I finished the discharge paperwork and caught a cab home.
Standing at the door, I felt the world blur for a second.
Six years ago, for Stanley Vance, I'd agreed to a secret marriage without a second thought and moved into this little villa. Back then I was sweet on him, happy, my heart full of dreams about the future.
But six years had passed, and all of it was long gone.
I keyed in the passcode. Wrong password.
My hand froze halfway to pulling back.
I'd entered that string of numbers more times than I could count, could punch it in with my eyes shut, and now it told me I was wrong?
Refusing to believe it, I tried again. Wrong password, still.
While I stood there at a loss, the door opened from inside.
It was a delicate-looking girl. I'd seen her before, in the file I'd had pulled.
Samantha Pruitt. A freshman who'd just been admitted to Capital University.
The moment she saw me, the malice in her eyes was unhidden, even as her mouth curved into a sweet smile. "Hey, lady, who are you looking for?"
The year I married Stanley, I was only twenty too, soft and young like the girl in front of me.
It had only been six years since then.
I knew Samantha was trying to humiliate me on purpose. I couldn't be bothered to spar with her.
Just as I moved to step inside, Samantha suddenly grabbed my hand and leaned close to my ear, whispering fast. "What you gave birth to was a bastard. It didn't deserve to live."
Before it could even register, she yanked my hand hard.
By the time I came to my senses, Samantha was sprawled on the ground, clutching her belly, screaming in terror. "Stanley, my stomach hurts so much..."
Stanley arrived fast, and trailing behind him were several reporters hauling cameras.
He helped Samantha up, his eyes full of concern. "Are you okay? I'll take you to the hospital right now."
Samantha curled against his chest, pitiful, eyes red. "Miss, I judged you by your looks just now, and that was wrong of me. But you can't just shove me after I told you I was pregnant."
"Stanley, don't be angry. The baby and I should be fine. Maybe she was just in a bad mood..."
Stanley shot me a dark look, then had the butler send the reporters off, while he himself scooped Samantha up and drove away.
I watched the crowd scatter in front of me, my chest tight to bursting.
I'd known Stanley for eight years, been his for six. I knew that look of his too well.
This wasn't going to end here.
After the butler had seen the reporters off, I called out to stop him. "Uncle Logan, could I trouble you to pull the security footage for me?"
The butler nodded and agreed.
I turned and went upstairs. Looking at the crammed-full master bedroom, the memories came flooding back.
Back when I'd moved in, this place was bare. Stanley had his arm around my waist, his gaze doting. "From now on, treat this as your own home. Arrange it however you want."
I looked at that colorful wall of oil paintings, remembering how, because I loved to paint, Stanley had deliberately left one white wall for me to work on.
I lifted my eyes to the two frames above the headboard, remembering how, because I couldn't decide on a wedding gown, Stanley had taken me to shoot both the Western and traditional styles, then had them framed.
Back then he'd looked at me with stars in his eyes. "I can't give you a wedding ceremony, but every bit of the romance you deserve, I won't shortchange you on a single one."
I pulled myself back from the thought, took down the frames with a blank face, slid out the album inside, and tore it to pieces without hesitation.
I'd just thrown the shreds into the trash when there was a knock at the door, and Butler Logan's voice came from outside.
"Madam, I've found the footage you asked for."
"Send it to my phone."
Soon, I received the surveillance video. I forwarded it to Stanley right away and sent a message.
【This is the truth】
No matter how much Stanley believed Samantha, I didn't think he could keep playing blind in the face of the truth.
That afternoon I packed up three big bags of things and donated all of them to a charity, as a blessing for Sammy, hoping he could live happy and free in his next life.
All night Stanley didn't reply to the message, and he didn't come back.
The next morning I took my documents in to cancel the registration. The moment it went through, I caught the contempt and disgust in the staff's eyes.
Once I'd walked far enough, I faintly heard them gossiping. "Mistress." "Shameless homewrecker." "Serves her right her son's dead." Things like that.
I gripped my handbag tight and walked out the front door, and a rotten egg smashed against my head, the rancid stench hitting me square in the face.
Then came a barrage of rotten eggs and wilted vegetable leaves, a mob spitting vicious words, even telling me to drop dead.
Bewildered, I hurried into the car and left.
In the car I finally caught my breath. I opened my phone, and only then found there was a trending topic about me.
#Sam isn't the mistress, Cindy Stephens is#
I tapped the post open and read all of it.
It laid out how I'd shamelessly seduced Stanley, how I'd used dirty tricks to get pregnant, how I'd come crawling back to latch onto him six years later.
My whole body went rigid, my gaze locked on the account that posted it. It was the official account of Stanley's company.
For Samantha's sake, he'd actually used the main account to post.
It came back to me all at once, how when Stanley and I first got together, he said he couldn't go public with me yet, but couldn't hold up against my little tantrums, so he'd offered to come out with it on a secret account.
It was only after I gave birth that I found out the posts on his secret account were visible to me alone.
I should have seen it long ago. Stanley was never a good match for me.
It was my own stubbornness, my insistence that he was my fate, that not only got my Sammy killed, but left my Sammy's ashes with no peace.
All because the Vance family had a rule: any child who died before turning eighteen wasn't worthy of being laid in the Vance family cemetery.
And Sammy's ashes had been held in Stanley's hands all this time. I hadn't so much as laid eyes on them.
