She said she wanted to keep the baby—he nodded and drove her straight to a hospital.

Arguing through a crack

Through the narrow crack of the window, words flew back and forth between us like sparks. Drew tried to keep his explanations calm, but they seemed fragile, improvised - little more than thin threads holding the truth together. "He took me by surprise," he began, but I cut him off immediately. "This isn't just a surprise, Drew!" I snapped, my voice quivering with anger and disappointment. Every sentence became a tug on an invisible rope, an endless tug-of-war of justifications and accusations. The tiny gap between us turned into a battlefield - narrow, but blazing with unspoken truth.

A peaceful moment, observed

At that moment, another car pulled up next to us, and I couldn't help but watch the couple get out - their fingers intertwined, their faces calm and carefree. It was a fleeting scene, almost banal in its simplicity, and yet it struck me deeply. This effortless tenderness between them was a sharp contrast to the charged tension that hung in the air between Drew and me. As they laughed and walked away, I felt painfully how far we had drifted from that feeling - as if we had lost something precious along the way that now felt unreachable. They were the reflection of a life that could once have been ours, before secrets and silence overshadowed everything.