How a Dying Woman Rewrote Her Epilogue

Elodie stood rooted to the spot, her feet as heavy as stone. The absurdity of it all left her breathless.

Those casual, dismissive remarks-

They were nothing short of arrogance, treating her like a commodity on display.

Even the most basic act of having a child had become a matter of whether she was "qualified" enough.

In everyone's eyes, compared to someone like Sylvie a doctorate freshly returned from one of the world's top universities-Elodie simply didn't matter.

No one realized that these words were just another wound, piling atop her old

ones.

The truth was, once her treatment and surgery began, she'd lose the right to ever be a mother...

No wonder, she thought bitterly, even before the divorce, Jarrod had always been so indifferent when they shared a bed. Perhaps, even back then, he'd already decided-

She wasn't worthy of bearing his child.

Elodie didn't want to know how Jarrod had answered Lucinda's question.

His half-hearted replies to his grandmother over dinner told her everything: he had

no interest in having a child with her, and he must have agreed with Lucinda's opinion.

Clutching her bottle of pills, Elodie turned and made her way back to the bedroom.

Her breaths came shallow and shaky, her lips losing their color.

She unscrewed the pill bottle with numb, mechanical motions and swallowed a tablet dry. The bitterness spread, sharp and unforgiving, across her tongue.

She couldn't tell which was worse: the bitterness in her mouth, or the ache in her heart.

Closing her eyes for a moment, Elodie forced herself to regain composure.

the project details on her laptop-there was still so much to finalize

the core data, she returned to bed and

been carrying around a few technical volumes on aerospace engineering, extracting useful insights as she read through

The door creaked open.

soft, amber glow of the lamp her silhouette delicate and solitary. She looked up at the

He hadn't left?

the book

field. He'd even recommended it to Sylvie recently,

asked, pulling a set of clothes from the

overtly condescending, but the question itself made Elodie

eyes on the

she was just revisiting

his eyes as if seeing his quiet, even-tempered wife for the

been working hard lately," he

undertone. Was he implying

Sylvie? Trailing after her,

didn't bother to explain herself. Whatever Jarrod thought was his

bed toward the sofa. That's when he paused, catching sight of her still-glowing laptop

second, he froze-just

bed, snapping the

at her-really looked. She so rarely showed this sharp, defensive

if her computer hid

reaction reminded him of the time he'd once stumbled

that same secret she was so

a cold, mocking

gathered his clothes

She realized she was probably overreacting-she'd

was no way he could've seen

shake the memory of that strange look in

shrugged it off, turned off the lamp, and