After I Faked My Death, He Finally Cried

Without a word, Willow grabbed the bottle of liquor from the table and poured herself a full glass. She hadn't even brought it to her lips before

Isaac shot to his feet beside me and snatched the glass from her hand.

The sudden motion knocked his teacup off the table. Scalding tea spilled across my thigh.

I gasped from the burn. Isaac glanced down at me, then looked away just as quickly, his attention already back on Willow. “It's not your fault. Stop apologizing. You know your stomach can't handle alcohol.”

I dabbed quietly at the wet fabric on my leg. The water was hot enough to scald, but I couldn't feel it. The only thing I felt was cold—freezing cold, straight through my chest.

I'd always known, really. Isaac had never gotten over what he and Willow once had. His phone password was still their initials, to this day.

He remembered everything. He just refused to admit it.

I stared at the scene in front of me—Isaac fussing over Willow, comforting her with that tender look on his face—and felt nothing but a bone-deep pointlessness. I just wanted to leave.

“Isaac. Don't come home tonight.”

He didn't even look at me. Just a careless, “Fine.”

Willow leaned against him, her voice light, almost idle. “How have you been, all these years away? It's been so long since you came by the house.”

She glanced at the others slumped drunk in their seats.“Might as well drop them off on the way.”

Isaac picked up Willow's bag and helped her to the car.“Nancy, there's no room. Take a cab.”

I stood alone at the entrance of the restaurant, watching the two of them, how close they were, disappear into the car.

When it pulled away, the tires cut through a puddle at the curb and splashed dirty water across the hem of my dress. It was the dress Isaac had bought me when he closed his first deal. The only one he ever bought me.

I turned and looked at the wheelchair sitting behind me, still and useless.

The year of Isaac's accident, his company had barely gotten off the ground. There was almost no cash flow.

I'd taken the sixty thousand I'd saved from working and bought him a good wheelchair.

But now the wheelchair had no value. Neither did the person who gave it.

I found a donation center and dropped it off without looking back.

Then I pulled out my phone and made a call.

“Mr. Farley, I changed my mind. That offer to take me away—does it still stand?”

A beat of silence on the other end, then his voice came back, steady. “Whenever you're ready, let me know. I'll arrange a flight.”

Back at the apartment, I showered, then walked into the study and punched Willow's birthday into the safe in the corner. It opened, exactly as I knew it would.

Over the years, as Sanchez Group had grown, Isaac had gotten into plenty of business that couldn't survive daylight.

I opened the safe and photographed every piece of evidence without hesitation. These photos would be my insurance—the thing that kept me standing if it ever came to that.

I hadn't been lying in bed long when my phone lit up on the nightstand. A video call from Isaac.

“You home? Get some rest. I'll explain everything tomorrow.”

I didn't hear a word he said. I was staring at the wall behind him, covered in framed photos—Isaac and Willow, from childhood to now, every one of them. In every single frame, he was smiling. Really smiling.

I'd already lost all faith in him, and still, seeing those photos sent something sharp and sour through my chest.

I scrolled through my own phone. The photos of Isaac and me were pitiful in number. The only one we had together was one I'd asked a stranger to take. In it, his face was stiff and unsmiling.

After his accident, there were even fewer. Sometimes I'd raise the camera and he'd frown, his voice cold—don't.

I'd told myself it was because of his legs. That he was unhappy.

But even after his legs were fine, he'd refused just as hard.

It was never that he didn't like photos. It was that the person he wanted beside him in them wasn't me.

The rage in my body seemed to rush straight to my head, a sudden dry heat flaring behind my nose.

On the screen, Isaac's expression shifted to alarm. “Why is your nose bleeding?”

I swiped at my nose and looked down. My hand was covered in blood. I ended the call.

I pulled a bottle of pills from the drawer, shook two out, and swallowed them dry.