Every Time I Die He Bleeds

I have always possessed a heart made of spun glass. The slightest tremor, the quietest rejection, and the fractures would spiderweb through my chest until I simply didnt want to exist anymore.

Once, when I caught my boyfriend with the girl I called my best friend, the betrayal shattered me so thoroughly that I decided we should all just leave this earth together.

When my mother, suffocating and controlling, secretly logged in and changed my college applications to suit her own desires, the despair was so heavy I simply walked up to the roof and stepped into the open air.

When my father, a man made of debts and empty promises, accused me of stealing the grocery money he had actually gambled away, the injustice of it burned so hot that I threw myself headfirst into the drywall.

That was the pattern. Over the years, I had racked up a staggering tally: one hundred and eight attempts to end it all. One hundred and eight times I should have died.

And then, one day, the wealthiest man in the countrya man Id only ever seen on the covers of financial magazineskicked down my door and begged to marry me.

On my first day living in his estate, his socialite ex-girlfriend stormed in, painting her lips crimson and pointing a manicured finger at my face, calling me a homewrecker. The familiar sting of injustice flared. My chest tightened. Almost on autopilot, I reached for the silver fruit knife resting on the mahogany table, ready to drag it across my wrist.

The billionaire didnt hesitate. He lunged across the room, slapping the womans hand away with a fury that made the windows rattle. "If anyone so much as looks at her wrong," he roared, his voice trembling with a terrifying rage, "I will dismantle their entire life."

Then, he turned to me. The most powerful man in the city dropped to his knees, his expensive suit pooling on the hardwood. He wrapped his arms around my legs, burying his face in my skirt.

"Christ, Cheryl," he choked out, sounding utterly broken. "You've died a hundred and eight times already. Please, I am begging you. Just let me keep you alive."

I was born with a fatal flaw in my psychological wiring.

Whenever the world pushed back, even slightly, my instinct was to pull the ripcord. To fade out. To die.

It started small. When I was a little girl, a neighbor offhandedly mentioned that I was "such a solemn, unsmiling child." My fragile little ego fractured. I ran home, hid beneath my quilt, and genuinely lay in the dark calculating how to slip away without it hurting.

In middle school, an older girl got jealous that my essay won the district competition instead of hers. She cornered me in the alley behind the gymnasium, shoving me against the brick. I cried hot, humiliating tears and shoved the certificate into her chest. Walking home, the shame fermented into a dark, heavy sludge. I stared at the rushing traffic, thinking how easy it would be to just step off the curb.

But the real breaking point came during my freshman year of high school. My father, a degenerate gambler, stole my mother's emergency cash and blamed it on me.

My glass heart didn't just crack that day; it pulverized. I turned and rammed my head into the living room wall with everything I had.

But the strange thing waswhile the drywall dented, peeling away in chalky white flakes, and the room spun dizzily, I was perfectly fine. Not a drop of blood. Not a concussion.

Once you realize you can survive the impossible, the barrier to trying again drops drastically.

When a teacher humiliated me in front of the entire class, I went on a hunger strike. Five days without a drop of water, yet I woke up on the sixth day feeling energized and completely hydrated.

When I bombed my SATs, I filled the bathtub, submerged myself, and waited for the dark. Hours later, I woke up beneath the water, having simply taken a peaceful nap. Not a single drop had entered my lungs.

Then came the college application disaster. My mother altered my choices, forcing me into a teaching program I despised. I sobbed until my throat bled, tuned out her suffocating lectures, ran up the stairwell of our apartment building, and threw myself off the twentieth floor.

I didn't turn into a smear on the pavement. I didn't even cough up blood. I just stood up, dusted off my jeans, and walked away.

Pills, carbon monoxide, leapingnothing worked. I was entirely, frustratingly immortal.

My one hundred and ninth attempt was catalyzed by catching Charles, my college boyfriend, tangled in the sheets with my supposed best friend.

I didn't say a word. I just walked to the kitchen, grabbed the sharpest paring knife I could find, and charged back into the bedroom, my vision tunneled in red.

Just as the tip of the blade was about to graze Charles's bare chest, the apartment door exploded inward.

I whipped around to see Berton Sinclair. The Berton Sinclair. Tech mogul, billionaire, a man whose face Id seen on billboards in Times Square. He was sprinting down the narrow hallway of my cheap apartment, trailing a team of frantic paramedics in white coats.

When Berton saw the knife in my fist, the blood drained from his face. He stumbled toward me, his hands raised in surrender.

"Cheryl, please. Stop. Just put the knife down," he pleaded, his voice cracking. "Think about your parents. If you die, think of what it would do to them."

