Love and Hate Reversed, No Life Left

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After my seventh miscarriage, the doctor handed down a death sentence.

If I got pregnant again and lost it, I would die on the operating table.

To stay alive, I asked Jack Swanson for a divorce for the first time.

The cold disgust on his face cracked, just a little, and he agreed with a sneer.

The next morning I woke locked inside a greenhouse heated to a hundred and forty degrees.

"Sophie James, what makes you think you get to ask me for a divorce?"

"Playing hard to get again? Fine. You can have it."

Jack had Marjorie Weiss in his arms, and his eyes were thick with hatred.

I pounded on the scorching glass in a panic.

"Jack, your illness is bad again!"

"Go take your medicine, now!"

Three years ago, when we still loved each other most, Jack got hurt protecting me.

A severe head injury left him with a disorder of consciousness.

Inside his mind, love and hate are reversed.

The deeper he once loved, the more violently he now hates.

I forced through the pain and reminded him how we used to love each other.

Jack coldly turned the temperature higher.

It felt like every pore on my body was being roasted through.

I collapsed into the pool of blood, and suddenly the doctor's words came back to me.

Jack's disorder of consciousness would surely heal within three years.

Three years, and now one week past it.

So why hadn't his mind recovered?

The question barely circled in my head for a few seconds.

The burning that reached deep into my bones stripped away any ability to think.

Outside the greenhouse, the disgust in Jack's face only grew stronger.

"You make me sick!"

"Every time I think about being loved by a woman like you, it makes me sick to my stomach!"

He spat the words out coldly.

Then Jack raised the greenhouse temperature again.

Even the breath in my nose carried the smell of scorching.

In my daze, I remembered the first time I told Jack I loved him.

The way his face lit up with joy.

"Sophie James says she loves me!"

"I want to tell everyone. Sophie James loves Jack Swanson!"

His cheering voice still echoed in my ears.

I struggled to open my eyes, but what reached me was the sound of Marjorie moaning softly.

"Jack, not here"

"What are you afraid of?"

"I love you. Everyone knows it. What's there to hide?"

Through my blurred vision, Jack was pressing Marjorie down, kissing her, taking what he wanted.

Looking at the love overflowing from his eyes, my heart hurt until I couldn't breathe.

Curled up on the floor, I felt the blood between my legs had almost dried.

From outside the greenhouse, Jack's voice came again.

"Sophie James, did the baby drop out yet?"

The sudden words dragged me back to three years ago.

After the car crash, I cared for the comatose Jack without sleep until I fainted in his hospital room.

When I woke again, I found out I was pregnant.

Full of joy, I went back to his room, ready to tell the unconscious Jack the good news.

I pushed open the door and saw Marjorie rising and falling on top of him.

Jack, just awake, had thick love in his eyes.

He was carefully cradling Marjorie with the hand that still wore our wedding ring.

That day, I all but screamed as I tore Marjorie off of him.

My eyes went hollow, and in a daze I wiped away the traces they had left behind.

As if I were still dreaming, I forced a smile to the corner of my mouth.

"Jack, I'm pregnant."

"Our baby. You already picked out a name for it a long time ago, didn't you?"

I asked it in a hoarse voice.

And Jack kicked me away in disgust.

"Get away from me! Don't touch me!"

"Who told a disgusting woman like you to get pregnant with my child?"

"Get rid of it, now!"

The same words came back to my ears.

I froze, my throat already scalded raw, unable to make a sound.

"Jack, our baby is already gone"

I could no longer feel the heartbeat in my belly, and with numb eyes I stroked it gently.

"It really dropped out?"

"I don't have time to waste on you."

"Little One's about to have his lunch. We're in a hurry to go feed him."

Hearing those two words, Little One.

My heart clenched, and my stomach heaved with an involuntary retch.

"Jack, you can't use our baby's pet name to call some animal"

I forced the words out one by one, fury rising in my chest.

The next second, the greenhouse temperature shot up to a hundred and fifty-eight degrees.

"Who said you could call my Little One an animal!"

"Jack, Sophie has gone way too far!"

"Little One is a baby I raised with my own two hands. He may only be a lizard, but he understands everything!"

"Make her apologize to Little One right now!"

Marjorie clung to Jack's arm, pouting.

The skin where my body met the floor scorched and smoked in the heat.

"Did you hear her?"

"Sophie. Apologize."

Jack's voice came, cold. Before I could react, Marjorie suddenly pulled out her phone and started recording.

