After a severe car accident, I was rushed to the hospital. My husband barged into the room, raging. “Enough with the theatrics!” he shouted. “Get out of that bed—I’m not wasting my money on this!” He grabbed me, trying to drag me off the mattress. When I struggled, he slammed both fists into my stomach. What happened next was beyond anything I could’ve imagined…

But as he stood over my hospital bed, his face twisted in disgust, the illusion shattered. There was no love here. There never really was. I was just an employee who could no longer do her job.
You are my husband, I managed to say, a spark of anger finally igniting in my chest. You are supposed to support me. I gave you everything, Ethan!
His eyes narrowed. Support you? You are a burden, Nancy. A heavy, expensive burden. And now you talk back?
Before I could react, he lunged. It happened in slow motion. His hands, the hands that used to hold mine, clenched into tight fists. He didn’t aim for my face; he knew better than to leave visible marks where people would look first. He aimed for my stomach.
He struck me hard.
A shockwave of agony ripped through my already battered body. I gasped, the air fleeing my lungs, unable to scream, unable to move, unable to defend myself. I curled instinctively, but the casts on my legs anchored me to the mattress. I was completely at his mercy.
You think you can make demands? he hissed, raising his fist again. You don’t get to speak. You listen.
Tears streamed down my face, blurring the vision of the monster looming over me. The monitor beside my bed began to beep rapidly, matching the frantic rhythm of my heart. I looked toward the door, praying, hoping, begging silently for someone to hear, for someone to save me. But the hallway was silent. It was just me and him.
Ethan raised his hand higher, his eyes burning with a terrifying promise of more pain. I closed my eyes, bracing for the impact, realizing with terrifying clarity that the car accident might not be what kills me. My husband might finish the job.

…finish the job he started when he decided my life was no longer worth the cost of my medical bills. “Stop this drama, Nancy! Get off the bed and come with me!” he yelled, his voice echoing in the small room. I blinked, trying to process his words through the haze of medication. “I am not wasting my money on this nonsense!”

I stared at him in disbelief. I had been hit by a speeding car three weeks ago. For twenty-one days, I had laid here, praying for him to walk through that door, to hold my hand and tell me everything would be okay. Instead, he was screaming at me to walk when I was unable to even sit up without assistance. “It is impossible, Ethan,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “My legs… they are broken.”

He did not even flinch. He stepped closer, the smell of his expensive cologne suffocating me. “You figure it out,” he spat, leaning over the bed rails. “Sell your jewelry. Sell whatever you have. I am not spending another dime on a wife who is useless to me.” The word hung in the air like a guillotine blade. Useless.