JANUARY 2026
LILLIAN
The atmosphere shifted sharply after the newlyweds left. The festive energy dissolved into the quiet hum of departure as the remaining guests began to disperse into the Batangas night.
It was past 8 PM. I was standing near the entrance, looking down at my phone as I opened a ride-sharing app, trying to find a driver willing to take a trip to the hotel, then all the way back to the city. I still had so much to prepare before my flight in three days.
"Let me drive you home."
I looked up to find Isaac standing a few feet away, his car keys already resting in his palm.
I instinctively tightened my grip on my evening bag, shaking my head. "It's fine, Isaac. I'll just book a ride."
"Lillian, it's a secluded resort in Batangas, past eight o'clock on a weekend," he countered, his tone calm but unyielding. "You won't get a driver out here. Let me take you."
I opened my mouth to argue, looking back down at my phone screen which was already spinning with a "No Drivers Found" notification. I let out a defeated breath.
"Fine. Thank you."
"We need to stop by the hotel," I added as we walked toward his car. "I left my garment bags and overnight things there."
"Alright," he replied smoothly, unlocking the doors.
The short drive to the hotel was supposed to be a brief transition, but the silence inside his car felt incredibly heavy. Outside, the dark Batangas coastline blurred past, lit only by the occasional roadside sari-sari store.
Isaac cleared his throat, his eyes remaining fixed on the winding, poorly lit road. "The lawyer called me before the wedding started. The first court hearing for the annulment is set for next month."
The words felt like a physical weight in the small car. "Oh," I managed, my fingers knotting together in my lap. "I didn't think it would be that fast."
"It's better this way," he said quietly. He eased the car around a sharp curve, his hands steady on the leather-wrapped steering wheel. "A clean break. You get your fresh start in Connemara, and I... well, the penthouse will be quieter, at least." He paused, his jaw tightening slightly before he added, "I bought a small painting yesterday. An oil landscape of the Irish coast. I thought... I thought I might hang it in the hallway. Where your shadow used to be."
The raw vulnerability of the statement caught in my chest. He wasn't angry; he was just resigning himself to the empty space I was leaving behind. Before I could find the words to answer him, he pulled into the brick driveway of the hotel.
My hand reached for the door handle before the valet could even approach.
"You can just wait here," I said quickly, turning to him. "I'll be fast."
Isaac raised an eyebrow, clearly wanting to object, but seeing the stubborn set of my jaw, he simply nodded.
"Alright. I'll be right across the street."
It took me a few minutes to gather my heavy garment bags, a duffel, and my loose belongings. Burdened by the weight, I managed to make my way back down to the lobby and pushed through the heavy glass doors of the entrance.
The humid night air hit me instantly. I scanned the area across the driveway, looking toward the darker parking lane on the opposite side of the road.
And then I saw him.
Isaac was leaning against the side of his car, his hands tucked casually into his pockets. The dim streetlights caught the sharp lines of his silhouette, softening the usual rigid, corporate edge he carried. He was looking around until his eyes finally locked onto me.
And then, he smiled.
It wasn't the polite, calculated smirk he used for social gatherings, nor was it the tired, bittersweet expression from the balcony. It was a genuine, breathtaking smile that reached his eyes.
Caught entirely off guard, my breath hitched in my throat, and my heart began to hammer violently against my ribs. For a terrifying second, the ground felt unstable beneath my feet. I forced myself to blink, desperately trying to shove the feeling down, mentally reprimanding my own heart for reacting that way. Get it together, Lillian, I told myself.
Snapping back to reality, Isaac took his hands out of his pockets. Keeping his eyes entirely fixed on me, he stepped off the curb and began crossing the wide driveway to help me with my heavy bags. He was halfway across the asphalt, his gaze warm and locked onto mine.
Suddenly a roar of accelerating engine tore through the quiet night.
From the blind curve just beyond the hotel property, a pair of high-beam headlights blinded my vision. A black sedan materialized from the darkness, traveling at a lethal speed. It didn't belong to the resort guests; it had no front license plate, and its windows were tinted solid black. The car blew straight through the plastic security barriers, snapping the thin poles like toothpicks. It didn't hit the brake. It accelerated.
Time violently fractured. Isaac turned his head toward the sound, a flash of pure confusion crossing his face.
Then came a sickening, deafening crash.
The vehicle struck him full force, the brutal impact echoing off the concrete walls of the hotel foyer. My garment bags slipped from my hands, plastic rustling as they hit the floor.
The silence that followed was total. In the space of a single breath, the world was a frozen photograph.
