If Love Is a Sudden Storm, It Crushes the Heart

The pain was more than I could bear. But my cousin's blood wouldn't stop, and her cries for help drove me past all reason. "Natalie Summers, don't leave!" My voice came out ragged, barely my own. "This is my cousin's baby. If you can't stand the sight of me, fine, torment me however you want!" "But this is a human life…" I begged them to call an ambulance. Before I could finish, the doctor behind Maya seized hold of her. A needle went into her arm. "What did you just inject into her?!" I watched Maya go still, my eyes bloodshot, half out of my mind. A wall of bodyguards held me back. Lowell Pruitt lifted his chin at me. "Don't be so upset, Marlin." "That baby was never meant to come into this world anyway." "Whose bastard your precious little cousin was really carrying, you know, and so does Natalie." "If you still care about your marriage at all, stop making trouble for Natalie." I glared at him, jaw clenched. "What the hell are you talking about?" But he only savored the fury in my eyes, his smile widening. "What? You hate me? Want to sink your teeth into me?" "If you want to blame someone, blame yourself." "You were the only one invited, and you still had to drag your cousin here with that huge belly of hers. Shameless." "Threw the whole thing right in Natalie's face." "You think she could just swallow that?" The shock ran through me. But that wasn't how it happened. Not at all. Natalie had told me to come to this gathering. She'd said Lowell wanted to apologize to my cousin Maya for how rude and reckless he'd been at the banquet last time. Once we got there, though, there wasn't a trace of an apology in him. Instead he kept pushing drinks on me. When I wouldn't drink, his face went cold. Then he egged everyone into a game of dares. It wasn't until I came out of the restroom that I heard what they were saying. "Apologize, my foot. Marlin Henson's cousin got tricked into coming, plain and simple." "They'd worked it all out ahead of time. Made a bet on the baby in Maya's belly." "If Maya loses it right here today," "Natalie has to sleep with Lowell for a month." "And if she doesn't lose it…" They exchanged a glance. "Ha, then Natalie would be furious, and Lowell would be groveling to make it up to her till the end of time." So from beginning to end, this was a trap set for me and Maya, dressed up as a party. In Lowell's eyes I could see my own reflection, white and set. "Natalie Summers, I want a divorce." Natalie had been laughing with the other women. Her whole body went rigid. She pulled her gaze back and let it settle on me, light as anything. "A divorce?" She let out a laugh, dripping with scorn. "You say the word and it's done?" "Have you forgotten how you married me in the first place?" I tore free of the bodyguards holding me, and the words caught in my throat. She looked down at me from where she stood. "How much do your parents owe my family? Slipped your mind?" "You think the Summers family is some open market you can walk into and out of whenever you please?" "Ask for a divorce? What right do you have?" "You want to trade for it with the bastard about to bleed out of your cousin, or with your own life?" She said it in a voice so calm it was almost indifferent. My fingers dug into my palms until blood welled up. I had married her because my parents owed the Summers family an enormous sum. That much was true. The year I was twenty-three, my parents got conned into an investment scheme. Mortgaging the house wasn't enough. So they borrowed three million from the Summers family. The next year, unable to repay it, they ran, and left me behind. Alone. Natalie showed up at my door and said if I married her, the whole debt would be wiped clean. I agreed. I thought that maybe she liked me, at least a little. After all, she'd chased me for three months. But on our wedding day, Lowell came charging into the church in a suit. He said, "Natalie, we had a deal. Once you'd had your fun, you'd come back." Natalie left me standing there at my own wedding and walked out after Lowell without looking back. I lost every shred of dignity. The whole city's joke. But I had nowhere to go. With her parents comforting me, I stayed on with the Summers family after all. Later Natalie coaxed me. "There was a reason for it. Lowell is young, that's the only reason he stormed into the wedding and made a scene." "I've already set him straight. He'll never dare do it again." It was only afterward that I found out why she'd walked out with Lowell and left me there. It was because of a bet.

