I stood frozen, stumbling over my words, my voice barely a whisper as I muttered endless apologies. "I’m sorry," I repeated, but the words felt hollow in the air.
He looked at me for a long, torturous moment, his eyes unreadable. Then, as if to shut down the whispers around us, he turned to the crowd. "Sorry for the commotion. Giselle and I are indeed getting engaged soon."
The expressions around us shifted, confusion and surprise flickering across their faces.
Just moments ago, the elders had been discussing Cohen’s upcoming engagement to Imogen. Now, the fiancée had changed, and so had the news: pregnancy was in the mix.
Imogen, ever the gracious actress, stepped in with a smile, taking my arm and guiding me away. But before she did, she leaned in with a sweet, almost mocking tone, saying, "Little girls can be so naive. Cohen, you must take responsibility for her."
With those words, what could have been a gesture of love turned into a heavy shackle of obligation for Cohen.
Now that the baby was gone, I felt an unexpected wave of relief, though it left a strange emptiness behind.