I paused for exactly two seconds. I thought about my father, shaking me down for casino money. I thought about my mother, checking my phone logs and dictating my breathing.

The memory made the knife feel lighter. I adjusted my grip.

Seeing the shift in my eyes, the billionaire looked like he was about to weep. He threw out a lifeline, desperate and frantic.

"Whatever you want," Berton gasped out. "As long as it's legal, I will give it to you. A penthouse, sports cars, blank checks. I don't care. Just... please don't kill yourself."

I stared at him, my mind short-circuiting. Was he just so obscenely wealthy that he played vigilante savior for fun?

Sensing my hesitation, Berton doubled down. "Money solves ninety-nine percent of the world's problems, Cheryl. Stay alive, and I swear on my life, you will never want for anything again. Hell, if you want to work at my company with your boyfriend, or just sit on the payroll and collect a massive salary, it's yours."

That last sentence was a mistake. I glared at Berton, the betrayal twisting tight in my gut.

He was in on it. He was friends with my cheating scum of a boyfriend.

Without a fraction of a second's hesitation, I turned the blade inward and drove it straight into my own chest.

Hot blood rushed over my fingers, blooming instantly across my shirt. Pain, sharp and blinding, ripped through me. The world tilted, and I collapsed against the cheap linoleum.

As the darkness swallowed me, I heard Berton's voice, thick with agony and absolute despair: "A hundred and eight times... wasn't that enough? Why do you want to die so badly?!"

When I opened my eyes, I was drowning in the softest Egyptian cotton sheets I had ever felt.

For a brief, euphoric moment, I thought the afterlife had excellent thread counts. Then, my eyes focused on Berton Sinclairs exhausted, furious face.

Seeing me awake, he rolled his eyes toward the vaulted ceiling, but the irritation quickly melted into a hyper-vigilant stare. He watched my hands, my breathing, as if terrified I might spontaneously combust.

The disappointment settled heavy in my bones. I was still alive.

I ignored his glare, overwhelmed by a wave of exhaustion and self-loathing. What kind of cosmic joke was I? I had plunged a knife directly into my heart, and the universe had just spit me back out.

The harder it was to die, the more the obsession clawed at me.

I scanned the luxurious bedroom. No sharp objects. No glass vases. Berton followed my gaze, his jaw ticking.

"What are you looking for? Are you hungry?" he demanded, his voice tight. "Tell me what you want. I'll have the private chef make it right now."

I didn't want to talk to this bizarre, intrusive billionaire. I just wanted to find a solid surface, shatter my skull, and leave this miserable, disappointing world behind.

I threw off the covers, planted my feet, and sprinted full-force toward the pristine white wall.

Thud.

The impact didn't feel like drywall. It was warm. It smelled of cedar and expensive cologne. And it let out a sharp, winded gasp.

Had Bertons house come alive?

I opened my eyes in a panic, only to realize something far worse. I hadn't hit the wall. I had rammed headfirst into Bertons chest.

No wonder it hadn't cracked my skull open.

But Berton looked like he was in agony. Tears actually pricked the corners of his eyes. Mortified, I rubbed my nose and tried to step back.

He wasn't having it. His hand shot out, wrapping around my wrist with an iron grip. When he spoke, it was through gritted teeth. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

I gave a weak tug, but he wouldn't let go. Defeated, my shoulders slumped. "I want to die."

The words seemed to ignite something volatile inside him. "You are in your twenties! Why is your first instinct always to end it? Do you have any idea what this does to your parents? What it does to... to the people who care about you?"

I looked up at him, genuinely bewildered. Why was he weaponizing the people who broke me?

My father didn't care about me; he cared about his next hand of blackjack. The dull ache in my ribs on rainy days was a permanent reminder of the time he kicked me for refusing to hand over my paycheck.

And my mother? She controlled me like a puppet. Growing up, I was only allowed to speak to children with high GPAs. In college, she demanded my passwords to read my texts. When I finally graduated, she threatened to swallow pills if I didn't move back home, take a mundane office job, and marry a man of her choosing.

When I didn't answer, Bertons anger seemed to evaporate. He leaned in, his eyes scanning my pale face with an intensity that made my breath hitch.

I took a defensive step back. I didn't know this man. Why did he care?

"Because I... I have more money than I know what to do with, and I want to play savior. Is that a crime?"

I blinked, realizing I had spoken my thoughts out loud.

Too much money and wants to play savior. What an utterly bizarre, detached reality the one percent lived in.