Natalie had bet she could win me over. Lowell had bet she wouldn't last three months toying with me. And that "lesson" Natalie kept talking about? It was just dragging Lowell off to a hotel to tangle in the sheets. The joke was, I'd been kept in the dark the whole time. Now, today, Lowell was telling me to my face. "Marlin Henson, from start to finish, she was only playing a game with you." "You were just a pawn to her." "If her parents hadn't forced her to marry and have a kid, she'd never have picked you." "She picked you because you were easy to control." He stood up and brushed the bits of grass off his pants. "Now the baby in Maya's belly is gone. Consider it a little lesson." Natalie just gave me one look and reached out to take Lowell's hand. "Let's go. Everyone's waiting on us." "The game goes on." I was left where I was. Even that doctor in the white coat had walked off. Only my cousin Maya was left, lying pale in the grass, her cries of pain gone silent now. A new round of the game. Lowell drew truth. Someone asked him, "You and Natalie, childhood sweethearts all these years, have you two ever slept together?" Lowell's face reddened for a moment. "You even have to ask?" "We slept together before we finished college." "Her first time, I taught her." The crowd around them broke into whoops. "Damn, so the husband got himself a hand-me-down?" "So what if she's a hand-me-down? Something Lowell's had, other people couldn't get even if they begged." Natalie slid an arm around Lowell's waist. She was smiling, completely at ease. "Stop teasing him." "He's thin-skinned." Said like that, it sounded like she was defending him. But everyone knew what it really was. A roundabout admission. She and him really had done it. I'd long been forgotten. Slumped there in despair, hands shaking, I picked up the phone Maya had dropped on the ground, meaning to call an ambulance. "Marlin, don't bother…" Maya spoke, weak. "The baby's gone." My heart turned to ash. I'd thought bringing Maya here today was to accept an apology. Instead I'd cost her the baby she'd carried six months, gone just like that. Blood rushed to my head, everything went black, and I fainted again. When I came to, I was already lying in a hospital. Once my head cleared, I bolted straight into the room next door. Maya was staring at the ceiling, her eyes empty. I slapped myself hard across the face. "This is all my fault!" "Marlin Henson, don't be so upset." Natalie walked over and held out a report. "Lowell was helping your cousin, really." "When the prenatal report came back, he saw the baby in Maya's belly was deformed." "There was no keeping it, either way." I didn't look at her. I spat out one cold word. "Out." Natalie flew into a rage on the spot. "You're telling me to get out?" "Marlin Henson, how do you have the nerve to tell me to get out?" She grabbed me by the collar. "Get this straight." "You got Maya pregnant with your bastard, and I didn't hold it against you. That was me being generous." "Don't act so innocent, putting on that dead-man's face." I stared into her eyes, hollow, and suddenly I laughed. No wonder she'd gone along so coldly while Lowell tore into me. She actually believed Maya's baby was mine. But that was plainly a lie. That night, Lowell had grabbed me as a prank and tied me up in a basement the whole night. Then he'd taken a doctored video and told Natalie. "Your husband got drunk and cheated on you." "And it wasn't just anyone. It was Maya." He'd made a bet with the guys around him. If Natalie believed it, he'd win a million. But I'd explained it, many times. Natalie never once wanted to believe me. Every time she saw me take off my shirt. Her face would go cold, and she'd say with disgust, "Don't touch me. You disgust me." Then she'd slam the door and leave. And spend the whole night carrying on with Lowell. By the next morning she'd come back dead drunk, her neck covered in hickeys. I'd thought that once my cousin's baby was born. A paternity test would shut those rumors up. But Natalie never let me reach that day. I tried to dig up some tender memory from these years of marriage, something to make me hate her a little less. The only thing I could come up with was one. Valentine's Day the year we were closest. For once, Natalie had brought me an armful of roses. Happy, I counted them again and again, and found only ninety-eight. "Did the shop clerk miscount?" I asked her. "There's only ninety-eight. Where's the one that's missing?" Back then, even if Natalie had tossed off some lie, that the clerk miscounted, or one had dropped by accident. It would still have warmed me. But she went and told the truth, cruel and careless both. "Lowell thought it looked nice, so he pulled one out and gave it to some girl on the street." "Close enough anyway. You can't tell one's missing, so quit making such a fuss." All I had left was silence. Just like now. Natalie gave a self-mocking laugh and let go of me. "Look how pale your face is, like a vampire." "Instead of wasting the effort bickering with me over every little thing," "you'd be better off checking out early, going home, and having Mrs. Wang stew you a chicken to build your strength back up." Natalie assumed I would still go back to that house. Assumed I'd freeze her out the way I had a thousand times before. Assumed that once I cooled off on my own, everything would be fine. Just then Lowell's call came in, inviting her out. And sure enough, Natalie lost all patience for sitting with me. She set a bank card on the nightstand. "There's five hundred thousand on the card. Call it compensation." "The thing with the baby, just treat it like it never happened."

