Chapter 13 Tokens
Tom’s been gone for five weeks, and the number he left Ari with is useless, endlessly ringing out whenever she calls it. At night she lies in her hostel bed, her phone clutched in her hand, hoping against hope that he’ll answer, or call her, or send her a text. An email even. At this point, she’d even take a post-it note sent by a carrier pigeon. Something, anything really, to let her know that he was real, and they were real and that he is coming back, one day, just as he promised. But as time drags on and the silence on the other end of the line remains stark and unending, Ari is forced to come to terms with the truth: that Tom is gone, and all he has left her with is a faded playing card and a phone number that leads to nowhere.
Well, not the only things he left her with.
The second line appears in a depressing hostel room in Amsterdam, and Ari cries into her pillow until the cheap polyester fabric is sodden with tears. She’s travelled half-heartedly since Tom left, her backpack heavy but heart even heavier, until the exhausting sickness she first put down to food poisoning made her stop. She buys the test before checking into her hostel, splurging on a private room so that she can vomit and cry in peace. For two days, she stares at the box with wary eyes until, after another bout of horrific puking, she bites the bullet and opens it up.
She can’t be pregnant, she tells herself. She just can’t be. She’s twenty years old. She has her whole life ahead of her. She’s friendless and mostly without family. She’s poor and ill-equipped to deal with a whole other person. She can’t have a baby. For a moment, Ari closes her eyes, praying for the first time in her life to any and all the gods that she can think of.
Please don’t let me be pregnant.
Please don’t let me be pregnant.
When she opens her eyes, the second line stares back at her. Ari sinks to the floor in a ball, before crawling onto her borrowed bed, tears flowing down her face.
Later that night, when she’s all cried out and the moon shines in through her window, lighting the tear-tracks on her pale and woebegone face, Ari picks up her phone.
As usual, the call goes nowhere. This time however, she lets it ring through to the voicemail, and when the beep sounds, she lets out a shaky breath.
“You need to come back for me,” she whispers into the receiver. “Please come back for me. Please. Please come back. Please don’t leave me alone like this. Please.”
* * *
She considers having an abortion and moving on with her life. It’s one of the options the kindly NHS doctor she sees in London gives her, and Ari chews on her lip while considering her words.
“It’s up to you,” the doctor says, not unkindly. “It’s your choice. And you don’t have to decide now. Support networks are in place. I can put you in touch with the right people.”
“And if I have the baby?”
The doctor nods, looking unsurprised. “That’s also your choice. I can put you in touch with support groups for that too.”
“Support groups?” Ari asks. “You mean, for pregnant women?”
The doctor clears her throat. “For pregnant teenagers.”
Ari stares at her. “I’m twenty years old. I’ll soon be twenty-one. An adult.”
“Don’t take it the wrong way, Ari. I refer all pregnant under twenty-ones to that support group. Pregnancy is hard. Babies are hard. And you told me yourself, you don’t have parents. And the father of your baby—”
“Is coming for me,” Ari says firmly, sitting up.
The doctor gives her a small but disbelieving smile, reaching over to take her hand. “Take the leaflets for all the different options, and the support group numbers too. You aren’t alone in this, Ari. You really aren’t.”
Ari nods before leaving her office. She stumbles out of the clinic, blinking in the bright sunshine of Grafton Street, before she walks in no particular direction, holding her stomach.
Holding where her baby grows.
London’s an odd city, Ari thinks to herself as she blindly walks through Tavistock Square. A mix of wealth, privilege and utter poverty. A mix of old architecture, mellowed by the sun, with newer buildings, their steel and glass exteriors glinting down at her. Not that their age matters. New or old, they all seem to bear down upon her — grand, intimidating and judgemental.
She finds herself outside of the Foundling Museum, sitting on the cool stone steps, wrapping her cardigan around her arms and staring at the ground.
A baby. She’s having a baby. Tom’s baby.
It’s so odd and utterly ridiculous that she wants to laugh. Her laughter comes out as silent tears though, tears that streak down her cheeks, leaving damp and salty patches on the thin fabric of her shirt.
Next to her, a woman clears her throat before offering her a tissue.
“Been to the museum, have you, love?”
“Yes,” Ari replies, accepting the tissue gratefully and wiping her nose. It’s easier to lie than to tell the truth. Easier to believe a lie than hear the truth too, she reflects sadly.
