The candles flickered, casting a warm glow on the table. Italian music, low and sweet, played from the speakers. I’d spent hours on this meal – his favorite homemade lasagna, a fresh salad, garlic bread. Everything was perfect. Or so I thought. We’d been together for years, building a life, talking about a future, about forever. My heart swelled with a familiar, comforting love as I watched him eat, a slight smile playing on his lips.
He finished, pushing his plate away with a satisfied sigh. “That was incredible,” he said, and I felt a blush creep up my neck. “Really, the best.” I smiled, already reaching for the dessert I’d painstakingly prepared – a rich chocolate lava cake, his absolute weakness. My weakness too, if I was honest. But as my hand closed around the plate, ready to present it, his hand shot out, stopping mine. “No,” he said, his voice flat, a small, dismissive shake of his head. My smile faltered. “What do you mean, ‘no’?” I asked, confusion knitting my brow.
He chuckled, a short, humorless sound. “Come on, you know I like skinny women. You don’t deserve dessert tonight, not if you want to stay that way.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. The music seemed to stop. The candles suddenly felt too bright, searing my eyes. Did he just say that? Did he actually say that to me? My hand, still holding the dessert plate, trembled. The warmth in the room vanished, replaced by an arctic chill that seeped into my bones. He just looked at me, a casual, almost bored expression on his face, as if he’d simply commented on the weather. No remorse. No softening of his gaze. Just a cold, hard fact.
I put the cake down, very, very slowly. My appetite, along with every ounce of joy from the evening, had evaporated. Skinny women. He likes skinny women. It wasn’t the first time. Little comments, subtle digs, disguised as jokes or concern. “Are you really going to eat all that?” “That dress would look better if you lost a few.” Always about my body. Never about me. I’d always brushed them off, rationalized them, told myself he was just being playful, that he loved me. But this time… this time it was different. It was naked, ugly, and devastating. He didn’t see me. He saw a project. A body to be sculpted to his ideal.
A week later, the nausea wasn’t just my heartbreak. It was real. Two pink lines stared back at me from the plastic stick. POSITIVE. My hands started to shake. Oh my God. A baby. Our baby. My mind raced, a whirlwind of fear and a fragile, burgeoning hope. I envisioned telling him, seeing his face light up, planning a nursery, choosing names. A family. This was it. This was the future we’d talked about.
But then, his words came back, a cruel whisper in my ear. “You don’t deserve dessert, not if you want to stay that way.” Skinny women. How would he react to my changing body? To the weight gain of pregnancy? To the stretched skin, the exhaustion, the loss of my shape? Would he look at me with disgust? Would he resent me, resent us, for not conforming to his shallow ideal? A cold dread settled in my stomach, heavier than any morning sickness. Could I bring a child into a world where their mother was constantly being judged, diminished, and told she wasn’t enough, by their own father?
I walked around for days in a fog, the little secret growing inside me, a constant reminder of both a potential miracle and an unbearable burden. Every time he made a casual comment, even one not aimed at me, I flinched. Every time he touched my arm, I imagined him weighing it, judging it. He wouldn’t love me through this. He wouldn’t love our child if they didn’t fit his mold. I saw a future not of shared joy, but of quiet resentment, of me trying desperately to shrink myself, literally and figuratively, to earn his approval. I couldn’t do it. Not to myself. And certainly not to an innocent life.
I made an appointment. I went alone. I lay there, tears silently streaming down my face, making the hardest choice of my entire existence. I didn’t tell him. Not a word. I went home, cooked dinner, smiled. He never knew. He continued to make his little comments, oblivious. “You look good tonight,” he’d say, “have you lost weight?” And I’d just nod, a hollow smile on my face.
He’s still in my life. We’re still together, in a way. He still thinks he gets to dictate what I eat, how I look. He still thinks he knows everything about me. But he doesn’t. He’ll never know about the little life that could have been, a life he unknowingly destroyed with a casual, cruel comment about dessert. He asked for a skinny woman. So I served him a life without the family we could have built. He will never understand what he lost that night, what he truly denied himself. He will never mourn a future he never knew existed. And that is the lesson he will truly, profoundly, NEVER DIGEST.
