Chapter 3 Decision
The moment I answered the phone, Damian’s angry, reproachful voice blasted through the line. “Mom, where did you run off to this time?
“It’s the middle of the night–why aren’t you home?
“Dad still needs someone to help him bathe, clean up after him, and change him. I can’t do all that! I have to get home tonight!”
They never thought of me while they were out feasting and celebrating.
But once their bellies were full and work needed to be done, suddenly they remembered I existed.
I lay on the soft hotel bed, my tone flat. “Didn’t you hire a nanny?”
Damian was practically hysterical. “The nanny only feeds him–who’s going to clean up his messes? That’s always been your job!
“Dad needs to go to the bathroom now. Come home! The whole place reeks!”
Wyatt might have woken up, but after ten years in bed–even with my constant massages–his muscles had wasted away.
Even if he could leave the hospital, he’d be confined to a wheelchair or stuck in bed.
He still had to use a bedpan.
“I’m not coming back. Let your dad’s new wife take care of it.”
I spoke calmly.
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Chapter 3 Decision
For a moment, Damian was completely speechless.
Then Laurel picked up the phone. “Nicole, you can’t say that. You and Wyatt have been together for decades–why get so petty now?
“He only wants you to care for him. He won’t let anyone else near him.
“How can you just stand by and let him suffer like this?”
He only wants me to care for him?
How laughable.
A sharp pain stabbed at my chest.
Wyatt knew exactly who made him comfortable.
Ezra always found it disgusting–she never touched anything dirty.
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Damian, just catching a glimpse of the mess, would start cursing Wyatt, calling him a useless burden.
Even when Wyatt was immobile, he could still hear what was said around
him.
Listening to Laurel, Damian had tried more than once to force me to pull the plug.
Now that Wyatt was awake, he was terrified of being despised by his own family for his condition–so he remembered his old servant. Me.
Once, I was willing to suffer for him, because I loved him.
But now, that love was gone. Why should I keep enduring this?
“If he doesn’t want to go, he can hold it.”
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Chapter 3 Decision
Click.
I hung up and switched my phone to airplane mode.
That night, Instagram was buzzing.
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First, Damian posted a photo of Ezra awkwardly struggling to help Wyatt to the bathroom, with the caption, “Getting old means even going to the bathroom is humiliating. I don’t know how some people can be so heartless.”
Ten minutes later, Laurel posted an update, “Wyatt lost his balance, fell, made a mess everywhere, and busted his forehead open–blood everywhere.”
A crowd gathered, wailing and fussing, but not a single person dared help.
Wyatt, humiliated and furious, shouted, “Just let me die! I’m nothing but a worthless cripple!”
The Ezra he longed for kept her distance, her brows furrowed tight, looking terrified she might get dirty.
Half an hour later, someone finally cleaned up the mess, and things quieted down
Wyatt sent me a voice message, his voice shaking with rage as he called me by my full name, “Nicole Harwick! Be at the courthouse first thing in the morning!
“I want a divorce! I’m going to marry Ezra!”
I knew he was doing it on purpose.
But this time, my heart felt nothing at all.
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I gazed out at the endless night beyond the window, not sure if I felt relief or sorrow. The heaviness in my chest wouldn’t lift.
Even though I’d accepted long ago that Wyatt didn’t love me, it still hurt to know I’d wasted all my youth loving a man who never deserved it.
Still, morning would come soon.
Today, I would finally be free.
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