We were filming a high-stakes reality special—the kind where celebrities are forced into “vulnerable” moments for the sake of ratings. The host, a man with a smile as polished as his veneers, leaned forward. “Imagine this is the end. If you could only leave one letter before you died, what would you write?” My hand trembled slightly as I gripped the pen. I stared at the blank stationery, the studio lights hot against my neck, and wrote down three wishes. When it was my turn to share, I stood up, my voice a brittle thread. “First… I wish for everyone to forget me.” Before the words had even settled, a sharp, cold sneer sliced through the silence. “Still as narcissistic as ever, Elena?” Hudson St. Claire sat across from me, his face a mask of frosted glass. He didn’t even look up from his own paper as he twisted the knife. “You really think you’re that important? Trust me, the world isn’t going to stop spinning because you’re gone. No one is going to spend their lives mourning a ghost.” I offered him a small, weary smile. I didn’t fight back. I didn’t have the energy anymore. He didn’t know. He couldn’t possibly know. That letter wasn’t a hypothetical exercise. It was my actual will. 1 We were halfway through the filming schedule, and the crew had already grown used to Hudson’s relentless hostility toward me. Every time he went for my throat, the host would jump in with a practiced, nervous laugh to smooth things over. “Hudson has such a… sharp wit, doesn’t he?” the host stammered, sweating under the LEDs. He turned to me, his eyes pleading for a transition. “Elena, darling, why don’t you finish the rest of your list for us?” I kept my expression neutral, my “red carpet” mask firmly in place. “The second wish is to find a new home for Barnaby. And the last… is to donate my entire estate to the foster care foundations I’ve worked with over the years.” Seeing the confusion on the other guests’ faces, I added, “Barnaby is my cat. A little tuxedo stray I picked up years ago.” The others nodded, their expressions softening into that shallow celebrity sympathy. But Barnaby wasn’t just my cat. He was our cat. I remembered the night we found him. It was a torrential downpour in Manhattan, the kind of rain that feels like the sky is collapsing. The kitten had followed me for three blocks, meowing at my heels. I’d scooped him up, my heart breaking for the shivering thing. Hudson had hated it at first. He wasn’t an “animal person.” He’d complain every time he had to change the litter, holding his nose and grumbling about the mess. But he was the one who spent hours researching the best organic kibble. He was the one who filled our penthouse with enough cat trees and automated toys to start a sanctuary. Then came the blowout. The end of us. And when I left, Hudson made sure I took Barnaby with me. Predictably, Hudson couldn’t let my answer sit. “How touching,” he spat, his voice dripping with venom. “So detailed, Elena. You better actually be dying, otherwise, this whole ‘saintly’ routine is just pathetic.” The air in the studio turned to ice. The other guests had given vague, poetic answers about “love” and “legacy.” My specific, practical list made me look like I was seeking attention—or like I was morbidly obsessed. The host stood there, frozen, unsure of how to salvage the segment. Then, Liam Crawford, my co-star from my last series, spoke up. He reached over and placed a steadying hand on my arm. “Hudson, maybe try keeping it professional? We’re on camera.” Liam unscrewed a bottle of water and handed it to me. I took it, my fingers brushing his. Liam and I had just finished a massive romantic drama that was currently tearing up the streaming charts. The fans were obsessed with our “chemistry,” and the studio had encouraged us to lean into the “showmance” for PR. Facing Hudson’s unexplained rage, I welcomed Liam’s protection. Hudson’s eyes locked onto my hand gripping the water bottle. His jaw tightened so hard I thought I heard a crack. Just when I expected him to unleash another insult, he looked down, his voice dropping to a strange, hollow tone. “I’m thirsty.” I blinked, confused by the sudden shift. I held out the water Liam had just given me. Hudson took it. He didn’t drink. He just twirled the bottle between his fingers, staring at it with a dark, indecipherable intensity. Then, with a casual flick of his wrist, he tossed the full bottle into the trash can beside his chair. He looked Liam dead in the eye, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. “Sorry. I don’t drink that brand.” It was a display of pure, unadulterated arrogance. But Hudson was the scion of the St. Claire empire; he was untouchable. Nobody dared to call him out. The host wiped his brow, his voice trembling. “Well! Hudson, would you like to share what you wrote in your letter?” Hudson smiled. For a moment, he looked like the man I had once loved—charming, effortless, breathtaking. “Sure.” The camera panned to his stationery. The audience gasped. Across the big screen, Hudson’s elegant, aggressive handwriting was impossible to miss. He had written: Before I die, I’m taking Elena Rossi down with me. He read it aloud, his voice lingering on my name like