He Loved Her, Not Our Baby

I didn't want to be the spare part in this relationship.

I'd had enough of being shut out and pushed aside back when I was a kid, and I was done with it.

Jim sighed.

There was anger threaded through the exhaustion in his voice.

"Mary, can you stop being so unreasonable? I'm exhausted, all right?"

"I have to work, I have to take care of you, and on top of that I take care of your friends for your sake. Maybe you could think about me for once?"

I was so tired.

Too tired to argue.

I hung up and blocked Jim's number.

Then I started packing to move back home.

Once I'd calmed down, I'd think it all through properly—him, and the baby.

Halfway through packing, something felt off.

I lifted my head and looked slowly around the room.

The things had changed.

After Charity's breakup, she'd started staying at our place now and then.

Bit by bit, the photos in the living room had been swapped out for pictures of the three of us.

Jim and Charity leaned close together, smiling brightly.

I was crowded off into the corner, only half my head showing.

Charity's cartoon-print pajamas were hanging in the bedroom too.

Jim had bought three sets of them on his own, back then.

Mine had been too small and got returned; Charity's fit just fine.

After that, those two sets of pajamas had stayed in the closet of the master bedroom.

A bright, blatant announcement of Charity's unshakable place here.

Now those pajamas, and everything around them, seemed to be telling me without a single word.

"Mary, you're the spare one."

My heart hurt so much it felt ready to burst.

The tears I'd held back for so long finally fell, blurring everything in front of me.

My hands shook as I typed it in, over and over.

At last I dialed my mother's number.

"Mom, Jim and I broke up."

"Will you come and take me home?"

"I want to go home. To my own home."

My mother gasped, then said anxiously,

"What happened, sweetie? Weren't you two supposed to get engaged next year? How is it a breakup now?"

"All right, all right, stop crying first. Your dad and I are coming for you right now."

The two of them rushed back in no time at all.

My mother didn't ask a thing.

My father packed up my things without a word.

In that crowded apartment.

The things that were actually mine ended up filling just one small suitcase.

In the car I cried and told them the whole story, start to finish.

My father's hands gripped the wheel tight.

My mother held me and just cried.

Afraid I'd do something to myself, the two of them took turns taking time off to stay with me.

My old friends came around asking how things stood between Jim and me.

When they heard we'd broken up, one after another they sighed.

"Forget it. Honestly, you're better off split."

"There's something I never dared tell you. I was afraid you'd read too much into it."

"This whole time, a lot of us have run into Jim and Charity together."

"All over each other. Like they could barely stop themselves from making out right there on the street."

Someone sent me a screenshot of Jim's social media feed.

Seven years together, and he'd never once made us official.

Now his feed was full of Charity.

The two of them out shopping together, going to the amusement park together.

Going to every place I'd wanted to go, the places he'd never had the time to take me.

It would be a lie to say it didn't hurt.

A thousand kinds of hurt all pressed together into one thing.

"Let it go."

Jim and I were finished.

This baby, I'd raise on my own.

I made up my mind to forget the past.

And of all times, that was when Jim showed up at my family's door.

He pounded on it, roaring,

"Mary, get out here."