A Spring Beyond Reach

Five years after falling into the abyss of depression, I finally felt like a human being again. I was back to talking, laughing, eating on my own, and my wife Stella Anderson and I were even expecting our second child. During our New Year's Eve family dinner, my wife’s godbrother, Lucian Smith, got trashed and started boasting through his alcohol-slurred breath. "Must’ve been five years ago." He smirked. "I was going through a brutal breakup, so I took my car out for a reckless joyride while the street cameras were down for maintenance." Lucian took a slow sip of his drink, his expression turning into a sneer. "You won't believe it. Right as I floored it, this stray cat flew right out of nowhere and slammed into my front bumper. It squealed once and bolted off into the dark." He shook his head in disgust. "Stupid animal ruined my custom wrap and scared the hell out of me. You guys better keep an eye out. Don't end up like Spencer, dragging home bad luck like a damn plague. Makes me sick just thinking about it." Lucian tossed the story out like it was nothing more than a minor, gross inconvenience. Around the table, everyone broke out in chuckles, nodding along and telling him to visit a church or grab a lucky charm so no evil spirits would haunt him. I stood there right in the middle of the noisy crowd. I looked at Lucian’s smirking face, my mother-in-law Camila Anderson's fond, doting eyes, and the tolerant, helpless smile on Stella’s face. The blood drained from my face instantly. It was as if every single one of them had forgotten. My daughter, Evelyn West, died in a hit-and-run five years ago. Chapter 1 Lucian’s voice barely faded before my mother-in-law, Camila Anderson, chuckled, playfully teasing him for dragging up ancient history just to ruin the mood. My wife, Stella Anderson, gave a helpless little headshake, her eyes holding a silent, doting fondness. Looking at the three of them, completely unfazed, my head began to ring with a deafening buzz. A massive wave of surreal absurdity crashed over me. Inside Lucian's seemingly casual, laid-back account were the speeding car that fled the scene, the stretch of road where security cameras happened to be under maintenance, and the coroner's report confirming that life had slipped away in a single second. Slowly, painfully, the pieces began to fall into place, each one matching the case details I had spent an entire week painstakingly piecing together five years ago. Back then, after finding my daughter, Evelyn West, dead in a freezing, filthy storm drain, I had gone days without sleep, consumed by grief and driven nearly out of my mind. Unable to handle the sheer impact of Lucian's words any longer, a violent wave of nausea hit me, and I doubled over, dry heaving violently. An awkward, heavy silence filled the room. Camila's expression darkened. She curled her lip and muttered an uncharitable complaint under her breath, "Didn't the doctors say his depression was cured? Who is he putting on a show for?" My head was spinning, and the world was blurring around me from the violent retching, but I didn't have a second to care about her unfair jab. I just lunged forward, my fingers clawing desperately onto Stella’s arm to keep myself upright, staring straight into her eyes. Deep down in her gaze, there was a flash of instinctive pity for my sickness, paired with a faint, barely concealed flicker of annoyance. There was that familiar helplessness and doting warmth she always reserved for Lucian. The only thing missing was a single ounce of heartbreak from a mother who had lost her child. I refused to believe it. There was no way she didn't catch the glaring red flags in what Lucian just said. Yet Stella was sitting there so completely calm as if she had heard this story a million times before. Calm as if she had known the truth all along. My chest turned ice-cold as a terrifying realization clawed its way to the surface. "Stella." I gripped her sleeve with every ounce of strength I had left, my eyes filled with a shattering, fragile desperation. "That street where Lucian went joyriding five years ago, was it the back alley behind Bright Horizon Preschool?" The pity froze right on Stella’s face, and she stared at me in absolute shock. Lucian reacted even worse. With a loud crash, his chair tipped backward, and his expression instantly shifted from arrogant mockery to extreme panic. Realizing how suspicious his reaction looked, he forced down the shock and confusion swimming in his eyes, managing a tight, awkward laugh. "Spencer, you must be hearing things. I didn't mention any specific street..." I forced myself up on shaky legs, my voice sounded hollow and distant, drifting from the edge of reality like a broken mix of laughter and sobs. "Five years ago, every security camera along the street where the hit-and-run occurred just happened to be down for maintenance. "Purple fragments of a custom car wrap were recovered from the evidence collected during my daughter’s autopsy. "Do I really need to spell it out for you?" Every single word dripped with bleeding memories. Every single detail pushed me closer to the absolute edge of a mental breakdown. The forced smile completely vanished from Lucian's face, and raw panic flashed in his eyes. A second later, as if remembering something, his voice spiked into a shrill defense. "No way, stop talking nonsense! You forgot all about your kid because your brain was fried from all those heavy psychiatric meds back then, and now you're trying to frame