My Ex Weds, I Leave

The night before my wedding, I found my sister in bed with my fianc. In her panic, she fell and miscarried.

And just like that, I was painted as the cruel, heartless villain.

Youve done wrong, and now you must be punished.

My husband-to-be, in league with my own parents, forced me to sign away our marriage and then personally drove me to a psychiatric facility.

When I finally got out, it was just in time for their wedding.

I didn't crash the reception and cause a scene, as everyone expected.

Instead, I boarded a plane and vanished from their lives completely.

...

Eight years later.

I saw Ashton Blackwood again, standing outside the emergency room. A sudden, jarring reunion. He was in a frantic rush, getting his pregnant wife checked in.

The moment I looked up to begin the consultation, our eyes met.

"Nora?"

He froze, his gaze instinctively dropping to my wrist, to the jagged, faded scar that marred the skin.

"Your scar..." he started, his voice catching in his throat. He seemed desperate to say more, but the icy wall in my expression made him swallow the words.

"Unauthorized personnel, please step aside."

My tone was flat, clinical, as if we were complete strangers.

After the procedure, I calmly explained the restrictions for her recovery and medication. Ashton pretended to listen, but his eyes were adrift, constantly returning to me.

Finally, he asked a question that was miles over the line.

"Why didn't you ever come back home? We searched for you for a long time."

Just then, a small, clear voice cut through the tension.

"Mommy, when are we eating? Andy is hungry."

Ashton's head snapped toward the sound, his eyes landing on a small face that was a startling echo of his own.

"That child... is he...?"

A nurse came over just then, asking for my signature on a chart.

I gave Ashton a curt nod, took my son's hand, and turned to leave without another word.

"Mommy, who was that man?" my son asked, tilting his head back to look up at me with curious eyes.

My voice was devoid of any emotion. "A patient's family."

"But... it looked like he was about to cry. He just kept staring at us."

I didn't break my stride. "You saw wrong."

My neighbor, Mrs. Gable, who usually watched Andy for me, had an emergency, which is why I'd had to bring him to work. Thankfully, she had just called to say she was on her way.

That night, a soft autumn rain began to fall outside my window. I finished my work, my body aching with exhaustion, and walked back to my office.

I never expected to find Ashton waiting there.

My brow furrowed. "Mr. Blackwood. Is there something you need?"

My cold formality seemed to catch him off guard.

"There's no need for concern, Mr. Blackwood. Your wife's condition is not serious. Just ensure she attends her follow-up appointments."

I spoke to him as I would any other stranger.

Perhaps the words "your wife" stung him. I could see a tempest of emotions swirling behind his gaze. He opened his mouth, but all that came out was a dry, raspy, "...Thank you."

"If there's nothing else, I'll be leaving. The doctor on call can assist you with any further questions."

I gave him a slight nod and walked away.

As I passed the security desk, the guard, a friendly man I knew well, leaned out. "Nora, wasn't that Mr. Blackwood? The one with the fancy car? He looks like a real big shot."

I nodded. "Yes."

"Making that kind of money so young, must be nice," he mused. "I hear he and his wife are inseparable. Someone said they came to the coast to pray for the health of their unborn baby."

His voice was filled with the average person's fascination with the lives of the wealthy.

I didn't respond.

Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Blackwood were inseparable now.

And his wife, Lila, had a husband who adored her, parents who doted on her, and a child on the way.

She had everything that was once supposed to be mine.

And almost no one remembered how she got it.

My phone vibrated, pulling me from my thoughts.

[Sorry, something came up with a project. I'll be a little late to pick you up.]

A small smile touched my lips as my fingers danced across the screen.

[Focus on your work. I can get home myself.]

The reply was almost instant.

[Be safe. Text me when you get home.]

Tucking my phone away, I noticed the rain was coming down harder, with no sign of letting up. I waited for what felt like an eternity, but the ride-share app just kept spinning, no cars available.

Honk.

A car horn blared behind me.

A black Bentley Mulsanne pulled up to the curb. I knew that car. The license plate was Lila's birthday.

Mine was the very next day.

The passenger window rolled down, revealing Ashton's profile. "Get in. I'll give you a ride."

Glancing at the still-loading icon on my phone, I hesitated for only a second before pulling open the back door and sliding in, giving him the address of my apartment complex.

I was bone-tired, and the damp weather was making the old injuries in my wrist and abdomen ache with a dull, persistent throb. A free ride was a free ride. No point in refusing.

Ashton was a creature of habit, almost obsessively so. In our time together, I wasn't even allowed to place a new air freshener in the car without his permission.

But now...

The car was filled with the cool, woody scent of sandalwood, Lila's favorite. A minimalist Nordic figurine, her preferred style, sat on the dashboard.

Seeing me in the back seat, Ashton gave a bitter smile. "So you're really treating me like a chauffeur?"

"I just don't want to give your wife the wrong idea," I said, my voice cool.

