I grabbed the table lamp from the bedside and threw it at him before slamming the bedroom door shut. As I collapsed onto the bed, I heard him cursing and slamming the door before storming out. Tears continued to fall, mingling with the harsh coughing fits. I pulled out a tissue to cover my mouth and, with shaking hands, turned on the light. When I looked at the tissue, it was stained with blood.
The doctor had told me I had only a few months left and advised me to make the most of my remaining time. I had initially thought I could just ignore Monica and stick it out with Jeremiah until the end, but now it seemed impossible. It wasn’t that I couldn’t wait, but rather that they couldn’t. Looking back at how Jeremiah and I met and fell in love, there wasn’t any grand, heroic story—no earth-shattering drama. He simply needed someone to comfort him after a breakup and I, who had secretly been in love with him for years, took advantage of that chance.
I was the one who pursued him and treated him like a king for years before he finally agreed to marry me. Monica was his childhood sweetheart and the dream girl he could never have because his parents disapproved of her; she was a socialite in college. They, however, were very fond of me, a girl with an ordinary but respectable background.
Throughout our years together, despite any gratitude or flaws in his character, Jeremiah was generally good to me. He would buy me whatever I wanted with just a word and even gave me a black card to use as I pleased. For ten years, we lived a relatively peaceful life. The house was filled with laughter, the kind that had once come easily and life felt predictable in its simplicity. But predictability can be a double-edged sword.
About three years ago, when Monica returned from studying abroad, everything changed. She reached out to Jeremiah and their relationship quickly reignited. At first, their meetings were discreet and I made a fuss a few times when I caught wind of it. But as they began seeing each other more frequently, I felt physically and emotionally drained. I had hoped that Jeremiah would eventually lose interest and come back to me, as men often do with new relationships, but I was mistaken.