chapter 6

As Daisy spoke, tears streamed down her face like shattered glass catching the light. Her voice trembled, fragile, and yet her fingers curled quietly around the corner of Edward's shirt, claiming him in that small, possessive way.

And just as I expected, his attention shifted. His panic flared instantly as he turned to her. "It's not your fault, Daisy. Don't think like that," he murmured, his hands hovering protectively at her shoulders. When he finally looked at me, the brief spark of joy in his eyes had turned to fury. "Maria! How could you be so heartless? That's a life! It's proof of our six years together!"

"Proof?" I laughed so hard that tears stung my eyes. "Edward, it's not proof of love—it's proof you betrayed me. The moment you ran to her on our wedding day, whatever we had died. That child doesn't deserve to be born into a home without love."

Mrs. Jackson lunged forward, trying to grab me, but my mother pushed her back with a glare sharp enough to cut. "Don't touch my daughter! Hasn't your family done enough? You've already broken her heart—now you want to force her to keep a child no one truly wants?"

Mr. Jackson's face turned as dark as a storm. He jabbed a finger at his son. "You fool! How could we raise someone like you? For some outsider, you'd throw away your wife and your child?"

But Edward didn't hear them. His eyes stayed locked on me, his Adam's apple bobbing as he suddenly dropped to his knees with a dull thud against the hardwood floor. "Maria," he whispered, voice cracking, "I was wrong. I really messed up."

He shuffled forward on his knees, reaching for my hand like a drowning man grasping for a rope. "Please… forgive me, just this once. Let's keep the baby. I'll make Daisy leave right now. I'll never see her again. I'll only care about you—about our child."

I stepped back, out of his reach. My voice was cold, steady, stripped of any softness. "Edward, you're begging the wrong person. You should be asking your own conscience for forgiveness. My heart's already dead. Your apology is far too late."

Daisy began coughing suddenly, clutching her chest, trembling as if the air itself were hurting her. "Edward… I—I don't feel well…"

I watched the hesitation flicker across Edward's face—just a second's pause, but it was enough. That tiny, instinctive movement killed whatever warmth remained in me.

I bent down, picked up the folded prenatal report from where it had fallen, and tucked it carefully into my bag. When I spoke, my tone was so calm it scared even me. "The procedure's scheduled for the morning after tomorrow. If you have any decency left, don't come near me again."

Then I turned and walked toward the door.

My mother followed, her heels clicking sharply against the floor. Before leaving, she threw Edward a final glare. "Our family doesn't need a son-in-law who can't tell right from wrong. We're done with you."

Behind me, chaos erupted—Daisy's pitiful sobs, Edward shouting, his parents yelling over each other. It all sounded distant, unreal, like a bad TV drama I'd accidentally wandered through.

I didn't look back. I walked out steadily, each step feeling lighter, like I was shaking off years of dead weight.

The day before the surgery, Edward sent message after message — confessions, excuses, pleas. The last one included a photo of Daisy in a hospital bed. He said she'd had a breakdown after learning I was going through with the procedure, that her condition had worsened.

"Maria, please," he wrote. "Wait until she's stable. She can't take any more stress."

I stared at the message, thumb hovering over the delete button, but I didn't press it. Not because I cared. Just because it was so absurd. Even now, the only person he worried about was the woman who "couldn't handle stress." And me—the one about to lose a child—was just another inconvenience to manage.

So I blocked him everywhere.

On the morning of the surgery, my mother came with me. The hospital smelled sterile and sharp, the sound of shoes and distant monitors echoing faintly down the corridor. Before I went into the operating room, she held my hand tight, her eyes red. "Maria, don't be scared. I'm here. From now on, we'll live well—better than we ever did with him."

I nodded, tears slipping down my cheeks—not for Edward, not even for the baby I'd never meet, but for myself. For the six years I'd wasted. For the love that had been discarded so easily.

As the anesthesia flowed through the IV, the world began to blur. The last thing I saw in my mind wasn't the hospital ceiling—it was sunlight slanting across the library table when I was nineteen. Edward's ears had flushed red when he handed me his notebook for the first time. Then graduation day, his arms tight around me, his voice promising he'd make me the happiest bride. And finally, that same man running out the door on our wedding day, chasing after someone else.

Then everything went dark.