I woke up to a soft voice calling my name. The young nurse was by my side again, holding a syringe.

"You’re awake!" she smiled gently, though her eyes were still red. "You were lucky. The knife didn’t hit any vital organs, or it could have been much worse."

My hand instinctively reached for my stomach, searching for the small bump that had been there before. But all I felt was emptiness.

The nurse’s expression darkened. "I’m so sorry. We did everything we could..."

Even though I had braced myself for this, hearing it said out loud crushed me. My vision blurred, and my chest felt hollow.

My baby, who had been with me for three months, was gone.

Perhaps he had known—known that his father didn’t want him. Perhaps that’s why he chose to leave me so quietly.

Just then, the door swung open, and Colin entered, holding a bouquet of red roses. The moment I saw him, the nurse’s demeanor hardened.

"What are you doing here?" she snapped. "She doesn’t want to see you."

Colin’s expression darkened. "Is this how you talk to family members? I’m her husband."

"Family?" the nurse shot back. "What kind of husband abandons his wife, leaving her to fight for her life alone?"

As her words fell, Colin's jaw clenched and his face twisted in anger.

I watched him, feeling nothing but cold irony. A man I had been married to for seven years now felt more like a stranger, while a stranger had just shown me more kindness than he ever had.

The tension in the room was thick, and I could see Colin's gaze shift to the nurse’s name tag.

He sneered, his voice laced with venom. "Nicole Elsher, is it? Looks like I’ll need to have a word with your supervisor about how they’re training their nurses."

Nicole's face flushed with anger, and I could tell she was on the verge of standing up to him. But I raised a hand, stopping her.

After living with Colin for so long, I knew exactly how vindictive he could be. If she spoke another word, he would use every connection he had to make sure she lost her job.

"Nurse Elsher, it’s fine. You can leave now. I’ll speak with him alone," I said calmly.

Nicole hesitated, biting her lip in frustration, but eventually turned and left the room, clearly unhappy with how things had played out.

Only once she was gone did Colin's expression soften. However, when he looked at me, his face was gleaming with smugness, as if he was saying, "See? I knew you’d want me to stay."

Tsk. He had the nerve to act as if nothing had happened.

"The staff here is awful," he muttered, shaking his head. "I’ll have you transferred to a better hospital in a few days."

I couldn't help but scoff internally. He still hadn’t changed. Always trying to control things, to make it seem like he was in charge of my well-being—when all along, he had been the source of my suffering.

He set the roses down on the bedside table, smiling as if everything was fine. "I brought your favorite—red roses. Don’t they look beautiful?"

I looked away, disgusted by his casual arrogance. But he didn’t seem to care about my cold response. Instead, He pulled a chair over and sat next to me, still smiling. "Come on, you’re still mad?"

"Siena is pregnant. Anything could’ve happened to her and the baby. Don’t be so petty."

"When you’re feeling better, I’ll take you shopping, okay? Buy whatever you want."

His tone was so indifferent, so dismissive. He truly believed that a few gifts and empty promises could fix everything—that I was just upset and would get over it soon.

How could he be so blind?

I didn’t even want to argue anymore. Just being near him made me sick.

"Colin," I said, my voice was steady but cold. "There’s nothing left to say. Let’s get a divorce."

Colin’s face darkened. “Eloise, are you seriously trying to use divorce as some twisted tactic to get attention?”

He scoffed, his words dripping with disdain. “First, you fake being pregnant just to steal the doctor from Siena, and now you’re throwing around threats of divorce. Can you stop being so childish?”

I furrowed my brows, feeling the exhaustion settle deep into my bones. I couldn’t entirely blame him for not believing me. After all, I used to love him with such blind devotion. No matter how many times he hurt me, I would swallow the pain and keep smiling.

But now? I was just tired.

“Colin, this isn’t a game or a threat,” I said, my voice calm but weary. “I’m exhausted—mentally, emotionally. Would a divorce really be so terrible? You’re in love with Siena, she’s divorced now, and I’m offering to step aside. You two can finally be together.”

