A Journey from Bitterness to Truth

With a slap that echoed through the hushed room, familiar pain shot across Matilda’s cheek as tears welled up in her eyes. In a sudden surge of defiance, she snatched the urn from Yvan’s grasp and hurled it to the ground, shattering it before the stunned onlookers.

“Yvan, let me make this crystal clear,” Matilda spat, her voice thick with emotion, “I would never stoop so low! You can choose not to believe me, but I’ll be damned if I let some dead woman lord over me. You’ll get what’s coming to you, just you wait!“–

Yvan’s roar was like that of a wounded animal as he grasped Matilda by the throat. “How dare you!”

“Go ahead, kill me!” Matilda sneered, a hollow laugh escaping her lips. “You trust her so blindly. yet you disregard my innocence. What’s stopping you? You think I haven’t noticed how you take advantage of my love? You want to crush my heart? Do it, Yvan! It’s already in tatters; what’s one more stab to me?”

The police stepped in, yanking Matilda away and dragging her toward the squad car.

The crowd could only watch this tragic spectacle, the sight of Yvan’s twisted, handsome face filling them with dread.

Yvan’s gaze followed Matilda’s retreating figure like a curse. “You’ll never be able to atone for this, Matilda!”

Matilda’s laughter was bitter as tears forced their way down her cheeks. “Oh, Yvan, you’ll regret this! For all you know, Rachel’s baby might not even be yours. If you ever realize how wrong you’ve been today… if you ever realize…”

As if the heavens themselves were moved by the scene, rain began to pour down, each cold drop echoing the heaviness in everyone’s hearts. It came down harder and harder, a celestial fury

unleashed.

Lain seemed to cleave through Matilda’s very being as she was shoved into the

The torrential rain

car, her maniacal laughter still piercing the air, a haunting echo in the ears of all who witnessed this grave affair. Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

“Yvan, if I live, I hope never to see your face again. If I die, then that’s the luckiest I’ll ever be!”

Love? Affection? They meant nothing!

It dawned on her, painfully clear at last.

Yvan had left her no way out. Divorced and now bound for jail, she was paying the price for her foolishness with her life.

Matilda’s laughter turned to coughs of blood, and as the window of the police car rolled down, the flashing cameras caught her deranged expression. Yet she didn’t care; her gaze locked on Yvan with a ferocity that belied her unraveling.

12:04

“I’ve made a mistake,” she admitted, her voice suddenly devoid of fight. “Yvan, I’ve realized how terribly I’ve erred…”

Yvan stepped forward, words on the brink of his lips, but the woman before him lifted her head with a hollow gaze that turned the world to ruins in her eyes. “Yvan, the biggest mistake I ever made was falling in love with you…”

Five years of marriage, five years of love, shattered in an instant.

He had never truly trusted her, and so he condemned her without mercy, turning all her sacrifices into an utter farce.

“Yvan, in this life, you owe me so much!” She yelled inwardly.

The police car drove off into the storm, Matilda’s sigh quickly lost in the rain, as ephemeral and numb as her last glance, as an old soul resigned to its fate.

Yvan should have felt triumphant, avenging Rachel… But when the moment actually arrived, he stumbled backward.

A cold wind howled behind him, the icy rain seeping into his bones, chilling his heart.

Why, when it came down to it, did his heart feel hollow, as if missing a piece, at the sound of her murmuring voice, as painful as a needle prick?