Those words broke me in a new way.
I wanted her to tell me I was strong. That I could do this on my own. That betrayal wasn’t something I had to live with. But instead, she told me to stay — to swallow my pain and pretend for the sake of stability.
So I stayed.
For the next month, I lived in silence. I barely spoke to him, and he didn’t seem to care. We coexisted like strangers in the same house, walking around each other carefully, as if we both knew a truth too heavy to speak.
Then the day came — the day I went into labor.
It was supposed to be one of the happiest days of my life, but instead, I cried through the contractions. Every push, every gasp felt like a fight between pain and heartbreak. The man who stood beside me, holding my hand, was the same man who had betrayed me, and I couldn’t separate the two.
When my son finally arrived, I looked at his tiny face and felt two emotions crash inside me — love and grief. Love for the little life I’d just brought into the world. Grief for the life I knew I had to leave behind.
My husband took a few pictures, muttered something about needing to make calls, and stepped out of the room. I thought I’d feel relief that he was gone, but instead, I felt empty.
Then, just as I was about to drift into exhausted sleep, I heard a familiar knock.
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