Ellie POV

The plane never took off.

That weightless sensation, the feeling of lifting into the clouds and leaving the pain behind? It was a hallucination.

It was a final mercy my brain granted me before my body shut down on the cold, unforgiving tiles of the airport terminal.

I woke up back in the white room.

The chemical bite of antiseptic was stronger this time, choking out the phantom memory of fresh rain.

I wasn't in Florence.

I was back in the cage.

"You're awake," a soft voice said.

It wasn't Marcus.

It was a nurse I hadn't seen before.

Her name tag read Maria. She had kind, pitying eyes and hands that didn't tremble when she changed the dressing on my arm.

"Your husband brought you back," she said, adjusting the flow of the IV drip. "He was frantic. You went into septic shock, honey. You almost died."

My husband.

I shifted my gaze to the door.

Marcus was standing there.

He looked exhausted, his shirt rumpled and his eyes bloodshot, as if he hadn't slept in days. But he wasn't looking at me.

He was looking at his phone, his thumbs flying across the screen.

"How is she?" he asked, without glancing up.

"Stable," Maria said, her tone firm. "But she needs rest. No stress."

Marcus nodded, finally shoving the device into his pocket.

He walked over to the bed and reached for my hand-the one that wasn't burned.

I pulled it away, tucking it beneath the sterile sheet.

He froze, his hand hovering in the empty air between us.

He sighed-a sharp sound of frustration, not concern.

"Ellie, don't be like this," he said, his voice tight. "You scared us. Running away like that? It was childish."

Childish.

The word hung in the air, heavy and dismissive.

I closed my eyes. I didn't have the energy to argue. I didn't even have the energy to hate him.

I just felt... nothing.

A vast, hollow numbness where my heart used to be.

"I have to go check on Chloe," he said, glancing at his watch. "She... she took your running away hard. She feels responsible."

Of course she does.

"Go," I whispered.

He didn't need to be told twice.

He left the room, the door clicking shut with a finality that echoed in the silence.

Days bled into nights.

My burns started to scab over, the physical pain settling into a dull, constant throb-a permanent reminder of my place in this world.

But in the quiet, I started making plans again.

Real ones this time.

I borrowed Maria's tablet when she wasn't looking.

I emailed the admissions office at the Florence Academy of Art. I didn't ask for a spot; I demanded one.

I attached my portfolio-the one Marcus had once dismissed as "derivative."

I was done asking for permission.

One afternoon, the hallway was unusually quiet.

Maria had left the door ajar.

Then, I heard a sound.

A distinct ripping noise. Like heavy paper being torn.

I shifted in bed, wincing as the movement pulled at my skin. Through the crack in the door, I could see into the room across the hall.

It was a private suite.

Chloe's suite.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed, clutching a photograph. Her face was twisted in a mask of pure agony.

It wasn't the smug, victorious look I was used to. She looked broken.

She tore the photo in half. Then in quarters.

She let the pieces flutter to the floor like dead leaves.

"Why won't you let me go?" she sobbed to the empty room.

The door to her room opened, and Marcus walked in.

He saw the confetti of paper on the floor and froze.

I held my breath.

I was invisible. A ghost haunting the periphery of my own life.

"Chloe," Marcus said. His voice was raw, terrifyingly gentle.

"Get out!" she screamed.

"Stop pretending, Marcus! You married her! You chose her!"

"I never chose her!" Marcus shouted back.

The volume made me flinch.

"I did what I had to do to keep the company! To keep your father from destroying us!"

He fell to his knees.

He started picking up the scattered fragments of the photo. His hands, usually so steady and cold, were shaking violently.

"I would give it all up," he said, his voice dropping to a desperate whisper that carried across the hall.

"The company. The money. The legacy. I would burn it all down right now if you asked me to."

"Then why don't you?" Chloe wept.

"Because I'm trying to build a world where we can be safe," he said.

He began taping the pieces of the photo together on his knee. It was a picture of them, years ago. Young. Happy.

"Just wait a little longer," he pleaded. "Please."

Chloe turned away from him.

Marcus stayed on the floor, guarding the taped-up photo like it was a holy relic.

I pulled back from the door.

My heart was pounding, but not from pain.

From clarity.

Later, two nurses stood outside my room, changing the linens on a cart.

"It's tragic, really," one whispered.

"He gave up a scholarship to Yale just to stay near her when she got sick in high school. His parents threatened to disown him, but he didn't care."

"And now he's stuck with the wife," the other replied.

"Poor guy."

The wife.

The obstacle.

I looked at my burned arm. I looked at the sterile ceiling.

I realized then that I wasn't fighting for his love.

I was fighting a ghost story. A tragedy written long before I ever walked onto the stage.

I wasn't the protagonist of this life.

I wasn't even the villain.

I was just a prop.

And props don't bleed. They don't cry.

They just get discarded when the scene is over.

I looked at the tablet hidden under my pillow.

Application Received, the email read.

I smiled.

It was cold and sharp.

I wouldn't be discarded.

I would write myself out of the script.

Ellie POV

I was walking laps in the corridor. Doctor's orders.

Every step sent a sharp, electric jolt through my grafting skin, but I forced my legs to piston forward. Pain was proof I was still alive.

I turned the corner near the elevator bank and stopped dead.