Then the engine growled again, low and menacing. The tires screamed against the asphalt as the driver slammed on the gas, swerving around Isaac's broken body. The black sedan rocketed past the valet stand and shot down the main road, its taillights vanishing instantly into the dark Batangas traffic.
A hit-and-run. A deliberate flight.
My knees turned to water. My vision tunneled into a thin, fuzzy cylinder.
This isn't happening.
My feet moved before my mind could process the horror. I ran, my breath catching in my throat. I wasn't running; I was wading through deep, freezing water.
"Isaac..."
Isaac lay on his side on the black asphalt. The sharp lines of his face were smeared with dark red, his white dress shirt torn and staining fast. He wasn't moving.
I sank to the ground beside him, my knees hitting the hot pavement. A high-pitched ringing started in my ears, a piercing drone that drowned out the shouting hotel staff and the screams of onlookers.
Move, Lillian! Move!
"My phone... Where is my phone?" I scrambled back toward the hotel entrance, my fingers slipping on the scattered contents of my purse until they locked around the glass screen. My fingers left red smudges across the display as I dialed the emergency hotline.
"Please, we need an ambulance!" I shrieked into the receiver, pressing the phone hard against my ear. "Star Hotel—Anilao, Mabini Batangas—he's not moving... Please..."
The operator's voice was a distant, mechanical murmur promising help, but every second was an eternity. I dropped the phone and collapsed back at Isaac's side. I gently cupped his uninjured cheek with my palm, tears finally spilling over, washing clean tracks through the soot on my face.
"Isaac, please... please open your eyes," I begged, my voice breaking into a desperate sob. "Don't do this. Please..."
His chest gave only the faintest, shallowest rise.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, pressing my forehead against his shoulder, his blood soaking into my evening dress. "I'm so sorry, Isaac...."
A distant, piercing wail broke through the ringing in my ears. Red and blue lights began to flash against the concrete facade of the hotel. The emergency responders flooded the scene, their hands descending upon us like a swarm. My fingers were torn away from Isaac's as paramedics took over the space. There was the sharp snap of a plastic neck brace, the hollow, metallic thud of a gurney being slammed into the back of an emergency vehicle.
"Are you with him?" a voice yelled over the din.
I only nodded, stumbling forward as a man shoved me into the back of the ambulance. The doors slammed shut, trapping me in a claustrophobic, sterile capsule.
The ride was a nightmare draped in sirens. The paramedic rhythmically pumped a plastic bag, forcing air into Isaac's lungs, his face pale underneath the oxygen mask.
The vehicle took one final, sharp turn, throwing me against the padded wall as the siren cut out. The doors burst open.
The ride was a nightmare draped in sirens. I sat frozen in the corner, my knees pulled to my chest, squeezed into the suffocatingly small space beside the paramedic who was already rhythmically pumping air into Isaac's lungs.
Every jolt of the ambulance felt like it was tearing a piece of my soul away. I kept my eyes locked on Isaac's hands—limp and covered with blood.
Hold on. Please, just hold on.
The vehicle took one final, sharp turn, throwing me against the padded wall as the siren cut out. The doors burst open, and a wall of cool, clinical air hit my face.
The digital clock on the ambulance dashboard flashed 21:28 as they rushed his gurney through the double doors of the provincial hospital.
I stood behind the cold glass of the trauma bay. I was numb, watching the doctors swarm him like white-clad ghosts. There were shouted numbers, the rhythmic thud of manual compressions, and the hiss of machines forcing air into lungs that no longer knew how to breathe on their own.
He shouldn't have come...
The thought pulsed against my skull.
He shouldn't have driven me home...
I shouldn't have...
My heart felt like it was collapsing inward.
"Clear!"
The shout made me flinch. I watched through the glass as Isaac's body jolted violently under the pads, his back arching off the table.
Again.
The hollow thump of the machine.
Again.
I pressed my forehead against the glass, my hand trembling as I left a red smudge of his own blood and mine on the surface. My mouth moved soundlessly, a prayer I didn't think I had the right to ask.
Please...
Not like this...
Minutes stretched and warped into something shapeless and cruel. I watched the lead doctor's shoulders drop. I watched the frantic energy in the room dissipate into a heavy, stagnant air.
Then, stillness...
A long, flat, agonizing tone erupted from the monitor. That single, horizontal line on the screen became the only horizon I could see. The doctors slowed their movements, their hands falling to their sides in a silent surrender.
One of them glanced up at the wall clock, his voice low and clinical, cutting through my heart like a scalpel.
"Time of death, 9:42 p.m."