“It’s a hard place to visit,” the lady says with a sigh. “Very sad. Well, you cry it out. I did when I first came.”
“Thank you,” Ari whispers back. The lady stares at her.
“Was it the tokens? Is that what made you cry?”
“The tokens?” Ari asks stupidly, her mind blank. The lady gives her a sharp look, before her eyes drift over Ari’s arms, still tightly wrapped around her stomach, and her face softens.
“The tokens left by the mothers when they brought in their babies. The women who were too poverty-stricken to care for their own children, or the women who were forced by their families to be rid of an unwanted child. That’s what they did here at the Foundling, love, they took in unwanted babies. Twenty-five thousand of them, in fact. The mothers... well, most of them hoped to come back for their children, when times or circumstances were better. So, they left tokens with their infants. Scraps of cloth. Treasured rings or bracelets. Small snippets of paper. Thimbles or dried flowers or anything else of worth they owned. Most of the tokens were worthless, but to those women... they were the most important things they owned. And they left them with their babies.”
Ari looks up. “How many of them came back? For their babies?”
The woman sighs. “Out of twenty-five thousand? One hundred and fifty-two.”
Ari’s mouth drops open. She feels a wave of sadness wash over her, and she shifts on the cold stone steps of the museum.
“How far along are you?” the woman asks her, and Ari wipes at her eyes.
“Eight weeks,” she swallows nervously. “How did you know?”
“Just a hunch I had.”
“I’m twenty years old,” Ari carries on. “I have no money. A hundred years ago, my baby would have ended up here too.”
“Perhaps,” the woman says. “But it’s not a hundred years ago, love.”
Absently, Ari pulls the queen of spades playing card from her pocket. She keeps it with her at all times and likes to run her thumb over it when worried, or sad, or missing Tom. As a result, it’s fraying at the edges from overuse.
She’s always missing Tom.
“The father of the baby gave me this,” she tells the woman, holding the queen of spades up to the light. “A token. A hundred years ago, I would have left it with the baby here. The most important thing I own.”
“You’re a melancholy thing, aren’t you?” the lady remarks, giving Ari a gentle smile. “I told you, it isn’t a hundred years ago now. We have social services these days, love. Social housing and medical care. You and your baby will be fine. Start claiming the right benefits. Right away.”
“Even with benefits, I’ll need a job,” Ari says, her voice dull. “Babies are expensive. And who in their right mind will hire a pregnant twenty-year-old? Nobody, that’s who, and—”
At that, the lady leans forward. “Are you really all alone?”
Ari shakes her head. “I have an older brother.”
The woman thinks for a moment. “Have you told him about the baby yet?”
“No.”
The woman smiles. “Tell him about it.”
Ari opens her mouth to speak, before closing it quickly.
Sebastian isn’t an idiot. When she’d arrived home from her gap year four months early, looking thin, pale and weary, he’d immediately sat her in his living room, handed her a cup of tea, and told her to tell him everything.
“Start with his name,” Sebastian ordered her, “and go from there.”
She hadn’t told him everything though. Hadn’t told him about the baby. Telling him would have made it too real.
“I don’t know,” she says to the woman now. “I don’t know what I want to do. If my boyfriend was here...”
The woman gives her a kind smile. “I know. But he isn’t here, love. So, it’s up to you.”
* * *
It’s Luis who finds Ari a job as a night cleaner at one of his wedding studios.
“With your art background, you’re overqualified for the role,” he tells her regretfully. “But it’s quiet and will keep you going until a plum role in art or design comes your way. You’re still sending your CV out, right?”
Luis and Sebastian still think of her as a kid looking for her big break in life, she realises, and she doesn’t have the heart to tell them that she’s all but given up on her dreams of a career in art. Mentally she’s boxed them up and stored them away, with a label attached that reads ‘Never going to happen now’. Dreams, Ari thinks bitterly, are for idealistic young people. Dreaming isn’t for those who’ll soon have another mouth to feed.
“I don’t mind at all,” Ari tells Luis, running a finger along the pristine white bags along one of the walls. “I’ve given up on art anyway, I think.”
