Chapter 97

Chapter 97

Natalie was in so much pain that she couldn’t even speak. Cold sweat drenched her hair, gluing it to her forehead. She just clutched her lower abdomen and moaned in agony.

Rosie immediately threw back the covers to see what was wrong, and as she did, a pungent metallic smell of blood filled the air. Natalie’s pajama bottoms were wet through with blood on one side!

“Oh my God…” Rosie screamed, her voice laced with terror. She spun around to grab her phone. Natalie needed an ambulance, and fast!

But as she turned, Natalie grabbed the hem of her clothes, saying, “Don’t call anyone…”

“What else can we do?” Rosie was nearly incoherent with fright.

Natalie had some medical knowledge and understood what was happening.

“Just… get some hemostatic drugs… It’ll be okay…” she gasped out between breaths.

“I’ll go get the meds. Don’t move! I’ll be right back!” With tears and snot mingling on her face. Rosie grabbed her purse and bolted out the door.

The pain was blurring Natalie’s consciousness, her body cold and clammy with sweat. She couldn’t even tell if she was bleeding or just sweating profusely.

It was a complication left over from a car accident and a difficult childbirth. The muscles in her lower body had become rigid, spasming with excruciating pain whenever her period came. But it had never been as bad as this.

The painkillers were in her suitcase right by the bed. She tried to get out of bed to reach them, but as she pushed herself up, she collapsed toward the floor.

“Hey, little dummy!”

She must have been dreaming. As she fell, she didn’t even feel the pain, but she heard someone near her and was calling her “little dummy“.

It had been years since anyone had called her that.

Natalie had struggled with selective mutism for a while when she was little, back when Audrey and Samuel were still together.

She hardly remembered how she developed the condition, but it was likely due to her parents” tumultuous relationship.

Lydia didn’t need to keep threatening her not to speak of their dirty laundry because Natalie couldn’t express herself.

It was only when she embarked on her elementary school years that she gradually began to

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Chapter 7

overcome it. So, when she first arrived at the Howard family, she was practically silent, which led the family to nickname her “ttle dummy” behind her back.

But one person would call her that to her face, always with an impatient look and tone, never using her real name.

To Natalie, it became a unique term of endearment between her and Brian, a sign of a close bond between them.

Brian almost had a little sister once, but the baby girl died in utero, suffocated due to lack of oxygen.

The tragedy was sparked by his mother’s discovery of Audrey’s affair, which led to a fierce argument with Brian’s father. Amid a snowy winter, six months pregnant, she plunged into an icy pond, resulting in the loss of the child.

On Natalie’s first day at the Howard family, Audrey had sent her to bring fruit to Brian as a gesture of goodwill Natalie, obedient to Audrey, carried the fruit platter into Brian’s room.

She could still vividly recall the mixture of disgust, repulsion, and hatred on Brian’s face when he first set eyes on her. But he just snatched the fruit platter harshly from her hands, told her to get out, and didn’t do anything more extreme.

What happened that day haunted Natalie’s dreams, constantly making her wonder if Brian saw her as a substitute for his lost sister.

She often thought of what would happen if she hadn’t listened to Audrey that day and approached Brian. What followed might never have happened. The Howard family wouldn’t have accepted her, and she would have had to return to Samuel’s side, never staying on with the Howard family.