My mind went completely blank, and my throat felt all clogged up.

"What did you say?" I asked.

John froze, realizing that he'd let the truth slip out by accident. Pursing his lips, he hesitated for a few seconds before coming clean.

"Addy was the one who arranged for you to be pushed down the stairs at the mall, causing your miscarriage."

My breath hitched, and my heart seemed to stop beating.

After John supposedly died, I began to starve myself, refusing to eat or drink anything. I spent all my time clutching his urn, crying my heart out. That went on until I found out I was pregnant.

That unborn child reignited my desire to live—but just two days later, I was shoved down the stairs and ended up miscarrying the baby.

It'd broken me completely. I started swallowing antidepressants by the handful, unable to stop myself from trying to take my own life.

It was Adaline who stayed by my side, doing everything she could to help me recover. She's accompanied me through that dark period and helped me emerge from the shadows.

But now, I was told that she was the murderer responsible for killing my unborn child. She had also taken from me the chance to ever have another child.

My blood ran cold.

"Addy did it for your sake. If you kept that baby, it would've only been a burden to you. She just didn't expect the miscarriage to leave you infertile. She was afraid you'd be upset, so she forbade everyone from telling you about it. All along, she's been doing what's best for you—"

"Doing what's best for me?" I cut John off.

It sounded so absurd to hear him say that.

"She made me miscarry my child and left me infertile because that was what's best for me? That's the biggest joke I've ever heard in my life. What about when she betrayed me, then? Did she get into bed with you because that was what's best for me, too?"

John's expression darkened, and his voice turned icy. "Don't be so unreasonable, Cecilia!"

My whole body trembled as I pressed my hand to my broken and mutilated heart. Tears poured down my face.

When John saw the tears, his eyes flickered with pity. Just as he was about to speak, Adaline's voice rang out from the other end of the call.

"Who are you chatting with, darling? It's our 5th wedding anniversary today. You said you'd set off fireworks across the entire city as a gift to me…"

John ended the video call in a panic.

I let out a bitter laugh. He'd said the same thing to me on our 5th wedding anniversary. At the time, I'd looked forward to it with such eager anticipation. But what did I get instead?

"Sorry, Cece."

Those were the words he greeted me with. He went on to explain that he'd accidentally smashed the Lego set that Adaline had already built halfway. She wanted him to issue a public apology all across the city before she'd forgive him.

All this time, he'd always put her first. Why was I such a fool that I never connected the dots before?

When I arrived at the hospital, I heard cheerful laughter coming from Adaline's hospital room.

"My new brother is so cute! I love him!" Henry declared.

"My new grandson is so precious. He has his mom's eyes and his dad's mouth…"

Greta and Henry hovered around the baby while John gently fed Adaline some soup. "I had the housekeeper prepare the soup with your favorite shrimp."

He blew on every spoonful to make sure it wasn't too hot before feeding it to her.

John never remembered any of my preferences, but he knew all of Adaline's like the back of his hand. They'd grown up together, so I always told myself it was only because we hadn't known each other long enough. Surely, after a decade or two of a loving marriage, he would come to know my likes and dislikes just as well.

But now, I figured it out. Time was never the issue. It was only ever a matter of whether he'd bothered making the effort.

Adaline was the first to notice me standing at the door. Her eyes turned red, and she choked out, "You're here to see me, Cece. Does that mean you're willing to forgive me now?"

Greta immediately cradled the baby in her arms, her expression wary.

Meanwhile, Henry ran toward me and tried to push me out of the room.

"Go away! I won't let you hurt my mom and my brother!"

John grabbed Henry and admonished him, so he threw herself into Adaline's arms and started wailing.

My heart twisted painfully as I looked at John.

"Let's get a divorce."

John froze. Adaline looked as if she wanted to say something, but in the end, all she managed was a tearful "I'm sorry."

