The Lie Begins

The door creaked open, and in walked the last person I wanted to see.

Eleanor Sinclair.

Her heels clicked sharply against the tiled floor, echoing louder than the steady beeps of the monitors keeping Liam alive. Even in the chaos of the hospital, she looked like she was walking into a boardroom — poised, controlled, terrifying.

I straightened in my bed, my voice rasping. “What are you doing here?”

She walked closer and without a second thought, her palms hit my face, harsh and hard, the sting added to the pain that was already coursing through my body.

“I should be asking you that,” she said coolly, shaking her wrist like she was the pained one, her gaze sliding from my IV line to Liam’s still body. “Haven’t you done enough?”

My breath caught. “Excuse me? Why did you slap me?" I asked, my eyes red with fury.

“You heard me.” Her tone was calm, but there was venom in every word. “You’ve already ruined his life once. The least you could do is not hang over his bed like some guilty ghost.”

“I—” My throat tightened. “I didn’t cause the accident.”

She tilted her head slightly, studying me the way a judge studies a defendant before passing sentence. “No? You were driving, weren’t you?”

The question hit like a slap. “Someone rammed into us, Liam was the one driving—”

“But you did cause the accident,” she said sharply, cutting me off. “You failed to protect him. You failed, Amelia. Again.”

Her words hit harder than any wound. “I love him,” I whispered.

“Love?” She let out a low, bitter laugh. “Don’t insult us both. Love doesn’t make you reckless. Love doesn’t leave a man broken and fighting for his life.”

“Stop it,” I whispered, tears pooling in my eyes. “Please, stop.”

She ignored me and moved closer to Liam’s bedside. Her manicured fingers brushed his hand — so gentle, so deliberate — before she looked down at him with a performative sigh.

“Poor Liam,” she murmured. “He never listens. I told him women like you only bring misfortune.”

Something in me snapped. “Women like me?”

“Yes,” she said, turning to me. “A woman who married above her league, who thought she could play wife in a world she didn’t belong to. You should have stayed where you came from.”

My heart hammered. “You can say whatever you want about me, but I’m his wife.”

“Not for long,” she said simply.

The words hung in the air, sharp and cold.

I swallowed hard. “What is that supposed to mean?”

She walked closer, her heels clicking slowly, purposefully. “You think this marriage will survive this? You think he’ll wake up, look at you, and thank you for destroying everything he built?”

My chest tightened. “He would never—”

Eleanor leaned in, her voice dropping to a whisper that crawled under my skin. “When he wakes up, he’ll know everything. About the argument before the crash. About the money. About how you wanted to sell his shares.”

My head snapped up. “That’s not true!”

Her eyes gleamed. “It doesn’t have to be true, Amelia. It only has to sound believable.”

For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. “You’re lying,” I whispered. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because,” she said, standing tall, her tone soft but deadly, “you’ve already taken too much from him. His peace. His focus. His future. I won’t let you take his life too.”

I stared at her, speechless.

Eleanor adjusted her coat, smoothed her hair, and said almost casually, “When the time comes — when he wakes up — do him a favor and don’t be here. He doesn’t need to see you. It will only make things worse.”

Tears blurred my vision. “You don’t know what we had,” I whispered.

She paused at the door, her silhouette framed by the harsh white light of the corridor. “Oh, I know exactly what you had,” she said. “And I’ll make sure you never have it again.”

Then she left — quiet, graceful, ruthless.

The door clicked shut behind her, and the silence that followed was deafening.

I turned to Liam, my chest heaving, my trembling hand brushing his cheek.

“Don’t listen to her,” I whispered. “Please, don’t.”

But he lay there, still and pale, the machines breathing for him — and for the first time, I wondered if Eleanor was right, maybe I'd ruined him.

If maybe, somehow, I had destroyed everything.

"Mrs Sinclair," a nurse called, jolting me out of my thoughts.

"You need to go back to your room, it's bad on your end and his too," I tried to argue, beg to stay another minute with Liam but, Eleanor's words replayed in my mind.

Women that bring misfortune.

I nodded and allowed her to wheel me back to my ward.

The hallway lights blurred past — white, sterile, merciless. I kept my eyes fixed on the floor, trying not to hear Eleanor’s words replaying in my head, each one cutting deeper than the last.

Women that bring misfortune.

Women who don’t belong.

The nurse stopped outside my room. “You need rest, ma’am,” she said softly. “We’ll keep you updated.”

I forced a weak smile, nodded again, and let her help me onto the bed. But the moment the door closed, I broke.

My hands trembled as I pressed them to my face. The air felt heavy, thick with guilt and fear. Every sound in the hospital — the muffled footsteps, the distant machines — felt like accusations.

I should’ve done something. I should’ve—

The crash flashed again behind my eyes — the screeching tires, Liam’s voice shouting my name, glass shattering like gunfire. Then darkness.

A sob tore through me before I could stop it.

Liam’s face — calm, steady, protective — was the only thing keeping me from falling apart completely. But even that memory hurt. Because what if Eleanor was right? What if when he woke up, he wouldn’t want to see me again?

I turned on my side, clutching my bandaged ribs, whispering to the ceiling.

“You’ll wake up, Liam… right? You’ll wake up and remember us?”

But no answer came. Just the steady hum of machines down the hall — and the faint echo of Eleanor’s voice in my mind, promising that I’d lose everything.