My father was sitting alone on a sterile plastic chair in the emergency room lobby, clutching his mangled, bloody forearm, when I finally sprinted through the double doors. "Sweetheart, don't worry," he said, his voice trembling as he tried to offer me a reassuring smile. "I'm just an old fool. I couldn't figure out how to work that high-tech check-in kiosk. The machine wouldn't respond when I pressed it, and the folks waiting behind me in line started getting upset..." … A sharp, hot lump rose in my throat, and I had to fight back the tears stinging my eyes. The doctor on duty cut away my father’s dusty flannel sleeve, his brow furrowing deeply as he inspected the wound. "Why did you wait so long to bring him in? This laceration is incredibly deep. If you had delayed any longer, he could have lost permanent mobility in this hand." The dried blood had fused the fabric of his shirt to his torn skin. As the nurse gently peeled it away, the wound began to bleed afresh, raw and angry. Yet, my father kept trying to play it down. "It's alright, Doc. I still need to get back to the job site. Just throw a few quick stitches in it. No need for any of that expensive medicine." It took eight stitches to close the gash. Throughout the entire process, my father gritted his teeth, refusing to make a sound, still trying to comfort me with his eyes. Every time the needle pierced his flesh, it felt as though it were tearing through my own heart. Finally, the tears spilled over. I walked out into the hallway and dialed Blake’s number. "Blake, you claim you couldn't understand my dad's thick country accent, but are you seriously telling me you couldn't see that his arm was gushing blood?" A faint rustle of static came through the receiver, followed by Blake’s smooth, impatient sigh. "Maeve, I had a massive quarterly meeting this afternoon. I couldn't jeopardize a multi-million-dollar deal just to walk your father through an check-in screen. Those automated kiosks have voice prompts. If it was really that hard, you should have taught him how to read the screen beforehand. He can't rely on me to hold his hand for every little thing." Hearing him lay out his excuses so righteously left me entirely breathless. Before I could even find my voice to reply, a soft, familiar whimper sounded in the background. "Blake," a sweet, girlish voice called out. "The vet is ready to draw Coco’s blood now..." With a sharp "click", the line went dead. My father, his arm now heavily bandaged, stepped out of the treatment room. He looked at my pale, silent face and gently tugged at the sleeve of my jacket. "Don't go starting a fight with Blake, sweetheart," he muttered, looking down at his worn-out work boots. "He’s a busy man, running a big company. His time is valuable. I'm just an old construction worker who can't read a computer screen. I'm the one who caused all this trouble." Seeing the deep humiliation in his eyes made my chest ache. "Dad, would you like to take a trip? Let's go somewhere far away. Just the two of us." After booking the tickets on my phone, I helped my father out of the hospital. Just as we reached the curb, a familiar black SUV pulled up, and the driver's side window rolled down. Blake waved his hand dismissively. "Get in. I'll take you guys home." He didn't even look at my father, let alone greet him. Yet, my father immediately nodded, offering a grateful, hurried smile as he reached for the door. At that moment, the passenger window rolled down. Inside, a tiny toy poodle nestled in the arms of Amber, Blake’s new intern. The dog began barking frantically at us. My father flinched, stepping back so quickly he nearly tripped over my foot. Amber pouted, stroking the dog’s head as she muttered under her breath, "Grown men who are scared of little dogs are so weird." Blake didn't correct her. Instead, he checked his watch, his tone clipped. "Hurry up and get in. It's about to pour." I helped my father into the backseat, making sure he was settled before sliding in beside him. Almost immediately, a light, cold drizzle began to fall. The window next to my father was wide open, and the freezing wind, carrying droplets of rain, whipped directly against his freshly bandaged arm. I reached for the window control on the door panel, but the button was completely unresponsive. "Blake, can you roll up the back window, please?" He didn't even bother to look in the rearview mirror. "Amber gets car sick easily. She can't stand the smell in enclosed spaces. She'll throw up." My father’s hands clenched his worn jeans. He shrank himself further into the corner of the seat, trying to occupy as little space as possible, remaining entirely silent. Looking at his defeated posture, a wave of cold fury washed over me. "I thought you had a massive quarterly meeting this afternoon," I said, my voice dangerously quiet. "How did you find the time to take her dog to the vet?" Blake let out a dry, humorless chuckle. "What, are you jealous of a dog now, Maeve? Amber is trying to make a living in this city all on her own. She doesn't have any family here. As her boss, it’s only natural that I look out for her." I had heard that exact excuse more times than I cared to count. On our fifth wedding anniversary, he had stood me up for the entire evening because Amber had just broken up with her boyfriend and "needed a friend to keep her from doing something reckless." When I was bedridden with severe food poisoning, unable to even stand up to get water, he was at the office pulling an all-nighter with Amber because "it was