Better Broken Than Bent

I pulled the bangle off my wrist. It was a size larger, so doing so was easy.

My husband, Xavier Marshall, noticed what I did and turned around, furrowing his brows. “Jennie, what are you doing?

“There are so many relatives around, and they all saw me give this bangle to you. What would they think, seeing you take it off?”

I felt my blood turn cold at his words, and I subconsciously tightened my grip over the prenatal checkup report in my bag that I hadn’t shown him.

“The bangle is too large, and I don’t feel comfortable wearing it, that’s why I took it off,” I explained, making up an excuse.

Xavier clearly didn’t believe me. “Jennie, don’t overthink things, alright?

“You’re small and skinny in stature, and it’s hard to find a bangle in your size. I could only find something slightly bigger. Why can’t you just make do with it?”

I looked right into his eyes, suddenly finding his face that I had seen for a decade so unfamiliar.

Xavier would never behave like this in the past.

Due to my small stature, I often couldn’t find shoes in my size. However, I majored in broadcasting and hosting and needed to go on-screen at times. I couldn’t keep wearing a pair of heels that didn’t fit well and stand in them all day, as they would only end up giving me red, sore, and sometimes bloody heels.

Xavier’s heart broke when he saw me like that, so he used the money he had painstakingly saved up over one semester to buy a pair of custom-made heels.

He turned up at my dormitory with that pair of heels in his arms, even kneeling on the floor to help me wear it.

When I found out about the price of the shoes, my heart broke at his sacrifice for me. I said, “I don’t need to stand for so long for this program I’m interning for. I can just make do.”

Xavier looked up at me with a glint in his eyes as he said with a smile, “My Jennie is a princess. How could a knight let his princess settle for any less?”

The face in my memories gradually juxtaposed against Xavier’s face, disorienting me.

“But this isn’t something I can just make do with. I’ve got to be careful no matter what I do, so that I can make sure it doesn’t fall off my wrist.

“Because of the poor fit, I might end up getting hurt by it when I do things.”

“It’s not that painful, is it? It’s enough that it’s expensive,” Xavier said dismissively.

He blurted that out so naturally that I almost didn’t catch it.

I turned around and looked at the dishes on the table. “What about the seafood?”