My Husband Is Using My Life to Power His Lover
She once worked for seven days straight without sleep to land a multi-million-dollar deal, becoming a legend in their field. Meanwhile, I was rushed to the emergency room with heart failure.
When I tried to explain the impossible connection to my husband, he looked at me with pure disgust. “You’re just lazy,” he spat. “You’re jealous that she’s so young and successful, so you’ve invented this crazy story to curse her.”
After that, every all-nighter she pulled chipped another piece away from my health. It escalated from nervous exhaustion to organ failure, until I was on the brink of death. The doctors could find no physical cause; they gently suggested I was suffering from persecutory delusions.
Then came the final push for their company’s IPO. She locked herself in the office for two solid weeks. While she was doing that, I died in our home from exhaustion-induced cardiac arrest.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back. It was the night of her very first all-nighter.
This time, I locked the bedroom door and took out a full blister pack of sleeping pills.
“Sweetheart,” I whispered to the empty room. “It’s time for bed.”
1
A phantom hand squeezed my heart, a violent, crushing grip that stole my breath and shot me upright in bed.
Cold sweat soaked through my pajamas in an instant.
I gasped for air, my eyes darting around the familiar shadows of our bedroom.
I wasn’t dead.
A glance at the clock confirmed it. I was back. Back to the night it all began, the first night Chloe pulled an all-nighter.
In my first life, that night was the start of a slow, deliberate execution.
Chloe was Ethan’s ‘one that got away’—the brilliant college friend turned business partner. She was a natural-born workhorse, the hustle-culture queen worshipped by everyone at their startup. She could go seven days without sleep to land a multi-million dollar deal, then stand in the spotlight, radiant, soaking in the applause.
And I, Ethan’s wife, was the one who ended up in the emergency room after every one of her manic sprints.
First, it was crushing anxiety. Then heart palpitations, shortness of breath, and finally, congestive heart failure.
I tried to explain the bizarre connection to Ethan. He dismissed it as petty jealousy.
“Ava, can you be an adult for once?” he’d said, his voice dripping with disappointment. “Chloe is killing herself for our future. The least you could do is be supportive, not fake an illness for attention.”
His eyes were cold, full of a contempt that cut deeper than any illness. “If you’re jealous, just say so. Don’t resort to these pathetic little tricks.”
From that day on, every late night Chloe worked was another nail in my coffin.
My health deteriorated. Insomnia bled into heart palpitations, which led to a constant struggle for breath. Every hospital visit was the same: batteries of tests that revealed no physical cause. My doctors eventually suggested I see a psychiatrist, gently implying I was suffering from a persecutory delusion.
And Ethan’s disgust for me grew.
In his eyes, I had become a lazy, spiteful shrew who couldn’t stand to see another woman succeed.
The end came just before their company’s IPO. Chloe locked herself in the office for two weeks, a final, brutal push to the finish line.
And I died. Quietly, alone, from exhaustion-induced cardiac arrest in the home we had once filled with love.
My soul lingered, a spectator to my own tragedy. I watched Ethan hold Chloe, pressing a reverent kiss to her forehead.
“We did it, Chloe,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. “Once the company is stable, I’ll divorce that lazy woman and give you the wedding you deserve.”
And now, I’m back.
The familiar, suffocating pressure returned to my chest. I knew, with chilling certainty, that somewhere across town, Chloe was burning the midnight oil.
If her exhaustion transfers to me, I thought, then what happens if I go to sleep? Does she have to sleep, too?
This time, there was no panic. No desperate calls for help.
I calmly walked to my dresser and took out a full blister pack of sleeping pills. As a therapist, I’d gotten them for a research paper on insomnia.
I popped out every single pill. Without a moment’s hesitation, I swallowed them all with a glass of water.
The drug hit my system quickly, a heavy, syrupy wave of drowsiness.
I lay down, closed my eyes, and just before the darkness consumed me, I whispered into the silence.
“Good night, Chloe.”
2
I expected to sleep until morning, but a spike of pain, sharp and blinding, ripped me from the darkness in the middle of the night.
It felt like someone was driving steel needles into my temples, twisting them again and again.
Pain. It was a pain that went bone-deep.
I fought my way into a sitting position, my body trembling. I’d been asleep for hours, yet I felt more exhausted than before I’d taken the pills.