her first big presentation, and she needed the moral support." When I got into a minor car accident and was waiting in the rain for the tow truck, he was at a concert with Amber, later dismissing it with a careless, "I was out of town on business, Maeve. Don't be dramatic." Each act of "professional guidance" had been bolder than the last. Perhaps I should have stepped aside a long time ago. When the car finally pulled up to our apartment building, Blake kept the engine running. "You two head up first. Amber has a marketing proposal she’s struggling with, so I'm going to drop her off and help her walk through the strategy. Oh, and I went ahead and bought your dad's train ticket back home for tomorrow morning." Just like always, Blake couldn't wait to push my family out of his sterile, perfect life. But this time, I didn't back down. "Don't worry about my father's schedule," I said, staring at the back of his head. "He’s going to stay here with me for a while." His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror, filled with a fleeting touch of surprise. Seeing the cold resolve in my gaze, he backed down. "Fine. Whatever you want. I have a lot of late nights ahead of us at the office, so I'll probably just crash at the corporate apartment." When we reached our floor, my father instinctively reached down to the shoe rack, looking for the cheap, disposable paper slippers we kept for delivery workers. I gently placed my hand over his. "Dad, use the guest slippers." He hesitated, looking at the plush, high-end slippers Blake had explicitly forbidden him from using during his last visit, before slowly sliding his feet into them. Our living room sofa was massive and incredibly soft, but my father only dared to sit on the very edge of the cushion, his hands resting stiffly on his knees. "Maeve, this is all my fault," he whispered, looking at me with a worried, anxious expression. "I’ve caused a rift between you and Blake. Maybe... maybe I should just take that morning train back tomorrow." I didn't answer. I simply turned toward the kitchen. "I'm going to make some dinner." When I pulled open the double doors of the refrigerator, I froze. The shelves, which Blake used to keep stocked with my favorite sparkling waters and organic snacks, were practically bare, save for a thin layer of frost. It had been months since we had gone grocery shopping together, months since we had sat down for a proper, home-cooked meal. "Maeve," my father’s quiet, hesitant voice drifted in from the living room. "Are you... are you happy with him?" "Of course I am, Dad," I replied automatically, though the words tasted like ash in my mouth. "Look at this place. I have everything I could ever want." There was a long, heavy silence. When I turned around, my father was standing in the doorway, his eyes filled with a deep, sorrowful pity. "Maeve," he said softly. "I didn't ask if you have things. I asked if you are happy." A sudden, sharp pain flared in my chest, and my eyes welled with tears. To the rest of the world, I was the lucky girl who had married into high society, the envy of everyone who knew us. But no one had ever bothered to ask if I was happy. When Blake and I first met, his family was already arranging a marriage for him with a woman from a prominent dynasty. Yet, he had pursued me with a fierce, unrelenting passion. When his mother had tracked me down at the coffee shop where I worked and slid a blank check across the table, Blake had burst through the doors, grabbed the check, and torn it to shreds right in front of her. "She is the only woman I will ever marry," he had shouted, his voice echoing in the quiet shop. "If you don't like it, you can write me out of the family." To keep us apart, his family had sent him overseas for his master’s degree. But during those four years of long-distance, Blake had flown back to see me over fifty times, enduring grueling twenty-five-hour layovers just to spend a single weekend in my arms. "I promised I'd see you every single month," he would whisper, holding me close. "And I never break my promises to you." Back then, his love had been like the summer sun—blinding, intense, and warm enough to keep the rest of the cold world at bay. But the sun always sets. Our love had slowly cooled, dissolving into the mundane, repetitive routine of daily life, until it became practically imperceptible. And then, Amber arrived. It was only then that I realized the sun hadn't burnt out. It had simply stopped shining on me. The way Blake looked at Amber, the rules he broke for her, the frantic worry in his voice when she called—it was a flawless, mirror image of the passionate boy who had fought his entire family for me a decade ago. My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was an Instagram notification. Amber had just posted to her story. "So grateful for the late-night fuel from the best boss ever! Now I have the energy to crush this presentation!" The photo showed a lavish spread of high-end takeout. But it was the corner of the image that caught my attention—a man's hand resting on the edge of the mahogany table, a familiar platinum band catching the light of the desk lamp. I turned back to my father and forced a small, bright smile. "Dad, let's go out. I'm taking you to that steakhouse you’ve always wanted to try." The prime rib, which I usually loved, felt like cardboard in my mouth. At one in the morning, the front door clicked open. I was lying on the sofa, scrolling aimlessly through my phone. I didn't get up to take his coat or put