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The Day I Stopped My Meds, I Made Him Regret It Insanely
NovelShort
Completed
The first weekend after I went off my meds for severe depression, my boyfriend Alden sent me a pin to a campsite. "Naomi, you're the sun it took me five years to drag out of the darkness." "Come out to the campsite in the mountains tonight. I've got a whole sky of stars set up for you, something romantic." Backpack on my shoulders, I pushed open the door of the little cabin, my heart full of anticipation. Instead, three unleashed bully dogs came lunging at me, pinning me into the corner and tearing wildly at the hem of my dress.
Chapters (4)
第1章
On the first weekend after I stopped my medication for severe depression, my boyfriend, Alden Barnes, sent me a campsite location.
"Naomi, you're the sun it took me five years to pull out of the abyss."
"Come to the mountain campsite tonight. I've prepared something romantic for you, a whole sky full of stars."
Backpack on, heart full of hope, I pushed open the door of the little cabin.
Instead, three unleashed bully dogs lunged straight at me, pinning me into a corner and tearing wildly at the hem of my dress.
"Run! Aren't you so good at enduring things? Endure this too—you're just playing with the dogs!"
I screamed for my life, grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall and sprayed like mad, then half-rolled, half-crawled out the window.
By the campfire outside, Olive Sanchez, the sister Alden had taken in, stood holding a drone remote, laughing so hard she couldn't straighten up.
"You're his wife—I posted on the local forum that you'd been trash-talking the dogfighting ring, and it took forever to borrow these prize dogs. Exciting, right?"
Covered in blood, I looked over at my boyfriend, who was grilling meat off to the side.
He just rolled his eyes, unbothered.
"Don't look at me like that. I only lost a round of truth or dare. Everybody wanted a reaction shot of you scared out of your mind."
"You didn't get bitten to death, did you? Naomi, is your depression acting up again? Can't you take a joke?"
I looked at the teeth marks on my leg, and I finally understood: this salvation I'd believed was the light had, from the very start, been a one-way road straight to hell.
...
I clamped a hand over my bleeding calf and pulled out my phone to call 911.
My fingertips shook so hard from fear and blood loss that the screen wouldn't unlock, again and again.
A long, powerful hand suddenly reached over and snatched the phone away.
I looked up, stunned.
Alden glanced expressionlessly at the "911" lit up on the screen, then flicked his wrist.
The phone traced an arc and dropped precisely into the campfire blazing not far away.
A crackle, and the flames swallowed my cry for help in an instant.
"Naomi."
He looked down at me, brow tight, his voice full of a lecture that left no room for argument.
"You went behind my back and quietly stopped your antidepressants. I haven't even dealt with that yet."
"And now your moods have gotten this unstable, and your persecution delusions are getting worse."
I pointed at the bite marks on my leg, deep enough to show bone, and stared at him in disbelief.
"Alden, I'm bleeding! They're real dogs—they really bit me!"
He gave my wound a glance. No sympathy in his eyes, just a trace of impatience.
"A few dogs were just messing around with you. Olive already told you they've had their shots and their nails are trimmed."
"Are you only happy once you've blown this up into a police report and ruined Olive?"
Olive. Olive Sanchez.
The sister he'd taken in.
Right then, that "sister" twisted her ankle and fell delicately into Alden's arms, whimpering in pain.
"Alden, I think I twisted my ankle, it hurts so much..."
The impatience on Alden's face vanished, replaced instantly by worry.
He swept Olive up in his arms and strode toward the black SUV parked a short distance away.
I dragged my injured leg and limped after them.
"Alden, take me to a hospital!"
I reached for the passenger door, but he was faster.
The locks clicked shut.
Through the dark window, I saw his cold profile.
"Naomi, you're too worked up right now. You need to calm down."
"Walk down the mountain yourself. Think of it as desensitization therapy—it'll be good for your condition."
I stood there, frozen, watching the SUV tear away into the distance.
The rising dust mixed with the night chill, smearing the blood and tears across my face.
Around me, the dozen-odd hangers-on who had been egging it on and enjoying the show all scattered like startled animals.
