At the End of the Tunnel

“Everything that was said was just a means to an end. From the start, Chloe is the only one Elijah has ever loved.”

With that, Tyler dislocated my jaw. An agonizing pain spread through my lower face, and saliva mixed with streaks of blood spilled down my chin. Tyler let go of me abruptly, making no attempt to hide the sheer disgust in his eyes.

Suddenly, I was reminded of when I was a little girl running a high fever, and Tyler had stayed by my bedside all night long. When I fainted and threw up in the middle of the night, he had scrambled to wipe me clean, his face filled with nothing but pure heartache. Now, I was nothing more than filth to him.

Before my tears could fall, Elijah suddenly grabbed Tyler’s arm.

Tyler was taken aback. “What are you doing?”

Elijah looked at me, and a hint of reluctance flickered in his eyes. “We still need her alive for the bone marrow transplant. Don’t push her too far yet.”

Just then, Tyler’s phone started ringing.

“What? Chloe’s condition has worsened? She needs the umbilical cord blood right now?”

The hesitation and inner struggle on Elijah’s face vanished instantly. “I’ll have the private doctor come in right now to induce the miscarriage and harvest the blood!”

A sharp pain stabbed through my abdomen, and I began frantically thrashing my body.

“No… No! Don’t touch my baby! Elijah, I’ll donate my bone marrow! I’ll sign the consent form! I’ll even agree to the divorce! This is your child, too! Elijah, I beg both of you, just let me go! I will never show my face in front of you again!”

Elijah’s eyes widened, but Tyler cut in before he could speak. “Nora, do you really think I don’t know what your plans are? You want to use this child as a bargaining chip so you can flaunt it in front of Chloe in the future and make her life miserable, don’t you?”

He turned to look at Elijah.

“Elijah, Chloe is waiting. Every single second we waste puts her in more danger. For her sake, is there anything you can’t sacrifice?”

Elijah closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were dead and cold.

“Do it. As long as Chloe gets better, I don't care about anything else.”

Cold medical instruments forced their way into my body, and a sharp, piercing agony consumed my mind. In my hazy state, I felt as though I had returned to the day I first brought Chloe home. The girl we were sponsoring had suddenly lost both of her parents, so I begged my mom and dad to adopt her.

At the time, Tyler had frowned and said, “You shouldn’t bring strangers into our home. She might end up ungrateful for all you’ve done for her.”

When exactly did everything start to change?

Was it when Chloe sat on the ground at the bottom of the stairs with tear-brimmed eyes, whimpering, “Don’t blame Nora for this. I lost my balance, that’s all.”

Or was it when the rumors started flying, and she held her luggage with tears streaming down her face, crying, “I don’t know why Nora hates me so much… Maybe I should never have come here in the first place.”

I had tried my best to explain and fight back. However, every time I spoke, Chloe always found a way to make her tears fall first. With each passing day, Tyler’s gaze grew colder, and my parents’ eyes filled with a mounting disappointment. Just like that, right in front of the person I had brought into our home, I slowly lost absolutely everything.

Then, there was Elijah. For all those years, I had pursued him. I had watched his basketball games, waited for his classes to end, and clumsily learned how to bake the desserts he loved. Yet, he always looked right past me, his gaze somewhere else.

However, when Tyler threw me into the black market, Elijah appeared like a saving grace. Back then, I had buried my face in his chest and cried. I had truly believed that I had finally found my salvation.

How could I have known that I was walking straight into another abyss?