Today was supposed to be the day—Ernest proposes, I bring him home to meet my parents. Now… forget it.
The bathroom door slammed open.
Ernest rushed in, face tight with urgency. "Is it out yet?"
I didn't answer.
He started tearing at my clothes.
I fought him with everything I had, but it wasn't enough.
I lay in a pool of my own blood, hands still clutching at myself, covering nothing.
Ernest held up his phone, the camera aimed at the mess of blood and tissue. "Don't worry, it's done. It came out. I can see it."
Maggie's voice came through the speaker. "Ernest, send me the video. I'll show my friends so she can't fake anything."
She was going to circulate it.
Panic hit me. I struggled upright and lunged for his phone.
Ernest backed away grinning, holding it just out of reach, filming my wrecked, flailing body like he was teasing a monkey for fun.
I looked at him, bitter and desperate to the bone. "Ernest, we loved each other for years. How can you bear to do this?"
His expression didn't change. "Do you have any idea what I sacrificed for you?"
"I begged Maggie for months before she finally agreed to let me keep you as my hidden mistress."
"The fact that I didn't dump you—that's already more than you deserved. How can you still be this ungrateful?"
A cry tore out of me. The room tilted and I collapsed back into the blood.
Maggie let out a soft laugh. "You know what, Ernest? I've come around."
"Agatha is just a little dog you once took in. I'm not going to get jealous over a dog."
Ernest swung toward me. "Hear that? See how generous Maggie is? Thank her."
I said nothing. He came straight across the bathroom, grabbed my shoulders, and shook me. "Did you not hear me?"
My body was still raw from the miscarriage, every inch of me stabbed through with pain like needles driven into flesh.
When he shook me, I felt like my bones were about to snap apart.
Through the agony, I forced two words out between clenched teeth. "Thank you."
That finally satisfied him. He dropped me back into the blood and walked out.
I lay on the cold tile, tears streaming down my face without stopping.
I'd always known I was adopted.
My adoptive parents had never been kind. They hit me, screamed at me, barely fed me.
Ernest was the one who saw how bad it was. Every day he brought food to school and made me eat with him, quietly, like it was nothing.
Some of the crueler kids caught on. They circled me, chanting: *Beggar. Beggar.*
Ernest was the one who stepped in front of me and beat them off.
Once, I broke a plate while washing dishes at home.
My adoptive parents tied me up and beat me, cursing the whole time, calling me a worthless bastard.
When I didn't show up at school for three days, Ernest asked around until he found my house.
He tried to get me out. He fought them.
He was a child—how much strength could he have had? They beat his face black and blue, but he wouldn't back down.
It wasn't until a neighbor heard and called the police.
These memories never left me.
What I felt for Ernest went beyond love—it was threaded through with gratitude so deep I couldn't separate the two.
So I poured everything I had into him, gave him whatever I could give.
I believed what we had was unbreakable. I never imagined he would turn on me like this.
The bleeding was getting worse. Wave after wave of weakness washed through me.
Part of me wanted to give up. Just let it end here.
But then I thought of my real parents.
They had searched for me for so long. We had only just found each other.
I wasn't going to die. I was going to live, for them.
I dragged myself toward my phone to call 911.
