Chapter 4: The past

May's Pov

Once upon a time, my husband had been a completely different man. Gentle. Soft-spoken. Kind. He used to smile at me as if I were the most precious thing in his world. He listened when I spoke, remembered the little things I liked, and treated me with a tenderness I'd never thought I'd find in another person.

When I was with him, I felt safe. Or at least, I thought I did.

I fell in love with that man. I married him believing we would build a happy life together, that we would support each other through the difficult days and grow old with more memories than regrets.

And for a while, I believed we would.

Then we got married.

Not long afterward, his family's company went bankrupt. Everything changed after that. James changed.

The gentle man I'd fallen in love with slowly disappeared, replaced by someone bitter and angry, someone who seemed to need a target for all the misery eating him alive. And somehow, I became that target.

He blamed me for the company's failure. Called me bad luck. A jinx. A woman who brought nothing but misfortune to everyone around her.

At first, I told myself he was simply hurting. Losing the family company had shattered his pride, and perhaps he didn't know how to deal with it. I convinced myself that if I were patient enough, loving enough, and supportive enough, he would eventually return to the man I knew.

So I stayed. I forgave him. I made excuses for him.

Whenever he apologized, I wanted to believe him. Whenever he acted like the man I'd married, I clung to those moments as proof that our marriage could still be saved. But the apologies became less frequent. The outbursts became more common. And the man who once held my hand so gently became the same man I now flinched away from.

I could remember who James used to be without pretending that the man he had become was acceptable. Whatever had happened to his family's company, whatever pain he carried, it didn't give him the right to hurt me.

And yet, knowing that didn't make everything simple.

I had built so much of my life around him that imagining a future without him felt like staring into a dark room with no idea what waited inside. I didn't know where I would go. I didn't know how I would afford my tuition or support myself. And some small, foolish part of me still remembered the man who had once made me feel loved.

I hated that part of myself most of all. Because I knew better now.

Still, James wasn't the only reason I'd spent so much of my life wondering whether something was wrong with me. That feeling had followed me long before I met him.

Ever since I was young, terrible things seemed to happen wherever I went. I could never quite explain it. Sometimes, it was something small. A plan that fell apart at the last minute. An opportunity that disappeared just when I thought things were finally going my way. Other times, the consequences were much worse.

And whenever something went wrong, someone always seemed ready to point a finger at me.

At first, it was just a few cruel remarks. Then came the whispers. People began calling me unlucky. A walking disaster. Eventually, someone called me a witch. And the name stuck.

I used to argue with them. I used to insist that I couldn't possibly be responsible for every bad thing that happened around me. How could I be? I was just a girl. I didn't have any strange powers. I couldn't predict the future or control what happened to other people. I was simply May.

But it was difficult to keep defending yourself when the same accusations followed you from one place to another. Every time something went wrong, I began to wonder whether perhaps they were right. Maybe I really was unlucky. Maybe there was something about me that made happiness difficult to keep.

Eventually, I stopped arguing. It was easier to laugh along with the jokes than to explain how much they hurt. Easier to pretend I didn't care than to admit that, sometimes, I lay awake wondering whether I was the common factor in every disaster.

Even now, I couldn't completely shake the feeling. When James's family company collapsed, I remembered every accusation I'd heard growing up. When my marriage fell apart, I wondered whether I'd somehow brought that misfortune upon myself, too.

It was ridiculous. I knew it was ridiculous. But knowing something logically didn't always stop you from believing it emotionally.

I took another drag, staring at the cigarette burning between my fingers. Maybe I had simply been unlucky. Maybe life was cruel and people were even crueler. Or maybe I'd spent so many years being blamed for things beyond my control that I'd eventually learned to blame myself before anyone else could.

I didn't know which possibility frightened me more.

I looked up at the stars again, letting the cool breeze brush against my face. For a moment, I wondered what my life would have been like if I'd been born under a different sky. Would I still have married James? Would I still be standing on this balcony, hiding bruises beneath makeup and counting the money I managed to keep from my own husband? Would I still be searching for a way to afford my education, one secret and one lie at a time?

I had no answers. All I had was a cigarette burning between my fingers, a husband who no longer felt like the man I'd married, and a future I wasn't sure how to reach.

But somewhere beneath the exhaustion and fear, there was still a small part of me that wanted more. More than surviving one night at a time. More than pretending everything was fine. More than living the life other people had decided I deserved.

I didn't know how to reach that future yet. I didn't even know whether I was brave enough to try. But I wanted it.

And perhaps that was enough for tonight.

I took one final drag before stubbing the cigarette out. Then I looked at the stars one last time. They were still beautiful.

At least something in this world hadn't changed.