Face-Slapping12 min read
Two Months, One Choice
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Two months before the wedding, I found out I was pregnant.
"Clark," I said that night, voice small against the hum of our apartment, "I think I'm pregnant."
He looked up from the mug he was holding. For a second his eyes lit with something I couldn't name. "Really? That's—" His hand came to mine, warm and steady. "That's… wonderful, Kelsey. I'm going to be a dad."
"I want the wedding to be earlier," I said before the smile could arrive. "If it's two months from now, I won't fit into the dress I tried on."
He squeezed my hand. "We can pick another dress," he offered.
"I'd rather not wait. I want to get married while I still look like myself."
Silence stretched. The light in the living room softened. He swallowed. "We can—" he began, then stopped.
"We can?" I urged.
"Yes." He sounded far away. Then, practical, "But everyone's already been told. We should tell them again if we move it up."
"That's fine," I said, relief catching me. I touched my belly, already a secret hush there. "I'm resting. You can go buy something if you need."
"I will," he said. "Get some rest."
He left. He didn't come back for four hours. For four hours I called and called. His phone went to voice. It rang small holes through me.
At eight he answered. Quiet, like someone else was near the line. "I'm at my mom's," he said.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I asked her to contact everyone about the wedding," he said, voice clipped. "You should stay home. I'll come by later."
"Why are you at her house alone?" I demanded.
A new voice came into the line—a smooth, practiced warmth I had heard before. "Kelsey, dear, you haven't eaten, have you? Come over, we'll have dinner."
Constance Esposito. His mother.
I went. I should never have gone.
"Did Clark tell you about moving the wedding earlier?" I asked across the table.
"Yes, yes." Constance smiled like sunlight. "But Kelsey, you and Clark have been together how long? Almost three years?"
I nodded.
"We can't upset people," she said lightly. "If we move the date, it will cause trouble. Besides—" she leaned in, eyes sharp now—"you are pregnant. That is embarrassing for a young family to rush like that."
I choked on my soup. "Embarrassing?"
She set down her chopsticks like a judge. "We're not paying for two weddings. If you insist, it will look like your family is demanding. It'd be better if we delay. Let them make the arrangements, and when the time comes, we'll host. You needn't worry."
"Why are you saying this like it's my fault?" I asked, voice small.
"Because," she said mildly, "we don't see the need to spend extra. And if your family is anxious, well—let them be anxious."
I waited for Clark to defend me. He stared at his bowl. Finally he said, "Mom, Kelsey—"
"Listen," Constance cut in, honey turned steel, "either you let me handle things, or you make the choice. If we don't move the wedding, that's your decision."
Clark's voice was thin. "Okay."
My fingers tightened on the chair. "So you'll let them think it's our delay?"
He did not answer. The rest of dinner was a white blur. Later, alone in the bathroom, I vomited until there was nothing left in me but a bitter, hollow taste.
"Call your father," my mother said when I arrived home trembling. "Tell him what happened."
"I can't believe he chose his mother over me," I said to my father. He sat me down and held my hands like a child.
"Call him," he insisted, "and then we'll go over there if you want. You don't have to be alone."
I called. Clark picked up quickly this time, in a different tone: soft, apologetic. "Kelsey, I didn't mean to make you feel abandoned. My mom—"
Before he could finish, my father took the phone, voice flat. "You come over now."
Later, sitting across from his parents with my own standing beside me, the air tasted like iced metal. Constance smiled, then the smiling broke away like a mask.
"You shouldn't be in a hurry," she told me. "What if anyone ask why you rushed? It looks undignified."
"This isn't about dignity," I said. "This is my child."
Constance's smile sharpened. "Well, then. If that's so, there's another side. Money is tight for us right now. We told you we'd help with the wedding because you're reasonable. If we handle the wedding and the reception, your family will be fine. But if you insist—you should know we had plans. Your family will have to take care of it."
"You're saying what?" My father's voice was thick.
Constance's eyes narrowed politely. "Let's be direct. We will not pay a cent. You will organize as you wish."
"You knew we agreed on a gift," my father said. "We were counting on a different attitude."
"Let it be simple," she hummed. "The main thing is the marriage stands."
