I wandered down the hallway, my feet heavy, the ghost of the champagne I hadn’t drunk leaving a sour taste in my mouth. I needed water.

I turned the corner toward the kitchen, but stopped dead.

They were there. In the dim light of the hallway sconces.

Lewis had Celina pinned against the wall. His hands were in her hair, his mouth devouring hers. It wasn’t the polite, staged kiss from the balcony. This was hungry. Familiar.

I made a noise—a sharp intake of breath.

Lewis pulled back instantly, his eyes wide. He looked at me, then at Celina, then back at me. For a second, he looked panicked. Then, the mask slipped back into place.

“Beatrice,” he breathed, smoothing his suit jacket. “I… I thought she was you.”

I stared at him. I was wearing a grey oversized t-shirt and sweatpants. Celina was still in her shimmering emerald gown.

“You thought she was me?” I repeated, my voice flat.

“It’s dark,” Lewis said quickly, stepping away from Celina. “And you’re identical. You know how hard it is for me to distinguish you two sometimes. The silhouette… it’s confusing.”

Celina smoothed her dress, a small, satisfied smile playing on her lips. She didn’t look embarrassed. She looked victorious.

“I’m so sorry, Beatrice,” she said, her voice dripping with fake sweetness. “I tried to push him away, but he was just so… passionate. He really misses you, you know.”

I looked at them. The lies were so thick I could choke on them.

“Yeah,” I said, turning my back on them. “It happens.”

I started to walk away. I just wanted to go to bed. I wanted to sleep until I could leave this hell.

“Wait,” Lewis snapped.

I stopped but didn’t turn around.

“That’s it?” he demanded. I could hear his footsteps coming closer. “You’re just going to walk away? ‘It happens’?”

I turned around slowly. “What do you want me to do, Lewis? Scream? Cry? Throw a vase?”

“I want you to care!” he shouted, his face twisting in anger. “You see your husband kissing another woman—even by mistake—and you have nothing to say? Do you even love me anymore?”

I looked at him, really looked at him. The man I had worshipped. The man I had lost a child with.

“I’m tired, Lewis,” I whispered. “I’m just so tired.”

His eyes narrowed. “Tired? Or guilty?”

“What?”

“Celina told me,” he sneered, gesturing to my sister. “She told me about your little disappearances. About how you likes cheating and all. Is that why you don’t care? Because you’re doing the same thing?”

My jaw dropped. “I am not cheating on you! I was in the hospital losing our baby!”

“Don’t use that as an excuse,” he spat. “You’ve been distant for months.”

“I know you guys are cheating on me,” I said, my voice rising, finally breaking through the numbness. “Stop gaslighting me! I see the way you look at her! I see the jewelry! I see the nursery!”

“You’re hysterical,” Lewis said dismissively.

“Beatrice, please,” Celina cooed, stepping forward and reaching for my arm. “You’re not well. You’re imagining things. Lewis loves you. I’m just here to help.”

“Don’t touch me!” I screamed.

I shoved her. It wasn’t a hard shove, just a desperate attempt to get her perfume, her fake sympathy, away from me.

But we were at the top of the landing.

Celina stumbled back, her heel catching on the carpet. She flailed, grabbing my wrist to steady herself.

“No!” I gasped.

She pulled me down with her.

The world spun. The ceiling, the floor, the stairs.

Thud. Crack. Thud.

Pain exploded in my shoulder, my head, my ribs. We tumbled down the long, curved staircase, a tangle of limbs and screams.

Then, darkness.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The sound was rhythmic. Annoying.

I opened my eyes. White ceiling. The smell of antiseptic.

I was in a hospital room. My head throbbed, and my arm was in a cast. I looked around.

The chair beside my bed was empty. No flowers. No Lewis.

I tried to sit up, groaning as my ribs protested. The door to my room was slightly ajar. I could hear voices coming from the hallway, or maybe the room next door.

“Is she okay?” It was Lewis’s voice. He sounded frantic. More frantic than I had ever heard him.

“She’s stable, Mr. Langford,” a doctor’s voice replied. “It was a nasty fall, but she’s resilient.”

“And the baby?” Lewis asked.

My heart stopped. The baby? I had already lost the baby. What was he talking about?

“The fetus is fine,” the doctor said. “Strong heartbeat. It’s a miracle, really, considering the trauma. But she needs absolute bed rest.”

I froze.

She.

I wasn’t pregnant.

I dragged myself out of bed, ignoring the screaming pain in my body. I stumbled to the door and peered through the crack.

In the room across the hall, the door was wide open.

Celina was lying in the bed, looking pale but beautiful, like a tragic heroine. Lewis was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding her hand to his lips.

“Thank God,” Lewis whispered, burying his face in her palm. “I thought I lost you. I thought I lost our baby.”

“I’m okay, my love,” Celina whispered, stroking his hair. “We’re okay. Beatrice… she didn’t mean to hurt us. She’s just jealous.”

“She almost killed my heir,” Lewis growled, lifting his head. He looked at Celina with a fierce, protective love I had never seen directed at me. “I’m done with her, Celina. I’m done pretending. You will soon take your rightful place. Just wait, I will fix everything soon. Just have to handle my grandpa.”

He leaned in and kissed her. Softly. Reverently.

I stood there, clutching the doorframe, my hospital gown thin and cold against my skin.

There it was. The truth.

I quietly closed the door.

I walked back to my bed and sat down. The pain in my body was nothing compared to the clarity in my mind.

It was truly the end. There was nothing left for me in his life.

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.