The campfire slowly died down, and I was left alone in the camp.
The mountain wind poured in from every direction, carrying a bone-deep cold.
Somewhere far off came the faint howling of wolves.
Fear closed over me completely.
I didn't dare stop. Running on nothing but the instinct to survive, I dragged my nearly numb leg and crawled painfully along the pitch-black mountain road.
All night long.
Gravel and thorns left countless fresh wounds on me.
My mind slipped back and forth between clear and blurred.
Just when I thought I really was going to die on that desolate mountain, a blinding headlight lit up my face.
A farm truck heading up the mountain at dawn to pick up a load stopped in front of me.
The driver was startled by the sight of me covered in blood. He quickly helped me into the cab and took me to the nearest town clinic at the foot of the mountain.
The clinic was in bad shape, the paint on the walls gone yellow.
The doctor was an older man. He peeled back my blood-soaked trouser leg and sucked in a sharp breath.
"Young lady, this wound's already gone septic. Half an hour later, and we'd have had to amputate the leg!"
I lay on the battered clinic bed, an IV running, my mind completely blank.
The old TV mounted on the wall was playing the morning news.
The anchor's sweet voice echoed through the little room.
"...We're told that Alden Barnes, heir to one of the city's most prominent families, spent millions last night to win a smile from the woman he adores, booking out the entire Starlight Amusement Park for a custom fireworks show that lasted a full hour..."
On the screen, Alden was gently setting a dazzling diamond crown on Olive's head.
Olive was smiling like a princess.
And I was a complete and utter joke.
I didn't cry. Calmly, I borrowed a phone from the woman in the next bed and called my attending physician.
I needed my medication. I needed to confirm my treatment plan.
The call connected.
The doctor's tired, faintly apologetic voice came through the receiver—and those words dropped me straight into an icy pit.
第2章
"Ms. Winfield, I'm sorry."
"Mr. Barnes contacted me last night. He's already collected all of your psychological rehabilitation records on your behalf and completed the paperwork to terminate treatment."
My mind went blank, and I could barely make out what the doctor said next.
"He said… he said you've developed severe persecutory delusions and violent tendencies, and that you refuse all professional intervention."
"So he's decided to personally put you through a closed family therapy program, cutting you off from all outside influence."
I hung up the phone, my hands and feet ice cold.
He isn't trying to heal me. He's trying to destroy me.
He wants to turn me completely into a useless thing who can only cling to him, obey him, with no mind of my own.
I ripped the IV needle out of my hand and, ignoring the nurse trying to stop me, forced my body upright and rushed out of the clinic.
I caught a taxi in the dead of night and hurried back to the townhouse in the city where Alden and I lived.
As I pushed open that familiar door, a sense of dread instantly seized my heart.
The house was too quiet.
My "Kerry" was gone.
Kerry was my beloved dog, and also the emotional support dog that had gotten me through countless nights of falling apart.
He was so well-behaved, he never ran off.
"Kerry?"
I called his name in a panic.
In the living room, a huge black iron cage loomed right in front of me.
Inside the cage, my Kerry, with his sleek, glossy golden coat, was curled up in the corner, covered in blood, barely clinging to life.
Olive!
Dressed in a sexy leather jacket and leather pants, holding an electrified barbed whip, she was lashing Kerry in the cage with a look of pure delight.
"Bark! Aren't you so good at barking? You useless piece of trash!"
With each fall of the whip, Kerry let out a cry of pain.
The blood rushed to my head in an instant.
"Stop!"
I lunged forward like a woman gone mad, snatched the whip from Olive's hand, and with all my strength, whipped it backhand across her face.
"Ah!"
Olive shrieked and dropped to the floor, clutching her rapidly swelling face.
The study door on the second floor was kicked open with a bang.
Alden came striding down in his bathrobe.
The moment he saw Olive lying on the floor, he shoved me away hard without a word.
My back slammed into the glass coffee table in the living room.
The coffee table shattered with a crash.
Countless shards of glass drove into my flesh, and blood instantly stained my white T-shirt red.
"Naomi! What are you throwing a fit about?!"
