No More Forcing Him to Swear Oaths

The day our daughter choked to death, I pulled out every one of my thorns. I became the proper, graceful wife Dylan had always wanted.
I stopped hiring private investigators to follow him. I stopped storming into bars and flipping tables at midnight. I stopped forcing him to swear on his life that he would love me forever.
So when I found a lipstick in his car, a shade I never wear, I just carefully put it aside for him.
"This color is so hard to find," I said with a placid smile. "Don't forget to give it to her."
Dylan slammed on the brakes, the car screeching to a halt.
"Ava, you're sick," he seethed.
"If you're going to keep playing these passive-aggressive games, maybe we should take some time apart to cool off."
"Fine," I said. "Let's just get a divorce."
He stared into my calm, empty eyes, utterly stunned.
1
In the end, it was Dylan who broke first.
He sighed, a look of pleading on his handsome face. "You know I don't mean that. I just I want you to stop misunderstanding me."
"Ava, I've changed. I really have."
He looked so pathetic now. A far cry from the cold, ruthless man who had pinned me by the throat a year ago, calling me a shrew.
I smiled, my voice light. "Okay. I believe you."
He frowned, about to say more, but I had already put on my headphones.
Dylan stepped on the gas, and the car sped toward the cemetery.
It was the anniversary of his mentor's death, and all his former students were there to pay their respects.
Which meant the widow, of course, was there too.
Rosalind, dressed in a chic black dress, was holding a little girl's hand.
The moment I saw that innocent face, a tide of buried pain and despair surged up, slicing at my heart.
My eyes burned. I took an involuntary step forward.
Dylan's hand clamped down on my shoulder, his voice a low warning. "Ava, it's been a long time. You're the one who said you wanted to come. Don't make a scene in front of all these people."
I smiled, and a hot tear splashed onto the back of his hand.
He froze for a second, and in that moment, I pushed him away.
"Did you really think I came to see your mentor?" I whispered.
"I just came to see my Nora."
"Today's her birthday."
All the tension went out of Dylan's body. His shoulders slumped, and he seemed to age ten years in an instant.
He was always telling me it was in the past.
But it wasn't.
That year, my Nora was one year old. Rosalind's daughter, Luna, stuffed more than a dozen chocolate candies into her mouth. Noras face turned blue, her tiny throat constricting, her limbs stiffening as she died in her cradle.
I held her. Her body was so cold. No matter how many layers I wrapped her in, she was still so terribly cold.
"Dylan, get her snowsuit," I'd begged.
"Hurry! What if she catches a cold?"
I screamed his name a dozen times, my voice raw. But he just knelt at my feet, his face ashen. He was grieving too, broken by the loss.
But even then, he was defending them.
"Luna is only five. She couldn't have meant to do it"
"Don't call the police, Ava. I'm begging you."
In that moment, everything inside me shattered.
The despair was a black hole in my chest. The grief was too vast, the pain too deep. It was far more than love could ever bear.
2
I met Dylan when I was shaking down local businesses for protection money.
In the slum where everyone knew the only law was the strength of your fists, I had been thrown away as a child and had grown a tough hide and a thick skin to survive.
But Dylan wasn't like that.
His father had died in an accident, the compensation was never paid, and his mother had been forced to move them there. The hardship was too much for her. Less than a year later, she ran off with the man who owned the corner store.
I'd walked in to collect my fee just in time to see her leaving. I grinned at Dylan. "Looks like your mom doesn't want you anymore. Welcome to the orphan club."
He tilted his chin up, refusing to cry, but his eyes were red-rimmed.
This neighborhood saw families torn apart every day. I was barely surviving myself. But seeing the tears welling in his beautiful, defiant eyes, I forgot everything.
"Hey, don't cry. I'll take you with me," I said.
"As long as I've got food to eat, you won't starve."
Someone that beautiful shouldn't be crying. He shouldn't be left to rot in the filth of the slums.
I gritted my teeth and took him in.
