All Chapters of Three Years of Guilt, Built on a Lie: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

I stayed at the hotel for seven days.Carter didn't call me once. The only message I received came from Susan.[Come back and apologize to Mavis when you've calmed down.]I stared at the message for a long time.Before I could even decide how to respond, Henry Odom, my former high school senior and current attending doctor, slid a medical report across the desk toward me."Years of excessive blood donations have severely damaged your bone marrow's ability to produce blood cells," he said gravely."You can't continue this pregnancy. We need to terminate it as soon as possible and begin treatment. Even then, your chances of survival are only about ten percent."I stared at him in disbelief.Ever since I turned 16, my parents had forced me to donate blood to Mavis every few months. She suffered from hemolytic anemia, and we both had an extremely rare Rh-negative blood type.Henry gripped my medical chart, his expression growing more serious."Your condition is extremely dangerou

When I opened my eyes again, I wasn't looking at a sterile hospital ceiling.Instead, the familiar, warm glow of the bedside sconce illuminated the master bedroom. Carter was slumped beside the bed, exhaustion etched across his face as he held my hand tightly.For a fleeting moment, I felt transported back to the early days of our relationship.Back then, even when I had suffered nothing more than menstrual cramps, he had stayed by my bedside all night to look after me. The next morning, he'd held my hand just like this, his eyes bloodshot."Eliza, you scared me so much."Seeing him beside me now, I couldn't help letting a small, pathetic flicker of hope take hold.Perhaps some part of him still cared.I moved my fingers slightly, and he woke up at once."You're awake," he muttered, rubbing his eyes."Did you bring me back from the hospital?" I asked, my nose stinging."Yeah."That single word nearly brought me to tears.Maybe he'd finally realized how serious my condition

The police investigation concluded quickly.The fire had started when scented candles in the living room ignited the curtains.The housekeeper had placed the candles there on Mavis's explicit instructions. More importantly, the police recovered a deleted text message from Mavis's phone, one she'd sent to Carter.[Make sure you keep Eliza locked up a little longer so she really learns her lesson. Oh, and I've lit a ton of candles around the house, so check for open flames before you leave!]The timestamp showed that she'd sent it just ten minutes before Carter left the villa.Mavis had known exactly how dangerous the candles were. She'd deliberately used her supposed emotional breakdown to lure Carter away, leaving me trapped inside the burning house.She'd intended for me to burn to death.The last trace of warmth vanished from Carter's eyes, replaced by a cold, bottomless hatred. He rushed straight back to the hospital, where Mavis was still lying in bed, putting on her fragile

Carter lost his mind.In the middle of the night, he rushed to the cemetery where my ashes had been laid to rest.He dropped to his knees in front of my headstone and clawed at the frozen earth with his bare hands, desperately trying to dig up my urn and take it home.Freezing rain mixed with mud, soaking him to the skin. Before long, he developed a high fever and collapsed in the icy slush.Perhaps he still believed things would work out as they always had. Whenever he fell ill, no matter how badly we'd fought, I'd eventually soften and rush to his side to nurse him back to health.Lying in the mud, he murmured through his fever, "Eliza, it's so cold. Hold me... I was wrong. I'll never lock you up again. I'll never yell at you again. Please come back..."My ghost hovered above him as I watched him shiver in the freezing rain. I felt nothing but cold indifference as he lay there like an abandoned stray.Henry arrived under a black umbrella. He made no attempt to help Carter up,