His Pity Cost Our Child

After a grueling recovery from a miscarriage that nearly took my life, our friends did everything they could to keep Sebastian away from that girl from the massage parlor. They acted like a human shield, blocking her calls and even cornering her in private.

One of themMark, I thinkhad gone as far as to threaten her. Sebastian gave you eighty thousand dollars to disappear. Isnt that enough? If you try to crawl back into his life and mess with my friends marriage again, Ill make sure you regret it.

I dont know how that reached Sebastians ears, but when it did, he snapped. He found Mark and beat him so badly the police had to be called. It only stopped when I walked into the precinct with the divorce papers in my hand. That was the wake-up call, or so I thought.

That night, Sebastian purged her. He deleted her number, scrubbed every trace of her from our house, and even took our wedding photothe one shed cracked in a fit of piqueto a professional restorer. He hung it back over our bed like a trophy of our "renewed" love.

He became the "Perfect Husband" again. He was home by six every night, cooking three-course meals, doting on me with an intensity that felt like he was trying to grow me back into the woman I used to bethe one who hadn't been broken by him.

We lived in that fragile, beautiful lie for three years. Right up until the morning my prenatal check-up notification arrived in the same mail as an invitation to that girls wedding.

Sebastian called it "trash" and threw it in the bin with a sneer. But on the day he was supposed to drive me to the clinic to see our babys first ultrasound, he never showed up. Instead, he drove two towns over and crashed a wedding.

In front of a hundred staring guests, he grabbed the bride, pulled her behind his back, and slapped a check onto the grooms chest.

Heres two million dollars. Ten times whatever you spent on this circus. Now get the hell out of here and never look at her again.

Someone caught it on video. Within hours, it was viral. The internet was calling her the "Runaway Bride" and romanticizing their "star-crossed" love.

It turned out that during these years when I thought Sebastian had finally found his way back to me, he hadn't spent a single second letting go of Jade.

That night, I called the clinic and scheduled a different kind of appointment.

I was simmering a pot of chicken corn soup for Sebastian when the video hit my phone. My best friend, Sarah, was the first to send it.

Is this him?

What the hell is going on?

Did he seriously go back to that parlor girl?

The notifications poured in like a dam breaking. Some were voyeuristic, some were pitying, some were dripping with "I told you so."

The world tilted on its axis, sending me back to that night three years ago. The night Sebastian threw a man off a second-story balcony at a bar because hed made a crude comment to Jade. It was the same madness, the same "me against the world" fever.

I scrolled through the comments, my heart hammering a jagged rhythm against my ribs.

"God, the intensity! Hes been obsessed with her for years!"

"If you wont marry me, Ill just steal you. This is some real-life Dark Romance shit."

"I want someone to love me enough to ruin their entire reputation for me."

I kept scrolling, my eyes blurring, forgetting the stove was still on.

The ceramic pot hissed, then cracked under the uneven heat. Boiling broth erupted, splashing over my hands and legs. I stared at the red, blistering skin, but I couldn't feel the sting.

I just stood there in the wreckage of my kitchen and dialed Sebastians number.

It went straight to voicemail. That familiar, clipped greeting played in my ear, followed by the silence of his absence.

I started to laugh. It was a cold, hollow sound that died in my throat.

Hed promised me this morning. Hed kissed my stomach and told me hed be home by two. Hed knelt by my hospital bed three years ago and sworn on his life hed be a better man.

Was I heartbroken? I dont think so. You have to have hope for your heart to break, and Id burned through the last of mine a long time ago.

I calmly cleaned the floor, wiped the broth from my skin, and called the hospital back.

Cancel the ultrasound, I said, my voice steady. I need to schedule a termination. As soon as possible.

Sebastian didn't stumble through the door until 3:00 AM.

I was sitting on the sofa, my eyes raw and stinging from the lack of sleep. When our eyes met, the silence in the room felt heavy, like it was made of lead.

On the coffee table, my iPad was on a loop, playing the video of him at the altar.

Heres two million dollars...

Over and over.

