Chapter 1
The day I nearly lost my life during childbirth, my husband should have been waiting outside the delivery room, but instead, he was accompanying his first love to treat her child.
She shared a post: [With him, I, as a single mother, feel like I’ve found a home.]
The caption went with a photo of my husband holding her child, looking full of compassion.
Having narrowly escaped death, I no longer craved his
attention.
Whether he had an ambiguous relationship with her or built a home outside of ours, it no longer mattered to me.
On the day I sent the divorce papers and prepared to leave the country, he chased me to the airport.
He asked desperately, “Honey, why don’t you care about me anymore?”
****
The night before my due date, my water broke, and I was rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night.
After signing some paperwork, my husband, Luke Carter,
Chapter 1
lingered in the waiting area, playing on his phone.
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In excruciating pain, I wanted him to come in and comfort me, but he was indifferent.
While I missed the best window for anesthesia, he was still chatting with his first love.
As I bled heavily, and the doctor informed me that the baby was. gone and that they would do their best to save me, he wasn’t even outside the delivery room.
I came back from the brink of death, only to see a lifeless fetus when I woke up, and Luke’s phone had powered off.
The doctor, exhausted, tried to console me, but I felt numb.
Without shedding a tear, I asked the nurse to take me away from the hospital.
Being sorrowful was meaningless. If even my husband didn’t care about me, no one else would.
Walking through the hospital corridor, I passed the emergency department and saw Luke, who had been missing for several hours.
He was holding the son of his first love, Jessica Ellis, in his arms.
The child was weak and burning with fever.
When he saw me, he whispered, “Did you give birth? A boy or a
Chapter 1 girl?”
Looking at the warm scene before me, I bitterly said, “She’s dead. It was a girl.”
Luke froze, while Jessica shot a look of high–handed pity.
The postpartum pain made it impossible for me to stand for long. I ignored them and left wearily.
My relationship with Luke was always poorly timed.
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We were forced to sit at the matchmaking dinner table, thrown together by circumstance.
After the wedding, I learned that he had always been in love with Jessica, who lived overseas. He had only agreed to marry me out of disappointment.
He promised to treat me well, but after I was five months pregnant, Jessica returned home with her child after a divorce.
Luke’s rekindled feelings for her led to the most difficult four months of my life.
He began frequently coming home late, always citing work as the excuse. He smelled of unfamiliar perfume.
He never accompanied me to regular check–ups, but he would
run around for Jessica’s son.
I opened my phone and saw her latest post: [With him, I, as a
Chapter 1
single mother, feel like I’ve found a home.]
The word “home” stung my eyes.
I was Luke’s wife, but Jessica and her child seemed to receive more care from him.
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During my pregnancy, I would cry and argue, asking him why he couldn’t prioritize me.
But now, having come so close to death, I had let go.
If I survived such a major surgery without him by my side, I could live the rest of my life without him.
I no longer wanted the love he had begrudgingly given me.
I decided to stop giving him my heart and soul.
I continued clearing the unread messages from the past few days and saw an announcement from the company about a recruitment opportunity at the headquarters in Olisfast for two
years.
My past achievements met the application criteria.
I felt a surge of gratitude toward fate for giving me a chance to start over right after I had shifted my perspective.
Without hesitation, I submitted my application and began secretly preparing for the documents to go abroad.
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Luke had always disliked that I earned more than he did and that my household chores didn’t match up to his mother’s. He complained that I wasn’t good at taking care of him.
I couldn’t let him find out too soon, or he’d try to stop me.
As I was calculating my next steps, Luke came home.
Before I could close the webpage, he caught me red–handed.
“What are you looking at? You plan to go abroad?” he asked.
My husband asked me why I didn’t care ab…
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