—First life. Mercy Hospital, year 2018—

I could hear someone screaming.

It sounded distant, but the voice was loud and clear, screeching through the air.

Was it me? Was it my voice? Why could I not recognise it?

There was a blurry sight of somebody looking down at me before disappearing from my sight. Or was it me who disappeared when my head started aching in pain?

There were blinding lights and faded sound of sirens, followed by rushed voices of people around me, all speaking at once in strained voices.

I could feel myself being lifted off the ground, followed by gentled touches of someone putting things around my body. Pain. There was so much pain. And it was everywhere—they were in my head, my body, my—

What happened? I could not open my eyes. But as I felt my body being tied down onto something and everything around me started shaking, I used everything I had and forced my eyes to open.

The view I was seeing when I did was all blurry and all I could see was white fog. Someone came into my view when I blinked. I could not make out their face even when she spoke, "Hello, ____? We are on our way to the hospital. You are going to be okay. Can you feel where it hurts most?"

The blinding white light caused my eyes to hurt and I had to shut them. "I don't—know," I groaned while trying to focus. There was too much pain, and I felt it hurting all over my body, especially—

"My baby," I gasped and snapped my eyes open, immediately flinching as the pain on my body surged through with the sudden movement and the tension I felt. And it was then when I noticed that I was wearing a neck brace, rendering me immobile as I was being kept lying down. "I have—a baby. I'm—"

The female medic placed her hand over my arm and smiled to me gently. "We know, sweetheart. That's why we are rushing you to the emergency unit so we can take a look at it and make sure you are both safe. Your boyfriend already told us. He's following us behind with his own car."

"Boy—friend?" I suddenly felt dizzy, and the pain in my body started to increase. I could no longer fight it when everything suddenly went dark.

I was in and out of consciousness. But I could feel as if my body was moving in speed, slightly shaking as I was moved yet was still restricted of movements as if I was being tied down onto something. My blurry eyes caught the bright lights above me each time I tried to open them. But I kept losing my energy, and I was kept being pulled into the dark with each throbbing pain before I could process where I was.

I heard voices as I slowly came to. There were people screaming and crying around me. I could not see who it was but I was still able to listen.

Someone was fighting somewhere close. I could even catch a few rushed movements happening around me from the corner of my heavy eyes.

"_____, please...."

".....get the fuck off of her, you..."

"She needs me...."

"....your fault...."

The faint voices started becoming clearer once every movement stopped. It was hard, but I tried to force myself to stay awake long enough when I heard his voice.

I could hear the fight even more clearly now. But when I forced myself to glance at my side, all I saw was another bed. Or was it perhaps a stretcher?

Where are they? I wondered. But there was nothing I could do to find where they were.

"I'm not leaving her. Please don't take her away..."

Another sound of beating was heard. "You did this..."

"Sir, please..."

I tried to speak up. Everything was hurting, but I needed him to stop. "Tae—" the voice that came out of me was only a sharp whisper, "—stop, don't—"

The fighting never stopped.

Did they not hear me? Did my voice come out at all?

I tried calling them again when I sensed a movement happening next to me, but no voice came out. From the corner of my blurry eyes, all I saw was the stretcher next to me being pulled away, and the sound of fighting continued. There was nothing more that I could do as I was being pulled away into the darkness.

It took me almost 36 hours before I finally came to. And it was not Jungkook's face who I saw the minute I woke up.

Taehyung exhaled a sigh when I opened my eyes, giving me a smile and a soft squeeze on my hand, and never gave me any questions. So I did not ask him anything either. Not that I needed to, since his swollen red eyes which gave away of how much he had been crying, added with the busted lip and the blue marks at the corner of his eyes and cheeks, everything I saw had already said enough.

He soon filled me in on what had happened to me.

A concussion, fractured ribs and spine, sprained ankles, dislocated shoulders, pretty much nothing that I would not be able to recover from in time. Yet I would still be needing intensive treatments for the one wound that may never heal.

Jungkook came the next day.

He was sitting next to the bed when I woke up. He had his head hung low but I could see the faint bruises on his face and the healing busted lip before he even looked up, which only confirmed that they had indeed fought that night. His hands were shaking, clasped together on his lap as he sat there completely unmoving.

"Jungkook—" my voice was completely dry when I called his name, and I coughed.

