Chapter 2 - I had never considered that another life might be growing inside me.
Julian went completely still.
“What?” he whispered.
Dr.
Reed looked between us.
“The obstetric team performed an ultrasound after surgery.
There is something else you both need to understand.”
He paused.
“There are two babies.”
I stared at him.
“Two?”
“Twins.”
The word seemed to strike the room like lightning.
Twins.
I had almost died.
And somewhere inside my injured body, two tiny lives had endured the violence meant for me.
I covered my mouth.
“Are they alive?”
Dr.
Reed pulled his chair closer.
“Both showed cardiac activity on the most recent ultrasound, which is encouraging.”
I started crying.
He waited until I could breathe again before continuing.
“But I need to be careful about what I promise.
You’ve experienced serious trauma, surgery, and significant blood loss.”
He explained that the pregnancy would need close monitoring.
There were risks he couldn’t dismiss, and no one could guarantee what would happen in the coming weeks.
I listened, touching the blanket over my abdomen with trembling fingers.
Two babies.
My babies.
Julian made a broken sound beside the bed.
“I didn’t know.”
Neither of us answered.
He covered his face.
“I swear, I didn’t know.”
I turned my head slowly toward him.
Something inside me hardened.
He sounded devastated by the possibility that he had hurt our unborn children.
But I was the woman he had actually stabbed.
He had known I was alive when he raised the knife.
He had known I was his wife.
Apparently, that had not been enough.
“Nora,” he whispered.
I looked at him.
His eyes were wet.
“I’m so sorry.”
I could barely contain the words rising in my throat.
Sorry for what?
For the knife?
For the blood?
For leaving me alone on the rug?
Or simply for discovering there were consequences he hadn’t anticipated?
Instead, I said nothing.
Dr.
Reed continued explaining my recovery, and Julian nodded like a concerned husband taking responsibility for his family.
Every movement felt obscene.
He asked about medication.
He asked about follow-up appointments.
He asked whether stress could affect the pregnancy.
He even asked whether the babies had been frightened by what happened.
I wanted to tell him that children weren’t the only people capable of feeling fear.
When the doctor finally stepped away to speak with a nurse, Julian pulled his chair closer.
He reached for my hand.
I let it rest motionless beneath his fingers.
“Nora, sweetheart,” he whispered.
“Do you remember what happened?”
I watched his face carefully.
There was something waiting behind the concern.
A question he desperately needed answered.
For one dangerous second, I considered telling him everything.
I wanted him to know I remembered the knife entering my body.
I wanted him to know I remembered him stepping over me.
Most of all, I wanted him to know I had heard him say they were free.
But then I remembered Selina’s smile.
If Julian believed I remembered, he might become dangerous again.
And this time, there were three lives he could threaten.
So I allowed confusion to settle over my expression.
“What happened?”
I whispered.
The change in him was almost immediate.
His shoulders relaxed.
A flicker of relief crossed his face before he lowered his eyes.
He squeezed my hand.
“Oh, Nora.”
He sighed as though I had just confirmed some terrible fear.
“You really don’t remember.”
I looked at the blanket.
“Everything feels blurry.”
He leaned closer.
“We had an argument.”
I remained silent.
“Selina came to the house because she’d been hurt.”
My stomach tightened.
“You were upset,” he continued.
“More upset than I’ve ever seen you.”
“About what?”
“About her and me.”
He looked appropriately ashamed.
“I know I haven’t handled things well between us, but that afternoon you lost control.”
My fingers curled beneath the blanket.
“You started screaming at Selina,” he said.
“Then you grabbed the knife from the table.”
I stared at him.
He was saying it so calmly.
Not like someone inventing a lie, but like a man repeating a story he had rehearsed until it sounded true.
“I tried to stop you,” he continued.
His voice broke at exactly the right moment.
“There was a struggle, and you fell against the knife.”
I looked at my bandaged abdomen.
“Twice?”
Julian hesitated.
Only for a second.
Then he nodded.
“It happened so fast.”
I felt cold.
According to my husband, I had attacked his mistress, taken a knife, and somehow injured myself twice while he tried to save me.
He was turning my attempted murder into my own violent mistake.
I swallowed.
“Did you call the ambulance?”
His eyes shifted away.