a threat. The other guests looked at me with pity. I just sat there, my face a blank slate. I couldn’t blame him for hating me. The way I ended things… it was messy. It was cruel. It was designed to make him walk away. 2 Hudson’s love had always been a beautiful, suffocating thing. He was possessive, intense, and he wanted all of me. But as an actress, my life didn’t belong to me. My last project with Liam had featured a heavily publicized, intimate scene. When Hudson found out, he was livid. He demanded we go public with our relationship. He wanted to mark his territory, to tell the world I was his so that the rumors about me and Liam would die. “Not now, Hudson,” I had told him. “The show is at its peak. My contract has a ‘single’ clause for PR. Just wait until the finale airs.” His eyes had gone bloodshot with hurt. He didn’t scream. He just looked at me as if I were a stranger. Then he walked out. I got tied up with reshoots and press junkets. By the time I tried to call him a few days later, I was blocked on everything. He went off the grid. The next time I heard from him was via a notification. He had posted a photo of us on Instagram—an old, private one from a trip to the Hamptons. The caption was simple: @ElenaRossi is mine. The internet exploded. The servers nearly crashed. But I didn’t see the fallout until much later. Because on the day he posted that, I collapsed on set. I woke up in a sterile white room twenty-four hours later. The doctor didn’t offer a platitude. He just looked at me with that devastating professional pity and said, “Ms. Rossi, I’m so sorry. It’s Stage IV. It’s aggressive.” I didn’t cry. I just felt… hollow. Like the air had been sucked out of my lungs. My phone started screaming. It was my manager, frantic. He hadn’t dared call Hudson, so he rained fire on me. Why had Hudson posted that? We had to deny it. We had a brand to protect. Liam’s fans were revolting. I sat on the edge of the hospital bed for thirty minutes, listening to him talk about “marketability” and “narrative control.” I just kept saying “I’m sorry” and “I understand” until he finally hung up. I stared at the sunset through the hospital window. I should have called Hudson. I should have explained that the Liam rumors were fake, that I loved him, that I was ready to tell the world I was his. But what was the point now? Stage IV. Six months? A year? I couldn’t do that to him. I couldn’t make him watch me wither away. I couldn’t tie his vibrant, brilliant life to a sinking ship. With trembling fingers, I found his post and typed out a reply. Nice joke, Hudson. But you’re reaching. @HudsonStClaire. The backlash was instantaneous. My fans swarmed his comments. Stop trying to clout-chase off her success! This is borderline harassment. Elena would never be with someone so desperate. St. Claire is a creep. Cancel him. He became a national laughingstock overnight. There were rumors his family was so embarrassed they were cutting him off. And through it all, Hudson stayed silent. He didn’t leak our texts. He didn’t show the world the videos of us laughing in bed. He took the hit. He let the world believe he was a delusional stalker. A few days later, he sent me a single voice note. His voice, usually so confident, was cracked and small. “Elena… just tell me. Do you love me? Or was it all a script?” I felt a sharp, stabbing pain in my chest that had nothing to do with the tumors. I swallowed the bile in my throat and typed back: I don’t love you. I never did. He never replied. Hudson St. Claire was many things, but he wasn’t a beggar. We were over. 3 Back in the studio, the host pushed through the awkwardness to the next segment: “Truth or Dare.” In this industry, everyone has secrets they’d kill to keep. Most people play it safe, but Seraphina Brooks was looking for blood. She’d hated me since I beat her out for the lead in The Emerald Gate. She lived to “accidentally” like hate-tweets about me. I lost the first round. Seraphina’s eyes gleamed. “Elena, darling. Truth or Dare?” “Truth,” I said, my voice steady. She leaned in, a shark sensing chum. “The question everyone wants to know. Did you and Hudson ever actually date? Or was he really just a ‘joke’ like you said?” The host went pale. The entire crew stopped moving. This was the forbidden topic—the one Hudson’s lawyers usually scrubbed from interviews. I felt Hudson’s gaze burning into the side of my face. He was waiting. I looked down at my hands, my nails digging into my palms. “We never dated,” I lied, the words tasting like ash. “There was never anything between us.” A collective gasp echoed through the room. Hudson let out a low, terrifying laugh. “See?” he said, his voice cold as a razor. “She said it herself. Why would I ever be with someone like Elena Rossi?” Under the table, I saw his hand tighten around his wine glass. The stem snapped. Shards of glass sliced into his palm, blood blooming red against the tablecloth. He didn’t even flinch. He just sat there, bleeding in silence. The producers called for an early wrap on the day’s filming. Most of the guests rushed to Hudson’s side, fawning over his injury. I felt a wave of dizziness and nausea. I slipped away to my dressing