The hospital lights were too bright. Everything was white, clinical, and smelled of antiseptic.
"Patient lost significant blood volume. Fetus didn't survive. She's stable now, but it was close."
The voice sounded far away, muffled.
My baby. Gone.
I lay there, staring at the ceiling, feeling a single cold tear slide into my ear. I didn't scream. I was too empty to scream.
A while later, the door pushed open. I didn't need to look. I knew the heavy sound of Alistair's boots. He walked in, bringing the scent of the outside world with him. Seraphina's perfume mixed with hospital bleach. It made me want to gag.
"Doctor says you're not going to die," he said casually. He stood over me and tossed a folder onto my stomach. "So don't. Not until you've signed this."
I opened my eyes. It was the divorce papers again. I looked at him—the man I'd loved for five years, the father of the child I'd just lost—and realized he was a stranger.
"You want this that badly?" My voice was a dry croak. My lips were trembling.
"Years ago," he snapped. "Five years of you was more than enough."
I closed my eyes. I thought about my father, Marcus. Right before he died, he told me: "Evelyn, there's a box. Important things inside. You'll need them. Remember, you're a daughter of the Lin family. Keep your head up."
Alistair had thrown that box out last week.
All because Seraphina looked at it and made a face. "Alistair, these old things make me so uneasy. Do you really need to keep them?"
He hadn't even hesitated. He told the maid to bin it.
When the maid called me, I'd rushed home. I'd knelt at his feet, begging him.
"Your father is dead," he'd said, looking down at me with disgust. "Why keep his junk? It's in the trash. Go dig for it if you want, just stop annoying me."
I spent hours searching through the trash bins. The smell was nauseating—rotting food, wet cardboard. My hands were filthy, my knees scraped from kneeling on concrete. But I found it. No one cared. No one ever cared.
"Give me a pen," I said.
Alistair blinked. He looked surprised I was giving in so fast. He probably expected me to beg, to cry, to cling to his leg.
He handed me a pen. I scrawled my name on the line. I didn't read the fine print. I didn't care about alimony.
"You have three days to get your crap out of the house," he said, snatching the papers back as if afraid I'd change my mind. "One day late, and it's all going in the trash." He turned to leave.
"Alistair." I called his name one last time.
He looked back, his face full of impatience. "What now?"
"You're going to regret this." I stared at him, my eyes burning dry. I meant every word.
"Regret?" He let out a short, ugly laugh. "The only thing I'm feeling is relief. I'm finally free."
He walked out, the door clicking shut behind him.
I closed my eyes and started planning how to drag him into hell with me.
Dad, I'm sorry. I let you down, I thought. But I'm getting up now. And I'm going to make every single one of them pay.