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She shook her head. “That baby wasn’t going to destroy me.”
She looked directly into my eyes. “It would’ve destroyed him.”
I froze.
“Because then his little game would’ve been over.”
My stomach dropped.
“He couldn’t hide that baby.”
I stopped breathing.
“He couldn’t move between two houses pretending he was whatever each woman needed him to be.”
Tears slipped down my face.
“That wasn’t about protecting my mental health. It was about protecting his life.”
I wanted to throw up.
Ravenna looked at me and said the cruelest thing. “And you did it. You let a married man convince you to terminate your baby so he could keep going home to his wife.”
My face crumbled.
Ravenna laughed. “Girlllllll.”
I wanted her to stop. I wanted her to scream, hit me, or throw something. Anything but that fucking pity.
“You really let this man dismantle your whole life while telling yourself you were winning… But do you know what the sickest part is, Blair?”
She wiped underneath her eyes. “I thought we fixed us. I thought whatever woman he’d been entertaining back then was gone.”
My heart pounded.
“He told me he’d fucked up, but he worked on himself.”
She stared at me for a long time. “You’re such a fucking homewrecker. You stood there knowing that man had a wife fighting to repair her marriage and still let him convince you that you were the one waiting on your happy ending.”
Ravenna wiped her face and looked around the apartment one more time. “You know what? You can have him.”
I looked up.
She smiled. “You want him bad enough to accept being hidden for three years. You want him bad enough to believe every lie that made fucking someone else’s husband easier to live with.”
I stared at her.
“You want him bad enough to make me the villain in a story where I didn’t even know I had a fucking role.”
Ravenna nodded toward the pictures. “So take him.”
“Ravenna—”
“No.” She held up her hand. “Seriously.”
Her eyes filled again. “Happy anniversary.”
My heart stopped. She’d seen the gift and balloon on the counter.
