Chapter two
1223 Words
Someone had gently closed Ava's eyes. Her lashes were still damp when the nurse carefully pulled the white sheet over her tiny body. I remained seated beside the hospital bed long after everyone had left. No tears came. It was as though my body had forgotten how to cry.
My phone vibrated in my hand. The name flashing across the screen made my chest tighten.
Sebastian.
He was calling now... now that our daughter was gone.
I let the call ring until it stopped. Moments later, a message appeared on the screen.
_I just saw your calls. Chloe wasn't feeling well tonight. What happened?_
I read the message over and over again, unable to believe what I was seeing. My daughter lay beneath a white sheet only a few feet away from me, and my husband was telling me another woman wasn't feeling well.
Before I could put my phone away, it rang again. This time, I answered.
Neither of us spoke at first. I could hear his breathing through the phone before he finally broke the silence.
"Elena..." he said quietly. "I'm so sorry."
"Are you?" I asked, my voice empty.
There was a brief silence before he spoke again. "I should've been there."
"So you knew you were supposed to be there."
"I... I couldn't. Chloe... she was—"
"Sebastian." I stopped him before he could finish. "Please don't."
He fell silent.
"Don't say her name to me today."
I rested one hand against the hospital window, staring at the city outside. Cars moved through the streets, people hurried to work, and life carried on as though mine hadn't just ended.
"I just meant..." he started.
"I know exactly what you meant," I interrupted. "You always have a reason. There's always an excuse."
My throat tightened as I fought back the lump forming there.
"Ava needed you. She waited for you until the very end." I closed my eyes, trying to steady my breathing. "But it's okay now. There's no need for you to come anymore. You can stay with Chloe."
The words barely left my lips before silence filled the line again.
"Elena..." he whispered.
"I'm sorry."
He said it one last time. "I know those words won't change anything, but... I'm sorry."
The call ended.
For several seconds, I simply stared at my phone. Then everything I had been holding back shattered. A sob escaped my lips before another quickly followed. My knees gave way, and I sank onto the cold hospital floor, crying until I could barely breathe.
I cried for every hospital visit. Every broken promise. Every birthday Sebastian had missed.
Most of all... I cried for my little girl, who had spent her final moments waiting for a father who never came.
The following hours passed in a blur. There were hospital forms to sign, death certificates to collect, and endless paperwork that I could barely bring myself to read. When they asked about the funeral arrangements, I chose the earliest available date.
Two days.
There was no reason to wait. It would be a small funeral, a simple one with only a few people who truly cared about Ava.
Throughout everything, Ethan never left my side. We had known each other since childhood, and although life had taken us down different paths after I married Sebastian, the moment he heard about Ava, he came without hesitation.
He reminded me to drink water whenever I forgot. He placed food in front of me even though I barely touched it. When another document needed signing, he quietly handed it to me without saying a word. He never told me to stop crying or that everything would be alright.
Because he knew it never would be.
Two days later, rain fell softly over the cemetery as Ava's funeral began. I couldn't bring myself to look at her coffin. If I looked at it, then I'd have to accept that she was truly gone, and I wasn't ready for that.
The minister's voice drifted through the cold morning air, but I couldn't hear a single word he said. All I could hear was Ava's laughter. I could almost see her smiling as she asked me when Daddy would come home.
My hands trembled at my sides.
Ethan stood quietly beside me throughout the service. He didn't speak or offer empty words of comfort. He simply stayed, and somehow, that was enough.
As people slowly began leaving the cemetery, my phone vibrated again. I almost ignored it, but when I saw the caller's name, I answered.
It was Dr. Rob.
"Mrs. Morgan," he said gently. "I'm deeply sorry for your loss."
"Thank you," I replied quietly.
He hesitated before continuing. "If only the research project had been completed... it might have saved Ava."
His words caught me off guard. "But the project was halted because of funding," I said.
There was silence on the other end before he replied. "No... it wasn't halted."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"It was withdrawn," he said. "The funding was redirected to another medical research project."
My heartbeat quickened. "What project?"
Another pause followed. Finally, he answered. "A private research project on pregnancy complications."
The world around me seemed to stop. "What?"
"It was your husband's decision," Dr. Rob continued. "Mr. Morgan personally instructed the institute to withdraw the funding from Ava's project and redirect it."
My fingers tightened around the phone.
Images flashed through my mind. Chloe's smiling photos. The expensive specialists. The overseas treatments. The constant excuses.
Sebastian hadn't abandoned our daughter because there wasn't enough money. He had taken the funding that could have saved Ava... and spent it on another woman's pregnancy because the doctors had told him she was carrying a son.
My knees nearly gave out beneath me.
"Mrs. Morgan?" Dr. Rob called cautiously.
"I'm here," I managed to whisper.
"There is something else," he said. "I never destroyed the prototype. I still have all the research files and every document. If you still want to continue the project, they're yours."
I slowly lifted my head and looked toward Ava's freshly covered grave. "Send everything to me," I said, my voice no longer shaking. "I'll finish what we started. I won't let my daughter have suffered for nothing."
The call ended, leaving me standing silently before the grave.
Sebastian had made his choice.
He chose Chloe.
He chose their unborn child.
He chose to abandon the little girl who had loved him with all her heart.
Now... it was my turn to choose.
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