Seeing my lingering suspicion, Berton sighed, reached into the inner pocket of his tailored suit, and pulled out a card. It was sleek, heavy, and matte black.

My eyes locked onto it. Was that an actual, no-limit Centurion card?

Berton let out a breath, looking almost relieved. Thank God she still cares about money, his eyes seemed to say. He pressed the cold metal into my palm.

"It's yours. Buy whatever you want. Max it out. I don't care."

My heart gave a violent, pathetic flutter. Damn it. Was this the corrupting power of capitalism?

It was incredibly tempting.

Maybe dying could wait until the weekend?

I immediately pulled out my phone, opened the voice memo app, and shoved it toward his face, looking at him with bright, expectant eyes.

Berton coughed, suddenly looking very awkward. He raised a brow. "What? You want my number?"

"No," I said, entirely serious. "I need you to repeat what you just said on the record. Otherwise, you're going to claim it was a loan and sue me for the balance later."

Bertons face darkened with a mixture of disbelief and offense, but he grumbled into the microphone, repeating his offer.

Satisfied, I slipped the phone into my pocket and followed him downstairs to the dining room.

Over the next few days, Berton went full Mother Teresa on me. He handled the fallout with my ex, broke my lease, and absolutely refused to let me return to my cramped apartment. He insisted I stay in his sprawling, quiet estate.

Between the exhaustion of fighting him, the undeniable comfort of the mansion, and the fact that it was a much shorter commute to my job, I gave in.

For almost a week, the quiet luxury of the house worked like a balm. The urge to fade away dialed down to a low hum.

Then, on a Tuesday afternoon, my boss called me into his glass-walled office.

For two grueling hours, he stood over my desk, screaming at me, waving a pitch deck I had revised thirty-six times. He tore my work apart, calling me incompetent, lazy, and a waste of payroll.

The kicker? The client ended up choosing my very first draft.

How was that my fault? I had lost sleep, skipped meals, and bled over those revisions because he told me to. I hadn't even raised my voice, and here he was, humiliating me in front of the entire bullpen, accusing me of wasting his time.

The injustice of it felt like shards of glass in my throat. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't take it anymore.

When the clock struck five, I walked out of the office, took the elevator up to the roof, and stepped off the ledge.

I woke up in Bertons guest room. Again.

I threw a pillow across the room and screamed at the ceiling, "I hate corporate America! They treat us like absolute livestock!"

From the dark corner of the room, a low, moody voice replied, "So, you want to be the boss."

I jumped, clutching the duvet to my chest. Berton stepped out of the shadows. He looked exhausted, his handsome face tight with frustration.

"I gave you an unlimited credit card, Cheryl," he said, pacing toward the foot of the bed. "If you want to be the boss, buy a damn company. If someone yells at you, yell back. You have me backing you, and youre still letting these mid-level managers walk all over you? Have you never learned how to throw your weight around?"

I paused. He made a fair point.

Then, my shoulders slumped. "Forget it. I don't know the first thing about running a business. And I couldn't be ruthless. If I can't be a cutthroat capitalist, I'd just ruin the market."

Berton let out an exasperated sigh, pulled out his phone, fired off a rapid series of texts, and shoved it back into his pocket. He caught me staring and scowled.

"Go to sleep. Now."

I flinched, stuttering slightly. "I... I can't sleep with you standing there."

Usually, Berton was the picture of refined elegance, treating everyone from board members to the housekeeping staff with polite detachment. Right now, he looked like a powder keg about to blow, glaring at me with zero gentlemanly restraint.

"I am not moving from this chair," he snapped. "I am staying right here so you don't decide to fling yourself out a window over some microscopic inconvenience at 3 A.M."

My throat tightened. A familiar prickle of tears burned my eyes.

It wasn't like I enjoyed wanting to die. It was just that the world always felt too heavy, too loud, too cruel. Nothing ever went the way it was supposed to.

Seeing my eyes well up, the powder keg instantly deflated. Berton scrubbed a hand over his face, walked over, and half-knelt beside the bed. His voice dropped to a low, desperate murmur.

"Cheryl... please. Stop overthinking. Just close your eyes. When you wake up, I'm going to take you to get your revenge."

Revenge? My curiosity spiked. I wanted to ask what he meant, to tell him I wasn't tired, but one look at the sheer exhaustion lining his eyes made me swallow the words. I lay down and squeezed my eyes shut.

Oddly enough, within minutes, a heavy, dreamless sleep pulled me under.

When I woke up, the sunlight was streaming in, and Berton was gone.

I padded down to the dining room. He was sitting at the head of the long table, sipping black coffee. He slid a thick manila folder toward my plate.

