NOT IN MY NEXT LIFE

The chandelier flickered above the Thornwell estate's dining hall, not from faulty wiring ,but from the weight of history, secrets and silence. Zariyah ValenciaDelaRue -Thornwell sat alone at the long mahogany table. A vision of grace draped in silk with her spine straight and her grief pressed like linen beneath her skin. The candles had burned way too low, the caviar untouched and once again DArian hadn't come home. The television murmured softly in the next room. She wasn't listening at first, not really, until she heard his name. "Darian Thornwell expecting his first child with longtime companion, celestine Mbua..." THis was not somethng that can just be on the news with none of his family members knowledge and the approval of his granddad. Zaria didn't flinch. She didn't cry. She simply reached for her wine glass with a trembling hand. It slipped. The glass exploded against the marble floor, sending shards across the cold white tile like shattered promises. The sound echoed through the silent mansion, the only response she had received in months. Her eyes had never left the screen. There they were Darian and Celestine standing in the soft light of a rooftop restaurant.Celestine glowing, hands resting on her stomach and him smiling. Actually smiling . It wasn't the child that broke Zaria. It was the word, first. The world didn't know. They didn't know she carried his first child. They didn't know he had hit her, making her fall down the stairs and leaving her lying there. They didn't know the complications. The bleeding that had come due to the fall. They didn't know she had lost more than a baby that night. They were two. She might have lost the ability to ever get pregnant again. Her future. And the last fragile thread of hope that, one day, that Darian might love her. He didn't even come to the hospital. He sent orchirds and the driver. No hand to hold. No face to remember. Just a silent message: your pain doesn't concern me. Zaria had stayed quiet when her parents' company was gutted by thornwell lawyers. She said nothing when they died "accidentally" in a crash weeks later. Their funeral paid for by the same man who ruined them. She had married him out of grief , out of survival out of loyalty and he had never treated her like a wife. She stood slowly now, barefoot across the cold floor, stepping over broken glass without flinching. The butler hovered at the doorway. "Madam..." about to indicated to clear the table away. "Leave it," She said cutting him off. He bowed and disappeared. Zaria Walked to the talk windows that farmed the moonlit THornwell gardens . Roses, lillies, Calla blooming in perfect rows. All trimmed and quiet and obedient. JUst ike her. Or at least , just like she used to be. She raised her fresh glass of wine to her reflection in glass. REgal. Unmoving, but no longer numb.. "To your loyalty,"she wwhispered . "To your legacy and to the child you will ner raise in peace.