Wedding Day, His First Love Wanted Him For One Day

Chapter 3

I slipped out of the wedding and wiped my eyes, trying to think of what I could possibly tell Mom.

The moment I opened her hospital room door, I knew it was too late. She was staring at the TV. Ethan's wedding was being broadcast live. He and Sophie were kissing, and neither seemed inclined to stop.

Mom turned to me, her hair loose around her face, tears in her eyes. "Is it true?"

I switched off the TV and wrapped my arms around her. She grabbed my shoulders and shook me.

"Tell me, Nora. Why is that woman wearing my daughter's wedding dress? This is supposed to be your wedding!"

I tried to soothe her, but I couldn't get the words out. How could I tell her the man who'd promised to love me forever was marrying someone else? That I'd made the same mistake she had and fallen for a man who would only hurt me?

Her phone chimed. She looked at the message and stopped asking questions. Then she collapsed against the bed, the phone slipping from her hand.

I ran out, screaming for a doctor. They rushed her away. Outside the emergency room, I stared at the messages on her phone.

Several had come from Ethan's number 30 minutes earlier. There was a photograph of the men who'd r***d me, posing around me that night.

Ethan: Don't come questioning me. Take a good look at what your daughter's doing in this picture.

Ethan: I've always loved someone else. Your daughter won't leave me alone. She's a homewrecker, just like her mother.

Ethan: You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Even reading them left me struggling to breathe. Mom had a heart condition. What had those words done to her?

I lost track of how long I sat there. When the doors finally opened, I stood to ask about her, but the doctors' faces stopped me.

"The shock brought on an episode. With her heart condition, we couldn't... I'm so sorry."

Everything went black, and I collapsed.

*****

It was dark when I woke. A doctor sat beside my bed.

"I'm so sorry about your mother," she said gently. "There's something else. When we examined you, we found you were about 1 month pregnant. You've had a miscarriage. The stress you were under..."

She let the sentence trail off, then tried again. "We called your emergency contact. The man who answered told us to tell you to stop putting on an act. Is there anyone else we can call? Any other family?"

I shook my head. "No."

There was so much grief I couldn't even feel the pain in my body. Despite their protests, I got out of bed and left the hospital.

Still weak and ill, I spent 3 days handling Mom's funeral alone. I watched the cremation reduce her to a handful of ash. That night, I cried until there was nothing left.

By the time it was over, all I had was the urn in my arms and the pregnancy report clutched in my hand.

I called the editor. "Can you move my flight up? I want to leave this afternoon. And you don't need to arrange anything for my mother. She died."