Coming Home To Ashes

“I trusted you with my life and you were planning to carve me open like I was nothing?

The words leave my mouth before I even understand what I’ve just heard. Before I even breathe.

The hallway is still. My keys dangle uselessly from my fingers. I haven’t taken a step past the entrance rug. I haven’t even taken off my shoes. I just stand there, paralyzed because I wasn’t supposed to come home to this. Not this

I was supposed to walk in smiling. I was supposed to rehearse my little speech one more time in the car before blurting it out with shaking hands and teary eyes. I was supposed to tell my husband that after two years of heartbreak and prayers and injections and failed cycles—I’m finally pregnant.

But instead, I’m listening to him speak low and sharp into the phone, pacing our living room like he owns it, like he owns me.

“...No, she doesn’t know. She’s gullible. Sweet, but gullible. I’ll slip it into her tea, make sure she’s out cold. I already got the lab results, they’re a perfect match. We can schedule the surgery by next week…”

The phone crackles. I feel my heartbeat in my throat.

“No, she won’t ask questions. If she does, I’ll handle it. This is for Alina. She’ll understand eventually.”

Alina. Of course it’s Alina.

My stepsister. The one who called me “plain” and “boring” at my own wedding. The one who didn’t speak to me for three years after I married him. The one who only reached out last month out of nowhere because she “wanted to reconnect.”

God. I lean against the wall. My legs can’t hold the weight of this moment. I wish I could un-hear it. Wish I could walk back out and pretend I never came home early.

But I can’t. I drop my keys to the floor. The metal clatters, and like a shot, he whips around.

“Camila?” he says, startled. “You’re home early.”

There’s no guilt on his face. Just surprise.

I stare at him. The same face I fell in love with in high school. The same boy who used to sneak me handwritten notes during chemistry class and kiss my cheek behind the bleachers. The boy I ran away with when my father told me not to. The boy I married at nineteen in a courthouse ceremony that cost me my family.

And now, the man who’s plotting to drug me.

“You were going to sedate me?” I whisper. “Cut me open like I’m not even human?”

He blinks just once and then sets the phone down like he’s annoyed I caught him mid-call.

“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

I let out a laugh that sounds like glass shattering. “That’s your first response?”

“Camila, calm down. It’s not what you think.”

“Really?” I step closer, my chest heaving. “Because I think you were planning to steal my kidney.”

“It’s not stealing if it’s going to save a life.”

My mouth parts. “My life is the one you’re risking.”

“She’s dying,” he snaps. “Alina’s kidneys are shutting down. You’re a match. You could save her, she's your sister”

“And your plan was to sedate me? Drug me like some… animal? Without my consent?”

His jaw clenches. “I knew you’d say no.”

“You didn’t even ask!”

“I know you,” he bites. “You would’ve made it about yourself. About the past. About how Alina was mean to you in high school. How she made you feel invisible.”

“Because she did!” I shout. “You think I forgot all the times she humiliated me? Made me feel like the unwanted daughter?”

He scoffs, arms crossed. “You’re always playing the victim.”

“I was the victim!” I scream. “She had everything. And the one thing I ever had was you but you’re now using me to help her.”

He walks past me like he’s done arguing. Like he’s bored of my pain.

“I thought you were better than this,” he mutters. “But I guess you’re just as selfish as your father said you’d be.”

My breath catches. He knows how much that man’s words still cut. My father never forgave me for marrying Matteo. He called me foolish, naive, blinded by first love. He said Matteo would never see me as more than a doormat. I thought he was wrong.

Now I’m not so sure.

“I left everything for you,” I say quietly. “I walked away from my family. I cut my parents off. I moved into this house with you and made it our life.”

Matteo doesn’t look back. He pours himself a drink like this is just another evening. Like he didn’t just rip my heart out of my chest.

“I gave you two years of my body,” I go on, my voice trembling. “Two years of needles and hormones and crying in the bathroom every time the test came back negative. I begged you to stay hopeful with me. And you promised me we’d be parents.”

He sips his whiskey. “Yeah, well. We’re not there yet.”

I place a hand over my stomach. A quiet war starts in my chest.

Because I am there now. He just doesn’t know it. “I’m pregnant,” I whisper.

But I say it too softly. My voice doesn’t carry. And I don’t repeat it.

Because something tells me he wouldn’t even care. He’s staring out the window now. His back to me. Like the conversation is over.

So I do the unthinkable. “I’ll do it,” I say. He turns slowly. “What?”

“I’ll donate my kidney.” His brow lifts. “You’re serious?”

I nod. Numb. Hollow. My heart is screaming, but my mouth betrays it.

“You win,” I murmur. “Alina gets what she needs.”

There’s a flicker of something on his face. Not relief nor guilt. Just... satisfaction.

“Good,” he says. “You’re doing the right thing.”

I look down at my hands. They’re shaking. I curl them into fists.

“You don’t even love me anymore, do you?”

He hesitates. That’s all the answer I need. I turn and walk upstairs, each step heavier than the last.

In our bedroom, I lock the door. I fall onto the edge of the bed and bury my face in my hands.

The silence wraps around me like a noose. My body trembles not from fear, but from rage, from sorrow, from the weight of everything I thought I knew crashing down in seconds.

My phone buzzes. A reminder notification. “First prenatal appointment – Tomorrow at 10:00 AM.”

I stare at the screen until it blurs. Then I place it face down on the nightstand.

I know what I have to do. I won’t tell him. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

I’ll give the kidney. I’ll keep the baby safe. I’ll pretend to be the wife he wants until I figure out who I am without him.But deep down, something inside me has already changed and there’s no going back.

Author’s Note. She gave everything, her heart, her hope, her soul to a man who only knew how to destroy. But even shattered things find a way to shine again…

And sometimes, love doesn’t come with safety. Sometimes, it waits in the eyes of the one you were told never to want.

This is her journey...raw, aching, and beautifully forbidden. If you’re ready to fall with her… turn the page.

Ur baddie author, Alicia p is back👌