Chapter 3
Chapter 3
SEDONA
+25 Points
I don’t know how long I sat on the bedroom floor, my back against the bed, staring at nothing. The afternoon light had shifted, getting darker, casting long shadows on the room that I had shared with Logan
for three years.
Shared…what a joke. He hadn’t touched me in months, finding excuses to sleep at the company or in his study downstairs.
Now I knew why.
The scattered medical papers lay in front of me as I reached out for them again. Stage three gastric cancer. Three months without treatment. Maybe a year with it.
I picked up one of the pamphlets Dr. Reynolds had given me-“Living with Cancer: A Guide for Patients and Families.” The smiling faces on the cover, surrounded by loving relatives, seemed to mock me. What family did I have? A husband who wished I was someone else and actively cheating on me with his first love without feeling guilty? A son who found me annoying and a nuisance and wasn’t even missing me? A mother-in-law who’d just confirmed I was nothing more than a placeholder in her’s son’s life and my only usefulness was giving birth to Nick?
My real family was in Seattle. Cameron, my older brother, who’d probably spent the last three years furious with me for running away without an explanation. My parents, who I’d abandoned without explanation.
Hell Enzo, the man I was supposed to marry, who’d done nothing to deserve being left at the altar.
I’d been so self-righteous, so convinced that I was choosing love over obligation. So I’d run, determined to find real love, authentic happiness. So I could tell my parents ‘I told you so’
Instead, I’d found this.
A fresh wave of nausea hit me, and I barely made it to the bathroom before I was sick. When I finally lifted my head, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and barely recognized the woman staring back. My face was pale, my weight was reduced and the clothes that suited me before months ago, Were big on me, basically drowning me in this.
How had I not seen it? How had I dismissed all these signs as stress?
Because you were too busy trying to save a marriage that was already dead, a bitter voice whispered in my mind.
I splashed cold water on my face and returned to the bedroom. My phone was ringing-Logan’s name flashing on the screen. My heart skipped a beat as I felt hope bubbling up in me. Maybe he’d realized he needed to come home. Maybe Nick had asked for me. Maybe he realized that Katherine was his past and he wanted to choose me.
I grabbed the phone. “Logan p>
“Mom p>
1/3
< Being Replaced.
+25 Points>
My breath caught. It was Nick’s voice, small and uncertain. For a moment, he sounded like my little boy again, the premature baby I’d held in the NICU, the toddler who’d cried for me in the night.
“Nick, sweetheart-started, but a coughing fit interrupted me. I tasted copper in my mouth and pulled the phone away, pressing my hand to my Tips. When I looked at my palm, there was blood.
“Mom? Are you sick p>
I closed my eyes, trying to steady my breathing. At least he cared enough to ask. At least some part of my son still loved me.
“I’m okay, baby,” I managed, my voice hoarse. “I just miss you so much. When are you coming home p>
There was a pause, and I heard Katherine’s voice but her voice was too low, for me to hear what she saod.
“You’re lying,” Nick said, his tone shifting back to that coldness and disdain.
“You’re just faking being sick so I’ll come home. But I’m not stupid, Mom. I know what you’re doing p>
“Nick, I’m not p>
“Aunt Katherine says you always manipulate people to get what you want. And I’m not falling for it. I don’t want to come home. I want to stay here with Dad and Aunt Katherine. Stop pretending to be sick to get me to come back home. It’s pathetic p>
The line went dead.
I sat there, phone pressed to my ear, blood on my hand, and felt something inside me finally shatter completely. My son just called me pathetic for supposedly faking an illness.
If only he knew.
I set the phone down carefully, as if it might explode, and walked to the dresser. Our wedding photo sat there in a huge golden frame, which had been another gift from Sherry.
I picked it up, studying Logan’s face. He wasn’t smiling. I’d noticed it on our wedding day but dismissed it as he was simply nervous. Now I saw it for what it was, he looked like a man going to his execution, not his wedding.
And me? I was beaming, completely oblivious to the truth.
I looked like Katherine. Sherry’s words echoed in my mind. A poor man’s version.
pulled out my laptop and, for the first time in three years, searched Katherine’s name.
Pages about her flooded the screen.. Katherine Rogers-tennis prodigy, Grand Slam winner, Olympic hopeful star. She was beautiful, accomplished, everything I wasn’t.
There were a lot of articles praising her talents, her grace, her rise to the top of women’s tennis.
Until an injury had sidelined her career eight weeks ago.
Eight weeks. The same time Logan had started staying out late, taking Nick on mysterious “outings,” barely speaking to me.
2/3
+25 Points? Hfound photos of Logan and Katherine from five years ago, before I’d ever met him. They looked perfect Together., Logan was smiling. Really smiling, with genuine joy in his eyes. He’d never looked at me that way. Not once. I scrolled through more recent photos. Katherine returning to Chicago. Katherine at a charity gala-with Logan in the background. Katherine at a children’s hospital, reading to sick kids-with Nick sitting adoringly at her feet. I closed the laptop and looked around the room. Noticing just how insignificant, I was, my clothes were limited to one wardrobe, while Logan’s filled every corner, and i had a book bookmarked, left carelessly on the table. I was not even present in a space I assumed was mine, just like I had assumed Nick was mine and Logan. Until Katherine had come back and shown him what a “proper” mother looked like. My phone lit up with another notification. Not a message this time-a photo uploaded to social media. Katherine’s account, public for all her thousands of followers to see. The photo showed Nick asleep in what looked like a luxury hotel room, his small hand clutching a Mickey Mouse plush. The caption read: “Best day ever with this little sweetheart. Some people are just meant to be in your life. #family #blessed #disneyland” The comments were already rolling in. “Such a cute kid!” “You’ll make an amazing mom someday!” “Beautiful family p> I stared at that hashtag. #family. She was claiming my son. Publicly. And Logan was allowing it. I looked down at my wedding ring, the diamond catching the lamplight. Seven years I’d worn this ring. I had held on tight to the promise it apparently represented. But it had all been a lie. I twisted the ring off my finger. My hand felt strange without it, lighter somehow. I picked up my phone and typed out a message to Logan. “Let’s get divorced p> I hit send before I could second-guess myself, then pulled the ring off completely and set it on the nightstand next to our wedding photo. If I only had three months to live, I wasn’t going to spend them begging for scraps of affection from people who’d never wanted me in the first place. I was done being Katherine’s substitute. I was done. 3 Comments LUCK DRAW > Vote Ruby Walker Ruby Walker is a rising voice in the world of romance and spicy fiction. With a gift for weaving deep emotions, sizzling chemistry, and unexpected twists, her stories are a blend of passion and drama that captivate readers from start to finish. Ruby’s writing style is bold and irresistible—perfect for those who crave intense, addictive love stories.