While I Lost Our Baby, He Chose Her

I reached the apartment just as the gray afternoon turned to black.

The rooms were freezing. I didn’t turn on the heat. I took off my coat, hung it in the closet, and stood in the hallway.

The ivory dress hung on the bedroom door. In the shadows, it looked like a pale ghost. On the table, the place cards caught the dim reflection from the streetlamps outside. Fifty people. Fifty names written in gold. My hand had cramped while writing them. My back had ached. Now, they just looked like little headstones.

I sat on the kitchen stool and waited.

At eight o'clock, the lock clicked. Maverick pushed the door open. He stepped inside, shaking the winter chill from his shoulders. He tossed his keys into the small ceramic bowl on the table. The metal rang loud in the quiet room.

He didn’t mention the boutique on Fifth Avenue. He didn’t apologize for screaming at me in front of the clerks. He didn’t even look embarrassed. He took off his suit jacket, draped it over the back of a chair, and set his laptop down.

"I skipped dinner," he said. He didn't look at me. He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled them up. "Is there any chicken left?"

"No," I said.

My voice was quiet. It barely traveled across the counter.

Maverick sighed. It was that sharp, irritated sound he made whenever a store clerk was too slow. "Fine. I’ll order something later. I have forty pages of peer reviews to clear before tomorrow."

He opened his laptop. The screen cast a pale, cold blue glow over his face. His fingers began clicking against the keys. Fast. Steady. Like clockwork.

I stood up and walked over to the other side of the dining table. I rested my hands flat against the dark wood.

"Maverick."

The typing didn't stop. "If this is about the store, Leanna, drop it. I already explained it to you. I don't have the bandwidth for another scene."

"Look at me."

His fingers hesitated. Then he lifted his eyes, his brows pulled together in tight, impatient lines. "What?"

"Do you know what happened three years ago?" I asked.

He blinked. "What are you talking about?"

"October fourteenth," I said. Every syllable was distinct. "Three years ago. October fourteenth."

He stared at me. His face was completely blank. There was no flicker of recognition. No sudden tightening around his eyes. His brain searched for the date, found nothing, and discarded it immediately.

"It’s a date, Leanna," he said. "Am I supposed to remember every random Tuesday?"

"It wasn't a random Tuesday." My throat felt dry, but my voice didn't shake. "I was eleven weeks pregnant. I woke up at two in the morning because the pain ripped through my stomach like a knife. I fell off the bed. I crawled on my hands and knees to the bathroom."

Maverick didn't move. He leaned back in his chair, his jaw setting into a hard line.

"I bled all over the white tile," I continued, looking straight into his eyes. "I sat against the bathtub in the dark, holding my stomach, shaking so hard my teeth rattled. I called you five times. Your phone rang and rang, but you never answered. You didn't come home until seven the next morning."

The blue light from his screen reflected in his eyes. He didn't flinch. He didn't show a trace of grief.

Instead, he lifted his right hand and waved it through the air. He swatted at my words as if they were nothing more than a bothersome fly buzzing around his head.

"That was years ago, Leanna," he said. His voice was heavy with disgust. "Why are you always dragging up the past?"

The room went dead still.

The air left my lungs, but it didn't hurt. Inside my chest, the very last thread snapped. It didn't make a sound. It was just a clean, quiet break. The invisible chain that had bound me to him for seven years simply turned to dust.

The blind girl who loved him was gone. The girl who made his tea, ironed his shirts, and prayed for his approval had died.

I looked at him. I saw only a stranger. A small, cold man sitting in the dark.

"We're done," I said.

My voice was so calm it startled me.

Maverick let out a short, contemptuous laugh. He shook his head and looked down at his keyboard.

"Right," he scoffed. "We're done. Very dramatic."

"I mean it, Maverick."

"Leanna, stop it," he snapped, his fingers already back on the keys. "You do this every single time we have an important milestone. You get anxious, you pick an absurd fight, and then you play the victim. It’s exhausting."

"I am not fighting."

"You'll feel differently after the party tomorrow," he said dismissively. He didn't even bother looking up again. "Once the guests are here and everyone congratulates us, you’ll calm down. You always do."

He didn't believe me.

In seven years, I had never walked away. I had swallowed every insult, excused every late night, and buried every tear. He was entirely certain that I had nowhere else to go.

Maverick clicked his mouse a few times, then reached out and slammed his laptop shut. The plastic made a loud, sharp crack.

"I’m going to sleep," he said, standing up. He stretched his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck. "Turn off the lights when you're done sulking. And make sure the steamer didn't leave water spots on my suit."

He turned his back on me and walked down the hall.

The bedroom door shut. The latch clicked into place.

I stayed standing by the table. Five minutes passed. Then ten.

The apartment was pitch black except for the amber glare of the streetlamps filtering through the blinds. Down the hall, the sound began. Low, even, steady breathing.

He was asleep.

A man who had betrayed me. A man who had left me to bleed alone. A man who had just thrown seven years into the dirt. He fell asleep within minutes, his conscience entirely clear.

I pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table.

I rested my hands on the wood. The cold air surrounded me, but I didn't shiver.

There was no anger left in my veins. No grief. No tears. There was only a terrifying, crystal-clear stillness.

My decision was made.