Love Fades on the Peak

True to his words, the diary brimmed with entries, pages crammed with his scrawled thoughts in that familiar, looping handwriting.

Certain phrases repeated like a mantra, leaping from the paper with insistent frequency.

[Love you. Miss you terribly. Waiting for you. Getting married...]

Yet, as I flipped to the final page, there were only three words.

[I hate you.]

The vehement strokes nearly tore through the paper. They seemed intent on branding themselves into eternity.

The date inscribed below was November 27th—Brett's mother's death anniversary.

On the same day, I'd called him to end it all.

...

My medication was running low, pain keeping sleep at bay.

I was in a hazy limbo until Sylvie's call pierced through. She suggested meeting at a café near the hospital.

Arriving, I found her perched elegantly at a table. Her youthful glow effortlessly turned heads.

No sooner had I settled into the seat opposite her than she slapped a lab report onto the table. "I'm pregnant with Brett's child."

The news hit me like a slap, and my ears rang.

My gaze dropped to her flat abdomen, a suffocating weight pressing down. Still, I managed a faint smile. "Oh, congratulations."

"Perfect timing, right? Just as you're divorcing," she said, her eyes gleaming with joy and a hint of provocation. "If I tell Brett, do you think he'll sign that agreement immediately?"

The ache in my body intensified. I offered a noncommittal hum, my mind drifting to my impending appointment with Stanley for more medication.

I rose to leave, but she persisted, shouting after me, "I've always wondered how someone like you became Mrs. Mason. I heard you dumped him when he was at his lowest. In two years of marriage, you've never made him happy. Why didn't you just die abroad?"

Her accusations drew curious glances from nearby customers, their judgmental stares pricking my skin like needles.

I halted, then pivoted slowly, closing the distance with deliberate steps.

"I considered it back then, but fate delayed it," I confessed. "Now I'm ill and have no energy to fight over him. If you're not afraid of what I might do in desperation, go ahead and push your luck."

My unexpected candor and proximity frightened her. She didn't dare to utter a sound until I walked out of the café.

The hospital loomed just across the street, but a sudden reluctance gripped me.

I lingered on the sidewalk, watching as the flakes of snow drifted from the gray sky, twinkling like stars beneath the warm glow of streetlamps.

The scene evoked a long-buried memory from a snowy night years ago, when Brett and I had our first fight.

His friends had gossiped about him marrying a suitable heiress, ditching someone like me from a lesser background.

Insecurity festered within me, and I channeled my hurt into a trivial spat over nothing.

Love was a delicate illusion, its glossy exterior concealing a core of vulnerability and fear.

That night, he drove over 200 kilometers from home to my school.

Clad in a thin coat, he stood beneath the amber streetlamp, his cheeks flushed from the biting cold. His eyes rimmed red as if he'd shed tears on the journey.

I approached with a stern face, but the snow crystals adorning his lashes melted my resolve.

"What are you doing here? Don't you realize the risks of driving in this blizzard?" I sulked.

He flung open his coat, drawing me into its warmth. His voice cracked with emotion. "Don't scold me, Erika. I don't want to see you unhappy. They were talking nonsense. You're the only one for me, now and forever."

Arguments back then were resolved quickly. No one could have foreseen this bitter end.

...

I bypassed Stanley entirely, opting instead for sleeping pills from a nearby pharmacy.

My aspirations were modest: oblivion, even if fleeting, to escape the torment.

By the time I returned home, night had cloaked the world in impenetrable darkness.

My fingerprint scan halted midway as the door swung open. Brett stood there, his eyes locking onto mine.

The sensor light above twinkled like captured stars in his gaze.

"Where have you been?" he asked, a rare softness smoothing the usual hard edges of his demeanor.

For a moment, I yearned to surrender to that illusion and to let him hold me as he once did, but the specter of Sylvie quashed it.

"Just out for a walk," I mumbled, brushing past him.

My eyes landed on the dining table, where a cake sat. Only then did I remember that it was my birthday.

From behind, he closed in and held me, his hand slipping into my pocket to lace our fingers.