The needle slides into my arm with a familiar pinch.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve done this now.
Three times this month alone.
The nurse’s hands are steady, professional, but her eyes flicker with something that might be pity.
I look away.
I don’t want to see it.
“Just relax, Mrs.
Martinez.
This will only take a few minutes.”
Mrs.
Martinez.
The name still feels foreign on my tongue, even after five years.
Five years of being called by a name that was never really mine.
Five years of being someone else’s property, someone else’s solution.
I watch the blood flow through the clear tube, bright red against the sterile white of the hospital room.
It’s strange to think that this—this crimson liquid running through my veins—is the only reason I exist in this marriage.
The only reason Elijah Martinez looked twice at me.
The only reason I’m sitting in this cold, clinical room while my body slowly drains into a bag.
Isabella needs it.
Isabella always needs something.
I close my eyes and try to remember what it felt like to be wanted for myself.
Not for my blood.
Not for my compliance.
Not for my silence.
Just…
me.
The memory doesn’t come.
I’m twenty-three years old, and I’ve already forgotten what it feels like to be seen.
“How are you feeling, Mrs.
Martinez?”
The nurse’s voice pulls me back.
I open my eyes and force a smile.
“Fine.”
“Just a little more.
You’re doing wonderfully.”
Wonderfully.
That’s what they always say when you’re being useful.
When you’re giving something of yourself that you’ll never get back.
I wonder if they’d still call me wonderful if they knew the truth.
If they knew I wasn’t donating out of kindness, but out of obligation.
If they knew that the man who married me never once asked how I felt about any of this.
The bag fills slowly.
My head starts to feel light.
It always does after the second pint.
The nurses say I’m perfectly healthy, that my body can handle it.
But healthy bodies aren’t supposed to faint.
Healthy bodies aren’t supposed to feel like they’re floating away from themselves.
I grip the armrests of the chair and focus on breathing.
In through the nose, out through the mouth.
The same breathing technique I used during the wedding ceremony.
The same one I use when Elijah walks past me without a word.
The same one I use when Isabella laughs at dinner and everyone joins in.
I’m very good at breathing through pain.
“There we go.
All done.”
The nurse removes the needle with practiced efficiency.
A cotton ball presses against the puncture site, and she tapes it down with gentle fingers.
“You’ll need to rest for a few minutes.
We’ll get you some juice and crackers.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re pale, Mrs.
Martinez.
Just stay seated for a moment.”
I want to argue.
I want to stand up and walk out and prove that I’m not weak, that I’m not fragile, that I can endure anything they throw at me.
But my body has other plans.
The room spins, and I sink back into the chair.
The nurse disappears.
I’m alone with the hum of machines and the distant sound of footsteps in the hallway.
The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, too bright, too cold.
I close my eyes again.
I think about my grandmother.
She used to tell me that strength wasn’t about never falling.
It was about getting back up.
She said it with such conviction, like she’d learned it the hard way.
I never understood what she meant until now.
Now I understand.
Now I know what it feels like to fall and fall and fall, and to keep getting up because there’s no one else to do it for you.
I don’t know how long I sit there.
Minutes, maybe hours.
Time moves differently in this place.
It stretches and contracts like the veins in my arms, always ready to give more than they should.
When I open my eyes again, the room is empty.
The juice and crackers are on the table beside me.
I don’t remember anyone bringing them.
I sit up slowly.
The world tilts, then settles.
I’m okay.
I’m always okay.
Voices drift through the thin curtain.
Nurses, probably.
They don’t know I can hear them.
“He didn’t even wait.”
“Who?”
“Her husband.
Dropped her off like she was a delivery.
Didn’t even come inside.”
“Some people have no decency.”
“Poor thing.
She’s here every week.
You’d think he’d at least—”
The voices fade as they walk away.
I sit frozen in the chair, the words settling into my chest like stones.
He didn’t even wait.
I shouldn’t be surprised.
Elijah never waits for me.
He never waits for anything.
He’s a man who takes what he wants and moves on to the next thing, the next person, the next transaction.
I was never a person to him.
I was a solution.
A means to an end.
A bag of blood with a pulse.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
I’m the unwanted wife, but I’m also the only one who can keep his precious Isabella alive.
Without me, she’d be dead.
Without me, he’d have nothing.
And yet he can’t spare a single moment to make sure I’m okay.
