After I got pregnant, something in me came loose.

Every single day I'd text Edwin Vance to ask whether he loved me.

The first ninety-nine times, he answered me gently.

Then came the hundredth.

This time he fired back three lines, his patience gone.

*Marie Pruitt, do you have nothing better to do?*

*The morning sickness is over, the baby's done wearing you out, so now you've moved on to wearing me out?*

*If you've got that kind of time, go look in a mirror and take a good look at that face of yours, it's about as appealing as a slab of grocery-store pork*

I froze.

A second later the messages were unsent, and a voice note popped up in their place.

"Sorry, my junior assistant sent those by mistake just now. Don't take it to heart."

Whether it was a mistake or not didn't matter anymore.

All I knew was that our marriage was finished, completely.

……

I got up and went to the hospital.

When I walked out of the procedure room, the baby, four months along, was gone.

By the time I got home, the sky had gone fully dark.

The living room lights were on, and Edwin was sitting on the couch.

He heard the door and looked up, frowning.

"Where've you been? It's this late and you can't even answer a text or a call?"

I didn't say anything.

I changed into my slippers and went to pour myself a glass of water.

He watched me, his eyes lingering on my face for a few seconds, and finally said:

"About this afternoon, I already explained it to you. My junior assistant picked up the wrong phone."

"She's already apologized to me, and I gave her a talking-to. It won't happen again."

A junior assistant, picking up her boss's private phone by mistake?

I let out a soft laugh, set the glass down, and looked at him.

Edwin is very good-looking.

I knew that from the first moment I saw him.

At thirty-three he looked better than most men his age, and even sitting on the couch in loungewear he could have stepped out of a magazine.

I used to love just looking at him. I thought I could look at him my whole life and never tire of it.

But tonight it hit me that his good looks had nothing to do with me.

Like a beautiful dress in a shop window. You stand on the other side of the glass admiring it for a long time, convinced it's yours, when you've never once held it in your hands.

"Edwin."

I spoke, and my voice came out steadier than I'd expected. "That junior assistant of yours, what's her name again?"

He paused.

"Amber Swanson. Why?"

"How long has she worked for you?"

"About six months." Then he added, "Why are you asking? Didn't I tell you it was a misunderstanding? Do you really have to keep picking at it? Can't you just pretend you didn't see it?"

Four questions in a row.

I didn't take the bait. I just kept going. "I remember when she first started, you actually mentioned her to me. You said your new assistant was useless, nothing like the sharp, get-it-done type you always liked. After that you never brought her up again. I assumed you'd fired her."

"Turns out you didn't fire her at all. And it was right around when she showed up that your overtime started running later and later, and the business trips got more and more frequent."

Edwin's brow furrowed again.

"Marie, what exactly are you trying to say?"

I gave a small smile. "I'm just stating the facts."

His frown deepened, his tone sliding back into impatience. "Marie, I know being pregnant is hard, and your moods swing. I get that. But you can't start imagining things over a few texts that got sent by mistake. It's not good for you, and it's not good for the baby."

The baby.

Those two words were a fine needle, slipping in clean and finding my heart.

How long had I been married to him?

Four years, I think.

At twenty-two, I slipped back into the country without telling anyone, just to have a little fun.

At a party with friends, I fell for Edwin Vance the moment I saw him, and I started chasing him.

At first he thought I was too young.

So I chased him shamelessly, offering him my whole heart with both hands held out.

Flowers. Jewelry. I proposed to him myself.

People laughed at me, said a girl shouldn't throw away her dignity like that.

I didn't care. When you love someone, isn't that exactly how brave you're supposed to be?

In the end, we were together.

A year of dating, and then we married.

Four years of marriage, and every single day, I was the one giving, always so careful.

He'd give a little back now and then, and I'd feel like the whole sky had cleared.

Then I got pregnant, and I noticed he seemed happy, that he was even giving me more than usual.

But something inside me grew uneasy.

I kept clinging to him, asking whether he loved me.

He never said the word love, but he answered gently enough, *I'll come home early.*

Until this time, when the private phone he never let even me touch was picked up by someone else and used to send me message after message.

That was when I finally understood.

From the very beginning to the very end, he had never once held me in his heart.

But it was fine. It was over.

And I didn't have any love left to give.

Seeing that I stayed quiet, he must have assumed I'd softened. He came over to me and bent down to take me in his arms.

"All right, enough. Don't read into it. I had the housekeeper make you some soup. Drink a little and get some rest. Tomorrow's the weekend, I'll go out with you and we'll—"

"I got rid of the baby."

I said it so softly.

But his whole body went rigid.

His arms still hung in the air, frozen in the shape of the embrace he hadn't finished.

The living room was quiet enough to hear the clock ticking on the wall.

Once. Twice. Three times.

