1 I clutched the ultrasound, my heart racing as I rushed to tell Paul the news. He did not look at me, only threw his phone onto the table. The screen lit up with a photo of him and a young woman, their faces close, lips almost touching. The sight was a dizzying blow. "I do not belong to this world," Paul said coldly. His words struck me like lightning, choking back every question. He leaned back and explained that in another timeline, I had chosen a man named Kieran. Driven by jealousy, he crossed time to reach me first. "I made sure to enter your life before Kieran could. I recreated everything meant for the two of you, including you." His tone held pride and contempt. "But after all these years with you," he added with a mocking laugh, "I realized you are nothing special." A decade of love, from passionate dates to quiet mornings, now meant nothing. My heart felt torn. I could barely breathe. "So you betrayed me?" I forced out, my voice trembling. "Yes," he replied without pause. "She is young, gorgeous, thrilling. You are just boring, pathetic." He lit a cigarette and blew smoke into my face. It stung my eyes, and tears finally fell. "Tessa, we are getting a divorce." He finally said the words I was most terrified to hear. Refuse the divorce? What good would that do? Should I completely abandon my dignity and beg him not to throw me away? My throat felt like it was stuffed with cotton. Every syllable tasted like blood. "No." Before I could say anything else, Paul burst into loud, cruel laughter. "See? I told you. Even if she caught me cheating, she would never have the guts to leave me!" "So it is not that I do not want to make things official with you, baby. She is just obsessed with me. My hands are tied!" I stared at him in absolute shock. The passenger window of his parked car outside the living room window slowly rolled down. That same beautiful, youthful face from the photo leaned out. Lexi pouted her lips, looking annoyed. "Old lady, the professor does not love you anymore. Why are you still clinging to him like a parasite?" "Have you got absolutely no shame? Even a stray dog knows when to walk away." The mistress. She was calling me shameless. My entire body shook with pure, unadulterated rage. I marched toward the door, walked up to the car, and raised my hand to slap her across the face. Before my hand could connect, Paul grabbed my wrist. He violently shoved me back. His voice dropped to a freezing temperature. "We are in public. Watch yourself." Those words stabbed directly into the softest part of my heart. I remembered the day he confessed his love to me. Those three words cut through the deafening sound of fireworks, crashing right into my soul. When I nodded and said yes, he jumped around like a little kid. He picked me up and spun me around. I blushed red and whispered that we were in public. He just laughed and yelled even louder. "I want the whole damn world to know that Tessa is finally mine!" How did that boy, the one who loved me with such a burning, chaotic passion, turn into this cold stranger? I sniffled, forcing the burning tears back down. "When did it start?" Paul answered like we were discussing the weather. "About half a month before the wedding." All the blood in my veins turned to ice. Lexi smirked, her eyes gleaming with toxic provocation. "Did you sleep well on your wedding night, Tessa?" "I was wearing your custom wedding dress. I was lying right next to your spot on the bed. The professor and I went at it all night long while you were asleep in the guest room. It was incredibly thrilling." Her vicious laughter shattered whatever was left of my soul. So the stain on my dress. It was not soy milk that he accidentally spilled. On my very first morning as a married woman, I stood in the sink and scrubbed the physical evidence of his infidelity out of my own wedding dress. My fingernails dug so deep into my palms that they bled. I bit my lip until I tasted copper. "Why are you only telling me this now?" He could have told me before he cheated. He could have told me before we signed the papers. Why wait until I was pregnant? If he was already sleeping with her, why did he marry me? Why did he get me pregnant? The tears completely broke through the dam. Seeing me sob uncontrollably, Paul froze for a split second. Then, he leaned casually against the car door and flicked his cigarette onto the driveway. "In the other reality, you and Kieran got married. So." "By getting you pregnant, I officially won the game." He reached out and wiped a tear from my cheek. The heavy smell of tobacco on his fingers made me choke. More tears spilled out. It all made sense now. Every single romantic gesture. Every heartbeat. Every ounce of love he ever gave me was completely poisoned by his sick desire to win. When the fake love evaporated, all that was left was a scoreboard. Paul grew visibly annoyed by my crying. He muttered the word "pathetic" under his breath, got into the driver's seat, and sped off, leaving me standing alone in the driveway. When the shock finally began to fade, I realized there was warm liquid running down my thighs. Blood. A brutal, tearing pain ripped through my abdomen. By the time the ambulance rushed me to the emergency room, the pain was blinding. The ER nurse grabbed