Chapter 5
650 Words
Other friends jumped into the gossip.
A: [No freaking way. He quit medicine for Selena. After all that struggle to marry her, he would just walk away?]
The comments section instantly blew up with every kind of speculation imaginable.
After an eternity, Austin finally replied.
Austin: [That was then. This is now. Once you've had a taste of fresh meat, who wants yesterday's leftovers?]
The man himself had spoken. His friends immediately flooded the thread with congratulations and fist-bump emojis.
Selena stared at her phone screen. She reread those words until her vision blurred. After fifteen agonizing minutes, she finally exhaled sharply and locked the screen.
She dry-swallowed a pill. She had barely wet her lips when her phone screamed to life. The caller ID flashed with the name of the nursing home. Her stomach dropped.
Then a nurse's voice, thick with tears, shattered the silence. "Ms. Mariner, your mother... last night during a rare lucid moment, she slit her wrists. She's gone."
The world exploded in Selena's skull. Her knees buckled. She somehow clutched the phone tighter, stumbling out the door like a drunk.
When she reached the hospital room, her mother's body lay stiff beneath a white sheet. The pale moonlight revealed nothing of the face that had once smiled or scowled at her. Just empty space where a soul used to be. The air hung heavy with the coppery sting of blood.
She moved like a sleepwalker. She drifted to the bedside before collapsing to her knees. Her trembling fingers fished out a bank card. Her voice came out shredded. Each word clawed its way up her throat.
"Mom, I have nothing left. How could you just leave me?"
"You were never dead weight. Look, I have money now. So much money."
"Look, Mom. Just look."
The dam broke. A raw, animal wail tore from her chest. Frantic, she tried stuffing the card into her mother's frozen hand. The stiff fingers refused to cooperate. The card kept slipping. It hit the tiles like her crumbling hopes. Tears splattered the floor. They reflected the face of a woman coming undone at the seams.
Selena stopped speaking. She just whimpered like a wounded animal, clinging to those icy, unyielding fingers.
Behind her, a nurse muffled her crying. "She just couldn't bear to drag you down anymore."
She sat there, hollowed out. Her heart was a scorched earth ruin. No tears left. Just red-rimmed eyes burning like coals.
Now she was a ghost in her own skin. No career. No love. And now, no family. What was left to lose?
In her mother's ending, she saw her own future. The only mercy was that she had pushed Austin away. She had saved him from going down with her sinking ship.
She sat in that sterile silence until midnight. She sorted out her mother's burial arrangements. Then she dragged herself back to the Nash estate.
The bedroom was pitch black. The moment she opened the door, his scent hit her. That familiar sandalwood musk. Now smothered under some cheap, floral stench.
Austin's breath warmed the crown of her head. Selena pressed her lips together, biting back the turmoil.
"Don't turn on the lights," she whispered.
She could not let him see her tear-streaked face. She could not risk even a hint of suspicion. But he misunderstood.
His breathing grew ragged against her ear. His voice was thick with hunger. "Oh? Want to try something wild tonight?"
Before she could react, his scorching palms cupped her backside. He kneaded with rough possessiveness.
Selena froze. Her heart shattered soundlessly. The pain stole her voice. It left only a broken plea.
"Not tonight. Please."
Hot tears spilled onto his wrist. He stilled.
His calloused fingers brushed the dampness from her cheeks. His voice was husky, pleading.
"Just say you choose me. I will forget everything." A pause. Then, low and demanding, "Selena. Answer me."
- Writer
