FORGIVE OR FURY

I still remember the look of the city that night, as if it were deliberately putting on a show just for me. So many twinkling lights down there far below the windows of our penthouse flat, trying to convince me that the whole point was safe and easy. Standing there in my bare feet on the cold marble stone, the cold cup of chamomile I'd been sipping forgotten in my hands, I didn't mind. Because soon enough, Adrian would come through that door, shed his coat, his arms go around me from behind, and his lips on the back of my neck the way they always were. proof of our presence.

Three years married and I still got butterflies when I thought his name. Adrian Blackwood.Dark eyes, the kind that could freeze you in your tracks, a heavy, rough sound as he spoke, as if sharing a revelation, a shared, unspoken truth between the two of them. He managed Blackwood Enterprises like a military general: crisp, unreachable. Around me, he let his hair down. He listened as I launched into a discussion of the newly installed, stunning new piece by Rothko we had installed at the gallery. He chuckled at my bad puns. He took me out last weekend, down into the streets of the city, into a small, dark jazz club, slow-danced me, embarrassingly, as neither of us had the faintest clue as to the rhythm. "You're the entire damn world, Cecilia," he said, his words pressed against my hair. I believed every word.

My phone buzzed on the counter. Isabel.

Hey beautiful. Bad day. Can I come drown in wine and cry on your couch? Bringing the good pinot. 🖤

I grinned despite the ache already forming behind my ribs. *Door code's the same. Get here before I drink it all myself.

Only one person could burst into my life and make my life feel fuller instead of more crowded. Isabel Chen was my partner in crime, glued to my hip since our sophomore year, bonding over ramen noodles at 3 a.m. and screeching at their terrible blind dates and comforting each other when Izzy's mom got cancer. She was a super-intelligent, quick-witted, and effortlessly stunning woman. Recently, though, Isabel hadn't been herself. Stress at work, she said. I believed her, though. I always did.

She arrived smelling like rain and vanilla, heels clicking, bottle already uncorked by the time she kicked the door shut. "God, Cece, you look like you just stepped out of a magazine." She hugged me so tight I felt her heartbeat against mine. "What's the glow? New skincare or did Adrian finally propose again?"

I laughed, shaky. "I think... I might be pregnant."

Her eyes went wide, then shiny. "Shut up. Shut. Up." She grabbed my hands. "Show me."

We huddled in the bathroom like we were cheating on a test in high school. Three minutes later the two pink lines stared back at us and I started crying-ugly, hiccuping sobs that made Isabel laugh and cry at the same time.

"You're going to be the most annoyingly perfect mom," she whispered, wiping my cheeks with her thumbs. "Adrian's going to lose his mind in the good way."

We snuggled up on the couch and a snack from the Thai joint and the wine, half a glass into the empty bottle. I was being careful. I read that Isabel had been telling me how her douche-bag boss was making a pass at her and making her feel like he was cornering her again in the copy room, and I was saying how I was scared, but also how I was kind of thrilled at the same time. She was looking at her phone and scowling and then ridiculously smiling at me in a way that I knew I was catching.

"He's late," I said around nine, glancing at the clock.

"He's always late lately," she replied, overly flippant. "Big merger or whatever."

The elevator dinged.

Adrian emerged into the scene by himself. Loosely tied tie and shaggy hair as though he had run his hands through it once too often. A pink smudge of lipstick visible on his tie. Pink? This candy-floss colour? Not my kind of colour. I felt my stomach drop half an inch.

"Hey, baby." He came over to me, kissed my forehead, and he held the kiss, like he was breathing me in. "Sorry. Hell of a day."

Isabel stood, gathering her bag. "I'll leave you two. Big news deserves privacy." She hugged me again, longer this time, then looked at Adrian. "Night."

The door clicked shut and silence swallowed the room.

I waited until he poured his scotch, until he sat beside me. Then I pulled the test from my pocket and set it on his knee.

"We're having a baby."

He stared at the stick. His face had looked blank not happy, not shocked, just... empty. TThen he pulled me into his arms, hard enough the air left my lungs.

"That's Jesus, Cecilia. A baby." His voice cracked on the last word. He kissed me hard, desperate almost, like he was trying to erase something.

But the lipstick was still there. And when his phone buzzed on the table he flipped it face-down without looking.

The next morning, while preparing his coffee humming away as if everything were back to normal as if nothing bad were happening in this world anymore.. He was kissing the top of my head; he was calling me "mama." We would have dinner tonight at Luigi's to celebrate properly.

I wanted to believe those words so badly,my chest hurt.

I went to the gallery, arranged frames, smiled at clients, but my mind kept circling back to that pink mark. By noon I couldn't stand it anymore. I texted Isabel.

