Chapter 3

The days dragged on in tedious monotony.

Dominic and Sabine came to keep me company every single day.

Yet they never appeared at the same time.

A few days later, my condition had improved enough for Dominic to bring me home.

The car frame had taken the brunt of the impact, with us trapped inside by scattered debris.

Aside from a few cuts that were not too serious, we were both mostly unhurt elsewhere.

My injuries, however, were slightly more severe.

If the wound on my back didn’t heal properly, a nasty infection could follow.

The pair continued just as before, devoting all their energy into caring for me, avoiding each other all the while.

These past few nights, insomnia had taken hold of me.

Late one night, I suddenly caught the sound of Sabine crying.

Inside the bathroom, she was dry-heaving over and over.

Her eyes were swollen and rimmed red. She had clearly been weeping for a very long time.

Clutched in her hand was a pregnancy test: two distinct lines.

“Why did you have to come at a time like this? Mommy is in so much pain.”

Dominic placed his hand over her lower abdomen without a moment’s hesitation.

“You’re not getting rid of it! You must give birth to this child!

“You stripped away my right to be a father three years ago. Are you going to force me to go through that nightmare all over again?”

Horror crept over me, leaving my entire body ice-cold.

I was chilled through to the very core.

Three years ago, Sabine, for the sake of what she deemed my happiness, had aborted her own child.

No wonder.

No wonder she had suddenly fled abroad.

I collapsed onto the floor.

Overwhelming guilt suffocated and paralyzed my whole body.

I bit down on my lip, not daring to let a single sound escape.

So I wasn’t the only one who suffered the unbearable agony of losing a child.

This was how they had endured the past seven years.

I wanted so desperately to end it all and die.

I’d rather have died seven years ago on the day I went looking for my father.

I’d rather never have met Dominic or Sabine in this lifetime at all.

I swallowed a mouthful of blood, my palms punctured and bleeding from my own fingernails.

I had no idea how I managed to drag myself back to the bedroom.

All I registered was the enveloping scent of blood.

The pain was so brutally, vividly real.

I closed my eyes as memories flooded back.

It felt as if I were nineteen again, the day I first met Sabine.

I had just started college, and she was my classmate and roommate.

She taught me how to put on makeup, took me to explore all sorts of places, and always looked at me with a radiant smile.

How wonderful life was back then.

We hadn’t fallen in love with the same man.

We hadn’t lost children of our own.

And we hadn’t suffered through seven years of agonizing heartbreak.

My memories drifted further back to when I was sixteen.

I used to run over to Dominic’s house all the time, trailing behind him.

He always complained about how annoying I was, yet never once pushed me away.

Back then, he wasn’t as caring and attentive as he was now.

Yet he learned to bake my favorite cherry cobbler.

We were childhood sweethearts.

It was only because we attended different high schools later on that we gradually lost touch.

If only our crossing of fates had ended during the mid-term exams that year, how wonderful that would have been?

I wanted so badly to drown in those memories.

Yet when I opened my eyes, nothing had changed.

Sabine sat on the chair, nodding off in her sleepiness.

The moment she noticed I was awake, she perked up immediately.

She handed me a bowl of chicken veggie soup.

“Elaine, are you feeling any pain? You slept for the whole day.

“I just reheated this. Eat while it’s hot.”

She didn’t say it, but I knew anyway.

She had been waiting on me the whole day.