Chapter 1
When the hospital called to say Alexa had been in a car accident, I was more terrified than I'd ever been in my life.
Her teacher explained no one had showed up to pick her up, so she'd wandered onto the road on her own and gotten hit.
But I'd explicitly asked David to pick our daughter up today. How could he have bailed?
I didn't even have time to reach out to David before I hailed a taxi and rushed to the hospital.
The operating room light went out. The doctor stepped out, shook his head sadly, and told me they hadn't been able to save Alexa.
I collapsed onto a bench in the hallway, my mind completely blank.
It felt like someone had ripped a chunk straight out of my heart. The pain was so sharp it left my whole body numb.
It was a long time before I worked up the courage to reach out and touch Alexa's now cold hand.
She was covered gently by a white sheet, looking like she was just fast asleep, peaceful and undisturbed.
After forcing myself to calm down a little, I pulled out my phone to call David. He was her father, after all.
But the screen opened straight to my social media feed.
Jane Williams, David's little sister, had posted something just a few minutes earlier.
Her caption read: My big brother is decorating the party for Sister Anne himself! This is so sweet I could scream!
The photo showed David from the back, busy hanging string lights and tying up balloons. The words "Happy Birthday" jumped right out at me.
The whole scene was warm and bright, a jarring contrast to the lifeless, sterile white of the hospital surrounding me.
So that was why he'd forgotten to pick up Alexa. He was too busy planning Anne's birthday party.
David had known Anne long before he met me. She married a wealthy businessman halfway through college.
Later, when that guy turned out to be a serial cheater who messed around with multiple people at once, Anne divorced him and took their kid with her.
To Jane and a bunch of David's friends, those two were the perfect, made-for-each-other pair.
If Anne hadn't gotten married so young, a nobody like me would never have stood a chance of marrying David, right?
Jane had even said to my face once that if I hadn't had a kid, her brother probably would've gotten back together with Anne ages ago.
Parties like this popped up every few days.
I used to worry constantly about David's health, especially after he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
It had a really high cure rate, so we'd kept that diagnosis between just the two of us.
But every time I urged David to come home early and cut back on drinking, everyone acted like I was the biggest buzzkill in the world.
To all of them, I was a total control freak, impossible to reason with.
Especially when they compared me to Anne.
But today was different. I had an emergency last-minute meeting at work, so for once, I begged David to pick our kid up.
And he had the nerve to blow off picking up Alexa just to help Anne prepare her birthday party!
Because of him, my baby was gone. She was only four years old!
It was obviously all his fault, but the guilt eating me alive was so heavy I could barely breathe.
I should have seen who he really was ages ago. I never should have let myself hold out stupid hope that he'd ever put our family first.
Hot tears slipped silently down my cheeks. With a cold, steady finger, I deliberately liked that Moments post.
It vanished in seconds. Jane must have forgotten to block me, and now she was panicking.
Just a minute later, David's call popped up on my screen.
He made the same tired excuse he always did: "They all insisted I come, I couldn't say no."
My voice was soft, flat, ice-cold. "You forgot to pick up Alexa."
A flicker of panic cut through his tone. He stammered, "I forgot... I'll send the driver to pick her up right now."
That one careless "I forgot" rolled off his tongue like it was no big deal, like he hadn't just destroyed our whole lives.
Icy cold flooded my body from the tips of my toes all the way up to my skull, but my mind had never been clearer in my life.
"Enjoy your party. We don't need you anymore."
'Alexa didn't need you. And I didn't either.'
"Alexa is dead."
