Chapter 2 Denial

• Three weeks ago, I got a call. “Mrs Wesley, your husband has been in an accident. The car somersaulted and caught fire where your husband sat, we need you to come to –”
• Before the voice on the other side of my phone could finish speaking, I had flung into action, removing the emerald green dress Zane bought for me and insisted I wear to our dinner date tonight.
• Accident? What could have gone wrong? Zane never failed to check everything in his car before setting out for a drive. He even set out to go somewhere nearby. How could something terrible happen in such a short distance?
• I had now changed into comfortable clothes, entered my car, and drove to the hospital.
• Wait, the hospital? I wasn’t patient enough to listen to the address.
• In a rush and with shaky hands, I reached out for my phone that was carelessly lying on the floor of my car. I immediately got a notification. It was the news.
• Of course, the accident had already made it to the headlines. Could this have been planned earlier? Everything about this incident seemed unusual, but that didn’t matter. I needed to get to my husband.
• I saw the address written in the article and drove there speedily.
• +++++
• “Where is my husband?”! I screamed, ignoring the paparazzi that ran to my front to question me on getting to the hospital.
• This time with a heavy eyes, “I said where the fuck is my husband?!. Somebody answer me!”.
• “Mrs Wesley!” A voice called out amidst the commotion.
• “Please come with me. We have been waiting for you”, the man dressed in a white coat and green scrubs said while leading me into a bright room.
• About five doctors were in the room, all staring heavily at me. “What is this? Is my husband dead?” I asked with my chest tightened, unable to breathe in between my words.
• “No, Mrs Wesley. Your husband will be fine, but he might not look like who you know anymore”.
• “What do you mean?” I said with inquisitive eyes, searching for answers.
• “His skin was brutally damaged in the car accident, ma’am, and he would need a skin transplant, and he needs it urgently while the burns are still fresh.”
• “We already reached out to the person he called last, who we found to be his sibling, and spoke about the transplant, but they immediately hung up on us.” A doctor added.
• “They wouldn’t do anything for Zane. He is their step-sibling”. I said in a depressed tone.
• “I would donate my skin”. The doctors' eyes widened after the words came out of my mouth.
• “I don’t advise you to ma’am. You are a popular model, and we see your work. The areas we would need to extract from are too significant to go unnoticed. You might end up being permanently scarred.
• “This is not up to you, doctor!”. I screamed on top of my might.
• Now crying my eyes out, “Take my fucking skin and save my husband. He’s dying!”.
• Zane would have done the same for me. I told myself, reassuringly.
• ++++++
• Present Day
• Everything in me wanted to go back to that day. I kept hearing the doctor's voice warning me about all I had to lose.
• But I had been blinded by love. Love for the man that once whispered forever under neon lights and whiskey.
• “Meet my fiancée, Elora Shane.” Zane’s voice interrupted my thoughts.
• I blinked too fast to even get a good grasp of her face.
• “Fiancée?”
• “She’s… sh… she… she is pregnant. I stammered as I pointed at her protruding belly.
• The woman looked at me, startled.
• “Oh–you mean–he didn’t tell you, she said with a smirk on her face.
• I couldn’t utter a word. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t even swallow my saliva. The man I had abandoned my family for, walked away from billions for, hidden my identity for, had been banging another woman long enough to get her heavily pregnant.
• “You should be grateful, Zara”. Zane’s words echoed through my thoughts once again.
• “Your skin is forever etched onto my body. Something a lot of girls would die for.”He said mockingly.
• “I’m alive, Zara. You gave me a second chance.”
• ‘“A chance you plan to spend with someone else?” My voice trembled in more grief than fury.
• “You even got engaged without divorcing me first? Was that all I meant to you?”. I said to Zane’s unflinching face.
• “You knew what this world demanded. You knew it before you married an illegitimate billionaire. Elora, my heiress fiancée, brings alliances, security. One you could never give me.”
• “Now leave! I’m done explaining myself to you!”. He thundered at me and slammed the door once more.
• I looked around me. The road was lonely and quiet, night immediately coming.
• I struggled to get up, with the little strength I had left in me, from the floor I was thrown to by my husband as passers by were already stealing glances at me. As I walked slowly from the house, not knowing where I was headed, memories of the choices I had made all flooded through my mind.
• But the fear of walking away from the life I had come to be at peace with, after leaving my family, made my heart ache. My stomach twisted. I couldn’t imagine a life without Zane in it.
• “What if I am giving up too soon? Lovers quarrel all the time, right? What if I can’t survive without him?”
• I had no means of sustaining myself. Every dime I made stayed with my modelling agency. According to my contract with them, they get to keep eighty percent of my earnings when any scandal springs up around me. My divorce definitely would serve as one.
• I became motionless. I had to turn back. I couldn’t give up like this. I hurriedly returned to my house.
• “Zane, Zane. Zane Wesley!. Please don’t do this to me!” I cried out into the night.
• “I’m sorry!”
• “Please come out and tell me you still love me. Tell me you didn’t mean all that you said”.
• “Zaneeeee”. I screamed one last time as I landed on the ground, breaking into uncontrollable tears.
• There was no response. Not even a sound to prove they heard me. Were they in my matrimonial bed? I couldn’t bear the thought of that.
• Where could I go?
• I dared not call my family. We hadn’t spoken in three years since I married Zane. Not when I packed the last of my clothes into the brown trunk. Not when I removed the necklace my mother gave me and threw it across the table because she refused to grant my wish to marry Zane Wesley. Not when I emptied my trust fund worth millions of dollars to invest in Zane’s company.
• The raindrops that had been trying to catch my attention now gushed heavily. I wrapped my hands around my body, trying to suppress the pain the gushing rain caused to my healing surgical wounds.
• Weak and broken, I stumbled away from the place I once called home. The rain mixed with my tears, blurring my vision as I dragged my feet, my heart aching with every step.
• He said I no longer have my beauty. I also wasn’t the Zara Smith the world remembered.
• And maybe that was a good thing.
• Because tomorrow, I’d disappear.