From scapegoat to king

My world revolved around Brittany, so when her ex-boyfriend Chad messed up, I sacrificed everything, even my reputation, to take the fall for his hit-and-run.

Then came the call that fractured my reality: Brittany was pregnant, but she wanted to tell the world the baby was Chad's, and for his career, she wanted me to agree to a horrifying abortion.

I watched, numb and helpless, as she openly embraced Chad, planning a fake future with our unborn child while orchestrating my public humiliation, costing me my job and turning me into a national pariah.

I endured public assaults and relentless smears, branded a "cowardly drunk driver" and an "unstable stalker," while the woman I loved actively helped destroy everything I had.

How could the woman I'd built my simple life around so cruelly extinguish our future, betray our child, and conspire with the very man I covered for, all to ensure my utter ruin?

The love I clung to turned to ash, leaving me stripped bare of everything I knew, an empty shell staring at the indifferent Austin sky.

But reaching the absolute bottom ignited a forgotten flame.

With nothing left to lose, I dialed a number I hadn't touched in years, summoning Scarlett, the fierce heiress to a vast Texas oil fortune, ready to unleash the sleeping giant of my family's power.

It was time for the Walkers to remind everyone exactly who they were.

The call came late, the kind that rips you from sleep and leaves a metallic taste in your mouth.

Brittany's voice was a frayed wire.

"Austin, it's Chad. He... he messed up. Bad."

I was at her side in twenty minutes, the Austin night air doing nothing to cool the dread coiling in my gut.

The scene at Chad's apartment was a mess of stale beer, frantic energy, and the unmistakable stench of fear. Chad, former college football star, now just a ghost haunting his own life, was pacing, hands raking through his already disheveled hair.

"They're going to crucify me," he kept muttering, eyes wide and unfocused. "My life's over."

Brittany rushed to him, her hand on his arm. "No, Chad, no. We'll figure something out."

She turned to me, her eyes, usually so bright, now clouded with a desperate plea. "He was drunk, Austin. Hit-and-run. Someone saw his truck."

My blood ran cold. Chad, the golden boy whose NFL dreams had shattered with his knee, was about to face a different kind of ruin.

"Brittany..." I started, but she cut me off.

"He can't handle this, Austin. You know his anxiety, his depression. Prison... it'll destroy him. Completely." Her voice cracked.

Then came the words that would cleave my life in two.

"Please, Austin. Say it was you. Say you were driving his truck."

I stared at her, the hum of the refrigerator suddenly deafening.

"What?"

"You're strong, Austin. You can handle this. He can't." Her tears started, a calculated flow that always, always undid me. "I'll make it up to you, I swear. Just... please. For him. For me."

Chad was a wreck, no doubt. Brittany had propped him up for years, convinced his downfall was somehow her fault, a penance for a high school romance that ended. And I, loving Brittany with a devotion that bordered on blindness, had always enabled her enabling of him.

My job as a market manager at her family's small organic food company, a life I'd chosen to be near her, to be "normal," suddenly felt like a flimsy stage set. My real life, the one with the Walker family name and the oil fields of West Texas, was a universe away.

"He'll die in there, Austin," Brittany whispered, her face close to mine, her breath smelling of his stale fear. "Please."

I looked at Chad, a broken man. I looked at Brittany, the woman I loved, her face a mask of terror.

My own future, my reputation, my carefully constructed ordinary life, all of it felt insignificant against the weight of her plea.

I nodded, a slow, heavy movement.

"Okay."

The relief that washed over her face was a punch to my gut.

Overnight, I, Austin Walker, heir to a Texas oil fortune, became Austin, the "cowardly drunk driver" who'd fled the scene. The local news ate it up. My face was plastered everywhere. Whispers followed me down the aisles of the grocery store.

A few weeks later, the ground shifted again. Brittany sat me down, her hand trembling as she placed it on her still-flat stomach.

"Austin... I'm pregnant."

A flicker of hope, absurd and desperate, ignited in me. Maybe this was it. Maybe this would be the thing that finally pulled us together, away from Chad's shadow.

But her next words extinguished it.

"The media... they're still hounding Chad. If they find out about the baby... with all this... they'll connect it to the hit-and-run, to you."

I didn't understand. "So? It's our baby, Brittany."

She looked away, her voice barely a whisper. "I told a few people... a few reporters who were sniffing around... that it might be Chad's."

The world tilted.

"You what?"

"It takes the pressure off him! Don't you see? They'll think I'm just standing by him, that this is some tragic love story." Her eyes pleaded for understanding. "It protects him, Austin."

My voice was hoarse. "Protects him? What about me? What about our child?"

Then, the final blow.

"I think... I think I need to get rid of it."

"No." The word was a raw tear in my throat.

"Chad can't handle this right now, Austin. The stress... his psychiatrist said any more pressure..." She trailed off, her gaze fixed on some distant point of her own twisted logic. "It's for the best. For everyone."

Everyone except me. Everyone except our unborn child.

My heart, already bruised, shattered. The love I'd felt, so vast and consuming, turned to ash.

