Chapter 2 Leave 

Judy’s POV

“You are divorcing me?” The words felt brittle, like glass breaking in my throat before they could even leave my mouth.

For a moment, the room fell into a suffocating silence, as though the very walls were leaning in to witness my humiliation. I looked at Lucas, the man I had spent five years trying to reach through a wall of ice. Even after the tragedy twenty years ago, even through the cold glares and the bitter silences, I had loved him. It was a quiet, desperate hope that one day he would wake up and see the truth. That one day, I would be enough.

“What? You can’t read?” He didn’t even look up. His voice was nonchalant, cutting through my heart with the precision of a scalpel.

That coldness was a slap I couldn’t dodge.

“I am no longer staying with you now that Claire has come back to me.” He pulled her toward him, his hand firm and possessive on her waist—a touch he had never once offered me in five years of marriage.

I couldn't find the breath to answer. My mind was a chaotic storm of questions. Claire was back. Claire, the sister I had mourned and been blamed for, was standing there perfectly fine. The paralysis that had been my life’s sentence, the "sin" I had paid for every single day, seemed to have vanished like a bad dream.

“How did you do it, Claire?” I whispered, my voice trembling with a mix of awe and burgeoning horror.

“What?” she chuckled, a dark, melodic sound that made my skin crawl. “You didn't want me back so badly that you’d rather see me dead?”

She narrowed her eyes and folded her arms, the picture of wounded innocence. “If I hadn't been away, you wouldn’t have been with Lucas in the first place. Lucas is mine to claim, Judy. Not after what you did to me.”

“What did I do to you?” I felt a surge of vertigo. The room seemed to tilt.

“You told me to drive that car, Judy. You told me we were just having fun and that I was going to love it.” She tilted her head, a mock-pensive look on her face. “How did you call it again? Oh, yes, I remember! You said it was going to be our little secret, and nobody was going to know.”

Her voice grew sharper, echoing with a practiced, jagged pain. “Yet, you disconnected the brake pad. You directed me to drive into a ditch and run as soon as I hit it. You are a bad person, Judy. Evil!”

My heart didn't just drop; it felt like it withered inside my chest. It wasn’t just the lie; I had always known Claire was a liar. It was the perfection of it. She had spent years sharpening this blade, ensuring there were no inconsistencies. To the world, and to the man I loved, this lie was the absolute truth.

I looked at her, seeing the girl who used to sneak into our mother’s car whenever we were left alone. I remembered the screaming, the smell of burnt rubber, and the way I had clawed at the car door trying to get her out.

I opened my mouth to scream the truth, to finally fight back after nineteen years of silence, but a cold voice cut me down.

“What are you still waiting for?” Lucas snapped.

The hatred in his eyes was a physical weight. “I’ve always prayed for this day. I’ve cursed the very air you breathe since the day you ruined her life.”

A sharp, stabbing pain shot through my chest. It wasn't just him. “Go away, Judy. Nobody wants you. Not even your own mother.”

The mention of my mother was the final blow. To be rejected by the man you love is a tragedy; to be disowned by the woman who gave you life, based on a sister’s lie, is a death sentence. I swallowed hard, the metallic taste of grief filling my mouth.

My fingers tightened around the package I had managed to scoop up from the floor. I had spent months saving for this. I had skipped meals and worked extra shifts on set just to buy him something that whispered, 'I'm still here. I still care.' I had imagined a quiet dinner, a softening of his gaze.

Instead, he had turned his birthday into the day he erased me from his life.

“At least—” I started, my voice failing me.

“At least what?” Claire sneered, snatching the package from my hand before I could react.

She ripped into the paper, pulling out the silver wristwatch. She held it up like it was a piece of trash she’d found in the gutter. “You call this a gift? Lucas is worth more than this cheap nonsense.”

Before I could even cry out, she hurled it. The watch hit the wall with a blast. She walked to it, then brought her heel down. The sound of the glass shattering echoed through the room like a gunshot.

Five years of savings. Five years of hope. Crushed into a thousand jagged pieces under her shoe.

“When you’re ready, you leave, Judy. Nobody wants you,” she smirked, leaning back into Lucas’s chest.

I stood there, staring at the ruin of my gift. I felt a strange, hollow peace settle over me. You can only fight for someone who wants to be saved. You can only love someone who has a heart to receive it.

I turned toward the door, my legs feeling like lead. I wanted to walk out with my dignity, to find that "villain voice" the director talked about and tell them they deserved each other.

But as I reached the threshold, the world began to spin. A sudden, violent dizziness hit me, and the light in the hallway turned into a blinding white glare. My vision blurred into shadows, and my knees buckled.

The last thing I felt was the bite of the cold floor against my skin as the darkness finally took me.