He Saved Me Just To Watch Me Die

Preparing for assisted suicide abroad, the journalist suddenly asked me, “Ms. Thorne, what is the single greatest regret of your life?”

I thought for a long time before slowly beginning to speak: “When my parents went to the group home to adopt a child, I chose a quiet boy who rarely spoke, and then I insisted on marrying him, against everyone’s advice.”

My answer piqued the reporter’s curiosity, and she pressed on: “Did you marry him in the end?”

I touched the scar on my wrist, a wound that had long since healed over. This was a rare moment of lucidity for me. “I did. But then I divorced him. He ended up with my lifelong best friend. I heard they recently had their second child. Good for them.”

That same afternoon, after the interview aired, Derek Hayes rushed from the States and stopped the procedure.

He looked at me, his eyes wide with unconcealed relief and surprise. “Jenna, thank God you’re alive! Your mother has been asking about you constantly, she misses you. We all miss you.”

I pulled my hand out of his grip and said softly, “Sir, do we know each other?”

1 Derek looked like he’d been hit with a two-by-four, frozen solid for a good two seconds. “Jenna, even if you hate me, you don’t have to pretend not to know me, do you?”

I looked at his face, feeling a vague sense of familiarity.

The foreign nurse beside me leaned in and whispered a reminder. “Ms. Thorne, do you remember? You showed us photos—this is your ex-husband.”

Ex-husband?

A flicker of recognition. I fumbled in the pocket of my hospital gown for a yellowed little notebook. I carefully flipped through a few pages, my finger stopping at a certain line, and finally matched the face to the name.

“Oh, it’s you. Well, you came at the right time. You can arrange for my body. When I die, please make sure I’m buried next to my father.”

Derek snatched the notebook from my hand and slammed it to the floor. “Jenna, have you lost your mind! How much longer are you going to keep this act up! Five years ago you faked your death and left, letting everyone live in agony and guilt—wasn’t that enough?”

I lowered my head, saying nothing. The tumor in my brain was pressing on my nerves; I had forgotten too many things, and now I didn’t even have the energy to argue.

Because of Derek’s arrival, I didn’t die that day. Perhaps it was the desire to die closer to my dad, but I agreed to go back with him.

On the flight home, Derek kept talking. “Everyone went crazy looking for you after you disappeared.” “When they hauled the car out of the ocean, the driver’s seat was empty. Everyone thought you were dead.” “Your mother cried for a solid month, almost losing her eyesight. She’s the one who asked me to bring you back. You two need to talk; how can a mother and daughter have such deep-seated resentment?”

The chattering gave me a headache, and I cut him off. “Derek, my notes say that the reason our marriage failed was that you cheated on me with my best friend. Is that true?”

Screech!

The sound of tires grating on the tarmac was jarring. The car swerved violently.

Derek pressed his lips together, silent. The topic was dropped, never to be resumed.

2

The car pulled into the driveway, where Willow Sterling was helping my mother, Eleanor, stand at the front door.

When she saw me get out, Eleanor let out a cold scoff and turned her head away. My heart ached, but I didn’t speak.

Though the memories in my brain were disjointed, my body remembered. I instinctively walked across the living room and pushed open the door to my old room.

My old writing desk, the baby grand piano—all gone.

In their place was a sprawl of Legos and action figures covering the floor.

Derek stepped in front of me, trying to block the view inside the room. “Jenna, I’ll have this room cleared out for you right away.”

Before he could finish, a five-year-old boy suddenly darted out of the corner. He spread his arms wide, blocking the doorway, and glared at me fiercely. “This is my toy room! Don’t touch anything! Get out, you bad lady!”

The boy hurled the metal toy car in his hand directly at me. The hard projectile hit my kneecap, and a sharp, piercing pain shot through me.

I gasped, my body swaying, almost stumbling backward. “Leo!”

Willow rushed over, covering the boy’s mouth, her face a mask of panic.

I didn’t get angry. I just felt the pain in my knee travel up my nerves and settle in my heart. The air felt too thick here; I could barely breathe.

I turned and dragged my aching leg outside. Derek followed me. He forcefully put me into the car and drove me to a high-end hotel.