I stood up, the room swaying. I walked to the window, looking out at the indifferent Austin skyline.

My hand fumbled for my phone. I scrolled through contacts, past "Brittany," past "Dad," until I found a name I hadn't dialed in years.

Scarlett.

The phone rang twice.

Her voice, smoky and laced with a familiar, dangerous amusement, purred into my ear. "Well, well. Austin Walker. You finally crawled back to me?"

My own voice was a stranger's, trembling. "Scarlett... I need your help."

"What are you saying, Brittany?" My voice was tight, a cord about to snap.

"Chad can't have this scandal, Austin. He just signed that big endorsement deal with the athletic wear company. If this hit-and-run sticks to him, his career, what's left of it, is over." Brittany's tone was chillingly calm, devoid of the frantic emotion from before. It was the logic of a general sacrificing a pawn.

"But you're different," she continued, as if explaining a simple truth to a child. "You're not in the public eye like he is. You're... private. If you take the blame, the media frenzy will die down. People forget."

I stared at the woman I thought I knew, the woman I'd planned to marry. "Brittany, do you hear yourself? First, you want me to claim Chad's hit-and-run. I did. Now, you want me to let the world believe our child is his, and then you want to... to end the pregnancy, all to protect him?"

Her voice dropped, a stage whisper of manipulation. "Austin, I'm begging you. Consider it my plea."

"Your plea?" A bitter laugh escaped me. Tears welled, hot and shameful. "You want me to destroy my name, my future, for him?"

"Chad can't take this kind of blow. He's already on antidepressants, seeing a therapist twice a week." Her voice rose with a note of urgency. "But you're strong, Austin. You always have been."

"So I'm the designated sacrifice?" The words were ground out from between clenched teeth.

"It's not a sacrifice, it's... a temporary measure." She paused, her voice softening, a practiced caress. "And Austin, about the baby... I'm going to schedule the appointment. It's for the best."

My world fractured.

"Brittany," my voice was a raw, ragged thing, "that's our child!"

"I know!" Her composure finally cracked, a flash of irritation. "But Chad can't handle any more stress right now! Any!"

My breath hitched.

I laughed then, a hollow, broken sound, tears streaming down my face.

"Fine. I agree to your terms." What else could I say? What fight was left in me?

Before I could utter another word, her phone buzzed on the counter.

She snatched it up. "Chad? What's wrong?"

His voice, thin and reedy, crackled through the speaker. "Brittany, I had a nightmare! I'm so scared! What if they find out it was me? What if they tell everyone?"

Brittany's entire demeanor shifted, melting into a puddle of maternal concern. "Shhh, Chad, honey, don't worry. I won't let anyone hurt you. I'm taking care of everything."

She hung up and, without a backward glance at me, rushed out of my apartment, presumably to his.

The next morning, I knew where she'd be. I drove to the women's clinic, a cold dread settling in my stomach.

"I'm looking for Brittany Miller," I told the receptionist.

The nurse glanced up, a flicker of confusion in her eyes. "Brittany Miller? Isn't her... uh... friend, Chad, with her for the procedure?"

My body swayed. The pain in my chest was a physical weight, crushing the air from my lungs.

She was actually going through with it. And she'd brought Chad.

My mind raced, a chaotic jumble of betrayal and grief. Just then, Brittany walked out from a back room, looking pale. Chad was by her side, his arm around her shoulders, both of them wearing surgical masks as if to hide from the world, or perhaps from themselves.

A doctor in a white coat followed them, adjusting his glasses. "Ms. Miller, as we discussed, your uterine wall is quite thin. If you proceed with this termination, future conception could be very difficult, if not impossible."

Brittany and Chad exchanged a look over their masks.

Brittany's eyes crinkled at the corners, an attempt at a smile. "It's okay, Doctor. For Chad, I'm willing to do anything."

My fingers trembled.

Brittany, you knew. You knew the risks, and still, you'd sacrifice our child, your future ability to have children, all for Chad.

I bit down on my lip, hard, tasting blood.

Walking out of the clinic, the Texas sun was a brutal, indifferent glare. I pulled out my phone. The top trending story on a local news app blared: #BrittanyAndChad #BabyLove #CoupleGoals - Popular Austin Influencer Brittany Miller and Ex-Football Star Chad Henderson Spotted at Luxury Baby Boutique.

The accompanying photo showed Brittany and Chad, holding hands, Chad protectively cradling a designer diaper bag, both of them beaming at a display of expensive baby gear.

The comments section was a cesspool of adoration and speculation.

"They look so happy! True love conquers all! ❤️"

"So glad she's standing by him. He's been through so much."

"Wonder when the baby's due? They're glowing!"

"What about that market manager guy she was engaged to? Guess he was just a placeholder. Good riddance!"

My nails dug into my palms, but I felt nothing.

I turned my car around and drove straight to a family law attorney my father had recommended years ago for "contingencies."

I needed to formally terminate the engagement. And I needed to understand what rights I had, if any, to the child she was so determined to erase.