He Called My Sugar Allergy Jealousy—So I Made Him My Ex Chapter 09

He Called My Sugar Allergy Jealousy—So I Made Him My Ex Chapter 09

A few days later, I was ready to leave the hospital.

Mom packed my things while Dad handled the discharge paperwork.

The nurse came in to change my dressing one last time, checked the scar on my stomach, and

said it was healing well.

“Keep warm and take care,” she said, then left.

After that, I went back to Derek’s place to pack my things.

I didn’t have much–some clothes, a few books, and Max. Everything else, I left behind.

Max was Patricia’s dog. I don’t know why, but he’d taken to me from day one.

If it hadn’t been for him that day, I might really have died in that house.

In the end, a dog had been more loyal than the man spent eleven years with.

“Max, you wanna come with me?”

He clearly understood me. The second he heard I was taking him, he trotted to the door and sat

down, waiting.

I rubbed his head. It felt strangely comforting.

Mom asked if we should keep the kennel as evidence. I said no.

She called a

scrap

collector who hauled it away for thirty bucks.

The day of the trial came. I went with my parents.

When Derek and Patricia saw me, they kept apologizing.

I ignored them. In the end, I insisted on pressing charges.

Derek was convicted of criminal abuse and unlawful imprisonment and sentenced to three years

in prison.

Patricia, as his accomplice, got eighteen months.

Even during the trial, Derek kept begging me for forgiveness. He said he hadn’t known I was

pregnant.

The judge asked him, “Why did you swap her meds for sugar?”

Derek had no answer.

The judge asked again, “Why did you lock her in a kennel?”

Derek still couldn’t answer.

The judge asked one last time. “Why did you turn the paramedics away?”

Derek couldn’t say a word.

Patricia was crying too, saying she hadn’t meant to hurt me–she’d only wanted to scare me.

When I walked out of the courthouse, I felt lighter than I had in years.

After that, I went home to Hollowbrook with my parents. I stayed there for three years.

Three years later, I told my parents I wanted to go out and see the world.

So I rented a small one–bedroom in town.

It wasn’t big, but it was clean and bright, with a sunny windowsill for flowers.

My parents were helping me unpack when the doorbell rang. Mom went to answer it.

Someone was standing outside. Derek.

Three years had changed him.

He wore a wrinkled jacket, had a scruffy beard, and had lost so much weight his cheekbones jutted

out.

He stood outside for a long time, too afraid to come in.

The moment Mom saw him, her face went cold. She blocked the doorway.

“What are you doing here?”

“Mrs. Whitmore, I want to see Clara.”

“You’ve still got the nerve to see her?” Mom’s voice suddenly rose.

“After what you did to her, you’ve still got the nerve to come here?”

Derek broke down and pleaded. He didn’t care about the neighbors passing through the hallway.

He kept repeating, “I was wrong. I really was. I didnt know Clara was pregnant back then.”

Mom started yelling at him.

“You didn’t know anything. The only thing you knew was Megan!”

“What she liked to eat, what she loved to do. She was carrying your baby–your precious little

‘sister.“”

Derek didn’t argue. He just looked up, his lips trembling.

“That baby wasn’t mine.”