Chapter 1: The Impossible Return
December 15, 2011 – 10:23 AM
"Breaking News: Multi-vehicle collision on George Washington Bridge. At least 12 vehicles involved, including 7 that plunged into the Hudson River. "
"...Approximately 28 people were in the submerged vehicles; 15 have been pulled from the water and transported to area hospitals, while 13 remain missing. Search and rescue operation underway..."
Isabella's POV
The sound hit me first.
Metal screaming against metal, then the sickening lurch of the car dropping—and then water.
Cold, black, suffocating water pouring in through every crack, rising fast around my ankles, my waist, my chest.
I clawed at the door handle but my fingers couldn't grip, the pressure was insane, and the light above the surface kept getting smaller and smaller, and I couldn't breathe, I couldn't—
I shot upright and slammed back into consciousness.
Water sloshed around me.
My hands grabbed the sides of the tub so hard my knuckles went white, and I sat there gasping like I'd just run ten miles, my heart slamming against my ribs.
The coughing came next—violent, gut-deep coughs that bent me over, my whole body convinced it was still drowning even though I was absolutely not in a river right now.
I was in a bathtub.
I blinked. Looked around.
Our bathroom. I recognized it. I knew this room.
So how was I here?
I pressed my fingers to my sternum, feeling my heartbeat slowly calm.
The clothes I had on were still the same ones from that morning—cream cashmere coat, black dress underneath, soaked through now and clinging to my skin. That wasn't a dream. None of it was a dream.
I heard footsteps instead. Heavy, unhurried, coming closer.
The bathroom door swung open.
My whole chest unlocked.
"Ricky." His name came out before I even processed it, half-sob, half-laugh, the overwhelming relief of it.
I was already reaching for him, already starting to climb out of the tub. "Oh my God, Ricky, you have no idea what just—"
He didn't open his arms.
He walked toward me, and something in his expression stopped me cold—no warmth, no alarm, nothing I recognized. Just ice.
Before I could say another word, his hand closed around my throat and he shoved me back against the edge of the tub, and I couldn't breathe again, for a completely different reason.
"Who sent you." His voice was low. Quiet in a way that was worse than shouting. "And how the hell do you have her face."
I grabbed at his wrist with both hands, my nails scraping his skin. What is happening. What is happening. "R-Ricky—it's me—"
"Don't." His grip tightened, just slightly. Enough.
He let go. Stepped back. Picked up a tissue from the counter and wiped his hand off slowly, deliberately, like I was something he'd accidentally touched on the subway.
I sank against the tub wall, one hand pressed to my throat, gasping. My eyes were burning.
This isn't right. This isn't him.
I stared at the man in front of me, really looked at him, because I needed to understand what I was seeing.
He had Richard's height, Richard's build.
But my Richard—my Richard wore soft sweaters and let his hair go a little messy because I told him once that I liked it that way.
This man had his hair slicked back in a hard part, not a strand out of place. Dark shirt with two buttons open, shoulders back, jaw set.
His eyes were the same shape, same color—but the light in them was completely different. Like someone had reached in and switched it off.
And then I saw it. The scar near his eyebrow. Sophomore year, a broken window, him throwing himself between me and the glass before I even registered the danger.
I'd cried for twenty minutes over that cut. He'd told me to stop being dramatic and then let me fuss over it anyway.
That was him. That was absolutely him.
"Why do you look older?" My voice came out strange—thin and shaky and genuinely confused. "Did something happen to you? Are you sick? Do you not—" I swallowed. "Do you not recognize me? It's me. It's Isabella."
His expression shifted. "You even studied her voice. Impressive."
He reached back slowly, and I saw the folded knife at his hip, and my stomach dropped straight through the floor. "But I don't do substitutes. If you want to keep that face, I'd suggest you go find a new one."
Something cracked open inside me.
How dare he point a knife at me!
How could he do this to me?
I slapped the water—hard—and it sprayed up and hit him and I didn't care, I was already talking, my voice breaking on every other word but I couldn't stop.
"Richard Winston. It's me. It's Isabella. Your wife." I was shaking so hard my teeth were almost chattering.
"You grew up in Brooklyn on that block with the old red brick buildings, you remember?"
"You are completely tone-deaf and you know it, you literally cannot carry a tune to save your life."
"You are allergic to shellfish and you ate it anyway every single time because I love it, you ate it and took antihistamines and pretended you were fine—"
His hand went unsteady around the knife.
I was boiling with anger and hurt, dying to spill everything I knew about us. "You—"
"Stop." The word came out like it cost him something.
"You used to call me Bella when it was just us." My voice cracked completely on that one. "No one else called me that. Just you."
His hands were shaking—both of them, hanging at his sides, trembling like he had no control over them anymore.
The color had drained out of his face. I watched his chest heave, once, twice, his breath coming short and uneven. His eyes went red at the rims.
"Who..." The word scraped out of him, barely sound. "Who are you."
"Who am I?"I pushed him—actually pushed him, both hands flat on his chest.
"Are you serious right now? I'm your wife! Isabella Hayes Winston, and I am the mother of your children, you absolute jerk—"
He stumbled back a step. Caught the door frame.
I'd called him that for years. Jerk.
It was ours.
He knew it.
Richard was leaning against the wall, and the folding knife was in his hand again—but he was pressing the blade against his own palm, steady and deliberate, drawing it across the skin.
Once. Again. The blood was already welling up, dark against his hand, and his face was—calm. Almost peaceful.
I stared at him in horror. "What? Stop. Stop it, what are you doing?"
He didn't look up. His voice came out low, detached, like he was talking to himself. "It hurts." A pause. "So it's real. She's real."
My throat closed.
I took two steps toward him and then he moved, and I barely had time to register it before his arms wrapped around me.
I felt the blood from his hand against my sleeve and I wanted to yell at him for it but my voice wasn't working right anymore.
I was going to ask him something. I had a whole list of questions—what happened, why do you look at me like I'm a stranger.
But then I felt it. The smallest tremor in his shoulders.
He was crying.
He’d actually cried?! He had only shed tears on our wedding day and when I’d given birth to our babies.
I started to pull back to look at him, and his arms tightened.
"Bella." His voice was almost gone. Wrecked and raw. "I’d spent fourteen years searching for you, yet I could never find you."
I stopped breathing.
"What?"
