Heartburn Nausea

A message came through on my husband's phone. 'Hey, baby. Hope this gets you nice and hard. Can't wait to see you tonight xoxo'. What? I was shocked! But I was even more shocked when I saw the picture. A woman in a skimpy, slutty, red lace bar. The bra was so sheer you could see her nipples. She had red lipstick, her face in a sexy pout. The woman was my husband's first love – Ellie! My husband was cheating on me? A wave of nausea washed over me. My heart raced. I felt dizzy. It was clear from the message that this wasn't the first time, either. I would never tolerate such a thing. I asked for a divorce and threw away my wedding ring. He would definitely regret it when he found out I was actually a billionaire. But so what? I don't care.

I had been secretly in love with my childhood friend for nine long years. When we finally got married, my family and friends thought I was the happiest person in the world. After I became pregnant, he used the excuse of "helping an old classmate" and invited the most beautiful girl from our class into our home. During the worst of my pregnancy, when nausea and exhaustion hit hardest, he took her to the hospital, made crafts with her, and watched sunsets with her. He even had the guts to accuse me of being small-minded and petty and acting like a bitter, jealous wife. Only then did I realize that it was just my foolish fantasy that I lived my dream of marrying my childhood sweetheart and had a happy life. I let go of the love I had for him and of the future I thought we would share. Now, however, he was the one who regretted it.

I wasn’t even pregnant, yet I ended up popping abortion pills like they were candy. It was all because in my past life, the moment my widowed sister-in-law got pregnant, every single side effect of her pregnancy became mine. She strutted around happily with her big belly, consuming spicy tamales, while I was rushed to the hospital for violent nausea and stomach pain; she showed off her flawless skin in crop tops every day, while my stomach broke out in hideous stretch marks. When I told my husband what was happening, he just shoved me away impatiently. “Enough with the jealousy! My brother’s dead, and she’s carrying his only child. Of course, I should look out for her. Do you really have to put on such an act?” After that, my sister-in-law went even further. She kept testing her limits during pregnancy and even ate a mango she was allergic to. And me? I went into anaphylactic shock, landed in the hospital, and nearly died. Doctors couldn’t explain it. They just brushed it off, saying I was overly jealous and it was all psychological. Later, my sister-in-law tried to brand herself as a “hot single mom”. She went live, belly and all, to show off her weight-loss workouts. She jumped around for three straight hours. And me? My uterus literally gave out, and I hemorrhaged to death. When I opened my eyes again, it was the exact day she first announced her pregnancy.

I lost my eyesight to save Sean Sherman. He had once made a vow in front of everyone, "Rachel Todd, even if you can't see, I will take care of you for the rest of my life." I was deeply moved. I secretly sought out treatment and I kept the recovery of my eyesight a secret as a surprise for him. But on the day I regained my sight, I saw Sean holding his childhood sweetheart, Vivian Cross, in his arms, fooling around with her right in front of me. "You last really long today. Is it because your wife is watching us?" "What do you think? She was the one who bought me these protection products." I understood every word of their sign language. At that moment, my blood ran cold. Suppressing the nausea that was about to overwhelm me, I pulled out my phone and sent a message to the research team that had been inviting me for a long time. I told them yes—I would join their research project. I was going to leave Sean behind and make sure he lived the rest of his life in regret.

On the eve of my wedding, my parents returned from abroad, and my fiancée, Seraphina Vale, went into the kitchen to host them, preparing her specialty—passion fruit tea—for everyone. My parents, Edward and Eleanor Blackwood, and I had barely taken our first sip when the bodyguard, Alaric Sterling, standing beside her, burst into laughter. “You really are a family,” he said. “All of you drinking toad eggs as if they were passion fruit, savoring every mouthful.” Nausea rose instantly, and my parents and I retched uncontrollably, after which I swung my fist and went straight for him. But Seraphina shoved me away. “You were the one who called Alaric a toad before,” she said. “I was just helping him get even.” Alaric looked at me smugly. “Aren’t your parents biologists?” he said. “You should be thanking me for the hands-on experiment.” I lifted the scalding soup and splashed it at Alaric. Seraphina screamed as she ordered the other bodyguards to break my hand. “You insulted Alaric first,” she said. “That’s why he retaliated. What right do you have to lay a hand on him? “If anything happens to Alaric, you won’t get away with it.” I watched Seraphina hurriedly escort Alaric away, her face tight with concern. I turned to my parents. “Can you ask her if she’s still willing to marry me?”

As I casually opened the online forum, a trending post at the top caught my eye. [Share the wildest thing you’ve ever done.] I clicked on the second comment, which seemed to contain just one line. [Without a doubt, it was the night before my buddy’s wedding when I had his wife come over for a “quality check.”] However, the poster kept adding to the thread. [That night, the woman tricked that idiot into thinking it was a bachelorette party, but she actually spent the whole night at my place. [She said she didn’t want to sleep with just one man forever and needed one last wild night before tying the knot. [By the end of the night, her throat was nearly raw from all the screaming. [We kept going until sunrise, right there in the wedding car her husband was supposed to pick her up later that day.] [Not only that, but even after they got married, this fool kept bringing his wife over to my place for dinner. [He’d help me in the kitchen while I pinned his wife against the fridge and kissed her. [He’d be glued to the game in the living room while his wife knelt in the bathroom and took care of me. [One time, when he passed out drunk on my couch, his wife and I had our own fun on the carpet beside him. [Every time he rolled over, we’d both jump. It was the thrill of knowing we could get caught at any moment.] The image loaded, revealing the familiar interior of the wedding car. The lucky charm I had given my wife dangled from the rearview mirror. My fingers momentarily stiffened, and I nearly dropped my phone. A wave of nausea rolled in my stomach as a chill crept up my spine. Just then, a hand appeared in my field of vision, waving in front of me. “Calvin, what are you zoning out for? You’re at my place, and you’re still on your phone. Come on. Dig in while it’s hot.” Wyatt Preston, my friend, grinned at me. Yet, his eyes kept straying toward my wife, Queenie Jennings, who was sitting beside me.