The phrase "your wife" acted like a kill switch, strangling any words he might have been about to say. The air in the car grew heavy and suffocating. I turned my head to watch the city lights blur past the window, letting the silence hang.

The streaking lights pulled my mind back eight years, to the darkest day of my life.

It was the day before Ashton and I were supposed to get married.

I was brimming with excitement, dreaming of becoming his wife.

I never imagined that when I pushed open the door to our home, I would walk in on him and my sister, Lila. Entangled.

In our wedding suite. On our wedding bed.

They were so lost in each other that they didn't notice me standing in the doorway for a long, silent moment.

Not until Lila's eyes finally found mine.

"Nora!" she shrieked, her eyes wide with shock.

I thought that being caught red-handed would make Ashton panic, or at least show a flicker of shame.

He did neither.

The very first thing he did was pull the blanket up, covering the incriminating marks on Lila's body.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice laced with the annoyance of someone whose private moment had been interrupted.

Back then, I had no tolerance for betrayal. In that single instant, humiliation and rage consumed me. I became a screaming madwoman, hurling every vicious word I could think of at them, swiping everything I could reach off the dressers and tables.

The room was a disaster.

Lila cowered behind Ashton, trembling. "Nora, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean for this to happen. Ashton and I... we're in love." Her voice was a choked sob, her eyes glistening like a white lily beaten down by a storm, the picture of pitiable innocence.

A far cry from the seductive woman with bedroom eyes I had seen moments before.

Ashton shielded her with his body, his glare a condemnation. "You're scaring her! Look at yourself, you're acting like a shrew!"

He was right. I felt like a monster.

I took their picture and blasted it across social media and our family group chat. I wanted everyone to see their disgusting, ugly truth.

The photo had barely been up for a minute before my parents called.

"Nora, have you lost your mind?!"

"Take that down right now! If that gets out, how is Lila supposed to face anyone?"

My parents had always favored Lila. She was sickly as a child, in and out of hospitals, so they gave her everything she ever wanted, spoiling her rotten. And I, as the older sister, was expected to put her first, to yield to her in everything, without question. My birthday was only a day after hers, so my parents forced me to celebrate mine early, combining it with hers. But at every party, Lila was always the star.

I just never imagined their favoritism would extend to something as sordid as this.

"You and Ashton should get a divorce."

My sister was sleeping with my fianc.

And instead of reprimanding her, my parents were telling me to step aside and let them be together.

"Why?!" I screamed, the injustice a physical weight on my chest. It was her mistake, so why was I the one who had to give up my life?

Their hearts were hopelessly biased. My chest felt like it was being crushed by a boulder, each breath a new wave of pain.

"Lila is your sister. As the older one, you should give way to her," my father said, his voice thick with annoyance, as if my defiance was a personal inconvenience.

I instinctively looked at Ashton, the man who had sworn he loved me more than life itself. He just stood there, watching it all unfold with a cold detachment, offering no explanation. Lila was nestled safely in his arms.

"Nora, he doesn't love you anymore," she whimpered. "We're the ones in love. Please, just let us be together, okay?"

"You still have the nerve to call him your 'brother-in-law'?" I spat. "Have you no shame?"

Blinded by rage, I lunged forward and slapped her across the face.

In the ensuing chaos, Lila lost her footing and fell to the floor with a sharp cry. "Ah!"

She let out a pained gasp, her face turning chalk-white as she clutched her stomach.

"Lila!" Ashton's expression changed instantly.

"My stomach... it hurts so much," she moaned, her voice trembling as the color drained from her face.

Ashton swept her into his arms and raced for the hospital, pausing only to throw a look of pure hatred over his shoulder at me.

But I saw it clearly. She had lost her balance on her own.

It was only then that I understood. They hadn't just started. They had been sneaking around for a long time, long enough for a child to have been conceived.

A few hours later, the doctors confirmed the baby was lost.

"Are you happy now?" my mother hissed, her body shaking with rage as she slapped me hard across the face.

My cheek went numb, a loud ringing filling my ears. But no physical pain could compare to the agony tearing my heart apart.

Everyone blamed me for Lila losing her baby. They demanded I get on my knees and beg for her forgiveness.

Of course, I refused.

The price of my defiance was steep.

Ashton and my parents conspired, claiming I was "emotionally unstable with violent tendencies," and had me forcibly committed to a remote psychiatric facility.

"You did wrong, so you must be punished," Ashton had said. "When you've had time to think about what you did and realize your mistake, we'll come get you."

A cold, bitter laugh rose in my throat.

Come back?

Where was there to come back to?

The moment I saw them together, I had already lost my place in the world.

The days in that facility were a sunless blur. By the time my body was a wreck and my spirit was shattered, I was rushed to a hospital on the brink of death. While I was fighting for my life, my husband and my parents were on a vacation abroad with my sister, helping her "relax and recover."

It took a grueling eight-hour surgery to pull me back from the edge.

When Ashton and my parents finally arrived at the hospital, I was already in a regular room.