away his briefcase like I usually did. Blake walked straight toward the kitchen, stopping short when he saw the clean countertops. "Did you not brew my herbal tea tonight?" "I was busy. I forgot," I said, keeping my eyes fixed on my screen. He let out a long, weary sigh, walking over to the sofa and sitting down beside me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. "Are you still throwing a tantrum over this afternoon?" "I told you, Maeve. She’s just an intern. There is absolutely nothing going on between us." But whether they had crossed a physical line or not didn't matter anymore. The casual disregard, the subtle classism directed at my father, the slow, agonizing accumulation of neglect—I was simply done. I gently but firmly pushed his arms away and stood up. "I'm going to bed." "I've been sleeping poorly lately, and you toss and turn a lot. You should sleep in the guest room tonight." On my nightstand lay a folded white paper I had brought home from the clinic earlier that morning. "Positive. Six weeks." I had planned to present it to him as a surprise for our upcoming anniversary. Now, looking at the sterile black ink, I realized there was no point. The next morning, the rich, savory aroma of breakfast woke me. My father had already prepared a spread of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toasted English muffins. But on the edge of the dining table, a sleek black American Express card sat reflecting the morning light. My father looked at it uncomfortably. "Maeve, Blake left that for me before he went to work. He said it was a gesture of appreciation for my visit." "I didn't touch it. I didn't want to make things difficult for you." I set my fork down, picked up the titanium card, and tossed it directly into the trash can beside the pantry. "Eat up, Dad. The nurse is coming to help me take you to the clinic to get those stitches checked." The private nurse I had hired arrived right on time. Just as we reached the front door, my phone rang. Blake’s voice was laced with irritation. "Why didn't you tell me you were taking your dad to his follow-up appointment?" "There was no need to hire outside help. I have an opening in my schedule this afternoon. I was going to drive him myself." Hearing this, my father immediately began slipping his jacket off, looking toward the living room. "Oh, well, if Blake is coming, we should probably wait. Save the money on the nurse." I shook my head gently, taking my father’s arm. "No, Dad. Let's go. We aren't waiting on him anymore." He had made too many promises he couldn't keep. His credit had run out. An hour later, I was sitting on a cold vinyl bench in the hallway of the women's clinic, waiting for my name to be called. "Maeve Franklin, room three." Just as I stood up to walk toward the examination room, a sudden commotion broke out at the far end of the corridor. Blake was walking briskly down the hall, his face pale with worry, carrying Amber in his arms. "Where is the attending physician?" he demanded, his voice echoing off the sterile walls. "Get her into a private room immediately!" A nurse hurried over. "Sir, what is the emergency?" "She has severe dysmenorrhea. She’s practically fainting from the pain! You need to give her an intravenous analgesic right away!" As he turned, his eyes collided with mine. He froze. After carefully laying Amber onto a gurney, his face hardened, and he walked over to me, his presence suffocatingly tense. "Maeve? What are you doing here?" His eyes narrowed. "Are you tracking my phone?" I saw a faint, distinct smudge of red lipstick near his collar. I instinctively slid the appointment slip behind my back. But Blake’s eyes were sharp. He caught the movement and reached out, trying to snatch the paper from my fingers. Before he could, Amber’s weak, tearful voice drifted from the treatment room. "Blake... it hurts so much... where are you?" Blake let out a heavy, conflicted sigh, his hand dropping to his side. "She collapsed at her desk during a project review. It's technically a workplace injury, so it's my responsibility to oversee her care. If you're feeling under the weather, go to our family’s private practice. Use the VIP concierge. I'm just too swamped to deal with this right now." Without waiting for my reply, he turned on his heel and disappeared into her room. Through the cracked door, I could hear his low, soothing murmurs as he comforted her. I turned back to the nurse holding the clipboard. "I'm ready for the procedure." The doctor looked over my chart, confirming the details. "Six weeks. We can proceed with the vacuum aspiration under conscious sedation. Is your partner here to sign the consent form?" "I'm a widow," I said, my voice entirely flat. The pre-op routine was a blur of blood draws, ultrasounds, and blood pressure checks. I navigated the corridors alone, a ghost passing through a crowd of expectant couples. As I walked past the private recovery suites, I noticed one door was left slightly ajar. Blake was sitting at the edge of the bed, holding a paper cup of warm water, blowing gently on it before holding it to Amber’s lips. "Slow down. Don't burn yourself." Through the gap, Amber’s eyes met mine. She didn't look away. Instead, she leaned her head slightly closer to Blake’s shoulder, a faint, victorious smile playing on her lips. It was a quiet, unmistakable declaration of ownership. I felt a strange, hollow sensation in my chest as I walked into the operating room and lay down on the cold table. As the anesthesiologist prepared the IV, the nurses began