Eight years after losing my daughter, my IVF treatments finally succeeded, and I was pregnant with a new life. But just one week before my due date, I was in a severe car accident, nearly killing both me and my unborn child. The driver who hit me was the exact same man who had run over and killed my daughter eight years ago. The moment I was discharged from the hospital, I went straight to the police precinct to provide a statement and press charges. But that very night, the case was dropped. At the station, I saw my husband—the man who hadn't visited me a single time while I was fighting for my life in the ICU. Standing right beside him was a young, crying woman. "It was an accident," the girl sobbed pitifully. "If Evelyn hadn't gone out in the middle of the night, the crash wouldn't have happened. My dad is innocent." "Carter, I was separated from my dad for eight years because of her. I really don't want to know what it feels like to lose him again. Please, you have to help me." Carter pulled her into his arms, his eyes brimming with absolute devotion. "Shh, be good. I'm here. Nothing is going to happen to your dad." … The words of confrontation choked in my throat. Before I could even react, Carter turned to me, his face turning ice-cold. "The charges have been dropped. I've already spoken to the District Attorney and signed a waiver of prosecution on your behalf. Drop it, Evelyn. Don't pursue this anymore." I stared into Carter's calm, emotionless eyes. My voice was completely hoarse. "You know exactly how much I sacrificed to get pregnant with this child. You know how desperately I needed this baby. Why?" "Why are you doing this to me?" My voice was barely a whisper. Carter's pupils trembled for a fraction of a second before hardening back into cold indifference. "We can always have another child. We can try again." "But Chloe can't lose her father again." I let out a broken, hollow laugh. I lost all strength to argue. This was the eighth year since I lost my daughter. It was the ninth month of carrying my new baby. For eight long years, there wasn't a single second where I didn't pray to the universe to give me a second chance. I promised I would protect this tiny new life with everything I had. I swore I would never let her get hurt. But I never even got to see her face. Before I could even process what was happening, the suspect—Frank—was released from the holding cell. Walking out into the lobby, the heavy-set man gave Carter a sycophantic, greasy smile. "You're a reasonable man, Mr. Vance. This whole thing was just a big misunderstanding. Honestly, maybe your wife is just cursed to be barren. No matter how hard she tries, she just can't keep a kid." "But hey, no worries! My daughter is currently carrying your seed, right? Twins, too! Now that's what I call a real blessing." I couldn't even stand up straight. This man standing in front of me had destroyed my life twice. And now, he had the absolute audacity to stand here and mock me. I lost all control. I hurled the cell phone in my hand directly at his face. Frank didn't dodge. The heavy phone smacked squarely into the bridge of his nose, and blood instantly gushed out. Almost simultaneously, Chloe let out a delicate, terrified shriek. "Why are you hitting my dad?! He was legally released! They proved he did nothing wrong! What gives you the right to attack him?!" She aggressively snatched my phone off the floor and hurled it right back at my head. I didn't hesitate. I tilted my head to dodge it, and my eyes locked directly with Carter's. His brow was deeply furrowed, his eyes filled with absolute disgust toward me. Seeing that the phone missed me, Chloe was visibly upset. She stomped her foot and rushed up to me, crying hysterically. "I know you're not going to let this go! You're still holding a grudge against my dad!" "Aren't you just mad that my dad accidentally made you miscarry? Fine! I'll make it up to you! Beat me until I miscarry right now! I have two babies in my belly—if I pay you back with two lives for your one, will that be enough?!" She grabbed my hand and forcefully yanked it toward her own face. I didn't even move a muscle, but she violently threw herself backward, screaming as she crashed onto the hard floor. Before I could even blink, Carter shoved past me. He scooped Chloe up into his arms, turning back to glare at me with eyes full of pure rage. "Evelyn, do you have any idea that assault is a felony?!" "For years, my heart broke for you over losing Lily. I tolerated your manic episodes and put up with your irrational tantrums because I pitied you." "But that doesn't give you the right to do whatever you want!" "If anything happens to Chloe or the babies, I swear to God I will not let you get away with this." He turned and carried her out. Frank jogged obediently behind them. Nestled in Carter's arms, Chloe shot me a look of pure, triumphant malice over his shoulder. Meeting her gaze, I thought I should be furious. I should be screaming. Just like I had been for the past eight years. But for some reason, in this exact moment, my heart was nothing but a desolate, dead wasteland. Suddenly, I just felt incredibly tired. 