1: 1

I asked my husband to take the trash out on his way, but the bag was still sitting by our door.

Meanwhile, he'd smoothly picked up the trash outside the neighbor's door.

He explained it away. "It's nothing. Besides, she's your best friend's sister."

My neighbor was my best friend's older sister.

And a single mother.

Every time he went to help her, "your best friend's sister" was the reason.

Even my best friend would take his side and tell me I was making a big deal out of nothing.

But he could only see what his neighbor's sister needed. He never saw that I needed help too.

Even when I called out for it, he didn't hear me.

Just like these ten years, when I told him countless times to take out the trash.

He never did it once.

Yet he took hers out every day, for a full ten years, without missing a single time.

Right now, I stared at the kitchen scraps that had started to reek in the summer heat.

It was just like these ten years of marriage.

I threw out the rotting garbage.

The next thing to deal with was this rotten marriage.

……

That night, I told Jayden Vance I wanted a divorce.

I'd imagined all sorts of reactions from him. This was the one thing I never saw coming.

He hurried to the living room to grab his toolbox.

"Honey, whatever it is, it can wait."

"Kay Whitney's light is broken. I'm going to fix it."

Toolbox in hand, Jayden turned to leave.

He left only one line behind. "She is your best friend's sister, after all."

I watched him go, and the ache came in sharp little waves.

Kay needing a light bulb fixed was the biggest thing in the world to him.

And me asking for a divorce, he simply couldn't hear.

I clenched my fists and snapped, "Don't you dare go!"

Jayden turned and frowned at me, as if I were holding up something important.

"Stop it, honey."

"Kay's over there all alone with her kid. Her light's out. What do you want her to do?"

There it was again.

That line again.

Moving furniture at Kay's place, grabbing her packages, even peeling fruit for her.

Jayden took it all on without a second thought.

He looked after them so completely, down to the smallest detail.

And every time, he'd say, "They're a mother and child on their own. What are they supposed to do?"

But things at home, big or small, he never noticed.

Light bulbs, water pipes, all of it, I fixed myself.

He'd always say yes, and never once actually did any of it.

And my best friend, Alison, would throw that same line at me too.

She'd say, "Oh come on, my sister's on her own with a kid, it's so hard for her. Just let your husband give them a hand."

"Stop blowing everything out of proportion, would you?"

But was I really blowing it out of proportion?

I watched the way Jayden went rushing into Kay's apartment.

It was something he never did at home.

When I cut my hand chopping vegetables,

he said, unhurried, "Just put a bandage on it."

When something heavy fell off the cabinet and hit me,

he said, perfectly calm, "You okay?"

But now, just going to Kay's to fix a light,

he was frantic, terrified of being a second too late.

I sat on the couch and waited two full hours.

Only then did Jayden come home.

The moment he walked in, I said it. "Let's get a divorce."

Jayden drank a glass of water first before it registered what I was saying.

His face went blank with shock.

"What did you say?"

"I just went to fix a light, and you want to leave me over it?"

I looked down at my knee, still scraped from the last time I fixed a light myself.

"And the trash," I said.

"You've never taken ours out, but you take hers."

Jayden laughed then, the kind of laugh that comes from anger.

"Do you even hear yourself?"

"We're in our thirties now, not kids barely out of our twenties."

"Are you really going to get jealous over something this small?"

I was about to answer.

Then the front door opened.

Kay stood outside, watching us, trembling.

Like she'd been scared out of her wits, her face bloodless.

"Jayden, are you two fighting because of me?"

She turned and pleaded with me. "Harper Floyd, sweetie, don't be angry with Jayden."

"It's because I can't do anything right, that's why I always need his help."

"If you have to blame someone, blame me."

As she spoke her eyes reddened, tears spilling down.

And I only stood there, staring at my own front door.

Kay knew our door code.

Punched it in like she'd done it a hundred times.

But how did she know it, when even my best friend didn't?

The answer was already right in front of me.

Jayden was wiping her tears away, his face full of tenderness.

2: 2

All it took was Kay crying.

My best friend, Alison Whitney, came rushing over to my place in the middle of the night.

The three of them sat on my couch, Kay in the middle.

Taking turns, one line after another, coaxing her into a smile.

I sat in a chair off to the side like an outsider, watching.

And it was this, finally, that made it click.

It had always been like this.

Any time the four of us were together, it played out exactly the same way.

Before we went out, I'd be the one with things to buy.

But in the end, whether it was my husband, Jayden, or my best friend, Alison,

they'd both start picking things out for Kay.

We'd go see a movie, couldn't get four seats together.

The odd seat out was always mine.

And the three of them would sit together.

One feeding Kay popcorn, the other passing her a cola.

When the movie ended, the three of them would chatter and laugh about it.

Completely forgetting me, sitting alone.

Every time, I was the one chasing after them.

Every time, I was the one forcing my way back in.

But this time, I didn't want to do it anymore.

In the end, the two of them finally got Kay to laugh.

Both of them let out a breath at the same moment.

Then Alison turned to me, her patience gone.

"I think you owe my sister an apology."

