Chapter 37: The Memory Splinters, The Vanishing

For a moment, Gabriel couldn’t breathe.

Her words hung there — soft, poisonous — echoing in his mind long after the sound died.

You told me once that she’d never forgive you if she knew what you did before the crash.

He stared at Emily, searching her face for a lie. But her expression was unreadable — too calm, too sure.

“What did I tell you?” His voice came out low and rough, like gravel.

She tilted her head, lashes lowering. “You don’t remember, do you?”

“Don’t play games with me.”

“I’m not.” She took a step closer, her voice gentler now, almost pitying. “You were drunk. Angry. The night it happened. You said things… things I shouldn’t repeat. About Eve. About what you’d done to her.”

He felt it — a flash. Not a memory, not exactly, but something close.

A scream.

A door slamming.

Rain against glass.

Then it was gone, slipping through his mind like smoke.

“What did I do?” he asked, barely recognising his own voice.

Emily smiled — slow, sad, perfect. “Maybe it’s better if you don’t remember.”

She turned, walking toward the kerb as if the conversation were over. The wind tugged at her coat. “But you will,” she said without looking back. “You always do.”

The echo of her heels faded, but the damage stayed.

Gabriel stood there, the city spinning quietly around him, his pulse thundering in his ears. The envelope felt heavy in his hand — heavier than paper should be.

He didn’t want to open it.

He didn’t want to see.

But curiosity and guilt were twin poisons, and both had already seeped too deep.

He ripped the seal open.

Photos spilled out — glossy, cruel.

I and Sebastian were captured from angles too precise to be coincidence.

Dates scrawled on the back in Emily’s delicate handwriting.

Weeks before the crash.

The words blurred.

His breath came faster.

More flashes hit — fragments this time, jagged and sharp.

Me crying in our kitchen.

His voice raised.

Emily’s hand on his arm.

The smell of whisky.

The sound of glass shattering.

He clutched his head, the world tilting.

It wasn’t enough to make sense — just enough to feel real.

And what if it was?

What if he had done something terrible? Something I forgave only because he forgot?

The thought hollowed him out.

His phone buzzed. He didn’t look at it at first, afraid of another dagger from the internet. But the screen lit with a single new message — from me.

Please come home. We need to talk. I can explain.

His thumb hovered over the screen. He could picture me — standing in our kitchen, voice shaking, eyes wide with the same fear that had once made him want to protect me.

But now, he didn’t know what was real anymore.

He typed a reply, paused, and erased it.

Then, without meaning to, he whispered aloud, “What did I do?”

No one answered.

Only the city noise, distant and uncaring, carried him back to the car.

He slid into the driver’s seat, the envelope on the passenger side, the photos staring back like ghosts.

He drove.

Not home.

Not to me.

He didn’t know where.

But in his rearview mirror, for a moment, he swore he saw another car following — black, headlights dimmed.

When he blinked, it was gone.

—

The clock ticked too loudly.

Every minute that passed felt like an accusation.

I sat on the couch, still in the same clothes from hours ago. The coffee on the table had gone cold, untouched. I’d sent the message, waited for the typing dots that never came — and now, the silence was deafening.

Sebastian had called twice. I hadn’t answered. What could I say? That my husband was out there unravelling piece by piece while Emily circled like a vulture?

My hands trembled as I pressed them to my face. “Come home, Gabriel,” I whispered.

The doorbell cut through the quiet.

My heart leapt — I was on my feet before I could think, rushing to the door.

But when I opened it, it wasn’t Gabriel.

It was Sebastian.

He looked different — harder somehow, like he’d been expecting bad news. “You didn’t answer my calls,” he said, stepping in without waiting for an invitation. “Where is he?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. He left. He hasn’t answered me since.”

Sebastian’s jaw flexed. “Then you need to see this.”

He tossed a folder onto the table — another one. Not Emily’s slick, curated set of lies. This one was rough, smudged with fingerprints, and filled with printed screenshots and transcripts.

I frowned, flipping it open — and froze.

Photos. Texts. Video stills.

Not me.

Of Emily.

Leaning too close to a man in a dark bar. Her hand on his arm. A kiss.

The timestamps made my pulse quicken. They lined up with the same dates Emily had written on those photos she’d given Gabriel—the same weeks she’d claimed to be with him.

“What is this?” I whispered.

“Proof,” Sebastian said flatly. “Emily wasn’t with Gabriel all those nights she claims. She took that one night and spun it into a story—using fake timestamps, staged photos, and hired actors. These shots? They’re from another man entirely. A private investigator named Daniel Pike. He’s been helping her build this lie for months.”

My stomach twisted. “So the affair… the pregnancy…”

“The affair happened once,” Sebastian said quietly. “But everything after that—the blackmail, the pregnancy, the timeline—that’s her manipulation. She’s rewriting history to trap him.”

My breath hitched. “So she planned this.”

“From the start,” Sebastian confirmed. “She knew exactly what she was doing.”

My knees almost buckled. I dropped into a chair, the weight of it crushing me. “He doesn’t know,” I murmured. “Gabriel doesn’t know any of this. She’s using what he can’t remember to destroy what’s left.”

Sebastian’s eyes softened for a second — then sharpened again. “You need to find him before she does.”

“How? He won’t answer—”

But then my phone buzzed.

I lunged for it, heart pounding. One new notification.

Not a call.

A post.

Emily’s post.

My hand trembled as I opened it — and the world tilted.

A photo of Gabriel’s car parked outside an unfamiliar building. A blurred figure—I couldn’t tell who—walking toward him. The caption was simple, cutting:

“Some men can’t escape their past. Not even when it forgets them.”

The post had been up for ten minutes. Thousands of comments already.

My vision swam. “She found him,” I whispered.

Sebastian leaned over, eyes scanning the photo. “That’s the old Riverside Apartments. She’s been using them for her studio front.”

My voice cracked. “Then that’s where he is.”

Sebastian grabbed his keys. “Then that’s where we’re going.”

I hesitated for only a heartbeat before following him out, my pulse matching the rhythm of my thoughts:

If she gets to him first… it’s over.