I tried to explain, my voice breaking as I struggled against the weight and my despair. “How could the child not be yours? I would never—”
But I never finished.
The rescue workers began their operation, and the boulder shifted. Before I could protest, the massive stone came crashing down, plunging me into utter darkness.
My heart froze solid, ice spreading through my soul. Seven years of love, the child in my womb, and yet they still couldn’t compare to Alice in his heart.
He even went so far as to deny his own child, just to save her.
And that was how I died.
I floated above, a silent, invisible witness to the scene below. I watched as Alice was pulled free, her fragile form cradled in his arms. Relief and joy radiated from him as though he’d just regained his entire world.
One of his colleagues, perhaps unable to stomach the scene, muttered softly, “Grayson, we still haven’t found your wife.”
“If you can’t find her, keep looking,” he replied curtly, without even a glance in my direction.
His words sent a chill deep into my core. I was his wife, the mother of his child—and yet my life meant less than nothing to him.
To him, I wasn’t trapped beneath the rubble, fighting for life. I was merely… out for a meal.
“Grayson, I was so scared,” Alice whimpered, pale and trembling in his arms. “When the earthquake struck, I thought I’d never see you again. My stomach hurts. Can you take me to the hospital? I’m worried about my baby.”
Her pitiful, tear-streaked face was enough to make him turn away completely. Without so much as a glance back, he carried her off, resolute, his steps unwavering.
He never once looked back at me—at the woman he had left for dead.
In that moment, I felt a strange sense of relief.
Relief that I was already dead.
Because if I were still alive, I wouldn’t know how to face this betrayal.