Love Me Again

The gala had been nothing short of magnificent — crystal chandeliers casting their warm golden glow across a sea of elegantly dressed bodies, the soft clink of champagne flutes punctuating the air like a quiet melody beneath the live orchestra's swells. Every surface gleamed. Every smile was practiced. Every laugh was calculated. And yet, standing in the middle of all that manufactured perfection, Mia had never felt more alone. She stood a few feet away from her husband, Edel, in a deep navy gown that hugged her figure beautifully — not that he had noticed. He hadn't noticed much about her lately. She held her champagne glass with both hands, not drinking, just holding it like an anchor while she watched the scene unfolding before her eyes. Selena. Of course it was Selena. The woman was draped over Edel like an expensive accessory, her slender fingers resting on his forearm with a familiarity that made Mia's stomach twist into knots. Selena laughed at something he said — that sharp, musical laugh she always performed for an audience — and leaned closer, tilting her face up toward his as though the two of them existed in a private world that had no room for anyone else. Least of all a wife. She's dying, Mia reminded herself bitterly, the thought tasting like ash on her tongue. That's what we keep being told. She's dying, so she gets to do whatever she wants. Selena had been Edel's best friend since before Mia entered the picture. Beautiful, tragic, eternally fragile Selena, who always seemed to find a reason to need him. A bad day. A medical scare. A moment of weakness. And Edel — dependable, devoted Edel — was always, always there. For her. Tonight, Selena wore a blood-red gown that left little to imagination, her dark hair cascading over one shoulder. She was radiant in that cruel way that healthy people rarely managed, which made the whole dying narrative feel increasingly like a well-rehearsed performance. She touched Edel's lapel to straighten it — a small gesture, intimate and deliberate — and glanced sideways at Mia with a faint smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. Mia looked away first. She always looked away first. She took a sip of champagne she didn't taste and told herself to breathe. The drive home was the kind of silence that had weight to it. Edel's hands rested on the steering wheel with practiced ease, his jaw set, his eyes fixed on the road ahead as the city lights blurred past the windows in streaks of amber and white. The gala's music still seemed to hum faintly in Mia's bones, but in the dark interior of the car, it felt very far away now. Mia stared at her own reflection in the passenger window. The woman staring back at her looked tired. She is tired, Mia thought. So unbearably tired. She turned to look at him — the sharp line of his profile, the way the streetlights moved across his face in slow, rhythmic flashes. She had loved that face once so easily, without effort or fear. Now loving him felt like trying to hold water in cupped hands. She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "Selena was all over you tonight," she said quietly. Not accusatory. Just a fact, laid bare between them. Edel didn't flinch. Didn't even blink. "She's going through a hard time." And there it is. Mia almost laughed. "She's always going through a hard time, Edel." Her voice remained low but something underneath it had sharpened, like a blade wrapped in silk. "This has been going on for five years. Five years of hard times, five years of her needing you, five years of her being sick." She paused, letting the words settle. "Is this how we are going to continue? Is this what the rest of our marriage looks like?" "Don't start, Mia." "She has been saying she is dying for five good years." The words came out before she could stop them, all of the exhaustion and humiliation of the evening bleeding through. "Five years, Edel. At what point does—" "Don't." His voice was quiet but edged with warning. But Mia was already past the point of careful. "Out of frustration she muttered, "Then maybe she should just—" "Enough!" Edel's voice cracked through the car like a whip, sudden and sharp. The word slammed into the air between them and Mia flinched, pressing herself slightly back against the car door. He gripped the steering wheel hard, knuckles whitening. When he turned to look at her, his eyes were cold in a way that still — after all these years — managed to shock her. "Why do you always have a problem with everything?" he said, each word deliberate and cutting. "Everything, Mia. Every single thing. Don't you ever — ever — let me hear you say something like that again." He shook his head slowly, a short bitter sound escaping him that was nowhere near a laugh. "I regret this. I regret marrying you." The words hit her like a physical blow. I regret marrying you. Mia stared at him. She had heard hurtful things before — they had said things to each other in the heat of arguments, things that stung and left marks. But this. The way he said it — so cold, so certain, as though the thought had been living inside him for a long time and had simply finally found its way out. She felt something c***k quietly inside her chest. The car rolled to a slow stop somewhere along a dark stretch of road. The engine idled. "Get out," Edel said. The words didn't register immediately. Mia blinked. "...What?" "Get down from my car." She turned to look out the window. Dark street. Sparse light. No people. The night outside was still and cold, the kind of cold that crept under your skin and settled in your bones. Her heart began to pound. "You're—" her voice broke slightly and she steadied it. "You will actually put me out of your car in the middle of the night?" She searched his face for something — hesitation, regret, anything — and found nothing. Her eyes burned. "Because of her?" She was already crying. She hadn't even realized when the tears had started. They fell silently, because Mia had long ago learned how to cry without making a sound around him. Edel didn't answer. He stepped out of the car, came around to her side, and opened the door. "Edel—" He took her by the arm — not violently, but with a firm, decisive grip — and guided her out onto the pavement. The night air hit her bare arms instantly, sharp and unforgiving. She stumbled slightly on the kerb, her heels clicking against the asphalt. And then his car door shut. The engine revved. And the red tail lights shrank into the darkness until they disappeared entirely. Mia stood there. She didn't move for a long moment. She simply stood on that empty street in her navy gown with her small clutch purse hanging from limp fingers, and she stared at the space where his car had been. He left. The thought was almost too simple to contain what it meant. He actually left me here. And then — slowly, completely, with no audience and no performance — she broke. Her knees bent and she sank, crouching on the pavement, and the tears that came now were not silent. They shook through her in waves, half-sobs she muffled with the back of her hand, her mascara bleeding down her face in dark rivers. She cried for the argument. She cried for Selena's hand on his lapel. She cried for I regret marrying you and the awful certainty with which he had said it. She cried for the girl she had been before this marriage, the one who had looked at Edel and thought, this is safe. This is home. She stayed like that for what felt like half an hour — crouched on a cold, empty street at an ungodly hour of the night, crying herself hollow. Eventually, the tears ran out. They always ran out. Mia straightened up slowly, her legs aching, her face raw. She wiped at her cheeks with the back of her wrist and pulled in a long, unsteady breath. Then another. The night was utterly quiet around her — no cars, no voices, just the distant hum of a city that did not know or care that she was standing in the middle of it, falling apart. Get up, she told herself. Get up and go home. She didn't even know exactly where home was from here. She began to walk anyway, her heels making soft, lonely sounds against the pavement with each step. Her mind was somewhere far away — still in the car, still hearing those words, still seeing Selena's red dress and that small, knowing smile. She walked without seeing the road, without registering the cold, without noticing anything at all. She did not notice, at first, the distant growl of an engine. She did not notice the way the sound was growing louder, faster, cutting through the night with alarming urgency. She did not notice the headlights. Not until they were already upon her. The truck came out of nowhere — or rather, it came from the direction she had stopped seeing. It barreled down the road at full speed, its headlights blinding and monstrous, and in the single, terrible second that Mia looked up and saw it, there was no time. No time to run, no time to scream, no time to think of Edel or Selena or regret or any of it. There was only light. And then there was nothing. Just like that — as though it had all been written, as though some unseen hand had drawn a line across the page of her life and said: here. This is where it changes — she blacked out.