The Wife He Left Behind

Callie's POV

When I opened my eyes, the world was upside down.

At first I didn't understand where I was. Then the pain came, sharp and hot, all down my left side, and I remembered. The red light. The truck. Kendra's smile.

The car was on its roof. The windshield was broken into a thousand white pieces, and rain was coming in through the gaps and running down my face. Or maybe it wasn't rain. When I touched my forehead, my fingers came away dark and wet, and the smell of blood filled my nose.

I tried to move my legs, but they were stuck. The dashboard had folded in on me like paper, and my right leg was trapped under it. My seat belt was still on, holding me upside down, and every breath felt like a knife in my ribs.

"Kendra?" I said. My voice came out small and broken.

She was hanging next to me in the driver's seat. Her long hair covered her face. For a long moment she didn't move, and I was sure she was dead. Then she groaned and lifted her head.

"Help," she whispered. "Somebody help me."

Her phone was lying on the roof of the car between us, the screen cracked but still glowing. It was ringing. The name on the screen was Mason.

Kendra reached for it with a shaking hand and pressed it to her ear. "Mason," she cried. "Mason, I'm hurt. There was an accident. I'm on Fifth Street, near the hotel. Please come. I'm so scared. Please, the baby."

I heard his voice through the phone, loud and panicked. I couldn't hear the words, but I knew that voice better than my own. I had waited all night to hear it.

She didn't tell him I was there. She didn't say my name once.

"Kendra," I said. "Tell him I'm here too."

She looked at me through her hair. Then she dropped the phone and closed her eyes.

I don't know how long we hung there. Maybe five minutes, maybe twenty. People were shouting outside. Somebody said the truck driver was okay. Somebody else said not to touch the car because it was leaking gas. I could smell it now, sharp and sweet, over the smell of blood.

Then I heard tires on the wet road and a car door slamming, and a voice I knew shouted, "Kendra!"

He came.

Even with all the pain, my heart jumped. Mason came. He was here. Whatever he had done, whatever that photo meant, he was here, and he was going to get me out.

Through the broken window, I saw his shoes first. Then his knees, as he dropped down onto the glass. Then his face, white and wild, his dark hair soaked from the rain.

He didn't look at me. He looked straight past me to the driver's side.

"Kendra, baby, I'm here," he said. "I've got you. Don't move. I'm getting you out."

He ran around to her door. It was crushed shut. He pulled at it, and when it didn't open, he started tearing at the twisted metal with his bare hands. I watched the sharp edges cut his fingers. I watched the blood run down his wrists. He didn't stop. He kept pulling and pulling, and he kept talking to her the whole time in a soft voice I had never heard before, the voice I used to dream he would use with me.

"Stay with me, Kendra. Look at me. You and the baby are going to be fine. I promise you. I promise."

"Mason," I said.

He didn't hear me, or he didn't want to.

"Mason, please," I said, louder this time. "My leg is stuck. I can't move. Mason, I'm here."

The door finally came open with a scream of metal. He reached in, unbuckled Kendra's belt, and caught her in his arms like she weighed nothing. He pulled her out into the rain and held her against his chest.

For one second, his eyes moved over the inside of the car. Over the blood. Over the blue dress. Over me.

Then he turned away.

"Somebody call an ambulance!" he shouted. "She's pregnant! Get her to a hospital now!"

And he carried her away. I heard his car door open and close. I heard the engine. I heard him drive off into the night, taking her with him, leaving me upside down in the wreck with my leg trapped and gas dripping somewhere near my head.

That was when I finally understood.

It was never a prank. It was never a lie. Five years of cold dinners and late nights and quiet promises to myself that one day he would see me, and the whole time, there was nothing to see. He didn't love me. Maybe he never had. I was the wife he kept at home like a piece of furniture, and when the house caught fire, he saved what he really cared about and walked out.

Something inside me went very quiet.

I had been holding on. I had been fighting to breathe, fighting to stay awake, because some part of me still believed he would come back for me. Now that part was gone. I didn't want to fight anymore. I didn't want to wake up in a world where I had to see his face again and know the truth.

So I stopped fighting.

I closed my eyes and let the dark come. It was soft and warm, and it didn't hurt at all.

The last thing I heard was another car stopping hard on the road and someone shouting my name. Not Kendra's name. Mine.

When I opened my eyes again, everything was white and quiet.

There was a soft beeping sound next to my head. My body felt heavy, like it was full of sand. A thin tube ran into the back of my hand, and the light coming through the window was gray and early.

Someone was holding my other hand.

I turned my head slowly on the pillow. A man was sitting in the chair beside the bed with his head bowed and his fingers wrapped around mine. His white shirt was stained with dried blood. His hands were cut and bandaged. He looked like he hadn't slept in days.

For one stupid second, my heart said Mason.

Then he lifted his head, and I saw his face.

It wasn't my husband.

It was Theo Navarro, Mason's best friend, the man who stood beside him on our wedding day. His eyes were red, and when he saw that I was awake, he held my hand tighter, like he was scared I would disappear.

"Callie," he said, and his voice cracked. "Thank God. You're awake."

I stared at him, and I couldn't make sense of it.

How could it be him?