I swing my legs over the side of the chair and stand up.
The room spins violently, and I grab the back of the chair to steady myself.
I wait for the dizziness to pass.
It takes longer than it should.
When I’m finally able to walk, I move toward the curtain.
I pull it back.
The nurses are at the desk, their backs to me.
They don’t see me leave.
The hallway is long and white and endless.
My footsteps echo against the tile floor.
Each step feels like I’m walking through water, dragging myself forward through an invisible resistance.
I pass rooms filled with patients.
Families huddled around beds.
Flowers on windowsills.
Cards taped to doors.
All these small signs that someone cares.
That someone matters.
I have none of that.
No flowers.
No cards.
No family waiting for me.
Just a driver in the parking lot who’ll take me back to the mansion where I’ll sit alone in my room while Elijah and Isabella laugh over dinner.
By the time I reach the exit, I’m dizzy again.
The glass doors slide open, and the afternoon sun hits my face like a slap.
I squint and stumble forward.
The driver is there.
He doesn’t look at me when I get in.
“Home, Mrs.
Martinez?”
“Yes.”
The word tastes like ash.
The drive back to the mansion takes thirty minutes.
I watch the city pass by outside the window.
People walking hand in hand.
Couples laughing at cafes.
Families pushing strollers.
All these lives being lived, being shared, being loved.
I’m not part of any of them.
I’m a ghost in my own existence, floating through a world that doesn’t see me.
The mansion looms ahead.
It’s beautiful, in the way that old money is beautiful.
Grand columns and manicured hedges and windows that catch the light like diamonds.
But it’s cold.
It’s always cold.
I walk through the front door.
The staff barely glances at me.
They’re used to my comings and goings.
Used to my silence.
Used to my invisibility.
I climb the stairs to my room.
My feet drag.
The exhaustion is bone-deep, the kind that sleep can’t fix.
It’s the exhaustion of being unseen.
Of fighting every day to matter and failing.
Of being reduced to a function, a utility, a necessity without being a person.
My room is at the end of the hall.
The furthest from Elijah’s.
The furthest from everything.
It’s a nice room, by anyone’s standards.
Big windows.
A comfortable bed.
A bathroom with a clawfoot tub.
But it’s a prison.
A beautiful, gilded prison.
I sit on the edge of the bed and stare at nothing.
I think about my grandmother again.
She would have hated this.
She would have hated what I’ve become.
She raised me to be strong, to be independent, to be unbreakable.
And I’ve let myself be broken.
I’ve let myself be used.
I’ve let myself become invisible.
But her voice echoes in my mind, the way it always does when I’m at my lowest.
“Strength isn’t never falling.
It’s getting back up.”
I’m still falling.
I’ve been falling for five years.
But maybe, one day, I’ll learn to get back up.
Maybe one day, I’ll find the strength to walk away from all of this.
Maybe one day, I’ll be someone again.
But not today.
Today I’m exhausted.
Today I’m empty.
Today I’m the unwanted wife, sitting alone in her room, trying to remember who she was before she became invisible.
I lie down on the bed and close my eyes.
The ceiling spins.
The room spins.
My blood is still trying to replace what I gave away, and my body is fighting back.
I think about Elijah.
I think about the way he looked at me on our wedding day.
Like I was a stranger.
Like I was a business arrangement.
Like I was something to be tolerated, not cherished.
I think about Isabella.
The way she laughs at dinner, the way she touches his arm, the way she wears the ring that was supposed to be mine.
I think about the hospital.
The nurses whispering behind my back.
Their pity.
Their judgment.
Their certainty that I was a victim.
I hate their pity.
I hate being a victim.
I hate that I’ve become someone to be pitied.
I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling.
Tomorrow, I’ll get up.
Tomorrow, I’ll go back to the hospital.
Tomorrow, I’ll give more blood.
I’ll keep being the solution.
I’ll keep being useful.
I’ll keep being invisible.
But maybe, one day, I’ll find the strength to stop.
Maybe one day, I’ll find the strength to be seen.
I close my eyes again, and the tears come.
Silent and cold.
They slide down my cheeks and soak into my pillow.
I don’t wipe them away.
I let them fall.
I let myself feel the weight of everything I’ve been carrying.
I let myself fall.
And I hope that someday, I’ll be able to get back up.