DEFIANCE

“I honestly don’t care what you think, Jasmine. I’m not signing these papers.”

I stared at her, my shoulders stiffening.

“You clearly have little to no respect for yourself,” she said mockingly.

She stepped away from me and returned to Rhys, wrapping an arm around his waist with a crooked smile.

My jaw tightened. Anger burned across my face as I watched her touch him so freely in my own home.

“Your refusal to sign the papers will not change my decision,” Rhys said, tapping his fingers against the file in annoyance. “I’ve made up my mind.”

“Rhys…” My voice trembled. “Do you truly intend to throw away eleven years of our lives without even giving me a chance to understand what went wrong? Don’t you think I deserve a justifiable reason for what you’re doing to me?”

The thought of losing everything made my stomach twist. I wiped my trembling palms against my dress.

“Eleven years is nothing if they were spent with someone like you,” Jasmine inserted, looking amused.

I clenched my fists and turned toward Rhys, searching his face for any sign of the man I had loved for so long. But his expression remained cold. I knew those eyes. I had looked into them countless times, shared secrets with them, and believed they belonged to someone who loved me. Yet the man standing before me felt like a stranger.

“Refusing to sign these papers will only make you look desperate,” Jasmine continued. “He chose me, and he chose correctly. Sign them so I can move on with my husband.”

Her fingers tightened around Rhys’s waist.

“You have no right to interfere in my marriage or decide its fate,” I said, lifting my chin. “You don’t get to decide what happens to something I’ve spent years building.”

“I have every right to speak,” she replied. “You were never the right choice for Rhys. Even in college, you were always failing classes and getting yourself into trouble. Rhys deserves better, and he finally chose someone better. Why should he settle for less when a better option is available?”

Her words pierced me, but Rhys’s silence hurt even more.

I turned toward him. “She needs to leave. I want to speak with you privately.”

“There’s no need to create a scene,” he said coldly. “Stop being so stubborn and accept that this marriage is over.”

My heart sank. I had never imagined that the man I loved would speak to me with such indifference.

“You’ve always struggled to accept losing to me,” Jasmine said, loosening her arm from Rhys’s waist. She walked toward me, gripping her purse tightly. “You should learn to accept defeat, especially when I’m your opponent. You’re no match for me.”

I shook my head and turned away from her. I had no intention of arguing with her anymore. As I started toward the staircase, a sharp pain shot through my left ankle, making me wince.

“You can never be better than me,” Jasmine called after me.

I stopped and turned around. “News flash, Jasmine. This is not college. Stop treating me like you can bully me!”

“Sign the papers and move on with your miserable life!” she yelled.

“Leave my house!”

“It’s not your house anymore!” she snapped. “Rhys doesn’t love you. Your marriage was a sham!”

Her laughter echoed through the room. My vision blurred with tears. I turned toward the staircase, desperate to get away from them, but Jasmine’s voice followed me.

“Sign the papers!”

I turned back. She was already too close. Before I could react, her hands reached out and shoved me.

I lost my balance. A scream caught in my throat as I fell down the stairs, my body striking the hard steps one after another. Pain shot through me, and I struggled to protect my stomach as everything around me blurred.

“Amelia!”

Rhys’s panicked voice echoed through the room.

“Please, stay awake!”

I tried to respond, but the pain overwhelmed me. His voice grew distant as darkness closed in.

When I opened my eyes, a white ceiling came into view. For a moment, I didn’t understand where I was. My head throbbed, and every part of my body felt sore.

I tried to sit up but immediately winced.

“Please don’t move too quickly,” a woman said.

A doctor approached my bedside, followed by a nurse. The doctor checked my bandages and examined my face.

“Where am I?” I asked, my voice weak.

“You’re in the hospital. You were brought in after a fall.”

Memories returned in fragments: Jasmine, the argument, her hands, and the stairs. My hand immediately moved toward my stomach.

“My baby…” I whispered.

The doctor’s expression changed, and the warmth in her eyes made fear spread through my chest.

“Doctor, my baby. Is my baby okay?”

She hesitated. That brief silence was enough to make my heart begin pounding.

“Please,” I begged. “Tell me my baby is okay.”

The doctor gently placed a hand over mine. “I’m so sorry, Amelia. We tried, but the fall caused severe complications. You lost the pregnancy.”

For a moment, I couldn’t understand her words.

Lost the pregnancy.

My baby.

“No…” My voice broke. “No, that’s not true.”

I tried to sit up, but the nurse gently held me back as tears streamed down my face.

“No, please. You have to check again. My baby was fine. I was fine this morning.”

“I’m sorry,” the doctor repeated softly.

A cry tore from my throat. I pressed a hand over my stomach, but there was nothing I could do. Nothing I could say. My baby was gone, and the future I had imagined that morning had disappeared with it.

After several minutes, the doctor and nurse managed to calm me down, but I felt anything but calm. I felt empty.

The sound of the door opening made me lift my head.

Rhys walked into the room with Jasmine beside him. The moment I saw them together, bitterness filled my chest.

“So, you’ve been sleeping around?”

Rhys’s voice was cold.

I stared at him, unable to process what he had said. He reached into the file he was holding and threw the divorce papers onto my bed. I flinched.

“Well, this shouldn’t come as a surprise,” Jasmine said maliciously. “She was always like this in college, sleeping around with different men.”

I looked at Rhys, my heart breaking all over again.

“Rhys, please believe me. I would never sleep around. You know she’s lying.” He said nothing.

“This was our baby,” I continued, my voice trembling. “Our baby died because of her. She pushed me down the stairs.”

“I refuse to believe anything you say,” he replied coldly. “Sign the papers.”

His words silenced me.

I stared at him, realizing that he wasn’t there to comfort me. He wasn’t there to ask how I was feeling or mourn the child we had lost. He was there to end our marriage.

In that moment, I understood something I had refused to accept. Rhys had never loved me. A man who loved me would not stand beside the woman who had caused me harm and accuse me of betrayal while I lay in a hospital bed grieving our child. A man who loved me would not force divorce papers into my hands when I was barely holding myself together.

The pain of that realization was worse than anything I had felt before.

I picked up the papers. Rhys watched me, his expression unreadable. With trembling hands, I signed them, then handed the papers back to him and looked up at him with eyes filled with hatred.

His hands trembled slightly as he accepted them. For the first time, I saw something flicker across his face.

Pity.

But it was too late.

He turned and walked out of the room without another word. Jasmine followed him, leaving me alone with the silence.

The following morning, a nurse came in to check my vitals.

“You’re responding well to the treatment,” she said gently. “The doctor has approved your discharge today.”

“Thank you,” I replied quietly.

After she left, I sat on the edge of the bed for a long moment. My body was still aching, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the emptiness inside me.

I had lost my baby. I had lost my marriage. And I had lost the man I once believed would always stand beside me.

I changed out of the hospital clothes, tied my hair into a neat ponytail, and gathered my belongings. Before leaving, I glanced around the room. There was nothing left for me there.

I stepped into the hallway and walked toward the exit, keeping my head held high despite the pain weighing heavily on my chest.

Outside, the fresh air brushed against my face. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

I had no idea what I was going to do next.

But I knew one thing.

I would never allow Rhys or Jasmine to break me again.