Chapter 4 No One Answered

Elena 

I knew that voice too well.

Sophie's voice, sweet as honey. I had heard it so many times over the past two years. I had heard it when she called me crying about her grades, and I had stayed up all night helping her study. I had heard it when she was sick, and I had driven across the city to bring her soup and medicine. I had heard it when she said she felt lonely, and I had invited her into my home, into my life, into my family.

I had made so many sacrifices for her. I had treated her like a sister. I had given her my time, my energy, my love. And all the while, she had been sleeping with my husband.

The betrayal was too much to bear. I pressed a hand to my chest, feeling my heart shatter all over again. Fresh tears streamed down my face.

"I'll see you soon, love." Damien's voice was soft and sweet. His tone was tender, and intimate, the way he used to speak to me. It had been so long since he had spoken to me like that. So long since I had heard that warmth in his voice.

"I miss you," Sophie said, her voice dripping with false innocence. "Hurry home."

"I will." Damien replied. "I can't wait to see you.”

I didn't turn around. I couldn't. If I looked at his face, I would shatter into pieces too small to ever put back together.

I dragged my suitcase toward the door, my arms shaking with the effort, my whole body screaming at me to stop.

"Elena." His voice trailed after me, flat, and indifferent. Different from the way he spoke to Sophie. "The divorce papers. My lawyer will send them to wherever you land."

Wherever you land. He didn't even care where I went. I bit my lip to stop the fresh tears from falling. 

I continued walking. I didn't answer him. I didn't have anything left to say.

The front door slammed shut behind me, and the cold night air hit my face like a slap.

I called a cab with hands that wouldn't stop shaking. When it arrived, I gave the driver my father's address, because where else was I supposed to go? I had nowhere. No one. Just a father I hadn't spoken to properly in three years and a brother who used to be my best friend before I chose Damien over everything else.

The drive felt endless. I stared out the window, watching the city lights blur into streaks through my tears.

When I arrived, I stood on the porch of the house I grew up in, and for a moment, hope flickered in my chest. My father would help me. He had to. I was his daughter.

I knocked. My knuckles barely made a sound against the wood.

The door opened, and Harold stood there, the butler who had worked for my family since I was a little girl. His face softened the moment he saw me, tears in my eyes and a suitcase.

"Miss Elena," he breathed, his eyes widening.

"Harold." My voice cracked. "Is my father home? Please, I need to see him."

He stepped aside. "Come in, child."

I stepped into the foyer, and for a moment, it was like stepping back in time. The house hadn't changed at all. The same paintings lined the walls exactly as they had when I was a little girl running through these halls. 

The same jade sculptures sat on their pedestals, cool and untouched. The same gold-trimmed relics my mother had collected on her travels still gathered dust in their glass cases. Nothing here had moved. Nothing here had changed. It was like the house had been frozen the day I left, waiting for me to walk back through the door and pretend the last three years never happened.

Harold didn't ask questions. He never did. He simply led me down the familiar corridor, past the grand staircase, toward my father's study. My shoes squeaked softly against the marble floor, the only sound besides my own ragged breathing.

He knocked softly on the study door before opening it. "Sir. Miss Elena is here."

And there he was, sitting behind his massive desk.

Richard Whitfield. Looking older, and greyer, but his eyes were exactly as cold as I remembered.

Harold bowed and shut the door.

I immediately went on my knees.

"Dad." My voice cracked. The tears came again. "Dad, please, I need help."

He looked at me, then at my suitcase, and his jaw tightened. "What do you want, Elena?" 

"Damien and I… we're getting a divorce. I have nowhere to go. I'm…" I pressed a hand to my stomach. "Dad, I'm pregnant."

Something flickered in his eyes, but it wasn't warmth. It was disgust.

"You gave up everything for that man," he said, his voice cold as steel. "Your inheritance. Your family. Your name. And now you come crawling back because he threw you away?"

"Dad, please…" I choked on my tears.

"I told you," he said, his voice rising, "I told you three years ago that if you married him, you were dead to this family. Did you think I was joking?"

"I'm your daughter." I looked up at him. Tears blurred my vision but I could still see the indifference in his expression. "I'm carrying your grandchild."

"You made your choice." He looked away, focusing on the papers on his desk. "Now live with it."

"Dad, please! I have nowhere else to go!" I crawled to him, holding his leg tightly. 

His expression darkened. "Let go, Elena!" 

I didn't respond. I cried and begged. He didn't listen.

I heard the sound of the door opening. "What's going on here, dad?" 

I raised my head immediately.

My brother walked in. He looked so much like father.

“Daniel!” I cried.

He froze when he saw me. 

I rushed to his side. “Please, help me beg dad.” I said, reaching out to hold his hands.

He shoved me away. “You said you were never coming back.” His voice was cold.

I nodded my head, wiping my tears with the back of my hands. “Damien… he… he cheated on me. I'm pregnant, Daniel. I'm back now.”

He looked at me. There was no pity in his eyes. “I'm sorry, I can't help you.”

I sat on the floor and sobbed.

“Leave this place. You're being a nuisance.” My dad said coldly.

I looked at Daniel, pleading with my eyes. But he turned away.

I forced myself up on wobbling legs, picked my suitcase and left. Harold shut the door behind me without a word. His expression was a mixture of pity and worry.

I collapsed onto the porch steps, my suitcase toppling beside me, and I sobbed into my hands. Everyone I had ever loved had turned their back on me in the space of a single day.

I don't know how long I sat there. But it was long enough for the sky to darken completely. Long enough for the first drops of rain to start falling.

"Please," I whispered to no one, to the empty street, to the universe that had apparently decided to punish me for loving too hard. "Please, someone help me."

No one answered.

I pulled myself up on legs that didn't feel like mine anymore and started walking. I didn't know where I was going, I just kept walking.

The rain started falling heavily, soaking through my clothes, plastering my hair to my face, but I didn't feel it. I couldn't feel anything.

I was numb.

I dragged my suitcase behind me, the wheels clattering uselessly against the wet pavement, and I cried. I cried for the marriage I thought I had. I cried for the family that had just abandoned me. I cried for the baby inside me who deserved so much better than the mess I'd made of my life.

The rain was a mercy, in a strange way. It washed the tears from my face as fast as they fell, so at least I didn't have to feel them anymore.

I had been walking for what felt like hours. I couldn't stop. I just wanted to disappear. 

I wasn't aware of my environment anymore, the streets, the rain, the cars, none of it registered. My body just kept moving while my mind stayed back on that porch, on my father's cold eyes, and on Damien's voice through the phone saying "I'll see you soon, love" to another woman.

Then, out of nowhere, something hit me.

An impact so sudden, so violent, it sent me flying through the air.

What was happening? 

The thought barely had time to form before everything started spinning, the wet asphalt, the rain, the glare of headlights, all of it tilting and blurring together. It was only as I hung there, weightless for one terrible second, that I understood.

I had just been hit by a car.

My head made an impact with the ground with a loud sickening thud, and as I lay there in the pool of my own blood, I knew there was no surviving this.