You Don't Deserve My Deep Love

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On the way to my prenatal checkup, I fished a pair of stockings out of the gap beside the passenger seat. They weren't mine.

Inside the windshield there were two smeared footprints, a woman's.

Picturing what they'd done in here, I shoved the door open, stumbled out, and threw up until I couldn't see straight.

That was when Lucas Harding's phone rang.

The car's Bluetooth picked up automatically, and his friend's voice came through:

"You and Bianca Larson are this blatant about it now? You're not scared Pearl Henson actually leaves you?"

Lucas answered like it was nothing.

"Last time she forgave me even over the hotel room records."

"And she's carrying my kid now. She needs me more than ever."

At some point tears had blurred everything in front of me.

I suddenly thought of the year I was twenty-one.

When the man with the knife came at me, Lucas had thrown himself in front of me and taken three of the blows meant for me.

Those three scars became three get-out-of-death-free passes he'd left in my heart.

The first time I found the flirty messages between him and Bianca, I remembered the scar on his shoulder, and I forgave him.

The second time I saw the hotel room records, I remembered the scar on his stomach, and I backed down again.

Now it was the third time.

I didn't go back to confront him. I walked into the hospital alone, but I didn't go to the prenatal department.

I turned and went down to the other end of the hall, to the pregnancy termination clinic.

Three rounds of forgiveness hadn't saved the ten years between me and Lucas.

So this unfaithful marriage should end here too.

The doctor scheduled the termination for nine o'clock the morning after next.

When I came out of the hospital, Lucas was leaning against the car, on the phone.

Whatever Bianca said, it made him laugh low in his throat.

"Behave, don't fuss."

"I'll drop her home first, then come over and stay with you tonight. Remember to have your stockings on and wait for me."

He saw me and hung up fast, unscrewed the thermos, and lifted it to my lips.

Two slices of lemon in the water, just enough to cut the nausea after the morning sickness.

"How'd the checkup go?"

His concern didn't look faked. As if the stockings in the gap by the passenger seat and the footprints on the windshield didn't exist.

"The doctor wants me to come back the day after tomorrow."

I didn't tell him that the next time I walked into that hospital, this baby wouldn't be coming back out with me.

Lucas visibly relaxed.

"I'll come with you the day after tomorrow."

I looked at his lowered eyes, and then I said it.

"The stockings in the passenger seat. They're Bianca's, aren't they?"

Lucas didn't play dumb, and he didn't deny it. His tone just went slightly off.

"Since you found them, I won't lie to you."

"Bianca and I really haven't ended things."

That light, easy line crushed the last shred of hope I'd been holding.

The last time I found the hotel records, Lucas hadn't been like this.

He'd knelt out in the pouring rain the whole night, forehead against the door, begging me over and over to open it.

"Pearl, I was wrong."

"You can hit me, curse me, punish me however you want."

"Just please don't leave me. I really can't live without you."

He deleted every one of Bianca's contact methods right in front of me, then smashed the phone to pieces.

"I promise, this is the last time."

"If I ever touch her again, let me die a miserable death."

I watched him kneel until his knees bled, and in the end I thought of that scar on his stomach again, and I opened the door for him.

But now, only half a year later, the man who once knelt and begged me not to go could tell me calmly that he and Bianca had never really ended at all.

Lucas looked up at me, his voice still gentle.

"But this doesn't affect our marriage."

"Pearl, we have ten years together. You should understand me better than she does."

He folded my hand into his palm and coaxed me, patient.

"You have a marriage, a child, a whole family."

"All Bianca gets is my company now and then."

"You already have so much. Don't hold this against her."

So the ten years we'd walked through together hadn't made him treasure me more.

They'd become his bargaining chip to make me tolerate his betrayal.

Lucas's gaze dropped to my belly.

"Once the baby's born, I'll gradually shift my focus back to the family."

"Just give me a little more time. We're husband and wife. You should be a little more understanding of me."

He said it like it was the most natural thing in the world. As if coming back to his family were a gift he was granting me. As if the baby and I only had to survive these few months, and I'd be handed a whole husband as the reward.

On my phone screen, the hospital's reminder popped up.

Pregnancy termination surgery: nine a.m. the day after tomorrow.

I pressed the screen dark and gave a small nod.

"Okay."

Lucas thought I'd accepted his explanation once again.

He bent and kissed my forehead, certain we'd make up like the last two times.

But he didn't know. By the time he was finally willing to come back to this family, there would be no one left in it waiting for him.

On the drive home, Bianca's newest post came up in my feed.

An entire hotel suite carpeted in Juliet roses.

An early birthday gift.

