My Fiancé Left Me To Die In A Ditch — So I Let Her Plan The Wedding
Part 1
The windshield shattered into a million glittering diamonds before the world violently flipped upside down.
Metal screamed against asphalt as my car careened off the slick mountain road.
Gravity vanished entirely.
The heavy chassis slammed into the steep embankment, tearing through thick brush and loose stone.
We tumbled end over end, the terrible crunch of collapsing steel deafening my ears.
The car finally hit the bottom of the ravine, coming to rest on its crushed side.
My head cracked viciously against the steering wheel.
Everything faded into a thick, buzzing gray fog.
Time lost its meaning.
When I finally clawed my way back to consciousness, the freezing November rain was lashing violently against my face.
I was lying half-thrown from the mangled driver’s door.
My body was pressed deep into the freezing, rain-soaked mud.
A terrifying, rhythmic ringing echoed inside my skull.
My limbs felt like solid lead blocks, completely unresponsive to my brain’s frantic commands.
I blinked against the warm blood stinging my left eye.
The twisted ruin of my luxury sedan steamed in the cold night air just inches from my face.
I squeezed my eyes shut, cataloging the sharp pain in my ribs with the same detachment I used when auditing a failing subsidiary.
My left arm was pinned beneath the crushed steering column, completely useless.
Earlier that morning, Megan had argued with me for twenty minutes because I insisted on driving the winding mountain pass myself.
She despised unpredictability.
She had spent three hours the previous night agonizing over the exact shade of ivory for the reception table linens.
I had watched her from the doorway, silently admiring her flawless focus on the optics of our impending merger.
I had never once asked her if she actually loved me.
Love was a messy, inefficient variable, and I preferred the safety of a pristine, heavily negotiated contract.
Our society wedding was exactly six weeks away.
I was entirely convinced that a logical, advantageous partnership was safer than messy, unpredictable love.
I opened my mouth to groan, gathering strength to call out for help in the gathering dark.
Footsteps crunched loudly on the gravel shoulder twenty feet above my head.
Voices drifted down through the icy downpour.
“Don’t touch him.”
It was Megan’s voice.
It was crisp, clear, and entirely steady.
I stopped breathing.
My survival instinct kicked in, forcing me to remain absolutely motionless among the wreckage.
“If you touch him, you’ll just make it worse and they’ll blame us,” Megan warned.
Her tone wasn’t panicked.
She didn’t sound terrified for my life.
She sounded profoundly irritated.
I waited for her to scramble down the dangerous embankment.
I waited for her to scream for help, to show a single shred of human terror.
She did nothing of the sort.
Another voice, much lower and shaking violently, argued back.
“We can’t just leave him down there in the mud!”
I recognized that quiet, desperate voice.
It was Heather.
Heather was Megan’s cousin, though she functioned more like an unpaid assistant and human pack mule.
She was always hovering silently at the edges of rooms.
She held coats, managed complex schedules, and remained practically invisible.
I had probably spoken ten words to her in three entire years.
“The driver went to flag down a car,” Megan said flatly.
“There is absolutely nothing we can do from down there.”
Heather’s voice cracked in the wind.
“He is bleeding heavily from his head, Megan.”
“We have to keep him warm.”
A sharp, exasperated sigh floated down from the dry road above.
“If he dies right now, Heather, do you understand the terrible position I’m in?”
My chest tightened against the cold, wet earth.
I listened to my flawless, rational fiancé objectively assess the situation.
“The prenup is completely signed, but the marriage certificate isn’t.”
“If he bleeds out in that ditch, I get absolutely nothing.”
“No company shares, no estate, not a single cent.”
“I’ll be the tragic ex-fiancé with a dwindling bank account and no real assets.”
She kicked a pebble down the slope.
It bounced off the ruined hood of the car, landing near my motionless hand.
“Three years,” Megan hissed, her voice dripping with venom.
“Three years of smiling at his tedious corporate stories.”
“Three years of pretending to care about his boring company and enduring his total lack of humor.”
“And now I might lose the massive payout because of a stupid patch of black ice.”
I kept my eyes clamped tightly shut.
My heart slammed against my ribs like a trapped, desperate animal.
The sheer, calculated cruelty of her words severed everything I thought I knew about my perfectly ordered life.
I had always prided myself on seeing people clearly.
I had bought a beautiful, hollow shell, completely blind to the rotting core inside.
“You can’t possibly mean that,” Heather whispered.
“You are talking about a living human being.”
“He trusted you enough to marry you.”
Megan laughed.
It was a short, brittle sound utterly devoid of any warmth or humanity.
“I am a realist, Heather.”
“If he lives, we have a gorgeous spring wedding, and I get the extravagant lifestyle I earned.”
“I can’t be seen sliding through the dirt when the paramedics finally arrive.”
I lay perfectly still in the freezing mud, listening to the woman I was about to marry walk away from my bleeding body so she wouldn’t ruin her designer shoes.
