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Five Years Diving for a Husband Who Faked His Death
NovelShort
Hoàn thành
My husband, the ship's captain, was lost to the deep in a sudden sea storm. Trying to save him, my sister joined the ocean rescue and was swept off by the waves too, her body never recovered. The publ...
Chương (4)
第1章
1: 1
My husband, the ship's captain, was lost to the deep in a sudden sea storm.
Trying to save him, my sister joined the ocean rescue and was swept off by the waves too, her body never recovered.
The public mourned with one breath and turned on me with the next.
They accused me, a diving instructor, of failing to bring my own family back alive, and they wanted me to pay with my life.
Even the front of my house was smeared with vicious curses.
A single obsession kept me standing.
For five whole years, I pulled on my wetsuit and dove into those waters again and again, searching.
And then, the day I dragged myself back, worn to the bone, to the seaside guesthouse Daniel Sanchez had kept booked long-term—
The husband and sister I'd spent five years believing dead were celebrating a little boy's first time in the water.
Friends and family stood around them, everyone warm and happy.
I stared at them, unable to make my mind move toward the questions I should have been screaming.
My best friend saw me first. She took my hand, her face full of apology.
"May Sullivan, I'm sorry. We didn't mean to keep you in the dark... it's just that Kayla Thomas was pregnant back then. We couldn't make her get rid of the baby."
"And you have trouble carrying a child. Daniel needed an heir, or there'd be no way to answer to his family."
My mother, though, lifted her chin, all arrogance.
"Better you know now. Saves you from clinging to Daniel forever."
"Your sister gave him a son, and the Sanchez family gave your father and me a car and a house. If it had been you, how would your father and I ever enjoy comforts like these?"
"If you've got any sense, walk away on your own. Stop being an eyesore to them."
It finally reached me. There was a roar in my ears, like seawater flooding back in.
So all these years, I'd been nothing but a complete joke.
...
Fine little whispers cut through the sea wind and drifted clearly into my ears.
"I told Daniel and Kayla long ago—hiding out here didn't guarantee any peace. She'd track them down sooner or later."
"What were they supposed to do? They couldn't exactly tell her the truth, could they?"
"The whole internet's been cursing her for five years. Better she carries it alone than everyone gets dragged through the shame together."
I stood frozen, watching that happy little family of three not far off, and all I felt was how absurd it was.
The wetsuit, still not dry, clung heavy against my body.
Rough with sea salt, it chafed my skin tight and raw.
That familiar exhaustion yanked me straight back into five years of searching, day after day.
Five years. I'd combed every undertow and reef in these waters.
The cold of the deep cut to the bone, the crushing pressure grinding down on my body over and over.
Aching eardrums, numb limbs—that was every dive, routine.
Countless times the undertow dragged me off, and I nearly stayed down there forever.
Storms, thick fog, towering waves. I'd fought through danger too many times to count.
Even when every search turned up nothing, I refused to stop.
I clung stubbornly to one thread of hope, wanting only to find some trace of them.
To give everyone, and myself, an answer.
Night after night, day after day, I hauled myself back ashore soaked in seawater and covered in wounds.
What met me was never comfort, only endless cruelty.
Strangers snapping photos to shame me, people online hurling abuse.
And no one cared what it looked like, risking my life down in the deep.
My mother never ached over my injuries. She only complained, again and again, that I'd failed to hold on to the Sanchez family's fortune.
The friends and relatives I'd once known all drew away, pointing and muttering whenever they passed.
Everyone simply took my guilt for granted, watching with clear consciences as I did penance alone in the deep and suffered under the weight of public opinion.
They watched five years of my misery and struggle, and quietly accepted my sister and Daniel's safe, reborn life.
Daniel straightened slowly and let go of the child's hand.
There wasn't a trace of guilt in his face. His voice was cold and distant.
"Back then we all agreed on the same story—we deliberately told you the undertow after the storm was violent, that no bodies could ever be found, so you'd let it go for good."
"These five years you insisted on searching, refused to give up. That was just you moving yourself to tears."