He startled and looked up, immediately pushing himself up from his seat to help me drink from the glass of water he had prepared on the side of the bed. "Ho—how are you? A—are you feeling better?" he asked me after placing the glass aside, stumbling with his words that showed how nervous he was.

Or perhaps it was guilt?

"Why are you here?"

He frowned as he looked at me. "What do you mean? I'm here for you, baby. I've been worried—" he reached out to touch me and I flinched, pulling myself as much as I could to distant myself away from him. He stilled. "Babe—Why?"

I only kept my eyes on him and said nothing. There were a lot of things, so many words I wanted to scream out at him, but I couldn't. Not when both my pain and my anger were too deep and I knew I would become too emotional once I let it all out to the surface. Although I still wanted him to know how angry I was at him.

"______, talk to me. Please," he pleaded. His hand was still reaching out but not touching, only held out right next to the bed as he leaned closer. He was close enough that I could see faint traces of dried tears over his bruised skin. "Please, I'm just—I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen, I didn't want you to get hurt."

"But I'm hurt," I managed to speak to him. My voice was shaking, but I held back my tears as much as I could so I would not be a sobbing mess of anger when I forced my words out to him. "I am hurting, Jungkook. You hurt me. And you know that it's not only my body that is currently in pain."

He started gasping short breaths, probably even sobbing. "I'm so sorry—"

"It hurts, Jungkook. It's hurting me everywhere."

"I—I know. It's all my fault—"

"Why are you here?" I gritted my teeth. "Why? I don't want to see you. It's too painful—"

"Baby, please—" he pleaded to me again, this time with his hands gripping tightly on the side of the bed just so he would not be touching my skin. Even though I knew he wanted nothing more but to reach me, and I to him. "I beg you. I just want to make it up to you. I—I can't stop thinking about what I did wrong."

"Did you think about it when you were with her?" He fell silent when he heard the words coming out of my lips. "Did you ever think how wrong it was before this? Before I saw you?"

"_______—"

"Who is she?"

He froze and only looked at me with a frown on his face, until he figured out what I was asking him about. "I—She was just a nobody."

I scoffed. "A nobody? You let a nobody feeling your chest and thighs with her hand? You dare let a nobody kissing and biting on your skin? A nobody who made you smile when she did all of that and you let her when it was supposed to be me!" I felt myself breaking apart when the scene I saw from that night returned to me full force. I was broken. He broke me.

"You've been hiding away and having fun with this nobody while I sulked in my bedroom all alone with my morning sickness and the dreadful fact that I have a life growing inside of me without me knowing what to do about it? Were you busy letting this nobody feel you up when I needed you the most? When I was all scared and all alone after you left me?"

He blinked his wide eyes rapidly and I saw tears of guilt threatening to fall from his eyes. "She—I met her a few days before. It was only the second time we've met and—" he looked up to me, and gave me this look that felt like a slap to my face.

"There were others before her, weren't there?" I gasped. The pain inside my heart only kept increasing and turning all my anger into hate. "How? How could you—"

"No! No, it's not like that. I didn't do anything. I—" he started sobbing and had to take a deep breath to calm his own emotions. "I just—I needed a distraction. I swear I've never cheated on you before, and I just fooled around with—I went to those parties to—"

"Distraction?" I cut him off. My anger was building up and I have had enough. I have heard enough. "From what? From me? Or the fact that we were having a baby? That's how you dealt with it? By partying and fooling around with other girls? I can't believe you—"

He pushed his chair away and kneeled on the floor. "I know that I'm a complete idiot. I don't deserve you, but I love you. I never lied to you about my feelings. I was lost and confused, I know it was wrong. But please, let me make it up to you. Please give me another chance."

I only shook my head and looked away, staring straight at the ceiling when I could no longer look into his eyes. "No," I answered him, my voice came out as a whisper. I took a deep breath before I continued speaking to him, "I will forgive you Jungkook. Perhaps one day, I will. But it will take time for me to do so. But I can't—I can't be with you."

"______, please—" he choked. He must have been crying, but I never dared to turn my head to look. I didn't want to see him crying, I didn't want to falter from what I had in mind.

"I'm letting you go, Jungkook. You are free now," I started sobbing. I could no longer hold my tears from flowing out. It was too painful for me to keep inside. The pain in my heart was way more painful than the pain I had in my body. "You no longer have any responsibilities over me anyway, Jungkook. So you are free to go and do whatever you want, with whoever you please."

