That day was the fourth anniversary of my marriage with Simon.
As usual, I prepared a table full of his favorite dishes, waiting for him to come home.
Simon was always busy, but he never missed an important occasion.
I had been preparing for a long time, planning to surprise him.
I was pregnant with his child, three months along.
My belly was already showing.
I couldn’t help but imagine how happy he would be when he found out.
We were going to have our own child.
But I waited until 1 a. m., and Simon still hadn’t returned.
The messages I sent were like stones sinking into the sea. I grew worried.
I called him.
The phone was answered quickly, but it wasn’t Simon.
It was Hollie, the woman I loathed.
“Stop waiting. He’s not coming back.”
“What do you mean? Why is Simon with you?”
“I caught a cold yesterday. Simon has been taking care of me at the hospital all night.”
Her tone was full of mockery and pride.
My heart clenched painfully. “That’s impossible.”
“Why wouldn’t it be, Laura? You can’t win against me. Your mother couldn’t win, and neither can you.”
The call ended, leaving me staring blankly at the table full of food.
I sat there in a daze all night.
It wasn’t until dawn that Simon finally came home.
I asked him why he was with Hollie.
He refused to answer.
“Why?”
I couldn’t believe it-why would he suddenly treat me like this? Or had they been in touch all along behind my back?
The more I thought about it, the more it hurt.
The pain was suffocating.
“She wasn’t feeling well. I just helped her out.”
“You helped her out until 1 a. m.? You didn’t come home because of that?”
“Laura, stop being unreasonable. Are you really going to start a fight over something so small?”
Something small.
He knew how much I hated Hollie, but on our anniversary, he still spent the day with her.
I didn’t understand why the man who once swore to protect me had turned into this.
“Simon, you know how much I hate her. Have you forgotten? You promised to protect me. Why does it have to be Hollie?”
Simon was starting to lose his patience.
“Enough. I told you I just helped her out. And besides, it was her mother who destroyed your family, not Hollie. She was just a child back then, innocent. Can’t you let it go?”
I looked at him in disbelief.
He was defending Hollie.
Wasn’t he there when Hollie called me a worthless slut?
“Tomorrow, I’ll arrange for you and Hollie to meet. You’ll apologize to each other, and let’s put this behind us. You know I don’t like it when you’re unreasonable.”
“I’m pregnant with your child, and this is how you treat me?”
“Child?”
Simon suddenly sneered. “Are you sure it’s my child? Or is it James’?”
James was a childhood friend of ours, and he’d had feelings for me for a long time. After Simon and I got married, James moved abroad and only returned half a month ago.
I looked at Simon in shock, trembling all over.
How could he say such a thing?
I bit my lip, shaking with anger, and slapped him hard across the face.
“Simon, you’re such a bastard!”
He wasn’t even angry, just looked at me. “Yeah, I’m a bastard. This child came out of nowhere. How am I supposed to believe you? Either get rid of it, or I’ll keep seeing Hollie.”
With that, he turned and slammed the door behind him.
I was left alone, sobbing in agony.
In the end, I didn’t keep the child, because Simon was all I had left.
I depended on him. I loved him deeply.
Love made me choose to give in.
But my compromise didn’t bring him back to me.
Later, I found out that Hollie had already started working at his company as his personal assistant many time ago.
He never mentioned a word of it to me.
During all those days when I felt sorry for how busy he was, he was actually inseparable from her.
He was still entangled with Hollie, while I turned a blind eye, as long as he stayed by my side.
I thought that losing the child and proving my sincerity would bring us back to how we were.
But after my miscarriage, during my entire month in the hospital, he didn’t visit me once.
I refused to let ten years of love go to waste, so I planned a trip to rekindle our relationship.
But I never expected him to bring Hollie along, and worse, he was just there to buy her a limited-edition handbag.
How ironic.
As I came to my senses, Simon was gently pulling Hollie into his arms, comforting her like a couple who had just had a fight.
Just as they were about to leave, I heard a chorus of cat meows from behind me.
“Mr. Smith! There are a lot of stray cats gathering!” the assistant exclaimed.
Simon turned around to see four or five stray cats circling the car, letting out eerie cries.
Hollie was so scared that she jumped into Simon’s arms.
“Why are there suddenly so many stray cats? Could it be…” Simon’s assistant swallowed hard, too frightened to finish the thought.
Where there are many stray cats, there’s usually a corpse. And with the foul smell…
After a long pause, Simon sneered. “Patel, who gave you the guts to play this ridiculous prank with Laura?”
The assistant quickly waved his hands in defense.
Even now, Simon still thought the stray cats were something I arranged to get his attention.
I smiled bitterly.
“Open the trunk. I want to see what kind of trick she’s playing this time.”
This time, the trunk was finally opened.
The stench hit us like a wave.
For the first time since my death, I faced my own corpse.
The body had rotted, the face a mangled mess of flesh and blood.
Unrecognizable.
I remembered now.
Among the food they brought me, Hollie had hidden acid.
That’s why I looked so horrifying now.
My entire face was purple-red, and the glue on my lips had dried.
The assistant was so terrified he fell to the ground, crawling towards Simon.
“Sir… Sir, Mrs. Smith… she’s dead!”