For some reason, my words seemed to strike a nerve. Colin’s eyes flared with anger, and he cut me off sharply.

“Enough, Eloise! Stop with the theatrics. These manipulative tricks are only making me more annoyed.” He sneered, his tone condescending. “I won’t hold this against you, but you need to seriously reflect on your behavior.”

He turned to leave as if that was the final word on the matter.

“Wait.”

Colin halted, glancing back at me. His anger seemed to waver slightly, as if he expected me to back down, like always.

I pointed to the bouquet of red roses on the bedside table, my voice steady as I spoke.

“You remembered wrong. The one thing I hate most in this world is red roses. Take them with you.”

Colin froze, caught off guard by my words. A flash of panic crossed his face—just for a moment—before he tried to cover it.

He opened his mouth as if to argue or explain, but I had already turned my head away, dismissing him without another word.

All I heard were his hurried footsteps as he grabbed the roses and stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

Finally, the room fell into silence. I closed my eyes, hoping for some rest after all the chaos.

Suddenly, my phone vibrated on the bedside table. Sighing, I grabbed it and immediately saw a message from Siena.

[Eloise, is Colin with you? Tell him to come back quickly; I want him to make me some porridge.]

I stared at the message, feeling the urge to block her. But as I swiped the screen, my fingers slipped, and I accidentally opened her social media feed instead.

There, staring back at me, was a photo of a lavish bouquet of red roses alongside a smaller bouquet of delicate white jasmine.

Her caption read: [Red roses are so tacky. When he saw I didn’t like them, he bought me jasmine to make me happy!]

I instantly recognized the roses. They were the very same ones Colin had brought to me.

Suddenly, everything clicked into place—Colin had given me the flowers that Siena had rejected.

A bitter smile tugged at the corners of my lips as I scrolled down to see Colin’s comment beneath her post:

[Jasmine for you, my wish is that you never leave.]

The comment section was filled with a stream of supportive messages from his friends, offering their congratulations and blessings.

I stared at the screen, stunned.

Colin’s friends had always disliked me, thinking I was the one who had come between him and Siena. They believed I was the third party in their story.

But they couldn’t have been more wrong.

I had been with Colin for ten years—married to him for seven. It was Siena who had reappeared out of nowhere and inserted herself back into his life.

Our marriage had been happy—almost perfect—until Siena returned from abroad.

Colin had claimed his involvement with her was purely out of gratitude, that she had done him a favor in the past and he was simply repaying the debt.

But it wasn’t long before their relationship became inseparable, and their closeness suffocating.

I used to ask him if I had done something wrong, constantly trying to please him, thinking I could win back his affection.

Until the day I overheard him in a private room, talking to his friends.

"Eloise isn’t bad, but compared to Siena, she just doesn’t measure up.”

“Siena, if only you’d come back a few years earlier, we could’ve had a kid in school by now.”

I remember Siena laughing softly, playfully teasing him. “Colin, am I your true love?”

His friends had cheered them on, calling them the real couple.

Siena would always brush off their comments, but she would still post ambiguous messages on social media. And Colin wasn't any different—he loved the attention, the way people thought he was Siena’s true husband, not mine.

We fought about it once. However, Colin told me I was overreacting, that there was no need to prove anything, and that I should respect his choices.

He promised me he’d set boundaries with Siena, but those boundaries never held.

Whenever she looked at him with those teary eyes, he would forget all sense of reason.

And as for me? He always believed I would never leave him. That no matter how far he pushed, I’d always come crawling back.

Seven years of marriage had taught me the harshest lesson.

To Colin, Siena was the untouchable 'first love'—the woman he would always cherish from afar. As for me? I was like the 'cow dung,' the thing he could casually mock and discard.

But what he forgot was that I was not like him. I won’t grovel forever.

And as for his so-called savior, I had my doubts. Was Siena truly the one who saved his life all those years ago?

Or was that just another story she spun to keep him hooked?