Three Matches and the Lies We Call Love

Before my mother passed, she left me three matches each one capable of taking me back in time.

I used the first match to return to the night Miller was drugged.

I knocked over his spiked drink before he could touch it. He never slept with his secretary, Scarlett.

I saved our marriage.

But then, not long after, we were in a car accident. Miller threw himself over me, shielding my body with his.

His injuries were too severe. He didn't make it.

Without a second thought, I struck the second match.

We went back to before the crash, and this time, we walked away without a scratch.

I thought I would never need the third match.

Then Miller set a sonogram down in front of me, and I went completely still.

His voice was ice. "Scarlett is four months pregnant. The baby is mine."

A ringing filled my ears. Everything felt distant, like a dream.

Miller kept talking.

"The fact that I survived that accident means God gave me a second chance a chance to go after what I really want."

"You can keep the title of Mrs. Miller. Just stay out of Scarlett's way."

I couldn't figure out how Miller still remembered the accident.

But surely he didn't think he was the one who had traveled through time?

The hospital air conditioning sent a chill crawling across my skin.

"When did it start?" I asked.

Something in his expression softened.

"That doesn't matter anymore. Scarlett isn't like you. She grew up with nothing no stability, no security."

"The baby is her anchor. And my proof."

"Besides, we've been together too long. What I feel for you now is more like family. The love is gone."

I had found out about him and Scarlett on our tenth wedding anniversary.

By then, the baby was already five years old.

He had cut open his own wrist and written me a letter in blood.

He confessed that someone had drugged him, that he had slept with his secretary Scarlett, and that he intended to take responsibility for her.

He transferred everything every asset into my name.

In a moment of desperation, I had used a match to go back to our fifth year of marriage.

I forced down the trembling in my chest.

"So you remember everything. You really did fall in love with Scarlett?"

Miller answered without any particular emotion.

"Yes. I know it sounds unbelievable, but every time I come close to death, I end up back in the past."

"You've always been strong. You don't need security the way she does."

"After the SATs, you were the one who wanted to run away with me. But Scarlett she's different from you."

I pressed my hand to my chest.

A sudden, sharp pain shot through my ribs and bent me forward.

After the SATs, we had made a promise to run away together.

But that night, I waited and waited and it was my parents who showed up, not him.

I confronted him. I demanded to know why.

Miller looked at me with red-rimmed eyes, his voice gentle. "Samantha, your dad was right. We're both too young."

"Give me a little more time. I'll do this properly. I'll come for you in the open, the right way."

I was furious. I gave him the cold shoulder, and even when we ended up at the same university, I treated him like a stranger.

But in our second year, he teamed up with some friends on a gaming project, and it actually made money.

He took every dollar he'd earned and came to ask my father for permission to marry me.

My father still said no. He called Miller an orphan with a broken character.

Miller just smiled, said nothing, and went back to work.

I gritted my teeth, defied my father, and married him anyway quietly, without anyone's blessing.

Now Miller looked at me with cold, flat eyes.

"You can always file for divorce. Of course, your mother's medical bills would become your problem to handle alone."

He answered a call and walked out. I stood there with my hand over my heart.

When someone falls out of love, can they really become this cruel?

My mother had taken Miller in after she learned he had no parents. She'd treated him like a son.

She lived with us in the house and looked after us both.

Once, someone called him a bastard with no mother.

My mom grabbed a spatula and chased them down the street.

And yet, no matter how many times I went back, she still got cancer. Every time.

I stood up and went after him.

I was the one who gave him the ability to go back. I was the one who saved his life.

What gave him the right to betray me again?

The smell of rain and wet earth hit me before I even reached the door.

Scarlett was outside wearing Miller's dress shoes, her arms looped around his neck.

"The baby and I have been waiting forever!"

"You're so late! You have to buy me something to make it up to me!"

Miller smiled at the corner of his mouth.

