Ethan sent me to the seaside cottage two days later.
“Fresh air will help you recover,” he said casually.
The place looked abandoned.
Cold wind leaked through cracked windows. The walls smelled damp. Half the furniture was broken, and the heating barely worked.
It wasn’t somewhere a recovering patient should stay.
It was somewhere people sent things they wanted hidden.
I sat on the edge of the bed holding my stomach while waves crashed violently outside.
Every movement still hurt.
The bleeding hadn’t fully stopped.
But Ethan hadn’t visited once since leaving me outside the hospital.
Three days later, the front door opened again.
I heard my son laughing before I saw him.
Then Ethan walked in beside Lily.
She wore a loose white sweater now, one hand resting gently over her stomach.
Pregnant.
The sight made me nauseous immediately.
Lily approached carefully like she was the victim here.
“Sister… I came to apologize.”
I laughed weakly.
“Sister?”
Her eyes instantly reddened.
“I never wanted to hurt you.”
Ethan frowned at me immediately. “Can you stop acting hostile for once?”
My son suddenly ran toward Lily and hugged her waist.
“I want Auntie Lily to stay with me tonight.”
Ethan smiled faintly. “Then you’ll sleep with Auntie tonight.”
My chest tightened.
Not Mommy.
Lily rubbed his head gently while pretending to look embarrassed.
“I’m worried your wife will misunderstand…”
“She already misunderstands everything,” Ethan said coldly.
That night, I lay alone in the small bedroom listening to waves outside.
Around midnight, the door opened.
I sat up instantly.
Ethan walked inside calmly and locked the door behind him.
“What are you doing?”
“Lily’s pregnant,” he said simply. “It’s inconvenient.”
For a second, I didn’t understand.
Then disgust flooded through me.
“You can’t be serious.”
He loosened his tie slowly. “You’re still my wife.”
I moved backward immediately. “Get out.”
Ethan’s expression darkened.
“I wasn’t asking.”
My stitches still hurt. My body still hadn’t healed from surgery.
But none of that mattered to him.
I fought him desperately at first.
Then eventually stopped because the pain became unbearable.
Afterward, he fell asleep beside me like nothing happened.
I curled against the edge of the bed shaking silently.
Then I felt warmth spreading beneath me.
Too much warmth.
I reached down slowly.
Blood.
So much blood.
My breathing became uneven immediately.
“Ethan…”
No response.
He was sleeping.
I tried pushing him harder.
“Ethan…”
Darkness blurred my vision.
The next thing I remembered clearly was morning sunlight and Ethan suddenly sitting upright beside me.
“Fuck.”
There was blood everywhere.
The ambulance arrived twenty minutes later.
Back at the hospital, doctors rushed around me again while nurses pressed gauze against my abdomen.
One doctor looked furious.
“If you continue damaging your body like this,” he snapped, “nobody will be able to save you next time.”
Outside the room, I heard nurses whispering softly.
“She’s so pitiful…”
“Her husband did this?”
“Didn’t she just miscarry?”
I closed my eyes.
Humiliation felt endless now.
That afternoon, my mother arrived again.
She stood beside the hospital window silently for a long time before placing a document onto my bed.
“A severance agreement,” she said calmly.
I looked down slowly.
Mother-daughter relationship termination.
“If you continue staying beside that man,” she continued coldly, “then don’t call yourself my daughter anymore.”
Tears burned my eyes immediately.
“Mom…”
“I refuse to let my bloodline become this pathetic.”
Her words hurt.
Because part of me knew she was right.
I used to think enduring pain proved love.
Now I only looked stupid.
Broken.
My mother turned to leave.
Then suddenly I grabbed her wrist weakly.
For the first time in years, my pride disappeared completely.
“Mom,” I whispered hoarsely. “Help me.”
She stopped moving.
I looked up at her through tears.
“I want him to regret everything he did to me.”
