Chapter 5

When I woke up, I was lying in a hospital bed.

The first person I saw wasn't Ethan, but my roommate.

She was the one who found me passed out on the living room floor after work, rushed me to the ER, and signed the consent form for the emergency surgery.

At that time, we had known each other for less than a month, yet she took the risk to sign those papers for me.

Meanwhile, my fiancé had hung up on my emergency call to watch a parade with his female best friend.

The doctor looked at me with deep sympathy.

"It was a threatened miscarriage. If you had been brought in just thirty minutes earlier, we might have saved the baby."

A suffocating despair had consumed me.

I called Ethan dozens of times.

But I waited until nightfall, and the only people who arrived were my parents, who had driven hundreds of miles. Ethan, who was only three miles away at the theme park with Lily, never showed up.

That day, I was completely heartbroken. I packed my bags and went home with my parents.

Remembering this, I opened the chat with my cousin, Mia.

Before the wedding, she had messaged me.

"Hazel, is the wedding starting?"

A few minutes later, she added.

"Don't be too sad. Even though Uncle and Aunt didn't let us attend, they actually regret it."

"I know you guys will patch things up eventually."

She had sent me a video.

Looking at my parents on the thumbnail, I hadn't had the courage to open it before.

But now, my hands shook as I pressed play.

In the video, my parents' eyes were red.

My mom was wiping her tears.

"Why is Hazel so stubborn? We told her that man is trash."

"What kind of man abandons his fiancé during a miscarriage to play with another woman?"

"And what happened? He knelt in the snow for one night, got himself hospitalized, made some empty promise, and her heart softened immediately."

My dad held his coffee mug, staring silently at the floor.

My mom slapped his arm in frustration.

"You too! Why did you have to say such harsh things? Saying you'd disown her if she married him."

"Now look what happened. Our girl actually ran away."

Looking at the new gray hairs on my parents' heads, my tears dripped onto the screen.

After a long silence, my dad took a credit card from his wallet and handed it to Mia.

"Mia, give this to Hazel when you have time."

"There's fifty thousand dollars on it. Don't let her struggle out there."

The emotions I had suppressed all day finally exploded.

I covered my face, sobbing uncontrollably until my throat went dry and hoarse.

Only one thought remained in my mind.

I wanted to go home.

I didn't care about packing neatly. I threw everything into my suitcase.

I couldn't even wait for the flight next morning. I booked a long-distance Uber for two thousand dollars to take me straight home.

Just as I zipped my suitcase, Ethan called.

"Why aren't you replying to my Snapchats?"

I didn't answer.

He clicked his tongue, his tone casual and dismissive.

"We accidentally got a bit carried away, and the decorations in the main ballroom got kind of ruined."

"I had the hotel set up a smaller room. We'll do our vows there."

The main ballroom was ten thousand square feet. The small room was barely one thousand.

The girl who was "experiencing" the wedding got the grand ballroom, while the actual bride was relegated to a tiny side room.

In Ethan's mouth, it sounded as simple as moving a parking spot.

But I was too tired to care.

I replied quietly, "Okay."

Hearing no complaints or tears, Ethan was taken aback.

Once he realized I wasn't fighting back, he let out a sigh of relief.

"Good girl."

"The hotel is setting it up now. I also ordered an identical wedding cake from another bakery."

He paused, his voice softening with a rare touch of tenderness.

"Hazel, you're about to become my wife."

"The ceremony starts at nine. Make sure you're there on time."

The call ended.

I slipped the diamond ring off my ring finger and left it carelessly on the hotel nightstand.

Then, I turned around and got into the Uber heading home.