Leaving in Full Bloom

"After eight years of marriage, I finally get pregnant with Claude Frey's child.It's my sixth round of IVF, and my last chance. The doctor says I can't put my body through it again.I'm overjoyed, ready to share the good news with him.But a week before our anniversary, I received an anonymous photo in the mail.In it, he was bending down to kiss another woman's pregnant belly.That woman is his childhood sweetheart, the one his family watched grow up. She's gentle and well-mannered, and the kind of daughter-in-law every parent dreams of.The funniest part is that his entire family knows about her pregnancy, except me. I'm just the punchline in their joke.It turns out that the marriage I've been holding together despite all my wounds is nothing but a carefully crafted lie.Fine.I don't want Claude anymore, and I'll never let my child be born into a world built on lies.I book my ticket to leave on our eighth anniversary. It's also the very day he's supposed to take me to see the sea of roses.Before we got married, he promised me a sea of flowers all my own. But instead, I find him in front of the rose garden, kissing his pregnant childhood sweetheart.After I leave, he starts searching for me everywhere."Don't go, please?" he begs. "I was wrong. Don't leave."He finally remembers the promise he'd made to me and plants the most beautiful roses in the world in that garden.But I don't need it anymore."