Alden roared at me.
Ignoring the pain all over my body, I struggled up out of the broken glass, pointing at Kerry dying in the cage, my voice trembling.
"She's the one who's insane! Look what she did to Kerry!"
Only then did Alden glance at the cage, his tone flat.
"It's just a dog."
He helped the weeping Olive up and wiped away her tears.
Olive pointed at me, looking wronged. "Don't get the wrong idea. I saw Kerry was always so listless, and I thought maybe he was depressed too, so I wanted to help him with some desensitization therapy…"
"Did I mean well but make things worse? Alden, go comfort your girl."
Alden looked down at me coldly, his eyes on me like I was some unreasonable lunatic.
"You don't need this kind of trash to pin your feelings on, Naomi."
"In your world, the only one you can rely on is me."
"Olive's dogfighting ring has been short a live target for practice lately, and this golden retriever is just right. Call it putting trash to good use."
He spoke the cruelest words in the gentlest voice.
He walked up to me, crouched down, gripped my chin, and forced me to look at him.
"Kneel down."
"Apologize to Olive."
"Apologize, and I'll give the dog back to you."
I stared hard at him, at the face I had loved for five years, which now looked utterly unfamiliar.
His grip crushed my jaw until it ached, and I nearly ground my back teeth to pieces.
I looked at him, and then, slowly, I bent my knees.
第3章
I knelt down.
Both knees slammed hard onto the cold marble floor, into the scattered shards of glass.
Excruciating pain spread from my knees through my whole body, but I couldn't feel it.
"I'm sorry."
I said those three words clearly, to Olive.
Olive laughed in triumph and nudged my shoulder with the tip of her shoe.
"Louder. Didn't you eat?"
Alden's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly, and a flicker of pain he didn't even notice himself crossed his eyes.
He reached out a hand, as if to help me up.
But a split second before he touched me, I braced myself against the floor and stood up on my own.
Through the whole thing, I didn't look at him once.
I avoided his hand, and I avoided that complicated look in his eyes.
I walked straight to the iron cage, unlocked it, lifted the barely breathing Kerry into my arms, and walked out of that lavish prison without looking back.
Behind me came Alden's icy voice.
"Naomi, you'd better think this through. Once you step out that door, don't imagine you can ever come back without my permission."
I didn't stop.
The next day, I was publicly executed across the entire internet.
A video went viral on all the major local social platforms.
In the video, I looked like a lunatic, screaming inside a little cabin deep in the mountains, chased by three vicious dogs, scrambling and crawling, an absolute mess.
The camera angles were viciously chosen, paired with maliciously edited slow motion and close-ups of my face.
The video's title was: Shocking! Scheming woman fakes depression for sympathy, provokes the underground dog king for fame, gets taught a lesson!
The comments section was unbearable.
"Dying, this acting is more over the top than the scam lady downstairs from me."
"Is depression her death-exemption card? She's gone insane wanting to be famous!"
"Serves her right! Team dog king, people like her need to be taught a lesson!"
Soon, all my personal information was dug up and laid bare.
My workplace, my home address, even photos of the old house my mother left me before she died, the one I could never bring myself to sell.
My phone blew up, nonstop texts of insults and curses.
My workplace sent a termination email right away, citing "personal conduct issues that seriously damage the company's image."
When I got to the old house my mother had left behind, I found the doorway splashed with red paint, crooked lettering scrawled across it: Get out of Ashford City, you bitch.
Just as I stood in the middle of the wreckage, cold all over, Alden's video call came through.
On the screen, he sat in an upscale Western restaurant, unhurriedly slicing the premium Wagyu beef in front of him.
"Learned your lesson yet?"
He swirled the red wine in his glass, his eyes full of the arrogance of someone in complete control.
"Now you see how dangerous the world out there is?"
"Just post a video now, admit that you had a depressive episode that day, that you were talking nonsense, that you were joking around with everyone."
"I guarantee, within five minutes, every piece of negative news about you online will disappear."
"I can even take you to the best sanatorium abroad. We can start over."
Looking at his handsome, arrogant face on the screen, my heart went dead silent.