2 I stumbled out of the precinct, my steps uneven and heavy. My emotional state was terrifyingly calm. I hadn't even made it home when Carter called me. "Chloe is an emotional wreck. I need you to come here and apologize to her. Promise her you won't pull a stunt like that ever again." "I'll text you the address. I'm sending a driver to pick you up." Carter's voice was dead serious, driving needles directly into my heart. I couldn't stop my body from trembling. "Apologize? What exactly did I do wrong?" His tone grew impatient. "Now is not the time to argue about who is right and wrong. Chloe is young. She gets scared easily, she's pregnant with twins, and her hormones are all over the place." "She just wants you to admit you were wrong and give her some peace of mind. You've been pregnant before. You should have some empathy for how she's feeling right now." I let out a cold, bitter laugh. "Carter, I would rather die than apologize to the daughter of a murderer." The line went silent for a few seconds. When he spoke again, his voice was like ice. "Evelyn, are you deliberately forcing my hand?" Immediately after, I heard Chloe's devastating, hysterical crying in the background. "Even if Evelyn hates me, she shouldn't insult me like that!" "I was bullied my entire childhood because my dad was in prison! It's my deepest trauma! How could she use that against me?!" I was so furious my vision blurred. My lower abdomen, still healing from the recent miscarriage, throbbed with a dull, sickening pain. I was about to scream back when the line suddenly went dead. I instinctively looked at my screen. My phone had died. Unable to call an Uber, I had to slowly, painfully drag myself all the way back to our house. At the front door, a mountain of newly delivered packages covered the porch. They were all the baby clothes and toys I had meticulously prepared for the new life I was supposed to bring into this world. Now, they felt like a cruel, mocking joke. Shutterstock Inside, the house was filled with the remnants of my sixteen-year marriage to Carter. There was no denying that once upon a time, Carter had loved me with every fiber of his being. Even when I fell into severe clinical depression after Lily died, he never complained. He patiently drove me to every psychiatrist in the state. About two years ago, I finally started to heal and wanted to look toward the future again. Because my body had suffered from the trauma, getting pregnant naturally was nearly impossible. I went through grueling cycles of IVF hormone injections and embryo transfers to prepare my body. In the beginning, Carter supported me without a single complaint. He found the best fertility clinics and hired the top specialists. But cycle after cycle failed, and I suffered multiple mental breakdowns. It was Carter who held me, comforted me, and promised me: "No matter what happens, I will always be right here with you." Until I finally, miraculously got pregnant. I would never forget how ecstatic I was. I cried and thanked God over and over for giving my baby back to me. But it was a high-risk pregnancy. To ensure the baby survived, I gave up my career and my entire social life, staying on bed rest, guarding this tiny life with everything I had. I was just one week away from finally seeing her. And then, the "accident" happened. I collapsed onto the living room sofa. The massive, empty house hadn't felt like a home in a very long time. When exactly did things start going wrong? Six months ago, I slipped in the bathroom, and I started spotting. It was my first major scare. In a blind panic, I called Carter. But the person who rushed through the door to take me to the ER was his executive assistant. After a terrifying night in the hospital, the doctors managed to stabilize the pregnancy. Carter didn't show up until dawn. He smelled faintly of a women's perfume. He told me: "There was a massive crisis with the new project. I'm so sorry." I believed him. Five months ago, an anomaly showed up on an anatomy scan. I had a complete breakdown and called him frantically, but he didn't pick up. I agonized for an entire sleepless night until noon the next day. When Carter finally answered, his voice was groggy. He