Lunch? I'm freaking out a little.

Our spot. 1 pm. I've got you.

The café patio was warm, sunlight dappling the table. Isabel arrived flushed, sunglasses hiding her eyes. We ordered, talked baby names Elias, Luna then I finally said it.

"There was lipstick on his shirt last night. Not mine."

She went still. "Cece... it's probably nothing. Client. Assistant. You know how those offices are."

"I know." I forced a laugh. "I'm being ridiculous."

She reached across and squeezed my fingers. "You're not. You're pregnant. Hormones are evil little liars. Call me tonight after dinner, okay? I love you."

I drove home replaying her words, trying to believe them.

But the doubt had teeth now.

Adrian emerged into the scene by himself. Loosely tied tie and shaggy hair as though he had run his hands through it once too often. A pink smudge of lipstick visible on his tie. Pink? This candy-floss colour? Not my kind of colour. I felt my stomach drop half an inch.

And then I heard her voice through the cracked door to the conference room.

"...can't pretend this doesn't change everything, Adrian."

Isabel.

My blood turned to ice.

"Isabel, not here," he snapped, low and furious. "She's pregnant. It changes everything."

A bitter laugh-hers. "Pregnant? You think a baby erases what you did? You married her to punish her. Her father's signature on that deal sent your dad to an early grave. You told me that yourself. You said you wanted her to feel what you felt."

I pressed my palm to my mouth so I wouldn't scream.

Adrian's voice dropped. "I know what I said. But somewhere along the line... it stopped being about revenge."

"Oh please." Her tone turned venomous. "You've been fucking me for six months while you played house with her. And now I'm the one carrying your child. The real heir. Not her little accident."

The room spun.

I shoved the door open.

They both froze.Adrian mid-step toward her, Isabel's hand still on his sleeve.

"Cecilia.." His face crumpled.

"Is it true?" My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. "You married me... for revenge?"

He took a step. "Baby, listen.."

"Don't." Tears streamed hot down my cheeks. "Just tell me. Did my father kill yours?"

Silence answered first. Then, quietly: "Your father's decision... cost my father his life. Yes."

"And you?" I looked at Isabel, the girl who'd held me through every breakup, every panic attack. "You're pregnant with his baby?"

She lifted her chin. "Yes. And unlike you, I'm not disposable."

Something inside me snapped.

I turned to run.

Adrian grabbed my arm. "Cecilia, wait.."

I stumbled backward, my hand on my stinging face, looking at the man I loved.

"You hit me!" I whispered.

Horror was in his eyes. "I did not mean...Cece, I-"

I didn't wait for the rest.

I ran.

Out of the building, onto the street. Rain falling down on me in sheets. I had a batch of texts, name flashing on the screen repeatedly. I tucked the device into my purse, jumped into the seat of my own car. I just wanted to leave. Anywhere.

The storm black mirrored the roads. I clutched the wheel of the car and sobbed convulsively, my eyes nearly a blur. My hand rose to my stomach.

"I'm sorry, little one," I managed to whisper. "Your daddy doesn't want us. But I do. I swear I do."

The sky was split open by a crackle of

A truck horn sounded too close, too loud.

I yanked the wheel.

Tires screamed.

The guardrail gave way like paper.

Then cold. So much cold.

Water flowed in through the cracked window.

My final thought before the darkness took me was ridiculously simple:

I wish I could tell him that the baby's heart rate sounds like a tiny drum.

It was cold, and I mean cold is just one of those things it is not even cold in terms of something that will make you shiver, know what I mean? It is just cold to a degree where it is just one of those things where it is just seeping into your bones so when you breathe in, it is like breathing in a handful of glass.

I woke up with cold sweats or at least professed to have done just that. At any rate, I certainly woke up with colds unrelated to the temperature of the room.

The pain in my head was such that it felt as if it had actually caved in due to the pressure building up inside my head. Darkness enveloped me completely from all sides while interrupted by faint lights from the car's dashboard that were still functional. The car had overturned onto its side with half of it submerged in the water as it smashed into the windshield as if trying to damage it further.

I was unable to move my legs initially. There was a sense of panic in my throat. The baby. oh God!

Pressing my hand down, it vibrated as I used it to press the back against my belly. There was no sharp pain, only a dull throbbing as if punched from the inside. "Please. please be okay," I breathed into the darkness.

A low groan escaped my lips as I struggled to turn around. I was hindered by my ankles, which had the crushed door. "The seat belt had saved my life and was now striving to strangle me." I struggled as I tried to unbuckle it with my numb fingers. The buckle popped open. I fell sideways on the cold water that had accumulated on my previous passenger window.