In the years that followed, I did whatever it took. I scavenged, begged, performed street tricks, worked as a hostess in seedy bars
Everyone knew that for a hundred-dollar bill, Ava would get on her knees and call you daddy.
I didn't care about dignity. I only cared about getting Dylan out.
He was a genius. Even in that hellhole, he aced his exams and got into a top university. I paid his tuition with money earned in ways I never wanted him to know, and I never dared to set foot on his campus. I was afraid his classmates would see metrashy, rough, and reeking of the streetsand look down on him because of it.
But Dylan would always take my hand and tell everyone, without a trace of shame, "This is the woman I love."
The first time we made love, I whispered in his ear, "Dylan, I can barely read. You're so brilliant. How could you ever love someone like me?"
He chuckled and kissed my damp hair. "You're like a little hedgehog. All prickly and fierce with the world, but you use your spines to protect me."
"Where would I be without you?" he murmured. "From the day you took me in, I swore I'd give you the best life imaginable."
He kept his word.
In four years, he graduated with honors, published several papers, and made breakthroughs in cutting-edge technology. He was hailed as a young prodigy, with top companies fighting to recruit him.
Even I knew the gap between us was as vast as the gutter and the clouds.
But on his graduation day, he proposed.
"My little hedgehog, will you marry me?"
I cried so hard I could barely breathe, repeating "yes" over and over.
As our friends cheered, he held me close and kissed me deeply. The air filled with flying mortarboards, and all I could hear was the thunder of my own heart. It was the crescendo of our love story.
I thought that happiness was just the beginning. I never imagined
I never imagined I would spend the rest of my life praying to go back to that day, just to change my answer.
"No."
3
After graduation, Dylan decided to pursue a postgraduate degree under a renowned academic titan, a Professor Quinn.
One day, there was an accident. An explosion in the lab. Professor Quinn shielded Dylan with his own body and was killed instantly.
At first, I was filled with guilt for Rosalind and her daughter, Luna. I went to their house every day, bringing gifts, helping with chores.
Rosalind hated Dylan. She would scream at him, even hit him. He took all of it, silently enduring her rage and taking care of her every need.
And somewhere along the way, that care turned into something else.
One afternoon, I went to their house as usual, bringing a nourishing soup for Rosalind. I pushed open the living room door and froze. My husband was kissing his mentor's widow on the sofa, their bodies tangled together. The throw pillows were soaked.
My mind went blank. The thermos slipped from my fingers and crashed to the floor.
When I came to my senses, I screamed and lunged at them, tearing them apart. I grabbed the thermos and threw the scalding soup at Rosalind.
But it was Dylan who jumped in front of her, taking the brunt of it.
They were both so calm. It made me look like the crazy one, the fool.
"Ava, darling," Rosalind said, lighting a cigarette and leaning against the wall, her robe slipping off one shoulder. She smiled lazily at me. "I'm all alone. The nights are so long, so lonely."
"You're a woman. Surely you understand?"
I was shaking with rage. I picked up a chair and threw it at her. "I understand my ass!"
"That's enough."
Dylan caught the chair, his eyes cold as ice. "Ava, don't act like a shrew."
They were both so smart, so sophisticated. In their world of the elite, it seemed there were no rules, no morals. Anything was permissible.
But I didn't understand.
I couldn't accept sharing my husband with another woman.
I made Dylan kneel and swear to me that he would never see Rosalind again.
I held a knife to my own throat and threatened him, demanding he be home by six every night.
I stood on the rooftop with our daughter in my arms and forced him to delete Rosalind from his phone in front of me.
At first, he complied. Then he started making excuses to come home late. I caught him meeting her in secret, again and again.
Finally, he stopped pretending altogether. After our fights, he would just get in his car and drive to her house, staying the night.
My husband's betrayal, my baby's cries, the other woman's taunts. I was stretched to my breaking point. The slightest thing would make me burst into tears.
Once, Nora had a fever of 104, but he was at a parent-teacher conference for Luna.
