I nearly threw up when I heard her added, “Dawn for a girl, Dusk if it's a boy. Beautiful, right?”
I wanted to scream. Those were my names. Those were the names I gave to the children I never got to hold. The names carved into tiny tombstones. And now she had taken even that from me.
How could she?!
"I'm sorry, Mom. I'm sorry, Dad."
I hugged the photo of my parents, asking for their forgiveness, wherever they might be now.
"I couldn’t keep my marriage. I couldn’t stay with the man I once promised my life to. My marriage isn’t like yours. I’m sorry," I said in a choked whisper.
They once told me, “Rosella, I hope you stay faithful to your husband. Love him until your last breath, because that’s what marriage means. You stay with your other half until death do you part.”
But how could I stay when I was already suffocating? I already gave everything. What’s left of me is so little, and if I give even that to Darius, just because I still love him, I might never be able to stand on my own again.
I clicked on the airline ticket application on my phone. I needed to leave the country, so he wouldn't find me. For the past three weeks of staying here with them, I had prepared the separation and divorce papers.
Today, I finally signed them.
It weighed heavily on my chest as I wrote my name, but I gathered all my strength. I would leave tonight. And before I go, I decided to prepare dinner.
I was still cooking when Sasha suddenly entered the kitchen, someone trailing behind her.
“Mom, please come and sit,” she said gently.
I didn’t answer. I continued cooking.
“Luna, can you make some delicious dishes for me and my mom?” I heard Sasha say.
I froze for a second before turning to her. “I’ll ask the maid.”
She smiled sweetly, but her eyes gleamed with cruelty. “Darius said I shouldn’t trust anyone here except you. He said you’ve been pregnant once, so you know what food is good for someone like me. Since… you were pregnant once, right?”
I clenched my jaw and slammed the ladle on the counter.
“And you accused me of poisoning you, yet now you want me to cook for you again?” I asked with a bitter laugh. “Isn’t that ironic?”
“What’s ironic is still seeing you here. The Alpha’s wife who failed to do what a woman should do. Isn’t it? A woman with a useless womb, still called a wife?” Sasha’s mother intervened.
My eyes narrowed. Darius brought a mistress and now another messy attitude woman?