Then he straightened up and looked down at me, as if he hadn't taken it in.

"What did you say?"

I lifted my head, met his eyes, and said it one word at a time:

"I said, the baby is gone."

"After you finished sending me those messages, I went to the hospital and had the procedure."

The color drained from Edwin's face, bit by bit.

Five years of knowing him, and I'd almost never seen him lose his composure.

In front of everyone he was always smooth, always in control, his emotions steady as a precision instrument.

But in that moment, the instrument jammed.

It felt strangely new to me, and I just kept watching him.

"You ended it without discussing it with me?"

My lips were still curved. "Yes."

"Marie." He said my name, and his voice was shaking. "That was my child too."

I gave a careless shrug.

"I know that."

"You know?" His voice shot up, his eyes going bloodshot in an instant. "You knew, and you still went to the hospital alone and ended it, without saying a single word to me!"

"Marie! As far as you're concerned, do I even count as your husband?"

He had never raised his voice at me like that.

The few times we'd quarreled before, the most he ever did was go cold and silent and wait for me to back down first.

In that moment, I started to laugh. "Edwin Vance, so you can get angry after all? So your eyes can go red after all? So there's actually something that can make even you lose control? And here I thought all you'd ever do was freeze me out."

Edwin went blank for a beat, then his hand shot out and clamped around my chin, fire in his eyes.

"Marie! What the hell are you trying to pull? I already told you I didn't send those texts. Why won't you believe me?"

"And that wasn't only your child. It was mine too. What gave you the right to go and get rid of him on your own?"

"If you're capable enough to abort my child by yourself, then you can give me another one!"

He bent his head and bit down on my lip.

The taste of blood spread fast, and I winced.

One year together, four years married, and he had never once kissed me first.

Even at the closest moments, it was always me reaching for him.

There was a time I used to dream he would just want me, even a little.

Now all I felt was sick.

I bit back, hard.

He hissed in pain and shoved me away.

I lifted my head and stared at him through burning eyes. "You want a child? Go find another woman to give you one. That little assistant of yours looks like she'd be thrilled to."

Edwin froze. "What did you say?"

I screamed it out, eyes red and raw. "I said, if you want a child, go make one with your little assistant! Stop making me sick."

"Edwin, the man you are right now truly, truly disgusts me!"

He stared at me like he wanted to skewer me where I stood.

Three seconds later, he laughed.

"Fine. Since you're so generous, I'll give you exactly what you want."

"Don't you dare regret it. And don't come crying to me to beg."

The door slammed.

Then it was quiet.

I looked at the shut door and the tears came without a sound, until I was sobbing out loud.

As if I could finally cry out all the years of swallowing it.

Edwin, this time I won't regret it.

And I won't lower myself to beg you ever again.

I wiped my face and made a call.

"Bro, that funding we gave Edwin in the beginning. Pull it."

He didn't come home all night.

The next morning I went to the lawyer's office to have the divorce papers drawn up.

It was the weekend. He didn't have work.

I just had no idea where to find him.

That was when a video popped up on my phone.

Crystal's voice exploded right after it.

"Mare! Isn't this your untouchable, too-good-for-everyone husband?"

"I was out shopping at The Lumière One and there he is with some woman! Crouching down to tie her shoelaces himself!"

"You're barely four months along and he's already out hunting? That bitch, does she have any shame left? God, I'm going to kill the both of them!"

I tapped the video open.

There he was, the man who had always kept himself so far above me, crouched down to tie a girl's shoelaces because she'd pouted at him a couple of times.

She was laughing, filming him on her phone, and he was laughing too, like he couldn't help it.

My chest still twisted at it.

It wasn't that I'd never wanted that from him.

Back then he was always so far above me.

He never refused, but he never obliged either.

He just left me to find my own way out of the awkwardness.

I forced a bitter smile and texted her back.

"We're getting divorced."

The message had barely sent when an unknown number rang.

"Is this Ms. Pruitt? Your husband's gotten into an altercation with a friend. Please come down to the police station as soon as you can."

Crystal had a temper, but I hadn't expected her to move this fast.

I flagged a cab and went.

The shouting was still going strong before I even reached the door.

"Edwin! Can you live with yourself? She's barely four months pregnant and you can't keep it in your pants! Out there in broad daylight with your mistress, tying her shoes! Why don't you just drop dead!"

"Our Mare was so good to you, loved you so—"

"Didn't she throw herself at me?" Edwin cut her off, his face cold.

I went stiff where I stood.

His voice kept going. "Did I ask her to be good to me? Did I ask her to love me? Wasn't it her who threw herself at me, came chasing after me, crawled into my bed, married me the second I crooked a finger? So what does her being good to me have to do with anything? I don't love her. Why should I give her anything back? She's pregnant now, so what, I'm supposed to stay tied to her side forever?"