Let People Come and Go As They Please

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On the wedding day, a woman came bursting into the room I shared with Barret Gilbert.

She threw herself straight into his arms without a word, her voice already raw from crying:

You promised me you wouldn't marry her. How could you do this again?

Barret glanced at me, then looked away.

Before he could say anything, the girl's eyes landed on me, and she went on:

"I know who you are."

"The day your parents died in that car crash, I was the one in Barret's bed."

"You know why nobody was ever held responsible? Because your husband begged them to let my father go."

"Now my father's dead. He's all I have left."

A cold weight went through me, and I stood frozen where I was.

That day I'd sent him to keep vigil for them, and when he came back he told me the matter had been dropped.

So it turned out someone had paid him with her body.

Five years. Every single day of them I'd lived inside the pain of losing my parents.

And he had never said one word about any of this.

Eyes stinging red, I pointed at the door.

"Take your woman."

"And get out!"

01

Barret looked at me, a flicker of panic in his eyes.

But all he did was slip his hands under the woman's arms and settle her onto his lap.

"Angela Barnes, we're not married. She's the one who threw herself at me."

"I booked you a hotel. Go back there first, and I'll explain everything tomorrow, all right?"

"And it'll be cold tonight, so bundle up. I'll come see you later."

She nodded hard, hooked both arms around his neck, and gave the tip of his nose a playful little push.

"Barret, you have to come. I can't be without you."

Then she hopped off his lap, pushed the door open, and walked out.

I turned and met his eyes.

Mine had gone red long before this moment.

He only lowered his brows and gently took my hand.

His tone was like a man discussing something perfectly ordinary.

"It was so dark that night. I mistook her for you, and I got into bed with her."

"She told me I was the only family she had left in the world. How could I have the heart to turn her away?"

"You know what it's like to lose your parents. If it had been you who came to me that night, I'd have gone soft on you the same way."

I clenched my fists tight.

My nose burned, and something bitter and tangled twisted through my chest.

"So?" I asked him. "So all these years you've been sleeping with her behind my back."

"Barret, you're so selfish. Those were my parents!"

"I waited all these years just for the truth, and what right did you have to hide it from me this long?"

The next second, the vase on the table hit the floor with a crash under his hand.

Seeing my body flinch, he bent down and cupped my face.

Those tender eyes of his. I couldn't count how many times I'd seen them.

"I'm sorry. I got too worked up."

"But the two of us are not having an affair. Last time I nearly hurt her, so I never dared take her to bed again."

"You're different. You've been divorced, and even the repair surgery couldn't hide it."

"The two of you were never from the same world to begin with. Can't you show her a little more understanding?"

"Stop making a scene, all right? Tomorrow I'll go with you to your parents' grave. Call it my way of making it up to you."

I gave a bitter little laugh.

Even a visit to see my parents was something he was handing down to me as charity.

I gave a bitter little laugh and shoved him away.

Then I stood up, and it was a long while before I could speak.

"Barret, let's get divorced."

Barret looked up at me, disbelief on his face.

Anger flickered in his eyes.

"Irma, after everything it took for us to get here, you want a divorce? Over a woman?"

"Is it really worth it?"

"Besides, they're both dead. Is anyone dead more important than someone alive?"

His grip on my fingers tightened until his nails nearly bit into my skin.

He'd just brushed off my parents' deaths as if they were nothing.

Anyone else could have said those words. Anyone but him.

Back then, it was supposed to be our wedding.

But my parents were killed in a car crash, and I begged everyone I could think of to help me find the man responsible.

Just when things finally started moving, they told me the driver couldn't handle the punishment.

I appealed after that, again and again, and lost every time.

Like someone out of her mind, I knelt at the courthouse doors every day, praying they would bring the guilty man to justice.

On a rainy day, I knelt there soaked to the skin, burning with fever for three days and nights, and no one came.

In the end I fell into depression.

I tried to end my life more than once, and every time it was Barret who pulled me back.

I swallowed a whole bottle of sleeping pills, and he rushed me to the hospital in the middle of the night to have my stomach pumped, then stayed by my side for three full days.

