Give the Night Back to the Stars, Give Me Back to Myself

On our eighth anniversary, I stood there gripping the test result that confirmed I was pregnant, and sent Ethan Mercer a message.

Come pick me up at the hospital. We finally have a baby.

A red exclamation mark.

This user has friend verification enabled. You are not yet their friend...

I stared at that line for a long time.

He always did this kind of thing after losing a gamedeleting people, blocking them, changing the door lock code...

Every time, the person he had to do it to was me. And every time, he did it.

I stood in the wind for an hour before I finally got a car.

When it passed his office building, I saw him carrying a cup of hot iced coffee in his hand.

A girl came jogging over, and he handed her the coffee, then ruffled her hair as he did.

"The first pumpkin spice latte of fall. Open it and take a look."

The girl lifted the lid and suddenly shrieked.

A necklace was tucked under the cap, the tiny diamonds catching a flicker of light under the streetlamp.

The girl threw herself at him and kissed him on the mouth.

"I've had this necklace saved for ages! I love it so much!"

The impact made Ethan step back half a pace, but his arm looped steadily around her waist.

"Happy fall, kiddo."

I didn't watch any longer.

The light turned green, the traffic crept forward, and I finally decided:

give the future back to the future, and give myself back to myself.

...

I got home, changed my shoes slowly, and walked into the living room.

Ethan came through the door twenty minutes later.

"You're back? Why didn't you let me come get you."

He tossed his car keys onto the entryway cabinet and bent to change his shoes.

"Have you eaten?"

I didn't answer.

Ethan came in after me, wrapped his arms around me from behind, chin resting on my shoulder.

"Are you mad?"

"The friend thing, it was just a game. Don't take it to heart."

"She's a student who's barely been out in the world. She won the game, and it wouldn't be right to make things hard for her."

He smelled of Piper Shaw's perfume, a heavy floral scent, sweet to the point of cloying.

My stomach turned. I didn't move.

"Happy eighth anniversary," he said.

A cold chain settled around my neck.

He came around in front of me, fastened the clasp for me, and studied it.

"Pretty. It really suits you."

I raised my hand and touched the pendant with my fingertips.

"Do you like it?"

"Mm," I said flatly.

He smiled and ruffled the top of my head.

"I'll go make you some oatmeal. You look terrible, I can tell you didn't eat lunch."

I leaned back on the couch and heard the tap turn on in the kitchen.

Not long after, his phone lit up.

The screen was sitting right there on the coffee table, and Piper's messages popped up one after another.

I glanced over.

Ethan, did Serena Locke put the necklace on? Is she not mad anymore?

I spent so long picking it out. This one's the free-with-purchase promo piece, the counter girl said the full price is over thirty thousand.

I stared at the screen for a long time.

Ethan's voice came from the kitchen. "Serena, do you want a fried egg?"

I stood up slowly, took the necklace off my neck, and set it back on the coffee table.

"Ethan."

"I have something to tell you."

He poked his head out of the kitchen, still wearing the apron.

"What is it?"

The words had barely left him when his phone rang.

A custom ringtone. Piper's.

He picked up, and Piper's voice came through, thick with tears.

"Ethan! There's a cockroach in my room! A huge one! I'm scared!"

Ethan's expression changed in an instant. "Don't move, I'll be right there."

He grabbed his car keys and headed for the entryway.

"Piper's got a bit of an emergency. I'll run over. Whatever it is, we'll talk when I get back."

He'd said "when I get back" too many times. But every time he turned and rushed off to Piper, those words sank into the water and never surfaced again.

He left in such a hurry that his elbow knocked over the box in the entryway. He didn't even glance at it.

"I'm pregnant."

The door slammed shut.

I spoke softly to that dead-shut door.

"But I'm going to get rid of it."

I stayed silent for a long time, then turned and walked into the kitchen and shut off the burner.

Then I went back to the entryway. Inside the spilled box was a hand-embroidered tie, the eighth-anniversary gift I'd spent two months preparing.

I crouched down, picked them up one by one, and stuffed them all into the trash.

Ethan had forgotten his phone. The screen was still lit.

The lock screen was a photo of the two of them.

At some point, it had changed from our wedding photo to a picture of him and Piper.

Ethan and I had registered the marriage the moment we hit the legal age. In the wedding photo, he'd smiled wide and unrestrained, his whole face bright with drive and spirit.

Nothing like the gentle, steady man in that new photo, head bent toward Piper.

The reckless courage and heat back then had been real.

And now, with everything the same but the people changed, that was real too.

I took off my clothes and stepped into the bathroom.

In the mirror, my stomach was covered in bruised puncture marks from the ovulation shots.

One injection a day, for two whole years.

Ethan said he wanted a child, so I started trying to conceive.

I drank herbal medicine until it made me sick, and jabbed my belly with countless needles.

At first he would press the cotton swab down for me, wincing at the pain for my sake. Then, little by little, he stopped noticing, and by now even when we were intimate his gaze would deliberately skirt around that patch of needle scars.

