He Made Me Fall to Hide His Affair

I remarried Alexander, but this time, I wasnt the paranoid wreck I used to be. I stopped checking his collars or his phone, and I no longer cared if there were other women. Our relationship felt like it did at the beginning, as if the years of bitterness had been a bad dream.

The truth is, Id been battling ghosts since our first year.

The first time, I found lace panties in his car. I stormed into his office, forgetting the stove was onour first house burned down.

The second time, my PI sent photos of him with another woman. The elevator I was in stalled, trapping me for hours.

The third time, I crashed a wedding to catch him, and a chandelier fell, leaving me bloodied.

So this time, even when Alexander didnt come home all night, I didnt ask.

Until he crashed his car. They pulled him from the wreck with a naked woman.

Numbly, I packed his bag, my hands moving over things that smelled like someone else.

In the hospital, Alexander jumped up, shielding the woman. Youve finally got what you wanted, Sophia? Take it out on meleave her alone!

A tired smile spread across my face.

I didnt need to see her face. I recognized the bracelet on her wristthe one I gave my best friend, Ava, last month.

Years of tension snapped, replaced by hollow relief.

Alexander, I said, my voice steady. Lets get a divorce.

...

He let out a short, incredulous laugh, as if Id just told the funniest joke in the world.

"A divorce? So you can come crawling back to me in a few months, half-dead and begging to get back together?"

I shook my head, the smile never leaving my lips.

"There won't be a next time."

The familiar words, but a different answer. It was a distorted echo of a conversation that had already destroyed me once.

It had been just a year into our first marriage when the cracks started to show. I found clues of his infidelity everywhere, hidden in the corners of our life. Little things, like a pair of lacy underwear that wasn't mine. Big things, like an invitation to a wedding he was attending that I knew nothing about.

But it was as if fate itself was playing a cruel joke on me.

No matter how much I acted like a madwoman, scrutinizing every woman who got close to him, I could never figure out who she was.

Instead, every time I got close to the truth, a freak accident would throw me off course, leaving me broken and bleeding. The last time, with the chandelier, it wasn't just my body that was shattered.

The impact tore through my abdomen.

When I woke up in the hospital, there was a hollow ache deep inside me.

Our baby, the one who never had a chance to see the world, was gone.

Back then, I had been just like this. Numb. Id asked Alexander for a divorce then, too.

But he had fallen to his knees, begging, swearing he was only at that wedding for business. His brand-new tuxedo and the unfamiliar wedding band on his finger told a different story. In a daze, Id snatched a fruit knife from the bedside table.

I held it to my own throat, my hands shaking, and told him to let me go. He must have loved me then, because in the end, terrified, he agreed.

I thought leaving him would be the cure.

But I withered. The depression was a physical weight, pressing down on me day after day until I could barely breathe. My own parents were afraid to get too close, scared of saying the wrong thing.

The only one who broke through was Ava. My Ava, who Id grown up with, who felt more like a sister than a friend. She was the one who threw herself in front of me, her own hands grabbing the blade I was holding to my wrist. We clung to each other, our blood mixing, our tears indistinguishable.

But I knew she couldn't save me. She had her own life, a boyfriend she was crazy about. I couldn't drag her down into my darkness.

Maybe its better this way.

The thought pinned me to the spot as the truck barreled towards me. I just stood there, waiting.

Then, out of nowhere, Alexander was there, shoving me out of the way, his body taking the brunt of the impact.

In that split second, I realized two things: I didn't want to die. And God help me, I still loved him.

He lay in a pool of his own blood, his eyes losing focus, but his arms were wrapped around me so tightly it felt like he would never let go, not even in death. While he was fighting for his life in the ICU, I knelt by his bed and prayed.

Just let him live. I won't ask for anything else. I don't care about anything else.

I thought that if I just stopped looking, stopped questioning, our fractured love and our broken marriage could heal. We could go back to the way we were.

But then the police officer handed me a bag of his personal effects from the crash. Inside, nestled among the contents of his wallet, was a box of condoms and a pair of familiar lacy panties.

That fragile hope shattered into a million pieces.

My stunned silence must have irritated Alexander. He shielded the woman on the bed even more fiercely.