My best friend lowered her voice, pleading.
"May, I know this is hard on you."
"But what's done is done. No matter how you cling to it, you can't change a thing. You'll only make it awkward for everyone."
The cold swept through me, and the old ailments from years of deep diving flared all at once.
The stabbing in my eardrums came back, ringing and buzzing.
The old injuries in my shoulders and back, pressed under strain for years, tore and ached faintly, and my whole body went cold and weak.
I clutched the diving gear in my hands hard, and only that kept me from collapsing.
Five years of obsession, five years of torment, five years of searching with my life on the line.
In the end, nothing but a joke.
The sea hadn't taken my family from me. My husband, my family, my friends—together they'd pushed me into the abyss.
With one sea storm, they'd buried my love, my family, my whole life.
And I, like a fool.
Had spent five years down in the deep, searching for ghosts.
第2章
2: 2
Something warm brushed against my leg. It was Toto.
For a moment I was lost. I hadn't brought him out with me today.
Because I couldn't have children, I had long since cherished him like my own flesh and blood.
Every night I held him close, and every hurt I carried I only dared say out loud to him.
Even when he always wanted to follow me into the water, I stopped him every single time, terrified he couldn't survive the dangers of the deep.
But maybe it was worry for me. He always slipped down into the water after me anyway.
So after a while, I simply stopped bringing him out at all.
Daniel gave the little dog a cold glance, his voice cruel to the core:
"We left that dog with you on purpose."
"There's a tracker in his chip. Every time you went into the water, every search you made, we saw all of it, clear as day."
"We kept him around just to drag you back out of the danger zones. Just to keep you alive."
I was already trembling all over, wracked by the old diving illness.
The instant I heard those words, my chest went tight, squeezed again and again as if a crushing pressure of water had ground down on it.
The companionship I'd treated as my salvation had been nothing but their planted spy.
The pressure of the deep left even me riddled with a lifetime of ailments. What chance did a small dog have.
For their own peace of mind, they had thrown away everything of mine without a second thought.
My sister cradled their son, her voice gentle:
"He keeps you company and helps us keep an eye on you. What a bargain."
Black spots swam across my vision, and the ringing in my ears grew worse.
In those moments in the deep when the water pressure choked the breath out of me, the only thing that kept me going was the thought of him waiting for me on the shore.
That was the only reason I could force down the blood rising in my throat and fight my way back with everything I had.
He was the one light I had in all that despair.
But in their eyes, that light was just a cost-effective tool.
Daniel looked at my bloodless face, and his voice softened a little:
"I know you always treated him like your own child. But an animal is still just an animal."
"Now that Kayla and I don't have to hide from you anymore, our son can call you more than just Auntie."
"I'll have him call you his godmother. Consider it one of your wishes granted."
Beside him, Mom and Dad chimed in:
"That's right. A child to hold onto beats clinging to a dog every day."
"We're only doing this for your own good. Stop being so ungrateful."
The fury burned off some of the cold in me.
I fixed my eyes on the child in their arms, and five years of swallowed grief finally shattered.
I lunged straight up to Daniel and my sister, my voice shrill:
"Who wants your charity? Weren't you celebrating his first time in the water?"
"Then remember this. From now on, every single time he goes in, I'll be right there beside him."
"You like faking deaths so much? Then I'll let him try it too!"
Mom's hand flew up and slapped me hard, the blow knocking my head to the side.
"You are out of your mind!"
"Threatening a child. With a heart that vicious, no wonder you can't have any of your own!"
My cheek burned, and a thick, bloody taste surged up my throat until I nearly retched.
I forced it down and made myself speak:
"Daniel, do you really not know why I can't have children?"
His eyes flickered and stalled. Then he deliberately looked away, his tone indifferent:
"The past doesn't matter. Taking it out on a child is wrong, plain and simple."
The sealed-off past came flooding back, and the pain came with it.
That year the sea wind was bitter, the waves violent and merciless.
When I saw Daniel drowning, sinking, I threw myself into the deep without a thought for my own safety.
