right?"

"I have to work, I have to take care of you, and on top of that I take care of your friends for your sake. Maybe you could think about me for once?"

I was so tired.

Too tired to argue.

I hung up and blocked Jim's number.

Then I started packing to move back home.

Once I'd calmed down, I'd think it all through properly—him, and the baby.

Halfway through packing, something felt off.

I lifted my head and looked slowly around the room.

The things had changed.

After Charity's breakup, she'd started staying at our place now and then.

Bit by bit, the photos in the living room had been swapped out for pictures of the three of us.

Jim and Charity leaned close together, smiling brightly.

I was crowded off into the corner, only half my head showing.

Charity's cartoon-print pajamas were hanging in the bedroom too.

Jim had bought three sets of them on his own, back then.

Mine had been too small and got returned; Charity's fit just fine.

After that, those two sets of pajamas had stayed in the closet of the master bedroom.

A bright, blatant announcement of Charity's unshakable place here.

Now those pajamas, and everything around them, seemed to be telling me without a single word.

"Mary, you're the spare one."

My heart hurt so much it felt ready to burst.

The tears I'd held back for so long finally fell, blurring everything in front of me.

My hands shook as I typed it in, over and over.

At last I dialed my mother's number.

"Mom, Jim and I broke up."

"Will you come and take me home?"

"I want to go home. To my own home."

My mother gasped, then said anxiously,

"What happened, sweetie? Weren't you two supposed to get engaged next year? How is it a breakup now?"

"All right, all right, stop crying first. Your dad and I are coming for you right now."

The two of them rushed back in no time at all.

My mother didn't ask a thing.

My father packed up my things without a word.

In that crowded apartment.

The things that were actually mine ended up filling just one small suitcase.

In the car I cried and told them the whole story, start to finish.

My father's hands gripped the wheel tight.

My mother held me and just cried.

Afraid I'd do something to myself, the two of them took turns taking time off to stay with me.

My old friends came around asking how things stood between Jim and me.

When they heard we'd broken up, one after another they sighed.

"Forget it. Honestly, you're better off split."

"There's something I never dared tell you. I was afraid you'd read too much into it."

"This whole time, a lot of us have run into Jim and Charity together."

"All over each other. Like they could barely stop themselves from making out right there on the street."

Someone sent me a screenshot of Jim's social media feed.

Seven years together, and he'd never once made us official.

Now his feed was full of Charity.

The two of them out shopping together, going to the amusement park together.

Going to every place I'd wanted to go, the places he'd never had the time to take me.

It would be a lie to say it didn't hurt.

A thousand kinds of hurt all pressed together into one thing.

"Let it go."

Jim and I were finished.

This baby, I'd raise on my own.

I made up my mind to forget the past.

And of all times, that was when Jim showed up at my family's door.

He pounded on it, roaring,

"Mary, get out here."