Chapter Text
It’s hard to accept that you’re the villain in someone else’s story. It’s uncomfortable, knowing that someone out there hates you. It’s even harder knowing that you deserve it.
I’d had a total dream of a life, once. I was unbelievably happy. I had everything I could have ever wanted. I had a career, a home, and I had the love of my life beside me. And I was the reason it all came crumbling down.
Some might have blamed it on the cancer. To be fair, getting super sick can throw anyone for a loop. It started with the headaches. Occasional stress headaches turned into an everyday occurrence. I became irritable, and I started sleeping more. The people around me started telling me that I was acting like a different person, that I was snippy and depressed. That was true, I did feel agitated and upset more than usual. And sick, and in pain. Everything presented like stress, and I just kept assuming that’s what was wrong.
So my partner, an amazing man, encouraged me to go and spend a week with my family. I said goodbye and flew to my hometown, and promised to be back in a week.
As soon as I got to my parents’ house, the first seizure happened. They rushed me to the hospital, and I begged them not to call my fiancé. He was already an anxious mess as a person, and I wanted to wait until we knew what was going on before I called him. This is where I started to mess up.
When the doctors told me I had a tumor in my brain, I totally shut down. I didn’t even pick up the phone when my fiancé called. I demanded that my parents do the same.
I couldn’t stop thinking about all the times he’d held me, telling me that I was the only woman he’d ever love. That if I were to ever pass away, that he’d probably never remarry. Now that I was potentially staring death in the face, all I could think about was him. I was angry at this tumor for not only threatening my future, but his as well.
So that’s when I decided to do the unimaginable. To make myself the bad guy. To break his heart, to make him hate me. I’d do anything so that he could have a chance at a happy life. I wanted him to grow old with someone, to have children, to do all the things we planned to do together. If he had to do these things without me, so be it.
I called my best friend. The one person besides my fiancé who would take a secret to the grave for me. He picked up the phone screaming that everyone was worried about me, that nobody knew what had happened or why I’d suddenly iced out my partner of five years.
I explained what was going on, and for the first time since I’d known him, he didn’t have anything to say.
“I need to ask you a favor. Please. It’s a terrible favor, but it might be my dying wish, so you have to hear me out.” I laughed dryly. He didn’t respond. “Pablo, I need you to tell Charles that we slept together.”
“Brooke, how the fuck could I do that?” he said, voice cracking.
“Please. For me. Tell him I’m not coming back and I’m too chicken to tell him myself. That all the stress and the headaches and the depression was guilt. He can’t know.”
“He’s a doctor for Christ’s sake. If there was anyone in the world who could help you do this, it’d be him.” Pablo pleaded.
“I know I’m asking you to make him hate you, but he’ll hate me more. Please, you have to help me.” My throat hurt from holding back tears, so I decided to let them fall. “You can’t tell me that he’d take my death better than thinking I cheated. He will get angry, or depressed, or both, but he can recover from a broken heart if there’s a bad guy. He can blame me for leaving, not the universe or the goddess for taking me away.”
I heard a long and quivering sigh on the other end of the line.
“…Okay.”