Chapter 3

I had someone give Justin an ultimatum.

Either Sally ended the pregnancy and he cut all contact with her, or our marriage was over.

He refused to choose.

As the days passed in that hospital ward, I lost more weight and struggled harder to hold myself together.

By the end, I was a little more than skin and bones.

Justin looked increasingly haggard too, but he still refused to ask Sally to end the pregnancy.

One day, Sally barged into my ward and begged me to spare her and her baby.

My in-laws came to plead with me too. They had practically put aside their pride.

“It’s our grandchild, after all, Bunny. Please, can’t you show a little mercy?”

Everyone told me to be more forgiving, more compassionate.

They wanted me to stop taking my anger out on an innocent baby.

With tears streaming down my face, I turned to Justin and spoke to him for the first time in days. “Am I the one in the wrong?”

So, I was the villain?

Had anyone stopped, even once, to think about me?

Justin looked stricken, as though he had finally made up his mind.

Before he could speak, Peyton came charging at me and slammed into my stomach.

“Just stop it!”

No one saw it coming. Everyone froze.

By the time Justin rushed toward me with bloodshot eyes, I was already unconscious in a pool of blood.

My baby was gone.

After I woke up, I barely spoke.

I felt hollow, as though everything that made me who I was had been stripped away.

Sally went up to the roof, declaring that she would end her life and her baby’s to atone for what had happened.

In the end, Justin carried her back down.

“Sally’s pregnant. She can’t handle this kind of stress. Peyton’s just a kid who acted on an impulse. Can’t you just let it go for now?”

Justin looked exhausted. His eyes were pleading with me.

I slapped him with a blank expression.

He caught my hand. Tears were streaming down his face.

“Bunny, this is the only child I have left.”

“What if I refuse to let this go?”

His expression hardened. “The security camera wasn’t working that day. The staff were all out in the hallway. None of them heard a thing. Even if you report it, you have no proof.”

No witnesses. No footage. He had made sure I had nothing.

He had gone to such lengths to protect Sally and her daughter.

I stared at him, then began to laugh. Before long, I was crying too.

Through my tears, I looked at Justin and wondered whether I had ever known him at all.