"Have you seen the comments online? Just because you married a distinguished man, it doesn’t mean you become a lady."

"Aren't you ashamed doing this kind of thing? Especially since you are a woman?"

Carol's face twisted into a malicious grin. It was far from the national goddess image she portrayed to the public.

"Did you know? It was Jeremy himself who leaked the news of your marriage." Carol then added, "He did it to protect me."

To protect her, Jeremy was willing to do anything, even at the expense of the woman who had been his wife for three years.

I smiled coldly, "After all this year, you're still a mistress. Well, congratulations.

Her face turned stormy and she made a toward me but I blocked her advances easily and swatted her hand away.

Carol's face changed drastically, "Who do you think you are? How dare you against me."

She grabbed a wine glass from the table and tried to smash it at me. Even though I managed to snatch the glass away because of my quick move, I still got cut by the ring on her finger during the tug.

I stared at the blood dripping from the cut, then at the ring on her finger. Then I realized that it was my ring.

Before I left Jeremy's house, I had taken off the ring and left it on the shoe rack by the door. I had never expected that it would sit on her hand.

She noticed my silence and smirked. "Why are you so quiet? This was mine all along. You’re just a thief returning what never belonged to you."

I couldn’t help but laugh. "You take the man I discarded and things …. Carol, are you a trash can?"

Her face turned bright red. She raised her hand and slapped me hard. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth as pain flared across my cheek.

Before I could retaliate, a hand gripped my wrist, it was hot and unyielding. "Amy! What the hell is wrong with you?"

Jeremy shoved me aside so hard that he sent me stumbling. I barely caught myself before my abdomen hit the corner of the table. My hand instinctively moved to protect the baby.

I steadied myself and retreated to protect my child while looking coldly at Carol who threw herself into Jeremy's arm tears streaming down her face as she sobbed, "Jeremy, don't blame her. She hit me because she loves you too much. She didn’t mean it."

Jeremy glared at me. However, when his eyes flicked to my bloodied lips, he hesitated a while before he turned back to her to comfort her.

Once, there was a man who treated me as if I were his whole world. However, that was a long time ago.

I forced myself to remain calm as I gave them my final warning, "She’s wearing my ring."

Before Jeremy could respond, Carol pouted. "Jeremy, can’t I wear it? It’s my favorite design. I told you that before."

Jeremy looked at me again, with a cold gaze, when he saw that I showed no vulnerability, his expression hardened.

"Throw it away," he said casually. "That ring is outdated. It doesn’t suit you anymore."

He pulled Carol closer, coaxed and promised her to give her a newer, more extravagant ring. Carol smiled triumphantly and turned to him. "Throw it out the window," she urged.

For a moment, Jeremy hesitated, his eyes lingered on me. Then, under her insistent gaze, he tossed the ring aside.

I didn’t see where the silver ring landed. It didn’t matter anymore. With that single motion, our story ended.

"Fine," I said, my voice steady. "The divorce papers will come soon. My lawyer will contact you."

I didn’t make it to the hospital to terminate the pregnancy because Jeremy knew about my pregnancy. He showed up at my door. His hand was holding the shredded remains of my medical report. His expression was a mixture of disbelief and excitement.

"Amy! We’re having a baby!" he said happily.

I stared at him in a bafflement by the man standing before me, as though seeing a stranger.

Realization dawned on him and his smile faltered. He shifted nervously and his voice dropped. "You know how much my family wants a child."

His words were like a slap. For a fleeting moment, I almost believed we were a loving couple again.

Jeremy’s mother had always been insistent, her demands for grandchildren constant and unrelenting. Whenever I saw her, she would look down her nose at me and remind me to "hurry up and produce an heir."

Jeremy used to be considerate of me. When his mother urged us to have children, he would defend me, “She needs time to recuperate before she can get pregnant."

His mother would retort, “I told you to make her quit that job. Of course, she can’t have children, she spends a lot of time with the death.”

