After I Decided to Marry Another Man, My Ex-husband Regrets

For days, I was a prisoner in my own home.

No locks. Just silence, and a house too large for a woman slowly unraveling.

Three times a day, the maid knocked. Her voice grew softer each time.

“Ma’am.” she whispered once through the door, almost trembling, “I know you did nothing wrong... Please eat something. Your hands are turning blue.”

But the head maid quickly intercepted, scolding harshly.

“You are not to disobey Mr. Alexander!” she snapped. “No meals until she apologizes.”

I never replied.

Only a few apples ever made it through. Slipped beneath my door in secret, wilted and cold yet I never once complained and ate them hungrily for the sake of my child.

Just sat by the window, wrapped in the same sweater I had worn since that night without a single blanket.

Counting backwards.

Three days have passed, four more days. Once the divorce agreement is approved by court I would leave. Burn every trace of this life behind me.

My phone never stopped buzzing.

Stephanie.

Her messages came like venom dressed in pearls each one designed to pierce.

On the morning I zipped my last bag, another message arrived.

[Stephanie: You never won our mothers, and you will never win Alex. One word from me, and he even forgot that you even exist.]

She was right.

Alexander never came home.

Not that night. Not the next.

But Stephanie made sure I saw him.

Every hour, a new video.

Him helping her into my favorite cashmere robe.

Him tying her hair into a ponytail in his farmhouse kitchen.

Him kissing her shoulder in bed.

Some clips were quieter and yet more sinister.

The way she filmed herself wearing his shirt, mouthing “I love you” before flipping the camera off with a wink.

Or the one where his voice whispered, off-screen “Steph if we have a daughter we will name her Hope, if it's a son Xavier.”

Once, I would have curled into my sheets and sobbed.

Now?

I just watched my reflection in the window, pale and calm as the morning sickness once again assaulted my senses and yet I slowly rubbed my belly calming down my child.

It was at that moment my phone buzzed with a message.

[ATTORNEY: “Congratulations! Miss Lavina not only your divorce is finalized but legally Alexander Hamilton is stripped off all his rights as a father, he will not have anything to do with the child in your womb.]

I wanted to be happy but tears tumbled my eyes as three years of marriage dissolved into dust. Cold bit through my sleeves as I walked towards the balcony, my hot breath coming in short pants fogging the air.

Each step I had taken to get there had felt heavier than the last.

My body ached from days without food, my legs trembling, head spinning with exhaustion.

But I needed air. I needed silence. I needed to feel something other than the bruising silence of that house.

And then.

A sudden crack ripped through the night.

Fireworks.

Loud. Violent and right above me making me startled.

I gasped and staggered back in panic making my heel caught on the uneven tile and just like that I fell hard.

A piercing pain ripped through my abdomen making me scream loudly.

My hands flew to my belly in terror.

I felt it. Warm. Wet. Spreading rapidly between my thighs.

The guards rushed forward, their faces finally shifting from apathy to alarm.

“Get the family doctor!”

A guard pulled out his phone to call Alexander.

“Sir! It’s Madam! She fell from the balcony, she’s bleeding badly. We need the doctor right away! Please-”

But before he could finish, Alexander’s voice cut in, sharp and cold through the speaker.

“I know her tricks damnit, this is just another act to avoid accepting her wrongdoings. Lavina is not to leave the house under any circumstance until she learns her place!”

The call disconnected.

The servant stared at the phone, stunned and ashamed.

I looked up at the CCTV camera at the balcony, tears of fury blurring my vision.

“I apologize!” I rasped, voice shaking as I clutched my stomach. “I am sorry for ever meeting you, for choosing a heartless man like you, for ever loving you Alexander Hamilton!”

Another firework exploded in the sky pink, then gold, then white.

Thousands of drones lit the sky at that moment in a formation.

[HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEPHANIE] was wriiten in air.

A miserable tear dribbled down.

So today was the day I was exchange with Stephanie at the hospital….it was my birthday as well.

“My baby…just save my baby.” Those were the last words, the only 'gift' I begged for before I lost my consciousness completely.

“Madam.? Madam?!"

"Hurry! Her body’s going cold!” one cried. "We didn't knew but while everyone was starving her, miss Lavina was already pregnant!"