They All Begged Me to Die

The eighth time I caught Brandon cheating, something inside my skull simply snapped. I seized the glowing cherry of a lit cigarette and lunged, aiming it straight down toward his groin with violent, shaking desperation. "Do whatever you want," he said. He didn't flinch. He didn't even shift his weight away from me. He just leaned back against the headboard and closed his eyes in pure, crushing exhaustion. That single sentence hit me like an iron bolt, nailing my raised hand mid-air. I froze. A hollow, bewildering silence washed over me. I stood there, trembling, suddenly having no earthly idea what I had actually intended to do. Because over the years, in my pathetic crusade to keep him, I had already done everything. I had dragged razor blades across my wrists. I had stood on the ledge of our balcony in the dead of winter. I had tipped off local gossip bloggers and stormed into boutique hotels with cameras flashing. I had even turned on all four burners of the gas stove, holding a lighter aloft, screaming that we were all going down in flames together. In my daze, my grip slackened. The brass lighter slipped from my numb fingers, clattering onto the hardwood. It was my five-year-old son who padded across the rug, picked it up, and pressed it back into my trembling palm. Theo looked up at me, his wide, dark eyes frighteningly solemn. "Mommy," he said, his voice small and steady. "Are you going to throw another tantrum and make all of us die with you?" He tilted his head. "If Daddy and I promise to die with you this time, will you finally leave Auntie Candice alone?" I stared down at him. My chest seized. His soft, baby-round face was blank—not frightened, not tearful, just completely drained of feeling. "What... what did you say?" I whispered, my voice barely catching air. "He means we give up," my mother said, her footsteps heavy with defeat as she stepped into the bedroom doorway. She let out a long, shuddering sigh. "Leah, whatever you want to do, we won't stop you anymore. Just please... stop terrorizing Candice." She looked at me, her shoulders slumped, her gaze weighed down by an intolerable fatigue. "Everyone is exhausted, Leah. For years, you've dragged us all through this circus." She paused, her voice cracking. "Aren't you... aren't you tired of yourself?" Tired? How could I not be tired? Every cell in my body felt corroded by it. Yet as I stood there, looking at the three faces I loved most in this world, my vision began to blur. The wary vigilance in my husband's posture, the dull reproach in my mother’s eyes, the cold resignation on my little boy's face—it suddenly turned every drop of blood I had shed, every shred of dignity I had dismantled over the past five years, into an absolute, humiliating farce. A wave of helplessness, black and suffocating, rose up and pulled me under. A quiet thought crystallized in the wreckage of my mind: "Maybe it’s time." Time to let them go. Time to let myself go. … My knees buckled. I sank to the floor in a heap, the red-hot ember of the cigarette having slipped into my own palm, searing through flesh. The smell of burning skin rose between us. Neither Brandon nor my mother moved an inch. Their faces wore that familiar, dull dread—the universal expression of people forced to endure a scene they’d sat through a hundred times before. Only Theo took a step forward. He stood over me, looking down with an indifference that felt unnatural for a boy his age. "Burning yourself with a cigarette won't kill you, Mommy," he said evenly. "Auntie Candice was right. When you pretend you're going to die all the time, it’s just really, really annoying." He raised a small, chubby finger, pointing out toward the floor-to-ceiling glass. "We’re on the eighteenth floor. If you really want to die, you should just jump out the window." The room seemed to drop into a vacuum. The air fled my lungs; it felt as though someone had driven a sledgehammer into the center of my ribs. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't blink. Before the horror could fully register, my mother gasped and rushed forward, clapping her hand hard over Theo’s mouth. "Theo! What on earth are you saying?" she hissed, panic trembling in her voice. "Apologize to your mother right now!" Then, lowering her tone, she muttered under her breath, "Or else she’s going to lose her mind and take it out on Candice again." She turned back to me, stretching her lips into a strained, placating grimace. "Leah, honey, he’s five. He doesn't know what he's talking about. He just parrots things he overhears on the street. I was the one who said that, alright? Not Candice. If you’re going to be furious, be furious with me." Theo seemed to realize he had miscalculated. He broke free from my mother’s grip, crept closer, and tugged hesitantly at the hem of my sweater. "Mommy, I’m sorry," he whispered, ducking his head. "I... I didn't mean it like that..." I sat on the floor, staring at those two moving mouths. It took my battered brain several agonizing seconds to comprehend the reality of the scene. On my left: my biological child. On my right: the woman who gave birth to me. A wild, jagged laugh caught in the back of my throat. To shield Brandon’s mistress from my temper, my five-year-old son was giving me practical advice on how to successfully commit suicide. And my mother was frantically scrambling to shoulder the blame, terrified that my wrath might graze the woman sleeping with my husband. The tears fell before the smile could even form—hot, heavy drops splashing onto my scorched palm. I couldn't stay in that room for another second. I scrambled backward against the wall, fighting to pull myself upright so I could run, so I could just vanish into the street. The moment I scrambled to my feet, Brandon’s hand clamped around my wrist like a vice. His grip was white-knuckled, frantic, as if he genuinely believed that the second I crossed the threshold, I would track down Candice and tear her throat out. He saw the wet, shattered look in my eyes, and his expression softened into practiced conciliation. He reached up, gently brushing the tears from my cheek, his voice dipping into that old, honeyed cadence. "Leah, come on. It’s your birthday," he murmured, pulling me an inch closer. "I’ll make a reservation at that little bistro in SoHo—the one where we had our first anniversary. Please, sweetheart. Don't do this today. Okay?" He believed he was hiding it well. But I caught it—the microscopic twitch at the corner of his eye, the flicker of pure, unadulterated disgust swimming beneath his tenderness. My mother instantly seized the lifeline, her voice bright and breathless. "Yes! Exactly! We’ll book it right now. Leah’s always loved their strawberry tart, and you remember she’s allergic to mango. See, Leah? Your mom remembers everything." Theo blinked, quickly taking his cue. He wrapped both arms around my elbow, rubbing his cheek against my sleeve. "Mommy, remember you promised you'd learn how to make those crispy mac-and-cheese bites from there? You said you’d make them for me. It’s been so long since you cooked for me, Mommy." Watching the three of them fall into their synchronized performance made the marrow in my bones turn to ice. I didn't know whether to weep or laugh. I wanted to weep for how pathetic I was. They remembered every detail of my life. They held the archive of our shared history. And yet, when the line was drawn, every single one of them stepped over to stand beside Candice. I possessed none of them. And I wanted to laugh at my own sheer stupidity. All the devotion, all the years of clawing and begging to bring my family back—it had never required my blood. It only required the magic word: "Candice". Seeing that I had stopped pulling away, Brandon exhaled a long breath of relief. Striking while the iron was hot, he pulled me against his chest. "There we go," he breathed into my hair. "No more scenes. Let’s just have a quiet family birthday together, alright?" I didn't answer. My gaze drifted over his shoulder, locking onto the pale lavender lace tangled beneath the edge of the dust ruffle. A bra. Not mine. My mother caught my eye. With lightning-fast reflexes, her foot shot out, kicking the fabric entirely under the bed. She glanced up at me with an awkward, guilty twitch of her lips. Then the scent hit me. Brandon was drenched in Candice’s perfume—that cloying, synthetic tuberose. Paired with my mother’s groveling smile, the smell triggered an immediate, violent spasm in my esophagus. A wave of bile surged up. I shoved Brandon back with everything I had, stumbled blindly down the hall, and collapsed over the bathroom toilet. I heaved until my throat burned with the metallic tang of blood. When my vision finally cleared, my hands were shaking so hard I could barely grasp the amber prescription bottles lined up beside the sink. I didn't count the pills. I just shook a palmful into my mouth and swallowed dry. I sat on the cold tile, waiting for the familiar, synthetic fog to crawl through my veins, waiting for the chemical blanket to smooth out the jagged edges of my chest. When the tremor finally subsided, I grabbed my phone from the counter and tapped out a single text to my attorney: "Draft the divorce agreement. Everything he wants. Make it fast." I pushed myself