“I panicked.”
“Julian?”
“I thought you were dead.”
He said it with such practiced sorrow that someone who didn’t know the truth might have comforted him.
“I didn’t know what to do,” he continued.
“I was scared, Nora.”
I remembered the words he had actually spoken.
We’re free.
He reached toward my face.
“I’m going to make this right.”
I wanted to move away.
Instead, I closed my eyes and let him believe I was exhausted.
He stayed another twenty minutes, telling me about how terrified he had been during surgery and how he couldn’t imagine losing me.
He mentioned our babies several times.
He said they were a second chance.
He said we could start over.
He said what happened should remind us how precious life was.
I listened to the man who had nearly ended mine explain what I was supposed to learn from the experience.
When he finally left, I kept my eyes closed until I heard the door click.
Then I began shaking so badly that the monitor beside me sounded an alarm.
Dr.
Reed returned.
He checked my breathing, adjusted the bed, and waited until I was calmer.
“Nora,” he said quietly, “I need to ask you something.”
I looked at him.
“Do you really not remember what happened?”
The room went still.
For several seconds, I couldn’t answer.
I was afraid of what would happen if I said the truth aloud.
Then I looked toward the closed door.
“I remember everything.”
Dr.
Reed didn’t interrupt.
“My husband stabbed me twice,” I whispered.
“And he left me there.”
He remained beside the bed.
“Are you telling me the injuries were intentional?”
I nodded.
Tears slipped down my temples.
“He believed I was dead.”
Dr.
Reed’s expression changed.
He didn’t look doubtful.
He looked serious.
“Thank you for telling me.”
He told me the hospital could restrict visitors and help contact investigators.
I asked him not to let Julian know what I had said.
He promised the medical team would prioritize my safety.
Then I asked again for my belongings.
A nurse named Emily brought a sealed personal-effects bag later that evening.
Inside were my phone, wedding ring, damaged pajamas, and smartwatch.
Seeing the ring almost broke me.
Three years earlier, Julian had slid it onto my finger while promising he would never stop choosing me.
Now it lay in a plastic bag beside clothing stained with my blood.
Emily placed the watch on a charger.
I sat in silence while its dark screen remained blank.
Every second felt unbearable.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“A recording.”
“Of what?”
I looked at her.
“The truth.”
The watch finally lit up.
My fingers were trembling so badly that Emily helped steady it.
I opened Voice Memos.
There was one new recording from the afternoon of the attack.
Its duration appeared beneath the file name.
Eighteen minutes and forty-three seconds.
I stared at those numbers.
I had no idea how much of the conversation it had captured, or whether the microphone had been blocked by my body.
For all I knew, there might be nothing but fabric scraping against the watch.
Then I pressed play.
The first sound was breathing.
Weak, uneven, frightening breathing.
Mine.
I covered my mouth.
And then Julian’s voice filled the room.
“She’s gone.
I…
I did it, Selina.
Just like you said.”
A pause followed.
“We’re free.”
Emily went completely still.
I stared at the watch.
For the first time since waking up, I knew I wasn’t trapped inside my husband’s version of the truth.
The truth had survived with me.
I had imagined listening to the recording would make me feel powerful.
Instead, it made me feel as though I were lying on the rug again.
The machines in my hospital room disappeared beneath the sound of Julian’s voice, and I could almost smell the apple he had been cutting before everything happened.
Emily sat beside me without speaking.
Neither of us wanted to interrupt the recording.
After Julian said they were free, there was a long silence.
Then Selina spoke.
“Don’t stand there staring at her.”
Julian’s voice shook.
“There’s so much blood.”
“Then stop looking at it.”
“I think she’s dead.”
“You already said that.”
Something scraped across the floor.
I remembered hearing that sound while I was losing consciousness.
At the time, I hadn’t known what caused it.
Now I wondered whether Julian had moved the coffee table to avoid stepping in the blood.
“Selina,” he whispered, “what have I done?”
Her answer came immediately.
“You protected me.”
The words made my hands clench.
“No,” Julian said.
“I used the knife.”
“You warned her.”
“That doesn’t mean I was supposed to stab her.”
A pause.
Then Selina’s voice became sharp.
“You told me you were tired of her controlling everything.”
“I didn’t say I wanted this.”