my emergency contact and dialed Paul's number. The phone connected. Heavy, explicit panting echoed through the speaker. The nurse looked at me with deep pity and immense awkwardness. She cleared her throat. "Sir, your wife is currently experiencing a threatened miscarriage. She is bleeding heavily." "What?" Paul's voice suddenly went tight. "She was perfectly fine twenty minutes ago." Lexi's breathless, sweet voice cut through the background. "A miscarriage is perfect. If the baby dies, maybe she will finally stop stalking you, Professor." The line went dead silent for a long moment. Then, Paul's clear, remorseless voice came through the speaker. "Then let her lose it." The call abruptly disconnected. I closed my eyes. The absolute depths of sorrow swallowed me whole. Right at that moment, frantic footsteps rushed toward my bed. "Tessa!" 2 The doctors could not save the baby. I stayed in the hospital for three agonizing days. Paul never showed his face once. During those endless hours in the hospital bed, Lexi sent me a friend request on social media. I accepted it. Like a masochist, I scrolled through the posts she had specifically made public just for me. Lexi and I shared the exact same birthday. This year, for the first time since we started dating, Paul did not spend my birthday with me. He told me he had a mandatory academic conference in Cabo. He did go to Cabo. But he went to celebrate Lexi's birthday. There were photos of them kissing underwater while scuba diving. Photos of them on a private helicopter watching the sunset. A video of him presenting her with ninety nine red roses. Hidden inside was a stunning ruby ring. I recognized the jeweler. I had looked up that exact ring months ago. It came with a complimentary gift. A cheap, hand braided leather bracelet. Paul had given me that exact leather bracelet for my birthday. He told me he had hiked up a mountain to a monastery to weave it himself. He said it would protect me. I cherished it like it was made of solid gold. Looking at it now, it burned my wrist like acid. With bloodshot eyes, I violently ripped the leather cord off my wrist and threw it into the hospital trash can. Along with every last drop of love I ever had for Paul. After completing the discharge paperwork, I took a cab back to the house. The second I pushed the front door open, my mind went totally blank. The house was so foreign I thought I had walked into the wrong address. My comfortable sneakers were kicked carelessly into a corner. The shoe rack was lined with expensive, flashy stilettos. The vases were stuffed with loud, arrogant red roses. My favorite irises were tossed into the garbage bin. Even the massive, hand painted portrait I had spent weeks creating for our living room was gone. It had been replaced by a framed, professional studio photo of Paul and Lexi. Right in the center of the room, on the hanging swing chair we bought together, Paul was holding Lexi in his lap. They were passionately making out. They kept kissing for five solid minutes before they finally noticed me standing there. Paul did not ask about the hospital. He did not ask about the dead baby. He just casually stood up and tossed an apron at my chest. "Perfect timing. Lexi is hungry. Go make us some lunch." I stared at him in pure disbelief. He had never let me touch a stove in my entire life. He used to hold my hands and say, "I will handle the bills and the cooking. You just focus on painting the beautiful things in this world." All that tender protectiveness was completely thrown out the window the second another woman walked in. Seeing me frozen in place, Paul frowned in deep annoyance. "I literally crossed through time and space for you. I cooked every meal for you for years. You should be down on your knees thanking me. You are just a broke artist, stop acting like you are above this." I slowly tied the apron around my waist. A hollow smile crept onto my face. "Fine." I would cook this one meal. Consider it repaying my debt to him. After this, the bridge was burned. We were done. Paul smirked, looking incredibly satisfied. "Good girl." "Lexi is moving in with us permanently. You refuse to leave me, and I refuse to leave her. We all live under one roof, everyone wins." "As long as you stay quiet and behave, you get to keep your title as my wife." I did not say a single word. I just turned around and walked into the kitchen. Whether she lived here or not had absolutely nothing to do with me. Because I was leaving. Very soon. That night, Paul wrapped his arm around Lexi's waist and walked toward the master bedroom. As we passed each other in the hallway, I was typing a message on my phone. He caught a glimpse of the screen. His eyes practically bulged out of his skull. He lunged forward and snatched the phone out of my hand. He tried to unlock it, only to realize the passcode was no longer our anniversary date. "You changed your password?" He grabbed my wrist. His grip was so violent I thought the bones would snap. "Tell me the truth. Were you texting Kieran just now?" "When did you two start talking again? Have you been sleeping with him behind my back this whole time?" His eyes were burning with the furious, self righteous anger of a betrayed husband. As if I was the one who had destroyed our