Part 1The Price of a Betrayal

After my fifth miscarriage, my uterus was so severely damaged that I had to undergo a full hysterectomy.

It felt like a death sentence. I was told I would never be a mother in this lifetime.

On the day I was discharged from the hospital, I was scrolling through Reddit when I stumbled upon a thread:

[What's the best acting performance you've ever seen from a real person?]

One of the top comments, sitting at over a million upvotes, caught my eye.

[To sleep with my boss, I pretended to be his cousin. While his wife was in the hospital getting a hysterectomy, we did it seven times on their marital bed in one night. His wife didn't suspect a thing.]

[The next day, when she saw a trash bag full of used tissues, she actually thought her husband had been crying over her condition.]

The replies under that comment were an absolute war zone. People were ripping her to shreds, calling her shameless and asking why she was acting like being a homewrecker was a badge of honor.

But the original poster was completely unapologetic and arrogant in her responses.

[What era are you people living in? What do you mean 'homewrecker'? The one who isn't loved is the real third wheel, okay?]

[My boss told me himself: he lost feelings for his wife a long time ago. I am his only true soulmate and physical match.]

I was just about to scroll past it, disgusted, when I noticed the woman’s profile picture.

It was a close-up of two hands, fingers intertwined.

Wasn't that the custom wedding band I had designed for my husband?

......

Staring at the photo on the glowing screen, my entire body went rigid.

I had been with Mark for five years. We never raised our voices at each other, let alone had a real fight.

In the eyes of our friends, we were the perfect, enviable couple.

Mark did have a cousin. Her name was Chloe.

She was beautiful, sweet, and an Ivy League graduate.

After I suffered my fifth consecutive miscarriage, she seemed even more devastated than I was.

She came over every few days to bring me homemade, nutrient-rich bone broth, insisting she was going to help me nurse my body back to health.

One was the husband I trusted with my life.

The other was a kind, caring, sweet "cousin."

How could they possibly betray me?

I tried to click on the user's profile to read more, but the comment had already been reported and deleted.

So, I created a burner account, pretended to be a fan of her "boldness," and requested to join the private Discord server linked in her bio.

Inside the chat, someone asked her what she was really after with her boss.

She posted a mirror selfie of a man's chiseled, eight-pack abs, her text dripping with smugness.

[My boss is handsome, loaded, and amazing in bed. How could anyone not fall for a man like that?]

Immediately after, she sent the message that shattered my world.

[Do you want to know why his wife got pregnant five times and miscarried five times?]

[Because he was terrified that if she actually had a kid, she wouldn't have any time left to spend with me. So, he started slipping saffron and other abortifacients into her prenatal vitamins.]

[Who knew her body was so weak this time? She bled so much she ended up losing her entire uterus.]

I stared at those glowing lines of text.

My body began to shake uncontrollably.

I was absolutely, horrifyingly certain now. The woman she was talking about was me.

And Mark... he didn't just cheat on me.

He had personally, meticulously poisoned the prenatal supplements I took every single day.

Five pregnancies. Five miscarriages.

Every single time, he had been the one to carefully brew my teas, hand me my pills, and look at me with eyes full of deep, agonizing heartbreak.

I thought he cherished those babies as much as I did.

I had no idea that what he was truly terrified of was me actually bringing one into the world.

I remembered the countless times I had leaned against his chest, looking up at him with eyes full of hope and longing.

"Honey, do you want a boy or a girl?"

He would always rest his chin softly on the top of my head, his voice so gentle it could melt ice.

"Either is perfect. As long as it's a piece of you, I'll love them with all my heart."

But as it turned out, every single one of those sweet, tender words was a calculated, venomous lie.

I bit down on my lip so hard I tasted blood, but I couldn't feel the pain.

Some people in the chat thought she was just making up a sick story for clout and attention.

To prove them wrong, she simply unlocked her private Instagram profile, telling everyone in the Discord to go look for themselves.