“You’re not going to leave me.” His grip on your forearm tightens. Such an awful way to keep you from walking away from him with the baby in the baby carrier. “You’re not going to take my son away from me.” The way he says it as if he wasn’t the one who suggested you to terminate the pregnancy before you could speak your mind about it makes you want to slap him, but that would only ruin things.

The three-month-old baby begins to stir after hearing his father arguing with you. Unaware of what his parents were going through right now. Joe stiffens with his eyes wide in panic after hearing his son’s cries, and as if returning from a trance he simply let you go.

This is not the way you two should be acting. But after five years of ups and downs, the relationship had become so unhealthy that the only thing keeping this marriage at this point was your son. An unplanned pregnancy. An accident. Both of you had your doubts about this, but in the end you came to the same conclusion. Maybe this could save the loveless marriage. What a big mistake.

“I just, I feel like I’ll die if you leave.” He whispers, his voice cracking. The times he has been so pleading and vulnerable could be counted on the fingers of one hand. And yet, you don’t want to fall for it. It will be a never ending cycle.

First it was Joe’s gang and things that he kept a secret, but still called you that time he was detained to pick him up. He was a whole different person with you but to others he showed that thug face. The civil wedding felt like a fairy tale. It was good for the first two years. The fourth year became the most difficult. Then everything got worse.

It was when Joe suggested that you were pregnant by another man that you realized how screwed this marriage was. Oh, right. You had slept with another man and he had caught you in the act. He beaten him badly and somehow he forgave you, just because it was you. Because you are the only person who has kept him sane, and because he depends on you like crazy.