The moment the room lights came on, the memories I had suppressed flooded back to me instantly.

I was seven years old when my parents took me to the group home, saying they wanted to adopt an older brother for me. Among the children desperately trying to impress, only Derek huddled quietly in a corner.

My parents didn’t like him; they thought he was too solitary, too hard to bond with.

But when a few older kids pushed me to the ground, fighting over my candy, Derek had stepped in front of me. He was battered and bruised, his nose bleeding, but he wouldn’t move.

That day, I cried and threw a tantrum in my parents’ arms, pointing at his bloodied face. “I want him! I want that brother!”

And so, Derek came home with us.

For over a decade, we went to school together, we grew up together. He sheltered me, protecting me from every slight and sorrow.

Later, we got married.

But on our first wedding anniversary, I had booked a restaurant and couldn’t reach him anywhere. Fearing something had happened, I tracked his phone.

It led me to a high-end hotel, just like this one. Willow, wearing a silk slip, opened the door. Derek lay passed out on the bed inside.

One was the man I had loved for over a decade, the other my confidante for just as long. In that instant, my world collapsed.

3

I didn’t even have the courage to rush in and confront them. I ran like a coward. Despair, humiliation, and nausea flooded my mind.

I stood on the cross-town bridge, staring down at the pitch-black, churning river, and I jumped.

The icy water rushed into my nasal cavity, and I was engulfed in a suffocating darkness.

My dad, Robert, worried about me, had followed right behind. When he saw me jump, he didn’t hesitate; he jumped in after me. He used all his strength to push me back toward the bank, but he struggled in the swift current and eventually sank.

When my dad’s body was recovered, my mother, Eleanor, cursed me hysterically, hitting and kicking me. “What was so terrible that you had to do that? I told you, men are like this! If you can live with it, stay! If not, divorce him! Why did you have to be so dramatic!”

For a long time after that, whenever my mother saw me, she would say, “Why wasn’t it you who died?”

Yes, I wanted to know too. Why could she forgive Derek, forgive Willow for destroying my family, but not forgive me?

As the memories returned, the searing pain made my body convulse. I clutched my chest, squatting on the floor, gasping for air. “Jenna, what’s wrong? Are you in pain?”

Derek looked at me, huddled on the floor, his voice tight with alarm.

A knock sounded on the door, and he stood up to open it.

The door opened, and Willow’s eyes quickly scanned Derek, taking him in. When she saw that he was fully dressed, her tense shoulders noticeably relaxed. She squeezed into the room, her gaze falling on me, assuming the stance of the woman of the house.

“Jenna, since you’re back, it’s better you come home. I’ve had the room cleared out. Leo is young and doesn’t know any better. You’re the adult, don’t hold it against him.”

Five years later, I was this close to my former best friend again. The question I couldn’t ask then finally found its voice. “Willow, why did you betray me?”

This question was not just about Derek’s infidelity but Willow’s calculated move. They both knew what they meant to me.

4

Willow’s forced smile instantly crumbled. With her so-called dignity stripped away, she dropped the act. “Yes, it was all my fault. But Jenna, is a matter of the heart something I can control?” “I was just trying to secure my own happiness. Was that so wrong?”

What a self-righteous justification. That to secure happiness, she could shamelessly climb into her best friend’s husband’s bed.

“Stop it!”

Derek suddenly roared, cutting off her tearful confession. “The past is the past! Why bring it up now!” “Jenna is back, and I will do everything I can to make it up to her. I will return the Thorne family company and all the assets to her.”

At this, Willow’s sobs instantly ceased. “Derek, you’re going to give everything to her, aren’t you? What about me and Leo?”

Derek’s silence ignited Willow’s fury. She looked at the man before her with crushing disappointment and slowly retreated toward the door. “Fine! If you’re so determined to make amends, then let’s get a divorce!”

With that, she turned and stormed out of the room.

Derek stood rooted, his eyes darting between the direction Willow had disappeared in and me.

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.

In the end, he made his choice. “Jenna, get some rest here. I’ll come back for you tomorrow.”

After this brief instruction, he turned and chased after her.

Looking at the empty doorway, I started laughing. Jenna Thorne, you came back just to humiliate yourself again.

