Chapter 3
579words
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Nathan. I let it ring, unable to face his voice just yet. What could he possibly have to say now? The time for words had long passed.
As I drove toward the hospital, I found myself taking the familiar route past our old favorite café. Nathan and I had spent countless Sunday mornings there, sharing the crossword puzzle and planning our future. A future that had crumbled eight months ago, the night everything changed.
The memory rose unbidden, as vivid as if it were happening all over again.
I had come home early from a conference, exhausted but eager to see Nathan. Our marriage had been strained since the miscarriage, but I was determined to make things work. To heal together.
The house was quiet when I entered, but I heard voices coming from the kitchen. Nathan's deep timbre, and then a woman's laugh—light, familiar.
"You can't keep doing this to yourself, Nate," my sister Rebecca was saying. "You deserve to be happy."
I froze in the hallway, my heart suddenly pounding.
"It's complicated, Becca," Nathan replied, his voice softer than he'd spoken to me in months. "I made vows."
"Vows to a woman who's become a shell of herself." Rebecca's voice was harsh. "She's not the same person you married, and you know it."
I stepped into the doorway then, and the scene before me seared into my memory: Rebecca perched on the kitchen counter, Nathan standing close—too close—his hand resting beside her thigh. The intimacy of their posture, the guilty start when they saw me.
"Liv!" Rebecca slid off the counter, her perfect model's composure barely ruffled. "You're home early."
Nathan stepped back, his face unreadable. "Olivia, this isn't—"
"Isn't what?" My voice was deadly quiet. "Isn't what it looks like? Because what it looks like is my husband and my sister having a cozy little chat about how broken I am."
Rebecca reached for me. "Liv, we're worried about you. You've been so distant since—"
"Don't." I held up my hand, stopping her. "Don't you dare use my grief as an excuse for... whatever this is."
"Olivia," Nathan said, moving toward me. "Nothing happened. Rebecca just stopped by to—"
"To what?" I interrupted. "To comfort you? To tell you what a burden your grieving wife has become?"
"That's not fair," Rebecca protested. "We're family. We care about you."
I laughed, a hollow sound that surprised even me. "Family doesn't betray each other. Family doesn't—" My voice broke, and I turned away, unwilling to let them see me cry.
"Liv, please," Nathan reached for me, but I stepped back.
"I need some air," I managed to say. "Don't follow me."
I spent that night in a hotel, ignoring their calls and texts. When I returned home the next day, Nathan was gone—a business trip to Chicago, his assistant informed me when I called his office. Three weeks later, I moved out.
Olivia's POV
The hospital parking garage was nearly full, forcing me to park on the top level. As I locked my car, my phone buzzed again. This time it was the hospital—unusual, since I wasn't on call.
"Dr. Carter speaking."
"Olivia, thank God." It was Nurse Chen, her voice tight with urgency. "It's Lily. She's attempted suicide. They found her in the bathroom with her foster mother's pills."