I reached up and covered that mangled patch on the mirror.

The next day, I went to the hospital to schedule the abortion.

The gynecology corridor was full of people coming and going. I held the paperwork and sat on a bench, waiting.

When I looked up, I saw Ethan coming down the far end of the hall.

He was supporting Piper, whose brow was faintly furrowed, her whole air fragile and delicate.

"Doctor, is she really all right?"

Ethan trailed after the doctor, his voice tight.

"Should she have a full workup? She just said her stomach felt a little off."

The doctor waved a hand. "Mild menstrual irregularity. Just get some rest."

Ethan asked again. "She has a weak constitution. Please look more carefully."

The doctor, worn down by his nagging, let out a sigh.

"If you really can't set your mind at ease, we can run a full-body checkup."

Only then did Ethan relax. He turned and took Piper's arm, guiding her toward the payment counter.

As he passed the bench where I sat, his steps hitched, and he blinked, thrown for a second.

"What are you doing here?"

His eyes rested on my face for two seconds.

"Your stomach acting up again?"

"Yeah."

"Then look after yourself. Stop eating cold things all the time."

He tossed the words off, then walked away with Piper on his arm.

Back home, Ethan was busy packing things up.

A dozen kinds of snacks were laid out on the coffee table, all the sweet-and-sour flavors, and he was tucking them into a box one by one.

"Piper's moving, and her appetite's been bad lately, so I'm putting together some food for her."

He didn't lift his head. "She's on her own. She can't take care of herself."

"How did your checkup go?"

A wave of nausea hit me out of nowhere. I clamped a hand over my mouth and rushed into the bathroom.

The sound of dry heaving echoed off the tiles.

Ethan knocked on the door from outside, his voice edged with impatience.

"Serena, can't you just take care of yourself? You think you're still eighteen?"

I braced myself against the sink and looked at my reflection.

My face was ghost-white, my lips cracked.

Back when I helped him build the company, the two of us crammed into a partitioned little room, pulling all-nighters on proposals, drinking to reel in clients. I wrecked my stomach doing it.

Later, after I found out about Piper, I couldn't for the life of me understand how Ethan's heart had changed.

I copied her, drinking iced coffee and eating fried chicken, until I ended up hospitalized with acute gastritis.

He came to the hospital to see me, brows drawn together as he asked,

"Serena, do you just have to put yourself through the wringer?"

I asked him, "And what about you? You like them young, don't you?!"

That was the first time we truly tore off the masks and fought.

After that we fought over Piper so many times that I went from hysterical at the start to completely indifferent.

It was probably on some perfectly ordinary night. He was explaining himself over Piper again, and I picked up the remote and changed the channel, and only then did I realize I hadn't pressed him on a single thing in a long time.

My phone buzzed.

A text from the hospital: Ms. Serena Locke, your surgery for tomorrow is confirmed. Please arrive on time.

At the same moment, Ethan's phone lit up on the sink counter.

Piper had sent a photo of herself wearing a ring.

I put on the matching band, I'll show you tonight~ Don't forget to wear yours~

I looked down at the silver band on my ring finger.

Ten years had gone by. This silver band had long since gone dull and darkened. I'd sent it out to be cleaned several times, and in the end I still wore it.

And the new wedding ring Ethan promised had never come.

When I walked back out, a strip of stomach medicine had appeared on the coffee table, with a cup of hot water beside it.

Maybe it was the cramping in my belly clouding my head, maybe it was that strip of pills that made me go blank for an instant, but absurdly I wanted to open my mouth and tell him I was pregnant.

I had just parted my lips when Ethan straightened up.

"Oh, right, Piper's moving tomorrow, so I have to head over early. Just look at your test results yourself when they come, and don't drag it out and leave it untreated again."

My throat went faintly dry. I lowered my eyes and swallowed the words that had risen to my lips.

I'd actually been expecting something again.

"I have surgery tomorrow," I said quietly. "Can you come sign for me?"

"No. Piper's moving tomorrow. She can't manage it alone."

He paused, then added,

"You're a grown woman. You can't sign it yourself?"

I lowered my gaze and folded the test paper.

"Okay."

"Good luck with the move, then."

The next day I went back to the office to pick up some files I'd left behind.

Passing Ethan's office, I saw the door wasn't quite shut.

Piper's voice drifted out, coaxing and sweet.

"Ethan, about that project last time. Thank you for covering it up for me. If Serena ever found out she took the fall for me, that she gave up the VP spot because of me, she'd be so upset."

Ethan's voice was flat. "She won't find out. And I told you I'd cover for you."

Two years ago, that project had a serious problem.

I thought it was my own mistake. I didn't want it to hurt Ethan, so I stepped down from VP on my own and went home to be a wife.

It turned out it wasn't me.

It was Piper. And Ethan chose to protect her.

I should have understood long ago. Ethan was always the most responsible, the most careful person about work. Back then he'd stay up all night to fix a single wrong symbol. Yet when that project went wrong, he never even looked into it, just smoothed it over and closed it out.