"What are you planning now, Sophia? Whatever happened, it's not her fault"

As he spoke, their intertwined hands were like a dagger twisting in my gut. It was the final straw. The carefully constructed wall of my composure crumbled.

Tears streamed down my face as I heard my own hoarse voice.

"Ava," I whispered. "You once told me you wished me a lifetime of happiness. Now... I'm giving that wish back to you."

I paused, their frozen, shocked figures blurring through my tears.

"I'm out. I'll let you two be happy together."

Before the words had even fully left my mouth, a sharp slap cracked across my face.

My head snapped to the side, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth. Alexander's voice trembled with a rage I knew all too well.

"What the hell are you talking about, Sophia? What does Ava have to do with any of this?"

Ava...

The way he said her name. So familiar. So intimate. A sharp pain lanced through my chest.

I should have known. I should have seen it all along, but I had been so determined to lie to myself.

The two of them, who used to bicker like cats and dogs, had somehow grown closer.

"If you ever hurt Sophia, I swear I'll never forgive you!" she used to say.

"I'll love her for the rest of my life. I'll give her a home. You won't be the one to take her from me!" he'd shoot back.

Somehow, over time, that bickering had turned into a secret language, an unspoken understanding.

I remembered a trip we all took. Hed ordered a table full of her favorite spicy dishes, completely forgetting they set my mouth on fire.

I remembered spending weeks picking out the perfect birthday gift for her. The day after I gave her the bracelet, I saw her wrapping a scarf shed knitted herself around Alexanders neck.

When Id questioned them, theyd both laughed it off.

"This is just what people who care about you dothey learn to get along!"

What a pathetic lie.

And like a fool, I believed it.

Now, I pressed a hand to my throbbing cheek, fighting back a fresh wave of tears as I met Alexander's dark, unreadable eyes.

"Whether it's true or not, it doesn't matter anymore. We should have ended this a long time ago."

As if my words were a physical blow, the woman on the bed finally broke.

Ava stumbled out from under the sheets, her face a mess of tear-streaked mascara.

"Sophia, I... I don't know what came over me," she sobbed, scrambling off the bed and grabbing at my clothes. "I was wrong, I'm so sorry! Please, forgive me! You can hit me, scream at me, anything..."

Her frantic fingers clutched at my shirt, and her hand brushed against the faint, raised line on my abdomenthe scar from the miscarriage.

A jolt of revulsion shot through me. I instinctively pushed her away.

The next thing I knew, a powerful force kicked me from behind.

I stumbled backward, crashing into an IV stand. One of its cold metal hooks dug deep into my back. A searing pain ripped through me, and I felt a warm wetness spreading through the fabric of my white blouse. A familiar, terrifying cramp seized my belly.

Alexanders lips were a thin, hard line, but he didnt hesitate to scoop a crying Ava into his arms.

The cramping intensified, a sickening echo of the past. The fear of losing another child, a fear I thought I had buried, clawed its way up my throat.

My hands trembling, I fumbled in my purse and pulled out the folded-up pregnancy report. I held it out to him.

"I'm pregnant," I gasped, the pain making it hard to breathe. "Call a doctor... please..."

For a split second, he took a step toward me. But then Ava whimpered in his arms, a small, fragile sound.

His expression hardened, his eyes filling with a cold annoyance.

"Stop with the drama, Sophia," he spat. "After the miscarriage, the doctors said it would be nearly impossible for you to get pregnant again!"

He looked down at me, his face a mask of contempt. "Maybe this will teach you a lesson. Don't you ever lay a hand on Ava again."

He swatted my hand away.

The white paper fluttered to the floor, landing in a growing pool of my own blood.

My heart didn't just break. It plummeted into a black, bottomless abyss.

Alexander turned his back on me, carried Ava out of the room, and slammed the door shut. I heard the distinct click of the lock.

He left me there, bleeding on the cold tile.

He ignored my last, desperate plea for help.

And in the moment I felt the last flicker of life inside me go out, I think a part of my own soul died with it.

When I woke up again, the doctor was looking at me with an expression of pity and regret.

"Ms. Albright," he said softly. "I'm so sorry. We couldn't save the baby."

A void opened up inside me.

