Chapter 4

Summer’s POV

My mind drifted back to the year our child died.

I was in my early thirties, working at a small firm. My job was demanding, filled with back-to-back meetings.

Before heading out that morning, I entrusted our son to Sean, asking him to take him to his hospital office.

"As long as he stays in your office, he won't make a sound," I reminded him repeatedly, buttoning our son's coat and slipping his favorite toy into his pocket. "Do not let him wander off alone. Do you hear me?"

Sean had just been promoted to attending physician back then. Standing tall in his crisp white coat, he waved me off impatiently. "I got it. It's not a big deal."

That afternoon, right in the middle of an important meeting, my phone vibrated on the table.

I glanced down. It was Sean's number. I pressed ignore.

Halfway through the meeting, it buzzed twice more. I switched it to silent and shoved it back into my purse.

When the meeting finally ended and I called back, the phone rang for what felt like an eternity before connecting. The voice on the other end didn't belong to Sean.

It was the police.

"Is this Summer?" The voice was strictly official. "Something has happened to your child here. Please come to the hospital immediately."

"What happened?" I heard my own voice trembling. "What do you mean something happened? Where is my son?"

There was a heavy pause on the line, followed by some muffled words.

I couldn't hear clearly. I asked three times, but whatever department they named, I couldn't remember a single syllable.

Stumbling out of the conference room, I sprinted down flight after flight of stairs. By the time I reached my car, my hands shook so violently I couldn't insert the key.

When I finally arrived at the hospital, a dense crowd had gathered outside. Yellow-and-white police tape fluttered starkly under the blazing sun.

I gave my name. An officer looked at me somberly and lifted the tape.

My legs turned to jelly as I climbed the stairs.

Inside Sean's office, Chloe was the only one there.

Chloe sat on the floor, her white coat soaked through, wet strands of hair plastered against her face.

Seeing me burst in, Chloe lunged forward, grabbing my arm in a death grip, weeping hysterically: "I just turned around to grab a file... Just for one second, and he slipped away... I searched the entire floor, the stairwells, the rooftop... When we finally found him, he was already... already in the water..."

"Why would he go near the water on his own?!" My voice was hollow and cracked. "He was terrified of water! He wouldn't even take a bath without crying..."

Chloe just kept crying, repeating the exact same sentence over and over: it was her fault for not watching him closely enough.

"I really just turned around for a second..." She clung tightly to my sleeve. "Summer, hit me, yell at me, do whatever you want, just please say something..."

I stood frozen, completely numb to her words.

Our son was five years old, on the autism spectrum. He never followed strangers.

Whenever he saw water, he actively walked the other way.

I explained this to everyone afterward.

Not a single person was willing to listen.

Chloe kept vigil outside the morgue doors, weeping the entire night.

She grabbed Sean's sleeve, sobbing over and over that she hadn't meant for it to happen, that she was willing to pay with her life.

Her shrill cries echoed down the hallway, making every passerby turn and look.

Sean caught her trembling hands and patted them gently. "This isn't your fault."

When it came to me, Sean had an entirely different story.

Standing under the harsh hallway lights, rubbing his temples, he said coldly, "When did you ever take proper care of him? All you cared about was your job, your meetings. If you had just spared a little more attention for the boy back then, would we ever have ended up here? What happened to him today is entirely on you."

I parted my lips, desperate to defend myself, but a suffocating lump choked my throat, trapping every word.

That night, I sat alone on the hospital bench until dawn began to break.

My tears had already run completely dry on the drive over after that phone call.

All night long, I waited for him to walk down that hallway, sit beside me, and say those exact words to me just once: *This isn't your fault.*

He gave those words to another woman. To me, he delivered a sentence of pure condemnation.

Over and over, I remembered that morning before walking out the door—the way my son tugged at the hem of my shirt, looking up at me with his wide eyes.

For the next three years, I genuinely believed that I was the one who had failed that child.

Now, in this hospital bed, Sean's voice dragged me back to the present.

"Post the statement first," he said. "Once it's up, we can look into it again."

I looked at him, wanting to laugh, but finding no humor left in me.

*Look into it again.* If those words had come out of his mouth three years ago, I would have traded everything I owned for them.

Now, those words were merely a bargaining chip to wash another woman clean.

I saw it clearly now. My son's death was nothing more than leverage in his hands, pulled out to crush me whenever he needed something done.

He handed me his phone, the screen already lit up, resting on an account page that hadn't seen the light of day in years.

I took it and opened that long-dormant account.

We had created this account together back then.

He had just started his residency, and I was still in college. Sitting side by side in front of an old computer screen, we registered the handle, chose our usernames, and tagged each other.

On our wedding day, I posted a video of the two of us dressed in our wedding attire, him leaning down to slide the ring onto my finger. That clip stayed on the trending page for nine straight days.

After that, I had never logged into it again.

I drew in a deep breath and began typing.

Following his demands, I wrote an explanation clearing Chloe of any wrongdoing.

I typed slowly, deleting whenever I made a mistake, then typing again.

I hit post.

Comments began flooding in one after another—some cursed me for defending her, while others told me to take care of myself.

One comment asked: *Are you and Sean still together right now?*

Staring at those words, my finger hovered over the screen.

The very last post on this account was of those two people dressed in wedding clothes.

I wanted every single person who clicked on this profile to understand one thing: those two people were long gone, and I had absolutely zero ties left with this man named Sean.

I typed a reply: *We got divorced a long time ago.*

After replying, I locked the screen. I could feel Sean's gaze pinned squarely on my face.

I handed the phone back, my hand rock steady.

Sean took the phone, his eyes scanning the reply. His brow twitched, his lips parting and closing without a sound.

He shoved the phone back into his pocket, walked to the door, and paused.

"Get some rest," he said. "There are things to do tomorrow."

The door clicked shut.