Flashback

Twelve hours before the wedding

In the stillness of the night, amidst the shattered fragments of my heart, I found myself begging, pleading for him to reconsider. “Please, Aiden,” I whispered into the darkness, my voice trembling with desperation. “I can forgive you. I can accept the child. Just please, don’t leave me.”

But his resolve remained unyielding, his eyes filled with a sadness I couldn’t bear to see. “I can’t do that to you,” he said softly, his words a final blow to my already fractured spirit. “You deserve better than this. I won’t let you sacrifice your happiness for me.”

With each rejection, a sense of resignation began to settle over me, a bitter acceptance of the reality that our love was no longer enough to bridge the chasm between us. And yet, even as I felt myself slipping further into the abyss of despair, a flicker of anger ignited within me.

How dare he walk away from me, leaving me to pick up the pieces of my shattered dreams alone? How dare he think that he cou