The roar of the broadcast cut to silence. Backstage at `Starlight Serenade`, the sudden quiet was more deafening than the applause had been. Lyra stood trembling, one hand instinctively covering her stomach, the heat of the stage lights still clinging to her skin. Her public confession echoed in the void.
Then, the world rushed in.
Producers, their faces a frantic mix of elation and terror, swarmed her. “Ratings are through the roof!” one shouted, while another frantically asked if she needed a medic.
Zara was a wall of calm fury. She pushed through them, her voice cutting like a scalpel. “Everyone back. Now.” She was `Dr. Ali` in this moment, her professional authority absolute. She guided Lyra to a chair, her fingers immediately finding the pulse point on Lyra’s wrist. “Breathe with me, Lyra. Slow and deep. The baby needs you to be calm.”
Lyra’s gaze was distant, numb. She had done it. She had thrown the truth like a grenade into the center of their lives. The consequences were a storm she couldn’t yet see, but she could feel the pressure dropping.
Zara pulled out Lyra’s phone, switching it on. The screen lit up, vibrating violently as a tidal wave of notifications flooded in. Thousands of messages. An explosion of opinion. “We’ll deal with this later,” Zara said, silencing it and slipping it into her own pocket. “Right now, we get you out of here.”
Miles away, in a room that smelled of stale smoke and regret, Caspian stared at the motel television. The commercial for a cheap car dealership felt like a personal insult. The screen flickered, but the image of Lyra’s face—pale, determined, and undeniably pregnant—was burned into his mind.
Shock shattered.
It was replaced by a rage so profound it felt like it would tear him apart from the inside. With a guttural roar, he swept a cheap lamp from the bedside table. It hit the wall and exploded into a spray of plastic and glass. The sound wasn’t enough. He threw the remote next, cracking the TV screen.
It wasn’t confusion. It was the violent agony of self-loathing.
The “spiteful abortion” lie. He had let himself believe it, had used it as another brick in the wall of his righteous indignation. Now it was rubble at his feet. But it was the other lie, the private one whispered to him in what he thought were moments of intimacy, that was the true poison.
She can’t have children, Caspian. We tried. She’s just… cold.
Isolde’s words. Her gentle, pitying tone. He saw it now for what it was: a meticulous assassination of Lyra’s character, delivered with a surgeon’s precision. He had been a willing fool. A cruel, blind fool.
He snatched his car keys from the dresser. His only thought, his only need, was to find her. To see her. To hear it from her lips and force himself to look at the woman he had so thoroughly destroyed.
In her private room at St. Jude’s Medical Center, Isolde watched the same broadcast on a sleek tablet. When the screen went dark, she hurled her water glass against the far wall. It shattered with a sharp, satisfying crack.
Her control was gone. The narrative she had so carefully constructed was in flames.
She knew, with absolute certainty, where Caspian would go. He would run to Lyra, desperate for an absolution she would never give him. He would try to be the hero again, the savior rushing to fix his mistake.
Her face was a mask of cold fury. She picked up her phone and made a call. Her voice, when she spoke to her associate, was dangerously calm.
“He’s going to her. He can’t be allowed to look like the hero in this. Find out where they’re taking her.”
About the Author