When I climbed up to jump, he ran in front of me, pressed a knife to his own throat, and said:

"Irma, if you dare jump today, I'll die right here in front of you!"

That was how it went. Time after time, he saved me.

And that was how, little by little, the depression began to lift.

So this wedding finally made it onto the calendar too.

I still remember how, earlier at the wedding, he'd knelt on one knee before me and smiled:

"Irma, your past was mine to save. For the rest of your life, I hope you'll only get better."

"With me beside you, you have nothing to worry about!"

I was naive enough to believe he'd always be good to me.

But before the two of us even walked out of the bridal suite, the blow landed straight in my heart.

It hurt so much I couldn't catch my breath.

I dragged in a breath, and my whole body started to shake.

Even breathing turned unbearable.

Without thinking, I threw off Barret's hand and crumpled to the floor.

This was the aftermath of the depression.

I looked at myself in the mirror, my eyes swollen beyond recognition.

My fingers had curled into strange shapes.

I hadn't wanted to cry, but the tears kept spilling out anyway.

Barret watched me, then pulled me tight against him.

"Irma, is it happening again? Where's your medicine? Tell me, quick."

It had been a long time since my last episode.

Getting married today, I'd never once imagined something like this could happen.

Least of all that Barret would do something like this behind my back.

I shook my head with difficulty.

He stroked my back and said:

"I'll go buy some for you right now. Wait for me!"

Then he turned his back on me and left.

Watching him walk away, something bitter welled up inside me.

But I waited three whole hours, and he never came back.

I glanced at the app the two of us had linked.

It let us see each other's current location.

I opened it, and I laughed.

So he hadn't gone to the hospital at all.

He'd gone to a hotel.

The hotel where Angela was.

I set the phone weakly on the floor and dialed 911.

It was the middle of the night by the time they got me to the hospital.

When the doctor saw the wedding dress I was still wearing, even she couldn't hold her tongue as she set the IV.

"You got married today, didn't you, sweetheart? What kind of boyfriend leaves you like this? You're in a hospital bed and he can't even show up."

I only pressed my lips together and said nothing.

I don't know how long I lay there before my phone suddenly buzzed.

I glanced at it. A notification from the couples app.

Barret was getting closer and closer.

He was driving fast.

Fast enough that any second now he'd come tearing into the hospital.

When he was two meters away, he passed right by the door of my room.

And in his arms he was carrying a girl.

It was Angela.

"Doctor, her stomach hurts. Can you take a look at her?"

They brought Angela into my room.

The moment Barret walked in and saw me, he froze.

But only for a second. Then he pulled his eyes away.

Angela lay down on the bed, and the doctor examined her.

Then she turned with a smile and gave Barret's shoulder a pinch.

"Some boyfriend you are. She's this badly hurt down there and you didn't think to be more careful?"

"I'll write her a prescription for a few simple things. She'll stay one day."

"But she's pregnant now, so don't do this sort of thing again."

As she hooked up Angela's IV, she went on praising Barret.

"You've got a good one here, sweetheart. He knew you were hurt and brought you in himself."

"The woman in the next bed there, she got married and her own husband won't even look after her."

Angela glanced at me and let out a small laugh.

"Maybe she went off to be somebody's mistress."

"These days there's no end to women who'd steal another woman's husband."

She was nothing like the fragile thing Barret always made her out to be.

I looked at her and gave a cold laugh.

"A murderer's daughter. How do you have the nerve to walk into a hospital?"

One sentence, and Angela's eyes went red.

Barret, sitting beside her, slammed his hand down on the table and turned to me.

"Irma! When are you going to stop? Are you only happy once Angela's dead?!"

"She isn't the one who killed your parents. Do you have to go after her like this?"

With that, the doctor walked out.

Now it was just the three of us in the room.

Angela sniffled a couple of times, sat up, and looked at me.

"Irma, I can apologize for what my father did."

"If you hate me this much, then I'll go right now!"

And she really did get up to leave.

But Barret reached out and stopped her.

"After I left last night, Angela called me and said she wasn't well. I had no choice but to go be with her."

"You've had depression for years and you still pulled through, haven't you? What's one more time?"