She’s not telling lies. Ari really doesn’t mind the studio at all, and she hasn’t had an urge to paint since Tom left. Surprisingly, she finds cleaning numbingly therapeutic. She likes losing herself in the wiping away of dirt and dust and invisible regrets. She likes the immaculate studio, with its plush white carpets, oak flooring and the rows upon rows of white fabrics, kept in a cool workroom at the back. At 9p.m., when all the sewists and fitters and consultants leave, Ari finds a strange sort of calm in the studio, armed with her dusters and scrubbing brushes and vacuum cleaners. She doesn’t think of Tom while cleaning. It’s only when she stops, when she has time to think and grieve and feel sorry for herself, that she ever thinks of him. The longing for him is so strong it’s almost painful, and she has to breathe deep in those moments. Breathe deep and push him from her mind. She hasn’t got the luxury of missing him, she reminds herself. She has a baby to support soon. A child to consider.
She takes another job at a temp agency, because she’s desperate and pregnant and will do anything to keep food in her belly, a roof over her head and Tom from her mind. She finds herself working an endless circuit of desks as an office receptionist, answering phones and taking mail, glad at least to be sitting and off her feet, finding a cold sort of comfort in the utterly dull and entirely repetitive work sent to her. The other receptionists notice her growing belly with wide smiles, enthusiastically asking her about her baby and the father and Ari always smiles back but says little.
“Is it a girl or boy?” asks Ehlii, one of the other temp workers, but Ari only shrugs.
She doesn’t like to talk about the baby. She doesn’t like to think about the baby. Thinking about the baby means thinking about Tom, and that only leads to sadness and longing and the feel of a playing card against her fingers, as she worries the queen of spades against her skin. She’s detached from her pregnancy and detached from her baby and avoiding her brother, and sometimes, late at night in her miserable bedsit, she pushes down on the growing bump of her belly and wonder how she got here, and what the hell she’s doing with her life.
It’s easier not to think about the baby, really. Easier to keep the baby from her mind.
She goes to her twenty-week scan alone. The radiographer looks tired, taking measurements and making notes, and when he turns to her and asks her boredly if she wants to know the gender, Ari looks just as bored back, shrugging her shoulders.
“Sure,” she says, “why not?”
“A girl,” he says, pointing to an image on the screen of which Ari can make little sense. “You’re having a daughter.”
She takes the single scan image she’s given for free on the NHS straight to her night job, without looking at it as she changes buses, and it’s only when she’s getting out her cleaning supplies, taking care to avoid the sealed bags of satin and silk wedding dresses, that an overwhelming earthquake of raw and unadulterated emotion trembles through her. She drops the cleaning supplies, taking a deep and rasping breath.
They’re having a girl. A girl . A daughter. Tom is having a daughter and he’ll never know.
Abruptly, Ari hates the wedding dresses, sitting on their pretty white hangers in their alabaster white bags. She hates them with the burning passion of a thousand hot suns, seeing in them a future that she and her daughter will never have.
Tom isn’t coming back, Ari thinks bleakly, doubt creeping through her. He’s never coming back for her. If he really loved her, he wouldn’t have left her, not for anything. If he really wanted her, he would have left her with a number, an address... anything other than just a wretched playing card, tired and old.
A token isn’t a future, Ari realises. A token is just an empty promise.
He offered to marry her, but he never meant it, Ari tells herself, tears once again falling from her eyes. She’ll never wear one of these pretty dresses to marry Tom. She’ll never stand by him in a church, vowing to stay with him forever. Ari’s sadness, acute and miserable, stretches forth into the future too, as she realises with a stab of pain that their daughter, if she ever marries one day, will never have her father by her side.
She’s truly alone in this. Placing a hand on her belly, Ari cries again. It’s not just her now. It’s them. Them, and they’re truly alone. Alone, as she’s always been, and as she always will be.
She doesn’t feel the arm that sneaks around her shoulders, holding her as she sobs. She doesn’t register the male presence, making soothing and sympathetic noises in her ear. It’s only when her cries subside, transforming from sobs into soft hiccups, that she startles to find Luis beside her. She jumps up, hurriedly wiping at her eyes, taking a few steps back and adjusting her uniform, hoping it covers her bump.
“Ari,” Luis says, his eyes sweeping over her.
Ari goes pale, dismay causing her stomach to sink. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers, “I’m really sorry.”
“You should probably be sitting down,” Luis remarks, taking in the rounded bump of her belly. “Right?”
She nods sadly. “Right. I am sorry,” she says again, her head down, and she can feel her brother-in-law’s eyes upon her.
