Chapter 3: A Choice

I remember the ceiling lights flashing above me.

White. Bright. Blinding.

Everything smelled of antiseptic and fear. My body felt heavy, like I was sinking into something deep and dark.

Voices floated around me, urgent and overlapping, but they sounded far away, as though I was hearing them from underwater.

I was being wheeled into the hospital.

The stretcher moved quickly, the wheels making a sharp, hurried sound against the smooth floor. Someone held an IV bag above me. Someone else called out numbers I couldn't understand.

My fingers felt cold. My stomach was on fire.

The pain had changed somewhere between the floor of that house and here.

It was no longer just sharp, it was deep, tearing, frightening. The kind of pain that tells you something irreversible is happening.

"Doctor…" I called weakly. My voice barely came out.

I lifted my hand slowly, struggling to keep it raised.

My fingers brushed against the doctor's coat as she moved beside the stretcher, and I forced myself to hold on.

"Please…" I gasped, my lips trembling. "Please save my child."

She looked down at me briefly, said something to the nurse beside her, and then the swinging doors opened and swallowed us both.

**********

I don't know how much time passed after they pushed me through those doors. Everything faded in and out. The lights above me disappeared.

The cold air of the operating room brushed against my skin.

Someone placed a mask over my face. I tried to fight it for just a second, tried to hold onto something and then the darkness came slowly and swallowed me whole.

Outside, Curtis stood before the door.

He was pacing. I could imagine him moving from side to side, slapping his palms together the way he always did when something was out of his control.

He never liked hospitals. He always said they smelled like fear.

"How's it going?" a voice asked from the hallway.

He turned.

It was his mother.

Rosa walked toward him with her usual authority, her chin lifted, her steps steady even here.

And beside her, as expected, was Lauren. Calm. Composed. Silent.

Her hands folded neatly in front of her, her expression arranged into something that resembled concern.

"She's seriously injured." The doctor's voice cut through the hallway as the door behind Curtis opened.

They all turned.

The doctor stood there, her expression serious, her gloves stained faintly at the tips. "Do you want to save the mother or the child?" she asked directly.

There was no softness in her tone. Just urgency, bare and clinical, because there was no time for anything else.

"Save the kid." Rosa's voice came instantly. Sharp. Firm. It cut Curtis off before he could even open his mouth.

Curtis turned to his mother in shock.

"Save my grandchild!" Rosa repeated, stepping closer to the doctor, her voice shaking slightly. "It doesn't matter if the mother dies."

Lauren stood quietly beside her. Her lips curled into that known wicked smile.

The smile was there, sitting at the corner of her lips, patient and satisfied, like someone watching a plan unfold exactly as they had imagined.

"Doctor, save the mother," Curtis said quickly.

His voice was hurried, almost desperate.

"Curtis, are you nuts?!" Rosa snapped. She grabbed his arm and turned him to face her. "You've forsaken an heiress for this country bumpkin, and now you're giving up on your child?"

But he shoved her hand away.

His jaw tightened. He turned back to the doctor.

"Doctor, I'm her husband," he said clearly. "Listen to me."

There was something different in his tone now. Not the cold fury from the house. Something underneath all of that. Something closer to fear.

The doctor nodded once, turned, and disappeared back through the door, letting it close firmly behind her.

The hallway fell into silence.

"You're blinded by that bitch!" Rosa said fiercely. "Lauren should be the one who marries into our family!"

She turned sharply to Lauren.

"Lauren, tell me. What happened?"

Lauren's posture changed instantly. Her shoulders dropped. Her eyes shimmered like she was holding back tears.

"Earlier…" she began, her voice trembling. "Earlier, Tessa saw me walking in. She pushed me… then she ran into the coffee table. Then Curtis came in."

Curtis's face darkened immediately. His jaw clenched. His hands balled into fists at his sides.

"Tessa…" he muttered under his breath, anger filling his eyes. "I'll make you pay the price. But not now." He exhaled slowly and turned back toward the door.

**********

About an hour later, the door opened.

The surgery was over.

Curtis walked into the room slowly. Lauren followed behind him, a half step back, her face rearranged into something soft and quiet.

I was lying on the hospital bed, covered with a white blanket.

My body felt weak. Empty. Cold in a way that had nothing to do with the room temperature. My hair was damp against the pillow.

My eyes were open, but everything seemed distant. My throat was dry. My stomach felt strangely quiet.

Too quiet.

The absence of movement where there had always been movement.

"Curtis," I called softly. My voice was hoarse.

He moved closer and bent slightly so he could look at my face.

"Where's our child?" I asked.

There was a pause.

A long, suffocating pause.

He leaned closer.

"Do you know that you killed your own child?" he said gently.

His voice was low. Almost like a whisper. But I could feel the anger burning behind it.

"My child is gone?" I asked weakly.

The words felt heavy in my mouth. Wrong. Impossible.

Gone?

No.

No.

My chest began to rise and fall quickly. My heart started pounding violently against my ribs. The emptiness inside me became real, not just physical, not just the absence of the small movements I had grown to live for.

It became something else entirely. A hollow space where life had been.

I felt it.

I turned my head slowly.

Lauren was standing behind Curtis.

She was smiling. Not pretending this time.

Smiling like someone who had just won something.

My eyes widened.

"It's you!" I said, lifting my hand weakly and pointing at her. "You pushed me! You killed my child! You're the murderer!"

Lauren's expression changed instantly. She stepped closer to Curtis, shrinking into him, making herself smaller, softer.

"Tessa, please don't be mad," she said softly, her voice breaking just enough. "I won't fight you for Curtis. I'll leave now."

She turned as if to walk away.

"Wait." Curtis's voice stopped her. He reached out and held her hand.

"Why are you leaving?" he asked. "You didn't do anything wrong."

My heart shattered again — differently this time. Not from loss but from something more deliberate. Something chosen.

"Curtis," I called. My voice cracked painfully.

He turned back to look at me.

"She was the one who pushed me!" I cried weakly. "Why won't you believe me?"

The frustration, the pain, the loss — all of it exploded inside me at once.

I slammed my hand against the bed.

I didn't know where the strength came from.

"I'm your wife!"