Broken Ring: Watch Me Shine

Calista POV:

I don't know how long I sat on the sofa. The city lights outside the panoramic window blurred into a meaningless smear of color.

He didn't come back.

The text I sent him went unanswered, a tiny digital message swallowed by an immense, silent void. Just like every piece of my heart I had given him.

I picked up my phone. My thumb hovered, then pressed the social media icon. It was a form of self-torture.

The feed was flooded with him. With them. "Hockey Prince Stands Vigil for Ailing First Love: A Modern-Day Fairy Tale."

The lead photo was a candid shot. Barrett, leaning over Felicia's hospital bed, his hand gently brushing a strand of hair from her pale forehead. The look in his eyes... that raw, unguarded tenderness... was a look he had never once given me.

A wave of nausea churned in my stomach. I bolted for the bathroom, my hand clamped over my mouth, and retched into the toilet bowl. Nothing came up but bitter acid.

I told myself it was grief. A physical manifestation of a broken heart. But this feeling... it had been haunting me for days.

A cold, terrifying thought pierced through the fog of my misery. My period. It was two weeks late.

My hands shook as I dug through the back of the bathroom cabinet. I found it tucked behind a bottle of expensive lotion I never used. A small, white box I had bought months ago, in a moment of foolish, hopeful fantasy.

A pregnancy test.

It felt impossibly heavy in my palm. I was terrified to confirm the answer that was already screaming in my head.

If... if I was pregnant, would he change his mind? Would he stay for the baby?

The thought was a flicker of light, immediately extinguished by the memory of his cold, gray eyes. His talk of sacrifice. Of duty. For Felicia.

No. He wouldn't.

He would see this child as a complication. A roadblock on his noble path to his one true love.

Worse, he would see it as a ploy. A desperate, pathetic attempt to trap him.

I closed my eyes, my body moving on autopilot, following the instructions on the box. A ritual performed in the depths of despair.

The five minutes of waiting felt like a lifetime. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird.

I placed the test stick face down on the marble countertop, unable to look.

Finally, I forced myself. I took a breath and flipped it over.

Two lines.

Two clear, undeniable, blood-red lines. They burned themselves onto my retinas, two wounds that would never heal.

I was pregnant.

At the exact moment he was leaving me for another woman, I was carrying his child.

There was no joy. Only a vast, cosmic absurdity. A suffocating wave of ice-cold despair. This baby couldn't have come at a worse time.

I pressed my hand to my mouth to stifle a sob, my body sliding down the cold, tiled wall until I was a heap on the floor.

My other hand went to my flat stomach. A life. A tiny, secret life was growing inside me. His and mine.

But its father had already decided he didn't want us.

I would not bring a child into a loveless world. I would not let my baby become a tool, a bargaining chip in a game of love I had already lost.

A wild, sharp, and decisive thought formed in the wreckage of my heart.

I stood up. The tears stopped. My eyes were dry and burning.

I picked up the pregnancy test.

Without a moment's hesitation, I snapped the plastic stick in two. The crack was loud in the silent bathroom.

I threw the pieces into the toilet.

I watched as the flush pulled them into a vortex, a tiny white funeral pyre, disappearing forever. Along with my dead love and the last glimmer of starlight in my life.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror. A pale, hollow-eyed stranger stared back.

"It's over, Calista," I whispered to her.

This child, I can't have it. Barrett Sterling, I don't want him.

I walked out of the bathroom, back into the living room. I picked up the divorce papers and my pen.

Just then, my phone buzzed. His name flashed on the screen. A sharp pang, a ghost of a feeling, then nothing.

I declined the call.

I opened my contacts, found his name, and pressed "Block."

Then, I sent a single text to my lawyer.

"9 AM tomorrow. Prepare the documents. I want the fastest divorce possible. I'm leaving with nothing."

Done.

A wave of exhaustion washed over me. I walked to the window and looked out at the city. For the first time, its glittering expanse felt completely alien to me. A new future, one I never wanted, was beginning in the heart of my deepest pain.