He pretended to faint after falling down the marble stairs…-phuongthao

Ouadie Rhabbouron

You hit the edge of the step harder than you intended, and the pain shoots through your ribs like an alarm blaring in your chest. A moment ago you were Victor Hale. Now, you're down.

You lie on your back staring at the chandelier, too bright, too distant. You're breathless, your heart pounds as if arguing with itself, and the cold marble pierces your suit. Your mouth tastes of metal. First, you feel humiliation, then fear. Your body wants to sit up, to demonstrate control, because you've learned to treat vulnerability as a public defeat.

Then the thought arrives, serene and unpleasant, opening a door in your head. Don't move. Pretend. Watch what happens. See who stays when you fall. It's absurd, risky, and you call it "research" because you've spent your life testing people. Testing partners with hidden clauses, employees with pressure, friends with disguised traps.

You call it strategy, even though you know it's distrust in a tailored suit. You tell yourself that everyone wants something, and that loyalty is only worthwhile if it withstands fear, pain, discomfort.

Lying there, your lungs burning, you decide to conduct another experiment in the place that should be safe. Your eyelids twitch once, then you lie still, deliberate, calculated. The house is so quiet you hear the clock, the air conditioner, the distant hum of the city.

And then you hear footsteps: quick, uneven, hurried, running toward you without hesitation. "Mr. Hale!" a voice cries, breaking in two as if trying not to shatter completely.

Amelia Brooks appears, driven by adrenaline and panic. She carries the twins in her arms, Evan and Nora, crying like little sirens. Their fists clutch their shirts, their faces red, their fear enormous and incomprehensible to such small bodies.

Amelia falls to her knees beside you with brutal urgency. You feel her hand on your neck, searching for a pulse. Her fingers tremble, but she persists, as if trembling weren't an option. "Please, wake up," she whispers, raw, without acting, without emotional makeup. "Please… don't do this." The plea sounds real. It hurts you more than the blow.

You don't move, even though something inside wants to respond, to soothe, to extinguish the scene. You remain still because you chose this game, and now you must inhabit it, even if it burns you from within.

Amelia's breathing becomes shallow, almost trapped. The twins cry out louder, and she settles them on her hip, trying to rock them both while keeping her other hand on you. It's an awkward, impossible position, and she doesn't care. She's not trying to look elegant; she's trying to prevent three lives from sliding into chaos.

Her priority is to hold, hold, hold. "Don't leave them," she begs, her voice breaking. Don't leave us. The word "us" hits you harder than the fall. She included herself without thinking, by instinct, out of a sense of belonging.

Evan gets tangled in Amelia's hair. Nora's cheeks are soaked with huge tears for such a small face. You feel your throat close up, even though it's not you crying.

Amelia murmurs to the twins as always, the way you've heard her from your office doorway when you're late. "It's okay. Mom's here. I'm here." She pauses for a second, as if remembering that that title isn't official. But she repeats it anyway, because the truth doesn't need papers.

She presses her cheek against Nora's, firm. You feel her tears fall onto your face, hot and humiliating. You hate yourself for how much that tiny warmth changes you. No one cries for you like that. No one hurts you like that.

People cry over losing access to your money, your name, your favors. This is different. This feels like anticipatory grief. Love in a panic because it can't imagine a world without you. And your mind, while your body remains still, becomes noisy, ferocious.

You see the last few years as absences, not triumphs: trips, gatherings, long nights, postponed promises. You justified yourself by saying you were building a future, as if a future could replace a father. You remember the twins saying "Amelia" before "Dad," and it hurts.

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