"Didn't I come back to spend the anniversary with you? Jules has a weak constitution. Tell your people to show some restraint."
"That's enough. If someone actually dies, not even the Sullivans and the Farleys combined can protect you."
His tone was cold, but Kitty sounded delighted.
"Okay, okay, I know you're worried about me~"
"Be a good boy and wait for me at the hotel. I'm on my way. Friendly reminder: my lingerie today is very sexy~"
She admired the intimate photos of me she'd just taken, then tipped my chin up with the toe of her shoe.
"Juliana Henson. Some things you think you have? You never had them at all."
"Learn your place. Stop clinging to Darren, and maybe I'll let you play Mrs. Farley a little while longer. Understand?"
"Anyway, I'm done wasting my breath on you. Darren's waiting for me."
The world went silent. I lay curled in the snow.
Through the haze, a memory surfaced: the year I turned eighteen, when Darren had insisted on programming his number as my emergency contact.
"Jules, sometimes in an emergency, you only get the chance to dial one number. There's no time to call the police."
"But no matter when it is, no matter where you are, one call from you and I'll fly to your side to protect you."
I closed my eyes slowly.
He never kept that promise.
When I opened them again, I was in a hospital.
A nurse smiled at me. "You're awake! You have some frostbite, but luckily the baby's fine."
"Congratulations. You're pregnant."
She removed my IV, turned, and left.
I sat there alone, staring at nothing.
Once, I'd believed Darren truly wanted a child with me, a symbol of our love. I'd let myself hope for it in secret, let myself feel that quiet thrill.
But now that it was real, I didn't want it anymore.
A sharp slap echoed down the corridor.
I crept to the door and heard Abner's voice, thick with fury.
"Are you out of your mind? That Sullivan girl feeds you one lie and you swallow it whole?"
"When you said you wanted to divorce her and agreed to marry Juliana, I actually thought you'd grown up. And what have you done instead?"
"Sneaking around with your ex-wife, mistreating the woman you married. Juliana is pregnant, and you abandoned her in that godforsaken place. She's covered in injuries. Is this how you repay what her family did for you?"
Something in those words struck a nerve. Darren's eyes went red in an instant.
"Stop throwing that word at me! 'Repay.' Is guilt-tripping me all you people know how to do?"
"My entire life, she's been like a mountain chained to my back. Like I have to protect her, spoil her, marry her, have children with her. I can't even breathe!"
"That's exactly why I chose Kitty in the first place. At least she didn't suffocate me. At least looking at her didn't feel like someone was collecting on a debt. She made me feel free!"
"Why should two lives from the Henson family cost me my entire existence? Did I ask them to play hero and save me? If I'd known this was the price, I would rather have died in that collapse!"
I slid down the wall, slowly, until I was crouching on the floor. Tears hit the cold tile one by one.
He'd finally said it.
So my very existence had been suffocating him all along.
But back then, he was the one who begged me to stay.
My hand drifted to my stomach. A sob caught in my throat.
"You shouldn't have come," I whispered. "Neither of us should have."
Darren and his parents fell into a cold war. I pretended I hadn't heard a thing.
Abner and Sophia asked me again and again who had done that to me in the snow.
I never told them.
Not to protect Kitty. The time simply wasn't right.
Whether it was guilt over misjudging me, or anger at himself for being manipulated—I wasn't sure which.
