I spent the next two days in a daze, counting down the hours until Madame V’s extraction team arrived. I avoided Lewis. I avoided Celina. I packed nothing, just as instructed. I was ready to leave this life with nothing but clothes on my back.
But Lewis wasn’t done with me yet.
On the third afternoon, I was passing the study when I heard voices. The door was cracked open.
“I don’t see why she has to go,” Celina whined. I could picture her pout perfectly. “It’s your grandfather’s 80th birthday, Lewis. I’m the one carrying your child. I should be by your side.”
“We can’t risk it, Celina,” Lewis sighed, sounding exhausted. “You know how Grandfather is. He’s obsessed with tradition. And he adores Beatrice.”
“He’s old,” Celina scoffed. “He won’t notice if I wear her dress and smile politely.”
“He will notice,” Lewis snapped. “He’s known Beatrice for four years; he knows her mannerisms, her silence, her… grace. If you walk in there trying to be her, he’ll see through it in five minutes. And if he finds out about the divorce or the baby before I’ve secured his vote for the CEO position, he’ll cut me off.”
I leaned against the wall, a bitter smile touching my lips.
So that was it. The only person in this family who actually saw me was an eighty-year-old man I wouldn’t even get to say goodbye to properly.
“So I just have to sit here?” Celina complained.
“No,” Lewis said. “You can come. But you stay in the background. Beatrice plays the wife. You play the visiting sister. Just for tonight.”
I didn’t fight it. It was one last performance. One last lie.
I put on the navy silk dress Grandfather had complimented last Christmas. I picked up the gift I had wrapped earlier—a vintage watch he had been eyeing for years. It sat heavy in my lap as I climbed into the passenger seat of the SUV.
Lewis got in the driver’s side, gripping the wheel tightly. Celina slid into the back seat, directly behind me, humming a tune that grated on my nerves.
“Let’s get this over with,” Lewis muttered, starting the engine.
The drive was treacherous. A storm had rolled in off the coast, turning the sky a bruised purple. Rain lashed against the windshield, blurring the winding cliffside road into a grey smear.
“Can’t you drive faster?” Celina complained from the back, kicking my seat. “This is boring.”
“The road is slick, Celina,” I said quietly, staring out at the drop-off to my right. The ocean churned violently hundreds of feet below.
“Nobody asked you, Beatrice,” she spat back.
“Well, I am the wife,” she muttered. “Even if you play mistress—”
Suddenly, blinding lights filled the cabin, making me stop speaking.
“Lewis!” I screamed.
He slammed on the brakes.
The tires locked. The SUV hydroplaned, skimming over the wet asphalt like a stone on water. We spun—once, twice. The world became a chaotic blur of headlights, rain, and screaming metal.
CRASH.
The impact was bone-shattering. The truck clipped our rear, sending us spinning toward the guardrail.
We smashed through the metal barrier with a sickening screech.
The car lurched violently and then stopped.
Silence.
I opened my eyes, gasping for air. The airbag had deployed, filling the space with dust. My head throbbed.
“Lewis?” I choked out.
The car groaned.
I looked down and froze.
My side of the car was hanging over nothing. The front right wheel was spinning in empty air. Below me, the dark waves crashed against the rocks.
The car was teetering on the edge of the cliff.
“Don’t move,” Lewis whispered. His voice was shaking.
He was safe. The driver’s side was still on the road. But my weight… my weight was dragging the car down.
“Lewis, get me out,” Celina shrieked from the back. “I’m scared! The baby!”
Lewis unbuckled his seatbelt. He looked at me.
“Help me,” I whispered, reaching a hand toward him. “My door is jammed. I can’t get out.”
The car creaked ominously, tilting another inch forward.
Lewis looked at my hand. Then he looked back at Celina.
“If I move toward you to help you… the shift in weight might send the car over,” Lewis said, his eyes wide with horror.
“So pull me over to your side!” I cried. “Lewis, please!”
“Lewis! The baby!” Celina screamed again.
Something broke in Lewis’s eyes. The panic was replaced by a cold, hard resolve.
He didn’t take my hand.
He turned away from me.
“No,” I gasped, the betrayal hitting me harder than the crash. “Lewis, don’t!”
He kicked the door open. The wind howled into the car. He dragged Celina out onto the wet asphalt.
“I’ve got you,” he panted, pulling her into his arms on the side of the road.
The car, now relieved of their weight, groaned. The heavy engine block in the front, combined with my weight, tipped the balance.
I looked through the shattered windshield. I saw Lewis holding Celina. He was looking at me. He wasn’t moving to help. He was watching me die.
“Lewis!” I screamed, a raw, animal sound.
He turned his head away.
The metal shrieked. The last tire slipped off the rock.
Gravity won.
The car tipped forward, diving nose-first into the abyss.
And as I fell into the darkness, the last thing I saw was the tail lights of the truck fading into the rain, and my husband holding another woman while he let me drown.
He gave me a second life once. I guess this is how he decided to take it back.
