The Daughter He Rejected

Chapter 6

(Amelia POV)

I pressed my hands to my stomach. I thought about the last time I had my period. Six weeks ago. Maybe seven.

No, I told myself. It’s just stress. Just the wedding. Just everything.

But I knew.

I was a doctor. I had delivered enough babies to recognize the signs. The nausea in the mornings. The tenderness in my breasts. The way certain smells made my stomach turn.

I was pregnant.

I was pregnant, and I was locked in a psychiatric hospital, accused of murder, wearing a stranger’s clothes.

“Oh God,” I whispered.

The walls did not answer. The window did not answer.

I lay down on the thin mattress and curled into a ball. My wedding dress hung on a hook by the door. White lace. A reminder of everything I had lost.

I did not sleep.

I stared at the ceiling and thought about David. About the first time we met. About the car crash. About the way he had looked at me in the emergency room and said, “You have beautiful hands.”

I thought about the fire. Rebecca’s face. The smoke. The heat. The blow to my head.

And I understood, with a clarity that felt like drowning, that Vivian had planned all of this.

---

A key turned in the lock.

I sat up quickly. My heart pounded. I expected a nurse. Linda, maybe. Or the gray-haired woman from intake.

The door opened.

A figure stood in the doorway. Backlit by the hallway lights. Honey‑blonde hair. Pale pink dress. A smile that did not reach her eyes.

Vivian.

She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. The lock clicked again.

“Hello, Amelia,” she said. “Welcome to your new home.”

My blood ran cold.

“How did you get in here?” I whispered.

Vivian smiled. “I have friends everywhere. You’d be surprised what money can buy.”

She walked toward the bed. Her heels clicked on the linoleum.

I pulled my knees to my chest. The gray shirt bunched around my wrists.

“What do you want, Vivian?”

“I wanted to see you. To make sure you were comfortable.”

“I’m in a psychiatric hospital, wearing a dead woman’s clothes, accused of a murder I didn’t commit. How comfortable do I look?”

Vivian tilted her head. Her honey‑blonde hair slid over her shoulder.

“You did commit it, though. I saw you.”

“You’re lying.”

“Am I?”

She sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped. I leaned away.

“I was there,” Vivian said softly. “I saw you push Rebecca into the flames. I saw the hatred in your eyes.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“No one will believe you.”

She reached out and touched my cheek. Her fingers were cold. I flinched.

“You’re going to stay here for a long time, Amelia. Maybe forever. David will move on. He’ll marry someone else. Someone who deserves him.”

“He loves me.”

Vivian laughed. The sound was sharp, brittle.

“Does he? He sent you here. He called you crazy. He didn’t even try to defend you.”

My throat tightened. I wanted to argue. I wanted to scream. But Vivian was right. David had stood at the altar and watched them take me away. He had said those words. She has mental health issues.

“Why are you doing this?” I whispered.

Vivian stood. She smoothed her dress.

“Because you took something that didn’t belong to you.”

“I never took anything.”

“You took him.”

The words hung in the air.

I stared at her. “David?”

Vivian’s smile faded. For the first time, I saw something real in her eyes. Something raw. Something hungry.

“I have loved David since we were children,” she said. “I have waited for him. I have been there for him. Through every breakup. Every disappointment. Every loss. And then you appeared. Some nobody from nowhere. And he forgot I existed.”

“That’s not my fault.”

“It is. You could have said no. You could have walked away. But you didn’t. You stayed. You took him. And now you will pay.”

She walked to the door. She knocked twice. The lock clicked from the outside.

She looked back over her shoulder.

“Enjoy your stay, Amelia. I hear the food is terrible.”

The door opened. Vivian stepped through. The door closed.

I sat alone in the dark.

My hands were shaking. My stomach churned.

I pressed my palms against my belly.

I will protect you, I thought. No matter what.

But I did not know how.