Miscarried and Betrayed My Best Friend and I Walked Away

After graduation, my best friend and I stayed on in the big city, and by some strange twist of fate we both married into the Gray family at the same time.

I married the older brother, Bartholomew Gray, the man everyone called the most handsome lawyer in town.

My best friend married the younger brother, Walter Gray, the youngest department head at the hospital.

Meryl Delgado and I got pregnant less than a month apart.

Six months along, we were at the yoga studio one day when my yoga ball inexplicably burst, sending me straight down onto my tailbone, blood running down between my legs.

Seeing me collapse in a pool of blood, Meryl immediately called Walter.

But Walter answered, impatient: "Meryl, if you want me to come do yoga with you, do you really have to cook up some sick, twisted lie like this? My job is saving lives, not babysitting my wife."

She called three more times in a row. He hung up on every one.

So she had no choice but to call Bartholomew, and his attitude was no better: "You two were both perfectly fine when I dropped you off at the studio. Now, in under twenty minutes, there's massive bleeding? Kate's dog got killed by another dog, and as her legal counsel I have to go investigate and gather evidence right now! You tell Zelda Pruitt to stop making trouble while I'm working!"

The blood soaking through kept spreading across the carpet, and the people around us didn't dare lift a hand to help.

Meryl had no choice but to grit her teeth, hoist me onto her back, and carry me to the hospital.

I lost my baby, and she miscarried too, from straining herself too hard.

After the surgery, in the hospital room, we looked at each other quietly, our eyes going red.

"Meryl, I'm getting a divorce."

"Congratulations. So am I."

The moment I heard Bartholomew's words over that phone, my mind was made up.

So the first thing I did when I woke was message Bartholomew to tell him I wanted a divorce.

It was a long time before he finally called me back.

"Zelda Pruitt, what nonsense are you spouting? I already told you I was working. What are you throwing a fit for? Can't a husband and wife even manage the most basic mutual understanding?"

I let out a bitter little laugh. So he knew a husband and wife were supposed to understand each other after all.

Then why was I always the one who gave in?

"I spent all that money sending you two to learn yoga, and wasn't that for the good of you and the baby? You're still not satisfied? What exactly do I have to do before you're content? Fine, I've got a case to handle right now. Whatever it is, it can wait until I'm done!"

Without giving me a chance to say a word back, Bartholomew, smug as ever, hung up the phone.

My heart had long since turned to ash, but in that moment the tears still slid traitorously from the corners of my eyes.

I really wanted to ask him whether he even remembered how the two of us had ever started doing yoga in the first place.

Early in the pregnancy, I had in fact mentioned to him that yoga was good for expectant mothers.

But he'd said that I wasn't earning anything while I was pregnant anyway, so I should stop filling my head with ways to spend money.

If I wanted exercise, he said, I could just do more housework, and it would have the same effect as yoga.

Fine, then. I didn't argue.

Then half a month ago, his adoptive sister, Kate Bennett, said yoga helped the baby develop.

And just like that, the two brothers agreed to sign us up for the class.

Two years of dating, one year of marriage, even a child of our love on the way.

None of it measured up to a single sentence from his adoptive sister.

Kate found the class for us and even introduced us to the instructor.

Her eagerness even smoothed things over between us for a while.

But I never once imagined that the same repetitive yoga routine would end up costing me my baby today.

At the time, Meryl was holding me against her, covered in my blood, so I heard every word of her call with Bartholomew, clear as day.

I could even hear him over the phone, gently comforting Kate Bennett as she cried over her dead dog.

The exact opposite of how he'd reacted when he heard I was hemorrhaging.

For me, that contrast hurt worse than the pain itself.

Meryl couldn't hold back. She tore into Bartholomew right then and there: "Kate just lost a dog, and look at you groveling like a servant! Anyone who didn't know better would think the two of you gave birth to that mutt! Bartholomew, go to hell!"

In my most helpless moment, only Meryl stayed by my side.

She carried me on her back, her small, thin body straining under my weight.

Every step was clumsy and labored, but with each one she was racing death itself on my behalf.

I never once imagined that, of everyone in my life with no blood tie to me, the person who cared about me most would be my best friend.

In the end, she dragged me all the way to the hospital.

By some stroke of luck I kept my life, but the price was that she lost her own child.

Meryl's condition was a little less severe than mine, and after her surgery she stayed right beside me.

I buried my face against her, the tears falling and refusing to stop.

"Meryl, I'm so sorry," I said, sick with guilt. "I'm the reason you lost your baby."

Seeing me cry, she rubbed my back to soothe me. "Don't go piling every fault on yourself. This was never on you. It's the fault of those three good-for-nothings joined at the hip!"

Meryl had the sharpest tongue of any friend I'd ever had, and she was just hitting her stride when her surgeon husband called.

"Meryl, what did you just call my brother on the phone? My brother's a lawyer. The Bar Association rules are crystal clear: once an attorney accepts a client, he can't refuse to represent them without good cause. How old are you two? Can't you act like reasonable adults?"