Afraid of an argument, she would storm off after delivering her parting jab.

Jeremy would then comfort me, take my hand and press it to his lips. “We were the ones who had a child, not them,” he’d reassure me, his tone filled with tenderness.

However now he stood before me and declared that his family wanted a child.

What was I to him? A walking uterus?

The irony made me laugh bitterly. My first word to him that day was, "Get out!"

Jeremy's face darkened when he heard this. When he was about to speak, he was interrupted by the ringing of his mobile phone. 

When he answered it, his expression softened as he engaged in a low, intimate conversation.

I did not have any intention to listen to them being affectionate so I opened the door and gestured for him to leave.

When the call ended, he looked at me in the same good mood he had during the call.

"Take care of yourself and the baby, okay Amy?" he said. "We're going to discuss about the baby later."

After he left, I vomited until my stomach ached.

As if on cue, my phone buzzed with news alerts. Photos of Jeremy and Carol holding hands on a shopping spree flooded my screen. Everyone was overjoyed. They were talking about this golden couple who had played on-screen lovers before. They were perfect together for each other. They were talented and beautiful. No one remembered about me.

When I returned to work, the familiar stench of the morgue, which I’d grown used to, suddenly made my stomach churn. It seemed I could not keep this child.

My boss’s mocking voice interrupted my thoughts. "What the hell are you doing? You're just standing here doing nothing, you'd better get out!"

I didn’t belong here. I wasn’t good at playing office politics or flattering my superiors.

My interactions with the deceased made me even more withdrawn as a result I did not speak to my coworker.

Early in my job, my boss’s hand would often linger too long near me. When I finally told him firmly that his actions made me uncomfortable, his attitude changed. His leering gaze turned into thinly veiled hostility. From then on, he treated me with contempt, spitting out sarcastic comments whenever he could.

I did not want to work here anymore. So, I submitted my resignation, but it was rejected because I hadn’t provided the required three months' notice.

Instead, I submitted my resignation, but it was rejected. I hadn’t provided the required three months' notice. It was the right time for me to abort the baby. 

Before leaving, I took a few containers of the morgue's wastewater.

I went alone to the hospital for the abortion. The anesthesia that they gave me clouded my mind and pulled me into hazy memories.

I was an orphan. My name, Amy Callahan, was given by Rain Callahan. Although she and I were not blood related he was everything in my life. He was my family, friend and lover.

We were three years apart in age and grew up together in the orphanage. We clung to each other as we had to endure bullying. When we tried to resist, the dean's mother beat me.

One bitterly cold winter night, he looked at me with bright, determined eyes and made a vow, "Little sister, when I grow up, I’ll buy you the warmest coat.”

"We'll be happy," he promised.

Life for two children trying to survive in the world wasn’t easy.

Rain did a lot of things. He dropped out of school and did everything he could to ensure I could go to college.

When I was a kid, I looked at him in despair and cried, "I don't want to go to school. “I don’t like studying. You go, brother. I'll support you."

He laughed, wiped my tears and rejected me, "No. Other children go to school and my princess deserves the same bright future as any other kid.”

He then said, "My dream is for you to have a better life."

The anesthesia pulled me deeper and I felt the faint resistance of the child inside me as if it were begging me to reconsider because it was mine and Jeremy's.

In my dream, her small voice called me "Mama," filled with reluctance as she said goodbye. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she didn’t regret her short time here. She even said that she would leave with her uncle.

I said to my baby, "Princess, in the next life, don’t come to me again.”

Then with determination, I said, "I will make the Holt Family pay."

When the surgery ended, I lay under the glaring white lights and stared blankly.

After several urging from my doctor, I got up and wiped the streak of tears that covered my face.

Ignoring the flood of news about the actor and his so-called “sweet romance,” after I opened the phone, I texted Jeremy through WhatsApp. [I had just aborted the pregnancy.]