Chapter 3
The divorce papers lay spread across the hospital bed's rolling table like a death certificate. My hand trembled as I gripped the pen, the black ink blurring through my tears. Each word on the legal document felt like a nail being hammered into the coffin of my marriage.
*Irreconcilable differences.* The phrase mocked me. How do you explain that your husband chose another woman over his pregnant wife? That he celebrated being a hero while you mourned your dead child alone?
I pressed the pen to paper, my signature shaky and uneven. Amy Warren. Soon to be Amy Warren again, not Amy Ellis. The name felt foreign now, like trying on clothes that no longer fit.
A fresh wave of tears splattered onto the documents, smearing the ink. I didn't care. Let them be stained with my grief—it was fitting. Everything Lawrence and I had built together was already ruined anyway.
Downstairs, I could still hear the faint echo of camera clicks and Lawrence's confident voice giving yet another interview. "Hero Volunteer of the Year." The title tasted like poison in my mouth.
I stuffed the signed papers into my purse along with the ultrasound photos—the only proof my daughter had ever existed. My hands moved mechanically as I gathered my few belongings: a change of clothes, my phone charger, the small teddy bear Lawrence had bought when we first found out I was pregnant.
The bear's fur was soft against my palm, and for a moment I couldn't breathe. I'd imagined placing it in the crib, watching tiny hands reach for it. Now it would never know a child's touch.
I slipped out of the hospital room while the nurses were busy elsewhere, taking the service elevator to avoid the media circus in the main lobby. The parking garage was quiet, my footsteps echoing off concrete walls as I walked to my car alone.
The drive home passed in a blur of familiar streets now foreign to me. Everything looked the same, but I felt like I was seeing it all through glass—present but separate, like a ghost haunting my own life.
Our house stood exactly as I'd left it before the flood, the white shutters and wraparound porch that had once symbolized our future now looking like a facade. Lawrence's truck wasn't in the driveway. Good. I needed to collect my things without facing him yet.
I used my key, the metal cold against my fingers. The front door opened with its familiar squeak—the one Lawrence always promised to fix but never got around to. Inside, the house felt hollow despite being filled with our shared possessions.
I climbed the stairs slowly, each step an effort. My body still ached from the trauma, from the loss, from swimming through floodwater while my daughter died inside me. The nursery door was closed. I couldn't look. Not yet.
Instead, I headed to our bedroom to pack a suitcase. But as I reached the doorway, I froze.
Lawrence was there. And so was Colette.
They were on our bed—the bed where Lawrence used to read pregnancy books aloud to my belly, where we'd planned baby names and dreamed of sleepless nights that would be worth every moment. Now Colette lay beneath him, her blonde hair spread across my pillow like spilled sunlight.
She was kissing him with desperate hunger, her hands tangled in his hair. Lawrence responded with equal fervor, his mouth moving against hers like she was air and he was drowning.
"I've waited so long for this," Colette whispered against his lips. "For you to see that we belong together."
"God, Colette," Lawrence groaned, his voice thick with desire. "I was such a fool to think I could stay away."
My suitcase slipped from my numb fingers, hitting the hardwood floor with a sharp crack.
They sprang apart, Lawrence's face cycling through surprise, guilt, and then something that looked almost like annoyance. Colette sat up slowly, making no effort to cover herself, her lips curved in what could only be described as a smirk.
"Amy." Lawrence's voice was flat, cold. "What are you doing here?"
The question hit me like a slap. What was I doing here? In my own home? In the bedroom I'd shared with my husband for three years?
"I came to get my things," I managed, my voice barely above a whisper.
Lawrence stood, running his hands through his disheveled hair. "Look, I know how this must look, but—"
"How it looks?" The words erupted from me with more force than I'd expected. "It looks like you're fucking another woman in our bed while I just buried our child!"
Colette's smirk widened. She pulled the sheet around herself with theatrical modesty, but her eyes gleamed with triumph.
"Our child?" Lawrence's voice turned sharp, accusatory. "Amy, stop. Just stop with the manipulation."
I stared at him, not understanding. "What?"
"This whole miscarriage story. It's just another one of your lies to make me feel guilty, isn't it? To keep me tied to you when you know I don't love you anymore."
The world tilted sideways. "Lawrence, I—"
"You what? You conveniently 'lose' a baby right when I find happiness with someone else? How stupid do you think I am?"
Behind him, Colette's smile was pure venom, her mask finally slipping completely. She'd won, and she wanted me to know it.
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