Traded For His Assistant

On our fifth wedding anniversary, I took the day off work and spent hours preparing a lavish dinner filled with all of Tracy’s favorite dishes. When he finally walked through the door, he wasn’t alone. He brought half his team from the office—including his new executive assistant, Sadie. “Sadie can’t stand onions,” Tracy said without looking at me as he hung up his coat. “Go pick them out of the dishes.” Then he glanced toward the kitchen. “Do we have any sparkling peach soda? If not, run downstairs and grab a case. Sadie loves it.” When I stood there, frozen, he narrowed his eyes, his tone dropping into a familiar, icy reprimand. “Everyone came over to celebrate us tonight, Regina. Be reasonable.” I opened my mouth, but the words withered in my throat. Turning back to the bedroom, I peeled off the elegant, backless dress I’d picked out just for him, put on a pair of oversized sweatpants, and walked out into the cold night air. By the time I returned, carrying a heavy box of soda that left deep, red ridges across my palms, laughter and raucous cheering echoed from the living room. “Truth or Dare! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” I paused near the entryway, clutching the cardboard box. “I pick Truth,” a sweet, bubbly voice chimed above the noise. It was Sadie, the night’s big winner. She leaned across the coffee table, her eyes glittering with faux innocence as she looked at Tracy. “Tracy, you’ve been married for so long. Do you still love Regina?” The room went dead silent. My heart slammed against my ribs, a sharp, hopeful pang so intense it almost made me forget the burning pain in my fingers. “Yes,” Tracy replied simply. The single word sent a tremor through my chest. “She’s easy to live with,” Tracy continued casually, taking a sip of his drink. “Compliant. Low maintenance. I’m allergic to latex, and she’s had to go through three abortions without ever complaining. She’s a model wife.” A low hum of laughter rippled through the room. I stood in the shadows of the hallway, numbness spreading from the tips of my toes all the way to my head. Something inside me snapped—quietly, cleanly, like a dry twig in the dead of winter. It suddenly felt so agonizingly pointless. I didn’t want to be the compliant one anymore. If I could do it all over again, I thought, I would choose a love where I didn’t have to shrink myself just to be tolerable. … I pushed open the glass door and set the sodas on the dining table, only to find Sadie perched in my usual chair, right beside Tracy. “Thanks so much, Regina! You’re such a good cook,” Sadie cooed, her eyes bright as she effortlessly grabbed a bottle of the peach soda. Before she could unscrew the cap, Tracy snatched it out of her hand. His brow furrowed as his fingers brushed the chilled glass. “It’s icy cold. You shouldn’t be having cold drinks right now.” Sadie reached up playfully to grab it back, but Tracy held it high above her reach. In her attempt to catch it, Sadie tumbled forward, practically collapsing into his lap. The crowd broke into a chorus of catcalls and whistles, entirely unbothered by the intimate display. It was as if this was a routine they had all seen a hundred times before. “Regina,” Tracy called out, his voice completely level. “Sadie’s cramping today. Having an iced drink will make her stomach ache worse. Go brew a pot of warm brown sugar tea with sweet rice.” My throat felt tight, choked with ash. I gave a vague, frantic nod, ducking my head to hide the hot shame flushing across my face. Five years of marriage. Tracy still didn’t know I was violently allergic to peaches. He could never remember my birthday. I couldn’t handle spicy food, yet his absolute favorite was fire-hot Hunan cuisine—which meant a bowl of lukewarm tap water lived permanently beside my plate so I could rinse off every piece of meat before eating it. The food I ate was always washed bare of flavor, rendered soggy and bland. For years, I had convinced myself that Tracy was simply born cold—a distant, quiet man who just didn’t know how to tenderly love a woman. Until Sadie arrived. She was a scholarship student from a impoverished Appalachian town whom I had sponsored through college. When she graduated and moved to our city, Tracy initially resisted my idea of letting her stay in our guest room. Yet slowly, quietly, the shift happened. He learned the name of her favorite pop star. He brought home armfuls of sunflowers because she mentioned loving them. And now, he had even memorized the precise dates of her menstrual cycle. “What are you standing there for?” Tracy’s voice snapped me back. “Go make the tea.” I fled to the kitchen. My hands were shaking so violently I couldn’t tie the strings of my apron. The kitchen door creaked open. Seeing my clumsy efforts, Tracy stepped up behind me and reached around my waist to pull the string tight. The moment his fingers brushed against mine, I flinched as if I’d touched a live wire, pulling back sharply. Tracy frowned. “Regina, just make the tea and join us at the table. Don’t make everyone feel awkward.” I wanted so desperately to ask him: “With Sadie sitting in my chair, where exactly am I supposed to sit?” He didn’t give me the chance to speak. He turned to the upper cupboard and pulled out a set of yellow pastel ceramic tableware. It