The Most Painful Keepsake

After we got married, my husband gave every piece of jewelry he bought me its own name. "This watch is Renee. This four-leaf clover bracelet is Phoebe. This diamond ring is Shannon..." My best friend looked puzzled. "Why do those all sound like women's names?" I smiled. "Because they are. "They're all named after women Derek Shaw cheated on me with. Every time I caught him, he would give me another piece." There were ninety-nine pieces in all. The first time I discovered his infidelity was the day after our wedding. I'd trashed our new home then. Derek simply wrapped his arms around me from behind, took my hand, and asked if it hurt. That night, he slipped a bracelet I had had my eye on onto my wrist. "I was just having a little fun. If you don't like her, I'll get rid of her." Over the three years we were married, some version of that scene played out almost every day. My heart went from twisting in agony to slowly being worn numb. I opened the box in my hands. Inside was a pearl necklace named Jenny. I used to tell myself that he was only fooling around and that, deep down, he still loved me. But this time was different. Derek had truly fallen for her. He took her to Tayhollow to see the ocean and laid the groundwork for her future after graduation... I ran my fingers over the pearls without the slightest flicker of emotion. "This is the hundredth, and I just don't have it in me to keep doing this anymore…" Chapter 1 My best friend, Grace Reed, wrapped her arms around me and gently patted my back. "I left the country right after your wedding. I thought the two of you had been happy all this time. "You've put up with enough, Zoe. Come with me. My company could use another partner." To everyone else, Derek and I really did seem like the perfect couple. We had been childhood sweethearts and had always been each other's rock. When Derek proposed, he filled an entire stadium with people to witness it. His declaration of love went viral online, and countless people copied it for their own proposals. But after we got married, everything changed. I pressed a hand to the small swell of my belly. "All right. I'll file for divorce as soon as possible." A message from Derek popped up on my phone. "Something came up tonight. I won't be home. "Leave a light on if you're afraid of the dark. Remember to lock the doors and windows." Before he met Jenny Sutton, Derek had never spent a night away from home. He came home to be with me every night. But lately, he had been staying away more and more often. "I need to talk to you. Come home as soon as you can." I sent the message, then placed my phone face down on the table. Thirty seconds later, Derek video-called me. "Whatever it is, you can tell me now. I'm busy." He looked slightly uneasy. "I'd rather wait until you get home," I said coolly. "It's about us..." His camera suddenly jerked toward the ceiling. "Be good. I'm on the phone." Derek's tone was indulgent. "But baby gets bored when she's away from you for even a second," Jenny cooed. Through the phone came the amplified rustle of clothing, mingled with their faint gasps. I listened on, torturing myself as a dull bitterness spread through me. Noticing my vacant stare, Grace leaned closer. "What are you two doing?" she demanded, raising her voice. Derek appeared on the screen again. This time, Jenny was hanging off him like an accessory. She looked straight at me through the screen, her chin tilted up in challenge. I ignored the provocation in her eyes. All I noticed was the pearl necklace around her neck. It was identical to the one Derek had given me and named after her, although her pearls were noticeably larger and more lustrous. By comparison, mine looked like a free gift that had come with hers. The sight infuriated Grace. "So you're Jenny? You knew he was married and still chose to be his mistress, and now you're flaunting it for everyone to see? Do you have no shame..." Jenny's eyes filled with tears before Grace could finish. "Derek said the real mistress is the one he doesn't love!" Derek immediately wrapped his arms tightly around her in a protective embrace. Then he looked at me with unmistakable displeasure. He ended the call. "The real mistress is the one he doesn't love..." I murmured before giving a bitter laugh. So Derek had stopped loving me a long time ago. That was fine. I didn't love him anymore either. After seeing Grace out, I began packing my bags. Inside my handbag, I found an ultrasound report. Name: Jenny Sutton. The pregnancy was already eight weeks along. One week further along than mine. My throat tightened. A violent wave of nausea surged up my throat. A few days earlier, I had left my handbag in Derek's office, and Jenny had been the one to return it. I opened my clenched fist, found a picture frame, and slipped the crumpled ultrasound report inside before setting it on the nightstand. Derek would love this gift. Chapter 2 I scheduled an abortion. It was the second time I had found myself on an operating table. The first had been during the year Derek and I got married. He had brought a thirst-trap influencer home to join my parents and me for New Year's Eve dinner. My father was so furious that he overturned the table, sending the family dinner he had spent all day preparing crashing to the floor. As fireworks burst across the sky outside, pain ripped through my abdomen as if something inside me had exploded. Warm blood streamed down my thighs, and in the end, the baby did not survive. Derek dropped to his knees in front of my parents and me, swearing that he would never hurt me again. He even transferred all his assets into my name, and my resolve weakened. A woman's love for a man always began with the excuses she made for his mistakes. Yet after I was discharged from the hospital, Derek did not change. If anything, my forgiveness only convinced him that he could get away with even more. "Ms. Sullivan, the procedure is done." I opened my eyes and found two tears at their corners. The surgical lights must have been too bright. When I was wheeled out of