had clearly just woken up. "Honey, don't worry. We hired the best doctors. They won't let anything happen to you." There were so many other moments. Too many to count. Tears spilled over my eyelashes, falling drop by drop onto my hands. But why, out of all the women in the world, did it have to be his daughter? Carter knew better than anyone how much agony I went through when Lily died. I tried to end my own life multiple times. It was his love that kept me anchored to this earth. And now? I hugged my knees to my chest, the physical and emotional pain tearing me apart from the inside. Before I could even process my grief, the front door was violently kicked open. Carter stood in the doorway, his face twisted in absolute fury. "Why the hell did you hang up on me?!" "Do you know Chloe almost jumped off a balcony because of what you said?! You almost killed three people today, do you understand that?!" 3 I stared coldly directly into his eyes. "And?" "Tell me exactly which part of what I said was a lie." Carter's eyes darkened. He let out an exasperated, furious sigh. "Why can't you just be a little more forgiving? Have some basic human decency! Is it really that hard to just say 'I'm sorry'? Why did you have to escalate things to this point?!" Carter was practically shouting, totally losing control of his temper. I took several deep breaths, fighting through the heavy, dragging pain in my lower pelvis. My voice came out weak but sharp. "Carter. So she really is pregnant with your children?" He went dead silent. I let out a mocking laugh. "You cheat on me while I'm pregnant, get your mistress pregnant with twins, and now you have the sheer audacity to stand in my house and demand to know why I won't apologize to her? Carter, do you not hear how absolutely psychotic you sound?" He didn't look away. He stared right back at me without a shred of guilt. "Yes. I admit it. Those are my kids." "I was slipped something at a corporate dinner by a rival firm. It was a setup to ruin me. If I had lost control, my entire career would have been destroyed." "At first, I fought it. I held onto my sanity and told myself I couldn't betray you. I called you, I texted you, I just wanted to hear your voice to ground myself! And what did you do?" "You got annoyed. You said you needed your sleep for the baby, and you hung up on me." "If Chloe hadn't miraculously been there... if she hadn't sacrificed her own purity to save me, everything I own today would be gone!" Carter's eyes were practically glowing with self-righteous justification. "The twins were an accident. But Chloe saved my life, and I owe her. I will not abandon her." He stopped talking. I stared at him for a second, and then I just started laughing. It was true. At that time, I was on strict bed rest. I was so terrified of losing the baby that I shut out everything else in the world. I guess I ignored his needs. I didn't see his "pain." Looking at Carter, I suddenly felt incredibly exhausted. Suppressing his anger, he continued: "Evelyn, it's not that I don't love you anymore. It's just... after all these years, I'm just so... tired." He crouched down, grabbing his hair in frustration. "I am so fucking tired, Evelyn." "You lost Lily, and you've been depressed for eight years. I stayed by your side. I stayed devoted to you. Every time you broke down, every time you tried to kill yourself and made a massive public scene, my heart broke for you." "But I forgot what happiness actually felt like. I was just numbly keeping you alive." "Until I met Chloe..." When he said her name, a genuine, undeniable look of peace and happiness washed over his face. In that fraction of a second, I finally understood. There was no going back. In his mind, I was the anchor of his misery. And Chloe was his fresh, shiny new happiness. He was never going to choose me again. I looked at the face of the man who had pulled me out of the abyss so many times, and I finally let it go. If the future was only going to be darkness, then it was time to end it here. "Carter. Let's get a divorce." "I hope you're happy. I really mean that." 4 Carter rejected it without a second of hesitation. "Evelyn, we are not getting a divorce." "All you have to do is go apologize. Once Chloe cools down, I won't hold this against you, and I will love you just as much as I always have." "Don't worry. What belongs to you, I won't give to anyone else." He said it with such absolute certainty, and it was the most repulsive thing I had ever heard. "One wife at home, and a family on the side? Carter, how does that not make you want to vomit?" He swallowed his irritation and was about to argue when his phone started ringing frantically. It was