I bent over, coughing violently for a while, and then looked at the faint blood on my palm. I suddenly felt nostalgic for my childhood, safe in my parents’ arms.

One last look before I die.

5

Under the cover of darkness, I quietly crept back to the house.

The front door was slightly ajar, and I could hear a fierce argument inside.

Peeking through the gap, I saw my mother pointing a finger at Derek, scolding him. “Derek, what are you saying? You want to divorce Willow and remarry Jenna? Have you lost your mind! Marriage isn’t a game! Who do you truly love in your heart, do you even know?”

Derek’s head was bowed, his hands buried in his hair in obvious distress. “Mom, that whole thing was an accident. I was drunk that night, completely blacked out, I don’t remember a thing! Jenna has always been the one in my heart! Now I just want to make amends. I want to give back what I owe her.”

Eleanor slapped the table, her voice cold as ice. “What about Willow? What about Leo? And the second baby she’s pregnant with! If Jenna hadn’t come back, the three of you would have welcomed your second child soon.” “You tell me you can’t let her go, but can you let go of your current wife, let go of your two children?”

Derek opened his mouth but couldn’t make a sound.

Eleanor looked at his silence, her voice taking on a hateful edge. “If I had known her coming back would cause such a mess, I never should have let you go get her! The fact that she could fake her own death five years ago means there’s nothing she won’t do!” “She might even lie and say she has cancer, just to break you two up!”

Inside the room, Derek fell silent. After a long pause, he seemed to yield. “Give me some time to think, but I won’t back down on one thing: as long as I’m here, no one is allowed to hurt her. I will return the Thorne family company and all the assets to her intact!”

I didn’t want to hear the rest and turned to leave, but I bumped into Leo.

He looked at me with open hostility. “You’re the bad lady trying to take Daddy away! Daddy said he’s going to give you the house and the money! Why? Those things are mine!”

Leo was holding a pair of small scissors and suddenly lunged at me. The metal points plunged into my thigh. A searing pain shot through me, and I instinctively reached out and pushed him away.

Leo fell back, hitting the ground, and began to wail, clutching his hand where the skin was broken. “Daddy, Mommy, Grandma, the bad lady hit me!”

Willow materialized out of nowhere, shoving me hard. She snatched up Leo and looked at me, her guard up. “Jenna, whatever you have against me, take it out on me! Don’t take it out on my son!”

I clutched my bleeding thigh, trying to walk away, but Willow held onto me relentlessly. Her grip was strong, making my arm scream in pain. I yanked hard, but unexpectedly, she staggered and fell heavily to the ground.

Blood began to flow down her thigh, shocking and unmistakable.

6

My mother and Derek rushed out one after the other. Seeing Willow on the ground, Eleanor instinctively slapped me across the face. “Jenna! I knew you coming back meant trouble. That assisted suicide, the sickness—it’s all a fabricated lie! You just can’t stand to see us happy, can you? Get out! Never show your face here again!”

Seeing Derek, Willow’s face crumpled into a mask of tears. “Derek, the baby, our baby!”

Derek frantically picked up Willow and ran out. My mother followed with Leo. The yard was suddenly empty, save for me.

I looked down at my still-bleeding thigh and strangely felt no pain at all, light and disembodied.

I hailed a cab and went to the cemetery. Leaning against my father’s tombstone, I suddenly felt overwhelmingly sleepy.

In my haze, I thought I saw my dad reaching out to me, smiling. “Jenna, Dad’s here to take you home! Where’s your mom? Did you make her angry again?”

I pulled out my phone and dialed my mother’s number. The moment she answered, I started to cry. “Mom, I’m dying. Please, help me…”

My mother’s voice was venomous, spilling out words without thought. “Jenna, Willow miscarried! And you have the nerve to call? I’m telling you, I won’t believe you this time! If you’re going to die, do it far away from here!”

The phone went dead, and my hand slid away.

The next morning, Derek was leaving the hospital building to smoke a cigarette when he saw a hearse from the funeral home pulling away.

A sudden gust of wind lifted a corner of the white sheet. Derek saw my deathly pale half-face, and my eyes, which were still wide open.