Seven years ago, on Valentine's, Lucas and I walked past a flower shop.

Nearly every girl on the street had a bouquet in her arms, and he didn't have the money for even one stem.

His eyes went red as he promised me: "Once I have money, I'll make up for every flower you ever missed."

I didn't want him to feel bad, so I made myself smile and said I didn't like flowers anyway.

Later he really did have money.

And that lie I'd told to protect his pride, he remembered it for seven whole years.

He never once bought me a bouquet.

Yet he spent over two hundred thousand filling an entire suite with Juliet roses for Bianca.

Lucas caught the photo on my phone, and his expression turned a little uneasy.

"It's her birthday. It's just flowers."

"You don't like flowers, do you?"

I looked at him, and suddenly I laughed.

"Right. I don't."

So he would never know.

Seven years ago, when I said those words, I actually envied those girls so much that I snuck three looks back over my shoulder.

Bianca's call came in right then.

She whined that the zipper on her party dress had broken, and asked when he was coming.

Lucas barely hesitated. He turned the car straight around.

At some point rain had started falling outside.

It came down harder and harder, the tires cutting through standing water, throwing up a white haze of spray.

Halfway there, Lucas pulled over and called an Uber for me.

"Bianca's place and home are in opposite directions."

"The driver's six minutes out. Just wait here a bit."

I looked at the rain pouring down outside the window.

"Can you take me home first?"

"I'm not feeling well."

Lucas frowned and checked the time.

"All of Bianca's guests have arrived. She can't get her dress on. How is the party supposed to start?"

"You're just worn out from the checkup. Go home, sleep it off, you'll be fine."

As he spoke, he draped his coat over my shoulders and pushed the umbrella into my hand.

"Text me when you get home."

Looking after me had been his habit for ten years.

It was just that this care always came second to how much he favored Bianca.

The moment I stepped out of the car, he stomped on the gas.

The car vanished into the rain in seconds.

The next second, the ride-share app flashed an alert.

The driver has canceled the order.

I booked another.

Over half an hour, more than a dozen drivers canceled one after another.

Then my phone buzzed.

Bianca had posted again.

In the video, Lucas was half-kneeling behind her, head bowed as he fixed the zipper on her dress.

The guests crowded around, egging them on:

"One phone call and she can summon Mr. Harding himself. Bianca really has him wrapped around her finger."

Bianca laughed behind her hand.

"He promised. He'd never miss a single one of my birthdays."

"And it's perfect timing. I have some good news to announce."

"I'm carrying Lucas's baby. Three months along already."

At the end of the clip, Lucas pulled Bianca into his arms, overjoyed, and the two of them kissed, deep and tender.

Everyone was applauding.

And I, carrying his child, stood two kilometers away in the downpour, unable to get a single car to take me home.

The cold rain soaked through my clothes in no time.

I put my phone away and walked the last two miles home through the downpour.

The drenched fabric clung to my body, and every step left a trail of water on the floor.

Lucas never called again.

That night, just as I expected, the fever came.

My temperature climbed all the way to a hundred and two point nine.

I didn't dare take anything at random, so I curled up under the blanket and pressed a wet towel to my skin, over and over, trying to bring it down.

Half out of my mind, I called my best friend, Alexis Swanson.

Half an hour later, she showed up with fever patches and a doctor.

When she saw my soaked clothes still heaped by the door, her eyes went red with fury.

"Where's Lucas?"

"He dumped a pregnant woman in a rainstorm so he could go celebrate Bianca Larson's birthday?"

I didn't answer.

Alexis threw the towel hard into the basin of water.

"Pearl, how did you end up like this?"

"Back in college, didn't we swear to each other?"

"The second a man takes a mistress, you divorce him. Anyone who goes back is a fool."

I tugged at my dry, cracked lips.

"Yeah."

Back then we were young, and we thought love was the only thing in a relationship, love or the lack of it.

A senior in our department found out her husband was cheating but wouldn't divorce him, for the sake of the child.

When I heard about it, I was furious, and I ranted:

"Cheating happens either zero times or a thousand times."

"Why would anyone keep a man like that around?"

Later, when it was my own turn, I learned that leaving wasn't as easy as I'd imagined.

The first time I found the flirty messages between him and Bianca, all that came flooding into my head was everything Lucas had once done for me.

Sophomore year, my parents cut off my tuition to force me to drop out and work in a factory.

They said my younger brother needed his tutoring classes, and that no amount of schooling did a girl any good.

The day before the payment deadline, Lucas pressed a wad of crumpled cash into my hands.

That summer, he delivered takeout by day and hauled rebar at a construction site by night.