"Sign," he said simply.

I frowned, opening the cover. My eyes went wide. It was an acquisition contract for the marketing firm I worked for.

Berton made a soft clicking sound with his tongue, looking at me like I was a feral cat hed just brought indoors. "Sign the paper, Cheryl. The company becomes yours. When you walk in there today, your boss will have to bow to you. I shouldn't have to teach you how to make his life miserable, right?"

I tried to refuse, stammering about the cost, but his glare grew so intensely impatient that I finally picked up the Montblanc pen and scribbled my name, my hand shaking.

But as the ink dried, I couldn't stop the corners of my mouth from ticking upward.

News travels fast. By the time I walked through the glass doors of my former purgatory, the atmosphere was electric with panic.

My bossmy former tormentorwas practically sweating through his suit. He bowed, ushering me into the conference room and pouring me a cup of his prized, ridiculously expensive loose-leaf tea. The other employees watched through the blinds, their eyes wide with envy and shock.

I took a sip of the bitter tea. It tasted like absolute victory.

Being a cutthroat capitalist? Maybe not so bad after all.

When I finally left the building, Berton was idling by the curb in his sleek black SUV to pick me up.

My phone buzzed. I pulled it out. The company group chat, which I hadn't been removed from yet, had over 99 unread messages. Thinking I was gone, they were tearing me apart.

Did you see her? Definitely a sugar baby.

Slept her way to the top, obviously.

Someone had even posted screenshots of Charless Instagram story. My ex was claiming that my "sudden wealth" was the reason I had coldly abandoned him after years of dating.

The air rushed out of my lungs.

That absolute bastard. He cheated on me, and now he was playing the victim to make me look like a gold digger?

The rage blinded me. Without a second thought, I turned toward the concrete wall of the parking garage and launched myself forward.

Through my peripheral vision, I saw Berton leap out of the SUV, his face twisted in horror.

As my skull connected with the concrete, the world didn't go black for me. Instead, I saw Berton clutch his forehead, his knees buckling as he collapsed limply onto the pavement.

When I opened my eyes next, I was back in Bertons bedroom. He was sitting on the edge of the mattress, scrolling through his phone.

There was a stark white gauze bandage taped over his forehead.

He looked up, catching me awake, and shot me a glare. But beneath the anger, there was a profound, aching resentment in his eyes.

I shrank back. Why was he looking at me like I had just broken his heart?

The memory of the group chat flooded back, and that familiar, suffocating weight settled on my chest. I wanted to disappear again.

Berton let out a breath that sounded more like a groan. He leaned over, gently catching my chin in his hand, forcing me to look at him.

"Alright. Let's hear it. Who pissed you off this time and made you want to die?"

The warmth of his fingers made my eyes well up. I looked at the bandage on his head. "What happened to your forehead? Did you trip trying to catch me?"

Bertons expression darkened. He lifted a finger and flicked me sharply on the forehead. "You have a lot of nerve asking me that!"

I winced, rubbing my head, feeling guilty but also strangely... cared for.

I spilled the entire storythe group chat, the rumors, Charless pathetic Instagram posts. Berton sat in silence for a long time, his jaw working as he processed it.

Just when I thought he might lecture me again, a slow, dark smile spread across his face. It was completely out of character.

"Perfect timing," he murmured. "Your ex-boyfriend interviewed at my company a few days ago. He's up for a final round. You want to ruin his day?"

Berton Sinclair rarely smiled. When he did, it was usually the polite, polished curve of a CEO navigating a gala. But thisthis was wicked, vengeful, and devastatingly attractive. I couldn't look away.

Knowing Berton was actively handing me the weapon to exact my own revenge sparked a fire in me I hadn't felt in years. For the first time, the will to survive overshadowed the urge to die. I stopped sighing around the house. I even asked for seconds at dinner.

A few days later, Sinclair Enterprises held their final executive interviews.

From the security feeds in the lobby, I watched Charles stride in, his chest puffed out, an arrogant smirk on his face. He looked like a man who believed the world owed him a favor.

When he finally walked into the boardroom, I was already seated at the center of the interview panel.

I wore a dark blazer, a low-brimmed cap, and kept my head down, pretending to review his file. He didn't even look at me. He just launched into his rehearsed, self-aggrandizing speech about his "visionary marketing strategies."

When he finally paused for breath, I slowly lifted my head.

The color drained from his face so fast it was comical.

I leaned back in the leather ergonomic chair, a sweet, venomous smile on my lips.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Charles," I said, my voice dripping with faux regret. "But you simply do not meet the standards of this company."