「Zoey.」
「Will you marry me?」
Rain hammered the glass roof.
Flowers.
Lights.
Music.
Friends cheering us on.
And Marvin, his eyes full of nothing but me.
「Zoey.」
「I don't want to wait anymore.」
「Right now—I need it right now. A legal bond. You and me, protected by law.」
I was drowning in happiness, like I'd hit the jackpot, and in the middle of all that cheering I nodded through my tears.
「Yes. I do.」
I cried until my makeup was wrecked—tears streaking through eyeliner and mascara—and all I could think was that I had to be the ugliest bride-to-be alive. I kept crying as I said:
「Marvin!」
「Could you at least give me some warning! Don't just spring a proposal on me like this!」
Everyone laughed.
Everyone was capturing our happiness on their phones, recording this moment for us. Only Marvin was looking at me. He wiped my tears away, gentle, and said:
「No matter what you look like, Zoey.」
「You're always the prettiest, most precious little princess in my heart.」
I forced my heavy eyelids open and found myself staring up at a doctor in a white coat. I heard him ask me:
「Have you made your decision?」
「The baby,」 he said, carefully, word by word：「you really don't want to keep it?」
Cold all over, stiff, like I'd really walked through death's door and come back in pieces—already shattered—I wasn't going to let a child be born nameless on top of it.
「No.」
My voice was barely there. I slipped back under almost instantly.
When I woke again,
Marvin was sitting at my bedside.
His eyes were complicated when they landed on me, full of something I couldn't read.
I didn't want to know. I just struggled to sit up, but he caught me and held me still.
「The doctor said you need to rest.」
「Don't move around,」 he said, soft：「just tell me what you need.」
「I'll get it for you.」
The familiar tone.
The familiar care.
The familiar scent, laced with traces of someone else.
For a split second I almost believed it had all been a nightmare. But that other scent told me the truth: none of it was a dream. Marvin and I were finished. My whole body was drained, but I still pushed him away.
「I don't need anything from you.」
I picked up my phone to text Virginia, but Marvin snatched it out of my hand. His face was full of confusion.
「Zoe.」
「Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant?」
「If the doctor hadn't come to find me, if the nurses hadn't told me, I would never have known. You were pregnant.」
「And I never would have known」
Pain twisted across his face.
「that you got rid of our child.」
I looked at him and almost laughed.
Earlier today,
I had come here full of hope, wanting to see the surprise on his face, wanting to tell him in person that he was going to be a father.
Instead,
Marvin slapped me hard.
And made me understand.
What we had was something the world would never accept. Something that couldn't see the light of day. Including me. I was just the other woman.
I'm not someone who clings.
Even if the pain was killing me, I knew when to cut it off. I didn't hesitate for a second before letting go of that life—because I refused to have a single thread still connecting me to Marvin.
And now,
here he was, looking at me with blame in his eyes.
「If you had told me——」
「Told you?」
I cut him off.
「Told you I was carrying your illegitimate child? So the kid could follow me around, spat on by everyone we pass, living like a rat in a gutter that never sees daylight?」
「Marvin.」
I looked toward the half-open door of the hospital room, at the figure that had been standing outside it from the very beginning.
「Your wife and your happiness are out there.」
「Not in here.」
「Marvin,」 I told him：「You and I have nothing to do with each other anymore.」
「From now on, I don't want to see you again.」