the operating room, Grace was waiting for me with eyes even redder than mine. "Gracie," I said softly, trying to comfort her. "I'm fine. It's not like this is my first time." Grace came home with me to collect the last few things I had left behind. We had barely stepped through the door when we saw Jenny wandering barefoot from room to room, inspecting the house as if it already belonged to her. She pointed to the painting on the wall and turned to Derek, who was standing behind her. "I don't like that painting. It looks out of place there. Can we replace it?" The painting had hung on that wall for nearly five years. Derek and I had created it together, a portrait of who we were in each other's eyes. Derek stroked Jenny's hair, his voice full of affection. "Of course. What would you like to put there instead?" "Your phone wallpaper." "All right. I'll have someone replace it immediately." His wallpaper was an intimate photograph of him and Jenny together on an island. Until then, he had always chosen something stark, minimalist, and businesslike. Apparently, he loved her enough to change for her. I turned and headed for the door. I could not bear to spend another second in that tainted house. Derek hurried after me and closed one hand around my wrist. "Where are you going? I have something important to discuss with you." His tone was as imperious as ever. "Jenny has genuine talent as a designer. All she needs is someone to guide her. Professor Harper at the Design Institute is your mentor, so I want you to introduce Jenny to her." Neither wealth nor influence could buy an audience with Professor Harper. She cared only about the quality of the work placed before her. I tore my wrist from Derek's grip. His fingers had left angry red marks around it, and an answering pressure tightened in my chest. "This is the important thing you wanted to discuss?" "Of course it is. Jenny's competition entry is at stake." "Not a chance," I said, making sure to enunciate every word. "What makes you think I would lift a finger to indulge your mistress?" Derek frowned, evidently taken aback by my refusal. Jenny looked as though she had suffered some terrible injustice. Tugging gently at Derek's hand, she said, "If Zoe doesn't want to help, forget it. I'll just have to figure something out on my own. I don't want to put you in an awkward position." Derek's expression immediately darkened. I took a step back, putting some distance between us. "What I have to tell you is far more important. Derek, I want a divorce." "A divorce?" Disdain spread across his face. "What are you making a fuss about this time? Go on, tell me. Which piece of jewelry caught your eye now?" "I'm not making a fuss," I said, meeting his gaze. "Staying together will only make both of us miserable. There is no point in dragging this out any longer." He dismissed my words without a second thought. "After all these years, you still haven't learned how to conduct yourself as Mrs. Shaw. You're taking us to see Professor Harper today, whether you like it or not." Before I could react, he strode forward, roughly hoisted me over his shoulder, and carried me toward the garage. Grace gasped and ran after us. "Do you have any idea what Zoe just went through? She had a..." I shook my head, signaling for her not to finish. There was no point in telling Derek that I had just lost another baby. Chapter 3 Jenny slid into the front passenger seat with practiced ease, while Derek dumped me into the back. My head struck the inside of the car door, drawing a muffled groan from me, but he did not spare me so much as a glance before starting the engine. "Derek! Open the door!" Grace pounded hard on the window. Instead, Derek floored the accelerator, and the sudden movement sent her stumbling backward. "Zoe Sullivan, did Grace put this divorce nonsense in your head?" he demanded. "She got divorced herself, so now she's trying to talk you into doing the same and turn you against me. Is that it?" His voice carried the smug certainty of a man who believed he had already figured everything out. I forced myself upright and answered calmly, "This has nothing to do with Grace. I'm the one who wants to divorce you." "It doesn't matter whether you admit it." Derek picked up his phone and issued an order to someone on the other end. "Keep an eye on Grace Reed. Don't let her have any further contact with my wife." "What gives you the right to control who I see or speak to?" As my anger rose, the dull ache in my lower abdomen suddenly sharpened into vicious cramps. In the rearview mirror, I caught sight of Derek leaning over to take a piece of gum directly from Jenny's lips. The two of them looked sickeningly sweet together. My vision began to blur. When I lowered my eyes, I saw blood spreading across the white upholstery beneath me, the vivid red impossible to miss. "Turn around and take me to the hospital..." I reached forward and tapped Derek's shoulder, but he did not look back. Jenny twisted around in her seat to inspect me. "What is it?" Derek asked her. "Nothing," she replied. "Zoe just got her period." She grabbed several sheets of scrap printer paper and shoved them at me. "Put these underneath you for now, or you'll get blood everywhere." Derek clicked his tongue in disgust. Covering his nose with one hand, he lowered the window before tossing his coat into the back. "Use this too. Don't get any more blood on my car. It's disgusting." Every word out of his mouth made me realize that I had never truly known him. But the pain had already forced me to curl into myself, leaving me with no strength to respond. With trembling hands, I called emergency services. "I need an ambulance..." The phone was suddenly snatched from my grasp. "Zoe, I'm a woman too. I get periods too, and I've never heard of anyone calling an ambulance over one," Jenny scoffed. "You're being so dramatic. If you don't want to help me, just say so. There's no need to pretend you're dying." Derek glanced at me through the rearview mirror. My face had gone deathly pale, and cold sweat glistened across my forehead. He