Chapter 17
Under normal circumstances, I might have just watched her performance with cold indifference.
But at this moment, staring at that glaring red "Surgery in Progress" light and listening to her useless crying that only made things worse, an inexplicable rage surged to the top of my head.
I stepped forward, face cold, and directly interrupted her fake sobbing. "You can cry after Grandma dies. Isn't it too early to cry now?"
My words instantly froze Amelia's crying.
She looked at me in disbelief, as if shocked by what I said. "Sophia, you're actually cursing Grandma. How can you be so vicious?"
I couldn't be bothered to look at her again, or deal with whatever exaggerations would come next.
All my attention was fixed on that tightly closed operating room door.
I walked to the bench in the hallway and sat down, hands clenched, knuckles pale, staring at that light that would decide life or death.
I prayed over and over in my heart.
Time had never felt so long and agonizing.
James stood in place. Amelia tried to lean on him crying, but he subtly pushed her away a bit.
His brows were tightly furrowed, his eyes equally grave as he looked toward the operating room. He ignored Amelia and didn't criticize my harsh words from earlier.
I don't know how long had passed before that glaring red light finally went out.
The operating room door was pushed open, and Robert walked out in his green surgical scrubs.
He removed his mask. Though his face showed exhaustion, his expression was calm.
We immediately gathered around him.
"The surgery was very successful. The patient is temporarily out of danger, but still needs to be observed in the ICU for a while."
My nerves, stretched to their limit, finally relaxed. The strength I'd been forcing myself to maintain seemed to drain away.
The massive weight that had been crushing my chest and making it impossible to breathe finally crashed to the ground.
Meanwhile, I clearly felt a familiar warm flow surge uncontrollably between my legs.
My vision suddenly went black. I seemed to hear James urgently call out "Sophia."
I tried hard to listen but couldn't hear clearly.
Until I heard a mosquito-like buzzing in my ear. I frowned and listened carefully, only to realize it was Robert's voice.
"Mrs. Smith is suffering from exhaustion, combined with extreme emotional fluctuations, which caused shock and excessive menstrual bleeding. She needs proper rest and nutrition."
Menstrual bleeding?
My heart seized.
Then James cut him off decisively. "Not a miscarriage?"
His questioning made the air in the ward stand still.
"Mr. Smith, when I examined Mrs. Smith before, I indeed found no signs of pregnancy." After a pause, he continued explaining. "As for the 'miscarriage' she mentioned, from a medical perspective and based on this examination, it should have been menstruation accompanied by blood clots. It may have been misjudged due to her emotional and physical state. Mrs. Smith has a thin uterine lining, so this situation isn't uncommon."
Hearing him twist the facts, casually defining the pain of losing my child as menstruation, I almost wanted to laugh.
I couldn't even be bothered to refute or argue.
I knew that with Robert, this authoritative doctor, here, anything I said would be useless.
He and Amelia behind him had already woven an airtight net.
"See, I told you!" Amelia seized the opportunity. "James, you see now? She was faking it. What miscarriage? It was all made up to gain your sympathy and get your attention. A woman this manipulative can do anything!"
I slowly lifted my eyelids, precisely capturing Amelia's face filled with gloating and malice.
She stood by the hospital bed, talking to James, the provocation in her eyes completely undisguised.
I struggled to sit up and walked over to her.
I slowly raised my hand, gently tucking the loose strands of hair by her temple.
Amelia froze, not understanding what I was trying to do.
Just as she was stunned, my raised hand suddenly traced a sharp arc through the air. Channeling all my remaining strength and all my hatred into it, I raised my palm.
The entire ward fell silent.
"James and I aren't divorced yet. It's not your place as an outsider to point fingers here." I curved my lips into a light sneer. "Wouldn't you say, Jasper's wife?"
I deliberately emphasized "Jasper's wife," my gaze moving back and forth between her and James, the mockery obvious.
Amelia covered her face, shock and venom nearly spilling from her eyes.
James stood to the side, his expression complex and hard to read. In the depths of those eyes usually filled with coldness and disgust, something seemed to be loosening, cracking.
But I no longer cared.
I looked coldly past them, no longer wasting any emotion on these pointless entanglements.
Turning around, I picked up my bag.
Inside was my final card to prove my innocence.
My fingers touched the corner of a hard folder, and my heart trembled slightly.
It held my brief joy and the endless pain that followed.
I took a deep breath, pulled out that document, and without even looking at it, threw it hard at James's face.
The paper hit his chiseled jaw, then scattered and fluttered down to his feet.
"See for yourself!" I restrained my wild fury, my flat tone carrying only bone-chilling coldness.
For the first time in front of me, he condescended to bend his knee and pick up that light piece of paper.
After seeing the diagnosis on it, his iceberg-like face showed a rare trace of melting.
Too bad it was too late.
"This highly respected Robert you found really is a miracle worker."
"I've already filed for divorce. Tomorrow morning at eight, at the courthouse. Divorce."
"This time, don't be late again."
I informed him forcefully, my eyes no longer holding the adoration, grievance, and screaming unwillingness of the past.
No more hatred either, only the resolution of truly letting go.
James's pupils suddenly contracted.
He looked at me as if truly seeing me for the first time.
I precisely caught that flash of almost disbelieving emotion in his eyes.
I didn't know if he couldn't believe I had actually been pregnant with his child and lost it.
Or if he couldn't believe that I, the woman who in his mind had used every means to marry him, now had no trace of attachment to him left in my eyes.
Perhaps both.
This realization hit him harder than the miscarriage report.
After a long while, he turned to Robert, whose face had already turned deathly pale, his brow covered in coldness, his tone carrying its usual control. "What's going on?"
Meeting James's ruthless dark eyes, Robert's whole body shuddered. Cold sweat covered his forehead, and his eyes fearfully glanced at Amelia beside him, as if engaged in an intense internal struggle. "Mr. Smith, I..."