5—Love After Heartbreak

Anna didn’t want to cry for Jacob anymore. But the more she tried to hold herself together, the more the tears came.

She remembered the first time Jacob told her he loved her. They were young and hopelessly in love. It was the best thing that ever happened to her. They had fun. They did everything together.

Until she became pregnant. She was eighteen when she found out. Her parents begged her to terminate the pregnancy, but she couldn’t do it.

Jacob held her hand when everyone else turned their backs on her. Her parents told her she couldn’t stay in their house if she insisted on keeping the baby. Jacob was the one who told her she could stay with him.

Then they lost their baby. Only a few days after giving birth. She still remembered the emptiness that followed.

And somehow, through that pain, Jacob and she stayed together.

He told her he wanted them to be a family, even if their child wasn’t there anymore.

She believed him. She believed every promise he made.

Later, he told her he needed to move to Singapore for work. She supported him. She stayed in Indonesia for three years to finish her education alone.

Three years of video calls. Waiting for his visits. Convincing herself that the distance was temporary.

When she finally graduated, she came to Singapore to be with him, he welcomed her for some weeks, before suddenly acting differently..

Anna covered her mouth as another sob escaped.

She slowly walked toward the mirror and stood in front of it.

The woman staring back at her looked nothing like the girl she used to be. She couldn't see the Anna her mother raised.

Her eyes were swollen and red from crying. Her hair was messy from the long day, and there were faint dark circles beneath her eyes.

She looked exhausted and broken.

Then her eyes dropped lower, to her body.

She stared at herself for a long moment.

She was not fat.

But she wasn’t as slim as she had been before either. Pregnancy had changed her body. Her hips had become wider. Her stomach never completely returned to the way it was before. She had gained weight over the years but she wasn’t fat.

Jacob had made her feel like she was.

Every time they argued, somehow her body became part of the fight.

“Look at yourself, Anna.”

“You weren’t this big when we met.”

“Do you even take care of yourself anymore?”

“You’re becoming lazy.” Disrespectful remarks.

Sometimes he said it jokingly.

Sometimes he said it when he was angry.

But regardless of how he said it, the words stayed with her.

She began avoiding mirrors.

She stopped wearing some of her favorite dresses because she became afraid of how they looked on her.

Whenever she ate too much, she would feel guilty.

Whenever she noticed her stomach in the mirror, she would pull her shirt down.

And the worst part was that she eventually started believing him.

Anna touched her stomach gently and closed her eyes.

She wasn’t standing in a luxurious bathroom in Singapore anymore.

She was eighteen again, finding out she was pregnant, sitting on the bathroom floor with the pregnancy test trembling between her fingers, staring at those two lines until her vision blurred.

She didn’t know what to do. She was barely an adult.

She was still in college, with no stable job and no money.

She came from a poor background, and her parents were furious. They told her she had ruined her life. They told her she was too young. They told her to get rid of the pregnancy before it was too late.

But she couldn’t do it. Her family refused to give her food or anything once she refused to abort the pregnancy.

No matter how scared she was, she couldn’t bring herself to end the life growing inside her.

So she kept going to college with her swollen stomach hidden beneath oversized clothes.

Students noticed.

Whispers followed her through the corridors.

Some girls stared at her stomach before looking away and giggling.

Some people didn’t even bother hiding their comments.

She remembered walking into class one morning and hearing someone whisper, “Isn’t that the girl who got pregnant?”

She pretended she didn’t hear. She couldn’t care less. It wouldn’t change anything then.

She worked whenever she could.

She took whatever small jobs were available because she needed money for herself and the baby. And Jacob wasn’t financially stable at the time either.

There were days she attended lectures in the morning, worked in the afternoon, and returned home exhausted at night.

Sometimes her feet hurt so badly that she would remove her shoes and walk barefoot for a few minutes before entering the house.

Sometimes she would cry quietly in the bathroom because she didn’t want anyone to see her.

She was eighteen, pregnant, broke, terrified, and trying desperately to convince herself that everything would somehow be okay.

And through all of it, Jacob was the one person she could depend on, even though he didn’t have much to offer.

He would come to see her after class, hold her hand, buy her gifts, food, and whatever he could afford.

“You don’t have to be scared,” he told her. “I’m here for you always.”

When her parents finally told her she couldn’t stay in their house unless she agreed to terminate the pregnancy, she packed her things with tears streaming down her face.

She stood outside the house with one suitcase beside her, wondering where she was supposed to go.

Jacob found her that night.

He didn’t ask her why she was crying.

He took her suitcase from her hand.

“Come with me.” Those three words felt like salvation.

She followed him. She was happy she had found someone who would never abandon her. Someone who would protect her when the rest of the world decided she was…

And when their baby was born, she thought all the suffering was finally worth it.

But their baby didn’t stay. They only had their child for a few days. A few precious days.

Then everything disappeared.

She remembered the hospital room.

The machines.

The cold walls.

Jacob sitting beside her with his head lowered between his hands.

She remembered staring at the empty space where their baby should have been.

She remembered screaming until her throat hurt.

After that, everything changed between them.

But she stayed. She stayed because she loved him. He was the last piece of that life she had lost.

And when he asked her to marry him, she said yes. Anna opened her eyes and looked at herself in the mirror again.

That was the biggest mistake of her life.