"There's a Sotheby's auction coming up. I saw some jewelry pieces that would suit you perfectly. I'll have someone bid on them for you."

My feet stopped moving.

I watched Miller kiss Scarlett, and when she pulled back, he leaned in and kissed her again.

It hit me then we hadn't been that close in years.

We hadn't actually kissed since our honeymoon. Not once. The most affection I ever got was a peck on the cheek.

I pulled out the last match.

Even the cold rain couldn't cut through the fog in my mind.

What moment could I even go back to now?

Miller's affair was already set in motion but my mother's cancer was under control. She wouldn't have to suffer through the pain she went through the first time I went back.

Did I even need to go back again?

A nurse nearby sighed, her voice full of admiration.

"Apparently, to make Scarlett feel secure, they sleep together every single night just trying to have a baby as soon as possible."

"And last time, Scarlett said she thought he was unclean, so Miller dragged in several doctors to run tests on him. He even booked cosmetic treatments."

"That's not even the half of it. Apparently Scarlett fell in love with the house where Miller's wife lives, so he's been telling people the company needs financing and he has to sell the place he's moving his wife to some apartment near the hospital."

A wave of cold went through me.

A year ago, Miller told me the company needed capital to expand.

He borrowed from the bank, but it still wasn't enough.

I couldn't stand watching him get pressured and drunk at business dinners just to close deals.

So I suggested selling our house myself. We rented a smaller place near the hospital to make it easier to visit my mother.

That house had been our first home as a married couple. Letting it go wasn't easy.

Miller held me and promised that once the money came back, he would get us an estate something even better.

I didn't want him to struggle.

I used the inheritance my father had left me to cover our living expenses.

And I went back to work.

The nurses' voices drifted in from down the hall as they walked.

"Apparently he even set up a flower shop across from the hospital just for her."

I looked through the rain at the little shop, still open, its lights on.

I laughed, but it came out wrong. The tears fell before I could stop them.

Every morning, I stopped by that shop on my way in. Bought a fresh bouquet.

The staff told me the owner was an old friend of Miller's, and that was why they always gave me a discount.

When Miller found out, his eyes flickered. He gave a vague, noncommittal answer that I took as a yes.

I pushed open the door. The girl at the counter clearly recognized me.

"You were just here this morning. Another bouquet already?"

I looked around the shop.

The lighting, the layout of the sink, the placement of the display cooler all of it was impossibly familiar.

Early in our relationship, Miller asked me what I would do if money didn't matter.

I said I wanted to open a flower shop.

I'd pulled out a thick stack of design sketches I'd been working on since middle school. It was the dream I'd held onto for years.

My father called it a waste of time. Miller sat with me and helped me refine every drawing.

But after we married, my time was swallowed whole attending events with other executives' wives, managing the household staff, playing the role of the perfect hostess.

On top of all that, I had my own job.

There was nothing left for dreams. The anger sat in my throat, hard and immovable.

The counter girl spoke suddenly.

"Did you do something to our manager?"

"Honestly, I'd apologize if I were you. A sick person breathing in flowers grown with those special nutrients every single day that can't be good for you."

I dug my nails into my palm. "What do you mean?"

What nutrients? What was she talking about?

The girl glanced up at the security camera, then pulled me into the corner.

"Those flowers just cause allergies. It's nothing serious."

"But the manager told us you tried to drug her husband and get pregnant by him, and luckily he was smart enough to trick you into signing a fake marriage certificate."

"She said someone helped her get rid of your baby too."

"I don't know, though. You seem like a decent person to me. You even bring us homemade pastries."

The sonogram. It rushed back to me. I grabbed the girl's hand.

"Last May was your manager in Switzerland?"

She nodded.

"Yeah, her husband takes her abroad every month because she loves to travel."

"I heard that after college, he found her working at a club and brought her home. Took care of her ever since."

Black spots flickered at the edges of my vision. I steadied myself against the wall.