I didn't realize I was crying until the tears blurred my vision. My hands shook as I dialed my father's number.

"Dad," I choked out. "It's Alex and Ava. They're together. I want a divorce."

The voice on the other end of the line sounded like it had aged twenty years in a single second.

"Okay, honey. Don't you worry," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "I'll find someone else to help with your mother's care. Don't you dare sacrifice yourself for this family."

His gentleness, his unwavering support, was the final undoing. I collapsed into the phone, sobbing uncontrollably.

My father came and took me from the hospital. We buried the ashes, the tiny, fragmented remains of my child. I ignored the flood of texts from Alexander and Ava, both filled with pathetic excuses and explanations.

The betrayals had hollowed me out. I was exhausted, body and soul. All I wanted was for it to be over.

I walked into Alexander's office building, the divorce papers clutched in my hand, ready to end it all. But as I reached for the door to his office, the voices from inside froze me to the spot.

Through the crack in the door, I saw Ava, her eyes swimming with tears.

"Yes, I love you! But watching you send people to hurt Sophia, time and time again, just to protect me... you even caused her miscarriage! I can't do this anymore! It was wrong, and we have to stop!"

Her words hit me like a physical blow. My ears started to ring.

Send people to hurt Sophia?

My mind went blank.

Ava's voice cracked as she continued, tears streaming down her face.

"My parents abandoned me, but Sophia took me in. She shared everything she had with me. How can I stand by and watch her suffer like this?"

For a fleeting, insane moment, I prayed Alexander would deny it.

But the truth, the one I had refused to see, came from his own lips.

He cornered Ava against the wall, his voice a low, frustrated growl.

"You can't stand to see her suffer? Do you think I can stand to see you suffer? That time I had someone... mess with her... all I could think about was the scar you got on your hand trying to pull her away from that falling light fixture!"

His words dragged me back into the nightmare of my past.

While I was lying in a hospital bed, physically and emotionally shattered after losing our first child, they were living a lie. Ava, supposedly sick with a high fever from the shock. Alexander, supposedly forced to stay at that wedding for appearances.

In reality, they had put on the perfectly tailored wedding clothes theyd prepared and celebrated their union, surrounded by the blessings of oblivious guests.

In that instant, every sleepless night Id spent blaming myself, telling myself I was too sensitive, too paranoid... it all became a sick, twisted joke.

Alexanders voice inside the office softened, filled with a twisted sort of passion, each word a new cut on my heart.

"What do you want me to do? I love you, Ava, I love you too! If you're afraid she'll find out, we just have to be more careful. We'll stop her before she can. We've been doing it for years, haven't we?"

Ava's resolve crumbled. With a sob, she threw herself into his arms. They held each other in a desperate, frantic embrace, as if trying to merge into one being.

My face was a mask of ice. I pushed the door open.

They sprang apart, guilt and panic flashing across their faces.

"Sophia!" Ava stammered, her face white as a sheet. "I... I just tripped. Alex was just helping me up. Please, don't be angry. I was just about to quit my job."

She looked at me with those wide, pleading eyes, the same eyes that had once looked at me with so much love and trust.

I remembered bringing her to Alexander's company, telling him to look after her, making her his personal assistant so she wouldnt be alone.

She had hugged me so tightly that day, her eyes shining.

"Sophia! We're going to be best friends forever! Don't worry, I'll keep a close eye on your husband for you!"

I shifted my gaze to Alexander. I could see the rigid control in his jaw, the forced calm in his eyes.

"What happened last time... I was impulsive," he said, his voice low and placating. "You can punish me however you want. And I've already arranged for a better medical team for your mother."

He was trying to smooth it all over, as if these monumental betrayals were just minor bumps in the road.

"Okay? I promise, there won't be any other women. We can go back to how things were. Please?"

I couldn't understand it. How could they stand there and lie to my face, so calmly, after everything theyd done?

To protect their sordid affair, they had systematically destroyed my life.

The home filled with our memories, reduced to ash.

Me, trapped in an elevator, gasping for air.

Me, bleeding out on a ballroom floor, my baby gone...

They had called it all a series of unfortunate accidents. And now, they expected me to believe their lies again, to let them continue their sick game while I played the fool.