I stared at Clark. He barely blinked. "It's okay," he said at last. "We'll go with the original plan."
"Then we can all relax," Constance said, voice sumptuous as silk. "We don't delay, we stick to the plan. Life goes on."
I left that night with nothing but frost in my veins. I felt used—the word was small for the cold pit inside me. I had married him in title already, and now I had to choose what to do with the life that grew in me.
"Are you sure you want to keep it?" Jaycee asked the next afternoon when she came over, her curiosity braided with concern.
"Sometimes I am. Sometimes I feel like I'm floating," I said.
"You married him," she said bluntly. "He promised to protect you."
"He promised," I echoed. "And then he agreed with his mother."
"Then do what you need to do," she said simply. "Take care of yourself first."
I made the appointment. The day I walked into the clinic, I felt like a statue moving through water—slow, heavy, inevitable. Jaycee squeezed my hand in the waiting room so hard it left a crescent on my palm.
"Are you scared?" she whispered.
"A little," I admitted.
On the way to the operating room, my phone rang. Clark's name flashed. I answered. He sounded like he'd swallowed glass. "Kelsey, I—"
"I'm at the clinic," I said. "I'm going through with it. I can't wait around for a family to bargain with mine."
His voice trembled. "Please don't—"
"I already made up my mind," I said. "If you want anything to happen between us later, you'll have to fight for it."
He came to the hospital. He arrived with a pale face, hair falling in a damp fringe over his forehead, eyes the color of rain. He knelt on the tile outside the door and gripped my knees.
"Kelsey, please," he whispered. "Don't do this. Keep the baby."
I pressed my hand flat over his head, felt the thinness of his prayer. "Can you make decisions without your mother?"
"Yes," he said.
"Can you tell her 'no' and mean it?"
He hesitated, a fissure opening. "I will try."
His eyes went bright, and he looked suddenly, achingly human. But then Constance's voice threaded through the corridor as light and lethal as before.
"I brought some things," she called when she walked in, nose high. "Vitamin drinks for the baby, some fruit."
There was no pity in her smile. She circled, arranging her items as if setting a small altar.
We left the clinic the next day with a day of hollow in me and a marriage that felt like a legal name on paper. Clark's apologies came piecemeal—texts, calls, promises he would stand up to his mother. He visited, sometimes. He said the right things when he thought I would see. But when push came to shove, when papers or money were mentioned, he retreated like a man who had practiced surrender his whole life.
Weeks passed.
Constance started to come by with gifts and remedies as if to buy my silence. She joked loudly in the neighborhood, made a show of pitying me and then turned it into obligation. "If only she would reconsider," she told neighbors. "It's tragic when young women rush decisions."
And then the accident happened.
There was a late-night phone call from Jaycee. "Kelsey, are you sitting down?"
"What?" I braced.
"They had a car accident," Jaycee said. "Clark and his mother. Clark's... Clark is hurt."
I felt cold air leave the world slowly. "Is he—"
"He's alive, his leg is hurt. The doctors are... it's complicated. But his mother is fine. She's insisting on coming to see you."
She did. Constance arrived at my door with careful steps and a tray of fruit and stories of how frightened she had been. She spoke small sentences full of artful contrition.
"I was so worried," she told me. "We were both shaken. The whole family is worried. Please tell Clark to rest."
"Did he ask for me?" I asked.
"He asked—" she faltered and then smiled like a person with options. "He said many things. He wants to see you."
I notified my parents. They told me to be careful. I told them I had a plan.
Days later, Constance came again. This time she sat in the living room and watched me intently, every movement cataloged. She offered an apology that tasted like strategy.
"Kelsey," she began, "we were foolish. If you'd consider coming back, we will pay the eight-eight thousand as promised. We'll handle the wedding properly. We'll honor you."
I let her lay out her terms. I listened and nodded and then I said what I had practiced.
"Three days," I replied. "Three days to give me a firm, written commitment. If it's not on paper in three days, I'm done."
Her face flickered. "Of course."
In private, my father said: "Ask for everything." He had a new light in his eyes, a kind of guarded hope.