me..." Lucian's words hit my chest like a sledgehammer, smashing my heart into bloody pieces. I never expected this. I had been terrified that Stella, being a top-tier psychiatrist, would feel like a total failure if she couldn't fix my mental health issues. So, I told her a white lie. I told her the heavy medication side effects had wiped out my memories of Evelyn. I just never imagined that my kindness would end up as the sharpest knife they could use to stab me right in the back in front of everyone. At that moment, Stella finally realized that I had never, not for a single second, forgotten Evelyn's death. Her hand trembled as she reached out, trying to wipe the tears away from the corner of my eye. I jerked back to avoid her touch. Her hand hung frozen in midair while she desperately tried to keep her voice smooth and soothing. "Spencer, please calm down. You're just experiencing a severe hallucination from your medication. Lucian was just making up a stupid fictional story..." A hollow, broken laugh escaped my throat, tearing out in a wet sob as hot tears spilled over. "Stella, do you really think I would have been brave enough to have another kid with you if I were still on those meds? "I stopped taking them a long time ago. I’m completely sober, and I’m not hallucinating." I took a slow step backward, my eyes burning red, the taste of bitter bile rising in my throat. "I'm calling the police." I turned around to walk out, but the second I moved, a sharp, biting pain pierced straight into my arm. Chapter 2 The last second before I lost consciousness, I saw Stella holding an empty syringe of sedatives. As she caught my collapsing body, her eyes flickered with a helpless, guilt-ridden remorse. "Spencer, why didn't you listen? Why'd you secretly throw your meds away? You shouldn't have remembered this." When I finally came to, my entire body ached as I lay sprawled across the bedroom. A sickening, sluggish weakness dragged at my limbs from the forced injection of sedatives. Stella was standing by the window, twisting a pack of women's cigarettes into a crushed mess, her frustration bleeding through every motion. I stared at her in dead silence, my fingernails digging so hard into my palm that they broke the skin, before I finally managed to force out a gravelly rasp. "Why? Stella, you knew how much I loved Evelyn! "Why on earth did you all cover this up for five years? Why protect a murderer like Lucian?" Stella froze mid-motion. She stepped over, grabbing my shoulders and leaning in close. The perfume I used to love burying my face in now made my stomach churn. "Spencer, since you already know the truth, I'll apologize to you. "But five years ago, Lucian ran a high fever for seven whole days from the shock and almost didn't make it. He finally managed to move past it. "I'm not going to let you ruin his life over something that's already in the past. "Whatever you want as compensation, I'll give it to you." Evelyn’s vibrant life was just going to be bartered away for a financial payout? I stared at Stella, completely losing my mind, and shoved her away with every remaining ounce of strength in my body. My throat burned so raw I could taste iron. "Compensation?! What I want is for Lucian to pay with his blood!" The next second, a heavy, vicious slap cracked through the air. A burning, searing pain flared across my cheek. Stella instantly froze, panic flashing in her eyes as she stumbled back, her voice stuttering in disbelief. "I'm sorry, Spencer, I... I didn't mean to do that." That reflex slap from Stella completely shattered the very last thread of hope clinging to my heart. Tears streamed down my face as I shook uncontrollably. "Stella, Evelyn was your child, too. She was only three years old! "That day was her birthday. You were the one who promised to pick her up for her birthday party, which is why she waited so patiently by the school back gate for you. "If it weren't for you, she never would have been waiting there. And if Lucian hadn't been joyriding like a maniac, she wouldn't be dead." Stella shuddered violently, all the color draining from her face. Watching her look away, unable to meet my eyes, a chilling numbness washed over me. I couldn't understand it. The Stella who once loved us more than she loved her own life, the Stella who had promised to spoil our daughter like a little princess… When had she become such a monster? How could she be so casual, tossing out a bribe of compensation just to erase the agony I had suffered every single second of the past five years? All these years, keeping it a secret from me, letting the killer strut around right in front of my eyes and act like he owned the world. After a long, suffocating silence, I closed my eyes, beating down the violent storm raging inside me. "Isn't that what you wanted to compensate me for? "The only thing I want in this world is to see Lucian behind bars." The air stayed heavy for a long time before Stella's voice finally filtered through, muffled and quiet. "Fine. I promise you." As I heard her words, my body, which had been fighting tooth and nail against the sedative, finally gave out. As my heavy eyelids slipped shut, my world finally faded into silence. Chapter 3 When I opened my eyes again, the glaring white ceiling was the first thing that hit me. My heart seized, a sickening wave of familiar dread washing over me. This was the psychiatric hospital where I had spent four agonizing years undergoing treatment! Stella was sitting by the bedside, looking down at me with a