The Wedding That Never Was

“The last thing I remembered was the cold, seeping into my bones on the operating table, as doctors frantically tried to stop the hemorrhaging. Then, the words that shattered my world: "The baby... the baby can' t be saved." My baby, gone. And in a flash, I remembered my husband Liam' s venomous sneer just hours before, "If it' s some other man' s bastard, I' ll kill it myself." The pain of his words, worse than labor, twisted my love for my adoptive brother into pure hatred. I believed he had killed our child. Consumed by rage, I seized a scalpel and plunged it into his chest, gasping, "If my child dies, you' re dying with him." His eyes widened in despair, not anger, as consciousness faded. His frantic shouts echoed, "Save her! Get the best doctors... And find her the best lawyer... Don' t let her find out about her father. Let her hate me forever." Tears fell onto my cheek, hot and foreign. My father? What did he have to do with this? Then, darkness. "Do you, Ava Miller, take this man, Liam Hayes, to be your lawfully wedded husband?" My eyes snapped open. The blinding white of the operating room was gone. I was at the altar, clutching white roses, in a heavy wedding dress. Liam stood before me, young and handsome, looking exactly as he had ten years ago. Our wedding day. The day my nightmare began. I was back. He leaned in, his voice a low, impatient hiss, "Ava, what are you doing? Say 'I do.' Don' t make a scene." The same cold tone, the same barely-veiled annoyance. Nothing had changed. I saw Sarah Johnson in the second row, feigning heartbreak, her hand resting protectively over her stomach. Liam' s innocent victim. Then it all crashed down. Liam' s final words, his protection, Sarah' s true manipulation, my father' s death-it was all a misunderstanding, a mountain of lies. I had died because of it once. I wouldn't walk back into that cage. "No. I don' t."”