He didn’t even know Emma was dead yet. He’d tarnished her name, and with it, Ava’s—dragging her ashes through the mud. Every wrong he’d done felt like it deserved a slap in the face. In that moment, I could only think that a guy like him belonged in hell, suffering endlessly for what he’d done.
Ethan left soon after. He left me with a driver and a car, while he took a taxi to the hospital. His plan? To find Ava and get the full story on the surveillance footage and Emma.
The moment he arrived, Ethan started with the outpatient surveillance. But Ava was nowhere to be found in the allergy clinic. He didn’t stop there—he checked the other places she’d been. And sure enough, there she was, lurking around a corner.
Then came the news. Ava overheard a nurse talking about Emma’s death. She collapsed right then and there. Panic was all over her face. And in her fear, she bolted out of the hospital, leaving Ethan in the dark.
Fuming, Ethan reached for his phone to call her, but Ava had already vanished. He zoomed in on the footage, and something stood out: Ava’s face—there was no rash. No trace of an allergy reaction.
Ethan was getting furious. He dialed the doctor for Ava’s medical records, only to find that nothing had shown up in her allergy screenings. No alcohol allergy.
He hit the desk hard, making the whole thing shake. The doctor jumped, wiping sweat from his forehead.
With ice in his voice, Ethan snapped, “What if this test was altered? Could you still stamp it?”
The doctor stammered, “There’s no record that can be changed. Everything’s electronically stamped now.”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “But what if she faked it?”
And then it hit him—Ava had always been obsessed with perfume. I’d told him once that most perfumes had alcohol in them.
Ethan grabbed a cigarette from his pocket, but before he could light it, he saw the doctor’s worried glance. Realizing where he was, he threw the cigarette into the trash with a frustrated growl. The weight of guilt and defeat settled on his shoulders like never before.
After the hospital, he headed straight to the police station, handing over the footage and filing a report. But no matter what happened now, Emma’s ashes had finally been laid to rest, after all the chaos.
I knelt at her grave, feeling like the world had crumbled beneath me. I cried harder than I ever had in my life, tears flowing uncontrollably. I apologized to Emma over and over, wishing I could have been the mother she deserved. I prayed that in her next life, she’d be born into a family that could love her the way she should have been loved.
If I had only known… If I had only known from the start that Ethan was never going to love me.
A bitter smile twisted on my lips. “How many ‘ifs’ can one person have?”
I gently touched Emma’s photo, my mind drifting back to the day she was born. It felt like a lifetime ago, and now, I’d never get to hold her again.
Ethan had left me alone in the hospital with the staff taking care of me. While I was too weak to move, he’d taken Emma to see Ava. He said it was for her to start building a bond with Ava early on. But looking back, maybe he had already made up his mind.
He’d chosen Ava long before, and I was just the fallback. I wasn’t his first choice. I never would be.
It was too late for any of that now.
If my mom could see me now, would she scold me for being naive, or would she just pity me for how badly I’d fallen? I gently pressed my hand against Emma’s picture, unable to stop the tears. I would never see her again.
