"I hope you wear it always."
I pushed the front door open and walked out into the cold dark.
Joel's contemptuous scoff hit my back before the door closed.
"How many times are you going to play this little game? Doesn't it bore even you?"
"Tomorrow you'll crawl right back and beg."
I got into the rideshare.
The driver asked where I was headed.
I gave him the address of the private women's hospital downtown.
My phone screen lit up.
A message from Joel.
"Get your ass back here tonight and apologize to Lily, or I'm killing your card in the morning."
I looked at it for two seconds.
Then blocked his number.
Every social media account, every messaging app. Deleted, all of it.
Neon slid past the car window, light and shadow smearing across the glass.
Five years ago, Joel's startup had just collapsed. Creditors tracked him down—cornered him in an alley and beat him until he couldn't stand.
I stepped in front of him and took the bat meant for his head.
He held me—blood soaking through my hair, dripping down my temples—and sobbed like a child.
"Pauline, I swear I'll never let you suffer. Not ever."
"I'm going to give you the best of everything this world has."
Later, he really did make it.
And he really did give the best of everything to someone else.
I touched my swollen belly.
Baby, I'm sorry.
Mama can't bring you into this world to suffer.
The hospital corridor was cold.
The antiseptic smell crawled up my throat and sat there, thick and wrong.
I sat on the bench outside the operating room, waiting for the first surgery slot in the morning.
Notifications kept pinging on my phone. Spending alerts, one after another.
My supplementary card.
Lillian was using it, burning through the luxury boutiques that stayed open past midnight.
Bags worth hundreds of thousands. Jewelry past a million.
The charges poured onto my phone like running water.
Of course Joel had put her up to it. This was his way of grinding me down—making me crawl back and grovel at his little mistress's feet.
I opened the banking app and reported the supplementary card lost.
The world went quiet.
Just before dawn, my attending doctor arrived.
She looked at my pale face and let out a sigh.
"Miss Sullivan, have you truly decided?"
"Six months along. Inducing at this stage puts enormous strain on the body, and..."
She trailed off.
I knew what she wanted to say.