I'm dying

**Yasmeen’s POV**

I stopped crying.

The tears simply… ran out. What was left was me shaking.

Deep, bone-level trembling that started in my chest and radiated outward until my fingers wouldn’t stay still…

I stood at the security room with blood drying on my temple and rainwater still dripping from my hair, staring at the empty monitors like they might rewrite what I had just seen.

Why?

Why would Lucas decide to kill me this way?

He had taken the version of myself I presented to California—the wise counselor, the woman who still believed in loyalty—and crushed it under the heel of his shoe with my cousin….

God please!

I turned and ran.

My legs carried me down the long hallway toward our bedroom before my heart screamed *No*. The thought hit me so hard I stumbled and caught myself against the wall.

What if he doesn’t love me anymore? What if he is already planning to file for divorce? What if he leaves me to face the cameras alone?

I was not ready.

I was not ready to stand in front of the entire state and admit that the perfect marriage I sold to them had been rotting from the inside.

I was not ready for the headlines, the think-pieces, the women who would look at me with pity or worse—satisfaction.

I scrubbed at my face with my hands, smearing blood and tears together, forcing the broken expression off my features. By the time I lowered my hands, I almost looked composed.

Almost.

One of the maids, Beatrice, appeared at the end of the hallway with a stack of fresh towels. Her eyes widened when she saw me.

“Madam… you are back—”

“Please,” I snapped…..

“Don’t go upstairs. We are still cleaning your room. Boss is renovating it—”

The word *renovating* snapped something inside me. I crossed the distance in three strides and gave her a dirty slap…. Beatrice dropped to her knees, The towels scattering instantly….

“Beatrice, you are fired,” I yelled….

She clutched her cheek, in tears. “Please forgive me… please, ma. Boss said he will kill me if I let you find out—”

I didn’t let her finish. Whatever she was about to say….

I stepped over the towels and walked straight out of the house. Before closing the front door…..I leaned back just enough for her to hear my final warning.

“If my husband finds out I know… I will ruin your life.”

Okay??? I snapped….

Walking away….

****

My car still sat crooked against the gate, the front bumper crumpled, one headlight cracked.

I circled it once, cataloguing the damage the way I catalogued everything else tonight….so I wouldn’t shatter.

I would have to get it repaired quietly. Disposed of, if necessary. Another secret to keep.

I slid into the driver’s seat, my hands still trembling, and pulled out my phone.

**Nina.**

Let’s hang out.

Five shots of tequila.

Her reply came almost immediately.

Sure. Naxi Bar. Twenty minutes.

I dropped the phone onto the passenger seat and drove.

By the time I reached the bar it was already six. I parked two streets away, pulled a black mask over the lower half of my face, and kept my head down.

*

The whole country adores me. I’m their idol. Their star. The woman who told them love could be safe. I could not afford a single photograph of my swollen eyes or the cut on my forehead or their usual fancy greeting…..

Naxi was private enough that the staff knew better than to stare. I spotted Nina at a corner table, already nursing a glass of tequila, her shoulders were shaking. When she looked up, her eyes were red.

I hurried over.

“Nia… why are you crying?” I demanded, sliding into the seat across from her. “Don’t tell me it’s because you aren’t married…… again.”

“Yes,” she sobbed, slamming the glass down. “When will I get a man like Lucas?”

Nia…. I screamed….

“But Raphael proposed to you last month,” and

“You rejected him.”

“Raphael is rich but he’s nonchalant. I want someone like Lucas.” Her voice rose, raw with longing. “Someone who comes home with roses. And cute promises…..

Something ugly flared in my chest.

“God forbid,” I snapped. “You will *not* get a man like Lucas.”

Nina froze. The hurt that crossed her face was immediate and sharp. She looked at me as if I had just slapped her the way I had slapped Beatrice.

“You’ve always said amen when I prayed for that,” she whispered. “Now you’re rejecting it? What have I done to you?”

I forced a chuckle that sounded wrong even to my own ears. My hands were shaking so hard I had to press them flat against the table.

“I’m joking. See your face? I’m not hurt. Just being dramatic. Your book is making me crave a man, that’s all.” Nina chuckled.

That was when I saw it.

The slim volume lying open beside her glass. The cover was soft cream with gold lettering. My own book. The one I had written last year in the flush of newlywed certainty.

*Goddamn it! You Are My Ideal Man.* I read it loud......

My hands moved without permission. I picked it up, holding my breath, and open the dedication page.

*For my forever loyal husband.*

Then the first chapter. The words I had written with such certainty blurred as fresh tears fell down my cheek….

*He comes home with roses, sweet promises, and he fulfills them all…*

I couldn’t breathe.

A broken sound tore out of me—half scream, half sob.

I flung the book across the table hard enough that it skidded into Nina’s glass. My fingers tangled in my own hair and I pulled my hair….

The private nature of the bar was the only mercy; no phones went up, no cameras flashed.

“Yasmeen—” Nina was already out of her seat, trying to grab me….

I collapsed against her, clutching her like a woman drowning.

He is such a cheat…..

Ahhh!

“Lucas is a pretender,” I choked. “All men are scum. They are devils.”

She clamped a hand over my mouth, eyes wide with panic, but I pulled free just enough to whisper the truth against her palm.

“Lucas has been sleeping with Elsa. Immediately after our marriage. Since last year… March.”

Nina’s arms loosened. She stared at me as if I had spoken in a language she had never heard.

The words she wanted to say—*I told you, you’ve always been delusional about love*—hovered on her tongue but never landed.

She had been right.

I had been delusional.

I had watched my father beat my mother for years until the divorce papers finally ended it, and still I had convinced myself that an ideal man existed. I had dated Lucas for five careful years, studied him, tested him, believed I had read every page of him before I said yes.

Now every old trauma came rushing back at once. The raised voices. The way my mother used to flinch. The quiet vow I had made as a teenager that I would never become her, that I would shape a better version of love and then teach the world how to hold it.

I reached for the bottle of tequila on the table and drank straight from it, the burn racing down my throat like punishment. By the third bottle the edges of the room had softened. Words spilled out of me that I barely recognized as mine—bitter, rambling, half-laughing.

“Fuck, Yasmeen.” Nina’s voice cut through the haze. “I have a photo shoot. Don’t drink anymore. Please.”

I waved her off with a clumsy smile. “Don’t panic, my love. Just go.”

She hesitated, pity and fear warring on her face. “Who told you he was cheating?”

“Liam,” I said. “He caught them.

Nina leaned in, voice low and urgent. “Sign the divorce papers.”

“Just go, Nia.” The words came out sharper than I intended. She looked at me one last time—soft, heartbroken, already grieving the version of me she used to know—then gathered her bag and left.

****

The bar felt suddenly too large and too quiet. I sat alone with the empty bottles and the discarded book, the dedication page still open like an accusation.

My phone felt heavy when I finally lifted it. I scrolled to Liam’s name and pressed call before I could talk myself out of it.

It rang twice.

“Why did you have to tell me??? I whispered the moment he answered. My voice was wrecked, small, almost childlike. “I’m dying. Please come and pick me up. I’m at Naxi Bar…”