Chapter 3

By the time I got back home, dawn was just beginning to break.

The apartment was a total disaster.

The coffee table was still littered with restaurant receipts and printed photos I had dragged back from all over the place during the last month. Every single one of them looked like a sick joke, mocking the thirty days I had spent lying to myself.

I dropped to my knees, yanked the filing cabinet drawer all the way out, and rummaged through its contents to the very bottom.

Inside sat the medical records from three years ago.

The paper had yellowed around the edges, and the top line of the diagnosis was brutal and clear: severe depressive tendencies.

Dilation and curettage following a miscarriage.

My finger froze over those words as the bloody nightmare of that day came rushing back to me.

I had just found out I was pregnant back then. The doctor had handed me the lab results with a smile, explaining that I was still in the early stages of pregnancy and warning me not to overexert myself.

Clutching that thin sheet of paper, I walked out of the hospital feeling like I was walking on air.

I wanted to surprise Declan.

Before I ever got the chance to tell him, I spotted his car parked outside the hotel.

A parking stub lay tucked under the windshield wiper. The timestamp showed he had been inside for three whole hours.

I called his phone, listening to the familiar ringtone echo from somewhere up above.

When the door finally cracked open, his eyes held a lingering panic. I caught a glimpse of a woman's back disappearing down the opposite elevator lobby, fast enough that I only caught a ghost of her familiar perfume.

I clutched his sleeve and forced myself to speak through my trembling voice, "Who is she?"

Declan's face darkened.

"Harper, are you stalking me?"

"I asked you who she is!"

He shook off my hand, his tone cold and cutting. "Can you stop acting like a total lunatic?"

I staggered backward, my heel missed a step, and I tumbled down the flight of stairs.

As agony exploded upward from my lower stomach, the terrible realization hit me that I hadn't even gotten the chance to tell him we were having a baby.

Later, the hospital room smelled only of sharp, burning antiseptic.

Declan had stayed outside the door the whole night, and when he walked in the next morning, his eyes were webbed with red bloodshot lines.

I thought he would pull me into his arms.

Instead, he stood by the side of the bed, falling into a long, dead silence before he finally said, "Harper, let's just get a divorce."

That sentence stole the air from my lungs much worse than the physical pain of the miscarriage ever could.

Now, three years later, I photographed the records and sent them to him.

[Do you even remember this baby?]

After the message went through, the screen stayed dead silent.

Half an hour later, Emma's number lit up my phone instead.

Her voice was thick with tears. "Harper, stop pushing him like this. He's been suffering just as much over losing the baby back then."

My entire body turned ice cold. "You knew?"

She went quiet.

In that single heartbeat, everything clicked into place.

Even the fact that I had lost our child—Emma had known every single detail from start to finish.

For the past three years, she had played the dual role of walking me to my therapy sessions while making excuses for Declan, telling me that a man's cold silence was merely how he feared worsening my condition.

A sudden, sharp laugh burst out of my chest, escalating until the tears came streaming down my face unchecked.

Emma was crying down the phone line, begging me, "Harper, I'm sorry. I honestly never meant to hurt you."

However, I couldn't hear her anymore.

A heavy ringing drowned out everything in my ears, my stomach rolling violently as if I were being dragged down into a black pit.

My arm knocked my preion bottle off the nightstand, sending white pills scattering across the floor.

I don't remember much about what happened next, only a dull, tearing pain in my wrist and the lights in the room dissolving into a muddy blur.

Just as my consciousness was slipping under, frantic hammering shook the front door.

Then Declan came barreling in, slamming the door open so hard that it nearly flew off its hinges.

His hands were shaking when he scooped me up into his arms.

"Harper!"

When I finally opened my eyes again, I was staring at a sterile hospital ceiling, white gauze wrapped tightly covered my wrist while my throat burned like sandpaper.

Declan sat in the chair beside the bed, his eyes raw and red, dark bloodstains still dried across the fabric of his shirt.

Seeing me wake up, he looked like he wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but irritation instantly choked it out of his chest.

"Harper, do you really have to pull stunts like this to back me into a corner?"

Staring at his trembling hands, a pathetic, laughable flicker of hope sparked in my chest.

At least he was scared.

At least when I was on the brink of death, he still showed up.

As soon as the thought crossed my mind, my cell phone rang.

Emma's name flashed across the display.

Declan snatched up the call, his expression shifting in an instant.

I couldn't make out what Emma was saying, but I heard his voice drop into a low, worried murmur. "Your stomach acting up again? Did you take your meds?"

When he hung up, his gaze dropped back to my face, a flicker of hesitation crossing his eyes.

Then he told me, "Get some rest. I'll be right back."

He stood up, grabbing his jacket and rushing out the door.

The moment the hospital door clicked shut, absolute peace washed over me.

The person I couldn't hold onto even if I used my life as leverage could be summoned away by a single stomachache from Emma.

That night, propped up against the hospital pillows, my hands still trembling, I booked a one-way ticket to Switzerland.

It was a place I had dreamed of visiting for years.

Declan had once promised that on our anniversary, he would take me to see the snow-capped mountains.

I didn't need him anymore.

I'd go see them myself.