"So did you change?" I cut her off. "If you'd stayed the way you were when he fell for you, would he have strayed?"
The thirty-three-year-old me went still. Her ragged breathing turned to tremors.
I changed. My looks faded. I became naggy, calculating, snapping at him for no reason. But my love for him never wavered.
He's the one who changed. Impatient. No longer indulgent. Forgetting our anniversary...
Patsy, we're just ordinary women. When you reach my age, you'll understand—I can't be as carefree as you are now.
Take my advice. End it. The deeper you love him today, the worse he'll destroy you tomorrow. Antony Weiss isn't worth it...
"No—he is worth it!"
The words tore out of me before I could stop them.
"He's the only person in this world who loves me as much as my parents do!"
"He learned to bake little cakes just for me! He stayed up night after night when I was sick, never leaving my bedside! He recorded his voice as my custom ringtone! He carried me on his back to the mountaintop to watch the sunrise! He ran into a fire to save me, risking his own life!"
"That love was real. You lived it yourself. How can you say he isn't worth it—"
But he murdered your child.
I froze.
Something wrenched at my heart—a slow, unraveling ache.
My voice came out shaking. "What did you say?"
Through the phone, I heard her—the thirty-three-year-old me—her teeth chattering faintly.
Do you want to hear it, Patsy? Do you want to know what Antony Weiss becomes in ten years?
I said nothing.
I just listened as she began to speak, her voice growing eerily calm.
The thirty-three-year-old me told the twenty-three-year-old me everything.
Five years into our marriage, Antony and I sponsored a college student from a poor family. Penelope Cooley.
She was eighteen. Shy as a mimosa, blushing whenever she spoke to me, too timid to even glance at Antony.
Beyond the monthly living stipend, we barely kept in touch.
After she graduated and the sponsorship ended, we had even less contact—just the occasional holiday greeting, polite and perfunctory.
I thought she'd just be a passing figure in my life.
I never imagined that when I was discharged from the hospital after my miscarriage, I'd pass a room with its door half-open—
And see Antony inside.
The woman in the bed was Penelope Cooley.
Their fingers were intertwined. He gazed at her swollen belly with a tenderness I hadn't seen in years.
I stood paralyzed, my mind unable to process the explosion of information. And then the next words sent me plummeting into the abyss.
"Eight months now. Our baby will be here soon." His voice was soft, reverent. "Penelope, I can't stop thinking about it—a tiny, soft little thing, sweet and gentle like you. It makes my heart race."
A coy, blissful smile spread across Penelope's face. She guided his hand to her rounded belly.
"The baby's excited to meet Daddy too. It's just..." She paused, worry clouding her brow. "Our child won't have a legitimate name. Just a bastard..."
"No." Antony cut her off gently. "Patsy's surgery is done. I'll talk to her today. Before the baby comes, we'll be legally married."
Penelope's expression turned guilt-stricken. "Antony... if Patsy ever finds out her miscarriage wasn't an accident, will she hate me?"
He kissed her cheek, soothing. "I won't let her find out. And even if she does—it was my idea. I'll never let anyone hurt you..."
Slap.
The folder slipped from my fingers and hit the floor.
I stood rooted to the spot, unable to move.
All this time, I'd believed it was something I ate—food poisoning that caused the miscarriage.
