It’s been months, but it feels like yesterday. Every single morning, it’s the first thing that hits me. A gut punch. The memory of her quiet voice, the way she looked at me when I told her. The worst part? It wasn’t even a fight. I wish it had been a fight.I missed her birthday.
Not just by an hour, or a few days of being busy. I forgot it entirely. Woke up, went to work, had a stressful day, came home late, and found her sitting alone in the dim light of the living room, a half-eaten cake on the coffee table. The tiny, flickering candle already extinguished. My stomach dropped faster than a stone in a well.
How could I? How could I be so utterly, completely selfish and oblivious?I stammered, apologized, groveled. The words were a pathetic, desperate scramble for redemption. She didn’t yell. She didn’t cry. She just looked at me with those wide, clear eyes, and in them, I saw something break. Something I couldn’t fix. Not with flowers, not with apologies, not with anything.
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The next few weeks were a hell I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I tried everything. Breakfast in bed, expensive jewelry, a surprise weekend getaway to that little cabin she loved. She accepted it all, but there was a hollowness to her acceptance. A distance in her eyes that grew wider with each passing day. She was physically there, but she was gone. Like a ghost in our own home.
I kept asking, “Are you okay? What’s wrong? Please, just tell me what to do.”
Her reply was always the same, quiet, almost a whisper. “I’m fine. You just… missed it.” As if that single phrase held the weight of the universe. I knew it wasn’t just about the date anymore. It was about what that date represented. My neglect. My priorities. My utter failure to see her.
Then, things started getting weird. She started staying out late. Not every night, but enough for me to notice. “Errands,” she’d say. Or “meeting a friend.” Her phone became an extension of her hand, locked and guarded. She’d jump if I walked into the room while she was on it. Small things. Insignificant on their own, but together, they painted a picture that chilled me to the bone.
Was she seeing someone? The thought was a dagger. After everything, after my colossal screw-up, would she really… retaliate? My stomach twisted with a mixture of fear and self-loathing. I deserved it, didn’t I? Forgetting her birthday, leaving her feeling unseen. Was this my penance?
I hated myself for it, but I started looking. Just little things at first. Glancing at her phone notifications when she left it on the counter. Scrolling through our shared bank statements. Nothing. No smoking gun. Just an increasing sense of unease.
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Until one Tuesday. She’d gone out early, claiming a doctor’s appointment. I was working from home that day, a rare occurrence. I saw her purse sitting on the kitchen counter, open slightly. My heart hammered against my ribs. I told myself it was wrong, a violation of trust. But the knot in my stomach was tightening, demanding answers.
I hesitated. My hand trembled as I reached in. I wasn’t looking for anything specific, just… a sign. Something to confirm or deny my spiraling fears. My fingers brushed against a folded piece of paper. Not a receipt, not a letter, but something thicker.
I pulled it out. It was a card. A medical appointment card. For a clinic I didn’t recognize, far across town. And the date written on it, in her familiar handwriting, was her birthday.
MY GOD.
I felt a cold dread spread through me, numbing my fingers. Why would she have a doctor’s appointment on her birthday, across town, that she never mentioned? My mind raced, jumping to the worst conclusions. An affair, a secret illness, something truly devastating.
I needed more. Desperation propelled me. I started searching the house, meticulously, frantically. I turned our bedroom upside down. Underneath a pile of sweaters in her dresser, I found it. A small, white box. My hands shook so violently I almost dropped it.
Inside was a single item. A home pregnancy test. Unused, still in its wrapper. My breath hitched. A pregnancy test?
No. That couldn’t be right. We hadn’t been trying. We’d talked about kids, hypothetically, in the future. But not now. Not like this.
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I remember thinking, NO. NO. NO. This is wrong. This is a mistake. She couldn’t be… We would have talked. She would have told me.
Then I saw it. Tucked beneath the test kit, almost hidden, was a small, leather-bound journal. One she used to write in every night. She hadn’t touched it in months. I opened it to the last entry. The date was stark and clear: HER BIRTHDAY.
My eyes scanned the elegant script, fear twisting my gut with every word.
“Today… Today was supposed to be a day of joy. Of celebration. Instead, it was… a decision. The hardest decision of my life. I found out last week. Positive. It’s ours. Our baby.”
MY BRAIN STOPPED WORKING. OUR BABY?
I felt like I was going to throw up. I wanted to scream, to smash something. My eyes raced down the page, blurring with tears I couldn’t hold back.
“I sat there, looking at the two pink lines, a world spinning in my head. A world where we had a baby. Our baby. But then I looked around. At the silence. At the life we’ve built. Or, rather, the life I’ve built around your career. And then you called. From work. Again. You said you’d be late. Again. You were late. And you forgot. You forgot me. You forgot our day. The one day that was supposed to be mine, ours. The one day I truly needed you to remember.”
I could barely breathe. The words were a physical blow.
“I couldn’t. I just couldn’t bring a child into this. Into a life where I felt so alone. Where you don’t even see me anymore. Where I’m an afterthought, a task on your endless to-do list. I knew, right then, that I had to do this. For me. For us. Because if I brought a baby into this neglect, I would resent it. And I would resent you forever. Today, on my birthday, alone, I made my choice. And I went. I terminated our pregnancy. Alone. Because you weren’t there.“
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The journal fell from my numb fingers. I stared at the blank wall, the silence of the room deafening. She had an abortion. On her birthday. And I wasn’t there. Not because I was a monster, not because I was cheating, but because I was too busy. Too self-absorbed. Too blind to see the woman right in front of me.
She didn’t miss me on her birthday. She didn’t miss a party. She missed my presence for the most defining, heartbreaking decision of her life. And she made it alone, because I gave her no other choice.
Every day, the memory hits me. A gut punch. And every day, I hear the echo of her quiet voice. “I’m fine. You just… missed it.”
Oh God. I didn’t just miss her birthday. I missed everything. And I’ll never forgive myself.