Chloe. Through the speaker, the young girl was sobbing heavily, her voice choked with tears as she apologized: "It's my fault, Carter. I shouldn't have made things difficult for you, and I shouldn't have forced Evelyn to apologize." "Maybe our meeting was a tragedy from the very beginning. I shouldn't have asked for so much. But I'm a traditional girl. Since my body is ruined and I can't have a normal family, I don't have the face to keep living." "Carter... if there is a next life, I hope I meet you earlier. And I hope I don't have such a shameful family background. I just want to love you, cleanly, just once." The call abruptly disconnected. Carter looked like he was going to lose his mind. He grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the door, screaming at me as we moved. "All it took was one apology! Just one! But you had to push her to the brink of death!" "Evelyn, you better pray to God she is okay, otherwise..." I didn't hear the rest of his threat. He shoved me into his car and sped through the city streets like a maniac. My consciousness was starting to blur. I felt a warm, thick fluid pooling beneath me, gushing out in waves. The internal injuries from the car crash hadn't healed at all. I had forced myself out of the hospital on sheer adrenaline, desperate to seek justice. But now, my body was giving out. The pain became so blinding that it eventually turned to numbness. Carter was yelling the entire drive, but all I could see were his bloodshot, manic eyes. When we finally arrived at the hospital, he violently yanked me out of the passenger seat. He didn't even look at me. He just dragged me down the sterile hallways. Walking faster and faster. Feeling my mind slipping away into the dark, I used the very last ounce of strength I had to beg him: "Carter... I can't hold on... please... slow down." "I'm really dying." He didn't stop. He walked even faster. I was only moving forward because his grip on my arm was dragging my dead weight. I lost count of how many times my knees gave out and hit the floor, only for Carter to violently yank me back up. Finally, we reached Chloe's hospital room. The fluorescent lights were blinding, but my vision was completely black around the edges. Carter's voice sounded like it was coming from underwater. "Apologize. Just apologize, and everything will be fine." Will everything be fine? The question echoed in my decaying mind. If I apologized... would everything I lost come back? My beautiful Lily? The baby that was torn from my womb? The beautiful life I used to have? Would any of it come back? I opened my mouth, and slowly, agonizingly, I spoke. "I'm sorry." I heard Chloe's voice instantly lighten up. "Actually, I wasn't trying to make things hard for you, Evelyn. I just wanted some basic respect." "I didn't do anything wrong. I shouldn't be judged. I've suffered so much unfair discrimination because of my dad's past." "So I just wanted justice." "Since you apologized, I forgive you. It's not a big deal." As Chloe's words faded, my consciousness completely collapsed. Everything that disgusted me, everything that made me sick to my stomach, everything that caused me agony... it all faded into perfect peace, turning to dust in the void. Memories flashed before my eyes like a movie reel. And it was all Carter's face. Further back... further back... it was the three of us. Our family, holding hands, laughing in the sun. I reached out desperately, trying to grab those memories, praying I could stay in that moment forever. But in the end, there was only silence. Forget it. It ends here. All the love, all the hate. Let it all end. I closed my eyes and sank into the heavy dark. 5 "Evelyn, I just asked you to apologize! What kind of stunt are you pulling now?!" Seeing me collapse motionlessly onto the floor, Carter frowned, his eyes filled with absolute impatience. "I told you, if you just apologized, I would drop it! Chloe isn't even mad anymore, do you really want to make her upset again?!" "Evelyn, what is the point of this? Can you stop disappointing me?!" He kept rambling, every word a bitter complaint. But my body on the floor didn't react. He sighed heavily. From the hospital bed, Chloe immediately turned on the waterworks. "So she didn't mean the apology at all! I should have known! She's looked down on me from the very beginning, why would she suddenly give in? She's just trying to frame me!" "When people hear about this, they're going to say I bullied her until she passed out." "Carter, just go take care of her. Don't worry about me." "I've always been completely alone anyway." Chloe's tears fell so perfectly, and Carter's eyes practically melted with heartbreak. "She's faking