The Day I Needed Him Most, He Chose Her

Silence.

"Fine. Don't want to talk? Forget it." I walked into the bedroom and shut the door.

He followed me in, grabbing my arm. "Juliana's in the hospital. I went to see her. She had an appendectomy. She's all alone in Graystone City with no one to take care of her. What was I supposed to do, just ignore that?"

I turned to look at him.

"Your birthday comes every year. She's only having this surgery once."

He said it like it was the most reasonable thing in the world.

All at once, I didn't want to fight anymore. I was tired. So goddamn tired.

"Okay." I nodded. "Go take care of her. You should."

He hadn't expected me to say that. He just stood there, frozen.

That night I slept like the dead. No dreams.

The thing that truly killed whatever was left in me came in April.

I'd been having stomach pains for a while. I didn't think much of it—figured it was just a bad stomach.

The morning of April tenth, the pain bent me double. Clay was still asleep.

I shook him awake. Told him I needed to go to the hospital.

He glanced at his phone. "I've got a meeting this morning. Can you take an Uber? I'll come find you after it's done."

I said okay.

I went alone. Registered alone. Paid alone. Waited for the results alone. The doctor held my chart, his expression grim. "You're pregnant, but it's ectopic. You need surgery immediately."

I couldn't move.

"Where's your family?"

"In a meeting."

The doctor frowned. "We need a family member to sign the consent form. Call someone. Now."

I called Clay. No answer.

I sent a message: Ectopic pregnancy. Need surgery. Get here now.

Read. No reply.

I waited forty minutes. The nurse came to check on me three times. In the end, I signed the consent form myself. Walked into the operating room alone.

Lying on that table, I stared up at the overhead light. It was blinding, searingly bright.

If I die here, I thought, what would he be doing? Sitting in his meeting? Or sitting with her?

The surgery went fine. I didn't. A nurse wheeled me back to my room, got me settled, and left. I lay in bed shivering, unable to speak.

At eight that evening, Clay showed up.

The second he pushed the door open, I knew where he'd been.

He'd changed his clothes. He'd left the house that morning in a blue dress shirt. Now he was wearing a white T-shirt. His hair was freshly washed too—I could smell the shampoo from across the room.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, the meeting this afternoon was really important, my phone was on silent, I didn't hear it—" He walked toward me, reaching for my hand.

I looked at him. "Where were you today?"

"The meeting, I told you, that project—"

"Clay."

"You're not wearing the same clothes you left in."

He froze.

"You changed. Your hair's wet." I held his gaze. "Where were you?"

He said nothing.

"Today's her birthday, isn't it?"

The color drained from his face.

"You remembered her birthday. You made sure you were there to celebrate it with her. And while I was lying on an operating table, your phone was off." My voice was steady. Perfectly steady. Like I was talking about someone else's life. "Clay. We're done."

"Lydia, just listen to me—"

"Get out."

After I was discharged, I moved in with a friend.

Clay came looking for me a few times. He'd stand outside the entrance to my friend's apartment complex, just standing there for hours. I never went down.

At the end of May, I went back to the apartment we'd shared to pack my things. When I opened the door, he was there.

He'd lost a lot of weight. His jaw was covered in stubble, and the skin beneath his eyes was bruised a deep purple-black.

"Lydia." He stepped in front of me. "Let's talk."

"About what?"

"There's nothing between me and her. We're just friends—"

"Just friends." I laughed. "You spent her birthday with her. I was having a miscarriage, and you were by her side. That's what you call 'just friends'?"