He Loved Her, Not Our Baby

"You're the one who told me she was heartbroken, that she was in a bad way, so I looked out for her a little extra. For your sake."

"It's bad enough you're suspicious of everything all the time, but now you're jealous of your own best friend?"

"With a personality like yours, no wonder you've never had a single friend your whole life!"

Back when Charity first broke up with her ex, I'd told him about my childhood. About being shut out, being pushed away, being the girl Charity took in. Back then Jim had sworn to me, hand on his heart.

"It's okay. From now on, you have me."

"Your best friend is my friend too. I'll help you carry it."

And now he was calling me paranoid.

Saying I deserved it.

A thousand things rose up in my chest and stuck there, and not one of them would come out.

All I wanted was to get out of that suffocating room.

I was about to turn away when Charity beat me to it and burst into tears.

"Mary, why would you say that about me?"

"My boyfriend abandoned me, and now you're abandoning me too."

"Is that really all I am to the two of you? Someone that worthless?"

"Fine. If there's no room in this world for me, then I'll just die."

"Once I'm dead, no one will ever get in the way of you and Jim's happy little life again!"

With that, she shoved me hard and ran for the door.

My lower back slammed into the corner of the table.

I sucked in a sharp breath and grabbed at Jim's arm without thinking.

He flung me off.

He glared at me, and the anger in his eyes wasn't even hidden anymore.

"Go on, Mary. Make your scenes, keep making them."

"Charity's the only friend you'll ever have in this life. If anything happens to her, let's see what you do then!"

He didn't spare me another glance.

Jim went after Charity and slammed the door behind him.

The one making scenes—was that me?

My lower back ached badly.

I slid down and sat there on the floor.

For a long time, I couldn't pull myself together.

I spent the whole night sitting with the pregnancy report, miserable.

I turned it over and over, and in the end I decided to sit down and really talk it through with Jim.

Seven years together. That wasn't easy to come by.

I opened my phone, and the first thing I saw was Charity's new post.

"Love is acceptance. It's having someone to lean on. It's a shoulder that holds you up, steady and sure."

Posted five minutes ago.

Location: a high-end private screening room.

Charity, eyes still red, was leaning on Jim's shoulder.

The lighting was dim and yellow, but you could still make out their fingers laced tight together.

A mutual friend had commented below.

"You and Jim are together now? Does Mary know?"

Charity didn't reply.

Jim didn't explain.

It seemed like the answer had been there all along.

My heart gave one hard, twisting clench.

I deleted the long, careful message I'd written out.

I replaced it with one short line.

"Jim. Let's break up."

When I refreshed, the post was gone.

Right after, Jim's call came through.

"Mary, don't read too much into it."

"That trash ex of Charity's has a new girl, and she couldn't stand it, so she just asked me to play her boyfriend for a bit."

"We only saw a movie together yesterday. Nothing else, I swear."

Whether they'd done anything, I didn't know.

What I knew was that the movie they'd watched was the surprise I'd planned for Jim.

I'd ached for how hard he'd been working lately.

I'd wanted to carve out some time and give him a real evening, just the two of us.

But in his evening for two, there was no me.

I slid my hand slowly to my belly, and when I spoke, it was with everything tangled up inside.

"It has nothing to do with that."

"It's that your Charity's care has already outweighed mine."