Don’t Let Me Fade Away

On the very day his company went public, my father had my mother committed to a private asylum.

She lived out her days in a cold, sterile hell, enduring endless torment.

When he locked her away, his voice was devoid of warmth. If you want to blame someone, Vivian, blame yourself. You're the one who killed Selene.

Selene. My fathers long-dead first love. The untouchable ghost he worshiped.

For as long as I could remember, my parents never loved each other.

There was no passion between them, but no explosive fights either. Just a quiet, suffocating indifference.

Until the day Arthur's company went public. In front of my very eyes, he had the men in white coats drag my mother away to the asylum.

He looked down at her, his face a mask of stone, and spat those cruel words: "If you want to blame someone, blame yourself. You're the one who killed Selene."

Fourteen years ago, Selene was on her deathbed. Desperate to raise money for her treatment, my father decided to risk everything at an underground casino, intending to gamble away our entire livelihood on a single, mad hope.

My mother fought tooth and nail to stop him. She locked him in the bedroom to keep him from throwing us into ruin. We were already struggling to put food on the table; losing everything would have meant our starvation.

And so, while my father raged behind that locked door, Selenes heart gave out. She died.

After her funeral, Arthur went back to his usual, detached self. It was as if the man who had been willing to destroy his family for Selene had never existed.

We all thought he had finally grown up. We thought he understood the cost of his recklessness and appreciated my mother's sacrifice.

But we were wrong. He nurtured that poison in his heart for fourteen long years.

And he laid all the blame at my mother's feet.

What my father never knew was that on the night she locked him in, my mother had braved a blinding blizzard, knocking on every door in town to beg for charity. She wanted to save Selene, if only to spare Arthur the lifelong guilt of her death.

All that devotion, all that quiet suffering, and all he had to say was:

"Spend the rest of your miserable life repenting for Selene. This is your punishment for leaving her to die."

My mother whispered the word "punishment" over and over, laughing through her tears until she choked.

"Losing her wasn't my punishment," she sobbed, her voice breaking. "Meeting you was!"

Her tears carried the weight of her stolen youth and decades of wasted devotion.

The icy wind bit into my cheeks, and suddenly, I was back on that snowy night.

Standing before me was Vivian. Her lips were pale, her cheeks flushed red from the biting cold, her hands shaking violently as she struggled to lock the front door.

"Vivian! Open this damn door!"

"Do you hear me? Selene is dying in that hospital bed! How can you just stand there and let her die?"

Arthur's muffled screams rattled the heavy wooden door, followed by the dull, heavy thuds of his body throwing itself against the frame.

I saw Vivian hesitate, her key trembling halfway out of the lock. Without a word, I stepped forward, reached over her shoulder, and turned the key the rest of the way, clicking it shut.

Startled by my sudden presence, she gasped, her fragile frame pressing hard against the locked door. "Who... who are you?"

I reached into my coat and pulled out a thick envelope packed with cash. "My name is Dawn. Im here to give you this."

With only a thin sheet of wood separating us from the raging man inside, I held my breath and looked into my mother's eyes.

The suspicion in her gaze slowly softened into confusion.

I grabbed her cold hand and pressed the envelope into her palm, my voice cracking with a desperate plea.

"I only have one condition."

"Divorce him."

"You don't have to decide right now. Just promise me you'll think about it. You have seven days."

When I was little, whenever my father was away, Vivian loved to talk about their early days.

She told me how Arthur used to write her poetry, how he would ride her on the back of his bicycle along the lake, the cool breeze in their hair. She spoke of how he would place fresh wild flowers in the glass vase on her nightstand every single morning.

I never believed her. For as long as I could remember, Arthur had been nothing but ice to her.

He was a completely different person from the man who snatched the cash from her hand and sprinted toward the hospital that night.

Thanks to the timely funds, Selenes first surgery was a success, pulling her back from the brink of death.

