Joshua Jones

The night I told my husband, Ellis Ryan I was pregnant, he shoved me out of the car. Rain poured down, soaking me to the bone as I banged on the window, begging him to at least take me somewhere safe. But he simply rolled the glass up, his voice laced with irritation. "You're always such a hassle, Eva. Now is not the time." These words sliced through my heart like a blade. Then, he sped away—straight into the arms of Laylani Pierce, his childhood sweetheart,his mistress. Hours later, a truck driver found me, but it was too late. The baby was gone, and with it, my ability to ever conceive again. For five days in the hospital, I called Ellis again and again. Forty times. Each call was ignored. And when I finally stepped out of my hospital room, I saw him in the lobby, standing next to Laylani. Her hand rested on her belly—the same belly that carried his child. "Take care, darling. We need to protect our baby." His voice was gentle, so suffocatingly tender that something inside me shattered. I disappeared for ten days after that, leaving no trace. And suddenly, the man who had abandoned me in the rain went mad with calls. But when I finally answered, his voice was sharp. "Where the hell have you been, Eva?" Oh, Ellis. You should have cherished me when you had the chance. ...... When I discovered I was pregnant, Ellis Ryan heartlessly pushed me out of the car. It was a night of pouring rain, and I stood soaking wet on the edge of an unfamiliar suburban highway while he whispered intimately with his childhood sweetheart inside. I banged on the window, begging him to at least take me somewhere safe, but he just coldly raised the window, his eyes filled with annoyance: "You're always such a hassle, Eva. Now is not the time." His car drove away, leaving me completely broken in the rain. Hours later, a kind truck driver found me, but it was too late—I had lost that unborn life, and doctors said the severe hemorrhage had taken away my ability to ever become pregnant again. During my five days in the hospital, I called Ellis not once, but over forty times. Each call was either unanswered or immediately declined. When I was finally able to leave my room, I saw them in the hospital lobby—Ellis and Laylani Pierce standing shoulder to shoulder in the waiting area, her hand gently caressing her slightly swollen belly. Ellis's voice was so tender it suffocated me:"Take care, darling, we need to protect our baby." In that moment, something inside me died completely. After recovering and being discharged, I took myself on a solo seven-day trip to the Alps. During the ten days of absolute silence, Ellis seemed to lose his mind, calling incessantly. Returning from the Alps, I finally answered Ellis's ninety-ninth call. "Eva, my tracker shows you're not at home. he demanded sharply, "Where have you gone off to?" , his voice a misture of anger and desperation. I didn't respond. Keeping my composure, I exited the airport. When Ellis came to pick me up, he took my suitcase with an expression that was both cold and mocking. "So you thought you could run away after losing our baby," he sneered, twisting the knife deeper. "But it turns out you couldn't stay away for long. Look at you, a real mess." I flinched at his cruel words. The baby I had lost was mine alone in his eyes—never ours. The same baby he had driven away in the rain. "I'm buried in work with the wedding just around the corner," he contiued as if nothing had happened, "and don't have time for your antics. We need to move forward, Eva. Stay where you are and don't cause any trouble." With that, he expertly lit a cigarette inside the car—the habit he had resumed the moment Laylani reappeared in his life. I frowned and reached to open the window. Cold air rushed in. I took a deep breath and spoke calmly, "Let's stop by the wedding planner's." It was time to collect the wedding invitations that I had ordered before everything fell apart. Ellis scoffed and sped off, taking us to the wedding planning office. He refused to come inside, loitering at the entrance, smoking and occasionally scrolling through his phone with a smirk. I noticed how he kept checking his messages, his face lighting up each time his phone buzzed. The store assistant brought out the wedding invitations. "Miss Porter, your wedding invitations are ready." Ellis glanced at the elegant ivory invitations. "How tacky," he remarked with a sneer. "Can't believe you go for such a bright color—no originality whatsoever. Just like your insistence on keeping a baby we weren't ready for. " My breath caught in my throat at his casual cruelty. I didn't argue but silently counted the invitations and paid for them using my phone. Just as I was about to speak, Ellis's phone rang. Without hesitation, he answered, and a sweet voice came through, dripping with false charm—Laylani. "I'm going to my prenatal appointment alone again. It's so sad. Is my dear childhood friend available to come with me?" Ellis ended the call and took out his car keys, leaving me with a brusque parting comment. "You can deal with this on your own. I have something to handle." It was a directive, not a request, assuming I would simply agree. He drove off without a second glance, leaving me once again, this time for the same woman. Turning to the assistant, I said, "I've already paid for these invitations. Please go ahead and toss them. Cancel everything else too; there's no need for further planning." The assistant hesitated, looking a bit uneasy. "But, ma'am, we've already completed half of the designs. If you cancel now, the deposit is non-refundable..." "Keep it," I replied, unfazed. After leaving the store, it occurred to me that I should cancel the wedding dress too. Once everything was called off, I stepped into a nearby Italian restaurant, ordered a comforting bowl of pasta, and started crafting a Facebook post. I had captured so many beautiful scenes in the Alps, all worth sharing as memories. I pieced together a collage and added the caption "Dream fulfilled." Many friends liked my post, including a notable thumbs-up from Laylani Pierce. Soon after, she posted an update: a picture of Ellis's intent side profile. Alongside the caption, "Promised to be by my side for life—thanks to my dear childhood friend for joining me at the prenatal visit again!" A flood of comments followed, with friends congratulating them. I casually liked her post before setting my phone aside to enjoy my meal, a small smile playing on my lips at the perfect timing of her betrayal. A few minutes later, my phone rang unexpectedly. Ellis was calling again.

