SERENA
A sharp excruciating pain shot through my head. I slowly opened my eyes, groggily taking in my surroundings. Everything felt foggy, like I was swimming through thick haze. I tried to sit up, but a sharp pain shot through my side, making me gasp. I fell back into the pillow, my head spinning.
As I looked around, I realized I was in a hospital. The beeping of machines and the faint smell of antiseptic filled the air.
"You're awake?" I heard someone say. That voice sounded oddly familiar. I slowly turned my head to the direction where the voice came from.
I frowned at that instant. Gabe? What was he doing here?
I took my eyes away from him. He was the last person I wanted to see.
"Wh_what are you doing here?" I asked in a whisper. I tried to remember how I got here, but my memories were hazy.
Fragments slowly started to come back to me. The sharp excruciating pain I felt, the knife, the feeling of lying in the pool of my own blood, everything came running back.
My eyes widened instantly. I tried to sit up, ignoring the unbearable pain I felt in my stomach area. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I tried to blink them back.
I only wanted to hear one thing, just one thing and all this pain would go away. I took my hand to my belly, where I felt the agonizing pain. I looked down to see bandages wrapped around my torso. I gingerly touched the wound, wincing in pain.
"Do you want me to call Guilio?" I heard Gabe ask. I turned to look at him.
"Who's that?" I asked curious.
"My_" just when Gabe was about to answer me, the door to the room slid open, and a man walked in.
He looked to be in his early thirties, and very handsome. His white perfectly ironed coat gave him away that he was a doctor. He walked closer to me with his medical chart in hand and his stethoscope on his neck.
"Hello Miss Cordinni. How are you feeling now?" He asked, but all I wanted to know was how she was doing.
"How is she? Is she alright?" I asked, worry, and fear evident in my tone. I tried desperately to be calm and collected, but I just couldn't. I needed her to be safe.
"She is okay right? Nothing happened to her? Yes?" I said with a faint smile, trying to be as positive as I could ever be.
The doctor sighed and my heart dropped down to my stomach. My smile immediately faded and my eyes now held fear. I held my stomach ever so tightly, trying to feel her.
'Mia, just a kick, so that I could know that you are fine,' I whispered to myself desperately. I knew it was way too early for her to move around because she was still around five months old, but this was my only hope.
"Please doctor, is she alright?" I tried to blink back tears. The doctor's words I heard next sent shivers down my spine.
"I'm sorry Ms. Cordinni, your baby couldn't make it"
"The impact of the knife caused great damage to her and she couldn't fight it"
"I'm deeply sorry"
No, no, no. This couldn't be. I felt my world shatter at that instant. It felt like I couldn't breathe. I struggled to find air, but it wasn't coming.
I sat there as I looked at the doctor, deep in his eyes. I wanted to find a lie. He was definitely lying to me. It had to be a prank.
"It's a prank right?" I began to laugh.
"Where are the cameras?" I began to look around.
"Okay, i get it, you can come out now" i screamed trying to tell whoever was outside that i understood it was a prank.
"It was a nice prank" I continued laughing, blinking back my tears.
"Ms. Cordinni, we are sorry but this is not a prank" my smile slowly faded.
If it wasn't a prank, was she really dead? I shook my head to ignore the thought and feeling. Let it be a prank.
"Here" the doctor said as he handed me a file. With shaky hands and drops of sweat on my face, I slowly took it from him. I used the back of my palm to clean the continuous tears that streamed down my eyes.
I opened up the file and before me was a tiny baby. It's tiny feet and hands curled up in a ball shape. I looked at it further and that was when I noticed something around the head. It looked like an injury.
I looked up at the doctor. Was this my child? The doctor nodded to confirm my suspicions. My lips began trembling. It was really my child.
I was looking right at Mia. Her head injury was so visible and huge.
"The knife had pierced her fragile skull and shattered it, and the impact had killed her instantly" the doctor said.
I gasped for air as I imagined what she had had to go through, the pain she must have felt. Tears streamed down my eyes as I tightly held the file in my hand.
As I looked at my daughter, it felt like my heart had been ripped into shreds leaving no piece untouched. I wanted to cry, scream, anything at all to lessen this pain I felt.
"How many days have I been here?" I asked, my voice threatening to fail me.
"Three days Miss, and during these three days, we were able to perform a surgery to successfully remove the baby" the doctor said and I instantly felt the urge to puke. I took my hand to my mouth, holding it in. Fresh tears streamed down my eyes.
All I ever wanted was a happy life. I never asked for much. I thought I had the closest and genuine people I could call family, only to be betrayed and stabbed by the ones I loved.
I still couldn't believe this had happened. It all felt like a dream to me, but I knew this was real.
I had just narrowly escaped death, and I had lost my child.
I looked up at the doctor. "Did anyone come to look for me?"
"By the name Stephan?" I asked, sniffing back tears.
The doctor shook his head and I felt my chest tighten. "No ma'am, no one had been here"
My heart clenched in hurt. My fiance couldn't come to look for me?
"Are you sure?" I asked as I tried to move but only winced in pain.
The doctor nodded, and I could feel fresh tears forming in my eyes.
I thought even with the fact that I caught him cheating, he would at least come to visit me, or didn't he know that I was here?
"Ehm, i think i have the answer to that" i heard Gabe say, and that was when i finally acknowledged that he was really here.
How did he even get here in the first place? Oh wait, I had called him. Well I didn't have a choice.
I frowned at him. Gabe was like my sworn enemy, and we never worked hand in hand. I despised him so much.
He always tried to compete with me, and annoyingly he always won.
"What do you mean?" Confusion evident in my tone.
He took out an envelope and dropped it on my lap. I curiously went for it and opened it up.
In it, there were five pictures of two people. As I looked closely, I felt my hand go limp and the pictures dropped on the bed.
Stephan and Ariel were smiling in the pictures and looking all lovey and dovey in the picture.
"This was taken just today, two hours ago, before you woke up" Gabe said as i stared at the pictures, my eyes wide opened in shock.
"I_i_i_i" I tried to speak, but no words came out. As I stared deeply at the pictures, it felt like the betrayal had sliced through my heart. No, it really did pierce my heart.
The two people I had loved so much had betrayed me. I felt pure hatred at that instant. I wanted nothing more than to kill them with my bare hands. I wanted to ruin them, to end them for what they did to me.
They tried to kill me, and my child, and now they were on a date? Like I never existed?
"No! No! No!" I screamed in pain as I looked down at the picture.
"What did I ever do to them? I took them as family"
"I gave them everything"
"I gave Stephan everything. I was there for him" i let out those words with extreme pain in my heart.
The pain I felt could not be compared to another.
"I want revenge" I said, pain clear in my tone.
"I want them to pay" Tears streamed down my eyes.
As I looked at Ariel in the picture, the memory of her stabbing me was fresh in my head. I had done nothing wrong to her and yet she betrayed me.
"I can help you get revenge" Gabe's words brought me out of my thoughts. I looked at him confused.
"What?" I asked, confusion laced in my tone.
Gabe turned to the doctor, and the doctor immediately bowed and left.
"Marry me"