After My Husband Faked His Death for His Mistress

The metal of the car dug hard into my back.

Kade’s face was inches from mine. His breath smelled like expensive wine and mint. For five years, I had dreamed of this face. I had wept over it. I had begged God to bring him back, even for just five seconds, just so I could apologize for calling him that day.

Now, looking at him, my stomach violently rebelled.

It didn't feel like heartbreak. It felt like poison.

A sour, burning wave rushed up my throat. I gagged. I couldn't stop it. I shoved his hands off my shoulders and doubled over, retching onto the cold concrete. Nothing came up except bitter yellow bile.

"Iris?" Kade stepped back, his voice tight. "Iris, what’s wrong with you?"

I couldn't answer. My lungs refused to take in air. My left hand began to twitch. The fingers curled inward against my will, jerking in small, spastic fits.

My body remembered before my mind could.

Suddenly, I wasn’t in a garage.

I was twenty-six again, trapped inside a tiny motel room in Queens. Outside, cameras were clicking against the window glass. The TV in the corner was blaring my name: *The selfish wife whose call killed a decorated hero.* Strangers were sending death threats to my phone every thirty seconds. *You should be the one in the dirt.*

I remembered sitting on the stained linoleum of that bathroom floor. I remembered cracking the plastic casing off a razor. I remembered the cold bite of the blade slicing across my left wrist, again and again, trying so hard to carve the guilt out of my flesh.

The paramedics broke the door down four minutes too late. Four minutes of bleeding that permanently killed the nerve endings in my hand.

I dry-heaved again, gripping my knees, shivering until my teeth clattered.

"Iris! Oh, God, Iris!"

The sound of clicking heels echoed across the garage floor.

I lifted my head. Reese was running toward us. Her cream dress swished around her legs. Tears were already streaming down her cheeks. They looked neat. Perfect. Like she had practiced them in a mirror.

"Kade, leave her alone!" Reese cried out. She stopped right in front of me, clasping her hands over her chest. Her lower lip trembled. "Iris... please. You have to let me explain."

I stared at her through my tangled hair. I couldn't speak.

"I never wanted to hurt you," Reese whispered, her voice cracking with sweet, helpless misery. "I swear I didn't. I was so young, Iris. I was pregnant, and I was so scared. Kade told me the marriage was over anyway. We never meant for it to get this big. We just wanted to be happy. Please... as a woman, you have to understand."

She reached out. She took my left arm, sliding her soft, manicured fingers down toward my hand. It was the exact gesture she used to do in college whenever she wanted to borrow money or play the sweet little sister.

"We can fix this," Reese pleaded softly. "We're still sisters, aren't we?"

Her fingers slid under the silk cuff of my navy blouse.

Her palm pressed flat against my inner forearm.

She froze.

Her breath hitched in her throat. Underneath her fingertips were no smooth tendons. There was only thick, raised, mangled skin. The ropy keloid scars ran from my wrist all the way past my elbow. Sixty-two stitches from the first time. Countless more from the second.

Reese looked down. Her eyes went wide with pure disgust.

She yanked her hand back so fast it was like she had touched a hot stove. "What... what is that?" she gasped, stumbling back into Kade's chest.

Kade grabbed her by the waist to steady her. Then he looked at my arm.

The silk cuff was pushed up. The dim, buzzing fluorescent light from the garage ceiling hit the ugly, white-purple tissue on my skin.

Kade's mouth fell open. For a split second, something flickered behind his eyes. A flash of shock. Maybe even a tiny shadow of shame.

I watched him closely. I waited to see what five years of my torture looked like to him.

Then, Kade’s jaw tightened.

The shock vanished. His eyes grew hard, guarded, and cold. He crossed his arms over his broad chest. A small, ugly sneer tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Jesus Christ," Kade muttered. He rolled his eyes toward the concrete ceiling. "You always had a flair for the dramatic, Iris."

The words echoed in the empty garage.

*A flair for the dramatic.*

Just like that, the nausea stopped.

My shaking fingers went still. The violent chill in my blood disappeared, replaced by a deep, dead quiet.

I slowly stood up straight. I pulled my silk sleeve back down over my wrist and buttoned the cuff.

I looked at Kade Evans. I really looked at him.

His face was the same. The same straight nose. The same hero's jawline. But behind that face, there was nothing. No soul. No guilt. No remorse. He was just a cowardly, selfish little boy who wore a uniform and let his wife burn so he wouldn't look like the bad guy.

I had tried to kill myself three times for this man.

I had stopped my heart for forty-seven seconds for him.

I had let my mother die in shame for him.

And to him, my destroyed life was just *a flair for the dramatic.*

A soft, quiet breath left my lips. It wasn't a sigh of pain. It was the sound of a cage door swinging wide open.

"You're right," I said.

My voice was crystal clear. It didn't waver at all.

"I used to be very dramatic, Kade." I smoothed down the front of my blouse. "But you aren't a tragedy anymore. You're just nothing."