“Do not you dare die on me, Olivia, because we are not going to give those people the satisfaction of winning,” she whispered through her tears.
The rest of the evening was a blur of blue and red lights, the loud wail of sirens, and the frantic voices of paramedics.
One of the medical technicians mentioned that my blood pressure was bottoming out and that I was going into shock.
When the nurse asked how long I had been in this condition, Isabel answered with a voice full of pure rage.
“Her husband went on a birthday trip and left her to bleed out on the floor like she meant nothing to him,” she said.
Everything went black after that, and I slipped into a deep unconsciousness that lasted for nearly two days.
When I finally opened my eyes in the intensive care unit, I was surrounded by machines and the rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor.
“Parker,” was the first word I managed to choke out through my dry and swollen throat.
Isabel stood up from the chair next to my bed and gripped my hand so tightly that it almost hurt.
“He is going to be fine, even though he was dehydrated and terrified when we found him,” she reassured me.
I began to cry quietly as the weight of everything that had happened finally started to sink in.
Once I was strong enough to speak, I asked Isabel to hand me my cell phone so I could see what had happened while I was asleep.
There were dozens of missed calls from my mother and my neighbors, but there was not a single message from Tyler.
I opened his social media profile and saw that he had continued to post updates from his mountain getaway.
There was a photo of him eating a massive steak and another of him smoking a cigar with his friends by the lake.
“I really needed this weekend to get away from people who constantly play the victim,” he had written in his latest post.
Isabel snatched the phone out of my hand before I could see anything else that would break my heart further.
“You are never going back to that house and you are never going back to that man,” she said firmly.
“I am not going back,” I replied with a cold clarity that I had never felt before in my entire life.
Isabel let out a long sigh of relief, but I looked her in the eyes and told her that I wasn’t finished with Tyler yet.
“I want you to go to the house and pack up all of my belongings and everything that belongs to Parker,” I instructed.
“I will handle it today,” she promised.
“But I want you to leave the nursery exactly the way it was when you found me,” I added.
Isabel looked at me in silence for a long moment, her eyes searching mine for an explanation.
“The rug stays where it is, the bloody towels stay on the floor, and the empty bassinet stays in the center of the room,” I said.
“I want Tyler to walk into that house and see exactly what he chose to abandon when he walked out that door,” I explained.
The following day, I sat up in my hospital bed and used Isabel’s phone to log into our home security camera system.
At exactly six o’clock in the evening, I saw Tyler’s truck pull into the driveway and park in the garage.
He stepped out of the vehicle looking tanned and happy, carrying a shopping bag from a high-end jewelry store.
He was whistling a cheerful tune as he unlocked the front door, still convinced that the only problem in his life was my bad attitude.
“I am home, honey!” Tyler called out as he tossed his keys onto the marble countertop in the kitchen.
“I hope you are feeling a bit more rational now because I brought you a little something to make up for your tantrum,” he added.
I watched him through the lens of the hallway camera, my heart hamm