trace of pity. "I'm sorry, Spencer, but you need to stay here at the hospital for a little while. "I can't let you hurt Lucian. I won't allow it." In a heartbeat, it all clicked. She had chosen Lucian over me yet again! A suffocating wall of despair crashed over me, driving me straight to the edge of absolute madness. "Stella, you're shielding a murderer! How can you look our dead daughter in the face?!" Stella pressed her lips into a thin line, completely unmoved. Acting like an unhinged lunatic, I snatched the fruit knife off the nightstand, driving it straight toward Stella's chest. Stella didn't even try to block it. She just let the blade sink into her flesh. "Spencer, does this make you feel better?" Dark red blood began to spread across her shirt, and the nurses rushed over in a blind panic to patch her up. "Hold him down! Is this patient losing his mind? If Ms. Anderson is hurt, we're all in deep trouble!” "Mr. West, you were the one who failed to pick your daughter up on time, which is the whole reason the kid died. Trying to shift your own guilt onto someone else is just pathetic and selfish." The nurses chattered away as they worked, their eyes dripping with biting contempt. "Enough!" Stella frowned, shooting an ice-cold glare straight at the group of nurses. "My husband can do whatever he wants. It is not your place to run your mouths! Get out of here, all of you!" I shoved Stella away, my chest heaving with rage. "Spare me the fake act of playing the loyal wife! "Since you're so hell-bent on protecting Lucian, I'll call the cops myself! I'll get justice for Evelyn with my own two hands!" I fought against the restraints, scrambling toward the door, but the next second, a blinding flash of agony tore through the back of my head, and everything plummeted into absolute darkness. When I finally dragged myself back to consciousness, my head throbbed as though it were splitting in two. This time, my limbs were strapped down tight, locked firmly against the hospital bed. Lucian was sitting right beside me, waiting. Seeing my eyes flutter open, he flashed a bright, cheerful grin, tapping a folder against my cheek. "Welcome back, Spencer. You gave us quite a scare back there. Let me walk you through your brand-new medical chart." Lucian read out every single word printed on the page, wearing a sickeningly satisfied smirk as he watched the color drain completely from my face. "Hear that? Severe psychiatric disorder. You, Spencer West, are officially certified as a total lunatic whose brain snapped from your daughter's death. "Without official clearance, it looks like you're locked up in this room for the rest of your life. "I gotta hand it to Stella, though. She's got a soft spot. I literally just cried to her about it, and she told me she'd handle it." Lucian's boastful gloating hit me like a lightning bolt. "Stella?" She had actually forged a fake medical record just to shield Lucian, locking me up in a psychiatric ward with her own hands?! I choked back a wave of bloody rage, my voice tearing raw as I screamed, "Why? Why the hell would you ruin my daughter and destroy everything I had?!" "Destroy everything you had? Ha!" Lucian let out a sudden, mocking laugh, but a second later, his expression twisted into pure madness as he grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked my head back. "You and that little brat were the ones who wrecked my life! "Stella and I were childhood sweethearts! We had a pact that neither of us would ever date anyone else, and the second we turned twenty, we were supposed to be together! "So why the hell did you have to show up and force Stella to marry you? And why did that little brat have to grow up looking exactly like her?!" Lucian’s grip tightened harder until my face burned red and I was choking for air. Watching me gasp and gag only seemed to fuel Lucian's sadistic high. His venomous words drilled straight through my eardrums. "That's why I hated you both. I couldn't stand watching the two of you playing happy families all the time! "I purposely tracked Stella down that exact day to confess my feelings and beg her to leave you. But she turned me down! "She said she had to rush back and throw a birthday party for her little brat. "And you, you couldn't even be bothered to pick her up on time. I bet you had no idea your kid sneaked out the back gate of the school all by herself. "She even smiled at me, actually expecting me to give her a ride home. Ha! Too bad my car steering got a little out of hand." Lucian continued, "She ran out of stamina fast. Slipped right down into the drainage ditch, choking on the water until she stopped breathing, turning all filthy and disgusting. "It was so pathetic. Your little girl was crying and begging her daddy to save her right up until the end. "Spencer, oh Spencer, this is all on you for stealing Stella away. The real monster who murdered your daughter was you!" Chapter 4 Seeing me vomiting a mouthful of blood as I wept in absolute despair, Lucian leaned in close to my ear, his voice hissing like a venomous snake. "By the way, on the day Evelyn died, didn't Stella stay out all night? "You didn't actually think she was out hunting for evidence to nail the killer, did you?" It felt like I had been slammed in the head with a baseball bat. I rasped out in disbelieving horror. "She told me she was out checking if any security cameras missed anything..." Watching the crumbling expression shatter completely across my face, Lucian let out a booming, triumphant laugh and started