Part 1False Diagnosis, Real Betrayal

"The test results confirm late-stage stomach cancer. It's terminal."

My husband Mark didn't even wait for me to process the news before he shoved me to the floor. "Why waste money on you? Chloe needs it for her business!"

I never imagined that on the day I received my terminal diagnosis, my husband would be transferring our life savings to another woman.

In desperation, I tried to sell my jewelry, only to learn every piece was fake.

"Of course I swapped them out," Mark sneered. "Did you think I'd let you waste our future on a corpse?"

Just as I reached my lowest point, the hospital called. There'd been a system error in the lab.

"You're perfectly healthy, Ms. Miller. The cancer is your husband's."

"Mark, my hospital admission is tomorrow. Is the money ready?"

My husband walked out of the kitchen eating fruit, ignoring me completely.

"What money? It's gone."

I stared, frozen. He'd never spoken to me like this in all our years of marriage. "What do you mean,gone?"

"I gave it to Chloe."

He didn't care about my reaction, already sitting down to continue his meal.

Hearing that name stunned me. That was my life savings, my medical fund! How could he do this? And for Chloe Davis! What the hell was happening?

Under my frantic questions, he lost his patience.

"To fund her business, obviously! It's an investment! Don't you know what that means?"

Days of psychological torment had left my nerves in shreds. That was the final straw. That broke me.

I lunged at him, hitting and kicking, even knocking over the fruit plate.

"Mark Thompson! That's my life savings! How dare you!"

The next second, he pushed me hard to the floor, where I landed with a painful thud.

"You crazy woman! Chloe needs money for her shop! What's wrong with me giving it to her?"

"You're in late-stage stomach cancer, it's incurable! What's a dying woman fighting a living one for? You can't expect Mom and me to lose everything, can you?"

I sat there, stunned on the floor, seeing my husband as a complete stranger for the first time.

Before this, Mark would never have treated me this way.

We met in college, navigated our student years together, and eventually walked down the aisle. He never cared that I was an orphan; he even sympathized with how hard I'd worked over the years.

Friends and classmates always praised him. How could he have changed so completely?

These past few years, he'd been nothing but attentive. We'd never even had such a fierce argument.

His drastic change started after our recent routine physical exam. The same exam that found my stomach cancer. Right after that, he gave our entire twenty-thousand-dollar savings to an outsider to start her business.

It made me wonder what kind of man I had truly married all these years, or if he was merely wearing a human facade.

Mark saw my dazed expression and softened his tone, continuing to explain his reasoning.

"We only have twenty thousand dollars saved up. It's not enough to cure you anyway."

"Better to invest the money in Chloe's business. Once her capital returns, the money she makes can definitely save you. Sarah, just hold on a little longer. Would I really joke about your life savings?"

I scoffed, saying nothing.

It was all garbage. After years together, I knew exactly what Mark looked like when he was lying.

Mark and Chloe Davis had probably been having an affair for a while. Now that I was diagnosed with a terminal illness, he clearly couldn't be bothered to keep up the charade of a loving husband anymore.

I felt a chill of disgust. Just then, Mrs. Thompson walked out from the back room, eyeing me disdainfully.

"My son works so hard to keep this family afloat! What have you done all these years?"

"And now you've got this money-pit disease! Dying is what you deserve!"