The medication hadn't worked.
I had forced myself to sleep, but it hadn’t stopped the transfer of fatigue. In fact, the sedatives had only heightened my senses, amplifying the agony and weariness tenfold.
Just then, Ethan’s phone lit up the nightstand.
A new post from Chloe.
It was a photo of her at her desk, bathed in the glow of a lamp, pen flying across a page. The caption read: Burning the midnight oil for the dream. This is when the magic happens.
In the picture, her eyes were bright, electric. Not a hint of sleepiness.
And in the comments, the first like and reply were from Ethan: Go get 'em, my girl. So proud of your hard work.
My hands shaking, I grabbed my own phone, found Chloe’s contact, and hit the video call button.
She answered almost immediately. Her face, crisp and clear, filled my screen.
“Ava? It’s late. What are you still doing up?”
I fought through the searing pain in my head, my eyes locked on hers. “Chloe, what did you do to me? Why does it hurt me when you work late?”
She was silent for a few seconds, and then a small, cruel smile played on her lips. Her soft laugh was undisguised mockery.
“What on earth are you talking about, Ava? Did Ethan praise my work ethic again? Did that make you jealous? I have to say, for a grown woman, your jealousy is really something else.”
“I’m just built different,” she continued, her voice syrupy sweet. “I have more energy than most people. It’s a gift. You can’t learn it, and you certainly can’t fake it.”
“Stop lying! You know exactly what’s happening!” I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat.
“Please,” I begged, my voice breaking as the pain crested. “Stop. I’m begging you…” My grip on the phone was failing.
“You’re just pathetic, Ava.”
Her voice turned sharp as ice.
“But what can you do? You’re useless. You do nothing but hold Ethan back.”
“Oh, and by the way,” she added, her eyes glinting. “I’m planning on pulling an all-nighter tonight. I’m going to finish this whole proposal in one go. You better hang in there, Ava.”
Before I could say another word, she ended the call.
I stared at the black screen, a roaring sound filling my ears. The world tilted, went dark, and the phone slipped from my grasp. I tumbled from the bed and knew nothing more.
3
When I woke up, it was to the sterile smell of a hospital VIP room and the cold, rhythmic beeping of machines.
Ethan was sitting by the bed, his face a mask of irritation and disgust.
He didn’t ask how I was. He didn’t offer a word of comfort. He launched his attack the moment my eyes opened.
“What the hell is your game now, Ava? Do you enjoy pulling these stunts in the middle of the night?”
My heart still ached with a thousand tiny needles. Every breath was a chore.
“I…”
“You what?” he snapped, cutting me off. “The doctor said you’re suffering from exhaustion and stress. I told you to just stay home and relax. What could you possibly be so stressed about?”
“It’s Chloe…” I whispered, my voice hoarse.
“It’s always Chloe!” Ethan shot to his feet, looming over me. His eyes burned with disappointment. “Can’t you just be happy for her for once? The company is at a critical stage, and she is carrying the whole thing on her back! Instead of encouraging her, you’re here pulling this childish, manipulative crap!”
He leaned in closer, his voice a low threat. “I’m warning you, Ava. Stop using these disgusting tactics to go after her. She is the most important partner I have. If you do anything to ruin her, I swear to God, I will make you regret it.”
I was discharged after three days. During that time, Chloe hadn’t pulled any more all-nighters, and my body had started to recover.
I used Ethan’s phone to send Chloe a text, perfectly mimicking his tone. I told her he wasn’t feeling well and needed her to swing by the house to pick up an urgent file for him.
She didn’t suspect a thing. Half an hour later, she was at our door.
She was dressed in a sharp power suit, her makeup flawless, radiating energy. The contrast with my own pale, fragile state was stark.
“Ava. The file?” she asked, her tone polite but distant.
I ignored her question and handed her a glass of water instead. “You must be thirsty. Have some water. You look like you were rushing.”
Chloe hesitated for a moment, then took the glass and drank. I had dissolved a mild hypnotic I used in my therapy practice into the water. The air in the room was already filled with the calming scent of sandalwood, another part of my preparation.
I began to speak in the low, soothing cadence I used with my clients, guiding her toward the sofa.
“Chloe, look at my eyes.”
“You’re so tired. You just want to sleep…”
Her gaze started to soften, to lose focus. Her breathing steadied.
