"A woman you can look at but never touch? Would you want to go home to that? Besides, Adela's pregnant. She needs me more. Trust me, I could bring Rose back a piece of garbage and she'd be over the moon."

I clamped my hand over my mouth so hard my fingers left marks, strangling every sound before it could escape. My chest felt like something was being wrung out of it, slow and merciless.

I met Leo when I was sixteen.

His family had been destroyed by a catastrophic accident. Both his parents died overnight.

The weight of it nearly crushed him. He tried to end his life more than once.

And every single time, I was the one who pulled him back from the edge.

The last time he tried, he was standing on a ledge. I climbed up and wrapped my arms around him.

I told him I would never leave him. Not ever.

When I was eighteen, Leo found out about my condition. He stayed anyway, without a moment's hesitation.

I lived with him in parking garages. I ate cold bread rolls beside him. I walked with him, step by step, from nothing to everything. Seven years.

He lived without physical intimacy the entire time, and still, he was good to me. Unfailingly good.

Knowing I could never give him children, knowing I could never satisfy the needs of an ordinary man, he still got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.

Everyone said I'd made the right bet. That I'd gambled and won.

But in this moment, all of it shattered.

I had poured out every last drop of my love, offered it up with both hands. And Leo had taken a blade to it, slashing it open until it bled.

I turned away, pulled out my phone, and dialed a number I hadn't called in a very long time.

"Mom, Dad... I made a mistake."

I dragged myself home, exhausted to the bone. The wedding photo on the wall caught my eye, and this time it looked nothing short of absurd.

Adela. The one they all kept mentioning. She'd been our wedding photographer.

Back then, Leo had visited her studio over and over again, always with the same pretty excuse: he wanted me to look my most beautiful on our wedding day.

Now it all made sense. Every last sign had been there.

I stared at the photo—at Leo's tender smile—and couldn't tell anymore whether it had been meant for Adela or for me.

The next day, I didn't reach out to Leo. Not once. Before all this, I would've texted him every spare moment I had.

Because he hadn't heard from me all day, Leo came home that night.