A wave of nausea washed over me as Alexander reached out to touch my face.

The revulsion was so strong, so visceral, I couldn't stop myself. I flinched back, slapping his hand away.

"Don't touch me!"

His face darkened, the mask of contrition falling away to reveal pure, cold anger.

"What's that supposed to mean? You think I'm dirty?"

I took another step back, my stomach churning. A bitter laugh escaped my lips.

"What do you think? You arranged 'accidents' to hurt me, to stop me from finding out about you and Ava. And you expect me to just play dumb? Alexander, Ava... you both make me sick."

The words hung in the air.

The office plunged into a dead silence.

Ava's face was chalk-white. She started to sob, moving as if to fall to her knees and beg. As she stumbled, she knocked over a picture frame on the deskan ultrasound photo of our first child.

Glass shattered across the floor.

Instinctively, Alexander pulled Ava into his arms, shielding her from the flying shards.

I lunged for the frame, but it was too late. I fell to my knees, my hands landing in the pile of broken glass.

But I didn't care about the pain. My eyes were fixed on the photo. There, marring the image of our unborn child, was the faint, greasy imprint of a hand. An intimate touch that wasn't mine.

My sanity finally, irrevocably, shattered.

I clutched the broken frame to my chest, heedless of the glass cutting into my skin. A raw, guttural sob tore from my throat as I glared at them.

"Are you that depraved? I won't let you get away with this! I'll tell everyone what you are! I'll make sure the whole world knows how disgusting you both are!"

The flicker of guilt in Alexander's eyes vanished, replaced by pure fury.

"You wouldn't dare."

But the weight of it all, the betrayals, the loss, the liesit was too much. I was choking on my own rage.

"Why wouldn't I? I'll do it right now"

I pulled out my phone, opening the camera and pointing it at them, huddled together in their guilt. But before I could press the button, he lunged forward and knocked the phone from my hand.

The next second, he was on his own phone, his voice cold and hard as steel.

"Leak every intimate photo we have of Sophia. I want the whole world to see what kind of slut she is."

I stared at him, my mind reeling. It was like seeing the man I had shared my bed with for the first time.

Ava looked on, a flicker of horror in her eyes, but she said nothing. She just lowered her head, a silent accomplice.

A moment later, my phone, lying on the floor, began to buzz uncontrollably. It was my father.

I scrambled to pick it up, my hands bleeding.

"I... I must be cursed," he wailed, his voice cracking with despair. "I've been a professor for decades, and this is what I raised? A disgrace! I'd rather be dead!"

Then, a sudden, sickening thud on the other end of the line. The phone went silent, replaced by a murmur of panicked voices.

"Professor Albright, the one everyone respects, his own daughter's scandal gave him a heart attack!"

"What a tragedy for the family..."

"Someone give him space! Oh god, I think he's..."

A notification popped up on my phone's shattered screen. It was from my mother's hospital.

[We regret to inform you that your mother suffered a stress-induced acute episode. Resuscitation was unsuccessful.]

All those nights. All those moments of intimacy with Alexander.

They had just become the blades that delivered the final, fatal wounds.

The screen lit up with a torrent of hateful messages from strangers, but I couldn't see them. I was hollowed out, a ghost in my own body, as I sank to the floor.

The last two people who mattered in my world were gone.

I cried until I had no tears left, my throat raw. I looked up and met Alexander's cold, triumphant gaze.

"What's wrong?" he sneered. "Still want to cause a scene? I can make it all go away. Just promise you'll behave."

A single, hot tear fell onto the back of my hand.

"It's too late, Alexander," I whispered.

I pushed myself to my feet, my body trembling with a cold that had nothing to do with the temperature in the room.

He frowned, still keeping Ava tucked securely behind him.

"It's just a few online comments. A little lesson to teach you not to cross me. Why are you being so dramatic?"

I turned my back on him and looked at the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the city. I didn't even spare him a final glance.

My voice was a bare whisper.

"Mom, Dad... my baby... I'm coming to be with you."

The next second, I threw the broken picture frame with all my might. It crashed against the window, spiderwebbing the thick glass.

And as it shattered, I ignored the desperate, horrified screams behind me. I took one last step forward and plunged into the open air.