“No need to be sorry,” he replies jovially. “Have you seen this place since you started? Spotless. I love it. And you’re having a baby. That’s wonderful news.”
At that, Ari looks up, giving Luis a small smile.
“That’s better.” Luis smiles back. “I’m going to call Sebastian. We should go out for dinner. Celebrate. Oh, and maybe have a little talk too.”
“I didn’t mean to cry,” Ari begins to explain, but Luis holds up his hands good-naturedly.
“Crying women in a wedding dress studio is kind of par for the course,” he tells her. “My brides cry, their mothers cry, their sisters and aunts cry, grandmothers cry... and I guess whoever gets my bill cries too. Come on. Let’s go out and have that talk. I’ll call Sebastian, get him to meet us at the restaurant.”
Luis takes her to a nearby Mexican place, where he scowls at the menu. Salvadoran, he takes his Latin American food seriously.
“My mama would cry if she saw what they put in their tamales here.” Luis shakes his head, before waving the server over. “But their cocktails are amazing,” he adds with a wink. “Two Macuás with extra rum and a virgin pi?a colada.”
They make small talk until Sebastian arrives, and when her brother walks into the restaurant Ari throws herself into his arms and cries. For about five minutes he just holds her, and tells her, again and again, how everything will be okay.
Eventually, when she’s all cried out, Sebastian takes a seat and stares at her. “How far along are you?”
“I just had my twenty-week scan.”
“That’s exciting. Know what you’re having?” Luis asks, sipping at his Macuá, even while Sebastian frowns.
“Twenty weeks?” Sebastian asks. “And you’ve only just told us?”
Wordlessly, Ari pulls her scan picture from her pocket, and hands it to the two of them.
Sebastian looks at it blankly. “I don’t know what I’m looking at here.”
“It’s a girl.”
Luis grins at her. “That’s amazing, congratulations,” he says, and even Sebastian smiles.
At that, Ari’s lip wobbles, and she takes a deep breath, which is not lost upon them. She tries to regain her composure, chewing on her lip, before straightening up and tucking the scan picture back into her coat.
“Sorry,” she whispers again.
Luis looks at her curiously. “Have you eaten this evening, Ari?”
She gives him an odd look. “What?”
“You’re really thin for a woman twenty weeks pregnant. No wonder we had no idea. Are you eating well? Getting enough vitamins?”
She shrugs. A look crosses Luis and Sebastian’s faces, and Sebastian grabs the menu.
“Ooh, tamales,” he says, but Luis makes a face.
“No,” Luis says. “No food from here. Let’s take her home. I’ll feed her.”
Later, with food in her belly and a warm cup of tea pressed into her hands, they ask about the baby’s father once more. Ari feels better about the world — nothing feels as bleak as it did earlier. The cloak of sadness that has covered her since Tom’s departure feels lighter, and she smiles easily, stroking the curve of her bump and telling Luis and Sebastian all about Tom and their six-month romance.
“Tom’s father is sick, but he’s coming back for me,” she finishes, pulling out the queen of spades playing card and showing it to them proudly. It’s a token of Tom’s love, she reminds herself. How could she have ever doubted him?
“But what if he...” Luis begins, but Ari cuts him off.
“He’s coming back for me. Coming back for us. He promised.”
* * *
Tom’s hand was cool in her own, and Ari shook it with a feeling of utter and complete detachment. There was a loaded silence in the room, and it suddenly occurred to Ari how ridiculous this all must seem.
Tom was here and she was here and their daughter stood behind them, and everyone in the room seemed to know it except for Tom’s blushing bride-to-be, who smiled sweetly all the while. Abruptly, Ari dropped her hand, brushing it against her thigh.
“I’m Ari,” she offered, although how she spoke through a dry and brittle throat was a mystery to her. “Ari Lightowler.”
“Ari,” Tom said softly, and he gazed at her with eyes that seemed full of... not wonder, not quite awe, but something else.
Regret, her mind immediately offered. He’s looking at you with regret.
Regret that he ever met her, probably. Regret that she was here today, to ruin his bride’s special moment. Standing taller, Ari cleared her throat. She would be the height of professionalism, the wedding planner of the century. She would be so professional, in fact, that he would never look at her and see the Ari he’d known in Europe. Tom might regret having romanced her, once upon a time, but he would never regret hiring her, she decided viciously.
