Chapter 4 - THE NIGHT I ALMOST DIED
I had never told Noah everything.
There were things a mother tried to protect her child from.
The night of the accident was one of them.
Two years earlier, Ethan and I had still been married.
We had been arguing constantly.
He said he was under pressure.
I said he was lying.
I had not yet discovered the affair.
But I knew something was wrong.
One rainy night, I left the office late.
I remember the road.
The headlights.
The rain hitting the windshield.
Then nothing.
I woke up in a hospital.
My car had crashed into a barrier.
The doctors said I had been lucky.
Very lucky.
I had suffered a concussion.
A broken wrist.
Three cracked ribs.
But I survived.
Ethan had come to the hospital.
He had held my hand.
He had cried.
At least, that was what I thought.
Later, he told me the accident had been caused by the rain.
I believed him.
Now I looked at the device on the wedding table.
The insurance money will cover the rest.
My hands began to shake.
Ethan noticed.
“Camila, listen to me.”
I stepped away from him.
“What did you mean?”
“It wasn’t what it sounded like.”
“Then explain it.”
He looked around the room.
Hundreds of eyes were watching.
Lila was crying.
“Ethan?”
He turned toward her.
“Lila, I can explain.”
She slapped him.
The sound echoed across the room.
For one second, I almost laughed.
Then I remembered the first time she had slapped me.
The difference was that I had not deserved it.
Neither did she.
“You told me she was crazy,” Lila whispered.
Ethan stared at her.
“You told me she was obsessed with you.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
He had no answer.
Noah stood beside me.
I held his shoulder.
“Mom,” he whispered.
“I’m here.”
The police arrived twenty minutes later.
Someone had called them.
The wedding had become chaos.
Guests were leaving.
Some were crying.
Some were recording.
The venue manager kept asking people to remain calm.
Ethan was taken aside.
I refused to let Noah leave my side.
One officer spoke to me.
“Ma’am, we need to ask you some questions.”
“About the recording?”
“Yes.”
I looked at Noah.
“He found the device.”
The officer looked at him.
“Did you activate it?”
Noah nodded.
“Did you know what was on it?”
“No.”
That was true.
He had only known it was important.
The officer asked where he found it.
Noah explained.
The old house.
The closet.
The loose floorboard.
The metal box.
The recorder.
The flash drive.
I looked at the flash drive.
“What’s on that?”
The officer took it.
“We’ll find out.”
Ethan was escorted away.
Lila remained behind.
She looked destroyed.
I should have hated her.
But I saw something in her face.
She had been deceived too.
Not in the same way.
She had known Ethan was married.
She had chosen him anyway.
But she had not known he was capable of this.
She approached me.
“Camila.”
I looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
I said nothing.
“I didn’t know.”
“You knew he was married.”
She closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“That was enough.”
She nodded.
“I know.”
Then she looked toward Noah.
“I’m sorry for what he said about you.”
Noah stared at her.
“He said I was a mistake.”
Her face crumpled.
“He told me you were difficult.”
I looked at her.
“Of course he did.”
She swallowed.
“He said you were trying to keep him from being happy.”
I laughed bitterly.
“He abandoned his son.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
She looked at me.
“He missed his birthday.”
She lowered her eyes.
“He missed his first soccer tournament.”
Silence.
“He told me he was busy.”
Lila began crying.
I did not comfort her.
I had spent too long comforting people who had hurt me.
That night, the police took the recorder and flash drive.
I took Noah home.
He barely spoke.
Before bed, he asked:
“Is Dad going to jail?”
I sat beside him.
“I don’t know.”
“Did he hurt you?”
I looked at him.
“I don’t know that either.”
He was quiet.
Then he said:
“I thought the gift would just make him embarrassed.”
I hugged him.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
He held me tightly.
“I wanted him to stop laughing at you.”
I closed my eyes.
That sentence broke something inside me.
The next morning, the police called.
They had examined the flash drive.
There were dozens of files.
Financial records.
Emails.
Photographs.
And one video.
The video had been recorded three days before my accident.
It showed Ethan meeting someone in a parking garage.
The person he met was not Lila.
May you like
It was someone I knew.
Someone who had once sworn to protect me.
