Memory washed over me, sharp and bright.
I was a child again, and Leo Gilbert was shoving his piggy bank into my arms.
"Beth, this is everything I have." His cheeks flushed, his gaze burning with earnest intensity far beyond his years. "I kissed you, so I have to take responsibility. When we grow up, you have to marry me."
Before I could even blink, he grabbed my hand, dragging me to his mother, begging her to formalize our engagement right then and there.
Throughout the hazy, innocent days of our youth, Leo was my shadow. If any other boy dared confess his feelings to me, Leo would produce that childhood betrothal agreement like a weapon, fiercely defending his claim.
After college, he couldn't wait. He threw himself into planning our wedding with obsessive detail.
But on the eve of the ceremony, everything shattered.
I lost consciousness after a drink. When I woke, the world was spinning, and Leo stood over the bed, his face twisted into a mask of pure hatred. Lying beside me was my older brother, Benjamin.
Leo's eyes were bloodshot, his voice dripping with ice.
"Eva was right." His gaze raked over me with disgust. "You're rotten to the core. A cheap, lying slut."
He hated me. God, how he hated me. Yet through gritted teeth, he forced the wedding to continue to save face. But after that day, he never touched me again. He looked at me as if I were something filthy stuck to the bottom of his shoe.
And now...
The memory dissolved into the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital. The small body in my arms was growing colder by the second.
I didn't care about dignity. I didn't care about pride.
Thud.
I dropped to my knees on the freezing tile. I slammed my forehead against the ground. Once. Twice. Again.
"Dr. Howard! I'm begging you! Save my Joey!"
Benjamin tried to pull me up, his hands shaking, but I was immovable. I kept kowtowing, striking the floor until my skin split and blood ran into my eyes.
"As long as you save Joey, I'll be your servant! I'll be your slave! Please!"
Dr. Howard looked at the blood smearing the floor, then at Joey, whose chest was barely rising. His resolve crumbled. "Get the child to the ER! Now!"
The doors swung shut, severing me from my son.
Minutes felt like hours. When Dr. Howard emerged, the look in his eyes stopped my heart cold. Profound, crushing regret.
"Mrs. Henson... I'm sorry. We missed the window. Go see Joey. It... it will be the last time."
My mind went blank. The world tilted as I staggered into the operating room.
Joey lay there, so small in the sterile bed. His eyelids fluttered, struggling to stay open.
"Mom..." His voice was a thread of sound, barely a whisper. "I'm sorry. I wasn't good. I made you and Dad fight again."
Tears blinded me as I gripped his cooling hand.
"Joey won't be naughty anymore," he breathed.
As the last word left his lips, the light faded from his eyes. His small hand went limp in mine.
"Joey?"
Silence.
I clutched my son's lifeless body and screamed. It wasn't a sound—it was a physical tearing of my soul, my heart gouged out while I was still alive. The pain was absolute. Suffocating.
I couldn't breathe. I didn't want to breathe.
I scrambled up, blind with grief, and rammed my head toward the concrete wall. I just wanted to go with him.
Benjamin was faster. He caught me, wrapping his arms around me in a vice grip, pulling me back from the edge.
"Beth! Don't be stupid!" His voice broke. "Divorce Leo. I'm taking you away from here."
I went limp in his arms, sliding to the floor. Benjamin's fists clenched so hard his knuckles went white, his eyes burning with murderous rage.
"Don't worry, Beth," he hissed. "Joey won't die in vain. I will make Leo pay. Blood for blood."
I leaned against the cold wall, drained of everything—hope, love, fear. I slowly shook my head.
"The Gilbert family took me in when I was an orphan. That was a debt of raising me," I whispered, my voice hollow. "Leo saved my life once. That was a debt of survival."
I looked at my dead son.
"I have owed them for a lifetime. But today... the debts are paid."
"From this moment on, between me and the Gilbert family, between me and Leo... we owe each other nothing. Until death takes me, I will never have anything to do with him again."
The debt of survival.
My mind drifted back to my eighteenth birthday. Leo had insisted on taking me to the mall to pick out a gift.
We had just walked through the doors when the nightmare began. Terrorists seized the building, firing blindly into the crowd. Panic erupted.
Leo didn't hesitate. He grabbed my hand, dragging me into a remote fire escape.
But they found us.
A bullet whizzed past my ear. I froze, paralyzed.
Leo threw himself over me, pinning me to the floor, using his broad back as a human shield.
"Beth, close your eyes," he whispered, his voice steady despite the chaos. "It'll be over soon. I won't let anything happen to you."
He took three bullets for me that day.
He spent two weeks in the ICU, hovering between life and death. It took him over a year to fully recover. During rehabilitation, he withered to skin and bones.
Yet even then, he would smile at me, weak but adoring.
"Luckily, they didn't hit anything vital," he'd said, brushing a tear from my cheek. "Otherwise, who would be left to protect you?"
Who would protect you?
The irony tasted like ash. The man who once took a bullet to save me had become the executioner of our son.
