The Scorned Wife's Return

CHAPTER 2

Mira

Luke's face twisted from confusion, to surprise, then disbelief. Even that shut Chloe up as she raised her hand to cover her mouth.

I stared Luke down, maybe it was the coldness in my eyes or that growing tempest within me just waiting to come out but Luke swallowed whatever he was going to say and just thinned his lips.

“You need rest , Mira, we will settle this later.” Luke said, apparently unable to understand why the sweet and quiet Mira suddenly turned deathly cold. I would have enjoyed the look on his face, and in fact a part of me relished in the fact that I shut them up, but the majority still mourned my loss. Looking at the way Luke held Chloe's hand to walk her out as if she was the wife who got injured, I knew for a fact that it wasn't “our”, but ‘my’ loss.

“There's no later.” I said quietly as Luke walked towards the door but the room was so quiet that Luke heard it and turned back. He looked like he was about to burst and even my cold tone wouldn't be able to hold him this time. So before everything went to hell, I spat.

“It's gone.”

I saw Luke's hand turn white as it tightened on the door knob, yet he held Chloe's arm with such gentleness you would think he was holding a golden egg. I couldn't think of a better representation for our marriage than this, on one hand he treated me like trash, on the other he treated my sister like she was a goddess.

Luke's hand left the door as he snarled. “Can you f*****g stop talking in riddles?, what is your problem woman, what is gone?”

Chloe of course spoke at the right time and with an angelic expression as if she wasn't part of the reason that I lost my child. “Oh no Luke, don't shout at her please… I'm sure she isn't in her right mind at the moment.”

Not in her right mind?, I c****d my head sideways as laughter bubbled out of me. Nothing was funny, everything was going to s**t, but at that moment I just wanted to laugh at my life. At that girl who waited each day, for three years for her husband to show her a shred of the same attention and care he showed her sister.

Chloe looked at me like I was truly crazy and Luke had a disgusted expression on his face. He glanced at Chloe with a look that said, see what I had to deal with everyday, and I just laughed harder. After a while I calmed down and adjusted my blanket as I rubbed the tears in my eyes.

“Well, since you would like to know, I lost the only thing that held us together.” I said, my expression turning back into a frown. The pain hadn't left, not the physical or the more heart wrenching emotional one, but I had vented most of my feelings with that laugh and I felt something settle within me.

What it was, I didn't have the time to find out as the door to the room opened once more and a man who looked like he walked out of a men’s model magazine, barged in. He surveyed the room, taking in Chloe who stood with a surprised look as her arm rested on Luke's back. Then he turned to Luke, who stood dazed as if realising something dreadful as he stared at my stomach underneath the blanket. Then finally he stared at me and sneered.

“Can’t you go one night without making everything about you? So what is it this time?You just can't allow us have peace can you, Mira.”

I turned to look at my brother, William Kingston, a quick once over showed that he had been coming straight from the party with his buttoned up ash shirt and suit trousers. The stiff expression on his face showed that he had come, seen and decided.

He’d already written the script: Mira, the jealous, disruptive sister, orchestrating misery to overshadow Chloe’s triumph. The reality of the IV drip, the pallor of my skin, the raw devastation in my eyes – none of it registered. He saw only Chloe’s tears.

I was meant to be hurt by his accusations, by his irrationality, but I just felt hollow. I knew in there, was a heart hurting at the injustice of it all, but compared to the pain of losing a child, none of this came close.

"Mira! I'm talking to you, you selfish b***h!" William’s voice boomed, raw with rage. He walked towards the bed, his glare venomous. "Look at her! She’s devastated because of you!”

"Should I have scheduled my miscarriage for a more convenient time, William?" My voice was chillingly calm, laced with a sarcasm that cut deeper than a scream. "Apologies for the inconvenience to the golden child’s party."

“Oh f**k that nonsense, miscarriage?” Then he paused, a sudden look on his face as if he had just realised something. Then he snarled.

“Now you are going too far Mira, how could you go so low as to lie about your child just for attention?”

A stabbing pain hit my chest, at his words. I guess I wasn't totally unfeeling but anyone would shake in despair and anger at the fact that their own brother would think such of them. I blinked the tears that were forming away. No, I couldn't cry, I couldn't waste my tears, not on them.