When Vivian went to visit her at the hospital, I followed quietly behind.

Just outside the room, she froze, turning as rigid as a statue.

I peeked through the small window in the door and understood why immediately.

"Open up, sweet girl. Here comes the airplane."

Arthur was sitting by the bedside, carefully blowing on a spoonful of warm broth before feeding it to Selene. He gently used his thumb to wipe away a stray drop from her lip, his touch incredibly tender.

A patient in the neighboring bed teased them. "Oh, Selene, your man is so sweet to you. He hasn't left your side for a whole week."

Neither of them corrected her. They just shared a soft, knowing look.

The bright morning sun streamed through the window, bathing them in a warm, intimate glow.

For seven days, Arthur hadn't come home once. He hadn't even called.

Before they could notice us, Vivian spun around and ran, fleeing the hospital like a ghost.

Once we were back in our quiet, dusty kitchen, I couldn't hold back the question that had been burning in my chest.

"Doesn't it hurt? Seeing him treat another woman like she's his entire world?"

Vivian offered a weak, hollow smile, her voice barely a whisper. "You don't understand. Selene is his half-sister. He's just... he's just worried about her."

His half-sister?

A chill ran down my spine.

That was the first time I had ever heard about their true relation. But the way Arthur looked at Selene was far from brotherly. It was obsessive.

My eyes drifted to my mother's hands, rough and chapped from the winter cold. A simple gold band clung tightly to her ring finger.

A dark, sickening realization began to take root. Had Arthur married Vivian out of love, or was there another, uglier reason?

Seven days had passed. It was the deadline I had set.

"Today is the seventh day, Vivian," I said softly. "Have you made up your mind?"

A tear slipped down her cheek, splashing onto the dusty floorboards.

I remembered a night from my childhood when Arthur had taken her to a business dinner. He was already a rising executive back then. If he hadn't silently permitted it, no one would have dared force his wife to drink until she was sick. She ended up in the emergency room with severe gastric bleeding.

I remember sitting by her bedside in that sterile private room when I was only six years old, watching her clutch her stomach, staring blankly out the window as tears silently tracked down her face.

My heart squeezed at the memory. I stepped closer.

"My savings can only pay for this one surgery. He's already proven he's willing to gamble everything away. If you stay with him, there will be a next time, and a next."

"I'll do it," she whispered, cutting me off.

She looked up, her tear-stained eyes carrying a profound, deadened exhaustion.

"I'll divorce him."

Vivian moved much faster than I expected.

Within half a day, she had packed up her few belongings and led me to a cramped, drafty attic she had rented years ago.

After setting up the small cot, she handed me a cup of warm water, her voice soft with apology. "I'm sorry you have to live like this."

I looked at her worn hands. The gold band was gone.

She had left it behind, sitting alone on the kitchen counter of their old home.

I didn't mind this tiny, dilapidated attic at all. It felt safer than the house we left.

It was only then that I discovered she was a writer.

Watching her write by the dim light of a desk lamp was a mesmerizing sight.

Noticing my gaze, she offered a shy, self-conscious smile. "I was planning to put my pen down for good after I got married. But I've changed my mind."

Because of her earlier published works, Vivian had received an invitation to submit a piece for the prestigious Winchester Prize. She spent her nights pouring her soul onto paper, preparing her entry.

While she worked, I slipped away to check on my father.

Under Arthurs undivided care, Selenes recovery was going smoothly.

When I went to the hospital, I saw Arthur pushing her wheelchair through the courtyard garden. The moment his eyes landed on me, his expression hardened into ice. He muttered a few words to Selene, turned the wheelchair around, and walked away.

I had no ill intentions. I only wanted to see if the man who had committed my mother to an asylum was capable of feeling love.

He was. He just didn't have any left for Vivian.

And that realization made him all the more repulsive.

He could have easily let her go. Instead, he kept her bound to him, blaming her for his own failures and punishing her for fourteen miserable years.

