“You're back! Was it crowded at the courthouse today?”
Her gaze swept past me, scanning the doorway.
“Where's Ray? How come he didn't come back with you?”
I swallowed the bitterness rising in my throat, nails digging into my palms, and forced a smile.
“It was pretty busy. After we finished the registration, we stopped by to confirm the wedding dress and the venue, so we got back late.”
“He had something come up at the office, so he couldn't make it over.”
“Mom, I'm exhausted. I'm going to lie down for a bit.”
I stepped into my room and saw the wall of photographs.
Every one of them marked a moment that had mattered.
There was the first photo Ray and I ever took together, the day we made it official. We were still in our school uniforms, barely more than kids.
There was the day I introduced him to Carissa for the first time, proudly calling him my boyfriend.
There was a shot from one of my competitions, the two of them holding up cameras, posing with me onstage.
And there were the crystal heels Ray gave me on my eighteenth birthday.
He told me that once I wore his glass slippers, I'd be his princess forever, and he'd be my knight for the rest of our lives.
Nothing would ever come between us.
Now every single one of those words was a knife buried in my chest.
A sharp cramp tore through my lower abdomen. I rushed to the bathroom and found blood.
Tears fell before I could stop them. I leaned against the door and stayed there for a long time, thinking.
Maybe this baby was never meant to come.
I pulled out my phone to book a doctor's appointment, but my mother's voice cut through the door, furious and shaking.
“What are you doing?!”
“How could you do this to Alice?!”
I bolted out of the room. Ray was kissing Carissa. She was sitting in a wheelchair in our living room, and he was kissing her.
At the sound of my mother's voice, Carissa shoved Ray away, stumbled to her feet, and started stammering.
“Mrs. Garner, please, let me explain. It's not what you think!”
My mother was shaking from head to toe. She screamed.
“Carissa Butler, when that man nearly assaulted you, it was my Alice who saved your life!”
“And after that, when I found out how bad things were at your house, I'd rather go without than ask you for a single thing!”
“And this is how you repay us? By stabbing my daughter in the back?!”
I rushed forward to steady my mother, then grabbed the cup off the table and hurled it straight at Ray.
“Ray Henson, take her and get the hell out of my house!”
“You two can humiliate me all you want, but don't you dare upset my mother!”
The cup struck Ray's head. Blood slid down from his temple instantly.
Glass shattered across the floor, but Ray didn't even flinch. Eyes red, he dropped to his knees in front of my mother, his voice steady and absolute.
“Mrs. Garner, I know you're angry, but I have to say this.”
“Carissa is carrying my child. I can't abandon her to marry Alice.”
“Even if I do marry Alice, it has to wait until Carissa has recovered and safely delivered the baby.”
My mother's chest heaved violently. Her finger trembled as she pointed at him.
“You were the one who begged to marry my daughter. You swore you'd protect her for the rest of her life, you animal!”
I was about to get up and throw them both out when Carissa burst into tears.
“Ray, what are you saying?!”
“I'm not keeping this baby! We've already done enough wrong. We can't keep hurting Alice!”
My mother's eyes went bloodshot. She grabbed the cup of water and flung it into Carissa's face.
“So you know you're wrong! And you still had the nerve to show up in my house?!”
The next second, Ray stepped in front of Carissa and shoved my mother hard.
“Mrs. Garner, if you're angry, take it out on me. Don't hurt Carissa!”
My mother hit the ground. She didn't get up.
I screamed, holding my mother, shaking her, calling her name over and over. I looked at Ray.
“Ray! Call an ambulance!”
But Ray was already carrying Carissa, her face white as paper, striding toward the door. He tossed back a single sentence without turning around.
“Carissa just woke up and came here to apologize, and this is how you and your mother treat her? You're so capable. Handle it yourself.”
There was no time for grief. I grabbed my phone and called 911.
Then I started chest compressions and rescue breaths on my mother.
I didn't know how long it took before the paramedics finally arrived. After the examination, the doctor looked at me with quiet regret.
“I'm sorry for your loss.”
I stared at my mother's lifeless face, unable to process what I was hearing, and then a raw, shredded wail tore out of me.
“The pregnant woman is hemorrhaging! Get her into surgery, now!”
When I came out of the operating room, my belly was empty.
I ignored the pain racking my body, took my mother's ashes in my arms, and walked into the sea where Ray had once proposed to me.
At a private hospital across town, Ray was spooning soup for Carissa when a sharp pain lanced through his chest.
The next second, the smartwatch on his wrist, still linked to mine, screamed with an alarm.