It was then I decided that… they weren't worth it.

Luke finally found his voice, hoarse and disbelieving. "Gone? What do you mean… gone?" He took a jerky step towards the bed, his hand half-reaching out before dropping limply to his side. "How? When?"

A bitter, mirthless sound escaped my lips, dry as dust. "When?" My voice lacked any emotion even though I was breaking inside. "When I fell down the stairs. After you left." Each word was a hammer blow, driving the truth deeper into the suffocating quiet. "When I called. And called. And no one came."

Chloe rushed forward, tears now streaming down her cheeks. "Oh, Luke, it’s all my fault! If I hadn’t insisted you come back to the party… if I hadn’t been celebrating…" She clutched at Luke’s arm, her body trembling with theatrical sorrow. "Mira, I’m so sorry! I never imagined…"

Luke flinched, his eyes still fixed on me, a muscle jumping in his clenched jaw. Chloe’s words seemed to pierce his paralysis. His expression hardened, the shock morphing into a defensive, almost accusatory glare. "You fell? Why were you running? I told you to hurry, not to…" He trailed off, unable to voice the accusation fully, but it hung heavy in the air: not to be so clumsy. Not to cause this.

Another stab to my chest. Of course, shift all the blame to me, my expression didn't change but my knuckles tightened under the blanket.

William’s face purpled. "Forget the damn fake miscarriage! Explain this!" He pointed a finger towards Chloe, who was now sobbing softly into her hands. "She comes here out of the kindness of her heart, worried sick about you after your…accident… and you make her cry? What did you say to her? What poisonous lies did you spew this time?"

I looked past William, I couldn't be concerned with the nonsense he was shouting. Chloe stood near the door, shoulders shaking, tears flowing freely, the picture of angelic suffering. "William, please," Chloe choked out, her voice thick with tears. "It wasn’t Mira’s fault. I just… something flew into my eye… and then the shock… about the baby…" She trailed off, dissolving into fresh sobs.

The blatant lie was gasoline on William’s fire. "Cut the crap, Mira!" he roared, stepping closer to the bed. "The Kingston family doesn’t owe you a damn thing! Chloe certainly doesn’t owe you her tears!"

"Stop it, she’s… she’s just lost the baby," Chloe interjected softly, tugging at William’s sleeve, her eyes wide and pleading. "It’s really my fault. I knew she was pregnant, but I still insisted Luke come back to my party. If he’d been home… if he hadn’t left her alone…" Her voice broke on a sob, the implication hanging heavy: if Luke hadn't left, maybe the baby would be alive.

"Enough," Luke snapped, finally finding his voice, though it was tight with strain. Even through his own shock and guilt, William’s cruelty was a step too far.

William scoffed, his eyes blazing with contempt as he looked at Mira. "First she causes a scene at the gala by not showing up, then she takes a tumble? Convenient. Now she loses the baby? Tragic, sure, but people miscarriage all the time. Why the whole…”

"That is ENOUGH!" Luke roared, stepping between William and the bed, his face a mask of fury I had never seen directed at her brother. He might have been struggling with his own failures, but this vitriol towards the child he’d just learned was lost… It was unacceptable.

“What!” William sneered, “You're seriously not about to believe anything that comes out of her mouth. She just f*****g hates Chloe. You have been married for three years yet you do not know what a snake she is.”

I waited for something, a reply, a scathing response from Luke, just anything that wasn't him agreeing to the venom Williams just shouted. But Luke just paused and looked at me quizzically as if contemplating if I was saying the truth or Williams was. The little thing in my heart that I didn't even know was still there shattered, into tiny little fragments and dispersed until none was left.

Suddenly I felt woozy, like I had lost all my strength. I probably had from all the shouting and the loss of blood. But with all eyes on me, I shouted.

“GET OUT, ALL OF YOU!!!, NURSE!!!”

“Can you just stop disgracing our family, you piece of…” Williams was the first move, as he stretched a hand to cover my mouth. On impulse I pulled out the syringe inside my veins and stabbed it right in his hand.

He groaned in pain, and slapped my hand away, but before he could do anything else, two women wearing white barged in… then everything went black.