Chapter 2

The anesthesia made me feel like I was in a bottomless pit.

I was sinking deeper into the darkness, faint metallic clinks ringing in my ears. It sounded like surgical tools rattling on a tray.

Then, far-off voices reached me, frantic, muffled.

"Bleeding is at 800."

"BP's down to 60."

"Hemostat, hurry."

Warm fluid kept flooding out of me.

I felt like a vessel with a crack at the bottom, my life draining away through some unseen breach.

I tried to open my eyes, tried to call for help, but my eyelids were impossibly heavy, and my throat felt stitched shut.

So, this was what dying felt like.

No, I couldn't die now.

Jonathan hadn't paid with his life.

Claire hadn't faced the consequences.

And my baby... My baby. That tiny life, growing inside me for eight weeks, never even got the chance to see the world.

"We can't save the uterus," a strange man's voice said, chillingly calm. "Full hysterectomy. Take it all out."

"But, does Mr. Reed agree?" a woman asked, her voice wavering with uncertainty.

"Her life's at stake. Forget him. Save her first."

A full hysterectomy. My uterus was gone.

I would never have a child again.

In the darkness, I felt like I might've smiled, or maybe I was crying. It didn't matter anymore.

Jonathan, you took my kidney, and now you robbed me of ever being a mother.

Was this enough for you? Did it make Claire happy?

"Wait," the woman suddenly shrieked. "We're missing a hemostat. Who counted the number of the instrument?"

"No way, I definitely..."

"Check the abdominal cavity, now!"

Cold instruments invaded my body again, digging around inside my abdomen.

I couldn't feel any pain anymore, just a deep, numbing sensation.

It felt like my soul had floated up to the ceiling, looking down at the shattered shell of my body on the operating table.

Look at you now, Evelyn. How pathetic.

You loved someone so much that it cost you even your uterus.

You loved so deeply that even death refused to grant you release.

"Found it," someone cried, their voice trembling with fear. "It's in the lower right abdomen, wrapped around the intestines."

"How did it get there?"

"Never mind, just get it out."

Another round of digging, and then I felt that strange emptiness as something, maybe the exploration equipment, was pulled out of me.

That hemostat had been left inside my body, just like Jonathan's so-called love, and the humiliation Claire dumped on me, and all the pain and shame these ten years of marriage carved into me.

It was like some foreign object that needed to be cut out with a scalpel, but no matter how many times they tried, it could never truly be removed.

"She's stable for now. Transfer her to the ICU."

"But what about this medical incident?"

"Reed Group's already handled it. Her family won't pursue it."

"Yeah, Mr. Reed's probably hoping she..."

The voices faded away.

I sank back into the darkness.

This time, I drifted into a long, winding dream.

I dreamed of nineteen-year-old Jonathan, sprawled in a narrow alley behind the medical school, his face covered in blood after being knocked down by a motorcycle.

But he was still holding a stray cat tightly in his arms, protecting it.

I rushed over, using the first aid skills I'd just learned to stop the bleeding. Jonathan blinked through the haze and muttered, "Hey, you smell like disinfectant."

I dreamed of my wedding at twenty-three. Jonathan was nowhere to be found the entire day. I sat alone in my hotel room, in my wedding dress, late into the night.

At three in the morning, he walked in, smelling strongly of alcohol. "Evelyn, this is just a business marriage. Don't think it's real."

I dreamed of a late night when I was twenty-seven. Jonathan had a high fever that wouldn't break, and I stayed by his side for three days and three nights.

When he finally woke up and saw me slumped over the edge of the bed, he took my hand for the first time and said softly, "Thank you for taking care of me."

Back then, I really thought the ice was finally thawing.

Looking back, I felt it was just wishful thinking.

"Ms. Hart? Ms. Hart, can you hear me?" someone called out.

I struggled to open my eyes.

The stark white lights of the ICU stabbed at my vision, making my eyes ache.

A nurse stood at my bedside, adjusting the IV drip. "You've been unconscious for two days. Mr. Reed said to let him know as soon as you wake up."

Let him know? So, he could come and check his handiwork? Or see if my left kidney made it into Claire? Or make sure they cut out every last bit of my uterus?

I moved my lips, my voice barely a rasp. "The baby..."

The nurse's face went rigid, her eyes darting away from mine. "Try to get some rest."

I didn't need her to say it. I got it.

I closed my eyes again, listening to the nurse's soft footsteps as she left the room. Then, muffled voices drifted in from the hallway.

"Poor thing. She lost both her baby and her uterus."

"I heard Mr. Reed took Ms. Summers to Riviera Retreat for a vacation yesterday."

"My my, his wife is stuck in the ICU fighting for her life, while he took his mistress to go on holiday."

Riviera Retreat. There were crystal blue waters, endless skies, powdery white sand, and palm trees swaying in the breeze.

Meanwhile, I was stuck here in this hospital bed, down a kidney, down a uterus, with a forgotten hemostat still lodged inside me, and a heart that was stone cold, dead for good.

On that afternoon, I ripped out all the tubes from my body.

The heart monitor blared. When the nurse rushed in, I was already sitting at the edge of the bed. The IV needle was still stuck in my hand, blood running backward through the clear tube.

"Are you out of your mind? Get back in bed," the nurse shouted.

"I'm leaving the hospital," I said, my voice so calm that it felt almost unfamiliar.

"You can't just—" the nurse protested.

"I'm leaving," I repeated, pulling out the IV needle myself. Blood splattered across the white sheets, blooming into crimson flowers.

The doctor came, then the hospital director, and finally, Jonathan's personal assistant, Carson, showed up.

The young man who always flashed me that fake smile stood at the doorway, speaking in a rehearsed, professional manner, "Mrs. Reed, Mr. Reed instructed that you need to rest."

"I'm not Mrs. Reed anymore." I looked up at him. "I've already signed the divorce papers."

Carson froze.

I pulled the wrinkled divorce papers out from under my pillow.

Before heading into surgery, I shoved them into the pocket of my hospital gown. They ended up stained with blood, and then dried against my skin.

On the signature line, my name, Evelyn Hart, was barely legible, shaky and broken, like the final struggle of someone dying.