On my prenatal check-up day, Eric was too busy, so Althea—his so-called "childhood friend"—drove me. She suddenly jerked the wheel. Metal screamed as we crashed into a semi-truck. The world collapsed around us. I didn’t call Eric, an ER doctor. I called 911 and waited. Because last time, I called him first. He saved our baby, but Althea bled out and died. He pretended not to blame me, even arranging a private room for my recovery. Then, on the day I was discharged, he took me to Althea’s grave—and stabbed me. My baby died instantly. As I bled out, his eyes burned with hatred. "If you hadn’t grabbed the wheel, Althea would still be alive!" he hissed, twisting the knife. "A life for a life." My blood splattered across her headstone. Then—I woke up back in the wrecked car. … A violent jolt, and the searing, twisting pain in my abdomen dragged me back to reality. I had been reborn. My hands trembled as I fumbled for my phone in my purse. This time, I didn't call my husband, the brilliant ER doctor. I dialed 911. The ambulance arrived quickly. Eric, of course, was the first responder on site, sprinting past the passenger side, straight to the driver’s door. Only after he had carefully lifted Althea from the wreckage did I dare to whisper for help to the other paramedics. One of his colleagues, a woman I recognized, shot me a disgusted look. "Really, Leah? Now is not the time for your games," she snapped, her face a mask of disapproval. My strength gave out. My hands slipped from my belly, and the weight of my pregnancy slammed me against the back of the front seat. A warm, sticky wetness spread beneath me, staining the fabric of my maternity dress a horrifying crimson. They didn't even glance my way. Gritting my teeth, I used every last ounce of my will to crawl out of the shattered rear window. But every piece of emergency equipment—the oxygen masks, the IV drips, the heart monitors—was being used on Althea. Eric never once looked at me. I heard him mutter, "Serves her right." A cold sweat drenched my body. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. It was everywhere—under me, in me. With every passing second, I could feel the baby's heartbeat growing fainter, a tiny drum slowing to a stop. In my past life, I had called him screaming, and Althea had been on the phone with him too. He chose me then, because of the baby. He rushed me to the hospital. By the time he returned to the crash, the police had already towed the car away. Althea’s body was lying on the roadside, covered by a white sheet, dead from blood loss. He had been so calm when he told me. "It's not your fault," he'd said, his voice steady. He even upgraded me to a lavish private suite to "rest and recover." And then, he’d murdered me on her grave. "Althea wasn't just my friend, Leah," he had hissed, the knife twisting in my gut. "She was my life. Do you have any idea what it feels like to bleed out? Don't worry. You're about to." This time, I just wanted to escape. But even now, he refused to spare me. He wouldn't even grant me the mercy of a single piece of medical equipment. My dress was soaked through, and I was lying in a rapidly expanding pool of my own blood. My voice was a faint rasp. "Please... my baby... save my baby..." The nearest nurse finally seemed to notice me. She glanced over, a cruel smirk playing on her lips. She bent down and patronizingly patted my swollen belly. “Leah, honey, the drama's getting a little old, don't you think? Everyone at the hospital knows you're jealous of Eric's friend. But to pull a stunt like this while you're pregnant? Seriously?” “Even if you don’t care about yourself, think of your child. Is a man really worth having a death on your conscience? Right now, you should be praying that Miss Miller is okay. Because if she's not, with how close she and Eric are, you can bet he'll file for divorce.” I knew Eric didn't love me. But I never imagined his colleagues saw me this way, as a manipulative, hysterical shrew. The cramps in my belly intensified, stealing my breath, silencing me completely. The blood flowed out of me, a relentless tide. Every single medic was gathered around Althea. Not one person checked on me. Just as my vision started to tunnel from blood loss, I heard a gasp nearby. "Whoa! That's... that's a lot of blood. Oh God, you don't think she's actually hurt, do you?" "Nah, it's an act," another voice scoffed. "She's trying to guilt-trip Eric into leaving his friend and running to her. She caused this whole mess. Ask Eric if you don't believe me." Finally, Eric’s footsteps approached. But not to save me. He kicked my head, his voice laced with venomous impatience. “Leah, have you had enough? I’m here now. You can stop pretending.” “What is wrong with you? You grab the steering wheel, cause a crash, and end up like this, all so I’ll feel sorry for you? I’ve