Chapter 2 - My whole life ruined 

Paige POV 

Tears welled up my eyes, my heart pounding in my chest as fear enveloped me. I can't lose him. I can't bear the thought of giving him away.

I didn't want to.

Not after everything I had sacrificed, I couldn't just bring myself to leave him.

He scoffed, stepping back like my touch was poison. “ Throw us away?” He barked. “ Paige, there was never an us from the start. You were just too blind to see it.”

I felt something crack inside me. “ But I love you,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “ isn't that enough?”

“ No,” he said bluntly. “ It's not.”

His words pierced through my chest like a knife. I dropped to my knees, gripping his jeans, sobbing into his thighs like a woman losing her world….and I was.

Why did I confront him? Why didn't I just keep it to myself like I usually do. I just had to be a blabber mouth and look where that got me.

“ Please,” I cried. “ Please, Ethan. Don't do this. I'll forget everything. I'll pretend it's never happened, just like before. I will do better. I swear. We can make this work. I can't live without you.”

He sucked me away, making me fall backwards onto the cold floor.

“ Get off me, Paige,” he growled, straightening his shirt like I'd dirtied him. “ stop embarrassing yourself, this is pathetic.”

I stared at him from the floor, my tears soaking into the rug. “ You're really doing this?” I whispered. “ After what we've been through?”

He walked past me, picked up his jacket from the chair , and glanced down. “ Pack your things. We're going to the court tomorrow to nullify the marriage. It's over.”

And just like that the door slammed right back at my face leaving me in utter agony and regret.

I sat there, frozen. Once again the clock ticking was the only sound heard across the room apart from my heart beating with so much intense fear ghat i couldn't breath or think.

I stood up slowly, legs wobbling with each step I took. I grabbed my phone and immediately dashed out of the house.

I only realised that I had no coat on when the cold air hit my skin as I ran to God knows where.

But that was less of my concern right now. I couldn't care less if I fell sick. All I cared about was all the time and efforts I have spent for the past five years.

The guilt of my child's death wears on me like a coat of armour. The long forgotten pain bore into me 

Hell no, he was joking. Ethan was joking.

Maybe it was just anger or I was imagining things when he said it. Probably he just wanted to scare me because I confronted him.

Yes, that's why?

That's the only reasonable reason as to why he wants a divorce. I mean all I've been to him was a good wife and partner who did everything he says.

I ran, racing down the street not caring about the curious people staring at me. I wanted to run from the pain, from the betrayal, from the fact that my own sister, my own blood, had slept with the man I gave my life to.

 That he had touched her, kissed her, made a baby with her while still climbing into bed with me and whispering lies into my ears.

I was nothing. I was just a placeholder. A fool.

My vision blurred. My lungs screamed. But I didn’t stop.

I ran till my knees gave way and I collapsed by the side of the road, my body heaving with sobs. People passed by. No one stopped. I was just another broken woman falling apart in the dark.

I hugged myself, curling into a ball. All I could think about was how I had wasted five years. Five years of laughter, pain, trust, dreams. All of it... a lie.

I screamed. Loud and raw. Screamed into the night like it could carry my pain far away. Like it could take it from me.

But the pain stayed. The betrayal stayed. The emptiness swallowed me whole.

No matter what I could never run away from the truth.

Ethan didn’t love me. Maybe he never did.

And Diana? My own sister?

I had no one now.

No husband.

No sister.

No child to hold onto.

Just me. Broken. Alone. In a world that never gave a damn whether I lived or died.

I buried my face into my palms and let the darkness wrap around me like a blanket. Maybe if I stayed like this long enough, the pain would stop. Maybe tomorrow I’d wake up and this would all be a dream.

But I knew it wouldn’t be.

This was my reality now.

And I didn’t know how to survive it

______

After my endless crying of regret and self blame I found myself sitted in a bar with two to three bottles of alcohol. 

One thing I had learnt from this useless marriage was that alcohol was the best option to drown the sorrows and pain left in me.

I picked up the bottle directly shoving the alcohol in my mouth and gulped it down.

I had no money, no job, no nothing to hold into as Ethan left me. No friends, no parents to hold unto.

Even a child to call my own.

After I agreed and we did, one complication left to another and I lost the ability to bear children of my own.

I ruined my life myself. With my own bare hands.

Where was I going to start from? 

When Ethan told me to forsake my career and live the life of a housewife I thought it was strange but my love for him blinded me from reality just as it did when I aborted my child.

I thought that if I had given him enough love, this day would never happen.

Love.

Love sure can make a person stupid and blind. Making you endure and hide from the truth because of the fear of losing the ones we love.

And that was a mistake I have now come to regret.

“ Waiter, waiter,” I called, waving my left hand to him. “ More alcohol” I hiccuped.

“ I'm sorry ma, we're instructed not to give you anymore” she said.

Tf

I looked up at her with full and tired eyes. I stared at her for some second before bursting into laughter.

“My home, my marriage, my career, my life has all been taken from me and now you want to take away the only thing that gives me joy right now?” I shouted holding onto the last liquor in the bottle. “ Give me more alcohol” I screamed at the waiter attempting to stand up when a deep voice echoed behind me through the chatter in the bar.

“ That's enough”