บททั้งหมดของ She Always Chose Him: บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 8

I watched the operating room doors swing shut, and Claire's words kept circling in my head.Ten years ago, on the day she and I were married, Noah's parents had been driving back for the wedding when their car went off the road. Both of them died at the scene. Our wedding turned into a funeral, and Claire went straight to the police station without changing out of her dress.When the body bags were unzipped, Noah broke. He couldn't accept it, and he started saying he wanted to go with them. When he went over the second-floor windowsill, I grabbed for him and we both went down.Claire pressed her hands over the wound and cried. "How can you gamble with your own life like that? Warren's death was an accident. Noah's old enough. He'll come to terms with it in time."To keep him where she could see him, she moved Noah into the house we'd just started our marriage in. "Adrian, he isn't stable. I can only breathe if he's in front of me. I've already lost Warren. I can't lose Noah too."

I hadn't thought Claire would go that far, that she would hold my mother's life over my head."She's just come out of surgery. She can't be moved. Something will happen to her."Nothing I said made any difference. She had made up her mind.The order hadn't even reached the ward before my phone rang. "Mr. Foster, your mother's condition is unstable. You need to come now."My head filled with a ringing sound, and I lost all interest in arguing.By the time I got there her bed had been pushed out of the room and into the corridor. "What are you doing? You know how she is. Why would you move her?"She lay on the gurney with her face gone gray, bringing up mouthful after mouthful of blood. The nurse beside her looked cornered. "Director Mercer gave the order. Beds are very tight, and there are patients in worse condition than—"I nearly went down. "My mother is dying in front of you and you're standing there talking about bed shortages."My shouting drew a crowd. They murmured to ea

Disappointment flickered in Noah's eyes when she changed the subject, but he didn't press her. He looked down at his phone instead and pulled up the post Claire had put out earlier, and something in his face changed. He held the screen out to her."Claire, Adrian says he's signed divorce papers. He's divorcing you?"She denied it without thinking. "Impossible. Adrian would never divorce me. His mother still depends on me."Then the phone was in front of her face and the rest of it stuck in her throat. Her lips shook and nothing came out.The comment was his, all right. Mutual friends were already underneath it asking what had happened, and when she opened her own phone the messages were waiting."Ten years married. What could possibly make the two of you split up?""What's going on with Adrian? Why would he comment something like that out of nowhere? Did you have a fight?""And who's the homewrecker? There isn't actually something between you and Noah, is there?"Claire had no

Adrian's POVI saw Claire again a month later.After I left Northbridge, I put everything she had done on the internet, and I watched the abuse come down on her without feeling much of anything. So when she tracked me down, I wasn't surprised."Adrian, what happened was my fault. I overestimated Noah. Where is your mother buried? I want to go and see her."I looked at her and kept my voice level. "I've signed the divorce agreement. You'll have seen it. We're finished, and she was never your mom."She had been pale since she arrived, and her eyes went red. "I know there's nothing I can do that helps. But after ten years of marriage, can't you find a way to forgive me?"The gall of it actually made me laugh. "Ten years of marriage. Did those ten years count for anything when my mother needed you?"Her mouth opened and shut. Everything I'd said was true, and there was nothing in it she could argue with."I never signed the consent form, and you let Noah cut her open anyway. I've a