Natalie turned and walked away. Just like that, the whole thing was behind her. Natalie, when it comes to that, I'm no match for you. But this time, you killed an innocent child with your own hands. I'm going to make you regret it. For three days straight I stayed at the hospital, never so much as changing out of my clothes, looking after my cousin. Maya had lost the baby. She was listless all the time, breaking into tears at the smallest thing. Every time she looked at me, the guilt tore at her. "I'm sorry, Maya. This is all my fault." "Don't. Stop saying that." She turned her face away. "Well, isn't this cozy." Lowell had arrived, carrying a bunch of white chrysanthemums. He slotted them into the vase on the headboard. "Marlin, Natalie called it exactly right." "You vanish for days on end, and here you are, playing nursemaid to your precious cousin." I glared at him. "What do you want?" "Don't read into it. I was just passing by." "Figured I'd let you know while I'm here. Next Saturday's Natalie's birthday. I'm throwing a party for her at the house." "You want to come?" He tilted his head at me, then broke into a wide grin. "Though in your current state, I'd say you're hardly in the mood for a party." "Your cousin did just lose a baby, after all." "You think you're the one to blame, so I'll bet you'd love to put a knife through yourself." I shut my eyes and refused to engage with him. But Lowell just kept going. "Marlin, are you still holding what happened against me?" "That day really wasn't my fault." "Natalie knew all along the baby in Maya's belly was never yours." "But she staged that game anyway. If you want to hate someone, hate her." I turned to look at him. "What did you say?" He blinked. "You didn't know?" "That whole game that day, Natalie planned every bit of it. That soup you drank, she's the one who told me to put the drug in it." "And not because she thought Maya was carrying your baby." "She said she just couldn't stand how close you and Maya were. She only wanted to get back at her!" "And at you too, of course." In that instant every drop of blood in me went cold. "Lowell." I heard my own voice come out, almost shaking. "You're a man too." "One day you'll have a wife of your own, and children." "You do something this rotten, and you're not afraid of what comes back to you?" Lowell paused for a second. Then he doubled over laughing. "Comes back to me?" "Marlin, you actually believe in that?" "Let me tell you, there's no such thing in this world." "There's only who's got what it takes and who doesn't." "Natalie's got what it takes. She's got money behind her, resources, connections." "I've got what it takes too. I can keep her happy." "And you?" "You've got nothing." "You can't even count on your own parents. What are you waiting to come back on anyone?" When he'd laughed his fill, he picked up his bag to go. "Oh, right. Almost forgot." "Natalie says she's already drawn up the divorce agreement." "Under the property split, it says the husband walks away with nothing." "She says when you married in you brought nothing, no bride price, no gifts." "So naturally you leave with nothing." "You won't even have a roof over your head." Lowell left. I pressed a hand to my chest, the ache almost more than I could stand. And I couldn't bring myself to tell Maya, still lying in that room, the truth. After a whole night of turning it over, I sent Natalie a message. "Do you know whose baby Maya was carrying?" "You have three days to come to the hospital and apologize to Maya." "Otherwise, you made this disaster, so you can come clean up the mess yourself." But after I sent it, nothing came back. Like a stone dropped into the sea. Right up until the day of discharge. Natalie was still off carrying on with Lowell. She never came to the hospital, never said one word of apology to Maya. I had just finished the discharge paperwork for Maya. When I heard a wave of footsteps, all moving in step. I turned. At the head of a column of people in matching uniforms was one figure, everyone else orbiting around him, his face taut with urgency. He looked at me, his voice low. "Where's my wife? Where's Maya?"