Something in me snapped. I grabbed the bank card and hurled it straight at Marvin's face.
「What am I to you?!」
「Marvin!」
「What the hell am I to you?!」
Every wall I'd tried to hold up came crashing down. Tears poured out no matter how hard I fought them, no matter how badly I wanted to keep some shred of dignity. I couldn't. I seized my backpack with both hands and swung it into him, again and again.
「I sat on a train for seven hours! Seven hours telling myself it was fine! You were just busy! You just didn't see my messages, just didn't pick up my calls! I should understand! I should be more considerate! You're busy! So I'll just come find you myself!」
「I had time, right?!」
「I'll just bend over backwards for you, right?!」
「But I imagined ten thousand possibilities, and not one of them—not one—was this! This is the surprise you had for me!」
「You tell me!」
「That the man I married three years ago was someone else's husband! Someone else's child's father! You're telling me I'm the other woman!」
「Marvin!」
「I don't accept this!」
「I will never accept this!」
I collapsed into sobs, tears spilling without end, my whole body shaking so hard I couldn't hold myself still.
I thought of the pregnancy report tucked carefully inside my backpack, how I'd pictured the look on Marvin's face when he found out he was going to be a father.
It never occurred to me.
Marvin was already a father.
He'd already had that joy, already lived it with someone else.
It never occurred to me.
That this relationship would end like this, in something so bleak and wretched. I never imagined it, not for a single second. And through the blur of tears I watched Marvin stand there like a child who'd been caught, not saying a word while I screamed at him, not defending himself, just standing there like an ostrich with his head in the sand.
I lost the last of my control, grabbed his collar, and screamed：「Do you even know——」
The words were right there, right on the tip of my tongue. I'm pregnant too!
I'm pregnant too!
I'm carrying your child!
I have a baby too!
The instant before I said it, Sybilla thrashed on the bed, fighting to get up, screaming：「Don't you dare hurt my husband!」
「Don't you dare hurt Marvin!」
She couldn't even stand. She tumbled off the bed and the monitors crashed down with her.
It was like Marvin finally snapped out of it. He shoved me hard, and my lower back slammed into the corner of the table. The pain was so sharp my vision went black.
But I could still see him catch Sybilla, steady and sure.
She didn't care that the IV needle had been ripped from her hand, didn't care that blood was soaking through her hospital gown. She planted herself in front of Marvin and screamed at me.
「Zoe!」
「Whatever you've got, take it out on me!」
「Don't you touch my husband!」
「Don't you touch my child's father!」
Sybilla was sobbing so hard she could barely breathe.
Marvin held her tight, and the tenderness in his eyes was so raw it almost spilled over. The gentleness he gave her cut through me like a blade.
I stepped back without thinking, ignoring the searing pain in my lower back, and heard Marvin call my name.
「Zoe.」
「I admit it,」 he said, arms still tight around Sybilla, looking at me with something like disappointment：「This is all my fault.」
「I lied to you. I wronged you.」
「But my wife is innocent,」 his eyes red, his voice scraped raw：「You shouldn't have hurt my wife!」
「She needs to stay calm. Why did you have to come here and upset her?!」
He looked at me as if he'd finally made up his mind.
「Zoe.」
「Our marriage certificate was fake.」
「I had someone make it just to deal with you.」
The air left my lungs. Before I could react, my foot caught on the backpack lying on the floor. I looked down at the bag I'd chosen so carefully, and I remembered: the pregnancy report, laid neatly inside a picture frame, waiting for him to see it.