slow-clapping. "Man, you’re so naïve. Your precious wife was actually in my arms all night, letting me cuddle and comfort her. "We were right there on your master-bedroom bed, going wild and having the time of our lives. Stella felt so guilty about what happened that she treated me like absolute royalty. "You've probably never seen Stella wearing Victoria's Secret lace, have you? Ha, let me tell you, I had the time of my life savoring every second of it." At that exact moment, I thought my heart was already too numb to hurt anymore, but those words stabbed straight through it with brutal force. Two tracks of agonizing tears spilled over, burning straight down my face. Yet on the day Evelyn died, Stella had acted more panicked and frantic than anyone else, sprinting through the morgue like she had lost her mind. While she was soothing my passed-out body and frantically calling everyone she knew, she had looked like a hollowed-out ghost. Now, I finally knew the truth! Stella had been moving in such a frantic rush all night—just so she could run off to comfort the monster who murdered her own child. She had even shamelessly rolled around in bed with a killer, living it up without a care in the world! Hot, burning tears of sheer despair finally soaked my face. The suffocating wave of hatred boiling up from the bottom of my soul threatened to drown me completely. Sensing the wild, unhinged madness flashing in my eyes, Lucian flashed a cold smile. A second later, a nurse stepped forward, holding a syringe loaded with sedatives. "Look at me, I almost forgot a psychiatric patient needs his regular treatment. Don't worry, one shot of this and you won't remember a single shred of pain." My pupils shrank to pinpricks, a cold wave of dread creeping up my spine as I thrashed wildly and screamed for help. That was when Stella finally heard the commotion and pushed the door open. She froze for a second when she caught sight of my shattered, hopeless face. "Lucian, maybe we should skip it. Spencer's always been terrified of needles. Just let him calm down on his own." Jealousy flickered deep in Lucian's eyes, though his face instantly morphed into an understanding, gentle smile. "I guess I just panicked. I really wanted my brother-in-law to get a good night's sleep." Lucian stepped forward to unbuckle my restraints, reaching out his hand like he wanted to help me up. The second he leaned in, a fruit knife slipped out from the edge of my bed frame. A piercing scream echoed through the entire ward! Lucian clutched his hand, which was smeared with blood, and stared at me in absolute, fabricated horror. "Spencer, I was just trying to untie you! Why are you trying to kill me?" Stella rushed over, pulling Lucian into her arms to inspect his bleeding arm. A murderous fury blazed in her eyes. "Spencer! What the hell is wrong with you?! Lucian came all the way here to apologize to you, and you're still trying to murder him!" Before I could even open my mouth to defend myself, Stella snatched up the syringe and plunged the needle straight into my vein. Instantly, I felt like I had been dropped into a freezing glacier, my blood running completely ice-cold. A sharp flashback cut through my mind: back when I used to panic over getting shots, Stella would pull me tightly into her arms and whisper sweet comforts, even shedding soft tears of worry over a tiny scratch. Yet right now, she was shoving a sharp needle deep into my flesh just to protect Lucian. Watching me writhe in agony, Stella bit her lip hard and turned to walk out of the room with the nurse. Only Lucian remained standing by the bed, flashing a twisted, savage grin down at me. "Forgot to mention, we added a little extra something special into this batch of meds. Have fun staying here and enjoy the ride! "As for you pissing off your wife so badly, don't worry, I'll just have to stay behind and comfort her real good in bed!" The next second, my whole body went into violent spasms as I collapsed hard onto the floor. Right in front of my eyes, terrifying hallucinations of Evelyn’s bloody, mangled body began to take shape. She was crying, screaming at me with pure hatred for failing to save her. I broke down, sobbing hysterically from overwhelming self-loathing as my mental state hit absolute rock bottom. I muttered apologies to my daughter over and over again like a broken record. Grasping the fruit knife, I slashed into my own skin, covering myself in fresh, bleeding cuts. I had no idea how long that kind of hell lasted. Trapped in a relentless loop of hallucinations, I drifted through the days completely out of my mind. The only things that arrived like clockwork every single day were the needles jammed mercilessly into my veins while the muffled, heated sounds of heavy breathing and colliding echoed from the room directly next door. … So, day in and day out, on and on it went. I sank deeper into a dead silence, trapped between blinding hallucinations and a bottomless pit of self-hatred. Until late one hazy, pitch-black night, I jerked awake from a brutal nightmare. Faintly, through the quiet darkness, I caught the soft sound of a tiny knock on my door. I looked up and saw my little girl's small figure standing out in the hallway, waving her hand for me to follow. With everything I had left, I dragged my broken body across the floor toward the dark, letting out a peaceful, relieved smile. Ten minutes later, a massive, roaring fire broke out in one of the wards at Ashford Psychiatric Hospital, lighting up the entire night sky.