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Like a wounded wolf crying on a moonless midnight.

The pain, the pain, it was just too much. It was clawing my heart alive.

I was never… never going to have a baby.

My body was so useless that it couldn’t even carry the one thing I’d always wanted my entire life.

The one feeling I always wanted to experience.

To be a mother.

Now it was something that could never be mine.

It wasn’t the only reason that was breaking my heart. It was the look on my boy’s face. The unthinkable pain I caused to the last person I wanted to hurt in this world.

All because of me.

Me. Me. Me.

The worthless Katy Evans.

I felt everything in me shatter and I just couldn’t breathe anymore.

My blurry eyes roamed around me as I took my first step forward and then another till I reached the bushes where Lan threw away the ring. I wanted it. I wanted it with me for as long as I shall live.

I scavenged through the mud and drenched lawn like a lunatic through my cloudy vision as I sobbed and gasped for air. My knees scraped from the tiny stones as I crawled, digging my fingers in the soil in the hopes that I would find the ring. The rain slapped my back as I rounded off to the area near the tree. My fingers were caked with mud, and I could hardly see a thing, but I kept searching and searching. I wiped the hair falling over my face with the back of my arm as I dug out roots and dirt and cigarette stubs.

I didn’t know how long I kept going, but it was nowhere to be found, and it felt like my heart was giving up, and my limbs grew numb. Suddenly, at the base of the tree, something shiny gleamed in the dark night.

A relieved sob left my lips when I lifted the familiar ring and held it to my chest.

I was never, ever letting it go.

It was mine, forever.

My dress was a riddled mess of mud. I was a riddled mess of mud and dirt and tears when I dragged my feet back to the house. I was grateful for the large vacant hallways and the emptiness of this house.

The fears faded, but the pain and the sorrow didn’t.

I felt lost, and I didn’t know how to be anymore.

I headed straight into the shower, turning up the water to a boiling high, the ring still clutched to my chest like it was the only thing that was keeping me alive at this very moment.

An hour later, I wore one of Lan’s soft sweaters and curled up in the sheets that smelled like him.

I lay there just like that, unmoving with the ring cradled in my fist.

Only at around four forty-four a.m. did Lan walk in, with a bit of a stagger to his step. His weight shook the bed when he went crashing on his back, and not even a second later, his soft snores filled the room.

Sighing, I removed his boots and carefully tucked the sheets over him.

I watched his sleeping face, pinched in tension like he had aged years since last night, but I just couldn’t drag my eyes away from the face I loved more than anything in this world.

I’m sorry.

Since that day, it was how our new normal began.

It wasn’t always stiff and cold. There were a few tender moments and soft heart-to-hearts between us.