Luke deleted Tiffany’s number and wiped out every trace of her from our place. He even fixed our busted wedding photo and hung it back up above our bed. I thought, maybe I should give him one more shot. Then, bam—two envelopes show up on the same day: my prenatal appointment reminder… and Tiffany’s damn wedding invite. He didn’t even hesitate—drove straight to her wedding. Right in front of everyone, he pulled Tiffany behind him and slammed a check on the groom’s chest. “Here’s $880,000. Now get the hell out.” The video blew up online. Everyone was obsessed with the runaway bride and their so-called epic love story. That’s when it hit me—Luke never let Tiffany go. And that night, I lost the baby. When my friend sent me the wedding-crashing video, I was making soup for Luke. “Is that him?” “What the hell happened?” “He and that massage girl are back together?” Countless messages flooded my phone. It was exactly like three years ago, when Luke got into a brawl and threw a guy off a third-floor balcony for Tiffany, landing himself all over the news. The same damn story. And of course, people in the comments recognized him. “OMG, this guy’s crazy streak showed three years ago!” “If you’re not marrying me, I’ll crash the wedding! We’re destined to be tangled till we die.” “Right? This is like a dark romance novel come to life, the kind of toxic love-hate saga everyone secretly binge-reads!” I slowly scrolled through the comments, forgetting to turn off the stove. The ceramic pot cracked. Boiling soup scalded my skin. But I barely felt the pain. I just silently called Luke. His phone was off. I let out a laugh, my heart growing colder. He had promised me this morning he would come with me for my prenatal check-up after work. He had sworn on his knees by my hospital bed that he would be a good husband. Was I sad? Was I hurting? I wasn’t sure. After all, I’d already experienced the deepest despair three years ago. I calmly cleaned up the kitchen. Then I called the hospital. “Please cancel my prenatal check-up. Could you book an abortion for me instead? The sooner, the better.”
Luke got home at three in the morning. I sat on the couch, my eyes raw from exhaustion. Our gazes met. A heavy silence stretched between us. On the table, the tablet played his wedding-crashing video on loop. “Here’s $880,000…” Once, twice, three times. Luke strode over and shut it off. Then, slowly, he knelt. He was kneeling for that woman. The thought alone was pathetic. “I know it’s too late for excuses,” he said, his voice rough. “But I swear, this is the last time I help her.” “Her dad has lung cancer, he needs money for surgery.” “She came to me first, but I refused to see her. That’s why she was selling herself to that man.” “I just felt sorry for her, you have to believe me…” Just pity. How many times had Luke said that? He probably lost count long ago. But I remembered every single time. Because every time he said it, I was the one who suffered. Funding her education, out of pity. Arranging her job, out of pity. Buying her a house, out of pity. Getting into a fight for her, out of pity. And now, even stopping her from marrying someone else, he still claimed it was out of pity? “Your compassion knows no bounds.” The sarcasm hit its mark. He stood to hug me, but I shoved him away. “Claire, are you going to leave me again?” Luke knelt on one knee, his eyes watering. “Luke, the one who gave up first doesn’t get to make demands.”
I never imagined Luke would cheat. The day I discovered his betrayal marked exactly 5,200 days since we first met. Childhood sweethearts. High school lovers. Married young. Over a decade of shared history. All of it shattered by the tears of a massage girl. In those days, Luke was always working late. Friends would joke, asking if I ever worried he was having an affair. I’d just smile serenely and say. “Why worry? If a man is tainted, you simply throw him away.” But I had overestimated Luke’s loyalty, and underestimated the depth of my own love. To love anyone more than you love yourself comes with a price. And my punishment arrived on schedule. Luke had spent half a million dollars at that massage parlor. The truth slipped out from his friend over dinner. A sudden silence swallowed the table. That was the day I most wished I could forget. Because it was the same day I discovered I was pregnant. I had planned to share our happy news with everyone at that table. Instead, I shattered. I demanded to know which parlor, which woman. When I confronted Tiffany, the man who usually walked on eggshells around me, suddenly stood in front of her and yelled at me. “Are you done making a scene?!” “I’m so sorry, Claire. I’m the one who seduced Luke. If you want to hit or scold anyone, just direct it at me.” Losing all reason, I pushed Luke aside and slapped Tiffany’s pitiful face. Luke held the sobbing woman, glaring at me with furious hatred. “Claire, don’t you dare go too far!” “You’re always so bossy with me, forcing me to do this and that, so what if I just want to spend some money on her?!” His words felt like an ice-cold punch to the gut, making me tremble with rage. From that day on, Luke and I fell into a continuous cold war. Everyone thought he would be the first to back down. After all, it was clearly his fault, and for so many years, he had always been compliant with my every wish. But in the end, it was me who had to use the pregnancy to get him back.
I never realized how much I loved Luke. From our student days, he was always the one chasing me, the one giving everything. The moment I realized I couldn’t lose him, I even started to wonder. Was I really too strong-willed with him? So that day when I called him, I poured out every soft, pleading word I could think of. “Just come back, just cut ties with that woman, and we can pretend nothing ever happened, okay?” My voice was so careful, so pathetic. But he said no. He said he had to protect Tiffany. “She’s had such a tough life, I just feel like I owe her, I have to make it up to her.” To get him to come home, I agreed to give Tiffany a monthly allowance. I thought that would finally be enough. But Luke kept finding excuses to see her every single day. If a friend brought delicious pastries, he would immediately take them to that girl so she could try. If he got concert tickets, his first thought was to take that girl so she could see the world. He even opened a bar for Tiffany, naming it “The Siren’s Gaze.” When a drunk man harassed Tiffany, Luke didn’t hesitate to throw him off a balcony. Fortunately, the man’s fall was broken by a tree. After we paid a hefty settlement, the case was closed. “When you did that,” I asked, my voice trembling, “did you ever think of me? Of our child?” “Do you want our child to be born with a criminal for a father?” But Luke just accused me of having no compassion before he started destroying our home. When our wedding photo shattered, the glass cracked perfectly between us – separating his image from mine forever. Broken mirrors are hard to restored. The tragedy is, I was too young back then to understand that simple truth. On our wedding anniversary, I waited at a restaurant we’d booked months ago until closing time. What I got instead was a post on Tiffany’s Ins. “Thank you for showing me that even if you’re not perfect, you can still be loved.” In the photo, she was wearing the latest Chanel haute couture dress, carrying a Louis Vuitton bag. All identical to mine. She was telling me that everything I had, she would have too. Luke was raising her all over again, using my lifestyle. In that instant, nausea and an unspeakable sense of grief overwhelmed me. I drove, tears streaming down my face, directly to the villa Luke had bought for her. The moment I pushed open the door, I froze. There was Tiffany, wearing my wedding dress. They were kissing. I think I truly lost my mind then. I screamed, a raw, hysterical sound, and rushed forward to tear them apart. In the struggle, Tiffany shoved me. I fell to the floor. And then I felt it – the warm blood spreading beneath me.
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