One Lipstick, Nine Lies, Zero People On My Side Chapter 08

One Lipstick, Nine Lies, Zero People On My Side Chapter 08

“I’m sorry,” Stellan said. “I helped kill our first child.”

He struck himself across the face.

Then again.

“I’m sorry, Sabine. I was selfish. I was cruel. I don’t deserve you, but please give me one chance to make this right.”

The setting sun poured through the hospital window, catching the swelling on his cheek and the desperation in his eyes.

For a moment, I remembered the first time we met.

He had been lying in a hospital bed, waiting for his third heart surgery. He was young, terrified, and trying so hard not to show it.

He took my hand and gave me a faint smile.

“It’s okay, Dr. Hollowell. If you can’t fix me, I won’t blame you.”

I had just returned from an overseas humanitarian surgical mission, still carrying the reckless confidence of someone who believed skill and determination could defeat anything.

“You’re not dying,” I told him. “I’m going to get you through this.”

Then his test results began shifting.

His condition was far more complicated than anyone had expected. Every new scan raised another problem, and more than once, I nearly lost him on the operating table.

When even I started to doubt myself, Stellan was the one who made jokes.

He lay there with his heart failing and tried to make me laugh.

There had been so much life in his eyes.

I held on to that light and kept fighting until the surgery finally succeeded.

The day he was discharged, we hugged in the hospital lobby and neither of us wanted to let go.

After that, we went whale-watching off Gannet Coast. We spent winters at Skeldon Peak. We left handwritten prayers for health and happiness at Morrowlight Chapel.

I truly believed we would grow old together.

I looked at the man kneeling beside my bed.

“All I can see now is you standing there while I lost our baby.”

His face crumpled.

“You put your hands around my throat. You watched Iona drag me away. Then you left me bleeding on the floor.”

My voice stayed calm.

“How exactly am I supposed to forgive that?”

“Sabine…”

“I really did want forever with you.”

But somewhere along the way, everything quietly began to change.

Another woman’s presence crept into our life little by little, and the arguments that followed slowly wore away seven years of love.

During the worst of it, I had gone back to Morrowlight Chapel alone.

I stood beneath the old oak behind the chapel and asked myself whether loyalty was real, or whether love always changed the moment someone easier came along.

That was when I saw the prayer card tied to the wooden wall.

[Keep my Leonie safe, always.

—Stellan]

I had stared at it until my hands went numb.

Maybe that was the moment our relationship truly ended.

It ended when I realized he had been praying for a future with her while promising one to me.

I looked down at him.

“The wedding is gone. Our baby is gone. And I don’t love you anymore.”

His lips parted.

I didn’t let him speak.

“We’re over, Stellan.”

Completely.

There was nothing left to repair, and no version of us waiting to be recovered.

I pressed the call button and asked the nurse to contact hospital security.

The police arrived minutes later.

Stellan didn’t resist when they placed him in handcuffs. He only looked back at me as they led him from the room.

After I was discharged, I hired an attorney known for never backing down.

She organized all the evidence and brought the case against the four of them.

The sun was shining on the day of the trial.

Light poured through the tall courthouse windows, but it brought no warmth to the faces at the defense table.

Falsified evidence. Aggravated assault. Conspiracy.

One verdict after another was handed down.

Stellan, Leonie, Orson, and Iona finally faced the consequences of what they had done.

As we left the courtroom, Iona rushed toward me in tears.

“Sabine, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She grabbed my hand.

“I know nothing I say can change anything now, but I need you to know that I really did think of you as my best friend.”

Orson dropped to his knees.

“Sabine, I’m sorry. I failed Mom and Dad.”

“I don’t deserve to call myself your brother, and I’m not asking you to forgive me. Just take care of yourself from now on. Don’t ever trust someone like me again.”

I stood there and listened until they were finished.

My eyes burned, but I didn’t let the tears fall.

I pulled my hand from Iona’s grasp and stepped back.

“Goodbye.”

“Don’t ever come looking for me again.”

Then I turned, walked out of the courthouse, and got into the car taking me back to Kestrel Point.

The city slipped past the window, carrying the memories of everything that had happened there farther and farther behind me.

At Kestrel Point Medical Center, I would keep practicing medicine.

I would return to the operating room and keep fighting to pull patients back from the edge of death.

I would take care of myself and build a life of my own.

But I would never shed another tear for anyone who didn’t deserve it.

From that day on, our lives went separate ways.

The fog had finally lifted, and the world ahead of me was wide open.