Chapter 4
They were the exact same pair as the ones Catherine had posted on her social media tonight. Except hers were the women’s version.
Her caption read. “Soon, we’ll be running toward our happiness together.”
The next morning. Adam left for work as usual.
I looked around at the now nearly empty home I had carefully decorated, let out a long sigh of relief.
I had cleaned myself out of this completely. Surely, I wouldn’t get in the way of their happiness now.
The night before the wedding-
Adam’s friend called me.
He said Adam was drunk and asked me to pick him up.
When I arrived, his friends teased him, “President Watson, your little deaf girl has come to take you home.”
Catherine laughed smugly, pushing Adam off her. In a deliberately exaggerated tone, she pretended to defend me, “Oh come on, don’t bully the disabled!”
Then she leaned in close to Adam’s ear and said, “President Watson, Rozella is here.”
Adam, reeking of alcohol, staggered over to me and shook my shoulders hard. “Rozella! Why didn’t you just die in that fire with your parents?!”
“You’re this pathetic? I already agreed to marry you, and yet you still cling to me like a damn lapdog, stalking me every day?!”
I had planned to leave.
I thought that no matter what I saw or heard, my heart wouldn’t waver again.
But now, anger and sorrow shook me to my core.
“Adam”
fought to suppress my emotions, softly calling his name.
Then, I took a deep breath, looked at him, and said. “I won’t be a dog anymore.”
Adam, still dazed with intoxication, suddenly snapped awake. He looked at me in shock. “You”
Before he could figure out what was happening, Catherine leaned in provocatively. “President Watson, are you coming with me or with Rozella?”
Chapter 4
The question interrupted Adam’s thoughts.
Without hesitation, he shoved me aside and pulled Catherine into his arms like a drunken fool. “Of course, I’m going with you. She’s just a deaf girl–how could she compare to you?”
His push sent me crashing into the coffee table, pain shooting through my knee like a knife.
His friends burst into laughter, watching me struggle to get up from the floor.
“Deaf girl.”
“Freak”
“Cripple.”
The words stabbed into my ears.
Yet Adam remained indifferent, without a hint of anger on his face.
If it were me-
Even if I saw a complete stranger
being humiliated like this, I wouldn’t have stood by and done nothing.
Let alone someone who had been by my side for ten years.
My disappointment in him reached its peak.
I picked up a wine bottle and smashed it over the head of the man laughing the loudest. “Do you feel proud mocking
disabled person?”
“What?” The man stared at me in shock.
Shards of glass scattered everywhere before they could react.
I turned to Adam and sneered, “You think I give a damn about a filthy garbage like you?”
Then, limping. I walked out of the room.
Behind me, angry shouts erupted. Someone was calling my name.
But who cared?
Beasts belonged with beasts
That night, Adam went home with Catherine.
The next morning. I let the engagement ring he had given me on the coffee table.
Siming in arab to the airport. I ignored the flood of calls from Adam’s parents.
Adam must have sobered up.
Chapter 4
He texted me, asking when I would arrive. He said I must look beautiful today and that he couldn’t wait to see me.
Thinking of those matching sneakers, I silently blocked him.
One minute before the plane took off, an unfamiliar number called me.
I swiped to answer.
Adam’s angry voice barked through the phone, accusing me of being late on our wedding day. He said all the guests were waiting for me.
I found it laughable.
A man who spent the night before his wedding rolling in bed with another woman—
What right did he have to question me?
The boarding announcement played over the speakers.
His voice stiffened. He nervously asked where I was.
Then, realizing I couldn’t hear, he hurried to hang up and send a message instead.
Just before he could hang up, I spoke calmly, “Adam, I can hear you.”
Before he could react. I cut off the call.
Then, I sent him a recording–one of him and Catherine tangled up in their affair.
Turning off my phone. I put on an eye mask and drifted into sleep.
In my dreams, a raging fire consumed half the city.
A young Adam screamed for help in the flames.
My parents ran in to save him, only to be crushed by a collapsing bookshelf, coughing up blood as they desperately pushed him toward the ext
A younger me struggled to drag Adam out of the fire–until a falling doorframe struck me deaf.
Then, I saw a teenage Adam kneeling before me, his broken leg dragging behind him as he swore, “Rozella, I swear–I will never betray you!”
The chaour dream jolted me awake, drenched in cold sweat.