"The pain in my ankle was as if someone was pressing a hot flame onto my ankle. I clamped my teeth together so that the metallic flavor combined with copper wouldn't prevent me from screaming aloud. No saviors were coming to save me from that pain. No Adrian. No Isabel."

As I climbed in through the cracked-out driver-side window, the glass scraped against my palms, forearms, and the back of my knees. The embankment was steep, mud-covered, treacherous ground. I was certain each time I slid across the ground, I was supposed to slide all the way into the water and drown. What was in the region of my chest or maybe in my mind snapped me back up.

I threw myself onto the wet grass at the top finally, rain pounding against my face, and just lay there. Hacking breaths heaved my chest. I was sobbing, hard; my whole body shook. Not elegant crying. Ugly, snotty, animal crying. The kind you do when your whole life has just been ripped out through your chest.

I wouldn't move until the rain started to turn into a soft patter, and Taillights swept across the highway above me.

A pickup truck: An older man with a gray beard, a flannel shirt, and his eyes wide in horror leaped out.

"Jesus Christ, lady are you okay?!"

He half-carried, half-dragged me to his truck. I was shaking so violently my teeth chattered. He wrapped me in a scratchy blanket that smelled like motor oil and dog. I clutched it like a lifeline.

"Hospital," I managed to say. "Please." He didn't ask any questions. He just drove.

The emergency room was too bright. Too loud. Nurses swarmed the room. Someone had taken the wet dress off me. Cold gel on my belly. A wand pressed against me hard.

I looked at the ceiling tiles, focusing on the small black specks, not daring look at the screen.

Then the sound.

Thump-thump

Fast. Strong. Alive.

The doctor's voice was gentle. "Heartbeat's good. Strong. You're about nine weeks along. The baby's okay."

I broke again. This time the sobs were different relief so sharp it hurt worse than the betrayal. I curled around myself on the gurney, one hand cradling the tiny life that hadn't given up on me even when I'd almost given up on everything.

They kept me in for monitoring. Concussion. Sprain. Lacerations. Bruised ribs. Not fatal. Not fatal in the sense that they would deprive my child of his or her father.

During the time that the nurses were absent, the hours seemed to tick by as I looked at the dripper, trying to make sense of events that had transpired.

The face of Adrian as he hits me not with anger, as one would suppose, but with panic as if he suddenly realized what his act entailed and regretted it with no chance to turn back.

Isabel's smile was cold and victorious. Same smile I received from her the day I opened my own gallery. Same smile she helped me select my own wedding dress with.

How long? How long has she been laughing at me behind my back?

I didn't sleep. When I closed my eyes, I saw them together again: Heard her say "The Real Heir." Heard him say "My father killed his."

My father. Dead five years now. Heart attack, they said. I'd never questioned it. He'd been stressed, sure big merger gone bad but murder? No. That wasn't him.

Or was it?

The next morning was gray and heavy. A social worker visited to see if I had anywhere to go. I laughed- again, the sound wasn't quite right- and answered, "No."

She didn't push.

They gave me my dismissal in a pair of scrubs, which I didn't own, and one tennis shoe, which I've already misplaced in a river somewhere, while I didn't have anything - a phone, a wallet, a place

I mean, I was sitting on the curb outside the ER as the rain began again, feeling the smallest I had ever felt in my life.

A taxi pulled up. The driver rolled down his window.

"You need a ride, miss?"

I looked up. "I don't have any money."

He eyed me a long second. "Get in. Pay me when you can."

I said nothing.

I gave him the only address I could think of that wasn't the penthouse.

The old apartment building on the east side of town where I'd lived before Adrian. Before glamour and before lies. The super recognized my name-Mrs. Delgado, tiny, fierce, and with a perpetually pungent fragrance of garlic and roses.

She took one look at my face and invited me in with a mere look.

She never asked me to tell her what had occurred. She just drew me a hot bath, made me a cup of chamomile tea (this time using actual chamomile tea rather than chamomile tea essence], and then wrapped me in an old quilt and just sort of...sat with me on that old couch that looked as though it

Finally, as the crying diminished to hiccups, she patted my knee.

"Men break things," she stated simply. "Sometimes they break us, too. But you're still here. That's the part that matters."

I stayed with her for three days. Slept in her guest room, which smelled like mothballs and lavender. Ate arroz con pollo until I could keep that down. Made phone calls from her landline phone: cards canceled, new ones on the way and going straight to a PO box. Reported car stolen rather than explain my involvement. Informed gallery that I needed indefinite leave of absence "due to family emergency."

I hadn't said anything to anyone about the baby. Not yet.

On the fourth day, I got a cheap burn phone, looked at the phone number of Adrian for twenty minutes, and then I blocked that number.

Isabel's too.

I told myself that it was a need to survive, to preserve myself. I told myself that I was protecting the baby.