Even Jayden joined in. "Babe, you really did scare Kay."

"She's timid. She can't stand watching people fight."

"Just say you're sorry."

I didn't understand what I'd done wrong.

Fighting with my own husband in my own home, what exactly was the problem with that?

If anything, it was Kay who'd barged into my house out of nowhere.

When I said nothing, Alison's face darkened.

"Do you have to make such an ugly scene?"

"We've been friends all this time. You can't even apologize to my sister?"

Right.

Just because Kay was my best friend's older sister.

I'd apologized to her more times than I could count.

She saw the wedding photos in my house and cried.

So Alison wanted me to apologize.

Because I'd reminded her of her own failed marriage.

Not only did I apologize, I put away every wedding photo in the house.

Kay saw me buying baby things for the child in my belly.

And she cried again.

Alison said I was showing off to her sister that my child would have both a father and a mother.

I apologized.

And that still wasn't enough. Alison said, "Maybe you just shouldn't keep the baby."

"Otherwise, every day from now on, my sister will have to watch your child grow up with a father."

"And then she'll ache for her own child and cry her eyes out day after day."

Even Jayden, after hearing that, fell into thought.

As if he found what Alison said reasonable.

Back then, I only thought Kay was pitiful, so everyone pitied her.

But now I finally understood.

They only cared about Kay, and me they ignored completely.

I laid a hand over the slight swell of my belly.

And I was more certain than ever that I would divorce Jayden.

I couldn't let them go on bullying my child after it was born.

Just because Kay's child had no father to pity.

That was no reason to hurt mine.

I unclenched my fist, my palm full of nail marks.

And repeated in a low voice, "I want a divorce."

When Alison heard it, her expression changed in an instant.

She got up, and together with Jayden, took Kay back home.

When Alison reappeared in front of me, her face was hard.

"What is it you think you're doing?"

"All because Jayden took out my sister's trash and changed a light bulb."

"You want a divorce over that? And you had to say it right in front of my sister?"

Beside her, Jayden sighed. "This time you really were being difficult."

"You let your temper loose, shouting all over the house, and you scared her."

3: 3

Who would have guessed what these two people in front of me really were.

One was the husband I'd been married to for ten years.

The other was the best friend I'd known since we were kids.

I laughed at myself, and all at once none of it seemed worth anything.

I didn't say another word to them. I turned and went back to the bedroom.

If Jayden wouldn't divorce me, then I'd just find a lawyer myself.

Right before we fell asleep, Jayden sighed and wrapped his arms around me from behind.

"All right, honey, don't be angry anymore."

"I'll take out the trash from now on, okay? Just don't say that word 'divorce' again."

Was he really going to change?

Just as I was about to speak, he added, "Oh, right, honey."

"I'm thinking of being Spencer's godfather. A five-year-old with no dad, it's really too pitiful."

"Don't read into it! The thing is, you have no idea how happy he gets every time he sees me..."

Spencer was Kay's kid.

I broke free of his arms all at once, unable to believe it. "What did you say?"

"You're going to be his godfather? Then what about our baby?"

What about this baby of ours, not even born yet?

Jayden had never once laid a gentle hand on my belly.

Never once spoken a single word to the child inside me.

I'd told myself he just wasn't ready to be a father yet.

Only now did I understand. It turned out there was room in his eyes and his heart for no one but Kay.

Even Kay's son mattered more to him than our own child.

Watching him sit there in silence, I felt my heart drop into a pit of ice.

Ten years of marriage, and it was all a joke.

That night we slept on our own sides, not a word between us.

Around noon the next day, Alison came to my place.

She had a cake in her hands, and she smiled at me. "Come on, don't be upset. I just got a little worked up yesterday."

"It's your birthday today. Let's all have lunch together and celebrate!"

She dragged me off to a restaurant.

Jayden had already ordered a whole table of the dishes I loved.

They sat on either side of me and wished me a happy birthday.

Until Kay showed up.

And I knew right then that my birthday, for this year, was over.

She'd barely sat down before she announced, "I've got some good news for you all."

"I'm pregnant."

Her eyes were red with excitement as she pulled out the prenatal test report.

The words were barely out before Alison and Jayden had moved over to sit beside her.

"Congratulations!"

"We have to celebrate for you."

"Oh, and we've even got a cake right here."

Alison set my birthday cake down in front of her sister.

Once the candles were lit, Jayden said, "Hurry, make a wish! Here's to a healthy baby!"

Kay closed her eyes and pressed her palms together.

The candles went out, and they all clapped together.

And me, I sat in the corner and watched the warm little scene of them.

I'd gotten used to it long ago.

Because in ten years of birthdays, I had never once eaten a birthday cake, never once blown out a candle.

Every year on my birthday, Kay would show up with her good news to share.

The flowers she'd planted had finally bloomed.

The shop she liked had opened.

She'd managed to snag the outfit she wanted.

No matter how small the good news, they'd celebrate it for her.

And my birthday cake, without a single exception, would become the cake for her celebration.

I just hadn't expected that this year Kay's good news wouldn't be some trivial little thing.

"Who's the father?"