Chloe was there.

She wasn't in a hospital gown. She was draped in a cream cashmere sweater and designer jeans, looking like she had just stepped out of a Vogue editorial rather than a trauma ward.

She saw me, and her eyes widened.

"Ellie," she breathed. She took a tentative step toward me.

I turned around immediately. I didn't have the stomach for her. Not today.

"Wait!" she called out, her voice echoing off the sterile walls. "Please, just stop!"

I kept walking. My rubber-soled slippers scuffed rhythmically against the linoleum.

She caught up to me and grabbed my arm. My bad arm.

I gasped, a ragged sound, and pulled away instinctively. "Don't touch me."

"I just want to talk," she insisted, her grip tightening on the sensitive flesh. "Marcus... he's worried about you. We both are. This misunderstanding needs to stop."

"Misunderstanding?" I laughed. It was a dry, cracking sound that hurt my throat. "You call sleeping with my husband a misunderstanding?"

"We have a history, Ellie. You can't just erase that."

"I'm not trying to erase it," I rasped. "I'm trying to escape it."

I yanked my arm back. I put too much desperate force into the motion.

I lost my balance.

My foot caught on the raised edge of the carpet runner. I stumbled backward, my center of gravity gone.

The stairwell door had been propped open by a cleaning cart.

I fell.

For a second, I was weightless. Then, gravity took over. I hit the first step with my shoulder. Then my hip. I tumbled down, a chaotic mess of limbs and bandages.

"Ellie!" Chloe screamed.

She reached out. It was a reflex. She tried to grab the fabric of my shirt to anchor me.

But she was wearing stilettos. She slipped.

I landed at the bottom of the landing, bruised and breathless, the wind knocked out of me.

A split second later, Chloe came crashing down beside me.

Her head hit the concrete floor with a sickening, wet thud.

Silence.

Then, blood. Bright red, pooling rapidly under her blonde hair.

I tried to sit up. My body screamed in protest. "Chloe?"

She didn't move.

The door at the top of the stairs burst open, banging against the wall.

"Chloe!"

It was Marcus. He must have been parking the car.

He flew down the stairs, taking them three at a time. He didn't even look at me. He stepped right over my legs to get to her.

"Chloe, baby, wake up," he begged, his voice cracking. He touched her face. His hands came away bloody.

He looked up at me then.

His eyes were voids. There was no recognition, no husband looking at his wife. Only a pure, unadulterated rage.

"What did you do?" he hissed.

"I... she fell," I stammered, shock setting in. "I fell..."

"You did this," he said. His voice was low, vibrating with the effort not to strangle me. "If she doesn't wake up... I swear to God, Ellie, I will destroy you."

"Marcus, I'm hurt too," I whispered, the words barely audible.

He stood up, scooping Chloe into his arms. She was limp, dead weight against his chest.

"I don't care," he said.

He turned and ran up the stairs, shouting for help.

I lay on the cold concrete. My burned arm was throbbing in time with my heartbeat. My hip felt like it was on fire. I was alone in the stairwell, listening to the fading echoes of my husband saving the woman he actually loved.

I closed my eyes. Darkness pulled at me, heavy and welcome.

When I woke up again, I was back in my bed.

A nurse was checking my vitals. "You're lucky," she said briskly. "Just bruises. You're a tough one."

Tough. I hated that word. It was just a polite way of saying I was accustomed to suffering.

My phone on the bedside table buzzed. It was Marcus.

She has a concussion. They are monitoring her brain activity.

I didn't reply.

Did you push her? the next text read.

I stared at the screen, my vision blurring.

Tell me the truth, Ellie.

I typed back slowly, my fingers stiff.

I fell. She tried to catch me.

Three dots appeared. Then disappeared. Then appeared again.

I'm sorry, he finally wrote. I panicked. I'll come see you when she's stable.

I put the phone down.

He apologized because he realized I wasn't a murderer. Not because he had left me bleeding on the floor.

I looked at the calendar on the wall.

Five days left until the divorce papers could be finalized if I expedited the process.

I needed to survive five more days.

The door opened. Marcus walked in. He looked like he had aged ten years in two hours.

"She's awake," he said. He slumped into the chair next to my bed, the leather creaking. "She told me what happened. That she grabbed you."

"I told you that," I said flatly.

"I know. I'm sorry." He rubbed his face aggressively. "I just... seeing her like that. It brought back memories. Of when she was sick."

"The leukemia," I said.

He froze. His hand dropped from his face. "How do you know about that?"

"I hear things," I said. "About how you gave up Yale. About how you saved her."

He looked away, unable to meet my gaze. "That was a long time ago."

"But you never stopped saving her, did you?" I asked.

He didn't answer. He didn't have to.

I watched his fingers tap nervously on his knee.

"Go back to her," I said.

"I should stay," he said weakly. "You're my wife."

"Not for long," I whispered.

"What?"

"Nothing," I said, turning my head away. "Go. She needs you."

He stood up. Relief washed over his face, plain and undeniable.

"I'll be back later," he promised.

He wouldn't.

I watched him leave. He didn't look back.

I reached for the phone again. I dialed the lawyer.

"Is the paperwork ready?" I asked.

"Yes, Mrs. Sterling. Just need your signature."

"Bring it here," I said. "Tonight."