“This is Mr De León,” Ari carried on, “he’s here to design your bride’s gown,” she emphasised the word bride, letting it hang in the air for a moment.
She was a professional, but still, she wanted to see him squirm a little. She’d given birth to his child and had earned a moment of pettiness.
His child. Reaching out, Ari took Reine’s hand, gently pulling her daughter to her side. Reine cuddled into Ari’s waist, and Ari ran a hand over her daughter’s soft hair.
“This is Reine,” Ari said calmly, though her heart was hammering inside her chest. “My daughter. I’m so sorry I had to bring her with me,” she caught Tom’s eyes and held them bitterly. “I’m a single mother. I had childcare issues.”
“No, that’s... um... that’s fine,” Tom stammered, and he dropped Ari’s gaze. Ari watched as his eyes darted suddenly over Reine, and she found herself holding her breath.
Please love her, her heart inexplicably begged. Please love her as I do.
But Tom said nothing, staring at Reine dumbly. His face was still and impassive, devoid of any emotion, and he made no move to talk to their child. Behind her, Ari felt both Sebastian and Luis take a possessive step forwards. They were ready, Ari realised, to pounce into action at any moment.
Not that they needed to. Pushing her son out of the way with a look of pure exasperation on her face, Marnie Somerset dropped to her knees next to Reine, brushing a stray hair gently from the girl’s eyes.
“My, my, my,” Marnie exhaled. “Oh my.”
In Marnie’s voice and face Ari found the emotion she’d been desperately searching for in Tom. Her daughter’s grandmother stared at Reine with the awe and wonder Ari had hoped for, and Ari saw the older woman’s face soften as she smiled at the small girl.
“I’m Marnie,” she said gently, “and you must be a very tired little lamb.”
“Yes,” Reine admitted, still clinging to Ari’s hips.
“She’s had a hell of a long day,” Luis admitted, stepping forward to run his hand over Reine’s head, affection in his voice. “ Quieres dormir un poco ahora, mi sol? Necesito trabajar, pero el tío puede llevarte arriba a tu habitación .”
“ Quiero que mami venga conmigo ,” Reine replied, and Ari blanched. Her Spanish was awkward — nowhere near the fluency of her daughter, who’d spent her life speaking with her Salvadoran uncle — but still, she recognised I want my mummy when she heard it.
Instantly, she felt like a terrible mother. Reine hadn’t seen Ari in days, had travelled over four thousand miles in the last twenty-four hours, and was probably jet lagged, tired and hungry. It was only natural for her to want her mother.
“Baby, I have to work—” Ari started to reply, before Marnie held up her hand.
“ Tu madre puede llevarte arriba de inmediato ,” she began, in fluent Spanish. “ Te he preparado una habitación. Y cuando te despiertes, quizás tú y yo podamos jugar juntas. Si tu madre y tus tíos están de acuerdo con eso? ”
Luis looked at Marnie quizzically, and the older woman shrugged.
“I did languages at Harvard. It was good for the business. I take it Reine is fluent in Spanish too?”
Luis nodded and a glint of satisfaction passed through Marnie’s eyes. At that, Sebastian stepped forwards.
“She’s also learning French,” he said proudly. “She’s our clever cookie. Although she’s only taking French because of that ridiculous school Ari makes her attend.”
“Ridiculous school?” Marnie asked.
“Reine goes to a state school ,” Sebastian said, barely repressing a shudder. “She should be at St Paul’s Girl School, learning a useful language. Like Latin.”
“Latin is not a useful language,” Luis scoffed, and Ari saw Sebastian turn to him.
“I beg your pardon, but I learned Latin at St Paul’s.”
“And how often do you use it?”
“Often enough.”
“Fine, fine, fine,” Luis shrugged. “Next time we take Reine on a city break to ancient Rome , I’ll remember to get you to order the table wine.”
“With that attitude, you won’t be getting any wine at all on our next city break. Or anything else you normally partake of at night , you uncouth swine—”
“Excuse me?” A tight, irritated voice rang out, and Ari turned to Sasha, who looked annoyed to high hell. Her lips were pressed together tightly, and the hand that wasn’t clasped within Tom’s was held against her hip. “Um, this is my wedding, and my initial dress fitting? Let Ari take her brat upstairs and—”
“Don’t call her that,” Tom abruptly interrupted. Though his voice was soft, there was a hard note to it that made everyone take notice.