But as he looked at my skeletal frame, at the hollowed-out stranger in the hospital bed, the first words out of Ashton's mouth were:

"Do you know what you did wrong now?"

His voice was as cold and hard as stone. "And don't forget you still owe Lila an apology. You made her lose her child, and she's still not over it, she almost fell into a depression. You should use this time to think about how you're going to make it up to her."

Sorrow deeper than death washed over me.

If my heart had died when they sent me to that facility, Ashton's words now ground it into dust.

In that moment, I didn't even have the strength left to argue. My voice was an empty whisper, devoid of any feeling.

"I know. I was wrong."

I was wrong.

Wrong to have been so blind, to have loved a man as cruel and heartless as Ashton. Wrong to have foolishly hoped for affection from parents who so clearly played favorites.

Ashton kept glancing at me in the rearview mirror, opening his mouth to speak several times, then closing it again. The silence stretched until the car came to a smooth stop in front of my building.

I got out and offered a polite, detached thank you. "Thanks for the ride."

Just as I turned to leave, he couldn't hold it in any longer. "Nora!"

I turned back, waiting.

"Why are you living in a place like this?" he asked, his eyes scanning the run-down complex. "These past years... have they been hard for you?"

The streetlights were dim, casting long shadows on the peeling paint of the old buildings. Everything looked worn and tired.

His eyes were red-rimmed, his voice hoarse. "If you need help..."

"That won't be necessary. I'm doing very well, but thank you for your concern."

I didn't understand. How could the man who so callously threw me into the abyss now put on this act of deep, heartfelt concern?

Ashton didn't believe me, convinced I was just being stubborn. "Nora, you don't have to lie to me. I can see it."

"I know you resent me," he continued, "but even if we're not together, we're still family."

A small, humorless laugh escaped my lips. My expression was distant, almost bored. "You must be joking, Mr. Blackwood."

From the day I chose to leave, I no longer had a family.

I would never forget those lonely days recovering in the hospital. After that first day, no one ever came to visit again. It was through the news on my phone that I learned the Blackwood and Miller families were busy planning a lavish wedding for Ashton and Lila. My parents, to prevent me from causing any trouble, had even instructed the hospital to keep me under strict watch.

But they all underestimated me.

On their wedding day, I didn't show up to make a scene.

I simply boarded a plane and flew away.

As the plane took off, the night sky over the entire city of Crestwood was lit up by a spectacular fireworks display, celebrating their union.

I thought I would never have to cross paths with those people again.

But life is unpredictable. Fate, it seems, has a twisted sense of humor.

"Nora, do you really hate me that much? Between us..." Ashton's voice was urgent, his emotions fraying.

I cut him off before he could finish. "There is no 'us.' That ended eight years ago."

Hate?

In the beginning, right after I left, of course I hated him.

But eight years is a long time. People change. The entanglements with Ashton and my family were burdens I had long since set down.

Ashton's voice was raw. "But that boy..."

I knew it. I knew that after seeing Andy, his mind would start racing.

"Andy has nothing to do with you."

Ashton and I... we were supposed to have a child. I had planned to tell him on our wedding day, a joyful surprise. Instead, he gave me a much bigger, much more horrifying "surprise."

The stay in the facility left me with a permanent scar on my wrist. The nerve damage was so severe that for a time, I couldn't even use my right hand properly. But far more devastating was the internal trauma, the damage to my abdomen. It cost me my child.

"Impossible! Don't lie to me, he looks so much like me..." Ashton was convinced, refusing to believe my words.

I cut him off again, my voice sharp. "Believe what you want, but the child is not yours. So please, stay out of our lives."

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice thick with a pain he could no longer suppress. "Back then... I'm so sorry for what I did to you."

He was about to say more when a warm, kind voice called out from behind me. "Nora, dear, why are you just standing out here? Come on up."

It was Mrs. Gable. She'd gotten worried when I didn't come home and had come down to check on me. She looked at the emotionally overwrought Ashton with a puzzled expression. "And who is this?"

"A patient's family member. He gave me a ride home." I turned back to him. "Thank you for the lift. I have a busy day tomorrow. Goodnight."

I gave a slight nod, then went to Mrs. Gable, linking my arm through hers as we walked into the building.

"What kept you so late again today?" she chided gently. "I told you, I'm perfectly fine. You don't need to keep checking on me."

"I worry about you living alone, especially since you won't move in with me," I said, leaning my head on her shoulder like a child.

This playful, carefree version of me was something Ashton hadn't seen in eight long years. A deep, agonizing pain flickered in his eyes.

Eight years ago, when I fled Crestwood, I arrived in this small coastal city, Port Blossom, a broken woman. Mrs. Gable took me in when I was at my lowest. She gave me a warmth and kindness I hadn't felt in years, and with it, the courage to start living again.

I don't know when Ashton finally left.

Frankly, I didn't care.

I only knew that when I left for work the next morning, the spot where his car had been parked was littered with cigarette butts.