up against the porcelain and reached for the flush handle. Above the roar of the swirling water, voices drifted through the door. "What is her problem now?" Theo’s voice carried that distinct, precocious whine. "Didn't I do it right? I practiced those lines all morning! Why is she still mad?" My mother’s voice followed, tight with whispered resentment. "Who knows what goes on in that head of hers? I thought if we got through this dinner, I could still make it across town for Candice’s party. Leah just has to ruin everything. She even had to share a damn birthday with Candice." There was a long silence, and then Brandon sighed—the heavy, long-suffering sigh of a martyr. "Whatever," Brandon muttered. "She just wants attention. It’s her favorite routine. If we leave her in there, she’ll just escalate. I’ll go deal with her." The handle clicked. When Brandon walked in, I was leaning over the trash can, staring down at the slender white plastic stick lying on top of the cotton pads. Two pink lines. Bright, unmistakable, cruel. His footsteps hitched. He recovered almost instantly, adopting an easy, dismissive tone. "Oh. Greg and his girlfriend crashed here over the weekend when they were in town for the conference. Must be hers." I raised my head and looked at him. A small, dry chuckle tore from my throat. "Is that right?" Brandon always had a seamless explanation. Fortunately, I didn't need to waste my remaining sanity deciphering his lies. Candice was always remarkably punctual with the truth. Without a word, I unlocked my phone and held it out to him. The screen displayed a stream of high-resolution photos sent from an unlisted number ten minutes ago. The first was from yesterday afternoon—the exact hour I had sat in the ER getting six stitches in my left wrist. The photo showed Brandon from behind, his hand resting tenderly on Candice’s lower back in the waiting room of an upscale private OB-GYN clinic. The second was from last month—the night the high-rise elevator malfunctioned and dropped three floors, trapping me in total darkness for four hours while my claustrophobia choked me half to death. The photo showed Brandon, Candice, and Theo strolling through a seaside amusement park under strings of fairy lights, all three of them eating cotton candy. I didn't need to ask who had taken the photos. The framing, the angle, the third-person intimacy—it was my mother’s photography. In the pictures, they looked luminous. Playful. Seamless. Like a real, happy, sun-drenched family. I remembered asking Brandon twice that summer if we could take Theo to that very boardwalk. Both times, he had rolled his eyes, calling it tacky, crowded, and juvenile. It was only in that sterile bathroom, smelling his lover’s perfume on his collar, that the truth finally settled into my bones: I hadn't just lost my marriage. I had been erased from my own life. Brandon’s pupils shrank to pinpricks as he stared at the screen. The next second, his fingers wrapped around my throat. He slammed me back against the marble vanity, his face turning an ugly, mottled crimson. "Leah! What the hell are you doing to Candice?!" he roared, spit flying onto my cheeks. "I told you! As long as you leave her alone, I’ll play along with whatever sick games you want! Why the fuck do you keep harassing her?!" My skull cracked against the beveled tile. The world went dark for a second, a sharp ringing drowning out his voice, followed by the warm, thick crawl of blood slipping into my hairline. When my vision returned, Brandon was standing over me, his chest heaving, his eyes wide with a manic, cornered terror. A profound, bitter ache bloomed in the center of my chest. How long had it been since I’d seen Brandon this terrified? I couldn't even remember. The last time he had looked like this was five years ago, during Theo’s birth, when my placenta detached and my vitals crashed. That day, a man who prided himself on unflappable control had fallen to his knees on the linoleum, weeping, bashing his forehead against the floor to beg the chief surgeon to save my life. He had bled for me once. Just like I was bleeding now. A drop of crimson dripped down my eyebrow, splashing onto the pristine white ceramic of the sink. Brandon stared at the red drop, recoiling as if he had been scalded. He pulled his hands back, his voice suddenly hitching in his throat. "Leah... are you... are you okay?" I looked into his eyes. In his dilated pupils, I saw the reflection of a ghost—hollow-eyed, drained, utterly barren. I parted my lips. "Brandon. We're getting a div—" A sharp, chirping ringtone cut through the air. A customized tone. Candice. His hand, which had just