24
Mary
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.Mary, you absolute idiot.
The words stomp through my head in the same rhythm as the panic behind my ribs. I press my heel into the carpet and try to make the space between my teeth big enough to swallow the thought whole. It doesn’t work. The kitchen still smells like garlic, and the part of me that wants to believe normal things is furious and embarrassed and so, so small.
I can’t breathe. Can’t fucking breathe.
He told me I wasn’t here to “play house.” He said it like a verdict. Like a sentence. Like the kind of thing that can be handed down, and you accept it because what choice do you have? The syllables of it bounce in the room until they fill every quiet corner, untilI can hear them in the bathroom tile, over the hum of the water heater.
I scrub my palm over my face until my skin prickles. The pill tastes like metal in the back of my throat; tiny, ridiculous, a reckless, stupid thing to swallow because I trusted him and because I was too tired to plan better. I had thought I was being careful. I had thought I was being smart. I had thought— God, what had I thought? That maybe being useful would make me less disposable?
My stomach folds.
I walk to the bathroom without thinking and flip the light on. The fluorescent glare is harsh. The mirror gives me back a face I barely recognize: pale, mascara streaked where I didn’t even notice the first salt trail, hair half-dry and lank.Old Mary—the one who learned early to make herself small—slides under my skin, like she’s been waiting for the exact moment I give her permission to crawl out.
“You’re nobody,” I tell the reflection, because that’s exactly what I am.
The thought hits me like a slap: I was hoping. Actually hoping he’d want to keep whatever we might have made. I was standing there feeding him pasta and pretending we were something real.
The disgust rises from my gut, hot and bitter. Disgusted with myself. With my pathetic, desperate thoughts. With the way I let myself believe, even for a second, that I mattered.
My stomach lurches.
Two fingers down my throat, gagging until my eyes water.
Nothing.
Again. Deeper. I need to get it out—not just the pill, but everything. The stupid hope, the ridiculous fantasy, the feeling of belonging somewhere I never belonged.
My throat spasms, and I gag, and a sound that might be a sob squeezes out of me instead of the relief I wanted. There’s relief, but it’s not the right kind. It’s bitter and useless.
I spit into the sink and watch pink flecks swirl down the drain as if the water could wash away the whole stupid night. Instead, it just carries it into the pipes, into some dark place where I can’t follow.
Wait.
I stare at the pink-tinged water. The small white fragments mixing with the bile.
Fuck. The pill. I actually got it out.
My hands shake as I grip the marble countertop. The Plan B Anton bought for me—gone. Dissolved in stomach acid and vomit, swirling down his expensive drain.
I need another one. There’s a whole bag of them sitting on his kitchen counter. He bought them all because I asked him to.
But now I have to walk back out there. Past his men, who saw me crying. Past him. Ask for another pill like the pathetic mess I am.
My mind goes places it shouldn’t. What if I don’t take another one? What if, in a few weeks, there’s a test with two pink lines? What if there’s something growing inside me that’s half him, half me?
The thought makes my chest tight. A baby. His baby.
Oh God. Stop it, Mary.
Anton made it clear what I am to him. We fuck. That’s it. I’m not his girlfriend, not his lover, not his anything.
You’re nobody special. Stop acting like you matter.
More tears come, hot and stupid. Because even now, even after he cut me down in front of his men, part of me still wants to matter to him. Part of me still hopes.
