Her New Life, His Eternal Pain Chapter 12

Her New Life, His Eternal Pain Chapter 12 I’ll Do It Myself

Liam stumbled to Selene’s grave. He had a giant bottle of sleeping pills in his hand, the plastic crinkling under his grip.

The cherry tree was still stall, its branches thin and sparse. Selene’s headstone stood next to another one -Fiona’s.

His parents had nearly disowned him for putting up that second stone. His mother had screamed at him for an hour, then not spoken to him for three months.

He dropped to his knees in front of both graves. The grass was damp. Cold seeped through his pants.

“Selene… have you seen Fiona?” His face was gray, hollow, the skin stretched too tight over his cheekbones. “Does she hate me?”

He slapped himself. Hard. The crack echoed in the quiet cemetery. Then again. And again. His cheeks swelled up, red and raw, but he didn’t stop until his hand went numb.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It should’ve been me. I should be the one dead.”

In the black-and-white photo, Fiona smiled shyly, her head tilted, her eyes soft.

Liam pressed his forehead against the stone and rubbed it gently, like he was trying to soak into it. His voice cracked like broken glass.

“You both came to kill me again today.”

“But you’re too soft. You should’ve just… done it.”

“That’s okay. I’ll take care of it myself.”

He unscrewed the bottle, tipped his head back, and swallowed every last pill. They scraped down his throat, bitter and dry.

Then he slumped against the headstone, cheek pressed to Fiona’s photo, a faint, broken smile on his lips.

“Fiona… I’m coming. Don’t walk too fast. Wait for me…”

His eyes fluttered closed.

His secretary had been following him-Liam hadn’t even noticed. When he saw the body go limp, the

man ran.

He hauled the unconscious Liam onto his back, the dead weight nearly buckling his knees, and sprinted to the hospital, lungs burning.

Liam woke up in the same hospital where Fiona had “died.”

White ceiling. Beeping machines. The smell of antiseptic.

A psychiatrist put him on watch. No more suicide attempts. No escape.

So he wandered. Day after day. Down the same gray hallways. Past the same blinking vending machines. Always ending up outside the ER where Fiona used to lie, staring at the double doors like they might open and she might walk out.

One day, he was sitting there on a plastic chair, staring at nothing, when a small body crashed into his lap.

A little girl looked up and smiled. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

Samuel’s kid. The one he’d seen before.

Samuel didn’t work here anymore. The girl wasn’t wearing a hospital bracelet, so she wasn’t the patient. Samuel had looked fine yesterday. Why was he here?

Liam pushed the questions aside. First thing: get the kid back to her father.

He knelt down, opened his mouth to ask where Samuel was, when the girl’s smile vanished. Her whole face changed. She scrambled away from him like he was poison, her eyes wide with disgust.

“Daddy said you’re the bad man who hurt Mommy!”

Hurt… Mommy?

Liam’s brain exploded. The words hit him like a freight train.

He grabbed the girl’s shoulders, his fingers shaking violently. “What’s your mother’s name? Tell me!”

“Ow! Let go!” The girl was terrified, thrashing in his grip, her little face/crumpling.

“Liam, stop!”

A fist slammed into his face before he could turn around.

He hit the ground hard. Pain exploded through his jaw. Blood dripped from his split lip onto the gray linoleum.

He didn’t feel it. He crawled back to the girl on his hands and knees, his voice raw and desperate, spit and blood mixing on his chin.

“Please-please-is her name Fiona? Is your mother Fiona?!”

“Get away from her!”

Samuel kicked him back-not hard, just enough to make him fall again. His whole body shook with rage. “You don’t get to say her name! You haven’t hurt her enough? She’s dead, Liam. You killed her. And now you’re gonna play the grieving boyfriend? You make me sick.”

He scooped up the crying girl and walked away, his footsteps echoing.

Liam lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling, and laughed.

She’s alive.