"She was in a really bad way last night. I felt sorry for her, so I helped her."

"We've done it once already. I'm sure you won't mind a second time."

I gave a cold laugh.

Barret's eyes never lied.

Whenever he had a guilty conscience, he couldn't look at me.

This time was no different.

Angela got off the bed, pulled the needle out of her hand at once, and came to stand in front of me.

Her eyes were shining with tears.

Anyone who didn't know better would think I'd been the one hurting her.

"Irma, what happened before, that was my father wronging you, but he isn't me."

"I'm pregnant now. This is my first child."

"The doctor said if I get rid of it, I'll have a very hard time ever conceiving again. Just let me have it and then I'll leave, all right?"

Before I could say a word, she gripped my hand hard and threw herself backward.

She let out a scream, and every doctor came rushing in.

Barret shoved me hard, and my body slammed down onto the floor.

It hurt so much a cry tore out of me.

"Irma!"

He roared at me, then turned and scooped Angela up.

The girl had both hands pressed hard against her belly, the pain written all over her face.

"It hurts! It hurts so much!"

I saw the blood soaking red through the hem of her dress, and I closed my eyes.

There were so many times I had wanted to die, times when I passed out with blood pooling beside me.

Over the years, that turned into a fear of blood.

I never thought that after all this time, the fear still hadn't faded.

The doctor gave her an emergency injection and said to Barret,

"Her condition is very bad right now. We may not be able to save the baby."

"We need to take her in to try and keep the pregnancy."

As soon as she heard it, Angela clung tight to the hem of my clothes.

Her palm was scraped red.

"Irma Henson, I didn't do anything. Why would you try to kill my baby?"

"What do I have to do before you'll forgive me?"

"My father is already dead. Will you only be satisfied when I disappear from this world too?"

Her voice was loud, and the people at the door heard every word.

I watched with my own eyes as Angela was wheeled into the ER.

The moment the door closed, Barret spun around and seized my wrist.

"Now she's even lost the baby. Are you happy?"

"I'm telling you, if anything happens to her, I'm not done with you!"

Weak, I braced myself against the wall beside me and flung the man's hand off.

His head knocked into my bottle of medicine, and it scattered across the floor.

A needle drove deep into my palm, and blood dripped out, drop after drop.

I pushed the door to go find a doctor, and he blocked me in the doorway at once.

"Irma Henson, Angela is in the ER right now! Every doctor is with her. Can't you even bear this little bit of pain?"

"Take one more step forward," he said, pulling out the jade ring my father had left him,

"and I'll smash the only thing your father left in this world!"

I clamped my hand over the wound, breathing hard against the pain.

I never imagined that in Barret's eyes, my parents' lives could be worth so little.

Whatever last trace of desire he'd had for me vanished completely from his eyes.

I lifted my gaze and met his.

"Barret, once she comes out, can I go?"

He looked me over, as if I meant nothing to him at all.

"Go? Go where? You want to put on that suicidal-depression act again?"

"Irma Henson, could you stop being so stupid? Taking care of you every time you spiral, I'm exhausted."

He turned the ring on his finger.

It wasn't our wedding band.

It was a matching couple's ring with Angela.

I gave a bitter little smile and said nothing more.

I just sat there and waited for Angela to come out of the ER.

I don't know how long it was before the light over the ER finally went dark.

Barret rushed out without a word.

All I could hear was Angela crying like her heart was being torn out.

"Barret, our baby... it's gone..."

"They said I'll never be able to have children again, never again..."

I stepped out the door, and Barret bent down and pressed a soft kiss to her cheek.

His voice was so gentle it could have dripped:

"Don't worry. I can take care of you for the rest of your life."

Watching the two of them so close, a wave of nausea rose in my stomach.

My husband, together with the daughter of the man who killed my parents.

How was I supposed to face my mother and father.

Barret acted as if he didn't see me at all, and pushed Angela into the ward.

And I walked the other way.

After I got home, I packed my things and left the house.

Maybe I would never come back to this place again in my life.

I put together a hundred-slide deck and posted it online, all of it laying out what Barret and Angela had done.

The next second, the internet blew up.