"I'm going to film this and send it to Sophie's mother, so she can bear witness for my Little One!"

"And let her get a good look at how the daughter she was so proud of lost to me, a bastard child."

Marjorie's mocking laugh cut into my head.

I froze for a few seconds, then threw my arms up over my head.

A large strip of skin tore off my arm.

The pain choked me.

"Jack, you can't let my mother see me like this!"

"She won't survive it!"

"Jack, you can't"

Tears kept spilling from my eyes as I thought of my mother, already in the late stages of stomach cancer.

I curled myself as tight as I could, trying to block Marjorie's camera.

The next second, Marjorie simply placed a video call to my mother.

"Ms. James, it's Marjorie Weiss, the bastard daughter you despise most."

"I'm calling today just to show you something."

Marjorie's sneer had barely faded.

My mother's panicked voice broke in.

"Sophie? Is that you?"

"Tell Mom where you are, quick!"

"Sophie, does it hurt"

"Mom's coming to save you right now!"

My mother, kept going only by massive doses of painkillers, long since drifting in and out of awareness.

Somehow, from that blurred shape.

She recognized me.

My heart hurt so much it nearly stopped.

I lifted my head and screamed toward Jack.

"Jack!"

"My mother was your teacher too!"

"I'm begging you, don't put her through any more of this fear"

I screamed with everything I had. The words had barely left my mouth.

Through Marjorie's video call, the sound of my mother collapsing hard to the floor came through.

"Oh no! Ms. James fell down!"

"Jack, we need to call 911, quick!"

Marjorie said it out loud, but the phone camera stayed fixed on the wounds all over my body.

"Sophie, Mom's coming to save you"

"Is it those people at school again, using your father's affair to bully you?"

My mother murmured, the words slurring together.

But her body was moving, step by step, toward the window. One foot stepped out.

My tears had nearly run dry.

I screamed until my voice broke.

"Jack, I swear I'll never cling to you again!"

"You hate me, you're disgusted by meI deserve all of it!"

"I never should have loved you. I was wrong!"

Screaming with everything left in me, I dragged myself up and pounded on the scalding glass.

Something flickered across Jack's face.

But it was quickly buried under a wave of hatred.

"Then kneel and apologize to Little One."

"Fine, fine, fine!"

"I apologize! I'll kowtow!"

I dropped to my knees in panic, knocking my head against the floor, thud, thud, thud.

When I lifted my head again, my forehead was covered in blood.

"Jack, I've apologized."

"Now get someone to save my mother"

Before I could finish.

My eyes went wide, my pupils shaking violently.

My mother jumped, from the twenty-third floor.

"Oh dear!"

"Elaine really should be more careful. Fancy mistaking a window for a door."

"Jack, no need to call 911. Let's just ring the crematorium directly."

Marjorie smiled faintly and ended the video call.

Staring at the screen gone black, my mind emptied out, and I dropped to the floor.

"Jack, it's time to feed the little one!"

"Let's hurry."

Marjorie pouted, indifferent.

But Jack froze for a few seconds.

His eyes fixed on me.

Emotion churned and fought behind them.

Then, after those few seconds, it all settled back into calm and hatred.

"Let's go."

He pulled open the greenhouse door and tossed a divorce agreement inside.

"Since the baby in your belly is already gone, sign this and let's get the divorce over with."

The signature line of the divorce agreement was stained with blood.

All at once I thought of Jack, the one who had thrown himself off the seventh floor without hesitation to save me when I was depressed.

Senior year of high school, my father had an affair with Marjorie's mother.

My mother lost her mind and caused a scene at his school.

She stripped Marjorie's mother's clothes off and doused her whole body in paint.

At the school gate she hung a long banner, exposing the record of their affair.

Pushed past my limit, my depression broke loose, and I stood on the seventh floor of the school to jump.

It was Jack who tied a rope around himself and jumped after me without hesitation, holding me tight.

The moments when we once loved each other rose up in my mind.

Lying on the floor, I felt my breath growing weaker and weaker.

I don't know how long it was before a basin of ice water, reeking of alcohol, was suddenly dumped over my head.

"Sophie James, what did you do to the condoms?!"

The violent sting jolted me awake.

I opened my eyes to Jack's face, full of hatred and disgust.

"Marjorie broke out in a full-body allergic reaction and nearly went into shock. Did you do this!"

He roared it at me.

Jack's shirt hung open, covered in kiss marks.

Behind him, Marjorie was covered in red, swollen welts.

