The night wrapped around me like a suffocating blanket, heavy with the ache in my chest. Oliver’s steady breathing beside me only sharpened the pain. He was asleep, oblivious to the storm raging inside me. I pressed my face into the pillow, muffling the sobs that tore through me, each one a jagged piece of the truth I couldn’t escape: Roberta was carrying his child. Not me. Another woman held a piece of him I could never claim, and the weight of that knowledge crushed me. I cried until my eyes burned and my throat felt raw, the tears soaking the pillowcase as I mourned the future I’d dared to dream of.
By morning, my head throbbed, a dull, relentless ache that pulsed behind my eyes. My face felt tight, swollen from the night’s grief, and I winced as I sat up in bed. The space beside me wa
