Chapter Four
1630 Words
“How could you both do this to me?” Her whole body shook. “How long? How long has this been going on?”
They pulled apart, adjusting their clothes with maddening casualness. David tucked in his shirt. Christy smoothed down her dress.
“Gia—” David started.
“Don’t.” Gia held up a hand. “Don’t you dare. Just tell me how long.”
Christy spoke instead. “Since the night of the company dinner. When you couldn’t fit into the dress he bought you.”
“You’re my best friend,” Gia whispered. “I trusted you. I loved you.”
“And I took everything you had.” Christy smiled, actually smiled. “Your husband. Your marriage. Your dignity. And you know what? It was easy. So easy. Because he never wanted you in the first place.”
“That’s not—” David began, but Christy cut him off.
“Tell her the truth, David. Tell her how we laugh about her. How we call her ‘the whale’ when we’re in bed together. Tell her how you can barely stand to touch her.”
“Oh, and by the way,” Christy continued, “I never thought you were beautiful. I was lying every single time. You’re pathetic, Gia. You always have been.”
Gia couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. The world had narrowed to this moment—this unbearable, soul-destroying moment.
She turned and ran.
Back in the hall, the party continued. Guests laughed and danced, oblivious to what was happening in the garden.
Gia burst through the doors, mascara streaming down her face, her chest heaving with sobs. People turned to stare.
“Gia? What happened?” Her cousin rushed over. “Are you okay?”
She couldn’t answer.
Then David and Christy walked in together.
Hand in hand.
The room went silent.
“You want to know what happened?” he called out, his voice carrying across the hall. “I’ll tell you what happened. My wife—” he spat the word like poison “—can’t handle the truth.”
“David, don’t—” Gia choked out.
“The truth that she’s been a burden since the day I married her. The truth that she’s let herself go so completely I can barely look at her. The truth that I’ve been in love with someone else for months.”
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
Eleanor, standing near the bar, actually smiled.
“You’re humiliating me,” Gia whispered
“You humiliate yourself every time you leave the house,” David shot back. “I’m just finally being honest.”
The guests stood frozen, horror and fascination warring on their faces. No one intervened. No one came to her defense.
Gia looked around the room—at the people she’d thought were her friends, her family. They all just stared.
She was utterly, completely alone.
“I want a divorce,” she said quietly.
“Good.” David’s smile was cruel. “Because I was going to ask for one anyway. You’ll be hearing from my lawyers.”
He turned his back on her, pulling Christy close, kissing her right there in front of everyone.
The guests erupted into shocked whispers.
Gia ran.
A cab was pulling away from the curb. She lunged forward, slamming her hand against the window.
“Wait! Please!”
The driver hit the brakes, and Gia threw herself into the backseat, gasping for air between sobs.
“Where to, miss?” The driver’s eyes met hers in the rearview mirror, concern flickering across his weathered face.
“The beach. Any beach. Just—just drive.”
She couldn’t go home. Couldn’t look at the bed she’d shared with a man who’d been laughing about her body with another woman.
“We call her ‘the whale’ when we’re in bed together.”
Christy’s words played on loop in her mind, each repetition like a fresh wound.
Gia pressed her forehead against the cool glass, her whole body shaking. She’d thought David loved her. Thought that despite everything—the cruel comments, the distance—some part of him still cared.
But she’d been too fat to love. Too shapeless. Too much of an embarrassment.
Maybe they’re right, the dark voice whispered. Maybe you’d be doing everyone a favor.
-----
The cab pulled up to Moonlight Beach. Gia paid the driver with shaking hands and stumbled out onto the wooden boardwalk.
The ocean roared in the darkness. The salt air filled her lungs, but instead of calming her, it only made her feel free.
Like she could simply float away and no one would notice.
She kicked off her heels, leaving them abandoned on the sand, and walked toward the water. The golden dress dragged through the wet sand, growing heavy with seawater.
Ahead, a couple walked hand in hand along the shore. The woman threw her head back, laughing at something her partner said. He pulled her close, kissed her temple, whispered something that made her glow.