"A miscarriage, a divorce. You'll stoop to lies this shameless, all just to keep the two of us chained to your apron strings? Is that the only thing that'll satisfy you?"

"You tell Zelda to learn when to stop. Keep this up, and she'd better watch out that she doesn't get burned playing with fire."

Walter hung up, still cursing under his breath, and Meryl was shaking with rage.

I said softly, "It's fine. No clinging, no explaining, no fighting. At least this way we keep the last shred of our dignity."

My words about dignity couldn't stop the two of us from crying in a way that was anything but dignified.

We wept in each other's arms, and every hurt we'd swallowed over these past few years finally broke loose all at once, like a levee giving way to a flood.

The truth was, we'd known all along it would end like this.

From the moment at the engagement party when Kate slipped the ring meant for my finger onto her own instead, I should have seen this day coming.

The ring had been custom-sized to my finger, so once it was on hers, it wouldn't come off.

I'd angrily demanded to know why she would do that, and she burst into tears, apologizing, insisting she hadn't meant to.

She even started wailing that she'd cut off her own finger before she'd let it ruin my engagement party.

That teary, pitiful display sent Bartholomew into a fury.

"It's just a wedding ring. If you want one, I'll buy you another. But is it really necessary to torment Kate like this? You think she did it on purpose? Now you want her to cut off her own finger? Zelda, how did I never see before what a heartless woman you are?"

I shot back, "Bartholomew, she's the one who said she'd cut off her finger."

"If you hadn't pushed her so hard, would Kate ever have gotten to that point? Kate grew up with me. I know exactly what kind of person she is: kind, generous, and proud. She's practically my own little sister, and she'll be your sister too. Why would you push your own sister like this?"

Kate was the one who'd ruined my engagement party, yet by the time it came out of Bartholomew's mouth, somehow I was the one in the wrong.

It was Meryl who stepped in and rescued me. "You love wearing other people's rings that much, huh? Fine. Take it. Take them all!"

And with that, in a fit of temper, she slid her own ring onto Kate's finger too.

"Meryl! Have you lost your mind? Do this, and neither of us has an engagement ring left!" Walter's eyes went round with fury.

Meryl didn't so much as blink. "Your own brother said it. 'It's just a wedding ring.' It's an engagement party for two couples. I can hardly stand there flashing a diamond while my best friend's left standing there with nothing, can I?"

That was how fiercely she protected me back then.

Three years later, the one protecting me most was still her.

Only this time, the price she paid was far too high.

Meryl and I both had to stay in the hospital a few days for observation.

Once we'd poured out all our bitterness and bared our hearts, we lay there scrolling through TikTok.

And sure enough, Kate was showing off their "sibling bond" again.

A photo of the three of them, Kate in the middle, Bartholomew and Walter on either side, cheeks pressed to hers.

Exactly the way Meryl had once described them: conjoined twins.

More than friends, not quite lovers. Whenever I'm at my lowest, you two are always by my side. Thank you to my two wonderful brothers!

The two of us couldn't resist tapping into the comments, and they ran the whole gamut:

"Getting all the perks of love while calling it friendship. Genuinely jealous."

"Friends last longer than lovers. So jealous you've got two brothers like that!"

"You three are so close the whole world thinks you're the couple, and only you don't realize it"

Before all this, Kate was forever posting photos like these, one after another.

At first Meryl and I would confront them and pick fights. Later, all we could do was swallow it ourselves.

Now, though, we just looked at each other and smiled.

"What are you thinking about?"

"How to word the divorce papers. How to split the assets. How to calculate emotional damages."

We might have been stuck in the hospital, but Meryl and I hadn't been idle.

We got in touch with the law firm, drew up the divorce agreement, and had someone deliver the papers to Bartholomew.

His call came in almost immediately.

On the line, he was practically hysterical. "Zelda Pruitt, you did this on purpose, didn't you?"

"What did I do?"

"You hired another lawyer to serve divorce papers on me, a lawyer. If that's not you deliberately humiliating me, what is it? Now everyone at the firm, top to bottom, knows about it. Happy now? Zelda, you won't rest until you've turned my whole world against me, will you?"

Being blamed by Bartholomew, having it all flipped back on me. Before, I'd have beaten myself up over it, apologized to him.

But this time, it wasn't a drill. It was the real thing.

I said coldly, "There's no need to turn anyone against you. Just agree to leave me, and I'll be lighting candles in thanks. Since you've already received the divorce papers, if there's no problem with them, go ahead and sign."

"Oh-ho. Zelda, quite the attitude on you these days. You really think carrying a Gray family heir means you can do whatever you please, don't you?"

From the other end of the line came Kate's simpering little voice.

Then, in an instant, she shifted her tone. "Oh, you're on the phone with your wife? Oops, did I say something wrong? She didn't hear that, did she?"

Bartholomew said, unbothered, "It's fine. So what if she heard? You're my sister. What's wrong with us living together?"

"Oh, brother, don't say it like that. She's always misreading how close we are, getting jealous over nothing. And now she's pregnant. As her little sister, I really should give her some slack."