told you a thousand times, Althea is my friend. That's it. Do you enjoy this?” “I’ve explained everything. Believe it or not, I don't care anymore!” To him, I was still the villain who had caused the crash, a madwoman using my own child's life as a pawn. Despair washed over me, a cold wave extinguishing the last embers of hope. I was too broken to even try to explain. I just grabbed his ankle, a desperate, silent plea for him to see that this wasn't an act, that I was dying. He paused for only a second before a cold, cynical laugh escaped his lips. He lifted the hem of my bloody dress. “The blood pack looks pretty realistic,” he sneered. “If Althea hadn't told me you were planning something, I might have actually fallen for it.” With that, he turned and walked away without a second glance. The whispers of the paramedics floated around me. “Wait… that doesn't look like blood from a pack, does it?” “You think the baby’s really in trouble?” “Forget it. Althea said she got it from the hospital's blood bank, of course it looks real. If she wants to play make-believe, let her. She'll be the one who kills her own kid.” Someone, tired of the spectacle, kicked me in the side. The impact flipped me over, and my face slammed into the gritty asphalt. Darkness consumed me. In the blackness, a dream took me back to the day I first met Eric. He was giving a lecture at my university on emergency first aid, a star doctor from the city's top hospital. Tall, handsome, brilliant—he captured the hearts of half the girls in the auditorium. Including me. It was love at first sight. I did everything I could to find a way to talk to him. I was still in college then, a naive kid in his sophisticated world. He turned down every other girl who approached him, but he accepted my friend request. He told me he saw his friend in me, a shared innocence. I didn’t understand then. The very thing that made me special in his eyes was also the cage he'd built for me. I didn't know about his twisted history with Althea. I was just ecstatic, thinking I was the one. For that scrap of his attention, I pursued him relentlessly. He never said yes, but he never said no, either. I mistook his tolerance for encouragement and fell deeper and deeper. After the hundredth time I asked him out, he finally agreed. I’ll never forget the pure joy of that day. I had no idea it was the beginning of a nightmare. Once we were together, he grew colder, always finding excuses to avoid intimacy. It was for my own good, he said. We should wait until after the wedding. I loved him, so I believed him. Then, the night before our wedding, an email arrived from Althea. That's when I learned the truth. He wouldn't touch me because I looked like her. Her email was a brutal collage of their ten-year love affair. They couldn't be together because their families disapproved, so they’d made a pact to remain "friends" forever, always in each other's lives. And he had chosen me, the perfect stand-in. Looking at a decade of their shared memories, my heart shattered. On our wedding night, Eric got drunk. For the first time, he came to me willingly. And at the height of his passion, he whispered her name. Althea. I swallowed my tears and played my part. Even after Althea’s supposed death in the other timeline, when he seemed so calm, I thought he had finally moved on. I thought my time had finally come. But as I died by his hand, the truth became brutally clear. From start to finish, I was nothing but a replacement. A convenient cover for his undying love for Althea. When I woke up, I was in a hospital room. It wasn't Eric by my bedside, but a stranger. “Are you okay?” he asked, his brow furrowed with concern. “I was driving by the accident. I saw you lying there all alone and brought you here. I was going to call an ambulance, but some guy said they’d already come and gone…” His voice hardened with anger. “I don’t know what’s wrong with those paramedics. Leaving a person bleeding on the ground! And all those people just standing around, watching… If I hadn’t brought you in, you might be dead right now!” I tried to move, my limbs stiff and sore. I placed a hand on my stomach and froze. The familiar, rounded firmness was gone. “I’m so sorry,” the man said, his voice soft with pity. “I got here too late. The doctors said… they said the baby was likely gone at the scene.” A bitter smile twisted my lips. I shook my head. “Thank you for bringing me here. It’s not your fault. I know.” After a long silence, he poured me a glass of water. “Why were you, a pregnant woman, out in a car by yourself? Doesn't your family care?” He paused. “The baby’s father should be here. Give me his number, I’ll call him. These doctors have no professional ethics! I can’t leave you here alone. I’m going to post about this online, expose them. These… these cancers of the medical