Sebastian strode across the room, snatched the iPad, and killed the screen. Then, slowly, as if his bones had turned to glass, he sank to his knees.

He was kneeling for her. Again. The irony was so sharp it was almost funny.

I know theres nothing I can say, he rasped, his voice sounding like hed been screaming. But I swear, this was the last time. I just had to help her.

Help her? I asked quietly.

Her dad has Stage 4 lung cancer. Shes drowning in medical debt. She came to me weeks ago, and I turned her away. I tried to be the man you wanted. But then she decided to sell herself to that that pig, just for the dowry. I couldn't let her do it, Maya. It was out of pity. Just pity.

Pity.

Hed used that word so many times I doubted he even knew what it meant anymore. But I knew. I knew because every time he "pitied" her, I was the one who bled.

Putting her through school? Pity.

Getting her that apartment? Pity.

Buying her a car? Pity.

Assaulting a man for her? Pity.

And now, ruining our life to stop her from marrying someone else? Still "pity."

Your heart is just overflowing with charity, isn't it? I said, the sarcasm tasting like acid.

He moved to pull me into his arms, but I shoved him back with a strength that surprised us both.

Maya, please. Dont do this. Dont leave me. He looked up at me, his eyes bloodshot and brimming with tears.

Sebastian, I said, looking down at the man Id loved since I was seventeen. The person who gives up first doesn't get to ask the other to stay.

I never thought Sebastian would be a cheater.

The day I found out was exactly 5,200 days since wed first met. We were high school sweethearts, the couple everyone pointed to as the gold standard. A decade of history, and it all collapsed because of a girl in a shady spa.

Hed started "working late" every night. My friends would joke about it, asking if I was worried he had a mistress. Id just laugh it off.

Why worry? If a man is dirty, you just throw him out.

But I had overestimated his loyalty and underestimated my own capacity for self-destruction. Love is a debt, and I was about to go bankrupt.

Sebastian had "gifted" fifty thousand dollars to that massage parlor. One of his business partners let it slip at dinner, thinking I already knew. The table went dead silent.

That was the worst day of my life. Not just because of the betrayal, but because that morning, Id seen two pink lines on a plastic stick.

I had planned to announce the pregnancy over dessert. Instead, I ended up acting like a woman I didn't recognizescreaming, demanding names, demanding addresses.

When I finally confronted Jade, the man who had never raised his voice to me stood in front of her like a shield.

Have you had enough? hed roared at me.

Im so sorry, Jade had whimpered, looking up at him with those wide, tear-filled eyes. Its my fault. I tempted him. Hit me if you want, just dont blame Sebastian.

I lost it. I lunged for her, my hand connecting with her face in a sharp crack. Sebastian grabbed her, pulling her into his chest, and glared at me with pure loathing.

Maya, stop it! Youre being cruel!

Cruel? I choked out.

Youve always been the strong one, the demanding one, pushing me to be more, to do more. I just wanted to do something for someone who actually needs me. Whats so wrong with that?

Those words were a death sentence. We entered a cold war that lasted months. Everyone thought hed be the one to break. After all, he was the one who had strayed. But in the end, I was the one who used the baby to beg him to come home.

I didn't realize how much I was addicted to him.

From the moment we were teenagers, he was the one who chased me. He was my shadow. The thought of a world without Sebastian felt like a world without oxygen.

I started gaslighting myself. Maybe I was too hard on him. Maybe I didn't appreciate him enough.

When I finally called him, I let my pride die. Just come home. If you break it off with her, we can pretend none of this happened. Please.

I was pathetic. I was small.

But he told me he couldn't. Not yet. He said he had to "protect" her because her life had been so hard.

I agreed to let him send her a monthly "stipend" just to get him back in our house. I thought that would be the end of it.

But he was always out. A box of pastries from a famous bakery? She needs to try these. A ticket to a concert? Shes never seen anything beautiful; I have to show her.

He even helped her open a small boutique bar called "The Jade Mist." When a drunk customer got aggressive with her, Sebastian threw him off the balcony. We spent a fortune on lawyers and hush money to keep him out of prison.

