Chapter 3- Accidentally Single

YASMIN

The words came out of my mouth hollow and empty, and I barely recognized my own voice.

"Fine, I'll do it."

My mother nodded before pulling out her phone and walking toward the window, her back already turned to me.

"Damien, she's agreed. Start making arrangements for tomorrow morning." Mom informed him on the other side.

Tomorrow, not next week and apparently not something I had a say in either.

My cheek still burned from where she'd slapped me, and now she was already planning my wedding, phone pressed to her ear like I'd stopped existing in the room the second I said yes.

"I'm so sorry, Yasmin." Rosalie's voice came out soft and trembling, her eyes glistening. "I never wanted this for you."

I stared at her but nothing escaped my lips.

"Why won't you look at me?" Her chin trembled, that same fragile smile in place, and something about how broken she looked turned my stomach, because somehow she was the one who managed to look like she was sacrificing something here.

"It's just—" A tear slid down her cheek. "If Noah dies, I don't know how I'll survive."

"He won't die."

"But if he does—"

"Can I go now?" I cut her off. I wasn't in the mood for any of it.

My mother turned from the window, phone still at her ear. "Go home and rest. Tomorrow, you'll be a wife." Then she went back to her call, like she'd already forgotten I was there and so I left.

—

The hospital hallway was cold, the fluorescent lights humming overhead. My heels clicked against the linoleum. I didn't look back, because some part of me knew I wouldn't keep walking if I did.

My legs were shaking as badly as my hands by the time I reached my car.

I sat behind the wheel, the silence pressing in around me thick enough to feel.

Everything from the last few hours flashed through my mind. Noah's pale face through the window, the slap, Rosalie's tears and underneath all of it, worse than all of it, his name.

Damien Delacroix.

He wasn’t a stranger. That was the part nobody in that room understood, the part I hadn't told a single person in my family.

I could still hear exactly how his voice had sounded that morning, like I was something he needed to get rid off and now I was supposed to spend however long this marriage lasted lying next to that same voice, pretending none of it had ever happened, pretending I didn't already know exactly how little I meant to him.

I almost laughed, except nothing about it was funny. Of all the men in the world, my mother had handed me back to the one who'd already thrown me away once.

None of it would settle into one clear thought. It just kept looping, over and over, without ever landing anywhere.

My phone buzzed against the seat. The email was still open, right where I'd left it that morning, back when my life still belonged to me.

“Congratulations, we are pleased to offer you the position of Junior Associate at Sterling & Associates...”

The words blurred the longer I looked at them. All those nights in the library came back to me, my coffee gone cold, the rest of the world asleep while I stayed up telling myself that one day I wouldn't have to beg anyone for anything.

It was all gone, and I hadn't even gotten a say in when.

I typed out a reply. Then I deleted it, because I couldn't send it, because sending it made it real.

I threw my phone onto the passenger seat, and that's when the tears actually came. I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles went white, and cried till I felt numb and cold.

I needed someone and so I grabbed my phone and scrolled to his name. Mark.

I called him. It rang and rang before going straight to voicemail.

“Can you call me? I really need you. Please.”

The word "Delivered" just sat there under the message, doing absolutely nothing for me. He'd seen it already, but he wasn't going to answer.

He was the only thing that mattered right now, and he wasn't there, so I started the car.

—

Twenty minutes later, I was at his place, a route I could've driven blind.

He always left the door unlocked when he knew I was coming, and today his car was in its usual spot, the lights on upstairs.

For the first time all day, something like relief moved through me. He was home, he’d fix this, somehow, the way he always did just by being there.

I walked to his door and knocked. No answer. I kept knocking, calling him at the same time, and I could hear his phone ring somewhere on the other side of the door.

"Hey." I pressed my forehead against the wood. "I know you're in there. Please, I really need to talk to you."

The door soon opened. It wasn't him standing there. It was a woman, wearing his shirt, her hair in a mess, already annoyed before she'd gotten a word out.

"Who are you?"

I couldn't say anything. I just stared at the shirt I recognized.

"Who's at the door?" His voice, from somewhere behind her. Then he appeared, shirtless, confused, and the second his eyes landed on me every bit of color drained out of his face.

"Yasmin. Wait—"

I didn't wait, I was already moving.

"Yasmin, stop!" His footsteps echoed behind me. "It's not what you think!"

"Please, just let me explain!"

He caught my arm at the bottom of the stairs.

"Don't touch me." The words cracked coming out of me as I yanked my arm away.

"Yasmin, I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

"Didn't mean to what?" I turned and actually looked at him, my hands shaking so hard I had to fold them to keep them still. "Cheat on me? Ignore my calls?"

"I can explain—"

"I called you." Tears spilled out again, hot behind my eyes. "Because I needed you, because today was the worst day of my life, and some stupid part of me actually thought you'd be there."

I stopped and really looked at him then. The man I'd built a whole future around.

"Today was the day I needed you the most." My voice was barely a whisper now. "And you weren't here."

His mouth opened, but nothing came out. So I turned and went down the rest of the stairs without looking back.

—

I got in the car and sat there with both hands on the wheel, not moving.

I didn't want to go home, not with my mother's voice waiting there, telling me how selfish I was, how I owed Rosalie everything I had left. And I definitely didn't want to think about tomorrow, about signing my name next to his.

I needed to be somewhere else. Anywhere and so I drove.

The streets blurred past without registering, and I didn't care where any of them led. Then the first raindrop hit the windshield, then another, until the sky opened up completely and the wipers couldn't keep pace with it.

Headlights from oncoming cars smeared into long streaks of white and gold through the water on the glass.

I should've slowed down, or at least pulled over, but I couldn't make myself do either. Stopping meant sitting still with everything, and there wasn't anything left in me to sit still with.

My mother's voice circled back. “Do something selfless for once. You owe Rosalie this.”

Another tear slipped down my cheek, then another, faster than I could wipe them, the road dissolving into smeared light every time I blinked. I swiped at my eyes with the back of my hand, trying to see, and kept failing at it.

A car horn blared somewhere close and I jerked the wheel without thinking.

My tires screeched against the wet asphalt as the car swerved into the next lane, missing the other vehicle by inches, my heart slamming against my ribs.

"Oh my God—"

I fought to straighten the wheel, my hands shaking so badly I could barely feel them. For one second I actually thought I had it back.

Then the headlights hit.

Blinding white light filling the whole windshield before I even understood what I was looking at. I wrenched the wheel again, too hard this time, and the tires found water.

The car spun, the world outside twisting into long streaks of light, and somewhere underneath the sound of the horn still blaring, I think I was screaming too.

Then something slammed into the side of me and threw me sideways.

For a second I could still hear the rain against what was left of the windshield.

Then everything went dark.