chatting quietly amongst themselves. "Did you see the gentleman who brought that girl in earlier? I thought she was his wife, the way he was panicking." "Oh, no, his actual wife is someone else. But did you see how devoted he is? I heard that years ago, he literally let his family disown him and took a beating with a cane just so he could marry her." "Really? Wow. I guess after five years, even the strongest marriages lose their spark." The cold sedative began to flow into my veins, sending a shivering chill up my arm. As my consciousness began to drift, a single, hot tear escaped my eye and slid into my hair. The boy who had loved me fiercely at twenty was gone. And he was never coming back. I left the hospital an hour later, leaning heavily against the brick wall, my lower abdomen aching with a dull, throbbing pain. Suddenly, a barrage of blinding white flashes erupted in front of me. A dozen reporters, carrying heavy telephoto lenses and microphones, blocked the exit, creating a chaotic bottleneck. Through the crowd, Blake emerged, his jacket draped over Amber’s head, shielding her entirely from the cameras as he pushed his way through. "Mr. Luther! Is this the mysterious wife you’ve kept hidden from the public for the last five years?" "Mrs. Luther, how did you and Blake meet?" "Are you visiting the women's clinic because you’re expecting an heir to the firm?" Blake didn't deny it. He didn't offer a single word of correction. He simply kept his arm tightly secured around Amber’s shoulders, his expression dark. "Out of the way. Let us through." Within ten minutes, the local business and tabloid sites were flooded with notifications. "CEO Blake Luther and His Wife Spotted at Women's Clinic—A Devoted Marriage Unbroken by Time." The accompanying photos showed Blake shielding Amber with an intense, possessive protectiveness. Overnight, Amber had become the envy of the city—the official Mrs. Luther. My phone began to vibrate constantly. Among the stream of confused texts from acquaintances was a single, vitriolic message from my mother-in-law: "I knew a girl from your background would never hold a husband's attention. Absolute disgrace." I stared at the screen for a moment, then quietly blocked her number. A few seconds later, Blake’s call came through. "Maeve, the media thing was an accident," he said quickly, his voice tight. "If I had denied she was my wife on camera, the press would have run wild with rumors about an affair, and our stock price would have plummeted before the morning bell. You know we're in a critical transition phase right now. I can't let anything disrupt the company's valuation." My voice was incredibly hoarse. "So you calculated everything. The company's stock, her reputation, the public's perception... but did you think about me, Blake? Even for a second?" His tone shifted, anger coloring his words. "Can you please stop making a mountain out of a molehill? I’ve had a brutal day, I'm exhausted, and I don't have the energy to stand here and be interrogated by you." I held my aching abdomen, and a quiet, bitter laugh escaped my lips. "You claim you're so busy. But you're never too busy to drive her to the clinic, or to cook her dinner, or to make sure her water is the perfect temperature. Do you tuck her in at night, too?" "Maeve, you are being completely unreasonable!" he snapped, slamming the phone down. I arranged for a car to take my father to the airport to wait for me, then returned to our apartment alone to pack my things. Five years of marriage, and my entire life fit into half of a single suitcase. I slipped my platinum wedding ring off my finger and placed it quietly on the dark wood of the nightstand. Just as I reached for the zipper of my suitcase, the front door lock clicked. Blake walked in, looking disheveled, a strong scent of whiskey clinging to his clothes. He held up his phone, showing me a photo of Amber smiling beside a handsome young man. "She has a boyfriend," he said, his eyes bloodshot, his voice carrying a strange, defensive edge. "Are you satisfied now?" He looked like a man who had just lost a fight, trying desperately to sound like a victor. He was trying to reassure me, but the hollow look in his eyes belonged to someone who had just had their heart broken. His gaze drifted down to the suitcase by my feet, and a tentative, relieved smile touched his lips. "Oh, you already packed? Perfect. I booked a trip to Iceland for you and your dad." "I know I messed up this time, Maeve. Once this merger goes through, I'll set the record straight with the media. Take your dad and go have a good time. Consider it my apology." I looked at him for a long moment, then quietly nodded. "Okay." He let out a long breath, as if a massive weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He reached behind his back and produced a beautifully wrapped, heavy black box with a gold-embossed logo. It was a limited-edition handbag I had searched for months to find, with only three pieces available worldwide. "I had to pull a lot of favors to get this for you," he said, holding it out. "Since I can't go with you, take this to Iceland." I didn't take the box. I simply pointed to the sofa. "Just leave it there." Seeing my lack of enthusiasm, he reached out and gently smoothed a strand of hair behind my ear. "Go get some rest. Keep your phone on, and call me when you land." I pulled my suitcase toward the door. He had no idea that once I walked out of that apartment, I was never coming back.
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