I still wake up in a cold sweat sometimes, months later. It always starts the same way: a flicker of the calendar, then the dawning, sickening realization. The day I destroyed everything.
We had a good life, a great life, I thought. Solid. Unshakeable. We’d built it from nothing, brick by brick, dream by dream. She was my rock, my quiet anchor in a world that spun too fast. And me? I was the ambitious one, the provider, the one always chasing the next big thing, the next promotion. I worked late. I travelled. I told myself it was for us. For our future.
Her birthday was always important. A sacred day. We had traditions. Breakfast in bed, a ridiculous card, a fancy dinner reservation. I never missed it. Not once in ten years. Until this year.
A happy woman plotting something | Source: Freepik
The project had consumed me. Weeks of barely sleeping, living on coffee and adrenaline. Deadlines screamed in my head. Clients were demanding, my boss relentless. I was convinced if I pulled this off, everything would change. We’d be set. I could finally breathe, finally give her the life she deserved.
I remember waking up that morning, tired beyond belief. Kissed her forehead. She was still asleep. So beautiful, even then. I scribbled a quick note about an early meeting, promising to be back for dinner. I walked out the door, into the grind, completely oblivious.
The call came around 4 PM. My sister, her voice unusually tight. “Did you remember to call her, before all the madness starts?”
My blood ran cold. The phone slipped in my sweaty hand. OH MY GOD.
I didn’t need to ask who “her” was. I didn’t need to ask “what madness.” It hit me like a physical blow. It was her birthday.
My stomach dropped into my shoes. I felt a wave of nausea. How could I be so stupid? How could I forget? The one day. The one sacred day. The woman who had sacrificed so much for me. I slammed my desk. My colleagues stared. I didn’t care. The project, the deadline, the client – it all evaporated. This was bigger. This was catastrophic.
I called her. My hands trembled. She answered, her voice quiet, almost flat. No joyous “hello.” Just a soft, “Hey.”
“Happy Birthday, my love! Oh my god, I am SO sorry, the day just got away from me, the project, you know how it is. But I promise, I’m making it up to you! I’m leaving now, I’ll be home in ten. We’ll do something amazing tonight. Anything you want. Anything at all.” I rambled, desperately. Each word felt hollow, even to me.
A box filled with knick-knacks | Source: Midjourney
There was a long pause. A silence that stretched, thick and suffocating. Then, a sigh. “It’s okay,” she said. But it wasn’t the “it’s okay” I knew. It was brittle. Broken. “Don’t rush. You sound busy. We can celebrate later. Maybe this weekend.”
This weekend? That wasn’t us. We celebrated on the day. Her forced calm was worse than any anger. It was resignation.
I raced home, flowers clutched in my hand, a pathetic attempt at a peace offering. She was sitting on the couch, watching TV, a blanket pulled around her. No special outfit. No dinner planned. Just her, small and quiet.
“I am so, so sorry,” I choked out, kneeling before her. Tears welled in my eyes. Real tears. “I don’t know how I forgot. It’s unforgivable. I messed up.”
She looked at me, her eyes distant. “It’s fine,” she repeated, almost a whisper. “Really. Don’t worry about it.”
But I saw it. The slight tremor in her hand as she reached for the flowers. The way she wouldn’t quite meet my gaze. The little catch in her breath she tried to hide. It wasn’t fine.
I tried for weeks to make it up to her. Lavish dinners, a weekend getaway, expensive gifts she barely touched. I was overly affectionate, always apologising. But the wall was up. She wasn’t angry, not openly. She was just… gone. Her laughter was muted. Her touch felt distant. Her eyes held a sadness I couldn’t penetrate.
I started to get paranoid. Was she having an affair? Was this her way of pulling away, because I’d pushed her too far? I checked her phone while she slept, saw nothing. I followed her once, to a coffee shop, where she just sat alone, staring out the window. What was she hiding? My guilt twisted into fear, then into a strange, cold anger. My mistake had broken her, yes, but why was she letting it break us?
Two happy women | Source: Pexels
I decided one last, grand gesture. Something to prove I still saw her, truly saw her. Something to bring her back. I planned a surprise trip for our anniversary, just a few weeks away. Tickets to Italy, a country we’d always dreamed of seeing. I spent days perfecting the itinerary, picking out the perfect restaurant for our first night. This would fix everything. This would remind her of the love we shared, the future we still had.
I came home early from work to pack, planning to surprise her with the tickets later that evening. The house was quiet. Too quiet. I called out her name. No answer.
I went into our bedroom. The bed was made perfectly, as always. But on her nightstand, next to a small, framed photo of us laughing, was something I’d never seen before. A small, leather-bound diary. It lay open.
My heart hammered. I knew I shouldn’t. But what if this was it? What if this held the key? My eyes scanned the page. The date at the top made me freeze. Her birthday.
My breath hitched. I read the words, and each one was a spear to my chest.
“Today. It was today. I told him last week, gently, about the appointment. I thought… I thought he’d remember. That he’d be there. That he’d hold my hand, or just look at me and say it was okay. That we’d do this together, silently, as we agreed.”
My vision blurred. Appointment? What appointment?
I kept reading, my hands shaking so violently I could barely hold the book steady.
“He forgot. Not just my birthday. He forgot the baby. He forgot the choice we made. He forgot the most painful decision of my life, the one I took because he said we weren’t ready, because he said we needed more time, more money, more… future. I had it scheduled for today. I wanted him there. I needed him to be there, to share this terrible burden, to acknowledge what we were losing.”
A dish rack filled with roses | Source: Midjourney
My mind reeled. It wasn’t just her birthday.
She was pregnant.
And that day, the day I so casually, selfishly forgot, the day I was consumed by a “project,” she had an abortion.
She went through it alone.
The words hit me like a tsunami, dragging me under, stealing my breath, my sanity. I fell to my knees, the diary still clutched in my hand, the leather warm against my suddenly cold skin.
“I went alone,” the entry continued, the ink smudged in places, as if by tears. “I lay there, numb. And all I could think about was him, working, oblivious. Forgetting. He erased our child, and then he erased the day I had to say goodbye. He erased me. It wasn’t just her birthday. It was our goodbye. And he didn’t even show up.”
I let out a guttural sob, a sound ripped from the deepest part of my soul. It wasn’t about a forgotten date. It wasn’t about flowers or gifts or even an affair. It was about a child I never knew I had. A child she was letting go of, for us, for my ambition, for my supposed future.
And I wasn’t there.
I heard the front door open. Footsteps. She was home. I looked at the diary, then at the Italy tickets still peeking out of my half-open bag. A grand gesture. A pathetic, ignorant, too-late gesture.
I closed my eyes. I had shattered her, body and soul, and I didn’t even know it. I didn’t know if I could ever look her in the eye again. I didn’t know if she would ever forgive me. I didn’t know if I could ever forgive myself.
A woman holding shopping bags | Source: Pexels
The silence of the house pressed in, heavy and final. And I knew, with a certainty that sliced through me, that my forgotten birthday wasn’t the end of our story. It was just the beginning of mine, alone.