At the time I thought he simply didn't want to embarrass me. Only now did I understand he did it for Piper.

"All right. It's your birthday today. I'll let you off early to celebrate."

I didn't listen to any more of it. I pushed open the door to my own office.

I froze.

Everything of mine on the desk was gone. The file folders, the picture frame, the mug, all of it replaced with pink storage boxes and a makeup mirror.

On the wall, the photo of me from the year I won the Employee Excellence Award had been swapped out for one of Piper's illustrations.

The nameplate behind the desk had been changed too. It read "Piper."

"Oh, Serena." Piper leaned against the doorway and said it lightly.

"I just heard someone say you'd come in. So it's true."

"Where's my split-leaf plant?"

Piper bit her lip. "Serena, that one... I noticed the leaves were getting a little yellow. I was afraid it would die and look ugly, so I threw it out..."

I turned my head to look at her.

"My mother planted that the year she died."

I turned back and looked at Ethan in the hallway.

He came over, his expression unchanged. "I told Piper to use the office for now. You hardly ever come in anyway. I'll have someone set up an identical office for you later. As for the plant... I'll figure something out."

To my own surprise, I found I couldn't summon even a flicker of anger. There was only a weary, helpless emptiness left.

"What did you say to me the day I left? 'I'll keep this office for you. Come back whenever you want.'"

I looked around the pink room, at all the makeup mirrors and lipsticks.

"Ethan, is there a single thing you've said that's true?"

"Serena" he called out behind me.

I ignored him and left without looking back.

The elevator doors closed. I shut my eyes and let out a long breath.

So this was what happened after you gave up completely on someone. Even the tears were gone.

I went home and packed up what was left.

The fertility journal I'd kept for two years, along with the silver ring, I dropped both into the trash.

Then I dragged my suitcase to the hospital.

The lights over the operating table were very bright.

I looked at my phone one last time.

Piper had just posted an update.

In the photo, Ethan stood in the kitchen in an apron, making a cake.

The frosting was smeared unevenly, and there was a little white on his face.

The caption read: Happy 22nd birthday to me. Thank you to my very own personal chef.

Twenty-two.

Young, all right.

I closed my eyes, and the tears slid down into my hair.

The year I turned twenty-two, Ethan and I were building the company, dead broke.

On my birthday he couldn't afford a cake, so the two of us crowded into that tiny apartment and forced a lopsided little cake out of the rice cooker, with eggs and flour.

He looked up at me, his eyes red. "From now on I'll celebrate your birthday every single year. I'll buy you the biggest cake."

"Serena Locke, I'll be good to you forever!"

The anesthesia took hold, and the world went dark.

In the haze, I was eighteen again.

The day my mother died, I knelt alone in the hallway of the funeral home, holding her urn, with nowhere to go.

Ethan crouched down and laid his hand over mine, his voice soft.

"I don't have parents either. Two people with no one to lean onif we lean on each other, maybe things will get better."

At eighteen I gripped his hand hard, like the last piece of driftwood.

Ten years. And now, at last, I was letting go.

After the surgery, I walked out of the hospital with a pale face.

The anesthesia hadn't fully worn off. I braced myself against the wall and edged step by step to the curb, then raised my hand for a car.

My vision went black. I swayed and nearly went down.

A hand caught me. "Miss, are you all right?"

I shook my head and thanked him.

The night sky suddenly burst open, brilliant.

Fireworks over the whole city, golden rain everywhere.

Cluster by cluster, they spelled out a few words

Piper, Happy 22nd Birthday

People on the sidewalk held up their phones, clicking their tongues.

"Who's this, throwing a party like that? Fireworks over the whole city for a birthday?"

"Rich-people romance! So jealous!"

"Come on, stop staring. They've got their kind of romance, we've got our BBQ skewers. Let's go, let's go."

I got in the car, leaned against the window, and looked at all that dazzle.

"Yeah," I said quietly. "It's beautiful."

In the haze I remembered a New Year's Eve years ago, when Ethan took the last of his money to the corner shop and came back with a box of sparklers.

The two of us stamped our feet on the rooftop in the cold while he lit them one by one, golden sparks scattering across the ground.

We chased each other back and forth, our laughter torn apart by the wind and flung everywhere.

How good it was back then. We had nothing, and yet we had everything.

At the airport, I traded in my boarding pass.

Right before takeoff, my phone buzzed.

A friend request popped up.

Ethan: Why aren't you back yet?

I stared at that line for a long time.

Then I turned off the screen and boarded the plane.

Ethan stared at the friend request that hadn't gone through, and frowned.

The apartment was pitch dark. No lights on.

"Serena?"

No answer.

He walked over to the coffee table. On top was a record from an abortion.

Beneath it was pressed a divorce agreement.

At the line for the wife's signature, a name was already written, in her handwriting.

Ethan's hand shook.

The surgery record slipped from his fingers and drifted to the floor.