Chapter 3He Called Me Damaged Goods

I didn't scream. I didn't cry out in agony.

I just stared at him. The fact that those words had come out of his mouth didn't even surprise me anymore.

"She says a single word, and that's all it takes for you?" I asked quietly.

Damon’s jaw set defensively. "Is she wrong? I was gone for ten days. How could you possibly be six weeks along?"

"Pregnancy is calculated from the first day of the last menstrual cycle, Damon," I said, exhausted. "Not the day of conception. Ask the doctor."

His scowl only deepened. "I don't care about technicalities. I'm not playing Russian roulette with my life. Abort it. We can always have another one later."

A broken laugh slipped past my lips.

How pathetic I was. All those years of blind sacrifice, reduced to a joke. My marriage, my body, and my unborn child—all weighed against a few careless sentences from Taryn, and discarded without a second thought.

"Fine," I said, my voice eerily steady. "Let's terminate."

Damon’s expression instantly relaxed. He reached out and stroked my hair, his touch sending a shudder of repulsion down my spine. "Good girl. I'll go sign the papers and have them prep the procedure. Don't be scared. It's just a minor surgery."

"Just a minor surgery."

My mind drifted, unmoored, pulling me back to senior year of high school.

Back then, I had nearly killed myself studying, desperate to get into the same prestigious university as Damon. The crushing stress had wreaked havoc on my body, resulting in a thyroid tumor that required immediate surgery.

I had been seventeen, terrified out of my mind.

When Damon found out, he skipped his prep classes to sit outside the operating room with me. Right before they wheeled me in, he held my trembling hand and said the exact same words: "Don't be scared. It's just a tiny incision. It'll be over before you know it."

His warmth back then had kept the darkness at bay.

Today, those very same words plunged me into an endless, suffocating grave.

I let my palm rest gently over my lower belly, offering a silent, tragic goodbye to the spark of life fading inside me.

"I'm sorry, little one," I whispered in my mind. "I can't bring you into this nightmare. When Mommy finally breaks free... if there is an afterlife, please find me again."

Two hours later, the procedure was done.

Damon was helping me toward the exit when Taryn playfully hooked her arm through his, leaning her head on his shoulder.

"Damon, it's so late," she whined. "Drive me home first, will you? Between helping you verify that 'experiment' earlier and sitting around this depressing hospital, I'm utterly exhausted."

Damon paused, glancing back at me. "Taryn, I should probably take Summer..."

"Oh, come on!" Taryn brushed it off, rolling her eyes. "It was an outpatient scrape, not a C-section. Besides, I gave you my virginity today—the one thing I saved for years. Don't you think you owe me a ride home?"

Damon sighed softly, but the look in his eyes was sickeningly fond.

He turned to me. "Summer, call an Uber. You'll be fine."

I leaned heavily against the cold hospital corridor wall, my pelvis throbbing with a dull, hollow ache. My body felt drained of blood, but I simply nodded.

"Okay."

I watched them walk out together, his coat draped over her shoulders.

I didn't order a car home. Instead, I had the driver take me to my private ballet studio in the arts district.

I couldn't go back to that penthouse. The mere thought of that master bed—still carrying the sickening, metallic scent of their betrayal—made me want to tear my stomach out.

I curled up on the leather sofa in my office, opened my laptop, and drafted a divorce settlement.

No alimony. No division of his family assets. I just wanted my studio, my car, and my life back.

I printed it out, signed my name in clean, unwavering ink, and set it on the desk.

At sunrise, my phone buzzed incessantly against the glass table.

Groggy, I picked it up. My studio's client group chat was completely blowing up. Dozens of notifications were rolling in, all tagging me.

"Miss Summer, is it true what people are saying online? Did you really have a secret abortion after sleeping around?"