Page 80 of Hunted to the Altar
She lost the baby because of me.
My child. My legacy. The future I never thought I deserved, and then tried to trap like it was a prize. Gone.
I wanted to be a father. God, I wanted it. But not like this. Not born of fear. Not tethered to violence and shame. I saw her stomach soften, her eyes change. I imagined cradling something we created—something innocent. Something that hadn’t learned to be afraid yet.
And then I ruined it. With my temper. With my control. With the monster I swore I wasn’t, bleeding out of my skin every time I touched her without listening.
I told myself I was her savior. That I was protecting her from the men who’d hurt her before, from the past that stalked her shadow. I told myself I was better than them. That what I felt for her was different—stronger, purer.
But I was never her shield. I was the blade she didn’t see coming.
I became the very thing I swore I would destroy. The chains, the silence, the fear—I wore them like armor and called it devotion. I invaded her peace and pretended it was protection.
There’s no redemption arc that can bring that baby back.
There’s no apology that can unscar a womb. No vow that can unshatter a woman.
All I can do is watch her and know that somewhere inside her body, a life once fluttered. A flicker of hope that might have looked like me or her or both, breathing possibility into a future I poisoned with my need to possess.
And I killed it with my love.
Because it wasn’t love. Not really. Not the kind that nurtures. It was hunger. Obsession. The kind that hollows out everything it touches, until nothing beautiful can survive in its wake.
And now I’m left with the truth: I was never her protector. I was her storm.
That morning, I woke before the sun, the weight of what I hadn’t said crushing the breath from my chest. I stood in the kitchen like a stranger, trying to remember how she used to take her tea—how long to steep it, how much honey. I burned the first round of toast. The second batch came out fine, but my hands shook as I buttered the slices.
I made her breakfast—eggs the way she used to like them, soft with a bit of sea salt, toast, and her tea. Not coffee. She once told me tea calmed her nerves. God knows she had none left to calm.
She rolled in without a word. Her gaze slid over the plate like it was a test she didn’t care to grade. She sat across from me at the island, the distance between us feeling wider than the ocean. She picked up her fork, took three bites. Slow, mechanical. She drank the tea but didn’t meet my eyes.
"You remembered," she said finally, setting the cup down. Her voice wasn’t warm. It wasn’t cruel. Just... tired.
"I remember everything about you," I answered.
She rolled back from the island in her chair, picked up the plate with a quiet determination, and wheeled herself to thesink. With slow, deliberate motions, she rinsed it. Then, without a word or glance in my direction, she maneuvered around the counter and left the room, the soft hum of her wheels echoing like a reprimand I’d earned a thousand times over.
It was worse than screaming. Worse than anything. Because I could feel her pulling farther and farther out to sea, and I had no rope to reach her.
I sat in that empty kitchen for over an hour, listening to the silence she'd left behind. It was deafening.
That same evening, after she rolled away from the breakfast table, after I sat stewing in my own regret for hours, I found myself outside her door. Not the master bedroom—the guest room. Where she slept now. If she slept at all.
I raised my hand to knock. Lowered it. Raised it again. Lowered it.
Eventually, I just sat.
Back against the wall, legs stretched out. The hallway was dim, lit only by the soft glow of a lamp down by the stairs. I rested my head back and stared at the ceiling. My throat ached with words I’d never had the courage to say before.
"I don’t know if you can hear me. I don’t know if you care. But I need to say this."
Silence.
I continued.
"I’m sorry, Nina. Not the cheap kind. Not the kind that comes with expectations. I mean it. I’m sorry I caged you. That I took your choices. That I made your survival about me."
My voice cracked. I swallowed it down like glass.
