I Was the Bride They Voted Out Chapter 05

I Was the Bride They Voted Out Chapter 05

I should have died.

But I could still hear.

But I could still hear everything.

The rain. The screech of tires. The piercing wail of the ambulance.

And Ryan shouting my name over and over again.

“Nina. Don’t sleep!”

“Look at me!”

His hand pressed against my face, burning hot.

I wanted to smile. But I couldn’t even lift my eyelids.

So he was afraid after all.

But every time that fear came, it was always too late.

Someone lifted me onto a stretcher.

The photo slipped from my arms and fell.

I tried to reach for it, but my fingers wouldn’t move.

Then another voice broke into tears.

“Ryan, my arm hurts so much.”

Claire’s voice, soft and trembling.

Ryan’s footsteps faltered.

A second later, he called to a nurse, “Treat her wound first.”

My heart ached. Worse than the impact of the car.

Even now, I was still second.

When I woke, everything was white.

The sharp smell of antiseptic filled my nose.

Instinctively, I tried to turn away, but pain exploded through my ribs, and darkness swam across my vision.

“Careful.”

Emily caught me, eyes red and puffy.

“Ms. Bennett, you’ve been out for three days.”

Three days.

I parted my dry, cracked lips.

“My box?”

Emily blinked, then pulled it from the nightstand.

The box was dented in one corner. Inside, the photos were wrinkled from rain.

With my unbandaged hand, I touched my mother’s face.

The instant I touched it, my tears fell.

Emily choked out, “Director Harrison transferred you to a private hospital. Nobody knows where

you are.”

I closed my eyes.

Good.

At least this time, I didn’t wake up beside Ryan.

Emily hesitated, then handed me her phone.

“They’re still attacking you online.”

The screen lit up. A headline burned my eyes.

[Santorini Bride Bullied to Hospital by Obsessive Ex.]

In the video, Claire lay in a hospital bed, arm wrapped in gauze, voice thick with tears.

“I don’t blame Ms. Bennett. She just loves Ryan too much.”

The comments were filled with sympathy for her.

No one knew the person who had actually spent three days in intensive care was me.

I stared at the screen, and something in my chest went hollow.

Emily’s voice cracked. “Ms. Bennett, let’s release the evidence.”

I shook my head.

“Not yet.”

My voice came out so hoarse it didn’t sound like me.

I handed the phone back and looked out the window.

The sun was bright, sunlight bleaching the hospital floor white.

It reminded me of the day after my parents’ funeral, when I was fourteen.

Another cloudless day.

The whole world moved on. Only I stayed behind.

But this time, I wasn’t waiting for anyone to come get me.

A knock sounded at the door.

Director Harrison walked in and set a file beside my bed.

“The Ashford project-I’m holding it until the end of the month.”

“After you recover, you can still go.”

I gripped that file.

After a long moment, I heard myself say:

“Director Harrison. Do me a favor.”

Ryan always thought that if he turned back, I’d still be standing there.

Olivia always thought that because I had no family, I’d eventually lower my head and come back no matter how many times they pushed me away.

So I’d disappear from their world completely.

I looked down at my hands wrapped in bandages.

But that hollow place in my chest finally stopped hurting.

“I want them to think I’m dead.”

When Ryan found the hospital, it was already the next morning.

The emergency room lights glared white.

His shirt still had my blood on it, his fingers shaking too hard to hold the registration form.

“The woman brought in last night-Nina Bennett. Where is she?”

The nurse flipped through records. “She was transferred.”

“Where?”

“The family requested privacy.”

Family.

Ryan froze.

He suddenly remembered-I didn’t have any family.

Since I was fourteen, my emergency contact had always been him.