Did you think about me? I asked him, clutching my swollen belly. Did you think about our daughter growing up with a father in a cage?

He just accused me of having no heart. He went on a rampage, smashing the furniture in our bedroom. When he hit the wall, our wedding photo fell. The glass shattered, a jagged crack running right between our faces.

A broken mirror cant be fixed. I was too young to understand that then.

On our anniversary, I sat in a five-star restaurant until the staff started mopping the floors. He never showed.

Instead, I saw Jades Instagram post.

Thank you for showing me that being 'imperfect' is the best reason to be loved.

In the photo, she was wearing a designer dress Id seen in my own closet. She had the same bag I did. She was living a mirror version of my life, funded by my husband.

I drove to the house hed bought for her, my vision blurred by tears. When I pushed open the door, time stopped.

Jade was wearing my wedding dress. Not one like it. Mine.

And they were kissing.

I think that was the moment I actually lost my mind. I screamed until my throat bled. I lunged at them, and in the chaos, Jade shoved me.

I hit the floor hard. And then I felt the heat. The blood.

The baby was gone.

And with her, the last of the woman I used to be.

Jade threatened to jump off a roof to "pay back the life she took," and Sebastian was the hero who talked her down. But after that, he finally seemed to wake up. He cut her off. He stayed home. He became a ghost in our house.

When I handed him the divorce papers, he looked genuinely terrified.

Maya, please. Are you really throwing us away?

He knelt. He swore. He cried. He looked exactly like the eighteen-year-old boy who used to leave "Goodnight, Princess" notes in my locker.

I looked at our old photos. I remembered how hed take a two-hour bus ride every weekend just to see me for twenty minutes. I remembered how he worked three jobs in college to buy me a designer lipstick, only to pick the ugliest shade of purple because he didn't know any better.

Memories are a trap. Our love was woven into my DNA. I didn't know how to exist without it.

For a long time, I suffered from severe insomnia and anxiety. I could hear my own heart beating in the silence, waiting for it to stop. Sebastian was the one who took me to specialists, who brewed herbal teas every night, who soaked my feet in warm water until I fell asleep.

He had caused all the trauma, yet he was the only one I wanted to comfort me. It was a sickness.

I chose to believe him one last time.

So, finding myself back here, being the punchline of the joke again... thats on me.

Sebastian, the boy you used to be earned you one last chance. And the man you are just threw it away.

Sebastian insisted on holding me that night. He clung to me like a shivering dog, whispering promises into my hair.

Ill be there tomorrow for the check-up, I swear. Im done being a fool. Our baby is going to be fine. Were going to be fine.

But when I woke up, the bed was cold. There was a post-it note on the nightstand.

Emergency at the office. Im so sorry, baby. Ill make it up to you tonight. Love you.

What a coincidence.

Seconds after I read it, Jades social media updated.

Thank you for saving me, again and again.

It was a photo of Sebastians bruised knuckles, the background clearly the site of the wedding hed just destroyed.

I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I just laughed.

I went to the hospital alone.

As the anesthesia entered my spine, I felt the life draining out of me. A single tear escaped, carrying a decade of love and a lifetime of hate.

But mostly, I felt light.

Walking back into the house late that night, the first thing I saw was Jade. She was sitting on my sofa, wearing my slippers, drinking from my favorite mug.

The air in the room turned to ice.

Sebastian stammered, his face pale. Her ex went crazy, Maya. He was at her door with an axe. I saw it on my way home from the office... I couldn't just leave her there. Its just for one night.

Jade stood up, her voice a practiced whisper of humility. Im so sorry, Maya. Im such a burden. Dont be mad at Sebastian; its all my fault.

She looked down, but I saw the spark of triumph in her eyes.

I didn't even look at her.

Who Sebastian brings into his house is none of my business, I said, my voice eerily calm.

I walked to the coffee table and dropped the divorce papers right in front of them.

You dont need to worry about the check-up, Sebastian. There is no baby. I had the procedure today.

Now, sign the papers.