The Unwritten Encore Chapter 1

The world shattered the moment I found out about my husband and my sister.

“It was never you, Clara. It was always her.” Liam’s eyes were bloodshot, his voice a blade. “You were the one who got in the way.”

Each word was a hammer blow to my heart.

The blood drained from my face. A tremor wracked my body—a toxic cocktail of pain, fury, and humiliation. “I was in the way?” My voice was a sharp, desperate whisper.

“You knelt on the floor and begged me to marry you, Liam. And now you’re telling me it was always Ava?”

A raw, hysterical laugh tore from my throat. It dissolved into a flood of tears that streamed down my face, hot and relentless.

Seeing me so utterly broken seemed to jolt him from his cold rage. Panic flickered in his eyes. He reached for me, then snatched his hand back as if burned. His lips trembled, unable to form a coherent sentence. “Clara, that’s not what I meant… You… let me explain…”

But I was already gone. I walked out the door like a ghost, an empty shell propelled by a pain so vast it had hollowed me out completely. I stumbled onto the street, oblivious, a zombie navigating a world that had lost all color.

A blinding light sliced through the fog. The moment the truck hit me, my last coherent thought was, This still doesn't hurt as much as my heart.

* * *

The sterile scent of antiseptic filled my nose. I forced my eyes open, squinting against the harsh sunlight piercing through the blinds.

“Miss Hayes? You’re awake.” A young nurse came in, her voice soft. “You’ll be fine. You’re just a bit weak. We need to get your strength back up.”

I stared at her, uncomprehending. The phantom agony of betrayal still echoed in my nerves, my mind a disoriented haze.

This scene… I knew this scene. This was the hospital room from when I was twenty, after I collapsed by the pool.

It was all coming back. Three days ago, I had won the National Dance Championship. My parents, ecstatic, had insisted on throwing a celebration at the Grandview Hotel. My younger sister, Ava, had recently failed her audition for the summer intensive. Though she pretended it didn't bother her and my parents told her it was nothing, I knew how sensitive she was. I’d spent the whole party keeping an eye on her.

When she disappeared, I went looking. I found her outside by the pool. A moment of distraction, a child running past, and I was knocked into the icy water, the shock pulling me into darkness.

Before I could fully process the impossible reality of my return, the door to my hospital room opened again.

Liam stood there, holding a bouquet of flowers. Behind him, her face a carefully constructed mask of concern, was Ava.

“How are you feeling?” Liam walked to my bedside, his hand reaching for my forehead. “The fever’s broken. You just need to rest.”

Instinctively, I recoiled from his touch. My expression was a complicated storm of emotions I couldn't yet name. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

Ava rushed forward. “Clara, it’s all my fault. If it wasn’t for me, you never would have ended up in here.”

Her face was stained with tears, her voice trembling, her eyes brimming with guilt.

Liam immediately wrapped an arm around her, his touch gentle as he guided her to a chair. “It’s not your fault, Ava. It was an accident.”

His voice held a tenderness he had never used with me.

Ava leaned into him, a subtle shift of weight, a silent claim. She looked up at him, her eyes a mix of gratitude, sorrow, and something else—a flicker of dependence I’d never seen before.

I watched them, a cold, bitter clarity dawning in my heart. The intimacy, the unspoken language between them… it was so obvious. How had I been so blind my entire life?

Sensing my glacial stare, Liam’s face flushed. He cleared his throat. “Ava and I are here to take you home.”

Back at the house, my mother led me to the dining table. “Ava had Maria make all your favorites,” she said, placing a piece of short rib on my plate. “She cried all night, saying she wished it had been her who fell in the water…”

I listened to my mother’s chatter, my stomach churning as I looked at the greasy piece of meat. I had lost my appetite.

“Mom, I think I’m just going to go to my room.”

She paused. “Alright, honey.” She helped me from my chair. “We’ll keep it warm for you, in case you get hungry later.”

Lying in my bed, I replayed my previous life with Liam. Countless details, once dismissed as insignificant, now surfaced, each one a small, sharp piece of the devastating truth.

He said I was the one in the way. Fine. This time, I would give them exactly what they wanted. I would step aside and let them have each other. This time, I would not be an obstacle.

The next day, I began packing a suitcase for the dorms.

“Clara, why are you moving out?” my mother asked, bewildered. “The campus isn’t far. Michael can drive you every day.”

I placed my hairdryer into the suitcase. “Finals are coming up. I need to focus.”

“Don’t go, Clara, please.” Ava grabbed my sleeve, her voice a soft, childish whine. “I’ll miss you if I can’t see you.”

It was her signature move—the pouting, the wide eyes, the saccharine tone that always made me give in.

I gently pulled my sleeve from her grasp. “I’ll be back after my exams are over.”

That evening, Liam came to see me.

“You’re moving into the dorm?” He held out a small box of strawberry tarts. “Can’t you stay? Ava’s really upset.”

I didn’t take the box. My favorite was blueberry. He always got it wrong.

I used to think he just couldn’t tell the difference. Now I knew the truth: he just didn't care enough to remember. He never once mixed up Ava's favorite, peach.

“If you need a tutor, I can help you study. You don’t have to move out,” he said earnestly, placing the box on my desk.

“No, thank you,” I replied, my voice cool and distant. “I just want to focus on my studies without any distractions.”

“Alright then. But if you need anything, I’m always here for you.” He gazed at me, his expression full of the same deep concern that had fooled me for a decade. The same look that had made me believe I was the center of his world.

If I hadn’t lived and died by his lies already, I might have fallen for it all over again.

“I was never in love with you. You misunderstood. Our parents misunderstood.”

His words from the end of my last life echoed in my head—the self-righteous justification that had shattered my reality, turning a decade of devotion into a pathetic, one-sided joke.