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“Marriage means nothing."
As these three words escape Danny's lips, Mindy feels her heart crumble to dust within her chest. Marriage, the thing she's dreamed of since she first learned the meaning of the word “love”, the thing that means everything to her, it means nothing to him. To the love of her life, the father of her child, marriage means nothing. The red in her cheeks flushes darker, angry.
“It means something to me,” she says firmly, but the waves of sorrow in her heart threaten to extinguish the flame raging in her mind. Her voice wavers, her solidarity failing her, “and how do you know it wouldn't go well with us? Why do I not get to try it out?” She stares into his dark eyes, her own brimming with tears, searching for some sign of security.
He stares back, searching hers for some sign of understanding or forgiveness or even acceptance. “Look,” Danny begins, unsure of what he's going to say to make this right, “I love you so much.” Words that are true, but words that are void of the promises she needs to hear.
Mindy shakes her head and breaks her hold with his eyes, “I know you love me.” She tries her hardest to choke back the tears, but to no avail, “but it's not fair.”
As the tears escape her eyes and stream down her burning cheeks, she turns to leave the room. Her heart is pounding in her chest, a gavel in the hand of fate. As she walks away from Danny, she thinks of everything that's missing, everything she's losing, everything they could've had. She can't tell if it's her head spinning or the world, but suddenly, she can't feel her feet beneath her. As she reaches for the door handle, it is engulfed in a cloud of gray and she feels herself falling. She doesn't feel the ground, however, but instead, the warmth of strong arms cradling her gently to the floor. If not for the frantic shouts, she might've thought them the arms of an angel. “Mindy?! Min, can you hear me?! Min!” She can barely feel his hands cradling her face and can barely make out his worried eyes behind the gray cloud that masks her vision as a heaviness threatens to shut her eyelids. Just as she decides she can't hold her eyes open any longer, she feels a droplet of water sizzling on her burning cheek and hears the whimper of the two words that just might save her, “I'm sorry.”