After Donating My Cornea to My Husband's Dream Girl, He Went Crazy

In passion's frenzy, Steve Cox's cruel words struck deep.

Later, he would cradle my ashes, whispering how he missed me...

1.

The double bed creaked beneath Steve's relentless rhythm, my sweat on the damp pillowcase.

As our bodies moved up and down, my fingertips traced his sharp jawline - my bitten lips stifling any sound.

Without warning, my heart contracted violently, fingers clawing the pristine sheets into twisted ruins.

"Steve," I gasped through clenched teeth, "my chest..." Cold sweat rivered down my temples.

He drove deeper, ignoring my weak attempts to push him away.

Pinning my wrists above my head, he sneered, "Pathetic theatrics."

"Steve, I'm not lying. It really hurts..." I begged weakly.

His calloused hand gripped my chin with bruising force. "Danna Mills, don't spoil the moment!"

His words froze the blood in my veins.

"You knew mercy wasn't part of our deal," he smirked, tightening his grip.

His hand silencing my cries moved in cruel synchronization with his hips.

......

Afterward, he left me trembling like I was a discarded doll, striding naked toward the shower.

"Steve," my voice shattered like dropped crystal, "hospital... please..."

"Save your trick!" He wheeled around. "Who's your audience now? The people who used to defend you? They are all gone."

With that, he went for his shower.

Memory transported me to simpler days. Back then, I was Mills' golden girl and Steve a scholarship student.

Two worlds colliding on campus walkways.

That sports day, I got injured, and I still remembered how he'd carried me past gawking crowds, my blood staining his shirt.

The white cotton had clung to his shoulders, sunlight haloing his dark hair.

I found out from the class president that his name was Steve, a top student in the computer science department. I brought him breakfast for an entire semester before he agreed to date me.

During class, if I accidentally cut my finger, he would tenderly put it in his mouth and blow on it for ages, applying bunny bandages with ceremonial care.

Perhaps the memories were too beautiful, and the contrast with tonight's brutality stole my breath anew.

Agony twisted my heart like a corkscrew as I crawled toward the nightstand.

The phone clattered to the floor with me, knees splitting on hardwood, bleeding. I couldn't help but let out a muffled groan.

By the time I had dressed, my blouse stuck to me - a second skin of fear-sweat.

911. These three numbers required Herculean effort for me.

When it was finally done, I was so weak that I couldn't move a muscle.

Looking up, I saw Steve in a bathrobe, holding a glass of red wine, standing at the door with a cold smile.

I didn't know how long he had watched.

Seeing my disheveled state, he remained indifferent. Did he think all of these were just an act?

I shut my eyes against his cold scrutiny.

How much did he hate me that my suffering didn't make a dimple in his emotions?

Soon, paramedics burst in with their sterile urgency.

Steve drained his glass as they loaded me onto the gurney.

"Danna! Your method acting taken too far. It seems you'll do anything for money.

No wonder you came crawling back when the Mills fortune surfaced."

2.

The CT scan trembled in my hands as I stared through hospital walls.

"End-stage heart failure... three months left..." The words echoed like a death knell.

I didn't believe it, so I went to another hospital for a second opinion.

The nurse called my name with professional cheer.

"Doctor," My knuckles whitened around wrinkled fabric. "there must be some mistake, right?"

The balding physician adjusted his glasses like a shield.

"Child... make your peace... I am sorry."

I was stunned, and after a moment, as if remembering something.

My sudden hope flared. "Dr. Curtis, the cardiology pioneer..."

"He's sitting in front of you. I am Doctor Curtis."

He looked at me through his glasses.

Behind thick lenses, his eyes held infinite weariness. "Is there any unfinished business? Now's the time to fulfill it."

City lights blurred as I walked - hot tears carving canyons down my cheeks.

Terminal.

Three months terminal.

Like my marriage, it was beyond saving.

The TV's canned laughter mocked my fetal position on the couch. I was just watching, having no idea what was playing.

"Madam, your vitamins." The maid, Emma, brought over a few vitamins and a glass of water.

