He Only Believed Me After I Died

After Zachary Harding tore up our marriage certificate for the eighth time over his secretary,

I didn't go with him to get a new one.

I posted the chat logs between him and that secretary online instead.

Then I turned around and checked myself into the cancer center.

Zachary came rushing to the hospital, my stomach cancer diagnosis crushed in his fist.

"If you die, I'll die with you."

I took it for a joke.

But afterward, he truly never left my side.

He even sold the company, dragging out a three-month prognosis into three whole years.

The day I learned there was nothing more to be done,

I went to tell him to let me go.

Instead I overheard him talking with a buddy of his:

"Mr. Harding, there's clearly a doctor who could treat your wife's illness. Why have you turned him down eight times in a row?

"She survives on the daily biopsies, sure, but it's agony for her."

Zachary sneered.

"Agony is exactly the point. How else do I make up for the three years of online abuse Sabina went through?

"Sabina has depression. Those few chat screenshots nearly drove her to kill herself.

"And Naomi Joyce, with nothing but a few minor ailments, faked stomach cancer to push Sabina toward death. If that's how she wants to play it, then let her find out what it means to live a fate worse than death."

His buddy nodded.

"True. Sabina's had no one to love or care for her since she was little. Naomi has everything, and still she has to compete with Sabina.

"All because Mr. Harding tore up a piece of paper, and she dragged Sabina's name through the mud across the whole internet.

"It's not like it couldn't be reissued. I really don't know what she was being so dramatic about."

Zachary laughed.

"If she were really sick, I'd gladly die alongside her.

"But using a fake to try and control me? I'm not that easily fooled."

I stood outside the door.

The corner of my mouth curved.

Zachary.

You'd better mean what you say.

...

I didn't let Zachary know I was there.

I turned and went back to the hospital.

I signed my discharge papers.

The young nurse who'd cared for me all this time walked me out, her eyes red.

"Naomi, Mr. Harding sold the marital home. Where are you going to stay?"

I gave a faint smile.

"Probably the marital home, I'd say."

The young nurse froze.

I patted her head.

"These three years. Thank you."

Standing at the door of the marital home,

I gripped the old key tight in my hand.

This was the house Zachary had sold two years ago to pay for my treatment.

By now the locks should have been changed long ago.

And yet I had a feeling.

The door would open.

I slid the key in.

Sure enough.

The door opened.

The layout of the marital home was exactly as it had been.

Spotless.

Which meant someone had been living here these past two years.

On the shoe cabinet at the entryway sat two pairs of matching bunny couple slippers.

Custom-printed with the names of the man and woman of the house.

Sabina's wifey. Zach hubby.

Cutesy little pet names. One look and I knew Sabina Fox had them made.

I paced through the living room.

Every trace of me had long since been erased from this place.

The water glass, pink.

The bedsheets, pink.

Even Zachary's desk.

Draped with a pink tablecloth.

Zachary hated pink more than anything.

Sure enough.

Zachary had never sold the marital home.

He just didn't want me coming back.

Intruding on the love nest he shared with another woman.

On the storage rack sat the baseball bat he used for playing.

I picked it up.

And with every ounce of strength in my body,

I swung it hard into the glass display cabinet in front of me.

The whole collection of designer figures Sabina had hoarded shattered across the floor.

The pink water glass.

The pink desk.

Every pink thing.

The glass cut open my arm.

This dying body had reached its limit.

I braced myself on the bat, gasping for breath.

"Naomi Joyce!"

The door swung open.

Zachary stared at the wreckage covering the floor.