I Faked My Death After His Mistress Killed Our Daughter

## CHAPTER 8: FRACTURED REFLECTIONS

I sat in Dr. Eleanor Vance's office, my fingers tracing the worn edges of the armchair. The room was deliberately calming—soft blue walls, a small fountain bubbling in the corner, framed watercolors of misty mountains. A sanctuary designed for confession. For healing.

I wasn't sure I deserved either.

"Do you have nightmares, Ava?" Dr. Vance asked, her voice gentle but direct. She was in her fifties, with silver-streaked hair and eyes that missed nothing. Three sessions in, and she hadn't pushed me yet. Until now.

A simple question. Four words.

My throat closed instantly, my body remembering before my mind could catch up. The underpass. The abandoned car seat. Ava's burning skin against mine as Nate dragged me away.

"Ava?" Dr. Vance leaned forward slightly, concern etching her features.

I could feel the cold metal of the car seat buckle against my fingertips. Hear the soft whimper of my daughter as I whispered promises I couldn't keep.

"I'll come back for you, angel. I promise."

But I never did. Nate made sure of that.

"Ava, you're safe here," Dr. Vance's voice reached through the fog. "Take a deep breath."

I realized I was gripping the armrests, my knuckles white, jaw clenched so tight my teeth ached. The clock on the wall showed only five minutes had passed since I'd entered the room.

"I can't..." My voice was barely audible. "Not today."

Dr. Vance nodded, not with pity but with understanding. "That's okay. We have time."

Time. Such a strange concept now. There was before—before Rebecca, before Nate turned cruel, before I lost everything. And there was after—this half-life I was building from ashes, where I answered to my dead daughter's name and jumped at shadows.

I wondered if there would ever be a middle ground.

---

Miles away, in a Chicago suburb I once called home, my son's fist connected with another boy's jaw.

I couldn't see it happen, of course. But later, alone in my tiny Seattle apartment, I would imagine the scene in vivid detail: Ethan, his face flushed with rage, lunging across the schoolyard. The other boy—probably smirking, probably cruel—stumbling backward, shocked by my gentle son's sudden violence.

Words hanging in the air between them.

"Your mom killed herself because she was crazy."

"Take it back!"

"Everyone knows she abandoned you guys. My dad says—"

And then the crack of knuckles against teeth. The gasp of the gathering crowd. A teacher rushing forward too late.

I pictured Nate sitting stiffly in the vice principal's office afterward, his tailored suit out of place among the educational posters and student artwork. His jaw would be tight, that muscle twitching at the corner like it always did when he was restraining himself.

"Mr. West, we have a zero-tolerance policy for violence," the vice principal would say, eyeing my husband—the prominent CEO, the generous donor—with nervous deference.

"Of course," Nate would reply smoothly. "Ethan understands his actions were inappropriate."

But did he? Did my son understand any of this? The lies he'd been fed about me, the truth about his father, the manipulations of the woman who now slept in my bed?

I pressed my palms against my eyes until stars burst behind my eyelids. I couldn't save Ava. But Ethan was still alive, still reachable. Somehow, someday, I would find a way back to him.

---

Nate West sat alone in his home office, the glow of Ethan's tablet screen illuminating his face in the darkness. His son was finally asleep after a day of suspension and stilted conversations about "appropriate ways to handle emotions."

Rebecca had suggested therapy for the boy. Nate had nodded, distracted by the nagging feeling that something wasn't right. That something hadn't been right for a long time.

I imagined him scrolling through Ethan's apps, looking for violent games or concerning content—being the responsible parent he thought he was. And then stopping, his finger hovering over a chat application.

Messages dated after my death.

A ghost in the machine.

The first crack in Rebecca's carefully constructed reality.

Did his heart rate quicken as he opened the chat log? Did his breath catch as he read messages supposedly from me—messages sent weeks after Lake Michigan had supposedly claimed my body?

Did he remember, in that moment, how he'd once loved me? Before Rebecca poisoned everything?

I couldn't know. But as I curled up on my narrow bed three thousand miles away, I felt something shift in the universe. A door cracking open. The first hint of dawn after endless night.

The truth was coming. And with it, justice.