Chapter 4

After I stepped out of the hospital room, the sound of heartbroken sobbing followed me through the door.

"Anna, please... don't go..."

"You're the only friend I have. I really don't want to lose you."

Faintly, a few angry words of comfort were mixed in.

"Ellie, you've begged her so humbly, and she still won't forgive you. What kind of friend is that?"

"You've still got the baby to think about. Even if you won't consider yourself, you have to consider it, don't you?"

At last Eleanor went quiet.

"What if Anna really won't forgive me? What do I do?"

"She will."

Fergus sounded utterly certain. "You mean a lot to her. She just can't accept it right now, that's all."

"Give it time. She'll understand. You two will still be best friends."

He was still that sure of himself.

Sure I still treasured them the way I always had.

But this time, I was truly tired.

I took a cab home, and it was only while packing that I saw it.

Eleanor's things in this house outnumbered mine.

Somewhere along the way she'd become part of this household.

More important than me.

I was halfway through packing when Fergus came back.

He snatched the suitcase out of my hands, his voice weary.

"What do you think you're doing? Running away from home?"

"Anna, you're not a child anymore. Can you stop being so childish?"

I slapped him, a bitter smile on my face.

"Fergus, after everything that happened today, do I even have a home?"

He didn't answer. He changed the subject.

"Ellie's pregnant. Can't you cut her a little slack?"

"I'm not the one who did anything wrong. Why should I be the one to give in?"

"Every one of you has already taken her side. What else is there for me to give up? My life? It was hers to begin with anyway. She can take it back."

As I spoke, I reached for a knife, past caring what happened to me.

His eyes went red in an instant, and he wrenched it away in a fury.

"Anna, are you insane? Ready to die over something this small?"

"Is this how you repay Ellie for saving your life?"

I had never forgotten that she saved my life.

That was why I said nothing when Mom and Dad treated her like their own daughter.

That was why, when my brother's eighteenth-birthday gift to her was a family-size bucket of fried chicken and mine was just a phone,

I swallowed the jealousy and wished her well from the heart.

Hadn't I done enough?

I shook off his hand and ground out through my teeth, "It's none of your business!"

Fergus ignored that and moved in again, trying to hold me.

"Anna, this whole thing, we were in the wrong. We shouldn't have kept it from you all this time."

"But the baby is innocent. I'm asking you to let it live."

"The doctor said Ellie's body is different. If she loses this baby, she'll never have another one, and she won't survive that."

"She truly thinks of you as a friend. I'm begging you, don't hurt her and the baby, okay?"

So in the end, the one he worried about, the one he cared for, wasn't me.

It was the woman he really loved and their child.

"Get out. I don't want to see you again."

Fergus didn't want to provoke me further, and he left without a word.

That same night, the doorbell rang again.

Eleanor was kneeling outside the door, her face bloodless.

When she saw me, she forced out a faint smile.

"Anna, you're still willing to see me... I'm so glad."

She reached into her bag and held out a document to me.

"Anna... I, I got rid of the baby. Can you forgive me now?"

"I really don't want to lose you as a friend..."

"Everything that happened before was my fault. As long as you forgive me, I promise, everything will go back to the way it should be."

"Everything that's yours, I'll give it all back to you. Okay?"

She looked half dead, as if she'd rushed straight over right after the procedure.

For the sake of what we once had, I didn't want to risk her life.

Just as I reached out to help her up, hurried footsteps came from around the corner.

Fergus had come.

He arrived just in time to see it, and his emotions surged all at once.

"You forced her to get rid of the baby? Not a single word I said to you today got through, did it?"

"She's this weak, and you still make her kneel. Do you only get what you want once you've driven Ellie to her death too?"

He screamed himself hoarse even as he pulled her up.

"Ellie, you did nothing wrong. You don't have to kneel to her!"

Eleanor explained helplessly, "Fergus, it's not what you think. Anna didn't bully me. Don't..."

Fergus wouldn't hear a word of it.

"You don't need to defend her. A vicious woman like her isn't worth it!"

"That line you said to me, I'm giving it right back to you. From here on, Ellie and I have nothing more to do with you."

With that, he pulled off his ring and threw it at me, then took Eleanor in his arms and left.

I looked down at the ring on my own hand and slipped it off, my face blank.

Only then did I notice there were letters engraved inside.

Not my name.

Eleanor's.

So from the very beginning, the future he'd promised was never meant for me.

A bitter laugh escaped me, and without a moment's hesitation I threw the ring away.

Then, in silence, I made up my mind.