The Woman He Betrayed

Chapter 3

Three days.

I hardly left Adrian's side for three days. The hospital food went cold beside me. I slept in a chair that hurt my back. I stared at the machines and prayed they would keep beeping. And the whole time, I pretended I wasn't terrified.

I watched his chest rise and fall. Slow. Steady. Alive.

That was all that mattered. At least, that's what I kept telling myself.

When guilt crept in, I pushed it away. Mom was strong. She had survived worse. The doctors were treating her, and Ethan was with her. Everything would be okay. It had to be, because the other thought was something I couldn't carry.

I took Adrian's hand. His fingers were cold. I rubbed them between my palms, as if that could warm him.

"Wake up," I whispered. My voice came out thin and cracked. "You promised me forever."

A tear slid down my cheek. I wiped it with my sleeve.

"I kept my promise. So you have to keep yours too."

Nothing. Only the monitor answered me. Beep. Beep. Beep.

I dropped my head. I was so tired. I hadn't slept properly in days. I rested my forehead on the edge of the bed. Just for a moment. Just one second.

Then I felt it. A tiny twitch against my palm.

My head shot up. His fingers had moved.

"Adrian?"

They moved again. My heart started pounding.

"Adrian!"

I jumped up so fast my chair crashed to the floor. His eyelids fluttered. Then, slowly, so slowly, his eyes opened.

I forgot how to breathe.

"Adrian." I was already crying. "Adrian."

His eyes drifted around the room. Confused. Lost. Then they landed on me, and relief exploded in my chest. I grabbed his hand with both of mine.

"Oh my God. You're awake."

His brows pulled together. His lips parted. "Where am I?"

His voice made me cry harder. "In the hospital."

"What happened?"

"You had an accident."

He shut his eyes for a moment, like he was digging for something. When he opened them and looked at me, something inside me went cold. Wrong.

It was the way he looked at me. The way one stranger looks at another. Not the way the man who loved me used to look.

"Adrian?"

He frowned. I waited. Maybe he was foggy. Maybe it was the medicine. Maybe...

"Who are you?"

Those words hit me harder than any slap.

"What?" I let out a shaky laugh. "This isn't funny."

He didn't laugh. He didn't smile.

"I'm serious. Who are you?"

My heart dropped. I squeezed his hand. "It's me."

I watched him search my face. Nothing. No spark, no warmth. Nothing.

The door opened and the doctor walked in. I spun toward him. "He doesn't know me."

The doctor hurried over. Adrian lifted a weak finger toward me. "Should I know her?"

The room started spinning. I grabbed the bed rail to stay on my feet.

The doctor asked him simple things. His name. His age. His birthday. The address where he grew up. Adrian answered every one, without a single mistake. Then the doctor asked about me, and Adrian just went quiet.

The doctor wrote something down and turned to me. My heart was breaking before he even spoke.

"The accident damaged part of his memory."

"No."

"We expected some complications."

"No."

"He remembers many things. But some memories seem damaged."

The room felt too small. My chest was tight. "Which memories?"

He hesitated. That pause told me more than his words.

"The ones connected to you."

I stopped breathing. Adrian was alive. Yet that sentence hurt almost as much as losing him.

"We don't know if they will come back," the doctor said. I didn't hear the rest. I only saw Adrian, looking at me like we had never met. Like he had never loved me. Like he had never held my hand under the university trees, never promised me forever.

I sank into the chair. My legs couldn't hold me anymore.

For the first time since I made my choice, I wondered: had saving Adrian really saved him?

A few hours later, Adrian fell asleep again. The doctor said he needed rest.

I sat beside the bed with burning eyes and a pounding head. Everything hurt. Then I remembered my phone. The one I had switched off three days ago.

My stomach tightened. I dug it out of my bag. The black screen stared back at me. Turning it on suddenly scared me. I did it anyway.

It lit up, and the notifications poured in. Missed calls. Messages. Voicemails. Dozens, then hundreds. My breath turned uneven. Most were from Ethan.

The first messages were desperate. Sister, answer me. Please answer. Mom keeps asking for you.

My fingers shook as I scrolled. Then I saw a message from the hospital. I opened it, and the world stopped.

We regret to inform you that Mrs. Margaret Carter passed away three days ago.

I stared at it. No. I blinked, hoping the words would change. They didn't. I read it again. And again. Same words every time.

Three days ago. The same day I chose Adrian. The same day I turned off my phone. The same day my mother was waiting for me.

The phone slipped from my hand and hit the floor. A broken sound left my throat. "No. No."

I picked it up with trembling hands and read it one more time. Nothing changed. My mother was dead, and I hadn't even known.

I pressed my hand over my mouth, but the cry tore out anyway. The kind that comes from deep inside. The kind that leaves scars.

The funeral was two days later. I barely remember getting there. People talked to me and I couldn't hear them. People hugged me and I couldn't feel it. I felt like I was trapped inside a nightmare.

After the burial, everyone left, one by one, until only I remained.

The evening wind brushed my skin. I stood at my mother's grave holding white lilies, my hands shaking. Slowly, I knelt and laid them on the fresh soil. For a long time, I couldn't speak. When the words finally came, they broke me.

"I'm sorry." Tears ran down my face. "I'm so sorry."

My shoulders shook. "You sold Dad's wedding ring for me. The last piece of him you had. You gave me everything."

My voice cracked.

"And when you needed me..."

I couldn't finish. The guilt was suffocating.

"I wasn't there."

I pressed my palm into the soil, as if I could still reach her. As if she could still hear me.

"I thought I was saving someone. But I lost you."

Silence. No answer. No forgiveness. No second chance. Only the cold truth of what my choice had cost.

At last, I stood, eyes swollen, heart broken. And a terrifying question crept into my mind.

Had I lost them both?

Because the mother I loved was gone. And the man I gave her up for... didn't even remember my name.