vows. Fueled by pure disgust, I raised my free hand and slapped him across the face as hard as I could. "Paul, not everyone in this world is a filthy, cheating hypocrite like you!" Paul froze for a few seconds. Then, he let out a terrifying roar. "You dare hit me?" "You think I am filthy? Fine. I will show you exactly how filthy I can be." 3 He dragged me by my hair down the hallway and shoved me into the master bedroom. He ripped open the doors of my massive walk in closet and violently threw me inside. Panic flooded my chest. I fought back with everything I had, kicking and screaming, but he slammed the heavy wooden doors shut. The light completely vanished. I heard the sound of a heavy wooden chair being jammed beneath the door handles, locking me in from the outside. "Let me out, Paul!" The only response was a cold, cruel scoff. A few moments later, the heavy, unmistakable sounds of sex began echoing through the bedroom walls. I clamped my hands over my ears. I desperately tried to block out the nauseating sounds of them together. But it was useless. The closet doors rattled violently against their frames as they crashed against them. Through the tiny sliver of light coming through the crack in the doors, I saw the clothes hanging right in front of my face. It was a set of matching baby clothes. Paul had bought them when we first started trying to get pregnant. Now, the baby was dead in a medical waste bin, and his heart belonged to a college student. Those tiny clothes mocked me in the dark. I lost my mind. I ripped the baby clothes off the hangers and shredded them with my bare hands. The tears poured down my face like a broken dam. In that suffocating, pitch black box, every single breath felt like inhaling broken glass. I do not know how many hours passed. Eventually, the sounds outside stopped. The chair was dragged away, and the doors slowly creaked open. The bedroom lights blinded me. My eyes were so swollen and dry I could not produce another tear. Paul stood above me, looking down like a god looking at an insect. "Did you enjoy the show?" I ignored his twisted question. "Give me my phone back." His face darkened instantly. He was about to explode again, but when he saw how terrifyingly pale and hollow my face was, he held back. He threw the phone onto my lap. He stood there, demanding I unlock it right in front of him. He genuinely thought he caught me cheating. The second the screen unlocked, a flood of notifications popped up. Dozens of missed calls. Every single one of them was from my dad. A cold, creeping dread wrapped its fingers around my throat. I immediately dialed his number back. It rang forever. Finally, the call connected. The sound of my mother's agonizing, world ending scream shattered my eardrums. "Tessa... your dad... he is in the resuscitation room..." All the sound vanished from the world. It took me several seconds to process her words. My entire body went numb. I tried to scramble up from the floor to run to the door. But I had been cramped in the dark for so long that my legs were completely dead. I pitched forward and smashed my chin hard against the hardwood floor. Blood pooled under my jaw. Paul instinctively reached down to help me. I shoved him away with the force of a hurricane. I clawed my way up using the wall and stumbled out of the room like a wounded animal. He took a step to follow me, but Lexi reached out from the bed and grabbed his wrist. She wrapped her arms around his neck. "Professor, my legs are completely useless right now. Carry me to the shower, please?" Paul looked at the hallway, looked back at her, and stayed in the room. I ran to the hospital like a madwoman. When I finally reached the ICU doors, I saw the doctors slowly pulling a white sheet over my father's face. "Dad." I collapsed onto the floor, screaming until my vocal cords tore. "Dad, I am here! Please wake up and look at me!" "I just bought that aged whiskey you wanted! You haven't even opened it yet!" My mother slowly turned her head. Her eyes were completely swollen, red, and devoid of any life. Slap. A sharp, ringing sound echoed in the hallway, cutting my cries short. My mother's hand trembled in the air. Her entire body shook uncontrollably. "Why didn't you answer the phone? When your father collapsed, he kept dialing your number over and over again. Why didn't you pick up?!" "If you had just answered the phone... the ambulance would have gotten here in time..." Her words were a sledgehammer directly to my skull. I slumped against the cold tiles. I opened my mouth over and over again, but the pain in my chest was so immense I could not make a single sound. Only silent tears fell to the floor. Suddenly, a terrified scream echoed from the hospital courtyard outside the window. "Someone just jumped off the roof!" I whipped my head around. My heart completely stopped. "Mom! No!" But I was too late. Her eyes were completely empty as she stepped backward over the ledge. I threw myself against the reinforced glass. I could not catch her. I could not even touch the fabric of her coat. A horrifying blossom of red exploded on the concrete far below. The impact shattered every single organ inside my own body. Regret and despair crashed down on me like a tidal wave, dragging me into the pitch black