it! Don't blame yourself, she is completely fine." "I've dealt with her hypochondria for eight years, you think I don't know her? Her 'depression' is just a pathetic excuse to run away from the fact that she failed to protect her own daughter." "Chloe, I promise you, as long as I'm here, I will never let anyone hurt you again. Don't be scared..." Carter pulled Chloe tightly into his chest, not sparing a single glance for my body lying near the doorway. Even though my soul had already left my body, even though my heart was completely empty, hearing those words sent a violent, agonizing tremor through my ghost. He was right. For years and years, I blamed myself. I blamed myself for failing to protect my baby girl. I blamed myself for taking that specific route home that day. I blamed myself for not throwing my body in front of the truck to save her. It was Lily's sixth birthday. Carter hadn't gotten off work yet, so I was taking Lily to the restaurant we had booked. Even now, every detail of that day was permanently burned into my soul. Lily was holding my hand, skipping happily down the sidewalk. "Mommy, can we go to Daddy's office and surprise him?!" "I've never seen Daddy's office! I really miss him, I want to see him right now!" I thought about it, smiled, and agreed. Because of that split-second decision, we took a detour. Less than 500 feet from Carter's office building... A massive commercial truck, speeding out of control, barreled directly into the crosswalk. Everything happened in excruciatingly slow motion. I really did blame myself. For eight years, every time I closed my eyes, my brain replayed the scene. I constantly tortured myself, thinking: If I had just reacted a second faster... if I had just pushed her a little harder... If I hadn't made that stupid, spontaneous decision, everything would be different. Lily was lying on the asphalt. She was covered in blood. Her eyes were open, and the very last thing she ever said to me was: "Mommy... do I still get to have my birthday?" Those words became the eternal nightmare of my life. Carter was right. I desperately wanted to escape. I couldn't accept the brutal reality, which was why I tried to follow her to the grave so many times. But back then, he was the one who stubbornly stayed by my side! How could he use that trauma as a weapon to attack me now?! My phantom heart felt like it was being ripped apart. On the hospital bed, Carter was still gently stroking Chloe's hair. Until a passing nurse let out a blood-curdling scream. "Oh my god, look at all this blood! We need help! Bring a gurney, NOW!" "The patient is completely unresponsive, HURRY!" The sheer panic in the nurse's voice finally snapped Carter out of his trance. He looked down at me on the floor, a rare flicker of panic crossing his eyes. "What blood? What's wrong with her?" He stood up and walked toward me, step by step, until he saw the massive pool of crimson spreading across the white tiles. Carter froze for a few seconds. He stumbled back, before crashing to his knees beside me. "Evelyn! Wake up! What happened to you?!" He grabbed my waist. The blood soaked instantly into his expensive shirt. Behind him, Chloe let out a terrified shriek. "Blood! I can't look at blood! Carter, please come protect me, I'm so scared! I'm so scared!" Carter's body violently flinched. The trauma team rushed in with a gurney. "Are you the husband?! Follow us! The patient is in critical condition, she's crashing!" My body was hoisted onto the gurney. The doctors and nurses sprinted down the hall. Carter scrambled to his feet to follow them. But from the bed, Chloe's crying grew louder. "It's fine. I've always been the one left behind. When I was a kid, and now. People like me don't deserve to be chosen." "When I sacrificed my purity to save you, you did the exact same thing! You had just brutally taken my innocence, I was half-dead in that hotel bed, and the second Evelyn called and said her stomach hurt, you abandoned me in the middle of the night." "And now... as long as Evelyn needs you, I will always be thrown away like trash." "I'm so cheap. I never deserved your love. It's fine, I finally see the truth. Carter... I overestimated your love for me. It ends here. Goodbye." She struggled out of the hospital bed and ran out of the room, sobbing blindly. Carter froze in his tracks. He hesitated for exactly one second. Then, he turned his back to the trauma team and sprinted after Chloe. He completely ignored the shouting doctors. He caught up to Chloe and wrapped his arms around her tightly. "I won't leave you." "No matter what happens, I will never leave you behind again."
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