was a set Sadie had bought when she was staying with us. Tracy used to sneer at it, calling it tacky and immature. Yet after she moved out to her own apartment, I watched him secretly tuck it away into the top shelf, out of sight. On the stove, the pot of water began to boil, thick bubbles popping aggressively. I put on thick oven mitts and lifted the heavy pot. As I turned toward the doorway, a shadow suddenly crossed the threshold. The collision was instantaneous. The sound of shattering ceramic echoed through the apartment, mingled with screaming. Most of the boiling, sticky liquid washed directly over my bare feet and ankles, while a few tiny droplets splashed onto the hem of Sadie’s white dress. “Sadie! Are you okay?” Tracy lunged forward like a frantic shadow. He didn’t even cast a glance at me as I staggered back, gripping the counter to keep from falling. His eyes were wide with a raw, agonizing panic as he inspected Sadie. “Regina, how many times have I told you? I only view Sadie as a little sister. Why do you have to make things so difficult for her?” Tracy turned on me, his face contorted in fury. “You know she has her final board presentation for her internship tomorrow morning! What if she got burned?” A white-hot, agonizing pain radiated from my feet, searing through my nerves. I clamped my jaws together, forcing myself not to let a single tear drop. “You’re right, Tracy,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “I’m useless. I’m impossible. So let’s get a divorce.” Tracy’s anger instantly dissolved into absolute shock. “Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what today is? What kind of ridiculous scene are you trying to pull?” So he “did” remember what day it was. It was our fifth wedding anniversary. Two weeks ago, I had begged him: “Honey, for our fifth anniversary, can we just have a quiet dinner at home and watch a movie together? Just the two of us?” No expensive gifts, no luxury trips. All I had wanted was a single evening of his undivided presence. And now, here I was—drenched in brown, scalded liquid, my bare ankles already blistering into angry, fluid-filled bubbles. I was broken, bleeding, and somehow, I was the one making a scene. “Tracy… it hurts so much,” Sadie sobbed softly, tugging at his sleeve with trembling fingers. Without another word, Tracy scooped Sadie into his arms, turning toward the door. One of his younger male colleagues stood by the dining room, looking uncomfortable. “Tracy… Mrs. Walker looks really badly burned.” Tracy’s footsteps paused for a fraction of a second. He didn’t turn around. “Sadie’s skin prone to keloid scarring. If we don’t treat her burns immediately, she’ll be marked for life.” Then he rushed out, slamming the door behind him. He left me standing alone in the middle of the ruined room. The nearest hospital was six miles away. He had left without an ounce of hesitation. I took a cab to the emergency room, every single step feeling like I was walking on shattered glass. I suddenly remembered the story of the Little Mermaid—giving up her voice, stepping on knives with every movement, all for the sake of love. Was it ever worth it? “How did you get burned this badly without running cold water over it first?” the doctor chid, gently cleansing the wounds with sterile saline. “The blistering is terrible. Even after this heals, you’re likely going to need skin grafts if you want it to look normal.” The doctor was as gentle as possible, but cold sweat drenched my back nonetheless. “Skin grafts.” To cut away the dead, ruined flesh so something healthy could grow back. Maybe my marriage needed the exact same procedure. Cut out the rotten past so I could retain what little dignity I had left. Because of the risk of severe infection, the doctor admitted me to the observation ward for twenty-four hours. In the bed beside mine was an elderly woman who had sliced her hand while chopping vegetables. Her white-haired husband sat beside her, wringing his hands, drowning in self-reproach. “It was just my own clumsiness, dear. It really doesn’t hurt,” the old woman soothed softly. Her husband shook his head, insisting on feeding her broth, acting as though he wished he could bear every ounce of her pain himself. Seeing me stare at them, the old man gently extended a hand and offered me half a sliced apple. “Here, sweetheart. You’re hurt so badly… where’s your family?” I took a bite of the apple. It tasted bitter and sour. “He… he had something very important to handle. He couldn’t come.” At that moment, my phone buzzed repeatedly. It was a barrage of social media updates from Sadie. Photos of an amusement park. Tracy sitting beside her on a brightly lit carousel, his eyes soft and glowing like stars. Sadie twirling with a sparkler while Tracy held up his phone, capturing her laughter, a look of unadulterated adoration on his face. Tracy, a man who suffered from severe acrophobia, was sitting inside a Ferris wheel, smiling gently at the girl across from him. For five years, every time I had asked him to drive back with me to my hometown to visit my ailing father, he would sigh with deep annoyance: “Regina, you know I get terrible motion sickness and vertigo. I can’t handle long trips. Just go by yourself.” It turned out he wasn’t afraid of heights at all. I was simply never worth