The Fireworks Weren’t for Me, the Baby Wasn’t Mine Chapter 06
When both knees hit the hard floor.
The pride that had accompanied me for half my life shattered right then and there.
My teeth were chattering and my lips were trembling; it was the middle of summer, yet I was cold all over, with only my tears being hot.
“Don’t let Leo… see this…”
I tried to stop myself from crying.
I repeated in my mind over and over: Don’t cry, Madeline, how can you let yourself cry like this.
But the damn tears were like an open floodgate, hitting the floor in steady streams.
Harrison had already taken Scarlett upstairs.
Special tonics and sliced fruit were served to their room by the staff.
I was left alone, kneeling in the living room.
Kneeling in this house that Harrison had worked years for—the first place that was truly ours.
Closing my eyes, I could almost hear the laughter from those early years.
And the vows Harrison had made to me.
“Of course I will love you for a lifetime.”
“For better or worse, until death do us part.”
He had pampered me to no end; if I had said I wanted the stars in the sky, he would have built a ladder to reach them for me.
In our third year of trying, we finally had the fruit of our love.
Leo was born amidst a thousand expectations.
Harrison clumsily learned to be a dad, read countless parenting books, and recorded every day of the child’s growth in his journals, photos, and his life.
Until we realized Leo wasn’t speaking.
Harrison took him to see so many doctors.
Every night he was at the computer, either researching or trying to book top specialists.
Harrison’s hair seemed to go gray overnight with worry.
I grew increasingly sensitive, irritable, and angry, arguing with him over trivial things every other day.
That was when the relationship shifted.
I was so preoccupied I didn’t even notice when someone else entered his life.
By the time I realized it, everything was beyond repair.
I started crying again.
The tears fell like a light rain, a drizzle that had lasted eight years, leaving my youth damp and desolate.
So pathetic.
So painful.
“Scarlett is asleep.”
Harrison came down from the second floor, holding a soft pillow and tossing it to me like an act of charity.
“Use this.”
He paused.
“Leo took his medicine and is asleep too.”
“The boxes I stepped on today were something else. I had Martha put Leo’s special medicine away earlier, so don’t worry too much.”
I kept my head down.
My knees had moved from pain to numbness, and I had no feeling at all in my lower body.
Only the smell of iron remained in my nose.
It grew stronger and stronger.
“Madeline, if you were just a little softer, you wouldn’t have to suffer like this.”
Harrison walked closer. He seemed to smell something and sniffed the air.
“Are your knees bleeding?”
He turned to switch on the lights.
Click—
The lights came on, but my vision was half-dark and blurred as I looked down.
I saw a shocking patch of red.
It stained a large area of the tile, almost dried.
It seemed to be coming from my knees, and also, from between my legs.
I didn’t know, because my entire loungewear pants were soaked through with blood.
I had no sensation.
I had been in so much pain that I had grown used to it, not even noticing when the blood appeared.
I looked at Harrison blankly.
I met his gaze, which was equally blank and eventually filled with pure terror.
“Madeline, why is there so much blood…”
“Are you…”