“Tom,” Sasha whined, “she shouldn’t even be here. She’s ruining my moment—”
“She isn’t ruining anything,” Tom replied, though once again, his eyes had locked with Ari’s. They were soft and imploring, and Ari’s breath caught in her throat.
It had been years, but his eyes still made her stomach jump and heart race.
“No, she’s not,” Marnie agreed. “Right, Ari honey, you take Reine upstairs. I’ve had the decorators open the windows to air the smell of paint out. But if it’s still too strong, let her sleep in your room. Reine’s the priority here—”
“Reine is not the priority here,” Sasha cut in, indignation all over her face. “ I’m the priority. I’m the fucking bride here.”
“Don’t use that kind of language in front of my—” Marnie paused, collecting herself. “In front of Reine. She’s a child. Ari will take her upstairs, and you can take Mr De León upstairs for your initial dress fitting.”
“Sasha has big ideas for her dress,” Ari said softly, although her eyes never left Tom’s. “Once I’ve settled Reine, I’ll come through to help with the fitting.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Marnie intoned. “You’ll take a moment of your own. We’ll all have dinner together tonight. We can talk about—”
“—about the wedding ,” Sebastian slid in, warning in his voice. “We can all talk about the wedding then, can’t we?”
“Yes.” Marnie nodded, her tone indicating she understood exactly what Sebastian was saying. “We can all talk about the wedding then. I think I have a few questions about the wedding of my own.”
“Darling, we all have questions we want answered about the wedding ,” Sebastian agreed. “I’ve been thinking about the wedding for years.”
“Right, so then, that’s a plan,” Marnie nodded. “Ari, my love, you get this little sweetheart of yours up to bed to get some sleep. Sasha,” Marnie’s eyes narrowed, “you take Mr De León to the morning parlour to take your measurements. And Tom—” abruptly, Marnie turned to her son, though Ari noticed he didn’t take his eyes from hers, they were still staring at each other, still drinking one another in “—Tom, you come with me and Sebastian here. We can start talking about the, uh, the—”
“ The wedding ,” filled in Sebastian smoothly. “Although in Latin that would be nuptia . Or proditio ,” he added, his eyes narrowing at Tom. “Depending on how you look at it.”
With a silent nod, Ari tore her eyes from Tom’s, taking Reine’s little hand within her own. It worried her how little he was looking at Reine. It worried her how little interest he was taking in their child. He’d been staring at her, imploring her to be silent, she realised. He didn’t want his dirty little secret reaching Sasha’s ears. Didn’t want to spoil his precious bride’s happy day. Ari felt her heart harden against him. She would keep his secret, she knew.
But she wouldn’t make it easy for him.
“Sasha, remember to take off all your jewellery but your engagement ring,” Ari said coolly, keeping Reine’s hand in hers while turning to the bride.
“Why?” Sasha asked.
“In art, we’d call it a blank canvas,” Ari explained. “Luis will design your gown to complement you and your engagement ring. Your token of Mr Somerset’s love .” She restrained the anger in her voice. “Any other jewellery might spoil the effect.”
“Oh, that’s a good tip,” Sasha smiled, blooming under everyone’s attention once more. “And my engagement ring is beautiful, isn’t it?”
She held out her hand, letting the light catch the massive diamond ring on her finger.
“It’s lovely,” Ari agreed, her voice catching on a lump in her throat.
He’d given Sasha this ring. A token of his love.
“Diamonds are the most valuable of all gems,” Sasha intoned, smiling at her ring. “Thank God Marnie wouldn’t let Tom give me the Somerset family ring. That hideous, sapphire thing—”
“What?” Marnie straightened. “I never said Tom couldn’t have the Somerset ring. Tom, I—”
Ari turned to Tom, who had gone pale. Why hasn’t he given Sasha that ring? she wondered.
But Sasha didn’t seem to care. “I’m sure Tom had his reasons. Besides, diamonds are worth more than sapphires. And Ari’s right. It is a pretty token of his love.”
“Yes,” Ari agreed, squeezing Reine’s hand within her own. “Yes, it is.”
She turned away, biting on her lip hard. It was the only way to stop the tears that were building from beginning to fall.
He gave Sasha a ring, she thought again, hurt building within her.
The only token he’d ever given her was a worthless piece of card.