I drank the water and swallowed the vitamins obediently.

I wrinkled my nose. "These vitamins taste different." The metallic aftertaste clung to my tongue. "Are they expired?"

Emma stood frozen, her posture rigid as a mannequin.

"Emma? Did you hear me?"

She seemed startled, babbling about new formulations and improved formulas, her fingers pleating her apron.

Strange. I'd never inspired such terror before. My mildest glance now sent servants trembling?

But death's hourglass left no room for domestic mysteries. The pills went down regardless.

The Mercedes' purr announced his return at 1:30 AM.

Steve's silhouette filled the doorway, backlit by hall sconces.

His gaze swept past me as if I were part of the furniture.

The coat rack received more attention than his wife, its wooden arms outstretched like a crucifix. Without a glance, he headed to the bedroom.

Once, he'd crush me against that same foyer wall, murmuring endearments into my hair.

My "punishment" for late nights had been his kiss until I gasped for air.

But now, he ignored me like I didn't exist.

"Steve." I called out to him.

His Rolex clattered onto the console table. His footsteps never faltered.

Nails bit crescent moons into my palms as my treacherous heart stuttered.

When I smiled, it felt like breaking bones. "Let's divorce."

He turned slowly, like a panther humoring its prey.

The chandelier cast knife-edge shadows across his face. It gave me a vision that he was half angel, half devil.

I traced his outline with my eyes; this was the man I had loved for seven years.

From freshman year to senior year, and three years of marriage.

My entire adult life measured in his eyelashes' sweep.

The scales had tipped long ago - his annoyance against my brokenness. Time to cut losses.

"Do you know the time, Danna? It has to be now?" His sigh could frost glass. "Your reverse psychology expired with my patience."

I took the divorce papers from my bag, pausing when I saw the terminal diagnosis inside, then closed the bag as if nothing had happened.

My signature sprawled across the dotted line - the last dance of a condemned woman.

"You wanted freedom, right?" My vocal cords vibrated without consent.

The smile I manufactured could have powered small appliances.

"Congratulations, you have what you want."

3.

Had I known love's shelf life, I'd have let us die that golden summer.

Our marriage certificate might as well have been a cease-fire agreement.

His father's deathbed wish made our marriage a burdensome bond.

Steve took the divorce papers, glanced at them briefly, and focused on the signature line.

The pages snapped taut between us like a noose.

"Creative accounting," he mused. "Alimony percentages hidden in the small print?" His breath smelled of single-malt and contempt. "Dream on."

With that, he tore the divorce papers apart.

The world in his palms-that was what he'd called me at the campus.

Now I was just another gold-digger in his origin story.

"Do you think I want your stupid money?" The laugh tore from my throat, raw. "You are really a jerk."

He just looked at me with an Arctic gaze that never thawed.

Three years ago, a car crash revealed his Cox bloodline.

I once said that I would share his hardships, but I never visited him during his hospital stay.

Yet when I was admitted by the Cox family, I showed up.

Back then, when he was just a poor boy, he thought I was pure and kind, treating me with utmost care.

But now he saw me just a vain gold-digger, willing to do anything for money.

For him, I was just a woman who managed to manipulate his father into threatening him with shares to marry me.

"Get out." His eyes could preserve corpses.

Shredded legal documents snowed around my bare feet.

I barred his path.

"Katy Mills deserves the title more than I ever did. Take it. Take everything and I don't care. Just let me go."

"Yes, the one I like is Katy." He loomed closer. "She'll have her wedding march and the best dress in the world. Not this back-alley divorce."

The bedroom door clicked shut. Paper fragments fluttered like dying moths at my feet.

......

The hospital's antiseptic smell clung to my clothes like a shroud.

A nurse materialized the moment I entered my mother's room, her scrubs rustling with urgency.

"Miss Mills," she whispered, "the doctor says your mother's care fees are in arrears."

I nodded mechanically, the numbers already scrolling behind my eyes.

Rounding the corridor lost in calculations, I nearly collided with a hospital-gowned specter.