The churning undertow slammed into my lower belly, and a sharp, tearing pain swept through my whole body in an instant.
My arms and legs were already stiff and numb with cold, but I looked at Daniel's unconscious face against my chest.
I bore the ripping pain and shoved him toward the shore with every last bit of strength I had, then sank into the water, struggling for my own life.
I scraped back my life by sheer luck, but it left me with an illness I'd carry forever.
Chronic abdominal pain, constant frailty, and my right to ever be a mother gone for good.
Back then, lying weak in the hospital bed, I'd joked with him:
"Daniel, I can never have children now. Are you going to find someone else to give you one?"
He'd soothed me then, gentle, every word certain:
"As long as you're safe, having children or not was never important to me."
Now the joke had come true. He really had found someone else to have a child.
He'd long forgotten that rescue and the price I paid for it, had even brushed away all my pain and all my regret as if it were nothing.
Letting the whole world slander and smear me, watching my own family berate and corner me, looking on cold-eyed as I fell into a bottomless abyss.
第3章
3: 3
The old injury pulled at my lower belly in waves, and I pressed a hand there on instinct, feeling my legs give out under me.
Watching me sway, Daniel's eyes went dark all at once.
The tension in his face finally cracked, and without meaning to he stepped half a pace forward.
Before he could speak, my mother cut in sharply:
"Didn't you do all of that yourself? Why bring it up now?"
"Throwing away your own dignity out of jealousy. You get more foolish by the day!"
Trembling with the pain, I lifted my eyes to Daniel:
"You see? Even my own mother thinks every one of these injuries I brought on myself."
Daniel's throat worked. The coldness from before fell away, and for once there was a trace of something raw in his voice:
"I know you're not…"
Right in that frozen moment, a figure came striding toward me.
It was Brad Simmons, the head of the talent agency who had been my contact.
All the searching had left my body weaker and weaker.
I knew there were still countless unchecked blind spots in that stretch of sea, and something in me refused to let go.
I was afraid that if I died suddenly, no one would remember the dangers hidden in those waters, no one would keep looking for the two of them.
So when the talent agency came to me, drawn by the viral potential of my controversial story, I signed with them.
I didn't want any of the revenue. I had only one demand.
If I died along the way, the platform had to take over all the footage I left behind and keep sending people to continue the search.
He came right up to me, his expression grave:
"Miss Sullivan, we ran an emergency check on the original backend footage, the first-upload records, and the signing files.
"We found that your sister privately copied every one of your deep-sea rescue originals, altered the credit and all the captions, and reposted them under her own name."
"The controversy that had people attacking you was completely washed away, and everything you did risking your life to preserve those leads was rewritten as her own charity work."
Public opinion no longer slammed me for failing to save my own family.
In its place came endless praise for how kind and clear-hearted my sister was.
Some people even said faking their deaths was the right call. What family could accept a daughter-in-law who couldn't have children?
Slowly I pulled a bleak little smile onto my face:
"I didn't want money, I didn't want fame. I only wanted someone willing to keep looking for you both in case I died."
"But the last resort I nearly died to leave behind became my sister's good deed."
"I carry the name-calling, she gets all the praise. In your eyes, that's justice. Is that it?"
I endured the weakness and belly pain that always followed a dive, staying up night after night to cut every piece of deep-sea footage.
Marking out the undercurrents, the unchecked dead corners, all just to leave one last lifeline for two lives.
Never once did I imagine that everything I'd traded my life for would be stolen and used by my own family, as they pleased.
Daniel finally moved away from my sister's side.
He gripped my shoulder, his voice gentle in a deliberate, soothing way:
"Your sister was just confused for a moment. She didn't mean to take your things."
"I know you've been wronged. I'll help you settle the backlash, don't worry."
The words had barely left him when my mother, beside us, knotted her brows and spoke up to defend my sister:
"It's only a video. Do sisters really have to make it this ugly?"
"She just borrowed your footage. You have to keep clinging to it? That's so petty."
"Besides, you've already taken five years of the insults. What's the point of clearing it up now?"
