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I was on my ninety–ninth specialist when the final verdict came down: I was barren. Lifelong. Hearing this, my husband, Joshua, didn’t hesitate. He stormed out, leaving me in the sterile quiet of the doctor’s office.
I chased him to his high–rise office, the one with the panoramic city view, but stopped short of the door. From inside, I could hear the rhythmic sounds of… intimate conversation.
“Mila,” Joshua’s voice was a low murmur, “have my baby. Be my wife.”
My hand, raised to knock, fell limp at my side.
Back at our house, I started taking down the wedding photos. Tucked behind one of the frames, I found it: Joshua’s old journal, unt- ouched for years. My heart, a tight knot of rage and sorrow, found an outlet. I snatched a pen and scrawled eight furious words
across the page: Joshua Sterling, we are over!
And then, something impossible happened. New words appeared on the page, materializing out of nowhere.
J
“Who are you? Why are you writing in my journal?”
My anger momentarily eclipsed my fear. I wrote back: I’m Vivienne. And I’m writing this because you don’t love her.
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The words flickered into existence on the page, one by one.
“You’re Vivienne?”
“Impossible. Who are you, really?”
“How can you be in my journal?”
Three rapid–fire questions.
My bravado evaporated. I shrieked and threw the journal across the room as if it were on fire. It took me a full two minutes to com-
pose myself before I crept over and picked it back up. Staring at the ghostly script, I shakily wrote my own question.
“This is your journal? Who are you?”
“I’m Joshua Sterling.” Chapter
The five words appeared, neat and self–assured.
My hand trembled. The Joshua on the other end of this journal… was he eighteen years old?
Before I could process it, more words appeared, hurried and anxious. “You haven’t answered my question. Who are you?”
I quickly scribbled my reply. “I’m Vivienne. I’m thirty–one.”
“The man you will become is going to betray me. So, the boy you are now… stay away from me.”
The journal went silent.
Ten seconds later, new words appeared, carved into the paper as if by a knife. “IMPOSSIBLE!”
Through the journal, I could almost see him–the eighteen–year–old Joshua, his face a mask of defiant anger, making a vow his future self would shatter. Back then, his love was so pure, so absolute. He could never have imagined the cruel, heartless man he would become.
I was about to write back when the front door swung open. A gust of wind swept through the house, flipping the pages of the jour- nal. I snapped it shut just as the thirty–one–year–old Joshua stormed in, immediately starting to tear the place apart.
used to be that whenever he came home he’d wrap his arms around me from behind puzzling my hair like a cat I’d squirm and
Chapter 1
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push him away, laughing, and he’d just pull me closer, whispering sweet nothings that made me blush.
Now, his eyes didn’t even linger on me for half a second.
After ten minutes of fruitless searching, he finally turned to me, his face a mask of irritation. “Have you seen the family heirloom?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. “Mila’s having a boy. The heirloom always goes to the firstborn son.”
A sharp pain lanced through my chest. On our wedding day, in front of all our guests, he had placed that heirloom–a jade pendant
-in my hands for safekeeping.
His younger brother had been furious. “Joshua, that’s meant to be passed down through generations! Everyone knows Vivienne can’t have children. What right does she have to hold onto our family’s legacy?”
It had been thirteen years since the accident that had damaged my body, leaving me unable to conceive. No one ever dared to me- ntion it in front of Joshua. But on our wedding day, his own brother had thrown it in my face. The atmosphere had turned instantly suffocating. All eyes were on me.
Joshua had squeezed my hand, then slapped his brother across the face. “Even if Viv can’t have children,” he’d declared to the stunned room, “she is the only one worthy of keeping it.”
In that moment, I knew I had married the right man.
For five years, I had cherished that pendant. And now, he was about to break that sacred vow himself.
I opened the drawer in front of me and took out the jade, intricately carved with characters for “peace” and “safety.”
Joshua snatched it from my hand, a broad, happy smile spreading across his face. “Finally. If Mila wears this, she and the baby will
be safe and sound.”
Only then did he bother to look at me, the coldness in his eyes undisguised. “The heirloom is meant to be passed down. Mila is
carrying my child now. It belongs to her.”
He turned to leave. “I have to go see Mila. I’ll come back and celebrate our anniversary with you when I’m done.” At the door, he paused, tossing a final, pitying glance over his shoulder. “Don’t worry. Even after Mila has the baby, your position as Mrs. Sterling is
secure.”