"What—I don't understand. I love you—"

"The baby is gone," I cried. My tears were flowing like a stream and I let them show. I let him see my pain just to let him know how much he had broken me. "I lost—no, we lost the baby. You have no more reason to stay with me."

He was crying. "But I want to stay with you. I can't live without you."

"Yes, you can," I started sobbing. "You have been doing it well enough even when I spent every day waiting for you. Hoping that you would be there by my side. But you had chosen to leave. You had chosen to be with someone else but me. If I was so much of a burden for you that you need to be distracted so you wouldn't be thinking of me then maybe you shouldn't be doing it at all. Just leave, Jungkook. I don't want to be with you anymore."

"No—No, _______, please—"

"Leave!" I screamed out, closing my eyes shut and wishing that I could shut my ears so I would not be able to hear his voice as he begged and cried for my forgiveness.

The room went quiet soon after. The sound of my cries was the only thing that filled the empty room.

Jungkook disappeared for the next two days. Making me believe that I had lost him for good. But then he came back on the third.

"What are you doing here?"

I glared at him when he appeared in the doorway with the nurse. I was starting to be able to move on the bed as my body was starting to heal. My recovery was up to speed, helped by my strong will to get better as soon as I could.

"You are starting your physical therapy today. I just—I wanted to be here to help and be with you while you are at it," he answered me. He seemed nervous and hesitant, but I knew he would not give up so easily even if I had told him to go away. But I did anyway.

"I don't need your help." I shook my head and looked up at the nurse who was trying to be busy so she could pretend to ignore our conversation. "The nurse is here to help me. We don't need you."

"Please, let me help you," he begged me.

"How did you even know I'm having a therapy?"

He looked up at the nurse and then to me, and I knew the answer. The kind nurse only smiled at me apologetically. She was the one who came in after I told Jungkook to go away the other day, and the one who had always been taking care of my daily needs. "I'm sorry," she said. "He's really persistent. He's actually been here for the last two days too, watching you from outside the room and keeping up with your progress. He seems so worried about you, so I told him to come for your therapy if he really wants to help you."

Should I be angry with her? Should I blame her? She had nothing to do with what was going on, and I didn't want anyone to witness our fight. So I gave in. It was not like I had enough energy to be angry at anyone anyway.

"Fine. You can stay. For now."

The first physical therapy was a simple one. I was certainly not going to instantly start practicing to walk on my own two legs yet. I was only beginning to recover, so all I had to do was move my body just enough while staying in bed, only to make sure that my limbs would still be flexible even after lying down on the bed for so long. The nurse helped me move my ankles and raised my legs until the point where it got too painful, and then moved my body side to side to practice my barely recovering spine. The therapy ended as she helped raise my hand carefully to practice my shoulders, bending them until I felt pain. Jungkook was there to assist her all the time, continuously stroking my hair each time I hissed from the pain. He even whispered to me encouraging words every time I started crying and wanted to give up.

"You don't have to be here," I told him when he came back the next day.

"I know. But I want to," he answered then, and again every time he came back for my therapies the few next days after.

And he kept coming back.

No matter how many times I pushed him away, no matter how many times I tried to ignore his presence, he just would never give up. He was always there, patiently helping, silently supporting me, and not allowing me to forget.

"Why do you keep coming back, Jungkook? I've told you so many times before that I don't want to see you," I told him when he helped me walk from the bed to the bathroom, helping me to practice my legs. It was too painful to see him every day, being reminded of what happened and what we have lost.

"I'm just trying to make things right. I did this to us. I want to fix it, so please let me."

"Why do you keep forgiving him?" Taehyung asked me when I was almost fully recovered and was ready to come home to continue my treatments at home. We were waiting for Jungkook to pick us up from the hospital when we sat together and had our talk.

"I don't know." I looked away from him. I couldn't really say that I had actually forgiven Jungkook after everything that had happened and what he had put me through, but the anger was nearly gone. And I was too tired of blaming myself and him for the loss. Too tired of feeling so angry and hateful.

All I wanted to do was to move on.

"Are you taking him back?" He asked me again, forcing me to look into his eyes so he could read my thoughts. I only shook my head.

"I don't know, Taehyung. I just want this pain to go away."