"Ask for twenty," my mother whispered with a conspiratorial lift. "Ask for the renovation costs back. Ask for a signed document. Let them show their colors."
I did. I asked for the house renovation money they said they'd help with, I asked for the full wedding funds in writing, I asked for a new, bigger sum of support. Constance's smile thinned, but she signed on the small points with the grace of a person used to transactions.
When the three days were up, she arrived with the paper. I read it in front of witnesses—my parents and Jaycee. Every line was watched, every dot exact. Constance wanted to change wording, shift dates, delay payments. I didn't flinch.
"Sign this now," I said. "No revisions."
She swallowed and signed. Her pen left an elegant, reluctant mark.
After that, Constance started to show up in public with me, too, acting like a repentant mother-in-law in advertisements. She praised me in front of neighbors, brought by gifts with receipts attached, was photographed with me on the stairs. It was the behavior of someone who believed appearances could change the ledger.
I let it be. My mind was not for charity.
And then—because I had learned to protect myself—I began to prepare for what comes after confrontation. I recorded conversations. I kept every message. When Constance promised in a voice that once had been warm to pay for the renovation, I saved it. When Clark agreed to stand up to his mother, I recorded it. I prepared for a contingency: if they reneged, I would not be silent.
They reneged.
At a small family gathering meant to celebrate "peace," Constance turned petty. She complained that some funds had not arrived yet and implied I had fabricated the agreement. She called my father impatient. "We are being taken for fools," she told neighbors with false loudness. I felt something harden in me.
"Constance," I said, voice calm, "you said you would pay. These were your words." I stood and, with my phone in my hand, I turned it on.
"Is this necessary?" Clark whispered.
"Yes," I said. "Very necessary."
I played the recordings. Her voice filled the room—her promises, her bargaining, her casual cruelty. The neighbors went silent. Her smile fell away like a cheap mask.
"You brought gifts, then took them back," my father told her. "You promised to pay. You lied."
Constance flushed, then paled. For the first time I saw her without armor—her eyes darted, she muttered denials, then louder protests.
"Those are doctored!" she snapped, anger sharpening. "You can't—"
"You said it," I replied. "And you changed it. You counted on me not having proof. You gambled on my shame. You lost."
The room murmured. People took sides. A woman across the hall leaned forward. "Is that true? Did she ask you to delay and then plan to make your family pay?" she asked, shocked.
"I had the messages too," I said, and displayed them. "Here are the bank messages asking for the deposit to be delayed. Here are your text messages acknowledging our agreement. You can't pretend you didn't."
Constance's face drained. "You are making a scene," she hissed.
"It's public now," I said. "You'll get no more favors from me."
She stood abruptly, clutching her purse like a talisman. "You think you can shame us in front of everyone?"
"Shame was the word you used on me first," I said. "You told me my pregnancy would be embarrassing. Tonight, you get to see what embarrassment feels like. You wanted to play with reputations and money. Here are the receipts of your promise and the recordings of your words. You wanted to make a deal about my body and my life. I'm making a different deal."
A crowd had gathered outside by that point—neighbors, the building's doormen, the aunties who love gossip. Someone produced a camera. Others whispered. Constance's usual power—her reputation as a polished, dignified mother—crumbled under scrutiny.
"My son is ill," she began, voice cracking. "This is not the time—"
"That was after," I corrected. "You used that accident to manipulate me. You thought my fear would make me accept your terms. You said it yourself: 'if she can't meet our terms, then we won't host.'"
The neighbors' murmurs shifted to anger. Someone said, "How could you? She had a baby."
"That's enough," Constance cried.
"No, it's not enough." I met her eyes. "You told me I was shameful. You told my husband to choose you. You tried to blackmail us into paying. Tonight you face everyone you humiliated."
"Please," Clark said, voice small. But his pleading had an edge now—too late.
Constance's composure broke. For the first time in years she had no script. She ducked her head, and people turned to look at her like at a revealed fraud. One older neighbor—Mrs. Romano—raised her chin. "We won't have people like that around here," she declared. "You used your position. You paid people to be on your side."
Constance tried to blame her lawyer, her busy schedule, everything but herself. Each word sounded smaller, more desperate. A neighbor who had once sought her advice shook her head. "We believed you," he said. "You lied."
