After a while, I calmed myself enough to take a screenshot of the group chat before silently exiting. But I remained sitting in the corner of the balcony, lost in my thoughts, until Ferry came home unexpectedly early. He pulled me up from the floor and shut the window.
"It’s the middle of winter. Sitting here with the window open—you’ll get sick," he scolded.
I stared at him, searching his face. He was fussing over me, adjusting my clothes, but something about him felt different. He wasn’t the same as before. Was it guilt? Did he finally feel remorse after what he had done? Repulsed, I sidestepped him, avoiding his touch.
"Don’t touch me."
He froze for a moment before finally meeting my eyes. There was something unreadable in his gaze, and then he said lightly, "It’s because of what happened in the group chat, isn’t it?"
"Karen, didn’t we agree before we got married? We were only doing this to fulfill our parents’ wishes."
"They’re satisfied now. I’m content. So what more do you want?"
Our marriage had never been about love—it was an arrangement, a necessity. The Gardner and Zach families had been close for generations, but while I had studied abroad since middle school, Ferry had remained in Europe. We had barely spoken growing up, our relationship nothing like that of our fathers. But when I returned home, our parents had pushed us together.
They had pleaded, cried, and insisted, "You two getting married is the best choice."
"We’ve paved the way for you. Why insist on going down the wrong path?"
"That boyfriend of yours? Forget him. We won’t allow it—not unless your father and I are dead."
They had stripped us of our bank cards and phones, placed bodyguards at the doors, and done everything in their power to force us together. I had no choice but to break up with the man I loved. And in the end, I married Ferry.
Before we received our marriage license, he had looked at me with cold detachment. "We’re in this together. As long as they’re satisfied, nothing else matters."
I knew he loved Chindy. But I never imagined he would be so brazen about it. Or that he would go so far as to secretly feed me birth control pills for three years. Our marriage may have started as a sham, but five years is a long time. To say I wasn’t hurt would be a lie. To say I wasn’t disgusted—an even bigger one.
I turned to him and asked, "So you want to keep the baby?"