The woman had a devilish figure, with Eurasian cheekbones and long legs.

She was Steve's current obsession, my cousin Katy Mills, the woman who stole my life.

I sidestepped, granting passage to this viper in human skin.

"Danna." Katy stopped in front of me. Smiling, she said. "I heard that Auntie's being evicted from her coma suite?"

I walked through her as if she were mist.

She reappeared before me, a vengeful poltergeist. "You deserve all these. Just enjoy."

"Get lost." I spat.

Katy smirked, "Why don't you ask Steve for money?"

Before I could respond, she continued, "Oh, wait. I forgot, Steve has never liked you. You're the one who pushed your way into marrying him. You won't be smug for long. Three years, wasn't it? The sentence is almost up."

Her eyes glittered with the particular joy of kicking drowning women.

"What three years?" The question escaped before I could cage it.

"You didn't know?" Her laugh tinkled like breaking glass. "The shares-for-marriage deal his father forced on him."

4.

The revelation hit like a defibrillator. And my whole body seized with understanding.

The marriage I thought was real was not only a transaction but also an arrangement with an expiration date stamped in invisible ink.

How had we gone from library kisses to this cold arithmetic?

Her smirk widened, mocking my pathetic marriage.

"He didn't want to, so he set the three-year term. It's almost up, and you didn't even know? Wait, did you think he married you because he had feelings for you? Come on!"

The truth crystallized like frost on a coffin.

Three years ago, my parents had a car accident; my father died on the spot, and my mother became a vegetable, lying in the nursing home ever since.

And I was kicked out of the Cox family by my uncle-Katy's father.

I went to seek refuge with my boyfriend, Steve, only to find out he had a car accident as well and was severely injured in the hospital.

His life hung by a thread, needing an urgent kidney transplant.

Fortunately, my type matched his, and I successfully donated a kidney, which left me in a coma for three months.

When I woke up, he had become the heir of the Cox family, one of the most influential and affluent families in the city.

His father came to me, saying he knew about our mutual affection and agreed to our marriage.

I thought married life would be blissful, but I didn't expect that after becoming the heir, he would fall for my cousin-Katy.

"You want to be Mrs. Cox, right?" I said expressionlessly, "Get him to sign. I'll vanish without trace."

Katy's manicured finger tapped her lip. "You are broke now, aren't you? Five hundred thousand dollars to disappear."

I walked away, though the sum could save me and my mom from poverty.

Her derisive snort followed me down the hall.

She took out her phone and dialed a number, saying, "What are you doing? Why is she still breathing? Didn't I tell you to change the pills?"

Katy frowned after hearing the answer from the other end. She was dissatisfied, "My money isn't for nothing! Double the dose or your brother loses kneecaps!"

After threatening, Katy hung up the phone, satisfied.

Seeing Steve approaching from afar, her eyes gleamed with a plan.

"Danna." Katy chased after me.

She stood with her back to the stairs, blocking my way. "You've been married to Steve for three years and haven't gotten pregnant. Haven't you wondered why?"

"Those vitamins?" Her laugh curled like smoke. "They actually are birth control pills. Steve's orders. You've been taking them for three years, and I'd bet your womb's a desert now."

"You're lying!" Maybe shocked, I pushed her away.

She fell with theatrical grace, tumbling down the steps like a discarded doll.

Steve materialized as if summoned, gathering her broken form.

He carried Katy away. As he passed me, his gaze held the weight of a tombstone.

That look was as cold as winter.

Katy's smirk over his shoulder was my only answer.

The realization dawned. She did it on purpose!

She tried to frame me by falling down the stairs.

Classic. Effective. Especially with a husband predisposed to believe the worst.

Katy was already weak from injuries, and this fall broke her arm.

Steve kicked open the bedroom door, pulling me out from under the covers, "When did you become so vicious?"

"Vicious? What are you talking about?" I was confused, then realized he was talking about pushing Katy.

Tears made kaleidoscopes of my furious face. "I didn't make her jump! It was all her own doing! You need to believe me!"