But deep down I knew the truth. I knew I was afraid of what I'd do if I heard his voice. I'd crumble. I'd possibly even believe that he was sorry. But I couldn't afford to do that anymore.

A small furnished studio apartment in a good neighborhood was mine in just two weeks; no frills, peeling paint, crazy neighbors, one window overlooking a fire escape and a dumpster. But mine nonetheless. From an emergency savings box stored in a bank that Adrian knew nothing about, the funds were paid upfront.

I also began attending the free prenatal clinics. I'd sit in those waiting rooms lined with tired mom to be's and worried to be daddies, and feel like a fake. Everyone else had an arm to hold onto. I would bring a notebook and write letters to my unborn baby-unnamed at the time.

Dearly beloved little one,

I have to say, however, that the day has been the first that I have become conscious of your movement, these butterfly-like movements in my ribs.I also cried a lot in the bathroom at the clinic just because I was so happy, yet scared, at the same time.

I am trying to be strong for you, and that is working out great for me some days, while other days I am just sitting on the floor missing the man I have believed all my life has loved me.

But I'll tell you this, little one: No one will ever hurt you like I was hurt. Not as long as I am drawing breath to defend you from their grasp.

Love,

Mom

The months seemed like they were

Winter arrived. Snow fell on the fire escape. I grew bigger, slower, more tired. The gallery was willing to let me go permanently: a position in a small bookstore and café. I shelved paperbacks, steamed oat-based lattes, and forced a smile at customers, though my heart was shards of glass under my feet.

I avoided mirrors most days. The woman that peered back at me had empty eyes and a small scar from my left cheek from the accident that was faint and permanent. A reminder.

One evening in the early days of spring, I was closing the café, while the bell above the door jingled.

I didn't turn. Just spoke into the intercom and said, "We're closed, sorry."

Then, I froze. "I've decided to come

Thinner. Dark circles under his eyes. He has a longer, unkempt hairstyle. He is wearing the same coat he had on the first time he attacked me. The same coat my face was buried in as he came in late every night.

He was one of those men who looked as though he had never slept for months.

"Cecilia," he whispered, as if my name was at once the solution to all my prayers and the source of all my curses.

My knuckles were white as I gripped the counter with both hands. "Get out."

"Please. Just 5 minutes. I've been looking for you everywhere."

'You found me. Now leave.'"

He moved one foot closer to me. I winced. He instantly ceased and held up his hands.

"I'm not here to hurt you. I swear."

"You already did." My voice cracked. "You destroyed me. You and her."

His face crumpled. "Isabel lied. About everything. There was no baby. She faked the tests, the ultrasound pictures-everything. She wanted to keep me. She thought if I thought she was pregnant I'd-"

"Stop." I held up a hand. Tears were already falling. "I don't care why she did it. You let her. You chose her. You hit me."

He winced as if I'd slapped him. "I didn't intend to. I was just going to stop you from running into traffic. I panicked. I have hated myself every second since that happened."

I laughed, bitter, broken. "You think that makes it okay?"

"No." His voice was hoarse. "Nothing makes it okay. I know that."

Silence hung heavy between us. Thick. Suffocating.

Then came the words I had never wanted to hear:

"I know about the baby."

My heart stopped.

"How

'I just assumed that you were telling me you were pregnant was just a joke. One of the nurses at the hospital... she recognized your name when I was asking around. She told me you were pregnant. That you almost died in the crash.'

Automatically, my arms wrapped around my stomach in a protective position.

"She's safe," I told her. "She's safe and she's mine. And you don't get to come back now and claim her."

"Because I have no claim to make." His eyes were damp from held-back tears. "Just.just need to tell you that every single day, every moment, every breath of my existence since you vanished has been a hell existence. Sold my penthouse apartment. Temporarily given up my position in the company. Trying to learn things about our fathers, what went on."

I glanced over to him and asked, "Why?"

"Because if I was wrong..if your father didn't.." He struggled to swallow hard. "If I destroyed us for nothing... I don't know how to live with that."

I felt overwhelmed by a need to scream at him. I felt a need to throw my espresso machine at his head. I felt a need to run to him and pretend everything never happened.

Instead, I said, very quietly,

"Get out, Adrian. And don't come back."

He stood there another long moment, looking at me like he was memorizing every line of my face.

Then he nodded once.

"I love you," he said. "I always did. Even when I was too fucked up to admit it."

"I said I'll go," he said to

Again, the bell jingled. Soft. Final.

Lying hard against the floor next to the counter, pulling my knees to my chest, I cried hysterically.

And yet, despite all of that, despite all the lies, the slap, the crash, the months of rebuilding by myself, yet there was something inside my own heart that loved him too.

And that hurts worst than anything else.