Betrayed by My Fiancé: Left Pregnant in the Rainforest novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Fresh Start

Hannah walks into a dinner party for Alyssa at her own house, overhears Jared call her a placeholder, and learns on the porch that they placed bets on how long she would last.

"I'm taking you to an emergency room," Ray said.

"No."

"You can't put weight on that foot."

"I need clothes. I need money. I need my passport."

He looked at me sideways for a long mile.

"And then what?"

"And then I'm gone."

I didn't know where.

I only knew I couldn't stay anywhere Jared could find me.

Somewhere past Port Angeles, Ray pulled over and cut my left boot open with his pocketknife.

My ankle was purple and black and twice its size.

He didn't say anything about it.

He just got back on the road and drove faster.

It was after eight when we turned onto my street on Queen Anne.

Every window in the house was lit.

Cars lined both curbs.

"You having a party?" Ray asked.

"No," I said.

Through the big front window I could see the dining room.

Candles. Wine glasses. Twelve people around my table.

At the head of it sat Jared.

At his right hand sat Alyssa.

"I'm coming in with you," Ray said.

"Wait here. Please. I'll be five minutes."

He didn't like it.

He let me go anyway.

The front door wasn't locked. It never was when Jared had people over.

I walked in on one boot and one bare, swollen foot.

The talk at the table died one voice at a time.

I knew all of them.

His college roommate. Two couples from his gym. The Thayer sales director and his wife.

Alyssa had a glass of my wine in her hand.

She was wearing my green silk dress.

The one Jared bought me for our engagement party.

It was too short on her.

Jared set his fork down.

He looked at my hair, which had dried in knots full of needles.

He looked at my torn hands and the cut boot.

"Look who finally came home," he said.

Somebody laughed, nervous and high.

"You left me on the road," I said.

My voice came out like gravel.

"You left me in the rain in the Hoh, and you drove away."

Jared sighed.

"Han. There's a ranger station five miles down that road. I told you that."

He turned to the table.

"We had a fight. She got out of the car. She's been sulking at some lodge on the coast for a week, and now she's here making a scene."

"I was in the forest for seven days."

"Sure you were."

"Look at my hands, Jared."

He didn't.

Alyssa put her glass down and touched his arm.

"Jared, don't. She's clearly not well."

"Tonight was supposed to be about you," he said to her, softly. "A fresh start. She knew that."

I didn't know that.

Nobody had told me there was a dinner, because nobody had known where I was.

Nobody had asked.

I turned around and went up the stairs.

Every step on the bad ankle sent a white flash up my leg.

In our bedroom, Alyssa's suitcase lay open on my side of the bed.

Her makeup was on my dresser.

I didn't stop to look at it.

I went into the study and opened the second drawer of the desk.

My passport was where I'd left it.

So was the debit card for my old checking account from grad school.

I put them both in my coat pocket.

I was halfway down the hall when I heard voices on the landing.

Jared, and his college roommate.

"Man, what are you doing?" the roommate said low. "Ten years. She's pregnant. Look at her."

"Ten years of what?" Jared said.

"Of her. Of you two."

Jared laughed.

I knew that laugh. It was the one he used when somebody at work said something naive.

"She was a placeholder. You know that. Alyssa left, and then there was this girl at UW with the exact same eyes."

"Come on."

"Same green. Same gold in the middle. I could look at her and pretend for a while."

"And the baby?"

"The baby's a problem," Jared said. "I'll solve it."

I stood very still in the dark hall.

I thought of every time he'd held my face in both hands and looked at me.

Every time he'd said, "Don't you ever wear colored contacts, Han. Don't you ever change your eyes."

I walked out onto the landing.

His roommate went white.

Jared didn't even flinch.

"Han. You're dripping on the floor."

I went past him and down the stairs.

Twelve faces watched me cross the dining room.

I stopped beside the table.

I twisted the ring off my finger. It came hard over my swollen knuckle.

I put it down on the white tablecloth next to Alyssa's plate.

The diamond rolled once and lay still.

"Don't be dramatic," Jared said from the stairs.

I didn't answer him.

I went out the front door and shut it behind me.

The rain had stopped.

Ray was already out of the truck, coming up the walk.

Behind me the door opened again.

Alyssa stepped out onto the porch in my green dress, arms wrapped around herself against the cold.

She looked down at my foot.

Then she smiled at me.

"He bet me you wouldn't last three nights out there," she said.

She leaned on the porch rail.

"I said two."

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