He wasn't saving me at all.
He was enjoying it.
Breaking my spine, clipping my wings, then watching me crawl and struggle in the mud until I had no choice but to beg him for survival.
What he wanted was a doll he could control.
I lowered my eyes, hiding every emotion in them, my voice carrying just the right amount of submission and exhaustion.
"Okay."
"I'll go live tonight and apologize publicly."
Alden smiled, satisfied.
"That's my good girl, Nomi. You've finally learned to behave."
After the call ended, five years of love and struggle burned away completely, leaving only a near-cruel clarity.
I took Kerry straight to the best pet ICU in the city.
Only after I watched the doctor finish the surgery and wheel him out of the operating room did the weight on my chest ease by half.
Then I turned around and walked into an unremarkable internet cafe on the street corner.
Passing through the smoke-filled hall, in the innermost private room I met the legendary head of the largest underground hacker league in Ashford City.
A man in gold-rimmed glasses who looked refined and gentle.
I pushed a bank card across to him.
"I want to buy one night of your computing power."
"If we're going to do a livestream, let's do one that makes headlines across the whole country."
"A large-scale piece of performance art that exposes the true face of human nature."
第4章
At eight o'clock in the evening, the live stream started right on time.
Alden and Olive were sitting on the sofa in my old house.
This house was the only keepsake my mother left me, and now they had taken it over like magpies seizing another bird's nest.
The phone stand was already set up, the camera pointed at me.
The moment the stream went live, millions of viewers flooded in, and the screen filled up with a dense stream of insults.
"Look, that crazy woman actually went live!"
"What's the act today? Faking an injury for sympathy online?"
Olive carried over a bowl, held it out in front of me, and smiled with an innocent face.
"Sister-in-law, I hear an apology with nothing behind it isn't sincere."
"So I prepared this especially for you. You can apologize while you eat, and everyone will definitely feel how genuine you are."
The bowl was full to the brim with bloody raw dog meat.
An overpowering stench of raw flesh hit my nose in an instant.
It was this smell.
Five years ago, because of a car accident, I watched my first pet dog get crushed with my own eyes, its flesh and organs smeared all over the ground.
From that day on, I developed severe depression and PTSD, and I could never stand the smell of raw meat again.
I had only ever told Alden about this.
He once held me and said that with him there, he would never let me see anything like that again.
And now, with his own hands, he was pushing my nightmare right back in front of me.
He pressed down on my shoulders, which were trembling with fear, his voice as gentle as a devil's whisper.
"Naomi, be good."
"This is a breakthrough therapy I tailored just for you, made specifically to help you overcome your psychological barrier."
"Swallow it, face it bravely, and your illness will be cured."
He picked up a spoon, scooped up a big chunk of the raw, blood-streaked meat, and forced it into my mouth.
The chunk rolled around inside my mouth.
My stomach churned violently.
Under their expectant, faintly cruel gaze, I closed my eyes and forced that piece of meat down.
Then I jerked my head up, facing the phone camera.
I opened my mouth and vomited up mouthful after mouthful of blood.
Not bright red blood, but thick, black clots.
Chunk after chunk, spraying across the pure white wall and splattering all over the phone screen.
The entire live stream went silent in an instant.
Every abusive comment vanished.
Alden and Olive froze too, clearly not expecting this scene.
I wiped the blood left at the corner of my mouth and gave the camera a strange smile.
Then, before they could react, I pressed the tiny remote hidden in my palm.
The next second, a video played across the live stream.
It was clear surveillance footage of Olive gambling heavily underground.
Alden's face went deathly pale in an instant.
He lunged at me, trying to snatch my phone.
"Naomi! Don't you dare!"
I had already backed up to the edge of the floor-to-ceiling window behind me.
Smiling, I pulled open the old window, and the wild wind of the eighth floor rushed in, whipping my long hair into a frenzy.
"Alden."
"I'm sick of your redemption game."
"Now it's my turn to make my exit."
In Alden's horror-stricken eyes, I spread my arms and leaned back.
My whole body dropped into the boundless night.