gradually slowed the car and pulled over, apparently intending to check on me, but Jenny hurriedly caught hold of him. "Derek, she's obviously faking it! She's deliberately stalling so she won't have to take us to see Professor Harper. "The competition is only two days away. What am I supposed to do about my entry? "Didn't you promise me that I would take first place?" Derek looked conflicted. "Let me check on her first." "No!" Jenny snapped, immediately throwing a tantrum. "If you pay her any more attention, I'll strip right here and let everyone passing by see me!" She began lifting the hem of her top, and Derek hurriedly wrapped his arms around her. "Don't! We'll go right now!" The scenery began racing past the window once more. As I watched it blur together, it struck me that my seven years with Derek had been nothing but a cruel joke, rotten to the core. Even a stranger would have shown me a hundred times more concern than he had. When the car finally stopped, Derek opened the rear door and ordered, "Get out." I did not move. The pain had drained every ounce of strength from my body. Then Grace appeared in my fading field of vision, panting heavily as she rushed toward us. "Derek! She just had an abortion, and this is how you treat her?" She shoved him aside, her voice catching as she reached for me. "Don't be afraid. I'm taking you to the hospital." A loud ringing filled my ears, and then everything went black. Chapter 4 I did not regain consciousness until the following day. The bleeding had stopped, but the doctor warned that I needed plenty of rest or I could be left with lasting health problems. Grace had stayed at the hospital to look after me. Derek, on the other hand, had left while I was still unconscious, summoned away by a single phone call from Jenny. She claimed that what had happened the day before had given her nightmares all night and that she needed him there with her. When Grace saw me staring silently at the floor, she suggested asking my parents to come to the hospital and care for me. "No," I refused immediately. "My father already has high blood pressure. I can't give them one more thing to worry about." No sooner had I spoken than my mother called. "Zoe... your father collapsed. We're at the hospital." The calm I had struggled to maintain shattered in an instant. I rushed toward the emergency department without even stopping to put on my shoes. "Why did he suddenly collapse?" I asked. "Someone came to our house and told us to convince you to divorce Derek as soon as possible so she could take your place. She also said that you..." My mother's voice broke. It took her a long moment to compose herself enough to continue. "She said you had lost another baby, that the bleeding wouldn't stop, and that you would never be able to have children again. "Then she claimed she was carrying the Shaw family's firstborn heir. Your father was so furious that he collapsed on the spot." I clasped my mother's hand and tried to reassure her. "Mom, don't panic. Dad's blood pressure is just a little high. He'll be all right." Then the examination results came back. "The patient has suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and needs an emergency craniotomy. We need a family member to sign the consent forms." A sudden crack of thunder split the clear sky, seeming to detonate inside my skull. My father was wheeled into the operating room. The glowing red words SURGERY IN PROGRESS seared themselves into my eyes. Unable to hold myself back any longer, I called Derek and demanded through clenched teeth to know why he had allowed Jenny to do something like this. His response was almost completely indifferent. "You only have yourself to blame. If you'd simply agreed yesterday, Jenny wouldn't have gone to your parents. Why did you have to provoke her?" All at once, my will to argue left my body. Countless words rose to my lips, but I swallowed every one of them as a crushing sense of helplessness spread through me. "Fine. If that's what you believe, then so be it. I've already signed the divorce papers and left them on the nightstand. Sign them too, and let's go our separate ways without dragging this out." I ended the call. A notification immediately appeared in my photo gallery. [On This Day] When I opened it, I remembered that exactly four years earlier, I had accepted Derek's proposal. In the video, he was down on one knee, his eyes shining with sincerity. "I never believed two people could be destined for each other until I met you. "Now I look forward to every year ahead of us, to waking up beside you every morning and ending every day with you. "For the rest of my life, you will be the one I put above everyone else, the only person for whom I make every exception." But a grainy recording could not take me back to the past. I tapped delete, then cleared every photograph of Derek from my gallery. In an instant, all those happy moments I had revisited countless times disappeared without a trace. A jeweler called shortly afterward. "Ms. Sullivan, the appraisal and sale of your jewelry have been completed. The proceeds have been deposited into your account. Please check that you have received them." I looked at the new eight-figure balance in my account and did not hesitate. I donated the entire sum to a foundation supporting women and children and an animal welfare organization. Once my father was out of immediate danger, I spent a fortune chartering an air ambulance and flew him to the country with the best medical care available. Meanwhile, Derek accompanied Jenny to the design competition. There, an unassuming piece tucked away in a corner caught his attention and stirred something deep within him. His gaze moved to the signature in the lower right-hand corner. Zoe Sullivan. His heart had recognized her work before his mind did. Derek hurried out of the venue, convinced that Zoe had entered the piece as a way of apologizing to him. But when he reached the hospital, the doctor told him, "The Sullivan family has taken the patient overseas for treatment. They won't be coming back."