Chapter 1

On the day my mother was in a fatal car accident, my husband's first love suddenly spiked a fever.

He abandoned my mother at the crash site, all so he could rush to the side of his precious first love.

By the time the paramedics finally got my mother to the hospital, she had already missed the critical window for resuscitation.

I sat vigil beside her lifeless body the entire night. As dawn broke, my phone buzzed. It was an Instagram notification. My husband had posted a new story.

The caption read: [So glad you're okay.]

Beneath the text was a photo of him, looking incredibly tender as he spoon-fed medicine to his supposed precious ex.

At that exact moment, whatever was left of my heart turned to ash. I typed out a single, icy text and hit send: [Come home and sign the divorce papers.]

*****

I was elbow-deep in a grueling, hours-long surgery when it happened. The moment I finally stepped out of the OR and checked my phone, I was hit with the devastating news.

My mother had been in a severe car accident and was currently being rushed to the ER.

Today was supposed to be the day she came into the city to visit me. Because the hospital was severely understaffed, I couldn't leave, so I had practically begged my husband, Edward Harrington, to pick her up from the station.

I never imagined it would end in tragedy.

Sprinting toward the emergency department, I called Edward to find out what the hell was going on.

To my absolute shock, his voice on the other end of the line was completely calm.

"Sienna's fever spiked out of nowhere, and she's all alone. I'm already at her apartment," he said dismissively.

"And what about my mom?!" I screamed. "Did you seriously just leave her at the scene of the crash?"

I couldn't wrap my mind around it. Sienna Chase had these sudden fevers all the time, and this had to be the ninety-ninth time she pulled this stunt. How could he still fall for it?

As a doctor, I knew damn well she was faking it for attention.

Edward sighed, a heavy note of impatience bleeding into his voice.

"Your mom barely got tapped by the other car. It's not a big deal.

"You're a doctor! Don't you realize how dangerous a sudden high fever can be? What if something goes wrong?"

Just then, Sienna's breathy voice drifted through the speaker.

"Edward... are you two fighting again because of me? I'm so sorry..."

Edward didn't even say goodbye. He hung up on me to go soothe her.

By the time I reached the ER, the heavy double doors swung open. A colleague of mine stepped out with a long face, declaring my mother's time of death.

I barely managed to steady myself as tears instantly surged from my eyes.

"Didn't he say she barely got tapped? How could she be gone?"

I grabbed my colleague's scrubs, my voice cracking as I demanded to know what had happened.

He shook his head, sighing.

"Her internal injuries were massive. If she had just been brought in twenty minutes earlier, we might have been able to save her.

"We did everything we could. I'm so incredibly sorry."

I stood rooted to the spot, a bone-deep chill sweeping through my veins.

My colleague gently released my hands, gave my shoulder a comforting squeeze, and walked away.

A moment later, they wheeled my mother out on a gurney, covered by a stark white sheet. I followed her into the morgue.

A nurse gently wiped the blood and grime from my mother's face. When I looked at her, she seemed so peaceful, like she was just taking a nap.

I reached out, my trembling fingers brushing against her cold cheek. All at once, my knees gave out, and I collapsed onto the hard floor.

"I'm so sorry, Mom..." I choked out.

I don't know how long I knelt there. Eventually, the nurse, unable to watch me suffer, quietly slid a chair behind me.

I spent the entire night sitting beside her body. In the suffocating hours of the early morning, I mindlessly opened my phone and saw Edward's post.

The picture captured him feeding Sienna her medicine with such tender care, while she gazed back at him, her eyes overflowing with devotion.

He captioned it: [Glad you're okay.]

The words were few, but they stung like a physical blow. I could hardly look at them.

My fists clenched so tightly as I stared at the screen. I wanted to teleport to that apartment, grab him by the collar, and scream in his face, "How could you leave her there to die?"

But the rage quickly fizzled into a hollow, exhausting emptiness. I didn't even have the energy to argue anymore. We had this fight a hundred times, and it always ended the same way.

It took my mother dying for me to finally hit rock bottom and realize the truth: our five-year marriage was a pathetic joke.

I sat with my mother until the sun came up.

Then, I texted a lawyer friend to draft up the paperwork. Once it was in my inbox, I opened my chat with Edward.

[We're done. Come home and sign the divorce papers.]

I typed the words slowly. The moment I hit send, whatever love I had left for that man died completely.