Chapter 6

Around this time, Madison left the country on a business trip. She left in a real hurry.

I only found out after I died that my dad had orchestrated the whole thing to get her out of the way.

Starting around my third month of pregnancy, Eric began making me these incredibly rich, nutritious meals, and my dad kept dropping off expensive ingredients for him to cook with.

Eric would always say things like, "Sophia, I made this especially for you. You need to eat all of it.

"Sophia, you have to eat more so the baby gets all the nutrients it needs.

"Sophia, I worked a whole week to afford this. How can you even think about wasting it?

"Come on, eat.

"Eat.

"Eat!

"Eat!"

I thought this was love, this was Eric showing how much he cared about me, my dad showing his fatherly devotion.

I also knew that eating too much during pregnancy without enough exercise could make the baby too big and cause complications during delivery. But Eric told me I was being ridiculous.

"Sophia, stop watching those brainless dramas," he said. "Back in ancient times, those rich ladies had weak bodies, so yeah, childbirth was hard for them. But it's different now. Medicine's advanced.

"Even if the baby's a little bigger, they can just do a C-section. Eat more so the baby gets enough nutrition and your body stays healthy too."

I believed him. After all, modern surgery was so advanced that C-sections were just routine procedures now. A slightly bigger baby wouldn't be a problem.

But when it came time to deliver and the baby was too large for natural birth, the doctor recommended a C-section and Eric refused to sign the consent forms.

I lay on that delivery bed in agony for an entire day and night, my body tearing apart, and still the baby wouldn't come out.

Doctors kept rushing in and out, begging Eric to sign for a C-section, but he refused every single time. And it wasn't just him. My own father refused too.

When the doctors pressed him harder, Eric's true face came out. He pointed at the doctor and snarled, "What woman doesn't give birth?

"Is Sophia so special that she can't handle a little pain? If she can't do it, that's her own fault.

"In ancient times they didn't have surgery or C-sections, and the human race didn't go extinct. Make her push the baby out herself. She has to do it."

My father chimed in right beside him. "Exactly. How can we just cut open a perfectly good person? We're not doing it. Our family refuses. Make her push. She has to deliver naturally."

In the end, the hospital had no choice but to make them sign a liability waiver. I begged the doctors and nurses to give me a C-section, but there was nothing they could do.

At first, the delivery doctor and nurses were sympathetic toward me. But by the end, they were just exhausted and helpless.

One young nurse, her hands covered in my blood, grabbed my hand with tears streaming down her face and said angrily, "You married a heartless bastard like him. This is your own fault!"

That was how I died in the hospital, taking my baby with me.

I'd been such a fool.

Just before dawn, I woke up in my dorm room where the curtains were drawn tight against the windows. After I calmed myself down, I turned on a small lamp and got up to use the bathroom.

Now that I'd been given a second chance, I was going to make the most of my college years. Study hard, have fun, and destroy Eric—those were my three main goals in life.

As for Emily, I just needed to wait and watch. Without the cord blood from my baby, she didn't have long to live anyway.

The next day at lunch in the campus cafeteria, Eric suddenly texted me.

"Baby, how come you didn't accept the gift I sent you?"

The moment I saw him call me "baby," I knew for certain that he'd been reborn too. In my past life, that was exactly what he'd called me. But now, seeing those two words made me feel sick to my stomach.

I thought for a moment before replying. "Eric, what are you talking about? What gift?"

I only had one class that afternoon, and after it ended, I walked outside with my textbooks and sat down on one of the stone benches on campus. The sky was bright blue with fluffy white clouds drifting by, and the spring sunshine felt warm on my skin.

It was already late spring. The peach and plum blossoms had mostly fallen, but the late-blooming cherry trees were still covered in lush pink flowers that looked almost too perfect to be real. In the grass near the bench, two tiny kittens were tumbling around and playing with each other.

I stared at those kittens for a long time, wondering what the hell had been wrong with me in my past life. Why had I ever fallen for Eric in the first place?

If I hadn't wasted my time on him, I could've enjoyed all the freedom and adventures that college had to offer.

I pulled out my phone and ordered myself a coffee.

Without Eric to support, I suddenly had plenty of money to spare.