Last April, I was in a car accident.

I had gone through round after round of hormone injections. IVF. It finally worked.

And then the baby was gone.

I called Miller a hundred times.

He was in Switzerland. He said the deal was difficult, that the other party wouldn't budge.

When I finally saw him again, I was crying so hard I could barely speak. I asked him why he wasn't there when I needed him most.

I fell apart after that. He was the one who stayed, who walked me back from the edge, who refused to leave my side for even an hour as though he were atoning for something.

Now I understood what he was atoning for.

He had already been with Scarlett. The whole time.

And I never suspected a thing.

I took out my phone and sent the photo of our marriage certificate the one pinned to the top of my Instagram to a friend.

The reply came back fast.

Fake. Who still counterfeits documents in this day and age?

That was it, then. Settled.

Every time I'd gone back it had all been for nothing.

I had done it to myself.

I'd hoped for something that was never real.

The last small piece of hope I'd been holding onto finally went out.

I knew now exactly which moment I needed to return to.

I sat beside my mother until the sky went dark and the first light of morning came through the window.

In the bed beside me, my mother opened her eyes the pain had been too much to sleep through.

My own eyes burned.

It was only after pulling myself out of that love that I could see clearly.

They had all been suffering because of me.

"Mom, if I go back again will you have to go through all of this again?"

It was as if she already understood. She didn't ask why. She just said softly:

"When you go back next time, I'll finally tell you where the matches came from."

I went back to the house that had been sold.

I needed to ask Miller why.

I loved him fully, and I was going to leave with the full truth.

The old housekeeper was still there, working as she always had.

My throat felt tight, like something lodged deep. A quiet pain that kept coming.

Everyone had known. Everyone except me. I had been the last to find out the punchline of a joke I wasn't in on.

I set the photograph of our marriage certificate on the table in front of him.

"Why?"

Why hold on to me, knowing it was false? Why not just tell me the truth?

Why arrange for our baby to be taken from me?

Why let Scarlett send chemically treated flowers to my mother, month after month, and say nothing?

Every question was there, jammed in my throat.

Miller's eyes narrowed slightly. He hadn't expected me to find out. His knuckles curled.

"You were always good at being a wife."

"What I wanted for Scarlett was different. I wanted her to be free. To never have to worry about anything just love me."

"When we stopped talking in college, she was the one who came to comfort me. She helped me think of ways to win you back."

"The flowers, the jewelry, the things I said to you all of it came from her."

"By the time we were ready to get married, I found out she had feelings for me all along. She was just too insecure to say anything. And then her family sold her to that club."

"The night of our wedding, when I said I was busy I was going to bring her home. She was more careful with herself than you. She never chased after anyone."

"The divorce papers I had you sign them the day we finalized the sale of the house."

Nausea rose in my chest.

I remembered the night he had come to find me during our long silence. He was crying, really crying but he hadn't made any grand promises.

He spent every dollar he had on a diamond ring for me. And the way he looked at me then there had been real love in his eyes. I was sure of it.

I pressed my brows together hard. The insults dissolved into something quieter.

"That's disgusting."

Miller sighed. He reached out and took my hand.

"Samantha, I always thought you were the capable one. I won't shortchange you on what's yours."

But what I got was pain. Deception. Betrayal.

The face I had known for fifteen years slowly became something monstrous in my eyes.

I took back my phone and stood to leave.

There was nothing left to ask. A hollow exhaustion settled over me.

Miller looked startled. He stood quickly, and I felt my wrist caught in his grip.

His expression shifted irritable, unsettled.

"Why are you playing the wounded victim?"

"You think I don't know what you've done?"

A stack of photographs hit me in the face.

They scattered across the floor. I looked down at them.

They were AI-generated images. Obviously fake. Me, with different men.

But Miller's voice came down hard.

"You went behind my back during our fight. You were sleeping around."

