Chapter 4: The night I died

Amelia/celeste’s pov

The brake fluid was still dripping when I called Gregory, he didn’t pick up I called again, my thumb slipping against the screen. “Amelia, I told you I’m working late.”

“Someone cut my brake line.”

“What?”

“I was about to drive to Whitman’s office and there’s brake fluid all over the garage floor, my voice shook. “Gregory, I need to tell you something tonight. It’s about Evelyn and your mother.”

If this is about the seating chart again… “It’s not the seating chart.” I nearly screamed it. “They’ve been poisoning me for four years, every miscarriage, I have it recorded, I heard them say it themselves.”

The silence on the line stretched long enough that I thought the call had dropped.

Stay there, he said finally, something uncertain cracking through the irritation. “I’m coming home.”

“I can’t wait, I need Whitman’s real files before he burns them.”Amelia, your car isn’t safe, don’t…” I was already moving toward the second car, my father’s old sedan gathering dust in the corner of the garage. The keys were still in it.

“I’ll take the other car.”

“Amelia, wait…”

I hung up.

The coastal road wound along the cliffs, my phone buzzed on the passenger seat. Gregory calling back, I reached for it without slowing down.

That was long enough.

The wheel jerked hard in my hands. I overcorrected, felt the tires lose the wet road completely, and then the guardrail was there and gone in the same breath, no road left beneath me. Only the black drop of the cliff rushing up to meet the windshield.

The car hit the water and the world folded in on itself.

Cold flooded through the shattered glass, filling the cabin in seconds, I clawed at the seatbelt, at the door, my lungs screaming for air that wasn’t coming. Through the cracked windshield, distorted by water and blood, I saw a shape standing at the top of the cliff, still, watching, making no move to help.

Someone was already there. Someone knew I’d be on this road tonight. The thought was the last clear thing in my mind before the dark swallowed the rest of it.

I didn’t feel myself die, I only felt the absence of everything after, no fear, no pain, just a long stretch of nothing with no beginning and no end.

Then air tore into my lungs like fire.

I sat up gasping, both hands flying to my chest, dry, warm, no blood,no wound.

“Whoa, hey, easy, you are okay.”

A woman I’d never seen stood over me, clipboard pressed to her chest. You fainted during the intake exam, she said. “Do you remember where you are?”

I opened my mouth to answer, the voice that came out wasn’t mine, lighter , younger.

“Where am I?”

“Whitman Fertility Clinic, sweetheart, you just finished signing on as the Vale family’s surrogate.” She glanced at her clipboard. “Ms. Monroe?”

“What did you call me?”

“Celeste.” She laughed, gentle and patient. “You went down hard, want some water?”

I looked past her at the small mirror mounted on the wall, and every thought in my head went still at once.

Not my face.

I raised a trembling hand to my cheek, the stranger in the mirror raised hers at the exact same moment.

“Do you know what year it is?” she asked.

I turned toward the calendar pinned behind her, a date circled in red, and my stomach dropped straight through the floor.

Two years before the crash.

I was alive, was someone else, and somewhere in this exact building, a contract with my new name on it had already been signed, binding me to the very family that destroyed me.

“I’ll get Dr. Whitman,” she said, heading for the door. “He’ll want to walk you through the rest now that you’re steady.”

She left. I sat alone, staring at hands that weren’t mine, and felt something cold and patient settle into my chest where the panic had been a moment before.

The door opened again,Gregory stepped in, two years younger than the husband who let me die without ever once fighting for me.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said slowly, his eyes locked on my face. “I wanted to meet the surrogate before you left today.”

He extended his hand.

“Have we met somewhere before? You seem… impossibly familiar.” I took his hand and kept my voice steady, I don’t think so, Mr. Vale.

Dr. Whitman appeared in the doorway before Gregory could answer, clearing his throat. Mr. Vale, your mother’s asking for you, he turned to me, folder in hand, Ms. Monroe, there’s actually been a change to your arrangement. Given the sensitivity of this surrogacy, the family’s requested you relocate to the estate for the full term, closer monitoring. You’ll be moved in by the end of the week.”

The floor tilted beneath me all over again.

“The estate,” I repeated.

“The Vale residence,” he said, like I hadn’t understood the first time, you’ll have your own wing, full privacy.

I looked at Gregory, who was already checking his watch, already halfway back to the man who’d let a business deal outweigh his dying wife, and felt the shape of my second chance close around me like a door I couldn’t take back.

I was going home.

To the house where I died. I rose slowly, smoothing my skirts, and let a smile spread across my face, slow and deliberate.

The first true smile I had worn since my rebirth.