They looked so happy.
Gia’s chest constricted. That was supposed to be her tonight.
Instead, he’d chosen her best friend. And done it publicly. Cruelly.
What’s the point? The voice was louder now, insistent. What’s the point of any of this?
The water lapped at her feet,. Gia waded in deeper. The dress billowed around her, pulling her down with its weight.
Knee-deep. Waist-deep. Chest-deep.
The waves pushed and pulled, and Gia let them. Let the ocean decide. Let fate take over where her own will had failed.
She closed her eyes and took another step forward.
The water closed over her head.
-----
For a moment, there was peace. Silence.
Then something hit her.
Gia’s eyes flew open underwater. Through the murky darkness, she saw a shape—a person, drifting lifelessly in the current, sinking fast.
A man.
Instinct overrode despair. Gia kicked toward him, her dress tangling around her legs, making every movement a struggle. She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him toward the surface.
He was heavy. So heavy. But Gia had spent years carrying weight, carrying shame.
What was one more?
She kicked harder, her lungs burning, her muscles screaming. They broke the surface together, and Gia gasped for air, coughing and sputtering. The man remained unconscious, his head lolling against her shoulder.
“No. No, come on.” Gia wrapped her arm around his chest and hauled him toward the shore “Stay with me. Please.”
She dragged him onto the beach and collapsed beside him, her chest heaving. In the moonlight, she could finally see him properly.
He was beautiful.
Dark hair plastered to his forehead. Strong, sharp features—high cheekbones, a defined jaw, full lips slightly parted. He wore expensive clothes—a white dress shirt now soaked and clinging to a body that was clearly sculpted by hours in the gym, dark slacks, designer watch catching the moonlight.
But he wasn’t breathing.
“Oh God. Oh God, no.” Gia pressed her ear to his chest. A heartbeat—faint, irregular, but there. “Come on. Breathe.”
She positioned her hands over his sternum and started compressions, counting under her breath. Thirty compressions. She tilted his head back, pinched his nose, and breathed into his mouth.
Nothing.
Thirty more compressions. Another breath.
Still nothing.
“Please.” Tears streamed down her face, mixing with seawater. “Please don’t die—”
She breathed into his mouth again, and this time, he jerked. Coughed. Water spilled from his lips as his body convulsed.
Gia rolled him onto his side, supporting his head while he coughed up what felt like half the ocean. His eyes fluttered open—dark, unfocused, glazed with something more than just near-drowning.
Drugs. Alcohol. Both.
“You’re okay,” Gia whispered, her hand on his back. “You’re going to be okay.”
His eyes found hers. Even in their drug-addled state, they were striking—deep brown, almost black, with thick lashes that any woman would envy.
“Angel,” he mumbled, his voice rough. “Are you… an angel?”
“No. Just—just someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Or maybe the right place. She’d come here to die, and instead, she’d saved a life.
His hand shot out, impossibly fast for someone who’d just nearly drowned. His fingers wrapped around her wrist, pulling her down.
“Wait, what are you—”
His other hand cupped the back of her neck, and then his mouth was on hers.
Gia froze. She should pull away. Should push him off. He was drugged, drunk, didn’t know what he was doing.
But God, when was the last time someone had kissed her like this? Like she was oxygen itself?
His hands roamed her back, her waist, pulling her closer even as she tried to maintain some distance.
“Please,” he mumbled against her mouth. “Please, don’t leave. Everyone leaves.”
Something in his voice resonated with the shattered pieces inside Gia’s chest.
Everyone leaves.
David had left. Christy had betrayed her. Her own mother-in-law had never wanted her.
Maybe they were both just two people drowning in different ways.
The man pulled her closer, and this time, Gia didn’t resist. She let herself be pulled into his orbit, let herself forget—just for a moment—that she was unwanted. Unlovable.
He kissed her like she was precious. Like she mattered.
His eyes—clearer now, more focused—met hers. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
For one night, Gia let herself be wanted.
For one night, she forgot she was supposed to be ashamed.
- Writer
