Chapter 2

I didn't know who brought me to the hospital. I just knew that I heard the nurses' gossiping voices floating in through the door.

"That's her. She was covered in blood all over her body. We nearly couldn't get all the glass shards out of her."

"How disgusting. I heard that she did it because she found out about her husband and best friend having an affair. Apparently he also hasn't slept with her in a long time."

Mitch marched into the ward. His eyes weren't red or tinged with worry. Instead, he spoke in a hoarse voice, "Must you resort to such a disgusting method to vie for my attention?

"How could you be so selfish? Don't you know what everyone is saying about Lexie now? Are you finally happy now that you've ruined her reputation?"

As soon as his words were out, Lexie entered the ward with a bouquet of fresh flowers, her eyes red and puffy. Mitch's breathing turned flustered.

I finally saw the intense scratch marks on his arm, and the intense network of hickeys decorating Lexie's neck.

I didn't even need to ask to know what transpired last night.

I covered my eyes, welling with tears, and laughed out loud.

"How can you still care about reputation when you've already done something like this?"

Lexie didn't bother explaining herself. Instead, she wiped away her tears and looked at me with a mocking sneer.

"Well, since you've already found out about it, there's no need for us to continue tricking you anymore. So, have you finally learned your lesson? How does it feel to have two men cheat on you consecutively, hmm?"

I stared at her like I was looking at a venomous snake and shuddered hard.

"Why?" I asked. "I saved you from your stepfather and rushed you to the hospital. But how could you do this to me?"

She dropped her smile and stared me in the eyes.

"Did I ask you to save me, Justine Gardner? You're not fooling anybody. You were also raped by him, so who gave you the right to feel sorry for me and look down on me like you always did?"

My eyes widened in shock as a disturbing thought appeared in my head.

"Did you… Did you plan it?"

Lexie cocked an eyebrow.

"Yeah. I knew he wanted revenge on you, so I just told him where to find you."

My eyes rang at her confession.

After that incident back then, Lexie had cried so hard that she suffered from respiratory alkalosis, and I comforted her and kept her company the whole time, telling her that it was going to be alright.

But as it turned out, she'd been trying to ruin me ever since then.

While walking home in my senior year of high school, I happened to walk past Lexie being cornered in a dark alley by her stepfather, Dante Lowe. I immediately lunged forward to save her, even getting three of my ribs broken when he stomped on me.

I picked up a brick from the side of the road and struck Dante in the back, saving Lexie in the end. And after that, I got worried that she would do something stupid and kept her company the entire time, never letting her out of my sight.

On my birthday, Lexie told me that she had a surprise for me. However, that was just the start of my nightmare.

I was dragged into a dark alley and raped, and my perpetrators filmed the entire process and posted it online, where it went viral.

Mom suffered from a brain hemorrhage when she saw the video and had to be rushed to the hospital. I couldn't take the shame after being violated and tried to drown myself in the river.

However, Mitch saved me while he was walking along the river at that time. He jumped into the icy-cold river and saved my life.

He gave me a blood transfusion and even gave me a skin graft when I needed it, pulling me back from the gates of hell.

But now…

"That's enough!" Mitch yelled, getting in between me and Lexie, shielding her behind him. "Whatever's happened is now in the past! Lexie's life is already difficult enough. What's the point of you holding the past against her the whole time?"

"The past?" I echoed. "I was the one who got raped! I was the one who nearly died! I can't just get over the past like that! I'll never get over the past like that!"

Blood rushed to my head as I screamed out my frustrations at him, breaking down in the process. But he just glared at me coldly the whole time and said in a cold voice, "But you enjoyed the sex, didn't you? Since you enjoyed it, then what's the point of making such a huge deal about it?"

I was frozen on the spot. My eyes trembled as I looked at him incredulously.

I wanted to speak, but I felt a sudden numbing yet excruciating pain spreading from my chest, and it hurt so much that I couldn't get a word out.

So, none of my kindness in the past meant anything to anyone. Nobody cared about my suffering or what I'd been through.

Mitch never saw my red, puffy, swollen eyes when I cried them out for weeks at a time. He also forgot about the time I tried to swallow broken glass shards in my darkest moments and was rushed to the emergency unit.

All he saw was that Lexie was a pitiful person, and that was about it.

A long while later, I suddenly chuckled bitterly.

"Fine. Then I'll fulfill your wish of taking care of her for all eternity."

Mitch's face suddenly turned dark. He looked like he was about to say something when Lexie suddenly raised her phone in the air and exclaimed loudly, "Justine! You're three months pregnant?"