My shoulder gave a slight tremor, and I shrugged out from under Daniel's hand on instinct.
I raised my eyes to my mother and said, very quietly:
"I took five years of insults, carried five years of pain. I did that willingly, and I accept it."
"But my suffering, everything I gave up, was never a reason for her to seize the credit."
At that her face darkened. She waved a hand impatiently and turned her body, tucking my sister more tightly behind her.
I stood there watching that piercing sight, the dull ache in my belly coming in waves.
It was as though I had gone back into that endless, bitterly cold deep sea.
The worry on Brad's face stood in sharp contrast to my family's indifference.
I knew my body wouldn't hold out much longer, that I couldn't keep tangling with them.
I signaled Brad to take me away, and at the same time made up my mind.
Every bit of credit that had been stolen, every wrong I had endured, I would take all of it back.
第4章
4: 4
With the agency's help, I made everything public: the original raw footage, the signed contract on file, and a full statement clearing my name.
At the same time I announced that I was ending all deep-sea search work for good. I would never dive again.
Public opinion flipped fast. The gentle, kind persona my sister had built came crashing down, and every ounce of goodwill she'd banked from strangers was wiped clean.
I was still in the hospital receiving treatment when Brad Simmons walked in with a tablet in his hand.
"Your sister's gone live."
On the screen, Kayla faced the camera, her eyes rimmed red.
Her shoulders trembled faintly as she choked out her side of it.
"I wasn't thinking that far ahead! I just saw how worn out she was, body and soul, so I wanted to help her sort through the footage."
"It was only because I couldn't reach her that I posted it from my own account."
When people online asked why she'd faked her death to be with her own sister's husband, and even had a child with him.
She dabbed at her tears, all frailty.
"It's true my sister can't have children. But the Sanchez line can't just die out because of that."
"My sister and I share blood. A child Daniel and I have is at least one degree closer to her than a child he'd have with some stranger."
Her best friend rushed to defend her.
"May's got a stubborn streak. We were afraid she'd stay trapped forever in the pain of not being able to have kids."
"Kayla's child is really a way of helping May, too."
Kayla nodded along, selfishness flickering at the back of her eyes even as her voice stayed innocent.
"I never once wanted to take everything from my sister. I just couldn't bear to watch her spend her whole life suffering in a hollow marriage."
"Daniel and I had no choice either. The child is already here. It's all settled now."
"I only hope my sister can let go of her fixation and stop grinding us all down, family tearing at family."
The people in the livestream were led astray, one after another urging me to be gracious and forgiving, twisting the very restraint and hurt I'd swallowed into stubbornness and a narrow, petty heart.
Countless cruel comments came at me, all wrapped in that same bias, and yet I lay back against the hospital bed with nothing stirring inside me.
The fine damage years of deep diving had left on my brain had dulled my ability to feel anything at all, more and more.
The hurt, the resentment, the betrayal that once could have broken me couldn't raise the faintest ripple now.
Maybe it was guilt. Because I actually saw Daniel Sanchez walk into the room.
His tone was soft, and every word cut to the bone.
"Don't take the rumors online to heart. I know you're hurting."
"Kayla isn't bad at heart. She just lost her way for a while."
"When it comes down to it, this isn't some huge thing. The two of you are blood. There's no need to burn it all down."
"Let the old grievances go. From now on I'll treat you well. I won't let you be wronged again."
I looked at him, and inside me there was nothing but a flat, cold blank.
The storm of public opinion hadn't shaken me in the slightest, but his hollow comfort reached my ears.
And then my brain suddenly buzzed and stabbed, a dull ache swarming out thick and dense through my whole body.
Daniel was still murmuring his advice.
But the pressure in my skull kept building, the pain swallowing every sense, the memories in my mind starting to blur.
The strength drained out of me. My eyes slowly lowered, and I slumped limp onto the hospital bed.
By the time Brad and Daniel scrambled to check on me.
I lifted my eyes, gazing at them in a daze, and asked softly,
"Who are you?"