I stayed with Kevin, hoping he’d turn back.
If he just broke that lock, he’d find me.
Kevin got back to the office. I followed him in.
Brianna was in Jake’s office, faking concern.
“Jake, is Sarah okay out there? She’s
pregnant!”
“She’s fine.”
“It’s just a remote cabin, she’s not going to
die. What could happen to Sarah out there?”
<
With food and drink?
I choked back a sob, my heart numb.
I couldn’t push that door open. I didn’t have a
single thing to eat.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been too weak
from hunger to have the baby. The baby
starved of oxygen and died.
I couldn’t miss the momentary faltering of
Brianna’s expression, but I didn’t know if it
was Jake’s lie.
Jake looked pained, frowning, with a hint of
guilt in his voice.
“Brianna, I’m sorry. I didn’t protect you.
You’re so kind, worrying about her, but she’s
く
always been nasty to you, and that day she
broke your mom’s vase, she was screaming
out of control.”
“Jake…”
Brianna’s touching words were like knives
twisting in my heart.
Brianna and Jake had grown up together, but
after we got married, she never left us alone.
Even when I was pregnant, she ordered me
around to do her laundry and make her food.
Every time I refused, she ran to Jake,
exaggerated to make herself feel better. No
matter how I explained it, it didn’t matter.
Over time. in Jake’s eves, I became a jealous
The day we had clients over for dinner,
Brianna cornered me in the bedroom.
She suddenly threw the bracelet down, broke
it, and started to cry.
When Jake heard the noise, Brianna told a
sob story:
‘Jake, Sarah suddenly came at me and broke
the bracelet my mom left me.”
Brianna cried in his arms, and my husband
didn’t even listen to me, forcing me to
apologize.
“Do you know that’s the last thing Brianna
had from her mother?! You’re awful, you’re
always hateful to her. I never thought your
could be like this, heartless!”
く
“Sarah, don’t think you can get away with
this. You’re going back to your hometown,
stay there until you apologize.”
My heart was torn to pieces. I didn’t know
what hurt more: my body or my heart.
Over the next few days, my friends couldn’t
reach me. They all went to Jake.
That’s when Jake started to panic, calling the
police, but staying with Brianna at social
events.
After Jake called the police, I hurried back to
my hometown.
I knew if the police found me they would find
me and my baby.
く
The police would be able to bury my child.
The police came quickly. When I got back to
the old house, they were already there.
A lot of people from the area saw the police
car and came over to see what was going on.
They looked inside:
“Hasn’t this place been empty for a while?
What’s going on, the police are here?”
“Yeah, pretty scary.”
“”
The police came with search dogs, and the
dogs smelled something. It smelled like
decay, and the dogs kept barking at the
house.
<
They broke the lock on the door, and the door
was kicked open.
A stench of decay and rot filled the air, and
the police covered their noses.
A month had passed, and my body had
already rotted.
It was winter, so the cold temperatures
preserved the bones and some flesh.
There was a skeletal baby next to the skeletal
remains, and the umbilical cord was wrapped
around the baby’s neck, like a noose.
The floor was dark with blood, with what little
liquid was left. The woman had gone through
a lot to birth that child.
Г
Still, the result was death for both mother and
child.
I wondered how Jake would react to this.
His wife and child were dead in some
backwoods cabin. Would he feel sad or sorry?
I gasped, and my eyes filled with tears.