Now that she isn't there to stop you, Arthur, how will you ruin yourself this time? I wondered, watching their retreating figures.

After spending two idyllic weeks playing the devoted brother at the hospital, Arthur finally remembered his wife.

He showed up at our attic door, clutching the divorce papers.

"What kind of tantrum is this, Vivian?" he roared, blocking the doorway when I arrived. "Selene is my sister! How many times do I have to explain myself to you?"

Inside, Vivians voice sounded quiet but steel-hard. "Save your breath, Arthur. I don't care about your explanations anymore. Just sign the papers."

A heavy silence fell over them. I pushed past him, ignoring his glare, and walked inside. I casually placed the confirmation letter for the Winchester Prize entry on the table.

Arthur's eyes locked onto the letter. "You... you entered the competition?"

When Vivian gave a slow nod, his face contorted with rage.

"We had a deal! You promised to stop writing once we got married! You lied to me... Is this why you want a divorce? Vivian, why do you have to compete with a dying girl for this prize?"

"Enough!" Vivian's voice cracked, sharp and piercing. "Did you only marry me so I would stop writing?"

Arthur stammered, unable to meet her eyes. His silence was the only confession she needed.

So that was the truth. That was the foundation of their entire marriage.

Perhaps the sweet memories Vivian cherished of Arthur's early kindness were real, but they were fueled by a deep, dark guilt. He had built their life on the ashes of her dreams.

My chest tightened, making it hard to breathe.

I forced myself to pick up a pen and thrust it into his hand. "Sign the papers. And get out. Now."

Under my cold, unwavering glare, Arthur finally put pen to paper.

Once the door slammed shut, the cramped room fell dead silent. Vivian curled into herself on a wooden chair, her shoulders trembling. I didn't know how to comfort her, so I knelt beside her.

"Keep writing," I whispered. "You are going to be a brilliant writer. Millions of people will read your words."

She slowly lifted her tear-stained face, her eyes filled with doubt.

I squeezed her cold hand and smiled.

I wanted her to have a life free of pain, free of tears, full of the bright, beautiful things she deserved. This time, she would write her own destiny.

Vivians nomination for the Winchester Prize went through smoothly.

It should have been a time for celebration, but I rarely saw her smile.

One afternoon, she handed me an official letter from the committee, her expression blank.

"Someone is questioning where the money for Selene's treatment came from," she said quietly. "They claim I acquired it through unethical means. They're planning to disqualify me."

She spoke as if she had already accepted her fate.

"They've given me a week. If no one steps forward to clear my name, the nomination is gone."

I immediately knew it was my father. "Only three people know where that surgery money came from."

"I'm going to find Arthur."

Without waiting for her reply, I dragged Vivian to the hospital.

Arthur was there, just as I expected. But in the few days since I had last seen him, he looked withered. Heavy dark circles bruised the skin under his eyes, and a rough stubble covered his jaw.

Selene seemed to have slipped into another coma. Rumors had been circulating around town that Arthur was desperately trying to sell off his family's property.

Clearly, her condition had worsened, and he needed cash for a second surgery.

I demanded to know what he had done, but he didn't react with the shock or guilt I expected.

"You know that money went straight to Selenes doctors," I spat, glaring at the exhausted man. "How could you do something so vile?"

He turned to look at the unconscious woman through the glass. "Selene wanted that prize. If she wants something, I won't let anyone take it from her."

"I was the one who paid for her first surgery," I said, my voice dripping with venom. "If anyone is her savior, it's me."

"Don't flatter yourself, Arthur. Write the letter of clarification for Vivian, and we'll call the debt even."

Arthur turned his gaze to Vivian, a cold, knowing smirk playing on his lips.

"You took her life once," he whispered. "Giving up this prize is the least you can do to atone for your sins."

Vivian looked at him in utter confusion, but a wave of icy terror washed over me.

My father... he had returned too. He remembered the other timeline.