“Tell me,” I pressed, my voice a hypnotic whisper. “Why do I feel your exhaustion when you stay up all night?”
Her lips parted, and just as the truth was about to spill from them, the front door crashed open with a deafening bang.
Ethan stormed in, his face contorted with rage. He shoved me aside and rushed to Chloe, frantically checking if she was okay.
“Ava! You psychotic bitch! What are you doing to her?!”
He spun around, his eyes bloodshot, glaring at me as if he wanted to tear me apart with his bare hands.
“I should have known! You’re just jealous! You can’t stand that she’s better than you, so you resort to this… this witchcraft to destroy her!”
He had pushed me so hard I stumbled backward, the corner of the coffee table digging sharply into my hip.
“That’s not…”
“Don’t you dare lie to me!” He rifled through my purse, pulling out the empty blister pack of sleeping pills. His face was a mask of fury. “You say you’re tired? I think you’re just bored! Since you love sleeping so much, I’ll help you get all the sleep you want!”
He lunged at me, grabbing my chin in a vise-like grip. He brutally forced the remaining pills from the pack I’d left in my purse into my mouth, then grabbed the glass of water and poured it down my throat.
“Swallow! Swallow it all!”
Icy water and bitter pills flooded my airway. I choked, coughing violently as tears streamed down my face. He watched my desperate struggle without a flicker of pity.
“If you ever touch a single hair on her head again,” he snarled, “I will make you disappear from this world.”
He then lifted the still-drowsy Chloe into his arms as if she were a priceless treasure and carried her out.
The door slammed shut, sealing me in.
I collapsed to the floor, jamming my fingers down my throat, forcing myself to vomit up the pills he’d tried to kill me with. My stomach heaved, but I ignored the searing pain.
With the last ounce of my strength, I crawled to the front door, unlocked it, and collapsed onto the welcome mat, surrendering to the encroaching darkness.
4
I woke up in a hospital bed. Again.
A nurse told me a neighbor had found me unconscious in the doorway. They’d pumped my stomach, but the overdose had kept me in a coma for three days and three nights.
I lay there, feeling weightless, boneless. But even after all that sleep, the bone-deep exhaustion was still there, a constant companion. My chest was tight, every breath a dull ache.
Ethan never came.
Good.
Lying in that sterile room, I raised a weak hand to block the harsh fluorescent light. And then, I saw it. I shot up in bed, ignoring the nurse’s protests as I ripped the IV from my arm.
Of course. That was the truth.
That was how she was siphoning the life out of me.
I finally understood.
A few days later, I checked myself out of the hospital. I didn’t go home. I took a cab straight to my grandfather’s wellness clinic.
My grandfather was a renowned acupuncturist and herbalist. When I was a child, my health was fragile, and he was the one who nursed me back to strength with his traditional remedies.
The clinic smelled of dried herbs and earth, a scent that always calmed me.
He took one look at my ghostly pale face and his own grew grim.
He took my pulse, his brow furrowed. “My dear girl, how did you let yourself get into this state? Your energy is scattered, your pulse is weak… this is a severe depletion of your vital essence. If this continues, it could be life-threatening.”
I didn’t explain. I just begged him to help me.
He sighed and wrote out a long, complex prescription of herbs to nourish my blood, calm my spirit, and strengthen my body. Besides the foul-tasting teas, he taught me a series of gentle movements.
“Tai Chi,” he said. “Practice every morning and every evening. It will rebuild your foundation, slowly bring back the energy you’ve lost.”
He performed acupuncture, and as the silver needles found their points, a warmth spread through my limbs. For the first time in months, the hollowed-out feeling of exhaustion began to recede.
For the next few weeks, I lived with my grandfather.
My days were simple: I drank my herbal brews, practiced my movements, and let the needles work their magic.
I blocked all calls and texts from Ethan and Chloe, vanishing completely from their world.
I needed to conserve my strength.
I was waiting for the perfect moment to watch the show.
So, Chloe. You’re the queen of the grind, are you? You love to burn the candle at both ends?
Let’s see how long you can last on your own.
First, search for and download the MotoNovel app from Google. Then, open the app and use the code "256790" to read the entire book.
MotoNovel
Novellia
Bookworm« Previous Post
Trapped in That Autumn
Next Post »
The Arbiters Game