Chapter 3

When Stella woke up and saw me, along with the mess around her, her face turned pale. She explained incoherently, saying Finn had drugged her and that she hadn’t known what she was doing.

I wanted to break up, once and for all, and with no room for compromise. With bloodshot eyes, she begged me, but I refused to listen. So, she bolted out the door and ran straight into oncoming traffic.

After a deafening screech of brakes, she lay several feet away, a pool of blood spreading out beneath her. Three of her ribs were broken.

At the hospital, holding my hand, her breath was faint. “Connor… don’t go… Without you, I can’t live…”

She swore she would send Finn away, far across the ocean, and never see him again. So, I relented and forgave her.

Just then, my stomach churned, bringing me back to reality. I rushed into the bathroom and bent over the toilet, but nothing came up. Only stomach acid burned my throat, making me tear up.

Finding it all so disgusting, I grabbed my phone, found Stella’s number, and dialed it.

“Hello?”

A clear, youthful male voice answered, laced with languid satisfaction and faint panting. It was Finn.

In the background came a woman’s low, raspy, impatient question. “Who is it?”

Finn chuckled softly and said, “I don’t know. Just a spam call… Mm... Stop messing around… Stella, that’s too tight…”

With a click, the line went dead.

I stood there frozen, holding the phone. My entire body shook, and my tears fell without warning, crashing against the phone screen.

I slid down onto the floor, with my back pressed against the cold tiled wall, and wrapped my arms around myself. Yet, I still felt cold.

After that, I began packing my bags and spent the next few days in a total daze. I didn’t know what I ate, nor could I distinguish day from night.

Messages from Stella kept popping up on my phone.

[Quarantine is almost over. I miss you.]

[I’ll have a present for you when I get back.]

[Baby, hang in there for two more days.]

I didn’t reply to any of them, and she didn’t find it strange either. In her eyes, I was supposed to be the fool who “believed whatever she said.”

On the fifth day, I went downstairs to take out the trash. As I walked to the dumpster, my vision suddenly went dark.

When I woke up, I found myself lying in a hospital bed. I was hit by the blinding fluorescent lights and the sharp stench of disinfectant. Nearby, a doctor was writing a medical record.

He glanced at me. “You’re awake. You collapsed by the side of the road with stomach bleeding. A kind passerby called an ambulance.”

I nodded and tried to sit up.

He put down his pen. “Don’t move. There’s a tumor in your stomach, and we need further tests to determine its nature. Looking at the scans, the outlook isn’t great. You need to rest more from now on and avoid stress.”

I froze, my hand instinctively resting over my aching stomach.

A growth… right there? Right when I had decided to get a divorce, right when I discovered my wife’s three-year-long betrayal, and right when my heart was dead, I was diagnosed with an illness like that?

Now I had to get a divorce. I would get through this illness on my own, without any need for her fake concern.

Just as my thoughts raced and I gradually made up my mind, a flurry of hurried footsteps and commotion suddenly echoed from outside the curtain.

“Doctor! Doctor! Quick, take a look at her!”

My entire body went stiff. That voice was Finn’s.

Someone was wheeled in, and a woman said weakly, “It hurts so much… Finn, it hurts…”

“Don’t be scared, Stella. The doctor will be right here.”

I instinctively pulled the curtain tight to hide myself.

“What happened?” the doctor asked.

Finn hesitated for a moment before replying, “Doctor, her… It’s stuck down there, and it won’t come out…”