I excused myself to the bathroom and threw up.
Three weeks later, the invitation came. Delaney was throwing a gender reveal party, and I was invited.
“You don’t have to go,” Mason said when I showed him the pink envelope.
It was one of the few nights he was actually home. We were in the kitchen. He was drinking a beer. I was picking at a salad I had no interest in eating.
“She’s my sister.”
“She’s also been pretty insensitive about everything you’ve been through.”
I looked at him, surprised. It was the most he’d acknowledged my feelings in weeks.
“I think I should go,” I said. “It’ll look weird if I don’t.”
He shrugged. “It’s your call.”
“Will you come with me?”
Something flickered across his face. “I can’t. I’ve got that meeting in Riverside. Remember?”
“On a Saturday?”
“Henderson wants to meet at his lake house. It’s a whole weekend thing.”
I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell him I needed him there, that I couldn’t face my sister’s happiness alone. But the words stuck in my throat.
“Okay,” I said instead.
The party was exactly what I’d expected. Delaney’s backyard was decorated with white and gold balloons, streamers everywhere, and a dessert table that looked like it cost more than my monthly salary.
There was a giant box in the center of the yard that would release either pink or blue balloons when opened.
Delaney was holding court in the middle of it all, wearing a flowing white dress that showed off her bump.
She looked radiant. Glowing. Everything I was supposed to look like.
“Oakley!” She spotted me the second I walked in and rushed over. “You came! I wasn’t sure you would.”
“Of course I came.”
She hugged me, and I felt the swell of her stomach press against me. Something inside me cracked a little more.
“Where’s Mason?” she asked, pulling back.
“Work thing.”
“On a Saturday? Poor guy works so hard.” Her smile was sympathetic, but something in her eyes looked almost… amused.
“Yeah. He does.”
The party progressed. There were games. People guessed whether it was a boy or a girl. Delaney opened presents and cried over tiny onesies and stuffed animals. Every laugh, every squeal of excitement, felt like a knife twisting in my chest.
“You okay?” my cousin Rachel asked, touching my arm.
“I’m fine. Just need some air.”
I slipped away from the crowd and headed to the back corner of the yard, where Delaney had a little garden area with a bench. I sat down, closed my eyes, and tried to breathe.
That’s when I heard them.
“You’re sure she doesn’t suspect anything?”
It was Mason’s voice. My Mason. The Mason, who was supposed to be in Riverside at a business meeting.
“Please,” Delaney laughed. “She’s so wrapped up in her own misery, she barely notices when you’re in the same room.”
I opened my eyes. Through the rose bushes, I could see them. Mason and Delaney. Standing close. Too close.
Then he kissed her.
It wasn’t a friendly peck. It wasn’t an accident. It was deep and intimate and familiar, the kiss of two people who’d done it a thousand times before.
My legs moved before my brain caught up. I stumbled through the bushes, thorns catching on my dress.
“What the hell is going on?!”
They sprang apart. Mason’s face went white. Delaney just smiled.
“Oakley,” Mason started. “This isn’t…”
“Isn’t what? That you weren’t kissing my sister? Because that’s exactly what it looked like!”
People were starting to notice the commotion. Voices quieted. Heads turned.
Delaney stepped forward. She wasn’t crying anymore. She looked calm and relieved.
“You know what, Oakley? We were going to tell you, eventually. But since you caught us, might as well put it all out there.” She placed both hands on her stomach. “Mason is the father of my baby.”
The world stopped spinning. I couldn’t breathe or think.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.” She looked at Mason. “Tell her.”
He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “It’s true.”
“How long?” I whispered.
“Does it matter?” Delaney asked.
“How. Long.”
Mason finally looked at me. “Six months.”
Six months. While I was grieving the loss of our unborn child and our combined dreams.
“I loved you,” I said, and my voice broke on the words.
“I know,” Mason said. “But Oakley… after the miscarriage, after what the doctor said…”
“Don’t.” I held up my hand. “Don’t you dare.”
“You can’t carry another baby,” he continued anyway. “The doctor said the complications from the miscarriage made it impossible. I want to be a father, Oakley. Delaney can give me that.”
The cruelty of it stole my breath. I’d lost our child, my body had betrayed me, and now he was using it as justification for destroying our marriage.
“So what? I’m broken, so you traded me in?”
“Don’t make this dramatic,” Delaney said. “We’re trying to be adults about this.”
Mason reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope. He held it out to me.
“What is that?”
“Divorce papers. I’ve already signed them.”
I took the envelope with shaking hands. Around us, the party had gone completely silent. Everyone was watching. My mother stood by the dessert table with her hand over her mouth. My father looked like he wanted to kill someone.
“This is reality, Oakley,” Delaney said softly. “Time to deal with it.”
I looked at my sister. At the man I’d promised to love forever. At the life they’d built on the ruins of mine.
Then I turned and walked away.
I don’t remember driving home. One minute I was at the party, the next I was sitting in my driveway, staring at our house. Mason’s house now, I guess.
Inside, I destroyed every wedding photo we had. I ripped our marriage certificate in half. I threw his clothes off the balcony and into the yard. When I ran out of things to destroy, I just sat on the kitchen floor and cried until there was nothing left.
My phone rang. My mother. I didn’t answer.
It rang again. My father. I ignored it.
Text messages poured in. Cousins, friends, people I hadn’t talked to in years, were all suddenly very concerned about whether I was okay.
I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be okay again.
Mason didn’t come home that night. He had probably already moved into Delaney’s place, playing house with her and the baby.
I cried myself to sleep on the couch, still wearing the dress I’d worn to the party.
The next morning, my phone woke me up. It was buzzing so violently it fell off the coffee table.
I grabbed it, squinting at the screen… 37 missed calls and 62 text messages.
“What the hell?” I muttered, scrolling through them.
They were all asking the same thing: Had I seen the news? Was I watching? Did I know?
I turned on the TV and flipped to the local news station.
The headline at the bottom of the screen made my heart stop: “House Fire in Elmwood Leaves Two Homeless, One Hospitalized.”