“You said she would never let us be happy.”
I closed my eyes.
For months, Julian had accused me of refusing to let him live his life.
Apparently, asking my husband to end his affair had become an act of oppression in his mind.
On the recording, he began breathing faster.
“I should call an ambulance.”
“Are you insane?”
“Selina, she’s my wife.”
“And what do you think the police will say when they find her like that?”
“They’ll ask what happened.”
“Exactly.”
Julian said nothing.
Selina lowered her voice.
“Listen to me carefully.
She attacked me first.”
I felt my stomach turn.
“She cornered me downtown,” Selina continued.
“She threatened me, and when I came here, she went crazy.”
Julian whispered, “But she didn’t.”
The words struck me harder than I expected.
He knew.
He had known before the stabbing that Selina’s story wasn’t true.
I looked at Emily.
She was staring at the watch with one hand pressed against her mouth.
The recording continued.
“She never touched you,” Julian said.
“That doesn’t matter now.”
“You said she’d back down if I scared her.”
“And you were the one who used the knife.”
His breathing grew louder.
“I didn’t think you’d push it that far,” he whispered.
Selina answered with a coldness I would never forget.
“Don’t blame me because you lost control.”
I realized then that Selina had not simply arrived at my house with a lie.
She had arrived expecting Julian to threaten me.
She had counted on his anger, his guilt over the affair, and his need to prove that protecting her mattered more than protecting me.
Perhaps she hadn’t expected two stab wounds.
Perhaps she had.
The recording couldn’t tell me everything she had intended, but it showed something I had been too frightened to understand on the rug.
Julian hadn’t been fooled in the way I originally believed.
He had chosen her story over the truth because the lie gave him permission to do what he already wanted.
On the recording, Julian began asking what they should tell the police.
Selina answered him patiently, like a teacher instructing a child who wasn’t learning quickly enough.
“Say Nora picked up the knife.”
“But the knife was in my hand.”
“Then say you tried to take it away.”
“There were two wounds.”
“Say you don’t remember exactly how it happened.”
Julian swore under his breath.
Selina continued.
“She was jealous.
Everybody knows she’s jealous.”
I wanted to throw the watch across the room.
My marriage had been falling apart, and the woman helping destroy it was preparing to use my pain as proof that I deserved what happened.
“People know we’ve had problems,” Selina said.
“They’ll believe she lost her temper.”
Julian asked again whether they should call someone.
This time, Selina told him an ambulance would bring police officers who might question him before he had time to calm down.
She suggested they leave and return later, after deciding what to say.
I listened to the sound of footsteps, the front door opening, and Julian asking one last time whether I might still be breathing.
Selina said, “Then she should have known when to stop.”
The door closed.
For several minutes, the watch recorded nothing but distant household sounds.
I could hear the air conditioning.
A faint electronic chime came from somewhere beyond the living room.
And underneath everything was my breathing, growing weaker.
Then there was another sound.
Keys.
A door opening.
A woman’s voice calling my name.
“Nora?”
Mrs.
Alvarez.
I heard her footsteps approach.
Then came a scream so full of terror that tears spilled down my face.
“Oh, my God.
Nora!”
The recording captured her calling emergency services.
She gave the address, described what she saw, and begged for an ambulance.
I heard her kneel beside me.
“Stay with me, sweetheart,” she whispered.
“Please stay with me.”
Then the file ended.
Eighteen minutes and forty-three seconds.
That was how long my watch had recorded after I touched the screen.
The first part revealed the conspiracy to lie.
The last part revealed the woman who had refused to leave me alone.
Emily stopped the recording.
Neither of us spoke for a long time.
Finally, she said, “Nora, the police need to hear this.”
“I know.”
“Your husband can’t be allowed near you.”
I looked toward the door.
“He thinks I don’t remember.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re safe.”
She was right.
I had been so focused on keeping him unaware that I hadn’t fully considered what would happen if he discovered the recording.
Dr.
Reed returned when Emily called him.
I told him what we had heard.
He listened to the opening section, and his expression grew increasingly grave.
He didn’t ask why I had secretly recorded my husband.
He didn’t ask whether I might have misunderstood.
May you like
He simply said, “We need to preserve this properly.”
Detective Mara Bennett arrived later that night.
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