Denial

“Meet my fiancée, Elora Shane.” Zane’s voice interrupted my thoughts. His voice was cold and emotionless, as though he were introducing a business partner. His arm draped possessively around her waist, then his other arm to deliberately rest in the middle of her stomach.

I blinked too fast to even get a good grasp of her face.

“Fiancée?”The word sliced through my tongue as it escaped. My voice cracked, unsure if it was despair or heartbreak carrying it forward.

My eyes dropped to her belly, the round and the undeniable curve beneath her silky gown. My finger trembled as it pointed towards it. “She’s… sh… she… she is pregnant. 

The woman looked at me, her gaze sharp, lips curled into a parasite’s smile.

“Oh–you mean–he didn’t tell you,” she said with a smirk on her face. Her voice was drenched in satisfaction and sugar-coated cruelty.

My lips were numb. I couldn’t utter a word. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t even swallow my saliva. The man I had abandoned my family for, walked away from billions for, hidden my identity for, had been banging another woman long enough to get her heavily pregnant.

The air felt dense. My chest aches like someone had cracked open my ribs and poured hot coal inside.

Everything in me wanted to go back to that day. I kept hearing the doctor's voice warning me about all I had to lose. “You’re risking too much. The scars might be irreversible. You could be sabotaging your career as a model.” 

But he had been betrayed by his step-siblings, who staged the accident to prevent him from inheriting anything. I felt so bad for him and that strengthened my resolve to be there for him.

But I had been blinded by love. Love for the man that once whispered forever under neon lights and a half-empty bottle of whiskey, my head on his shoulder believing the world paused for us.

And now he stood there, unflinching as he shattered my heart. 

“You should be grateful, Zara”. Zane’s words echoed through my thoughts.

“Your skin is forever etched onto my body. Something a lot of girls would die for.”He said mockingly.

“I’m alive, Zara. You gave me a second chance.”

His words clunged deep inside of me like steel against bone.

“A chance you plan to spend with someone else?” My voice trembled in more grief than fury. My lungs ached from holding back a scream.

“You even got engaged without divorcing me first? Was that all I meant to you?”. I asked, my words fighting their way out of my throat to Zane’s stone-cold face.

He looked through me like I was glass.“You knew what this world demanded. You knew it before you married an illegitimate billionaire. Elora, my heiress fiancée, brings alliances, security. Things you could never give me.”

“Now leave! I’m done explaining myself to you!”. He thundered at me and slammed the door once more.

The echo reverberated through my bones

I looked around me. The road was lonely and quiet, night immediately coming. I sat there, on the cold pavement, my knees burning from where I’d hit the floor when he shoved me aside.

I struggled to get up, with the little strength I had left in me, from the floor I was thrown to by my husband as passers by were already stealing glances at me. As I walked slowly from the house, not knowing where I was headed, memories of the choices I had made all flooded through my mind.

My mother’s voice echoed in my mind, “You’ll regret this Zara. You’re trading diamonds for a fake”.

The fear of walking away from the life I had come to be at peace with, after leaving my family, made my heart ache. My stomach twisted. I couldn’t imagine a life without Zane in it.

“What if I am giving up too soon? Lovers quarrel all the time, right? What if I can’t survive without him?”

I had no means of sustaining myself. Every dime I made stayed with my modelling agency. According to my contract with them, they get to keep eighty percent of my earnings when any scandal springs up around me. My divorce definitely would serve as one.

I became motionless. I had to turn back. I couldn’t give up like this. I hurriedly returned to my house.

“Zane, Zane. Zane Wesley!. Please don’t do this to me!” I cried out into the night. My voice cracked as the wind howled, matching the storm building in the clouds. 

“I’m sorry!” I cried louder, each word a plea, each breath a struggle.

“Please come out and tell me you still love me. Tell me you didn’t mean all that you said”.

“Zaneeeee”. I screamed one last time as I landed on the ground, breaking into uncontrollable tears. 

There was no response. Not even a sound to prove they heard me. The house remained dark and indifferent. 

Were they in my matrimonial bed? I couldn’t bear the thought of that.

Where could I go?

I dared not call my family. We hadn’t spoken in three years since I married Zane. Not when I packed the last of my clothes into the brown trunk. Not when I removed the necklace my father gave me and threw it across the table because he refused to grant my wish to marry Zane Wesley. Not when I emptied my trust fund worth millions of dollars to invest in Zane’s company.

The raindrops that had been trying to catch my attention now gushed heavily. I wrapped my hands around my body, trying to suppress the pain the gushing rain caused to my healing surgical wounds.

Weak and broken, I stumbled away from the place I once called home. The rain mixed with my tears, blurring my vision as I dragged my feet, my heart aching with every step.

He said I no longer have my beauty. I also wasn’t the Zara Smith the world remembered.

And maybe that was a good thing.

Because tomorrow, I’d disappear.