Henry was busy cheering in excitement, while Greta simply scoffed. "This should've happened ages ago. Addy was always meant to be Mrs. Foster!"

This whole time, Greta had refused to complete the paperwork to issue John's death certificate. I'd assumed it was because she couldn't accept that her son had died before her, but now I knew that this was the moment she'd been waiting for all along.

Sneering, I turned around and left.

It took a month for the divorce to be finalized, which felt both painfully long and unbelievably short. Once the divorce certificate was issued, our eight-year marriage officially came to an end.

John called out to me, his tone remorseful. "I'll leave the house to you. You can—"

I walked off without paying him any attention. Every corner of that house held the memories of him and me, each one covered in blood-stained thorns. Why would I want to keep it?

When I arrived at the cemetery to visit my parents' graves, I found Adaline kneeling in front of their gravestones, crying remorsefully.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Jamison. I hurt Cece terribly! I once promised you that I would take good care of her, but I broke my promise. I'm sorry…"

Mom and Dad had died in a fire while saving her. When she'd felt so guilty that she tried to take her own life to make it up to me, I stopped her.

I treated her as the one thing my parents had left to me—my only family.

Who would've thought that she would team up with the man I loved the most to stab me so deeply in the heart?

I shoved her away and screamed in fury, "Get lost! Don't sully my parents' ears with the details of your sordid affair with John!"

With reddened eyes, Adaline carefully reached for my hand. "I'm sorry, Cece. I truly didn't mean for any of this to happen. We're still best friends, aren't we?"

I scoffed at her. "All because you wanted to avoid facing the situation, you chose to drag me, an innocent person, into your twisted romance with John. And then, because you couldn't control yourself, you got into bed with my husband. You helped him fake his death so that you two could live happily ever after!

"And worst of all, you killed my child! How can you be shameless enough to still say that we're best friends, Adaline?"

With all the strength I could muster, I slapped her hard across the face. She lost her balance and smashed her forehead against my parents' gravestone.

As her blood started to flow, John showed up out of nowhere. Once he saw the blood, he became outraged.

"Cecilia! Have you lost your mind? Addy is your best friend! She came to visit your parents as soon as she recovered from labor! Why are you treating her like that?"

I shouted right back at him, "I don't need her to visit my parents! Get lost! My parents aren't interested in seeing a bunch of filthy cheaters like you two!"

John's chest heaved with anger. "Fine! You don't want to let us visit them, huh?"

He grabbed a nearby shovel and raised it in the air.

My breath caught, and my heart stopped. "What are you doing?"

But even before I finished speaking, the shovel slammed against the gravestone with a deafening crash. It cracked and broke into two.

However, John wasn't satisfied yet. He raised the shovel again.

"Mom! Dad!" I screamed in despair as I threw myself over the remaining slab of stone.

John couldn't stop in time, and the shovel smacked right against my back. I spat out a mouthful of blood.

After freezing in shock, he was just about to rush over to me when Adaline suddenly fainted. Without the slightest hesitation, he scooped her up and dashed off.

Before long, the 32-year-old John sent me a message.

"Cecilia! Why does Addy have a new scar on her forehead now? Did you do it? I'm warning you—don't you dare hurt her again!"

I ignored him. Scalding tears dripped onto the photo of Mom and Dad on the broken part of the gravestone.

"I'm taking you guys away from here…"

…

At the hospital, after learning that Adaline only had a mild concussion, John finally exhaled in relief. Only then did he suddenly remember that I'd been injured as well and spat out a lot of blood.

He quickly tried to call me, but the calls went unanswered. Panicking, he rushed back to the cemetery, only to find that the gravestone had been completely removed. Even the urn had been dug out.

My phone was lying on the ground, on top of a medical examination report.

John crouched down to take a look. His eyes widened in shock, and his heart almost stopped beating.

Just then, the phone started ringing, and the profile photo that popped up looked very familiar. It belonged to the account he hadn't used in two years now.