Through the door, his voice was pained and helpless: "Grace, stop lying to me. If I let you out, you'll leave me, but you promised you'd stay. You promised you'd never leave."
"I won't sign the divorce papers. Just give up."
"I'll handle everything. I want this child, and I'm not letting you go either!"
"Alex, I'm really hurting!"
The footsteps outside the door disappeared.
No matter how much I shouted, no one responded. I don't know how long passed—my throat went raw until I couldn't make a sound anymore.
The pain in my stomach grew worse, and something warm trickled down.
My dress was soaked through with blood. My body turned cold in waves. In the darkness, I could almost see my baby slipping away from me.
Then I heard voices outside the door again. Hope flickered back to life.
"Alex! Alex, I'm bleeding!"
"Call 911, please—"
Several lit paper wads were shoved through the crack in the door. The sealed room filled with smoke instantly, choking me until I couldn't open my eyes.
"Bad woman! Dad's taking Mom to the hospital. They won't be back for three days. You can just stay locked in there until you die!"
A child's voice.
My child.
I couldn't wait any longer. I staggered to my feet.
This was a storage room—no windows except a tiny skylight above my head.
I looked around. Nothing but a dirty bedsheet.
I bit my lip hard. The pain cleared my head just enough. I wrapped the sheet around my hand.
Facing the triple-paned glass, I smashed down.
Once. Twice.
The pain blacked out my vision. I nearly passed out right there.
On the seventeenth hit, the glass finally shattered.
I climbed out through that tiny skylight.
Dragging my blood-soaked body to the roadside, I flagged down a car.
"Please. Take me to the hospital."
I passed out before I finished speaking.
When I woke up, I was already in a hospital bed.
Four days unconscious, they told me. The baby couldn't be saved. My arm was fractured from hitting the glass—three months in a cast.
Over thirty wounds covered my body.
I didn't care about any of them.
Only the child. The child that had made me hope again.
I'd imagined telling Alex on our seventh anniversary. Pictured the look on his face when he found out.
None of that mattered now.
He already had a child with someone else. Why would he care about ours?
Against the doctor's orders, I signed myself out. Before I even made it downstairs, Alex called.
I thought maybe he'd seen the blood all over the floor. Maybe he finally remembered to care.
The call connected. His voice was ice-cold.
"Grace, I only locked you up for three days to let you calm down. I even left Junior there to order takeout—told him to get you food too."
"And you set the house on fire? You hit Junior? You were so jealous you attacked a child and almost burned him alive!"
"Alex. You called just to say this?"
My voice cracked. Before, he would have heard it instantly. No matter what happened, he'd appear at my side and coax me until I smiled again.
This time, he just paused. A long silence. Then his voice came again—gentle, and devastating:
"You have one day. I'm bringing Junior home tonight. You will apologize to him in person." A beat. "Otherwise, don't bother threatening me with divorce anymore. You know what arson means here—attempted murder of a child. Prison time. And if you go to prison? Even if you don't want the divorce, the Acevedo family doesn't want a daughter-in-law like you."
I couldn't listen anymore and hung up.