"If it weren't for Scarlett, I'd still have no idea. I loved you enough to marry you without questioning your past and this is what I get."

I almost laughed out loud.

I had loved this man for that long.

I had been that blind.

I had burned two matches for him. I had made my mother suffer through it twice.

I closed my eyes.

"Miller, are you actually that stupid? Have your IT people run a forensic check on those images. You'll see they're fake in five minutes."

"You just couldn't wait to throw dirt on me. You need to make your cheating look like a reaction. Like you were forced into it. Like you were the devoted one."

My phone rang. A nurse, her voice urgent and scared.

"Samantha! Scarlett came into your mother's room your mother has gone into shock!"

I yanked my wrist free and ran.

Miller caught up and shoved me toward his car. "You think you can wait for a cab? Can your mother?"

I didn't argue. My heart was pounding so hard I could barely breathe.

I pushed through the door. Scarlett was kneeling on the floor in front of me, her face a performance of distress.

"Samantha! I only said a couple of words to your mom, and she started screaming at me calling me names, trying to hit my stomach!"

I stepped past her and went straight to my mother's side.

"That's impossible. Pancreatic cancer patients don't have the strength to fight or scream."

Scarlett crumpled to the ground, both hands clutching her abdomen, her face pale.

Before I could say another word, pain exploded across my cheek.

Miller's voice was merciless. "You go sleep around and lose your own baby, and now you want to take mine too?"

I had only walked past her. I hadn't touched her.

Was everything Scarlett's fault now mine?

The heart monitor began screaming. Fear froze me where I stood.

I watched Miller scoop Scarlett up off the floor and call every available doctor out of the room.

I stepped in front of him.

"My mother hasn't been stabilized yet. Don't you dare forget she took care of you every single day. She got up in the middle of the night to make you soup when you were hungry."

Miller glanced at the hospital bed. Something moved across his face briefly. Then Scarlett let out a pained cry in his arms.

"The baby it'll be okay, right?"

He caught a doctor's eye and gave a quick, loaded look.

"Samantha, your mother's cooking was never that good. And I never asked for her help."

"A woman who raised a daughter like you maybe the illness is karma."

Those two sentences landed like a blow to the head. I stood there, stunned and dizzy.

While the doctor began resuscitation, a nurse pulled him away.

The last trace of hope I'd held for Miller the thought that maybe, at least, he cared about my mother dissolved completely.

The line on the monitor went flat and stayed there.

I couldn't tell anymore if it was numbness or grief. My spine wouldn't hold me upright. My knees hit the floor.

With shaking hands, I pulled the matchbox from my pocket.

The flame kept going out. My tears put it out again and again.

When it finally caught, a hand seized my hair and yanked.

"Scarlett's baby almost didn't make it. Mr. Miller sent us to teach you a lesson."

I stopped fighting. I just looked at the match still burning on the floor. The cold seeped into my skin.

From the next room came Scarlett's voice, soft and playful.

"The doctor said the baby is stable. We're cleared, baby. Come here I've been waiting."

"Don't you think it's kind of a thrill? Samantha and her mother right next door, listening to us?"

The blood rushed to my head all at once.

I kicked the man in front of me as hard as I could.

I grabbed everything within reach and threw it at them.

Why? Why, even now, did they have to do this to us?

The noise brought Miller in from next door.

His shirt was half-open, red marks visible on his chest.

Scarlett pressed a hand to her lips, eyes wide with mock horror. "Samantha don't tell me you had someone in here with you? Did you actually get your mother so worked up she "

I picked up the fruit knife from the table.

I smiled.

I pushed off the floor with everything I had and closed the distance to Scarlett in a single motion.

Miller's instinct took over he threw himself in front of her.

The knife went into his chest.

Scarlett's scream tore through the room.

The match flame died.

"Miller. I'm the one who can go back in time."

"This time let's go back to before the SATs."

Miller stared at me, the color gone from his face, his eyes full of something he couldn't name.