I had thought the car crash was a terrible accident. I knew Blair hated me, knew she loved making our parents and Chase choose between us, but I never imagined she wanted me dead.
I immediately messaged Chase: I want a divorce.
An hour passed. Then two. The silence on his end was deafening.
I followed up with another message: The baby is gone.
Before he could reply, my mother called. "Chloe, how can you be so irresponsible? Running away from home, missing Blair's launch party, ignoring all our calls?"
"Apologize to her right now for skipping her party!"
I was about to respond when I heard Blair's voice in the background.
"Mom, you shouldn't talk to Chloe like that. The baby is due next week; she's in no mood for a party. It was my fault for scheduling it now. I should be the one to apologize. I should have put her needs first."
Blair's voice trembled, thick with unshed tears.
"Is this what you wanted, Chloe? For everyone to feel sorry for you? If you've had your fill of drama, come home right now! You're almost nine months pregnant and still causing so much trouble!"
My mother's anger was a palpable force through the phone. She hung up before I could reply.
After Mom hung up, I called Chase myself. "Chase, I want a divorce."
There was a beat of silence before he asked, "Chloe, is this another one of your ploys for attention? I'm not falling for it this time. For our child's sake, you need to come home. Your due date is next week. I'll be by your side when you give birth."
"My baby is gone—"
He hung up before I could finish.
Not long after, I received a short, disappearing video from Blair. In it, she held up a finger with a minuscule cut. Chase was frantically searching for a bandage, his face tight with concern as he fussed over her.
She even added a caption, flaunting, "Some people are forever, and some are just replacements."
It was a bitter reminder of how he used to look at me with that same tenderness.
But ever since he met Blair, he had changed. He started swallowing Blair's lies whole, and soon, everything I did was wrong. He saw me as emotional, hysterical, the cruel older sister who bullied poor, fragile Blair.
He completely believed her version of me was the truth.
Because of Blair's claims, Chase and I argued constantly. And the worst part was, she would always appear at the perfect moment, apologizing profusely while painting herself as the innocent victim caught in the crossfire.
It was the same tactic she'd used to win our parents' favor as children, and now she used it to steal my husband.
Every time she took something that should have been mine, she would come to me to show it off, as if gloating that our parents and Chase would always choose her.
If this had happened in the past, my heart would have shattered. But now? I felt nothing. Just a cold, hard resolve to walk away and never look back.
I had my lawyer send Chase the divorce agreement via email.
Two hours later, I finally received his reply. It read, "Chloe, you're nine months pregnant. Your due date is almost here. Stop making these sick jokes about our marriage and our child. Don't bring this up again!"
Reading his response, I couldn't stop the tears. I wished so badly that losing the baby was just a sick joke, but the deep, hollow ache in my abdomen was a brutal, undeniable reality.