I took a craft knife to my arm again, bleeding onto the floor as I called and begged him to come home, to just look at our child.
He just laughed on the other end of the line.
"Stop lying, Ava. How many times are you going to pull this stunt?"
"You're not dead yet, are you?"
His voice was cold, laced with amusement. "My little hedgehog, you can't be naive forever."
4
I knelt before Nora's grave, letting the rain soak through my clothes.
Dylan came up behind me, the umbrella silently appearing over my head.
I wasn't a good mother.
The day Nora died, I was so busy fighting with Dylan and Rosalind in the living room that I didn't even know my own daughter was choking to death upstairs.
I pressed my forehead against the cold stone of her grave, as if it could bring me closer to her.
Rosalind approached, holding Luna's hand. Even nearing forty, she was still beautiful. She bit her lip, her expression one of fragile sorrow.
"Ava, I am so sorry. I disciplined Luna harshly after it happened. We're all family. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive her."
Luna bowed her head, her voice thick with tears. "I'm so sorry, Auntie Ava."
Then, she pulled something from her pocket and placed it on Nora's grave.
When I saw what it was, my entire body went rigid.
It was a bag of chocolates.
In an instant, a monstrous wave of grief and fury washed over me. I shot to my feet and slapped Luna across the face, hard.
Rosalind shrieked, jumping in front of her daughter. "What are you doing? Why would you hit a child!"
"Your child is a child, but mine wasn't?!"
Dylan grabbed me around the waist and dragged me away as I struggled and screamed.
He pulled me into a secluded corner and held me tight, patting my back. "It's okay, it's all in the past"
"You're pregnant now," he murmured. "We're going to have a new baby. Everything will be okay."
I looked at him, my eyes blank. "Dylan, the day Nora died were the security cameras really broken?"
He was silent for a long time before giving me the same answer he'd given me a year ago.
"Yes."
"It's been too long. The footage can't be recovered."
I pushed him away and started to walk.
"Don't go after them," he said, his voice tense. "She's just a child, she doesn't know any better. Rosalind explained it to me. Luna meant to bring cookies, she just grabbed the wrong bag by mistake."
He was terrified I would go back to their house and smash things, like I did right after Nora died.
But I just turned and gave him a weak, tired smile.
"Calling her Mrs. Quinn is so formal."
"She's the love of your life, after all."
Dylan closed his eyes and sighed.
He must be regretting it. Regretting not running away with Rosalind, regretting being stuck with a madwoman like me.
Funny.
I was regretting it too.
Regretting giving him another chance to hurt me until there was nothing left.
I went straight to the hospital.
"Are you sure you want to terminate the pregnancy?" the doctor asked gently. "Your health is already quite poor. It might be very difficult for you to conceive again."
I nodded, numb.
Dylan and I were not fit to raise a child.
I lay on the operating table and let the cold steel cut into me.
It was the next day when I finally returned home.
I turned on my phone, and a flood of messages from Dylan poured in.
"Honey, where are you? Please don't do anything stupid."
Dozens of worried messages, followed by the last one.
"Something came up at work. I have to go on a business trip for a few days. I'll make it up to you when I get back."
On social media, however, Rosalind was posting pictures of their happy family vacation.
Dylan on the left, her on the right, Luna smiling between them. The background was Disneyland.
Dylan's guilt over her husband's death had led him to give himself to them as compensation.
What a fair trade.
I smiled and blocked all of them.
When Dylan came home, my bags were already packed. He saw the suitcase but didn't seem surprised. He just knelt before me, his voice low and pleading.
"Our baby can't grow up without a father. And I can't live without you."
"Please don't go."
He looked up at me, his eyes red-rimmed, the picture of a broken man.
His tears used to work on me.
But I was no longer the eight-year-old girl on the street, or the twenty-three-year-old new mother.
I had seen enough of his act.
I calmly pulled my hand from his grasp.
"Dylan, the divorce papers are on the table. I had an abortion."
"And you I don't want you either."
"Let's just end this."

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