For Our Wedding Anniversary, I Gifted Him My Death

“Father, I’m ready now. Please arrange my marriage. I’m going to divorce my husband Xander.”

My voice cracked, but I kept my tone steady as I gripped the phone like it was the only thing tethering me to what little was left of me.

“What do you mean?” he asked, his tone sharp, biting like ice through the line. “You’re agreeing now to the marriage you rejected so stubbornly before? And divorcing Xander?”

I shut my eyes, pushing down the burn in my throat. “I changed my mind. I’m going to leave him. If you still want me as your daughter, if you still want me as your family, then pick me up. Erase my identity. Help me disappear. So I can be free.”

I hung up before I could hear the disappointment slide into his voice.

My hands trembled so badly I nearly dropped the phone. The hospital room was too bright, too white, the scent of antiseptic too clean to match the rot in my chest. I stared at the IV line snaking into my arm and felt the memory rise up like bile.

Three days ago, I was standing on a yacht off the coast of San Amaro. It was my husband Xander’s birthday party.

Nadia was also there. My half-sister. My husband’s mistress.

She sidled up next to me near the railing, “Why are you even here, Lauren?” she’d asked, twirling her glass lazily. “You’re always so out of place. You should’ve just stayed at home.”

I ignored her, but the words dug under my skin like glass splinters.

The yacht rocked gently beneath us. The party roared behind us — laughter, music, clinking glasses. Nadia leaned closer, her eyes glittering with something too dark to name. “Do us all a favor, sister. Leave. He doesn’t need you.”

I turned to shove past her and felt her hand on my arm. A single, deliberate push. My scream vanished under the splash as I hit the freezing black water.

“Oh no!” I heard her giggle. “She fell!”

I came up gasping, salt burning my eyes. I flailed in the darkness, each stroke more desperate than the last. I could see them above me — Nadia, giggling behind her hand, and Xander, my husband, glass in hand, head thrown back in laughter.

They didn’t move. They didn’t help. They watched me struggle as if I was an inconvenience, a stain on their perfect evening.

If it weren’t for the old fisherman who found me clinging to driftwood, I’d be at the bottom of that sea. But maybe that would’ve been kinder.

In the hospital, I begged the doctors not to take my baby. But the impact had been too much, my body was too battered. When they wheeled me in, I heard a voice cut through my sobbing.

“Just go ahead and kill the baby,” Xander told the doctor. “I don’t really care. Let both of them die for all I care.”

The doctor hesitated. “Sir, are you sure about this? It’s your heir—”

Xander scoffed, that cruel laugh I used to mistake for warmth. “I never wanted an heir that comes from her. I’ve regretted marrying her since day one. If it weren’t for Nadia leaving me for her career, none of this would’ve happened. She seduced me so I had a night with her, our parents forced us to marry, but it doesn’t matter now.”

Nadia’s voice drifted in, sweet and false. “Are you sure, Xander? It’s your baby… what do you think she would feel?”

He barely looked at her. “It’s better this way. I was already planning to slip something in her drink to get rid of the baby and her. Now I don’t have to. You know, you’re the only one I want, Nadia.”

Nadia whimpered, a pathetic, guilty laugh. “I’m sorry… for leaving you. For everything.”

Xander’s tone turned gentle. “It’s okay. As long as you promise you’ll never leave me again.”

“I promise,” she breathed.

And the last thing I heard was the steady beep of the monitor, mocking me as the life I carried inside me was scraped away while they planned the rest of their perfect life without me.

I snapped out of the memory when the door swung open. Xander stood there, a plastic smile on his perfect lips, carrying flowers and a tray of food like he was the devoted husband the world still believed him to be.

“Baby,” he said, voice dripping sweet poison. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner, you know how the company is, so much to do. But I’m here now.”

Liar. In my mind, I could see him in Nadia’s bed, her red nails raking his back while my body lay here, stitched and empty.

“I made you shrimp,” he said, placing the tray on my lap. “Your favorite.”

I stared at the plate. Nadia loved shrimp. I was allergic.

“I don’t want it.”

He stiffened, eyes flashing. “Don’t be dramatic. Isn’t it enough that our daughter died because of you? Shouldn’t you apologize to me?”

Before I could speak, his phone buzzed. He didn’t even hide the name. Nadia.

“I’m going to answer this. Eat. Don’t make this harder than it already is,” he hissed. “I’ll be back.”

I heard his voice through the crack in the door. “It’s me, baby. Oh, okay. I’m coming. Don’t cry.”

And he never came back to me.

I let him be. I was done.

I finally called my lawyer.

“It’s me. Lauren Valeria. I want to file for divorce.”