The fall!

 Chapter 3 —

 Alina

"Why? Why today? Why now?" 

I cried the whole drive home. Twice I almost drifted into oncoming traffic. I didn't care.

I thought about pulling over. About calling my father's old lawyer. About calling anyone who might tell me this was a bad dream I could still wake up from. But the lawyer stopped answering a year ago, once it was clear there was no money left to bill for. Nobody was left. That truth kept slamming into me the whole way home.

I barely remembered parking. I barely remembered walking through the gate, past guards who greeted me the same way they always did, unaware my entire world had already ended.

I barely remembered picking up my car key from when I dropped them, and the scan result. All I remember was my leg moving.

"Please, wake me up," I whispered to myself. 

I stood in the driveway for a moment before going in, staring up at a house that had never once felt like mine, no matter how many years I'd lived inside it. Every piece of furniture had been chosen before I arrived. Every portrait on the wall was of a family that made it clear, every single day, that I was a guest who'd overstayed her welcome.

I used to tell myself that would change once I gave them a grandchild. I used to believe that so completely I built my whole identity around waiting for it to come true.

Larisa was in the foyer, arranging flowers by the window, humming to herself. The picture of a woman without a single care.

"Look what crawled back," she sneered, not even setting the flowers down. "Where the hell are you coming from?"

"Not now, Larisa Petrovna." I tried to move past her.

"You need to go back to whatever gutter your father left you in." Her eyes narrowed. "Where have you been all morning? Being barren is already enough waste. You should be helping at home, instead of running around the whole city."

"Is that all I am to you?" My voice came out small. "A womb that didn't work fast enough?"

"You are nothing to me," she said simply. "You never were. You have no womb, you can’t even help around the house. You don’t assist with finance. All you do is run my son’s company dry. What use are you now?"

"I loved him," I said, and hated how much it sounded like a confession. "I loved this family. I tried, Larisa Petrovna. Every day for three years, I tried."

"Trying isn't the same as succeeding," she said. "My son needs an heir, not effort."

"I'm not in the mood for this." My voice shook. "Please. Just let me go upstairs."

"You think you are still your father's princess, you little rat?"

She grabbed my wrist. My bag dropped, and the content flew to the floor between us.

She bent, picked it up, unfolded it, and laughed. 

"A fake scan? Is this how you planned to trap my son forever? Pathetic. Did you print this yourself?"

"It's not fake," I whispered, and something in my voice must have carried real pain, because for one moment her laugh faltered.

"Then where is my son? Why isn't he here celebrating with you?" Her eyes glittered when I said nothing. "That's what I thought."

"He's with Yelena." Saying it out loud broke something else in me. 

Shock crossed her face for half a second. Then it hardened again, faster than I expected.

"Good," she said. "Finally, some good news in this house. Maybe now my son gets a wife who can actually give him a child."

That landed harder than anything that came after it.

"You don't mean that," I said, though some small, stupid part of me was still hoping she didn't.

"I mean every word." She said folding her arms, satisfaction written plain across her face. "You've been a disappointment since the day my son brought you home. This is a mercy, Alina. For all of us."

"I'm not in the mood for this," I said again, louder, desperation cracking through. I stepped around her. "Please. Just let me pass. I need to clear my head."

I made to walk past her, my shoulder brushing slightly against hers. She shoved me instead. Both hands, hard, right into the edge of the staircase.

Pain exploded through my whole body.

I hit the floor. For one long, silent second, nothing happened at all. Then the pain arrived in ful. Low, sharp, spreading through me the way spilled water spreads across marble, finding every crack it can. I curled around my own stomach, like my hands alone could hold together whatever had just come loose inside me.

"Get up," Larisa said, though her voice had lost its certainty now. "Stop being dramatic."

I couldn't answer. I couldn't do anything but lie there, staring at the chandelier, watching it blur and double and blur again. Somewhere far away, the housekeeper's voice, high and frightened. "What? Alina?"

Somewhere, for the first time in three years, Larisa sounded unsure.

"She fell," she was saying to someone, quick and quiet. "Tripped on the rug. She tripped. I’m sure she’s just looking for attention. Let her be."

I wanted to scream the truth into every corner of that house. My mouth wouldn't form the words. The room kept tilting no matter how hard I tried to hold it still.

I cried out, distant, like it belonged to someone else. My vision blurred, tunneled, went dark at the edges. Somewhere above me, I thought I heard Larisa gasp. Footsteps. A door slamming open.

The last thing I saw before everything went black was Boris's face, walking through the front door.

Too late. As always.

One last drop of tears

escaped my already weak eye before I finally heard my last heartbeat.