room, swallowed my medication, and collapsed into a dreamless sleep. I was woken up at 4:00 PM by a production assistant. We had to film a “communal dinner” segment where we cooked for each other. When I walked into the kitchen, Hudson was already there, leaning against the counter. His hand was bandaged. He looked at me with pure vitriol. “I hear Elena is quite the chef,” he mocked. “Why don’t you show us your skills? Or is that just another lie for your bio?” He was obsessed with me. Even now, he couldn’t stop. I looked at his bandaged hand and felt a pang of relief—at least he could still move his fingers. The other guests followed his lead. “Oh, Elena, you’ve got this!” Seraphina chirped. “We’re all so hungry!” “I’m a disaster in the kitchen, so I’ll stay out of your way.” Within minutes, they had all vanished to the patio to drink cocktails, leaving me alone to prep a dinner for twelve. I was exhausted. My bones felt like lead. I started chopping vegetables, my vision blurring. I put a pan on the stove, but I lost focus. Suddenly, a flame flared up. A hand reached over my shoulder and slammed a lid onto the pan, extinguishing the fire. It was Liam. “I can’t cook worth a damn,” he said softly, “but I can wash and chop. Tell me what to do, Elena. You look like you’re about to faint.” 4 “Thank you,” I whispered, my eyes stinging. With Liam’s help, the meal came together. But as I was carrying the platters out to the terrace, I caught Hudson watching us from the shadows. I don’t know how long he’d been standing there, but his expression was unreadable, his eyes dark with a simmering hurt. I was too tired to care. I walked past him without a word. At the table, Hudson started again. He took one bite of the risotto and immediately spat it back into his napkin. “God, Elena,” he sneered. “Is your ‘great cooking’ just more PR? This is inedible.” I looked at him, and for the first time, I felt the weight of it all—the cancer, the secrets, the pretending. Why was he doing this? He used to beg me to cook for him on our nights off. He used to eat every grain of rice on the plate and tell me I was wasted on acting. I looked him straight in the eyes and smiled. It was a bright, terrifyingly calm smile. “It’s okay, Hudson,” I said softly. “Don’t worry. This is probably the last time you’ll ever have to eat anything I’ve made.” The insult he was about to hurl died on his lips. His smirk froze. Something shifted in his eyes—a flicker of genuine, raw fear. The rest of the dinner was silent. Hudson ate every bite of his portion after that, his left hand trembling under the table where he thought no one could see. Halfway through the meal, my stomach cramped violently. I dropped my fork and ran for the bathroom. I barely made it to the sink before I was dry-heaving. When I looked down, the white porcelain was splattered with bright, terrifying red. I frantically turned on the faucet, washing the blood away before anyone could see. When I walked back out, I bumped into Hudson in the hallway. He looked at my pale face, his brow furrowed. “Are you okay? You look like a ghost.” I felt a sudden, wicked urge to mess with him. “I’m pregnant,” I whispered. His eyes went wide. He actually stumbled back, his voice failing him. “Is… is it mine?” I let out a soft laugh. “I’m kidding, Hudson. Relax.” “Elena!” he yelled, but I was already walking away. I locked myself in my room and collapsed. It took twenty minutes before I could find the strength to crawl into bed and take my pain killers. As the pills began to numb the ache in my chest, my phone buzzed. It was a text from my mom. Elena, why did you wire me so much money this morning? Is everything okay? My throat tightened. Everything’s fine, Mom, I typed. I’m just going to be filming on location for a long time, and I won’t be able to check in much. Just wanted you to have some extra cushion. Take care of yourself. Okay, honey. I’ll put it in a high-yield account for you. Oh! I sent you a box of those homemade caramels you love. You know your blood sugar gets low when you’re stressed. Keep them in your pocket. I replied with a heart emoji. My mom had sacrificed everything to get us away from my abusive father when I was a teenager. She finally had a peaceful, happy life with her new husband and my younger half-sister. I couldn’t bring this darkness into her world. I wanted to live. God, I wanted to live. I wanted more movies, more mornings with Barnaby, more time. But the world doesn’t care what we want. The next morning, the crew took us up to a mountain ridge to watch the “Golden Hour” sunrise. I had been looking forward to this—one last beautiful thing before I went back to the hospital. But the hike was brutal. Every step felt like a battle against my own fading life. I fell to the back of the group, my breath coming in ragged gasps. Liam noticed. He doubled back and stood in front of me. “Get on my back,” he ordered. “Liam, I’m fine—” “You’re white as a sheet, Elena. Don’t be stubborn.” He hoisted me up before I could protest. “Why are you so light? Have you been eating at all?” “Prep for a new role,” I lied, resting my head on his shoulder.
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