his courage. That night in the hospital, I watched the old man wake up countless times to adjust his wife’s blankets and fetch her water. And quietly, amidst the cold sterile smell of antiseptic, I wept until every last drop of love I held for Tracy Walker was completely drained. The next morning, a nurse walked in holding a lab report. “Ms. Walker? Your blood work came back. We need to schedule an ultrasound right away.” She looked up at me with a serious expression. “You’re pregnant.” …… When I discharged myself and returned to the apartment, the mess on the floor remained untouched. Over the past two days, the sticky brown tea had dried into a dark, crusted, disgusting stain across the hardwood. I walked straight into the master bedroom. On the nightstand stood our wedding photo. Tracy was unsmiling, looking distant as always, but back then, I had convinced myself that the subtle warmth in his eyes was real. My mind drifted back to our very first pregnancy, three years ago. His company was just taking off. When I showed him the positive test, it was the first time I had ever seen tears in his eyes. “Regina,” he had whispered, pulling me close. “I’m terrified I won’t be able to provide for you and a baby right now. Can you give me a little more time?” I loved him so fiercely that I couldn’t bear to see him stressed. So I went to the clinic alone. By the third time I fell pregnant, just last year, his tone had morphed into cold indifference: “You know the drill at the women’s clinic. The doctors know you. Just take an Uber.” The warning signs had been there all along. I had simply chosen to be an ostrich, burying my head in the sand, pretending that if I gave enough, he would love me back. I rested my hand against my lower abdomen, remembering the doctor’s warning earlier that morning: “Your uterine lining is dangerously thin from past procedures. If you want a child, I strongly advise you to keep this one. If you terminate, you may never be able to conceive again.” I had finally mustered the courage to walk away from this marriage, only for this miracle to arrive now. I picked up my phone. Not a single text from Tracy. Not a single missed call. I typed out a short message: [Come home. We need to talk.] …… Tracy arrived sooner than I expected. Right before he unlocked the door, I had been thinking about the elderly couple in the hospital ward. I had wondered, foolishly: “If Sadie had never entered our lives, would Tracy and I have quietly drifted into old age together?” The front door slammed open. Tracy strode in, his face dark with fury. The look he threw me was sharp enough to draw blood. “Regina, I missed one stupid anniversary dinner with you, and this is how you react? How could you do something so malicious to Sadie?” “What are you talking about?” I asked quietly. I had summoned him here to tell him about the baby, and to hand him the divorce terms. He thrust his phone directly into my face. “Stop playing dumb! Exposing Sadie’s private background online? Spreading rumors that she’s a homewrecker? Don’t tell me this wasn’t your doing!” Confused, I took the phone. It was a trending post on X: [Real-life Snake in the Grass: Poverty-Stricken Student Seduces Her Benefactor’s Husband.] The post laid out Sadie’s background in excruciating detail. It detailed how I had funded her high school education, helped her apply for colleges, bought her first smartphone, paid four years of her tuition, and landed her an internship at our firm upon graduation. Every word was true, though the tone was dripping with moral outrage. At the bottom of the article were several candid photos. One showed Sadie leaning over Tracy’s desk in his corporate office, adjusting his necktie. Another showed them inside his Tesla—Tracy reaching across to pull her seatbelt, Sadie’s lips practically brushed against his cheek. There were no curse words in the article, but the comment section was an absolute bloodbath of public condemnation. “I didn’t write this,” I said softly. Yet a familiar, sickening ache flared in my chest. I hadn’t sat in the passenger seat of Tracy’s car in months. The last time I tried to open the passenger door, he had snapped at me impatiently: “Sit in the back, Regina. Sadie left her ergonomic lumbar pillow up front, and she hates when people touch her stuff.” I remembered that pillow clearly. It was a bright, obnoxious pink—a color Tracy used to claim he despised. “Regina, wasn’t it “you” who asked me to take care of Sadie in the first place?” Tracy’s voice rose, dense with suppressed rage. “I did exactly what you asked! And now you fabricate rumors to ruin her? How can you be so ruthless? Do you have any idea how hard a girl from her background has worked just to survive?” I looked at him, feeling an overwhelming sense of absurdity. The article was tame compared to the cozy photos Sadie had personally texted me late at night. “You need to issue a public statement right now apologizing to Sadie,” Tracy ordered, his voice cold and hard. “I didn’t write it,” I repeated, looking him dead in the eye. “And I’m not apologizing for something I didn’t do.” Tracy stared at me, his eyes filled with profound disappointment. “Regina… you used to be so understanding. So sensible. When did you turn into someone so vindictive?” “Sensible.” Ever since we started dating, he