begun to reach out toward the gash on my temple, froze. Without a fraction of a second’s hesitation, his fingers dove into his pocket and answered the call. Candice’s hysterical, sobbing voice spilled out of the earpiece. Brandon’s face went slate-gray. When he turned back to me, every trace of human remorse was gone, replaced by a pure, lethal hatred. "Leah, this is the last time I’m telling you," he hissed, his voice dropping into a register of icy venom. "Take it out on me all you want. But if you lay a single finger on Candice again, I will burn your life to the ground." The bathroom door slammed shut before I could finish the sentence. "I was going to say," I thought numbly, staring at the painted wood, "we should get a divorce. I’m letting you go. I’m letting all of you go." "Smash." The ceramic tumbler exploded against the side of my head. A dull shockwave rippled through my skull. My vision spun violently; my knees gave out, and I crashed down among the shards of porcelain and glass. In the doorway stood Theo. His small frame was trembling, his little jaw set in the exact same furious clench as his father’s. "You're a liar, Mommy!" he screamed, his voice cracking. "You always say you’re going to die, but you never actually do it! You're just mean! You made Auntie Candice cry!" I lay there for a long time, the cool floor pressing against my cheek, watching the blood pool beside my nose. Slowly, painfully, I braced my palms against the tiles and pushed myself into a sitting position. I looked at the boy I had almost died to bring into this world. "Theo," I said, my voice quiet, flat, and absolute. "Your Auntie Candice won't cry anymore." He stopped shouting, staring at me. "Tomorrow morning, I’m signing the divorce papers," I told him, looking directly into his dark, glassy eyes. "From tomorrow on, I won't be your mother anymore." His voice cut off instantly. His eyes dropped to the dark red gash torn into my scalp, where blood was pulsing out, matting my hair and trailing down my neck. His little fingers twitched, curling inward. He stood frozen for two seconds. Then, slowly, he walked across the shattered glass. He knelt down beside me. With a tentative, feather-light touch, he pressed his small palm directly over the bleeding wound. A ghost of a memory flitted across my mind—how, two years ago, when I nicked my thumb chopping carrots, he had run over, pressing his little fingers to the cut, blowing on it softly to "make the hurt go away." A sob caught in my throat. I opened my mouth to speak— "Press." Theo slammed his small hand down into the laceration with all his weight. Agony tore through my nervous system. My entire body arched; a scream ripped from my throat as tears burst involuntarily from my eyes. Theo pulled his hand away. He stared down at his palm, completely smeared in my dark, wet blood. A wide, triumphant smile spread across his five-year-old face. He spun on his heel and bolted toward the front door, his voice ringing with pure, unbridled glee. "Grandma! Grandma! Tell Auntie Candice to stop crying! I got her back! I made Mommy bleed so much! Look at my hands!" My mother’s voice carried instantly from the foyer, panicked and scolding. "Oh, good heavens, Theo! Don't get that filth everywhere! Go wash up right now—Candice faints at the sight of blood, you're going to terrify her!" Their hurried footsteps echoed down the corridor outside. Then came the heavy, muffled thud of the front door clicking shut. Silence reclaimed the apartment. Not one of them came back to look. I sat in the middle of the bathroom floor, staring blankly at the vacant doorway. Curiously, the storm inside me had ceased. Beneath the throbbing pain in my skull, there was no grief. No rage. Only an immense, terrifying stillness. Ten minutes later, I dragged myself across the glass, reached for my phone, and dialed 911. ... When the paramedics wheeled my gurney through the double doors of the emergency room, the world had faded to a washed-out gray. I was shivering violently from blood loss. And there, in the chaos of the trauma bay, our paths crossed. Brandon was carrying Candice in his arms, his clothes disheveled, barreling toward the triage desk like a madman. "Doctor! Somebody help her!" he bellowed, his voice raw. "She’s had a breakdown—she cut her wrist! She needs blood right now!" The attending physician, leading my gurney toward the trauma room, was blocked by Brandon’s body and shoved him back with open frustration. "Sir, back up! I have a critical trauma patient coming through! Clear the hallway!" Brandon stumbled backward from the push. His eyes reflexively tracked the doctor’s movement—and locked