His hands were covered in blisters, and the skin on his shoulders peeled from the sun.

Crying, I asked him why he was putting himself through all of it for me.

He just folded the payment slip and tucked it carefully into my backpack.

"Pearl, being born into a family like that doesn't mean you don't get a future too."

It wasn't until later that I found out.

He'd also sold the watch his mother left him, just to scrape together the last three thousand for me.

Back then, that three thousand was money he'd only barely managed to earn by hauling rebar all summer and selling the most precious thing he owned.

Now the room full of roses he'd given Bianca was worth over two hundred thousand.

Enough to cover every fee for my entire time in college.

Lucas finally had money.

It was just that the person most worth giving everything to was no longer me.

Alexis tucked the blanket around me, her voice choking up.

"This time, are you still planning to forgive him?"

I shook my head and handed her the chat window with my lawyer.

The divorce papers are being drawn up.

Alexis stared at me, stunned.

I looked out the window at the rain that hadn't let up, and my voice was very soft.

"Back then he earned my tuition for me, gave me the chance to choose my own life, and took three blows for me."

"That debt, I've repaid with ten years of love and three pardons."

"Alexis, I'm ready to leave now."

The next day at noon, Alexis went out to pick up my medicine.

Then the lock clicked.

Bianca punched in the passcode like she'd done it a hundred times and let herself in.

She saw me and gave me a taunting little wink.

"Pearl, looking like that, no wonder Lucas cheated."

"You know what? He's told me more than once. Being with you does nothing for him."

"Oh, and Lucas spent all last night with me. His shirt got wine on it, so he sent me back for a change of clothes."

So it wasn't just his car she'd been in.

She even knew the passcode to our home.

Bianca walked straight into the master bedroom and pulled open Lucas's wardrobe like she knew exactly where everything was.

She took out the shirt he wore most, then lifted the tie I'd given him last year.

As familiar as if she were the real woman of the house.

Bianca stroked the necklace at her throat, her eyes full of smugness.

"Last night Lucas told you, didn't he, that once you have the baby he'll come back to the family."

"But he couldn't even bear to miss my birthday."

"Pearl, take a guess. Once the baby's born, do you really think he'll be able to leave me?"

Footsteps sounded outside the door.

Bianca's eyes flickered. She grabbed my hand, then slapped herself hard across the face.

Then she staggered back and knocked over the vase behind her.

When Lucas pushed the door open, what he saw was her sitting in the shards, one hand over her cheek.

"Bianca!"

He rushed over and caught her, then shoved me away.

The small of my back hit the edge of the coffee table, and pain shot through my lower belly.

"Pearl, are you done losing your mind?"

He looked at me with nothing left in his eyes but disgust.

"Bianca never asked me for a divorce. She never tried to take your place."

"She's given ground this far, and you still have to bully her?"

"It wasn't me"

Bianca's eyes reddened at once as she pulled at him.

"Lucas, don't blame her."

"Pearl only knows you were with me last night, and it upset her."

"It's my fault for coming."

Her words made peace while her body sank softly into his arms.

Lucas's face went cold through and through.

"She kindly comes to get me a change of clothes, and you can't even stand that."

"Pearl, when did you turn this vicious?"

The pain in my belly grew sharper.

I grabbed his sleeve.

"Lucas, my stomach hurts"

He glanced down, then shook my hand off, irritated.

"Enough."

"Stop using the baby every time to fight for attention."

"When you've learned to stay calm, I'll come back."

He picked Bianca up and left without a backward glance.

The moment the door shut, something warm ran down my legs.

Blood quickly soaked the hem of my dress.

I looked down at that glaring red, and suddenly remembered Lucas saying, stop using the baby to fight for attention.

But this baby, right up until it was gone, never earned its father even one look back.

By the time Alexis came back, I had already collapsed on the floor.

When I woke again, the doctor told me, with regret:

"The abdomen took an impact. The baby couldn't be saved."

I had given myself forty-eight hours to say a proper goodbye to this child.

Lucas didn't leave him even that last little bit of time.

There was only one message on my phone.

Bianca's badly shaken. Once she's stable, come and apologize.

I looked at it for a long time, then replied to the overseas posting the company had sent three months earlier.

I accept.

Two days later, the follow-up confirmed the bleeding had stabilized, and I checked out.

I left the divorce papers and the miscarriage report on the dining table.

Then I dragged my luggage onto a flight to London.

At that same hour, Lucas finally came home.

In the empty living room, only two documents were left.

One was the divorce papers, already signed with my name.

The other read:

Ten weeks pregnant. Miscarriage due to external impact to the abdomen.

Lucas stared at that line, the color draining from his face bit by bit.