Chapter 3

There was no comfort or heartache. Instead, I got interrogation and displeasure.

Carla frowned, the impatience in her eyes undisguised. "Max, Fred put a lot of time and energy into preparing for this exhibition. Don't you dare make a scene here."

I looked at her in disbelief. My eyelids trembled, and tears rolled down uncontrollably.

Carla was stunned for a moment, and the displeasure and irritation in her eyes mostly dissipated the moment she saw the tears in mine.

She grabbed my hand and forcefully dragged me out of the exhibition. Then, she opened the car door and pushed me inside.

Bracing herself against the car door, she surrounded me. I struggled to shove her off, but she used the motion to snatch my phone.

"Carla, have you lost your mind? Don't tell me that on the day our son was just born and I was half dead from exhaustion, you were here the whole time accompanying some pretty boy at an art exhibition!"

"Max Hatfield, watch your mouth!"

Carla thrust me roughly into the back seat, then slammed the car door shut and locked it.

My head struck the car door hard, and my stomach cramped with a sharp, twisting pain as dizziness washed over me.

Having just managed to hold myself up, I pulled at the door handle with all my strength.

"Carla, let me out!"

"Two hours." Carla looked down coldly at her watch. "There are still two hours until Fred's exhibition ends. I'll drive you home then. Max, if you don't want to get out at the courthouse, then rein in that stubborn temper of yours. You know I respond to softness, not force."

She turned and walked away. No matter how hard I pounded on the car window, it couldn't soften her heart in the slightest, much less make her turn back and look at me.

I admitted I was afraid that she really didn't want me anymore.

In the late summer, I waited like that under the blazing sun in the car for more than two hours.

Already weak from days of sleepless nights and a severe stomach condition, I felt a violent, twisting cramp in my stomach under the heat. A thick, coppery taste of blood rose in my throat, and it felt like every bit of strength had been sucked out of me.

I watched as the exhibition ended—and how Carla stood beside Fred, accompanying him as he greeted and saw off business partners.

When she finally remembered me and came over to open the car door, she saw me lying quietly in the back seat and thought I'd finally learned to behave.

"Max, you've become much more obedient. Don't worry—since we're married, I'll take care of you. As for Fred, he's nothing more than a painter under me with commercial value. There's no other possibility between us," she said soothingly.

Seeing that I didn't respond, she thought I was still sulking.

"Be good and stop sulking. Shall I go back with you to see our son? I heard Mom say you named him Dominic. It's a very nice name—I like it very much."

She reached out to pull me, only to discover my hands were ice-cold. Blood spilled from the corner of my mouth, and I passed out in the back seat, my face deathly pale.

"Max!"

…

When I woke up again, I found myself lying in a hospital room.

Strangely, the first person I saw this time when I opened my eyes was Carla.

She sat obediently by the bed, peeling an apple while watching the IV drip. Her cheek was flushed red, but an obvious slap mark sat there.

"Max, you're awake? Do you feel uncomfortable anywhere?"

I shook my head weakly. Her sudden gentleness felt so foreign that I thought I had to be dreaming.

For the days I was in the hospital after that, Carla never left my side. She looked after me with great care, right up to the night before I was discharged.

I couldn't find her in the hospital corridor. Following the faint smell of smoke, I found her in the stairwell.

She stood by the window smoking, her brows slightly drawn together as she talked to someone on the phone.

"Max is sick," she said with a sigh. "The doctor said he'd worn his body down, and then the heat in the car set off acute gastric perforation with heavy bleeding. Yeah, it's serious."

Carla took a hard drag on the cigarette and rubbed the space between her brows somewhat irritably.

"More than half his stomach was removed. He has multiple organ failure and complications.

"His health is completely destroyed. From now on, not only will he be unable to do heavy work, but he'll also have to rely on medicine year-round to stay alive."

I stood frozen in place, feeling as if all the blood in my body had solidified.

Carla continued, "My mom said if I don't take care of Max until he's discharged, she'll skin me alive.

"What did I do to deserve being stuck with someone I have to wait on hand and foot? I can't get rid of him, much less cross him."

I shuffled stiffly away from the stairwell.

The wind blew the door shut. By the time Carla turned to look, there was no one left at the stairwell entrance.

The person on the other end of the phone was still saying something.

Carla irritably stubbed out the cigarette and said, "Of course my heart aches for him! I've always thought of Max as family!

"I wish it were me who bled that much, that it were me lying in the hospital instead of him!"