depths. I suffocated in the agony, letting out a raw, inhuman wail. My home. It was gone. My family was dead. Right at that exact second, my phone screen lit up on the floor. A text from Paul. [Lexi is getting cold. Where did you put that heavy quilt?] That was the wedding quilt my mother had spent six entire months sewing by hand. Every single stitch was a prayer for my happiness. And he wanted to give it to Lexi. Because she was a little cold. What about my father, lying under a thin white sheet? What about my mother, lying in a pool of blood on the concrete? Their bodies were losing heat by the second. Weren't they cold? My fingers shook violently. It took me three full minutes to type two words. [Let's divorce.] He replied instantly. [Fine.] 4 During the days I spent planning my parents' funerals, Paul's texts flooded my phone. [Where the hell did you go?] [I thought you wanted a divorce? Getting cold feet?] [I am willing to give you one last chance. Come back home, behave yourself, and warm the bed for me and Lexi. If you do that, I will consider keeping you around.] [Think about this carefully, Tessa!] I did not reply to a single one. When the last message came in, I blocked his number permanently. I stood in absolute silence as I watched the caskets roll into the crematorium fire. I had no tears left to shed. From this moment on, there was not a single person left on this earth who shared my blood. A week later, I returned to the house for the final time. When I walked through the door, Paul was laughing on the couch with Lexi. The second he saw me, his face hardened into a furious scowl. "You finally remembered where you live? Figured it out? Decided against the divorce?" I felt nothing but a bone deep, crushing exhaustion. I reached into my bag, pulled out the signed divorce papers, and placed them on the coffee table. When Paul saw my signature already on the dotted line, his pupils contracted. A terrifying, violent rage erupted in his eyes. "Tessa, are you absolutely sure about this?" I cut him off, my voice dead. "I am sure." Paul let out a dark, psychotic laugh. "You want to leave? Fine." "But I am getting one last ride out of you." He lunged forward and violently threw me onto the floor. My head slammed against the hardwood, making the room spin with nausea. I fought back with everything I had, but my resistance only fueled his rage. He raised his hand and slapped me across the face with brutal force. My head snapped to the side. A high pitched ringing filled my ears. Paul's voice was like poisoned ice. "When we first met, you were begging me to take you to bed within two months. Now you want to play the pure, untouchable saint?" "I traveled across space and time just to worship you. You want a divorce? Then you are going to pay back every single thing you owe me right now." So that was it. Every act of love, every gentle moment he ever gave me. In his mind, it was just a transaction. I was just a cheap whore. The burning, romantic promises he used to whisper in my ear were just daggers waiting to carve me apart. If his love was destined to turn into this vile, rotting poison, I wished to God he had never crossed time to find me. My dead heart ripped open one final time. I stopped fighting. A pale, empty laugh escaped my lips. "Hurry up. Get it over with quickly, and sign the damn papers." Paul stared at me in shock. Then, he let go of my wrists and stood up, looking at me with pure, unfiltered disgust. "When you are used to eating at five star restaurants, looking at cheap fast food just makes you sick." He grabbed a pen, violently signed his name on the divorce papers, and threw the thick stack of documents directly at my face. The sharp edge of the paper sliced a thin cut across my cheek. But deep down, I felt an overwhelming, incredible sense of freedom. I bent down and picked up the papers. Without giving him a single glance, I turned around and walked toward the front door. Paul's threat echoed behind me. "Tessa, the second you step through that door, do not even think about crawling back to me!" I did not stop. I walked out of the house that had become my personal hell, and I never looked back. "Oh my god, finally! Congratulations, Professor! You finally got rid of that miserable old hag!" Lexi kissed Paul's jawline affectionately. "So, when are you going to marry me?" Paul did not answer. He stared blankly at the door Tessa had just walked through. His heart suddenly felt incredibly heavy. He did not believe she would actually leave him. Years ago, a speeding motorcycle had almost hit him on the street. She threw herself in front of him without a second thought. She loved him enough to die for him. How could she possibly abandon him? He was absolutely certain. Tessa would come crawling back, crying and begging for his forgiveness. He just had to wait for it. That was what he told himself. But that night, Paul could not sleep a single wink. His mind kept replaying the image of Tessa's back as she walked out the door. When morning finally broke, his phone rang aggressively on the nightstand. He snatched it up, hoping to hear her voice. It was not Tessa. "Paul, all hell just broke loose! You need to get to the university campus right now!"
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