The resignation letter sat on Eric's desk for exactly nine minutes before it came back approved. I know because I watched the clock. I'd spent three weeks drafting it in my head—three weeks of talking myself into it, talking myself out of it, lying awake at 2 a.m. staring at the ceiling of the apartment I'd picked out because it was twelve minutes from his office. Three weeks, and it took him nine minutes to sign off on it without even a phone call. Classic Eric. I was still at my desk, pulling the last of my things into a cardboard box, when I heard them. My colleagues. Mia from accounting and that guy from legal whose name I could never remember, standing just close enough that I was clearly meant to hear. "She's finally doing it," Mia murmured, not bothering to lower her voice. "Honestly? Probably for the best. You can't compete with Vivien." I set my stapler in the box. Slowly. Deliberately. "Vivien's been in his office every other day," the guy from legal added. "It was only a matter of time." I turned around. Both of them had the decency to look slightly caught, but not enough to actually stop. "For what it's worth," Mia said, her smile too sympathetic to be sincere, "you gave it a good run." I looked at her for a moment. Then I smiled—the kind of smile that doesn't reach your eyes because it isn't trying to. "I'm not quitting out of heartbreak," I said. "I'm leveling up. Double the pay, killer benefits." I picked up the box. "But thanks for the concern." I walked out before either of them could respond. The elevator ride down was quiet. Twenty-two floors, and I stood in the back corner with my cardboard box and the faint smell of someone's leftover lunch, and I told myself I felt fine. I told myself I felt light. Free, even. I almost believed it. The afternoon air hit me when I stepped outside—cool, carrying the smell of rain that hadn't fallen yet. The street was loud in the way downtown streets always are, taxis and construction and someone's music bleeding out of a passing car. I shifted the box to my hip and started walking. That's when my phone rang. Eric's name on the screen. I stopped walking. My thumb hovered over the answer button for one second, two, and then muscle memory took over—three years of picking up on the first ring, of dropping everything, of making myself available—and I answered. "Hayley." His voice was clipped, already somewhere else in his head. "I sent you a file. Finish it and send it back within an hour." No hello. No how are you. Just the task, the deadline, the expectation that I would comply. I switched the phone to my other ear and kept walking. "What file?" "Check your email. It's the Meridian account." A pause, and I could hear the faint sound of his office in the background—keyboard clicks, the low hum of the ventilation system I'd sat beside for three years. "It's work hours, Hayley Henderson. You do realize leaving your post means losing a full day's pay, right?" He still had no clue I'd quit. Classic. I pulled up my email one-handed, balancing the box against a storefront. The file was there. I opened the attachment, scrolling through it while he waited, and the moment I recognized the structure of the data—the formatting, the particular way the projections were laid out—my stomach dropped. Meridian. This was my project. Mine. I'd spent six weeks building the framework for it last quarter, and then Vivien had expressed interest, and Eric had suggested—gently, the way he always did things he knew weren't fair—that I let her take point on the presentation. "It'll be good for her visibility," he'd said. "You don't mind, do you?" I hadn't minded. Or I'd told myself I didn't. Now the numbers were wrong. The projections had gaps in them, places where someone had clearly tried to fill in data they didn't fully understand, and the whole third section was built on an assumption that would fall apart the moment anyone looked at it closely. Vivien had taken the credit. Now there was a problem. And somehow, as always, it had found its way back to me. "I see it," I said. My voice came out steadier than I felt. "The client call is tomorrow morning. Whatever's wrong with it, fix it." I looked up at the street. A woman walked past pushing a stroller. A cab honked at someone who'd stepped into the crosswalk too early. The city moved around me, indifferent and relentless. I opened my mouth to tell him. Three words. *I already quit.* Simple. Clean. Nine minutes of his time had already made it official—all I had to do was say it out loud. "Eric—" "One hour, Hayley." He was already moving on, already half out of the conversation. "I don't have time to—" And then, in the background, her voice. Soft. Slightly breathless. The kind of voice that knew exactly how it sounded. "Eric, if Hayley doesn't want to, don't push her. I can handle it." The shift was instantaneous. I heard it happen—the exact moment his attention moved. "No." His voice dropped, warmed, became something I hadn't heard him use with me in a very long time. "You were up late last night. You should rest today." A soft laugh from Vivien. Something murmured that I couldn't quite make out. I stood on the sidewalk with my cardboard box and my phone pressed to my ear, and I listened to the two of them exist in a world that had quietly closed its doors to me, and I felt something settle in my chest—not quite pain, not quite anger. Something older and heavier than both. I didn't say anything. I just hung up. The street noise rushed back in. I stood there for another moment, the box balanced on my hip, the phone still warm in my hand. She hadn't even needed to be in the room to win. She never did. I started walking again. I didn't know where, exactly. Just forward. Just away. She didn't even need to hear the rest. She already knew how this would end.