Chapter 4

Elisabeth Hall POV:

The day before we were supposed to leave for Hawaii, Blake picked me up. Our bags were packed and waiting by my door.

"One last talk," he said, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. "We need to clear the air before we go."

It wasn't a talk. It was a lecture. An ultimatum disguised as a conversation.

"You have to trust me, Lis," he said as he drove aimlessly through town. "This thing with Kris... it's an obligation. She's fragile. Her dad left, she's got nobody. It means nothing. You are my future. Don't you see that? You can't throw all of this away over her."

He was bullying me into accepting his betrayal, reframing it as a noble burden he was forced to carry. He was making me the unreasonable one.

As if summoned by the devil himself, his phone buzzed. Kris's name flashed on the screen. He ignored it. It buzzed again. And again.

Finally, he answered, his voice tight with irritation. "What, Kris?"

Her voice came through the speaker, a frantic, hysterical mess. "Blake! Oh my God, my car just broke down on the freeway! I'm stranded on the bridge over the river!"

It was the perfect, final test.

A non-refundable trip to save our relationship on one side. Another damsel in distress on the other.

He looked at me, his face a mask of pure agony. He was trapped.

"Lis, I have to..."

"I know," I said, my voice hollow, a dead thing in my throat. "You have to go."

He took the next exit, tires squealing in protest.

He found her car parked precariously on the shoulder of the tall bridge overlooking the deep, fast-moving river. She saw his truck and flew into his arms, sobbing dramatically.

"It's okay, get in," he told her, gesturing to the back seat.

The air in the truck was suddenly thick and suffocating with my silent heartbreak and her triumphant, sniffled sobs.

As he was trying to merge back into the high-speed traffic, she leaned forward from the back seat, wrapping her arms around his neck from behind, pressing her body against his.

"Thank you, Blake," she whispered, her lips brushing against his ear. "You're my hero."

The gesture, so intimate and possessive, made him flinch. He glanced at me in the passenger seat, his eyes full of guilt.

He took his eyes off the road for one second too long.

A car horn blared, a deafening, terrifying shriek.

He wrenched the wheel.

The world became a violent, spinning chaos of screaming metal and shattering glass. The truck smashed through the guardrail.

The impact threw me forward, my head cracking against the dashboard with a sickening thud.

Then there was a moment of impossible, terrifying weightlessness before the icy, black shock of the river swallowed us whole.

I was pinned, my leg trapped by the crumpled dashboard. The freezing water rushed in, filling my lungs, choking me.

Blake fought his way out of his seatbelt. He surfaced, gasping for air. He turned, and his eyes met mine through the shattered windshield.

For a split second, I saw his soul in his eyes-the genuine love he felt for me, the absolute terror of losing me forever.

Then Kris screamed from the back seat, a shrill, piercing sound. "Blake! Help me! I can't swim!"

He was torn.

The immediate, screaming crisis versus the silent, sinking foundation of his entire life.

His hero complex won.

He turned his back on me and dove toward her.

I watched his back disappear as he fought to save the other woman. The cold, dark water closed over my head, and the last thing I saw was the light fading from the surface.

This was it. This was the end of the love he claimed was forever.