My name is Oakley, and six months ago, I lost my baby at 16 weeks.
People never tell you what that grief really feels like. It hollows you out from the inside.
You walk around as if you’re wearing someone else’s skin, a shell of the person you used to be. Every pregnant woman you see on the street feels like a personal stab. And your own body… your body betrays you, holding onto a shadow of pregnancy even though there’s nothing left.
Mason, my husband, was supposed to be my rock. At first, he tried. He held me while I cried. Made me tea I never touched. Whispered the right words: “We’ll try again. We’ll get through this together.”
But slowly, day by day, he pulled away.
“I’ve got a business trip to Greenfield,” he said one morning, tossing clothes into a suitcase.
“Another one? You just got back two days ago.”
“It’s the Henderson account, babe. You know how important this is.”
I nodded, forcing a smile. I did know. Mason worked in commercial real estate, and this account was supposedly his golden ticket. So I kissed him goodbye and spent another lonely three nights in our bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering why grief hurt more when you carried it alone.
Two months in, he was barely home. When he was, his attention was elsewhere—glued to his phone, smiling at things he didn’t show me.
“Who’s texting you?” I asked once.
“Just work stuff,” he mumbled, avoiding my eyes.
I wanted to demand the truth, to snatch that phone and see for myself. But the exhaustion, the heartbreak, the loneliness—it drained me. I let it go.
Then there was Delaney—my sister, forever a storm around everyone else’s sunshine.
She always made life about her. When I graduated, she announced her own success the same day. My first promotion? She crashed my celebration in a neck brace from a “car accident” that was really a fender bender.
So when she invited the family over three months after my miscarriage, a part of me braced for the inevitable.
Mom’s kitchen smelled like roast. Dad carved meat like always. Aunt Sharon complained about the neighbors. Almost normal. Almost comforting. Until Delaney stood and tapped her wine glass with a fork.
“Everyone, I have an announcement,” she said, her voice quivering just enough to draw all eyes.
Mom’s face lit up. “Oh honey, what is it?”
Delaney rested a hand on her stomach, eyes already glistening with tears.
“I’m pregnant!”
The room erupted. Mom screamed and hugged her tight. Aunt Sharon cried. Dad’s chest puffed with pride.
I stayed frozen, numb, like I’d been hit in the stomach.
“But there’s more,” Delaney added, tears now streaming. “The father… he doesn’t want anything to do with us. He left me. Told me he wasn’t ready and just… walked away.”
Mom gasped. “Oh sweetheart, oh no.”
“I’ll be doing this alone,” Delaney whispered, her voice breaking. “I’m so scared.”
Everyone surrounded her with comfort, advice, promises. You’re strong. You’ll be an amazing mother. Not one of them looked at me. Not one asked how I was. My grief, my empty arms, my shattered dreams—it didn’t exist in that room anymore.
I fled to the bathroom and threw up.
Three weeks later, the invitation arrived: a gender reveal party.
“You don’t have to go,” Mason said when I showed him the pink envelope.
He was home that evening, drinking a beer. I poked at a salad I had no appetite for.
“She’s my sister,” I said, simply.
“He’s also been insensitive about what you’ve been through,” Mason replied, surprising me. A small acknowledgment of my pain in months.
“I should go,” I said. “It’ll look weird if I don’t.”
He shrugged. “Your call.”
“Will you come?”
A flicker of guilt—or something—crossed his face. “I can’t. Riverside. Meeting. Lake house. Whole weekend.”
I swallowed my anger, my need for him. “Okay,” I said.
The party was everything I expected. Gold and white balloons everywhere. Streamers. A dessert table that could bankrupt a small business. A giant box in the yard would soon reveal the baby’s gender.
Delaney floated through it all in a flowing white dress. Radiant. Glowing. Everything I should have felt like inside.
“Oakley!” she cried, rushing to hug me. I felt her bump press against me. Something inside me splintered.
“Where’s Mason?” she asked, faking sympathy.
“Work,” I lied.
The party continued. Games. Presents. Laughter. Every squeal, every cheer, twisted like a knife in my chest.
I slipped away to the quiet garden, trying to breathe. That’s when I heard it.
“Are you sure she doesn’t suspect anything?”
Mason’s voice. My Mason. Supposedly hundreds of miles away.
“Please,” Delaney laughed. “She’s lost in her misery. She barely notices anything.”
I froze, heart hammering. Through the rose bushes, I saw them. Mason and Delaney. Too close. Too intimate. Then… he kissed her.
Not a casual peck. A deep, familiar, practiced kiss.
I stumbled through the bushes, thorns tearing my dress.
“What the hell is going on?!” I yelled.
They separated. Mason pale. Delaney calm, smug.
“You caught us,” Delaney said. “Might as well put it all out there. Mason is the father of my baby.”
My lungs refused to work.
“You’re lying,” I whispered.
“I’m not,” she said, eyes fierce. “Tell her, Mason.”
He wouldn’t meet me. “It’s true,” he muttered.
“How long?”
“Six months,” Mason said finally.
Six months while I mourned our child. While I cradled emptiness.
“I loved you,” I said, voice cracking.
“I know,” Mason whispered. “But after the miscarriage… the doctor said…”
“Don’t.”
“You can’t carry another baby. Delaney can give me that,” he said, like a justification.
I felt my heart fracture. “So I’m broken… so you traded me in?”
Delaney rolled her eyes. “We’re being adults.”
Mason handed me an envelope. Divorce papers. Signed.
The party went silent. My parents frozen. Cousins staring.
I walked out.
I don’t remember driving home. I only remember ripping wedding photos, tearing our marriage certificate, throwing his clothes into the yard, and crying until nothing remained.
The next morning, news broke: Delaney’s house burned down in the middle of the night. Mason had left a cigarette burning. She and the baby survived, but everything else was gone.
I didn’t feel joy or sorrow. Just numbness. Maybe… karma.
Weeks later, they came to me, broken and begging.
“Can we talk?” Delaney pleaded.
“You hurt me,” I said flatly. “What do you want? Forgiveness?”
“I’m sorry,” she cried. “The fire… losing everything… maybe it’s what we deserved.”
“It was,” I said.
Mason tried, “Oakley, please…”
“Don’t touch me,” I snapped. “You both made your choices. Now live with them.”
I closed the door. Free.
I later heard Mason spiraled into alcohol, pushing everyone away, until Delaney returned to our parents. They eventually split.
I ran into Delaney weeks later. I ignored her.
Some say forgiveness heals. But forgiveness is not owed to those who shattered you. Sometimes, the best revenge is simply surviving, thriving, and letting karma do the rest.