I Will Leave You, Around Winter

4: 4

The next morning, I went to the hospital alone to schedule the abortion.

The screen lit up.

A message from Thomas:

【Let's move the anniversary. Ella finally scored tickets to a concert she loves, so I have to take her. You've got plenty of free time anyway.】

You've got plenty of free time anyway...

A few careless words, as if all my waiting and giving-in over these eight years were, to him, nothing but time that had always been sitting idle for the taking.

Right after came a message from Ella.

【Forgot to tell you—Thomas and I were actually together before you. Before you ever met him, we were already a couple. Later he said he wanted a change of taste, so I let you have him for a few years.】

【One more thing you should know. All those years, the vitamins Thomas gave you—I picked them out for him. They were birth control pills. There was never any chance he'd keep that baby. But don't be sad about it. He was never going to let it be born anyway. Something that was never meant to happen can't really be "gotten rid of," now can it?】

There was also a video. I opened it.

The frame jolted. Ella's voice came through, thick with tears:

“Thomas, the baby's gone... The doctor says it might be hard for me to ever have one again.”

Off camera, Thomas's voice was low and muffled: “Don't cry. I'm right here.”

“Are you going to stop wanting me someday?”

“Never. Don't overthink it. I promise—I'll never let anyone else carry my child.”

The video ended.

I stared at the dark screen, my fingertips cold.

Eight years. Everything I'd taken for tenderness and care, every glass of warm water and every pill he'd set within my reach—all of it had been making sure I would never become his accident.

The funny part was, I'd still been wavering, still wondering whether to give him a chance for the baby's sake.

She sent another file. I opened it—more than nine thousand photos, all of her and Thomas together.

They'd crossed deserts, dived deep seas, embraced against a setting sun, kissed at the mouth of a volcano.

As if they'd lived out every grand, burning thing the world had to offer.

And in eight years with Thomas, the photos of the two of us together could be counted on one hand.

He said he didn't like being photographed, that a camera pointed at him made his whole body uncomfortable.

So it turned out that line of his simply didn't apply to someone else.

Tears dropped onto the screen, one after another, blurring all those smiling faces into a smear of water.

I switched off the phone and shoved it into my bag.

Lying on the operating table, the surgical light overhead was very bright.

The anesthesiologist said softly: “Relax. It'll be over soon.”

The cold liquid pushed in, and my vision began to blur.

I thought of eight years ago, him carrying me on his back down Cherry Blossom Avenue, panting out, “I'll carry you my whole life.”

Thought of the first time he kissed me, the tips of his ears going red.

Thought of him saying, “The first autumn after we graduate, I'll marry you.”

Those images were like old photographs soaked in water, spreading frame by frame, blurring, fading.

In the end there was only white.

When I woke, a nurse helped me off the bed and went over the aftercare instructions.

I walked slowly down the hospital corridor, one hand against the wall, a dull dragging ache low in my belly.

Passing the waiting area, out of the corner of my eye I caught another video Ella had sent three hours ago on my phone screen.

I opened it. It was the concert. The big screen had just cut to the audience, and Ella turned her head and kissed the corner of Thomas's mouth.

The whole crowd screamed.

Off camera her voice carried a smile: “We've known each other over twenty years. What's meant to be mine—how could it ever get away?”

I switched off the screen and kept walking.

At the corner, I ran straight into two people.

Thomas was holding Ella by the arm, murmuring something to her, a bag of medicine in his other hand.

He looked up and saw me, and froze for a beat. “Meg? What are you doing here——”

Ella, one hand cupped over her stomach, put in softly:

“My stomach's been bothering me. Thomas couldn't stop worrying, insisted on bringing me to the hospital to get it checked. Didn't expect to run into you here. What a coincidence.”

I stopped.

The fluorescent lights in the corridor cast a pale, sickly white.

I looked at him and gave a small smile.

“I came to get rid of that baby you didn't want——”

“The abortion.”

“Thomas, we're breaking up.”