Vortex of Regret and Ruin

The hospital room smelled of sterile rot and the expensive lilies James had brought to mask the scent of his skin—a skin that still carried the phantom scratches of the girl I had sponsored like a daughter. Ten hours of brain surgery had saved my life, but the silence in my womb confirmed the crash had taken my son. As James wept at my bedside, playing the role of the devoted husband for the mourning nurses, I watched him through a haze of morphine and clarity. I knew about the videos. I knew about the lingerie Chloe had worn in the house I paid for. I knew the man who had once pulled himself out of an alleyway to protect me from my father was now the monster I needed to survive. He thinks he is grieving our tragedy; he doesn’t realize I am already orchestrating his disappearance.