Chapter 5
Lily's eyes turned red, and she looked like a frightened rabbit. "Nancy," she stammered, "I can go by myself."
Nancy seemed to snap out of her daze. She smiled at her and said, "It's fine. Whatever you need done, I'll go with you."
Lily kept her head down and didn't say another word.
While they waited, Nancy stepped out to take a call. When she came back, she heard the doctor ask, "Your husband didn't come with you today?"
Lily tensed. "Is something wrong with the baby?"
The doctor flipped through the papers in her hand. "You and your husband need to be careful with sexual activity. Too much can affect the baby."
Nancy's hand froze on the door handle. She couldn't move.
The doctor continued, "Your husband asked me about this last time. I told him it was fine, but not too often."
She shook her head. "You young couples need to show some restraint."
Lily's head dropped lower, and her ears turned crimson. She made a soft sound of acknowledgment. "I'll talk to him," she murmured.
On the drive back, Lily stayed quiet and kept her head down while she edited a video. Nancy could see she was working on her own account, and Lily kept reviewing the footage, a barely noticeable smile on her face.
She looked happy.
Nancy made a mental note and searched for the account later when she was alone in her room. The profile had hundreds of thousands of followers and documented Lily's pregnancy journey.
The male figure in the videos never showed his face, but Nancy recognized him immediately. It was Edward.
He patiently participated in all the trending couple challenges. One video showed Lily being held in someone's arms, tears in her eyes, and the man behind her gently patted her back, as if soothing a child.
The caption read: [I'm selfish for wanting to keep you by my side this way, but you never blamed me. You said it was sweet.]
The post was published on the exact day Edward ran from their wedding, and Nancy became a public joke.
The comments were filled with blessings.
Nancy watched those videos again and again, and the process felt like taking a small knife and carving Edward out of her heart piece by piece.
It hurt, but it worked.
Edward came home late that night. Someone helped him inside, and he seemed drunk. Nancy stood at the top of the stairs and listened to the broken conversation drifting up from below.
His friend asked, "Edward, if you marry Nancy, what happens to Lily?"
Edward leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes with exhaustion. "The baby will be registered under Nancy's name, and she'll raise it like her own child."
He continued, "After the wedding, things with Lily have to end. She's still young, so she can't spend her whole life following me around."
His friend sounded surprised. "Really? Lily's been completely devoted to you since she was eighteen. She's given you everything and even had your baby. Can you really let her go?"
Edward stayed silent for a long time before he finally spoke. "I have to marry Nancy, and she can only marry me. If I don't marry her, her family won't let her go. I promised I'd help her escape their control."
He continued, "Lily knows that, and that's why she says she doesn't care about having a title."
The friend pressed on. "Why don't you just keep her overseas? Nancy won't find out. She's marrying you for her own reasons anyway, so you don't have much choice. But Lily actually loves you."
Edward hummed in agreement and laughed. "She's naive."
The implication behind those words was clear. Because Lily was naive, Nancy deserved what she got.
Nancy listened in silence. Part of her wanted to run downstairs and expose them, to slap Edward across the face. Another part wanted to fight her family and find a way to break off the engagement so she could get away from them all.
A thousand scenarios ran through her mind, but her body felt like a broken machine, and she couldn't move. She could even hear her joints creaking.
She walked back to her room without a word and hugged the toilet, dry heaving. She cupped cold water in her hands and splashed it on her face, then looked up at the woman staring back from the mirror.
Her eyes were bloodshot, and her face was haggard.
She looked like a mess.