"Heh. If she had even half your sense, she wouldn't be picking fights with me over nothing."

Bartholomew turned to me. "Zelda, you heard all that? Even while you're causing me all this trouble, Kate's still sticking up for you. You really ought to take a page from her book. Anyway, we've got something urgent to deal with these next few days. Consider me generous, letting you two best friends carry on. But watch how far you push it. Provoke us for real, and I'll treat these papers as the real thing."

I'd thought I could face all of it calmly now.

But picturing the three of them and their sordid little arrangement, my heart clenched, again and again, aching.

Ever since I got together with Bartholomew, I'd swallowed everything, bent over backward for him at every turn. And in his eyes I still didn't measure up to that adopted sister of his, not by half.

"Did that son of a bitch say something ugly to you again? You're too soft on him. You shouldn't even take his calls! From now on, I'll answer them. I'll cuss him out till he drops dead!"

Coming from my best friend, the swearing sounded downright pleasant.

Over the days that followed, the two of us nursed ourselves back to health.

To my surprise, when we didn't reach out to them, they didn't reach out to us either.

When I really thought about it, it was pathetic.

I didn't know where those three had gone, but at least right now, in their eyes, we were still pregnant women.

And yet they could go more than a week without so much as calling their own pregnant wives.

It wasn't until that day, when Kate's posts popped up in my feed again, that we learned where they were.

They'd gone to a small-town chapel. The reason: to bury the dog that had been mauled to death, Kate's dog.

His adopted sister's dead dog mattered more to them than their pregnant wives.

Come to think of it, my best friend had cussed Bartholomew out perfectly: anyone who didn't know better would think the two of you gave birth to that dog!

This time, I laughed, and let it go.

All I wanted now was a quiet divorce.

After we'd finished the hospital discharge paperwork, I texted Bartholomew: "Bartholomew, tomorrow morning at ten, meet me outside the county clerk's office. Remember to bring your brother."

Bartholomew called me, but I didn't pick up. I hung up on the spot and blocked him on every channel right away.

Because everything I had left to say to him, I'd already said in that message.

As for my baby, and my best friend's, they couldn't just be gone like this, without a reckoning.

After leaving the hospital, we went to the police station.

If the yoga ball had burst because of something I did, then I'd chalk it up to bad luck and accept it.

But every movement I'd made was a set exercise the instructor had taught me.

It was their faulty equipment that caused my miscarriage. So I was going to hold the yoga studio and the instructor accountable.

After the officers looked into it and gathered what they could, we learned something that didn't look good: ever since my accident, the yoga instructor had never come back to work.

As luck would have it, the yoga studio's surveillance camera had broken too. There was no physical evidence of how, exactly, I'd fallen.

The officers blamed me. Why hadn't I reported it right away?

I wanted to.

But in this city, the only family I had was off keeping her adopted sister company at a funeral for her dog.

I truly couldn't bring myself to tell them the truth. I could only chalk it up to bad luck.

"Here's what we'll do. We'll investigate as best we can. If anything turns up on your end, tell us right away."

With no other choice, my best friend and I left the police station.

We weren't divorced yet, but there was no way either of us was ever going back to that house.

We found a place to rent, and, dragging our still-unhealed bodies, we cleaned it, worn out.

Honestly, the place was small and damp, but to us it felt more like home than that house ever had.

At dinner, Bartholomew called from a different phone.

"Zelda, where did you go? Do you have any idea? The house got broken into!"

I said calmly, "Nobody broke in. I went through it. It's a little messy, but I only took what belongs to me. If something of yours is missing, go report it to the police. Don't shout at me."

"Zelda, what exactly do you want? I was gone for over ten days. I figured you'd have cooled off by now. What is it? Can't shake this crazy streak of yours this time?"

"Two women shacking up together never leads to anything good. Are the two of you just tired of having it easy?"

Every word of our conversation reached Meryl, sitting right beside me.

She was a woman of her word. She snatched the phone out of my hand and let Bartholomew have it. "Your parents had real foresight when they named you two. Truly heartless, both of you! You three inbred lovebirds can go enjoy your easy life together. My best friend and I can't afford it! Tell Walter this: the divorce is happening, no matter what. Whoever backs out is a bastard!"

After that tirade, Bartholomew didn't even get a chance to talk back before she hung up on him.

Then we blocked every account tied to Bartholomew, Walter, and Kate.

At eight the next morning, Meryl dragged me to the vanity and fussed over my makeup.

"It's a divorce, not a wedding. Is all this really necessary?"

"Of course it's necessary. Think about it. How long has it been since either of us wore makeup, ever since we got pregnant? Divorce is divorce, but a woman still has to do things for herself."

I admired Meryl's optimism. Honestly, if she hadn't been by my side through all of it, rubbing off on me, I don't know whether I could have made it through this.

We put on our makeup and slipped into our little dresses, and in us you could faintly see the shadows of those two showstopping campus queens we'd been back in school.

Just then, a knock came at the door.

We opened it, startled, and there at the threshold, to our surprise, stood Kate.