onto me. He froze. My mother was half a step behind him. The moment her gaze landed on my face, the color drained from her cheeks, quickly replaced by a wave of frantic, self-righteous fury. She lunged forward, pushing past the orderly, and her hand cracked across my cheek. "Leah! How could you be so monstrous?!" she shrieked, her voice echoing off the tile walls. "To humiliate Candice by posting those private photos of her online—did you really want to drive her to kill herself?! What kind of monster did I raise?!" My head lolled to the side from the impact. I didn't speak. I didn't blink. I just looked through her. Seeing my dead-eyed silence, my mother completely broke down, the anger dissolving into a frantic, sobbing plea. "Leah... Candice has O-negative blood. The hospital’s reserves are bone-dry tonight, and you’re the only match in the system... I’m begging you, as your mother, please. Give her a transfusion. Save her." The doctor stepped between us, his voice cutting like a scalpel. "Are you people out of your minds?! This patient has severe, acute blood loss and chronic coagulopathy. She can’t donate blood—she can barely clot her own! She’s bleeding out right in front of you!" A heavy, sickening thud silenced the hallway. Brandon’s knees hit the hospital linoleum. "Leah," he whispered, looking up at the gurney. In all the years I had known him—from our broke college days to his first venture capital round—I had never seen him look so broken, so utterly stripped of pride. "Please. Just save Candice," he choked out, tears finally spilling over his lashes. "I swear to God, Leah... you do this for her, and I’ll come back. We’ll go back to how things used to be. I swear it." I looked down at him from the narrow mattress. Then the world began to move in slow motion. My mother, weeping so hard she was hyperventilating, sank to the floor beside him, her forehead touching the linoleum in a posture of desperate surrender. Theo, dragged down by his grandmother’s hand, dropped to his knees too. His little fingers reached out, clutching the hem of my bloody sheet, sobbing hysterically without fully understanding what he was pleading for. Their voices blurred into a low, droning hum. Presented with an absolute choice between my life and hers, the three people who constituted the entirety of my family had lined up on their knees to demand that I bleed out so she could live. A single tear slipped from the corner of my eye, tracking through the dried blood on my cheek. I opened my dry lips. "Okay," I whispered. ... Almost the instant the two stretchers were pushed through the trauma doors together, Brandon collapsed against the corridor wall, sliding down until he hit the cold linoleum. He had never felt this kind of terror before. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw that ragged, continuous well of blood pouring from Leah’s scalp, soaking through her hair and pooling over her collarbones. A cold, iron fist seemed to clamp around his heart, squeezing until he couldn't draw breath. A deep, suffocating dread finally took hold of him. Seeing him like this, my mother and Theo crept closer, their own faces tight with worry. My mother wrung her trembling hands, her brow furrowed as if desperately trying to convince herself: "It was just a scalp cut... head wounds always bleed like that, don't they? She's going to be fine. She has to be fine." Theo sat with his head down, anxiously twisting his small fingers, his voice tiny and muffled: "If Mommy really saves Auntie Candice... the second she comes out, I'm going to tell her I'm sorry first thing..." Brandon didn't answer. At this moment, only one thought screamed in his mind: "Before the emergency blood transport arrives, nothing can happen to Leah. She has to survive." He swore to himself that if Leah came out of this alive, he would honor every word. He would cut Candice out of his life completely. He would bring Leah home, and they would return to the way things were when they first started. His thoughts drifted, memories he had buried rising unbidden to the surface. He suddenly remembered how many times Leah had asked him to take her to that boardwalk amusement park, and how he had dismissed her every single time, calling it childish and ridiculous. "When she gets out of here," he thought frantically, "we're going. The three of us. We're going together." Just then, the heavy doors of the trauma unit swung open. The doctor emerged, holding a sheet of paper and a black pen, extending them directly toward him. The instant Brandon’s eyes locked onto that paper, his entire body seized. His vision went black, and the world seemed to lose all sound.