profession need to be cut out!” Remembering Eric's cold, sneering face as he walked away, I said flatly, “The baby’s father is dead.” The man, thinking he’d stumbled onto a fresh wound, immediately started apologizing. I drank the water and told him it was fine. He wanted to stay and look after me, but I insisted he leave after I transferred him the money for the hospital fees. He had barely walked out the door when a nurse came in to change my IV drip. She glanced at the name on my chart. “Your name is Leah, too?” she asked, her voice cautious. “What a coincidence. One of our doctors, Eric Cole, his wife has the same name. Do you know him?” I shook my head. She let out a visible sigh of relief. “Oh, good. I hear his wife is… not a very nice person. Nothing like you, you seem so quiet and gentle…” I said nothing. After she left, I pulled out my phone and checked the news. The kind stranger had kept his word. His post about the ER team’s negligence had gone viral. A photo of me, lying helpless at the crash site, was trending. The comments were a firestorm of outrage against the hospital. A hospital employee tried to do damage control, explaining that I was a doctor’s wife. That only poured gasoline on the fire. A doctor’s wife doesn’t deserve to be saved? So it’s okay to just leave your own family to die at an accident scene? If a doctor can’t even be trusted to care for his own injured wife and child, how can any patient trust him with their life? Someone else posted a photo they’d taken from another angle. It clearly showed Eric kicking me. The internet exploded. People flooded the hospital's official social media accounts, demanding answers. I liked every single one of their comments. I was about to text Eric about the divorce when I saw Althea’s post from two hours earlier. It was a photo of Eric, his gaze filled with a tenderness I had never seen, carefully cleaning a small cut on her hand. The caption read: “So lucky you’re my friend for life, my family without blood ties. Not even death can part us.” I casually liked her post. A second later, my phone rang. It was Eric. “Leah, what the hell is your problem?” he roared. “Why are you harassing Althea? If you have an issue, you take it up with me! She barely survived what you did today, and you’re still going after her? You push her again, and I swear, we are done!” “I put up with your nonsense before, but you don't get to play with people’s lives! Do you even realize what you did? That's attempted murder! Are you insane?” “Althea said she forgives you, but that doesn't mean I do! I'm giving you one last chance. Apologize to her. Now.” Before I could speak, I heard Althea’s theatrical sobs in the background. “Eric, stop, don’t blame her. It was my fault. If I had just let her have the wheel when she grabbed for it, this wouldn’t have happened. Pregnant women get emotional, I understand.” Eric’s voice softened with pity. “You’re my friend, Althea. Why should you have to put up with this? She’s an outsider. What right does she have to treat you like this? Don’t enable her. This time, she needs to learn her lesson.” While the two of them continued their nauseating drama, I spoke, my voice calm and clear. “Fine. Let's get a divorce. I agree. This outsider won't get in your way anymore.” Eric was stunned into silence. He clearly hadn't expected me to be the one to end it. After a two-second pause, his rage erupted. I hung up before he could start screaming. I hadn’t even had time to block his number before a flood of texts came through. “You’re the one who caused the crash by grabbing the wheel. I haven’t even blamed you yet, and you have the nerve to ask for a divorce?” “You’re a murderer, Leah. You should be on your knees thanking me for not calling the cops. Don’t push your luck.” “Get those posts offline. Now. Don’t make me expose you for the psycho you really are.” I didn’t read any more. I deleted the messages and blocked his number. Later, the nurses who came to check on me were chatting amongst themselves, unaware of my identity. “Did you see the news online? I heard it’s Dr. Cole’s wife acting up again. Talk about having the same name but different fates. If she were half as gentle as our Leah here, none of this would be happening.” “I know, right? They’ve been friends for over ten years. What is she so jealous about? She must be mentally ill. That would explain why she’d cause a car crash on purpose.” “Poor Dr. Cole and his friend, getting stuck with a lunatic like that…” I listened numbly, nodding along when it seemed appropriate. But the online furor was too intense. The truth was bound to come out. The hospital administration figured out who I was. A few of them came to "visit" me, gently probing to see if I would be willing to make a public statement to clear the air. They said Eric had taken an emergency leave of