Clark came forward, and for a beat it felt like he'd stand by me. Instead he looked at his mother, at the crowd, at the evidence, and swallowed. He opened his mouth, then closed it.
People's reactions multiplied: whispered disgust, a handful of applause—sharp, not kind—when I announced I would be taking legal steps to recover the renovation expenses. Someone filmed while another left a voicemail for the wedding planner to cancel. A neighbor took my side openly. Constance's face crumpled through denial to trembling.
She started to sob then, the sound small and not regal. "I'm sorry," she said, like a child who knows the teacher's cane is real.
But the apology didn't come with the bravery of truth. It came with the final, humiliating reveal—she could no longer maintain the high ground.
Later, on that same night, at the small town grocery where we'd shop, word spread. Her name, once polished, trailed a different scent. The humiliation was public, full, and it stung her pride where she had been most thin: recognition.
I didn't gloat. I did not dance. I simply stood where I was, hands trembling slightly, and watched the woman who'd tried to trample me flounder under the daylight of her own words. The neighbors' faces said what needed to be said: "We will remember."
The punishment had the slow, social gravity of truth exposed to many eyes. Constance tried to call Clark later, to negotiate, to promise more money, more respect. He didn't pick up. She left messages. They sat unanswered.
A week later, at the small administrative office where we had to wait out the divorce period, a woman approached me. "You did what was right," she said. "I used to think people like that had unassailable power. Thank you for proving us wrong."
Clark came to me in those weeks, sometimes with flowers, sometimes with anger. He tried bargaining, tantrums, apologies shaped like pleas. I read them, I listened, but I had drawn a line. When he finally said to me, "Let's not make enemies out of family," I answered, "A family that uses a woman's body as bargaining is not a family I can belong to."
He learned the consequence: no more easy refuge in "mom." The man who had never had to choose now had to carry both a wife's absence and a public reckoning at the center of his life. The social sting did not disappear. At work, word traveled. At uni, people whispered. His friends watched him differently. And Constance, once the high dame, found fewer invitations to tea.
I healed slowly. My body healed. My heart stitched itself with threads not of revenge but of new care. I walked the streets and neighbors smiled differently—not pitying, not suspicious, but solid. Jaycee became my anchor. My parents were steady as bedrock.
I never wanted to make a spectacle; I wanted justice. The punishment was not physical—it was social, financial, and deservedly public. It stripped away the armor of someone who'd used status to try to bend my life.
One crisp afternoon—thirty days after we signed the divorce application—we stood in the clerk's office and submitted our forms. "I won't be your wife," I told Clark simply. He swallowed and signed.
"Take care of yourself," he said, voice flat.
"I will," I answered.
There were many small moments after that when I learned to put myself first. I started therapy. I went to the gym. I cooked. I locked doors when I needed to. I kept the recordings and receipts I had collected not to gloat but to remind myself how far I'd come.
"Do you regret it?" Jaycee asked me one evening as we sat in the kitchen, half-eaten takeout between us.
"No," I said. "I only regret that I didn't protect myself earlier."
"Then what's next?" she asked.
"I'm rebuilding," I said. "I'm holding myself like I mattered most."
In the end, the punishment scene was not a single blazing courtroom moment. It was a slow, unrelenting unmasking in front of neighbors, friends, and family—concrete proof of a cynical scheme. Constance's reaction moved from smugness, to denial, to shock, to collapse. The crowd's reaction moved from disbelief, to gossip, to abandonment. And Clark—he saw the two women who mattered to him: his mother and the woman he'd agreed to marry. He chose wrongly then, and he paid the price in reputation, in trust, and in a lost marriage.
People change under pressure. Some became kinder to me after; some simply watched and whispered. I had my body back, my autonomy, and, strangely, a steadier heart.
I still think of the child sometimes. I am not indifferent to the life I ended. But I also know I survive because I chose myself.
That is the unique end: in the small front hall where Constance left her bag and her dignity, a neighbor pinned a small card on the bulletin board. It read, in handwriting like a child's: "Be kind. But be clever. Guard your heart." I looked at it, smiled, and walked away.
The End
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