Chapter 125: Don’t You Dare Lie to Me!

Ivy

I was not infertile.

I was never...

My eyes were fixed in a dead stare at Dr. Reyes.

"Could you... I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you correctly."

She sighed and leaned forward. "It seems the IUD has been in place for about three years now. That’s probably why all your efforts to have children have been futile. The birth control and the IUD were meant to..."

"To stop me from having kids."

Someone wanted to make very sure I didn’t get pregnant.

The words echoed in my skull and bounced off the walls of my brain like a pinball machine. My hands were limp in my lap and my entire body was numb. Dr. Reyes was talking about removal options and follow up appointments, but her voice sounded like it came from underwater.

How and when had it been planted inside me without my knowing?

Three years was the same amount of time I had been married to Angel, and the same amount of time I had been taking those godforsaken pills.

I closed my eyes, and suddenly I wasn’t in the exam room anymore. I was back at the beginning, in the first month of my marriage.

The penthouse was still unfamiliar. Everything about it was new, since we had only moved in three weeks after the wedding. Angel had been surprisingly attentive that evening. He came home early and handed me a box of fancy Belgian chocolates.

"For you. A little treat for my beautiful wife."

I had been touched. Foolishly, naively touched.

"Thank you," I whispered, rising on my toes to kiss his cheek. "You didn’t have to."

"I wanted to," he replied, his hand trailing down my back. "Go on. Try one."

I unwrapped the box, my mouth already watering. The chocolates were dark and glossy, each one nestled in its own little paper cup. I picked one up, examined it briefly, and popped it into my mouth.

It was delicious and melted on my tongue, and then the peanut hit.

"Oh," I breathed, my hand flying to my throat.

"Oh no."

Angel frowned. "What? What’s wrong?"

"Peanuts," I gasped, my throat already beginning to tighten. "I’m allergic. I thought I had outgrown it, Dr. Meyers said I had, and these were supposed to be plain."

"I thought so too!" he said, panicking. "I didn’t know. I’m so sorry, darling. Let me get you some water."

But water wasn’t going to fix this. My throat was closing, my chest was tightening, and black spots danced in my vision. I managed to croak out one word before the world went dark.

"Hospital."

"Miss Harpley?"

I opened my eyes, and the memory faded like smoke. Dr. Reyes was watching me curiously.

"Are you alright?"

"I remember," I whispered, my voice hoarse. "I remember when it happened. Three weeks after my wedding, my husband gave me chocolates with peanuts in them. I ended up in the hospital and was unconscious for about two days. I always thought that was strange, because I’ve never been out for two whole days after eating nuts."

Dr. Reyes nodded slowly. "That would be the perfect window. They would have sedated you, and if you felt any discomfort afterward, you would have attributed it to the allergic reaction."

The room spun around me.

"He did this," I breathed. "Angel. He did this to me."

But why? Why would he put an IUD in me and not tell me? Why would he let me believe I was barren? Why would he...

Because he wanted to control me. The doctor who had treated me that night was our family doctor, Dr. Meyers, the same man who had told me I’d outgrown my allergy. I understood then that "outgrown" had been part of the lie, and that he had known and done this on purpose too.

"I need to go," I said, suddenly standing. "I have to see someone. Thank you, Dr. Reyes. I’ll come back later."

I stumbled out of Wisteria General and drove straight to Dr. Meyers’s clinic. He had been our family doctor for ten years.

He had treated my colds and my allergies, he had also tended to my mother before she died, and he was the one who had finally explained why I couldn’t have children when every other hospital had failed.

He was a kind man with a gentle voice who had always made me feel safe. He was also, apparently, a fucking liar.

I stormed into his building, the biggest private hospital in Wisteria with its marble lobby and humming elevators.

"Dr. Meyers’s office," his receptionist perked up when she saw me. "How may I..."

"Is he in? I need to see him now."

The receptionist, who was used to my calm self, hesitated. "Miss Kingsley? Is everything alright?"

"It will be after I see Dr. Meyers. Tell him Harper’s here."

She nodded glumly, called his line, spoke with him for a moment and then handed me the phone.

"Harper? Child, what’s wrong?"

"Can I come up?"

"Of course, dear. Just breathe, okay?"

You can take your advice and shove it. I handed the phone back and stormed to the elevator.

I found Dr. Meyers in his huge office, cluttered with books and framed medical certificates. He rose when I entered, his arms already open for a hug.

"Harper! My dear, you look..."

"Did you know?"

His smile faltered. "Know what?"

"Did you know there’s an IUD inside me?"

"An IUD?" He frowned, playing dumb. "What are you talking about?"

"Don’t!" I yelled, slapping my palm on his desk.

"Don’t you dare lie to me, Uncle Meyers. I just came from an OB-GYN. There is an IUD in my uterus. It has been there for about three years, and guess what? I don’t have uterine hypoplasia. What the fuck is going on?"

He blinked, his composure cracking. "Well, that’s certainly surprising. Let me check your records..."

"You have my records! You’ve always had my records! You were there that night, when Angel fed me peanuts and I almost died!"

He wouldn’t look at me.

"You knew," I whispered in horror. "You knew, and you let me believe I was barren. You let me believe it was my fault. Do you have any idea what that did to me? How many nights I cried? How many times I apologized to Angel for being broken?"

Dr. Meyers sighed, a long, weary sound, and sank back into his chair.

"Sit down, Harper."

"I don’t want to sit. I want answers."

"Sit down, and I’ll give them to you."

"Give them to me standing. What did Angel pay you? Give me answers or I’ll rip this place apart!"

"Oh, come on, don’t be silly," he snapped. "You wouldn’t be able to do that."

"Don’t dare me, Uncle Meyers," I cried through gritted teeth. "I will sue this hospital. My father will..."

"Your father was the one who paid for the procedure."