absence and they couldn't reach him. I refused every time. Eventually, they stopped asking and just started blaming me, muttering that I had brought this all on myself. Then, the hospital released an official video, shifting the entire blame for the accident onto my shoulders. To minimize the PR damage, they concealed the fact that I had been seriously injured and had a miscarriage. They painted a picture of a jealous, hysterical wife who had staged a car crash to hurt her husband's friend, wasting precious medical resources and subjecting their star doctor to a vicious online mob. The same people who had championed my cause turned on me instantly. Learning I was supposedly just a jealous wife, they questioned my sanity. The mob that had attacked the ER department now directed all their venom at me. I became a pariah. They even started an online group, a "Take Down the Venomous Wife Alliance," or something equally charming. Every few days, a new group of them would show up outside my hospital room to scream obscenities and throw things at my door. Through it all, I never said a word in my own defense. I was waiting. Waiting for the day Eric and Althea’s "friendship" was exposed for what it truly was, and for the world to see their reaction. The day the doctor told me I could be discharged, I unblocked Eric’s number and sent him a single text. “City Hall. Tomorrow. For the divorce.” I was about to block him again when his call came through. “You have the nerve to message me?” he spat. “What, now that you’re the most hated woman on the internet, you finally realize you were wrong? It’s too late for regrets.” “A divorce? Fine by me! I’m sick of you, you psycho! You’re a goddamn lunatic! And don't even think about seeing the child after it's born. A monster like you doesn't deserve to be a mother.” He hung up before I could say a word. I called a mechanic and asked him to retrieve and copy the dashcam footage from my car. The next morning, I arrived at City Hall on time. And there, at the entrance, was Althea. Her eyes dropped to my stomach, and her face broke into a mask of feigned surprise. “Oh, my. What happened to the little bastard? Such a shame. But with a mother who can't even keep her man, it was probably doomed from the start. A short, pathetic life for a short, pathetic reason. Even if it had been born, it would have just been another fatherless orphan…” Before my brain could even process the words, my hand had already flown across her face. I hadn’t even hit her that hard, but she crumpled to the ground, fat tears instantly welling in her eyes. “Althea!” Eric rushed past me from behind, shoving me so hard I stumbled backward into the middle of the street. A car screeched to a halt, its bumper inches from my head. He cradled Althea in his arms, then, as if remembering something, he whipped his head around to look at me. His gaze fell on my now-flat stomach, and all the color drained from his face. “The baby,” he choked out. “Where’s the baby?!” I struggled to my feet, a grim satisfaction blooming in my chest as I watched the panic dawn on his face. “The baby? You remember you had a child?” I asked, my voice dripping with ice. “You said I don't deserve to be a mother. Do you deserve to be a father? When I was bleeding out after the crash, where were you? When the entire world was calling me a monster, where were you? When I was on an operating table, unconscious, needing my husband's signature for emergency surgery, where were you, Eric?” His face grew paler with every word. My voice dropped to a frigid whisper. “The baby is gone, Eric. Thanks to you.” “And now, our marriage is, too.” A flicker of panic crossed his eyes, but it was quickly swallowed by rage. “Don't you dare try to play the victim here! You brought all of this on yourself!” “You caused that accident! Althea was the one who was nearly killed, and she’s the one who forgave you! And now you have the audacity to try and pin this on me?” “Leah, how did I never see how shameless you are?” He took a step closer, his voice a low growl. "What happened to the baby? I'm asking you one last time." A small crowd had started to gather. Someone recognized me from the news. The pointing and muttering began. “That’s her! The psycho wife who tried to kill someone out of jealousy!” “Look at her, she looks so normal. How can she be so evil?” “Dr. Cole must have the worst luck in the world, getting stuck with a venomous snake like her. If I were him, I’d have had a heart attack by now!” “And she has the nerve to blame him? After what she did? She almost killed someone! I thought this only happened in soap operas. They should lock her up in a mental hospital before she hurts someone else!” …
? Continue the story here ?? ? Download the "MotoNovel" app ? search for "393542", and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel