1 The Thanksgiving weekend getaway turned into a nightmare when our charter bus violently rolled over. Pure instinct took over. I threw my body over my sister, smashed the shattered window, and dragged us both out of the wreckage. I crouched by the dirt road, pressing a hand to my heavily bleeding forehead, holding my sister’s hand as we waited for the paramedics. That was when Nathan finally arrived with our son. He sprinted toward the blazing wreckage like a madman. But the name tearing from his throat wasn’t mine. “Julien is still in there! Please, someone save her!” Our son was sobbing just as hysterically. “Aunt Julien! Aunt Julien! I don’t want you to die! I’m scared!” Not a single thought crossed their minds that I might be burning in that metal coffin too. Julien pulled her hand from my grip, crying as she ran to them. The three of them collided into a tight, desperate embrace. I was left kneeling in the dirt, my body completely rigid. Warm blood spilled down my forehead, blinding me in a veil of crimson until the family of three blurred out of focus. Maybe this was for the best. For the rest of my life, I never wanted to look at them again. Black spots danced at the edges of my vision. I staggered and collapsed onto the gravel. A first responder rushed over in a panic to catch me. “Ma’am, are you alright? Stay with me, can you hear my voice?” I tried to speak. My lips moved, but the muscles refused to obey. No sound came out, and the spinning in my head only grew worse. “Traffic is deadlocked up the mountain! The ambulance is stuck a mile down the road!” the medic shouted to the chaotic crowd. “Is her family here? I need someone to help me carry her stretcher down to the medics! She needs immediate trauma care!” The wailing of other victims echoed in the cold air. Nobody answered him. Through the red haze clouding my eyes, I watched Nathan frantically check Julien from head to toe. Only when he was absolutely certain she had no major injuries did he let out a massive breath, pulling her into his chest like he had just found a lost treasure. “Thank God. Thank God you’re okay, Julien. You terrified me.” Noah’s tiny hands gripped Julien’s fingers. He pointed at a tiny, superficial scratch on her hand caused by flying glass and cried so hard he nearly choked. “Aunt Julien, you’re bleeding. Does it hurt?” He hiccuped. “It’s all my fault. If I didn’t want to go back to the gift shop for your favorite cake, we wouldn’t have missed the bus. You wouldn’t have gotten hurt.” Nathan’s face instantly darkened at the mention of the scratch. “Julien, tell me right now if anything else hurts. Don’t hide it. I’m taking you to the hospital.” Julien shook her head, playing the brave victim. Nathan didn’t buy it. He scooped her up in his arms and shouted into the crowd, asking where the ambulance was. The medic holding me lit up with hope. He waved his arms frantically at Nathan. “The ambulance is a mile down the road! Sir, do you know this woman? She’s suffering from severe trauma and needs emergency surgery. Please help me carry her stretcher down…” Nathan froze. His gaze instinctively drifted toward me. Covered in blood, sitting in the trampled mud, I looked back at him in dead silence. For a split second when our eyes met, his pupils dilated. The medic was still pleading for my life. “The laceration is too deep. We can’t stop the bleeding. If she loses any more blood, she won’t make it!” Nathan stayed completely silent. Then, Noah let out a loud gasp. “Look, Aunt Julien’s hand is still bleeding!” The next second, Nathan shook his head. “I don’t know her.” He tightened his grip on my sister. “Where is the ambulance? I have to get Julien there right now. She has a blood clotting disorder. If she has internal bleeding, I absolutely cannot take that risk!” The medic clenched his fists but spat out the directions anyway. Nathan carried Julien and bolted toward the paramedics without a single backward glance. Noah chased after them crying. The little boy even tripped hard on the gravel, but he didn’t whine. He just scrambled back up and ran after his father. I closed my eyes. A faint trace of moisture slid down my cheek. A memory forced its way into my fading mind. I remembered the first time Noah learned to walk, wobbling across the living room carpet to dive into my arms. As he grew older and faster, it didn’t matter where I was. If I just called his name, Noah would immediately turn around and walk directly to me with total certainty. He used to promise me all the time. “Mommy, when you get old and your legs hurt, I’ll hold your hand and walk with you. If you ever miss me, just call my name. I will always run to you.” I used to laugh and call him a silly boy, asking why he was in such a rush for his mother to grow old. Now, my lips trembled. I used the very last ounce of my strength to call out to him. “Noah!” I didn’t know if my voice was too weak, or if childhood promises just vanished into thin air. He never turned around. He simply followed Nathan and disappeared around the bend. As the darkness swallowed my consciousness, I realized it was the latter. Ever since Julien returned from her studies in Paris and moved into our home, Noah’s footsteps had always gravitated toward her. But it didn’t matter anymore. I wasn’t going to stand in the same place waiting for them ever again. Right before my mind went completely blank, a violent jolt of pain pierced my chest. My heart kicked into overdrive, blood rushing back into my veins. I gasped for air, my eyes flying open. A paramedic in the back of the ambulance pulled back an empty syringe. He looked incredibly stressed. “Her heart rate crashed. I pushed epinephrine, but it won’t hold her for long. She needs an OR, right now.” I had been loaded onto a stretcher and rushed to the only ambulance available. An IV was already taped to the back of my hand. The EMT grabbed a clipboard. “Do you have family here? We need someone to sign the surgical consent forms. If they aren’t here, give me their number.” I opened my mouth to tell him no one was coming. The heavy ambulance doors were suddenly ripped open from the outside. It was Nathan. His voice was shaking with absolute panic. “Doc, you have to take Julien. She has a clotting disorder. You’re the last rig out here, the other victims are already gone. You have to take her to the ER now. I don’t care how much it costs, I’ll write a check right now!” The EMT frowned. His tone was dead serious. “Sir, we already cleaned her hand. It’s a microscopic scratch. Even with a clotting disorder, your sister-in-law is in zero danger. Calm down. We have a critical trauma patient in this rig who needs to be in surgery ten minutes ago. Step out of the vehicle.” He reached to pull the doors shut, but a tiny figure shoved his way forward, grabbing the doorframe with tear-stained hands. “Aunt Julien is bleeding! Dad, make them save Aunt Julien!” Nathan’s eyes were bloodshot. He kept begging the medic, completely losing his mind. I looked past the EMT and stared at my husband. He felt like a stranger. Nathan was a high-powered corporate lawyer. Rationality, logic, and cold composure were his trademarks. In the five years I had known him and the three years we were married, I had only seen him lose his composure four times. The first time was when we exchanged rings. His eyes turned red, and he covered his face for three whole minutes before he could steady his voice, repeating his vows with a thick, emotional rasp. “For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, I will defy my own instincts just to love you.” I looked into his earnest eyes back then and believed we would be happy forever. The second time was when I gave birth to Noah. It was a brutal, complicated labor. When the doctor handed him a critical condition notice, the usually eloquent lawyer couldn’t even form a coherent sentence. “Please. Sophie is my wife. She’s so young. She hasn’t even seen our baby yet. Don’t let her die. I’m begging you.” The logical, atheistic lawyer fell to his knees outside the delivery room, praying to every god in the universe. When the anesthesia wore off, Nathan wasn’t by my bed. I asked my mother where he went. She wiped her tears and told me he was a good man. “When you were in that operating room, he swore to God he would trade thirty years of his own life just to keep you safe. The second the doctor said you made it, he drove straight to the chapel to fulfill his vow. He should be back soon.” Right on cue, Nathan pushed the hospital door open. He looked entirely drained, but he firmly pressed a small blessed silver cross into my palm. “Sophie, from now on, you and the baby are going to be safe.” I clutched the warm silver cross and cried until my eyes swelled. The third time he lost his mind was an hour ago, when he thought Julien was burning in the bus. And the fourth time was right now. Because of a paper-cut-sized scratch on Julien’s hand, Nathan was abandoning all reason. Before Julien came back to the States, I never doubted Nathan’s love for me. I knew it was real. But the human heart is a fickle thing. His feelings for Julien were just as real. He came with me to pick her up at the airport. The very second he laid eyes on her, he reflexively dropped my hand. He dropped it like it was a guilty secret he wanted to hide. I hadn’t noticed the red flags back then. I just smiled and introduced my little sister. He offered a stiff, awkward greeting. When I reached to hold his hand again, his palm was drenched in cold sweat. It took me a long time to realize exactly what happened in that split second. My husband fell in love with my sister at first sight. After she moved in, he unconsciously memorized her exact coffee order. He remembered random anniversaries related to her life. If Julien and I called his name at the same time, he would always answer her first. He would spend hours happily chatting with her about the most mundane, trivial things. His conversations always revolved around her. The intimacy between them made my skin crawl. “Julien loves salmon. Let’s make salmon for dinner.” I absolutely despised seafood. The mere smell of fish made me nauseous. Before Julien moved in, fish was literally banned from our kitchen. “Julien gets motion sickness, so she should sit in the front seat. Noah, remember to bring those lemon drops for your aunt. If she feels dizzy, the smell helps her.” I also got severe motion sickness. When I finally confronted him, asking him to create some boundaries with my sister, his response made me feel like a paranoid, jealous housewife. “Sophie, she’s your sister. That’s the only reason I take care of her. Why are you twisting this into something dirty? How are you jealous of your own flesh and blood? You’re acting completely insane.” He had rubbed his temples in frustration, pulling out his phone to show me a video. “By the way, who was that guy Julien was hanging out with yesterday? Tell her there are a lot of creeps out there. She’s too innocent. I don’t want some guy taking advantage of her. Actually, she doesn’t even need to get married. I can provide for her. She’s your sister. I can take care of you, Noah, and her for the rest of our lives.” I had stared blankly at the dark jealousy practically vibrating off him. In that moment, I knew I wasn’t the one acting insane. He was. The heart monitor in the ambulance suddenly let out a shrill warning beep. The two people arguing at the door finally looked past the medic and saw me lying on the stretcher. Noah froze. He recognized me and mumbled, “Mommy? Why are you in there? Are you hurt?” Nathan’s eyes darted between my pale face and the frantic red lines on the monitor. “Sophie? What happened to you?” He rushed inside, his hands trembling as he reached toward my bloody forehead, too terrified to actually touch the wound. “Why is it this bad? Doc, is she going to be okay?” The EMT furrowed his brows. “You’re her family?” “Yes, I’m her husband.” Nathan answered without a second thought. But before I could even react, a lightbulb seemed to go off in his head. “Wait, what did you just say? She needs a family member to sign the surgery consent forms?” The medic nodded. Nathan actually smiled. He turned around and yelled at Noah. “Go get your aunt! We’re riding in mommy’s ambulance!” He turned back to the medic. “Doc, my wife is critical, we can’t wait for another rig. There’s plenty of room in here anyway, just squeeze one more person in. It works out perfectly, I’ll ride along and sign Sophie’s paperwork at the hospital.” My heart lurched in my chest. The monitor spiked wildly. I dug my fingernails into my palms but couldn’t feel the pain. Even with my life hanging by a thread, Nathan was using my tragedy as a free ride for Julien. The last shreds of our past together dissolved into nothing. I moved my stiff, bloody fingers, unlocked my phone, and silently hit record, capturing every disgusting second of this. Noah brought her over quickly. Julien climbed into the ambulance with a perfectly practiced pale face. Seeing me covered in blood on the stretcher, her lips trembled. “Sophie, I’m so glad you’re alive. I was just so terrified earlier, I completely forgot to tell Nathan to go look for you.” She never called him her brother-in-law. She just called him by his first name. The boundaries between them had vanished the day she let him do her laundry. I kept my eyes shut and refused to speak. My body was turning ice cold, uncontrollable shivers wracking my spine. Nathan immediately shut down her apology. “It’s not your fault. Anyone would panic in a crash like that. Julien, is your hand still hurting?” Noah chimed in to comfort her too. “Aunt Julien, you just rest. We’ll be at the hospital soon.” Only then did the boy seem to remember me. He leaned in and whispered, “Mommy, does it hurt?” I didn’t open my eyes. I didn’t answer. Time lost all meaning until the brakes hissed and the ambulance parked at the ER. Nathan scooped Julien up and tried to sprint into the surgical wing, but the medic blocked his path. “You haven’t signed the consent forms.” Nathan clicked his tongue in annoyance, hastily scribbling his signature on the clipboard. He tossed a rushed instruction my way. “Sophie, you’re way more independent than Julien. Go get your surgery started. I’ll come check on you the second I get her settled.” Noah had already hopped out, tugging at Nathan’s pants, telling him to hurry up. They vanished from my sight once again. The epinephrine wore off, and the world faded into heavy, absolute black. When I finally woke up, I was already transferred to a regular ward. An IV dripped into my arm. I had barely scraped by the grim reaper. I stared at the ceiling for a long time, letting the reality sink in. Slowly, I reached toward the nightstand for my phone. “Are you feeling better, Soph?” A hand picked up the phone and passed it to me. Nathan was sitting by my bed, looking appropriately exhausted. I had no idea how long he had been playing the devoted husband. “Do you want some water?” I looked at him with dead eyes. My throat was like sandpaper when I spoke. “Why are you here?” Nathan offered a gentle, worn-out smile and brought a straw to my lips. “Don’t be silly. You’re my wife. Of course I’m here. Besides, I got Julien all settled in her room, so I came straight over.” “How nice.” I spat the two words out like venom. Nathan frowned, utterly confused. He opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off. I turned my head away from the water. I unlocked my phone, pulled up the video I took in the ambulance, and held the screen right in front of his face. The footage clearly showed him completely ignoring my dying state, intimately fussing over Julien. My voice was terrifyingly calm. “I want a divorce, Nathan.” “Or I swear to God, I will leak this video to everyone we know.”
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