---- Chapter 6 The days that followed were a blur of calculated numbness. The initial shock and rage had subsided, leaving behind a hollow, cold space in my chest. When Liam would call, his voice dripping with fake affection, | no longer felt the sting of betrayal. | felt nothing. It was like watching a movie where | already knew the ending. His words were just noise. My pain had peaked, and now | was on the other side. | was immune. | channeled all my energy into finding out the whole truth. Sarah helped me dig deeper. It turned out Clara wasn't just some random affair. She was his high school girlfriend, his first love. They had broken up when he went to college, but the records showed they had never truly lost touch. There were emails, old social media messages, a thin but unbroken thread connecting them through all the years he was supposedly devoted to me. | wasn't just the convenient fiancée, | was the other woman in my own relationship. | had been the long-term interruption to their great love story. The thought was so absurd it was almost funny. ---- One evening, while | was sitting in my apartment, staring at the plans for a building | no longer cared about, my phone buzzed. It was a text from an unknown number. "| know you're a busy woman, but you should probably see this." Below the text was an image. It was a copy of a medical report from a women's health clinic. The patient's name was Clara Bell. And next to the field "Diagnosis," it said: "Intrauterine Pregnancy, 12 weeks." My hands started to shake. It was real. She was really pregnant. The anonymous messenger wasn't done. A new message came through. "He's so excited. He's already picking out names." My breath hitched. Who was sending this? Was it Clara herself, twisting the knife? Or one of her friends? It didn't matter. The effect was the same. The messages kept coming over the next few days. A picture of Liam and Clara shopping for baby clothes. A short video clip, shaky and obviously filmed in secret, of them at a restaurant. Liam had his hand on her belly, his face glowing with a kind of gentle happiness | hadn't seen in years. Then came the audio message. It was Clara's voice, whispering, "Tell me you love me." Then Liam's voice, clear and steady. "I love you, Clara. Only you. Always." ---- That was the message that broke through my numbness. A wave of nausea, so strong and violent, washed over me. | stumbled to the bathroom, my legs weak. The stress, the heartbreak, the constant barrage of psychological torture from this unknown number... it was too much. A sharp, cramping pain shot through my abdomen, far worse than anything I'd felt before. | looked down and saw blood. A lot of blood. The world tilted, and my knees gave out. | collapsed onto the cold tile floor, the pain overwhelming my senses. My last conscious thought before everything went black was the irony of it all. Clara was carrying his future, while | was on the floor, bleeding out the secret | had been carrying. The last piece of us was gone.