Just hours before my wedding, I stopped by my sister’s house to pick up one final item. As I reached the hallway, I overheard her speaking quietly with our parents about a plan they had kept from me.

The state correctional facility sitting thirty miles outside the city limits was a bleak, concrete fortress surrounded by high chain-link fences topped with razor wire.

In the visitation room, separated by a thick pane of scratched, bulletproof plexiglass, sat Sydney.

She wore no makeup. Her hair was tied back in a messy ponytail, and her oversized grey sweater barely concealed her heavily pregnant stomach. She held the black telephone receiver to her ear with a pale, trembling hand.

On the other side of the glass sat Jason.

His orange jumpsuit was worn at the elbows. His eyes were sunken, dark circles carved deep into his skin from sleepless nights in a shared cell block. He picked up his receiver, looking at Sydney with a mixture of quiet resentment and exhaustion.

“Why did you come here, Sydney?” Jason asked, his voice coming through the small speaker in the glass frame, sounding tinny and flat. “I told my lawyer I didn't want any visitors.”

“I had nowhere else to go, Jason,” Sydney whispered, tears welling in her eyes as she looked at him through the glass. “The baby is coming in two weeks. I can’t pay the hospital down-payment. I can’t pay my rent for next month. My father won't answer my calls, and Mom is in Ohio telling everyone I ruined her life.”

Jason let out a harsh, bitter scoff through the receiver. “You ruined my life! You and your father! You told me Meline was a pushover! You told me she’d sign whatever paperwork we put in front of her! You said she was an idiot who worked support calls!”

“She was!” Sydney cried out, pressing her hand against the cold glass. “She was quiet! She never fought back! How was I supposed to know she was a millionaire security expert who was recording us through the door?!”

“Because you didn't care to know!” Jason snapped, his voice rising, drawing a warning glance from the correctional officer standing near the wall. “You were so busy using people, so busy pretending you were better than everyone else, that you didn't notice she was ten times smarter than all of us combined!”

Sydney buried her face in her free hand, sobbing quietly in the sterile visitation room. “What are we going to do, Jason? What am I going to do with this baby?”

Jason looked at her through the glass, his eyes completely devoid of the charm, romance, or affection he had used to deceive her a year ago.

“You’re going to do what Meline did,” Jason said coldly. “You’re going to suffer the consequences of your own choices. Don't come back here, Sydney. I have eight years to sit in this cell, and I don't want to waste another second looking at you.”

Jason slammed the black receiver back onto its hook, stood up from his stool, and signaled to the guard. He walked through the heavy steel door back toward the cell block without looking back once.

Sydney sat alone at the small counter, holding the dead receiver to her ear, listening to the hollow hum of the line.

Across town, high above the bustling streets on the forty-second floor of her modern corporate tower, Meline Vance stepped into the executive boardroom.

The twenty board members stood up as she entered, bowing their heads in respect.