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1137 Words
"We are deeply sorry for your loss, Mrs. Sterling."
"May you and your family find strength during this difficult time."
One after another, people approached me with words of sympathy. Their voices blurred together, meaningless sounds that couldn't reach the ache in my chest.
Yesterday, Kylie, my only daughter, had died in an accident that was still being investigated. But my husband, Jared Sterling, was nowhere to be found. He hadn't been seen since the night before.
I had tried calling and texting him hundreds of times. Each unanswered.
I should have known this was coming. Ever since my father handed over his entire company to Jared before passing away, my husband had been consumed by work. He had no time for anything—or anyone—else. Not even for our dying daughter.
Now, after the cremation, I sat alone in the VIP waiting room at the crematorium. I caught my reflection in the window—my face was pale and gaunt. My eyes were red and swollen from crying until there were no tears left, only this dry, burning pain behind my lids. At two hundred pounds, I barely recognized myself anymore. The woman staring back at me looked defeated, her body heavy with grief and years of emotional eating.
I knew what people thought when they saw us together. Jared, with his sharp jawline and tailored suits, always looked like he'd stepped out of a magazine. And me? I was the wife he kept hidden. The one he never brought to company events. The one whose photos he cropped out of his social media. "Stay home," he'd say. "You'll be more comfortable there."
But comfortable was just another word for invisible.
Kylie had been everything to me. My reason for waking up each morning. And now she was gone. Reduced to ashes in a small urn that sat on the table beside me.
I reached out and touched the cool ceramic, imagining I could still feel her heartbeat beneath my fingertips.
Around afternoon, when all the guests who had come to pay their respects had finally left, a black car pulled up outside the crematorium hall.
I glanced through the glass and recognized it immediately. Jared's car.
The driver stepped out and opened the back door. My breath caught in my throat. Jared wasn't alone.
Sitting beside him was Cassandra—my best friend. Slim, beautiful Cassandra with her perfect figure and designer dresses.
Jared had hired her to work at his company, which meant they traveled together constantly for business trips. I had begged him countless times to reconsider, but Jared always brushed me off with the same dismissive response: focus on taking care of our daughter and managing the household.
Our daughter. The daughter he couldn't be bothered to say goodbye to.
Watching them now, sitting so close together, something sharp and hot twisted in my gut. I'd seen the way he looked at her—with pride, with admiration. The way he used to look at me twelve years ago, before the weight gain, before I became someone he was ashamed to be seen with.
But my anger wasn't about jealousy anymore. It wasn't about Cassandra stealing my husband's affections.
It was about a father who chose business deals over being there when his daughter took her last breath.
Who couldn't spare even a few hours to hold her hand one final time.
Through the window, I watched Jared lean toward Cassandra and murmur something. She nodded and settled back into her seat. Then he stepped out and headed toward the crematorium entrance, straightening his tie as if he were walking into just another meeting.
I quickly turned away and returned to my seat. I wiped my tears—angry tears now—and stared at Kylie's urn instead of the door.
I didn't want to see him. Not now. Not after everything he'd done. Not after he'd abandoned us both.
The door opened. I heard his footsteps, heard him clear his throat and call my name. I didn't move. I couldn't bear to look at his face.
"Regina."
Still, I said nothing.
He walked closer until he was standing directly in front of me, blocking my view of our daughter's ashes.
"You didn't need to keep calling me," he said coldly, as if I'd been pestering him about something trivial. "I already knew—your daughter died in an accident."
Those words shattered something inside me.
"Our daughter," I corrected, my voice shaking with barely controlled rage. Each word felt like broken glass in my throat. "Kylie was my daughter and yours, Jared. Ours."
"Right. Our daughter," he said, emotionless. His eyes flicked over me with that familiar look of distaste, the one I'd grown used to over the years. The look that said he could barely stand to be in the same room with me.
"Where were you?" I demanded, finally looking up at him.
"I called you over and over—" My voice broke.
Jared let out a short, mocking laugh. The sound of it made me feel sick. "Oh, so now you're interested in what I do? After all these years of playing the dutiful housewife?"
He paused, then added with devastating casualness, "Anyway, has Kylie already been cremated? Shame I missed saying goodbye to our daughter."
Shame. He said shame like he'd missed a dentist appointment.
My hand flew toward his face before I could think. But Jared was faster—he'd always been faster, always one step ahead. He caught my wrist in midair and jerked me forward violently.
"Don't," he hissed.
I struggled against him, but his grip was stronger. "You monster," I choked out. "She was your daughter. Your little girl. And you couldn't even—"
His eyes were cold. Empty. Looking at me like I was nothing. Like I'd always been nothing.
Before I could react, he forced his mouth against mine in a brutal kiss.
I struggled, trying to push him away, but his grip was too strong.
He forced me, pushing me against the wall, his strong hands bound my hands above my head, while his other hand pulled down my undies. Jared forced up my legs to wrap around his waist and pushed my thighs apart while he entered me with lust and rage. “You should’ve known what kind of man I was before you married me, Regina...."
"Jared stop!" I screamed.
But he didn't listen.
He kept thrusting me back and forth, harder.
"If you weren’t the daughter of my enemy, maybe our marriage could’ve lasted.”
“Let me go, you bastard!” I struggled, but Jared’s thrust only getting harder as I cried ask for help but no one there because Jared had ask all his men to close the VVIP crematorium gate
- Writer