had always told me he loved how low-maintenance and sensible I was. So while he built his company, I worked a full-time job while simultaneously managing his parents’ healthcare and household needs. Because I was “sensible,” when I was sick, I drove myself to the urgent care clinic. When I was involved in a minor car accident last year, cornered by an aggressive driver on the highway, I didn’t dare call him to interrupt his board meeting; I sat in the broken vehicle, shivering violently, waiting alone for the police. To be sensible was to compromise. And in love, the person who compromises is always the one taken for granted. “Tracy,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “Let’s get a divorce.” Tracy’s chest heaved. “You’re using divorce to threaten me just so you can destroy a young girl’s life? Fine. You want to play dirty? Don’t blame me for ignoring five years of marriage.” He pulled out his phone and dialed a number on speaker. “Dr. Harrison? This is Tracy Walker. Cut the life-support and monitoring equipment for Thomas Walker in Room 36. Go ahead and process his discharge paperwork this afternoon.” I stared at him in utter disbelief. “Tracy… you’re cutting off my father’s medical care… for Sadie?” My mother died young. My father worked brutal hours in construction to raise me. After I married Tracy, I threw myself into his business, taking care of his needs, spending every holiday with his family while my own father sat alone in his tiny house. Two years ago, my father suffered a massive hemorrhagic stroke. If a neighbor hadn’t knocked on his door the next day, I would have lost him forever. I had been consumed by guilt. Back then, Tracy had pulled me into his arms, wiping my tears, promising: “Don’t be scared, honey. I’ll hire the best neurologists in the country. We’ll move him to a premier care facility near us so you can see him every day.” When my father became paralyzed, he felt like a burden and wanted to give up. It was Tracy who convinced him to enter the private facility. “As long as your father is alive, Regina, you still have a home.” Those words were still echoing in my mind. How could the same man be so utterly ruthless today? “Regina, you came from a small town too,” Tracy spat, stepping closer. “You know how brutal it is for someone like Sadie. You’re backing her into a corner, trying to kill her!” Who was backing whom into a corner? My feet were wrapped in thick bandages. I was carrying a high-risk pregnancy. And my paralyzed father wouldn’t survive three days without the specialized machinery at the facility. An agonizing, suffocating despair surged through me, strangling the breath from my lungs. “It really wasn’t me,” I choked out. “Tracy… if you love Sadie so much, let’s just get divorced. I’m letting you go.” Tracy pulled at his tie in frustration. “Stop using divorce as a weapon! Sadie and I are clean—there’s nothing trashy going on between us!” I closed my eyes. What was the point of his denial now? “I’m giving you half a day,” Tracy said coldly, heading for the front door. “If I don’t see a public retraction and apology from you by tonight, your father gets turned out onto the street. You decide what’s more important.” He turned to leave. I surged forward to stop him, but the sharp pain in my bandaged feet shot straight up my spine. My knees buckled, and I fell heavily onto the hardwood floor. A sharp, unbearable contraction ripped through my lower abdomen. Cold sweat broke out across my forehead instantly. The doctor’s stark warnings flashed through my mind. “Tracy… stop… take me to the hospital,” I gasped, my voice trembling violently as panic seized my throat. “I’m… I’m pregnant.” Tracy paused near the door. He turned around, looking down at me on the floor, his expression entirely devoid of warmth. “You know Sadie threatened to end her life today, so now you’re pulling a fake pregnancy stunt to keep me here?” He shook his head, disgust written all over his face. “Regina, you’ve become so manipulative I barely recognize you.” “I’m not lying… the medical report is right on the coffee table! Just look at it—” A sudden, warm burst of fluid soaked through my linen pants. Pain rolled through my core in violent waves. “Please,” I sobbed, stretching my hand out toward his trousers. “I’m begging you…” Just as my fingers were an inch from his hem, Tracy stepped back neatly, avoiding my touch. “If you want to beg someone, beg Sadie. She’s the victim here.” At that exact second, Tracy’s phone rang loudly. He snatched it up immediately. Sadie’s frantic, hysterical crying echoed through the speaker: “Tracy… I don’t want to live anymore… there’s media outside my apartment…” Tracy didn’t give me another glance. He turned, opened the door, and strode out into the hallway. I tried desperately to drag myself up, but the pain tore through me like a physical knife. I pushed myself up once, twice, only to collapse back down into the puddle of my own blood. As the crimson pool expanded across the floor, taking my strength and my baby with it, my vision began to blur around the edges. I stopped fighting. I closed my eyes, letting the darkness swallow me whole. Maybe… if my child, my father, and I all left this world together, it would finally be a quiet kind of peace.

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