The silence pressed in on her like another weight she couldn't move.
Her fiancé's words still rang in her ears, louder than the machines, sharper than the pulse of pain in her temples. We broke up. I'm with my boss's daughter now. You wished us well.
It was absurd. It was cruel. It was delivered in the same tone someone might use to tell you the weather had changed — factual, inevitable, already accepted.
She lay against the stiff hospital pillow, staring at the sterile wall, her body trembling beneath the sheets. Every instinct screamed at her to fight back, to call him a liar, to spit out the truth. But her prank had betrayed her. She had handed him the perfect excuse to twist reality, and now even the doctor believed him.
The doctor.
Her gaze flicked toward the man in the white coat, who was still adjusting her IV drip. His calm efficiency was almost insulting, as if he hadn't just watched her entire world collapse in front of him. "Rest now," he repeated gently, scribbling another note on the chart at the end of her bed.
She nodded mutely; her voice caught behind her teeth.
Her fiancé hovered for a moment longer. He didn't reach for her hand. He didn't brush her hair from her forehead. He only adjusted his tie, as if the gesture could steady him. Then he murmured, "I'll be back later," and left the room. The door clicked shut behind him, his footsteps fading down the sterile corridor.
And just like that, she was alone.
For a few heartbeats she lay perfectly still, listening to the beep of the monitor, the hum of the air vent, the faint drip of her IV. She tried to swallow, but her throat burned. Her chest ached, not from broken ribs but from something deeper, something raw.
Then the first tear slipped free.
She turned her face into the pillow, biting down hard, and the dam broke. Silent sobs tore through her, shaking her frail body. Hot tears soaked the stiff cotton beneath her cheek.
She cried for the years she had given him — the shared apartments, the whispered promises, the ring that had once glinted like a star on her hand. She cried for the nights they had planned futures, for the mornings she had believed she was safe in his love. She cried because she had come back from the edge of death, only to find herself discarded, erased, replaced by someone more useful to his career.
The boss's daughter.
The phrase repeated in her mind like poison. Not a stranger he had stumbled across, not someone who had stolen his heart by chance. No — he had chosen her deliberately, strategically. Ambition wrapped in romance. Climbing the ladder on the back of her heartbreak.
Her sobs grew harsher, ripping through her until she feared the nurse outside might hear. But she didn't care. Let them. Let the whole hospital know. She was broken, betrayed, and utterly alone.
At last, the tears slowed, leaving her hollow, her throat raw. She pressed her good hand against her bandaged forehead, trying to steady herself. Her pulse still raced, her breathing ragged. The machine by her bed beeped faster, tattling on her distress.
A nurse peeked in, frowning. "Are you all right, dear?"
She forced a weak smile. "Just… my head. It hurts."
The nurse gave a sympathetic nod and adjusted the pillow. "Try to rest. Crying will only worsen the headache." She dimmed the lights and withdrew quietly.
Rest. As if that were possible.
She stared into the dimness, her body aching, her mind replaying his words over and over. Each repetition cut deeper, until her grief hardened into something else.
Resolve.
She would not let him win.
If he thought she would lie here, helpless and pliant, while he rewrote the story of their love and paraded his new prize in front of her, he was a fool. If he thought her broken bones and fogged memory made her weak, he didn't know her at all.
Her lips curved bitterly. He had underestimated her before, but never like this.
Slowly, she wiped her eyes with the corner of the sheet. Her tears left streaks of salt on her skin, but her expression cooled, hardening into something composed, deliberate.
From this moment, he would see nothing. No grief. No fury. No weakness.
Only a mask.
She would wear it until it became real, until the moment she decided to strike.
The thought steadied her, gave her a strange, burning clarity. Beneath the pain, beneath the heartbreak, there was now purpose. A seed of vengeance, small but alive, rooting itself in the cracks of her shattered trust.
She lay back against the pillow, closing her eyes. In the quiet darkness, she saw his face again — tired, guarded, pitying. She saw his hand adjusting his tie as if nothing mattered more than appearances. She saw him walking away without looking back.
And she whispered into the silence, her voice raw but steady: "You'll regret this."