"Jack, it hurts so much."

"Am I going to be scarred for life?"

"I love wearing dresses more than anything. Sophie did this on purpose!"

"She did it on purpose!"

"She's jealous that you love me!"

Shrieking it out, Marjorie clawed hard at her own face.

Several vivid red streaks appeared in an instant.

"Sophie James, how can you be so disgusting?"

Jack said it word by word, then picked up his phone and made a call.

"Bring me seafood, as much as you can."

At the word seafood, my body flinched on instinct.

The next second my mouth was pried open and stuffed with fishy seafood, more than I could count.

My throat kept swallowing until I couldn't swallow anymore.

Red welts broke out all over me.

My throat began to close, my face began to swell.

"Sophie James, an eye for an eye."

"Whatever you did to Marjorie, you should suffer the same."

Jack's words faded further and further from my ears.

My consciousness began to peel away from my body, bit by bit.

But someone dragged me and put me into a car.

"Jack, I want the best cosmetic hospital!"

"You know I love being beautiful. I can't be left scarred!"

Marjorie's coaxing voice drifted over.

The welts on her body had already faded, most of them gone.

This wasn't an allergic reaction at all.

Lying in the back seat, I felt the pain in my body slowly disappearing.

My body grew lighter and lighter.

The doctor's warning came back to my ears again.

"Miss James, if you miscarry one more time, you will die!"

Die?

Good.

I closed my eyes, and blurring in front of me, in the confusion of fading consciousness, was Jack.

He spoke, furious and helpless.

"Sophie James, you really don't take care of your own body!"

"You don't even know your own allergies!"

"Once you leave me, who else would carry allergy pills around for you."

The car jolted, and a large box of allergy pills tumbled out.

It landed right in Jack's lap as he drove.

On the box, written in big red marker, were a few words.

Sophie's Own. Three pills each time.

The pills are bitter. Remember to buy a regular sugar milk tea to take them with.

Jack looked down at the few bright red characters.

For a moment his eyes went blank.

Almost without thinking, he picked up the pill box.

"Didn't I throw this out? Why is it still"

But he never finished.

Marjorie's scream cut him off.

"Jack, it hurts so much!"

"We have to get to the hospital!"

Panic all over her face, Marjorie grabbed the big box of allergy medicine and hurled it out the window.

Jack froze, and then the hatred closed over his eyes again.

Ten minutes later the car stopped at the hospital.

Marjorie tugged frantically at Jack to pull him away.

The car door shut.

Then it locked, all the way.

I lay collapsed inside, feeling the heat climb higher and higher.

The allergic reaction spread worse by the second.

The stifling car couldn't match the heat of the greenhouse.

But the space was smaller.

The air was thinner.

Time slipped by, and my nose stopped taking in breath.

My pupils drifted and widened, little by little.

I was finally free.

My awareness no longer trapped in the body, I drifted out of the car.

The first thing I saw was Jack, keeping Marjorie company through her checkup.

The doting, the love were gone from his face.

There was only a trace of irritation.

"Mr. Swanson, that dissociative episode you had me tell her would definitely clear up in three years, it's already been a week."

"Miss James has asked me several times now. I can't bear to keep lying to her..."

The familiar words came out of Jack's phone.

I froze, disbelief filling my eyes.

Then I heard the thick hatred that Jack forced out of his throat.

"Sophie betrayed me first. I'm only punishing her a little!"

"Letting her feel the pain I once felt."

"Three more days and I'll let her know the truth..."

A woman doctor came hurrying over.

"Mr. Swanson, I haven't been able to reach Miss James at all. I need to know how the baby is."

"Baby?"

Jack frowned.

The woman doctor spoke quickly.

"Miss James didn't tell you?"

"Her body can't support another miscarriage."

"If she loses another one, she'll die!"

She got every word out and still had more she wanted to say.

Then, over by the Cayenne not far off, someone suddenly shouted.

"It's boiling hot in this car, she'll die in there!"

"Somebody get her out!"

The car window shattered.

My unrecognizable body was lifted out.

"She's not... she's not breathing!"

The panicked voice reached Jack's ears, every word of it.

The thick hatred gathered in his eyes scattered bit by bit, like storm clouds blown apart.

"What do you mean, Sophie's gone?"

"I'm not done punishing her. How can she die?!"

The instant he heard I was gone, Jack fell apart completely.

His mind went blank, lost.

"Sophie!"

"What gives you the right to die?!"