Part 3Vanishing For Your Second Chance

Lydia’s eyes widened in fake terror. "Alexander, no, she's lying..."

I waited. I waited for the man who used to know my soul to look at the physics of the spill, to see the calculation in Lydia's eyes. I waited for him to protect me.

Instead, his voice was like dry ice.

"I could call the police, Iris. I could have you charged with assault."

He looked at me as if I were a stranger—a nuisance to be cleared away. Lydia pressed closer to his side, her face glowing with triumph.

"Can't take it?" Alexander sneered, his lip curling. "This is a fraction of the pain I’ve lived with for a decade. I was building a life for us in Everglade City. I was finally making it. And then you vanished without a word."

"Now I’m the man everyone wants to know. I’m the 'New Money' king of the coast. And suddenly, you're back, crawling around, trying to get a piece of it."

His eyes were bloodshot, his voice trembling with a decade of fermented rage. "What makes you think I'd wait for you? What makes you think your 'devotion' means anything to me now?"

The silence in the room was heavy, suffocating. The dam finally broke.

"I didn't leave because I wanted to!" I screamed, the words tearing out of me.

"Then why?" Alexander yelled back. "Give me one reason! Tell me why you let me think you were dead!"

I opened my mouth, but the Directive’s invisible weight clamped down on my vocal cords. I couldn't speak the truth of the system. I couldn't explain the time-slip.

I closed my eyes, my shoulders slumping. "I can't tell you the 'why.' But Alexander, I never stopped trying to get back to you. Everything I’ve done was to make sure you’d walk again."

I saw the flicker of "Here we go again" in his eyes. He didn't believe a word. He pulled out his phone to dial the police.

Suddenly, the door swung open again. A young woman with a round, friendly face froze at the sight of the chaos.

"Iris? Oh my god, Iris! It is you!"

She rushed in, ignoring Alexander. "Where have you been? When you turned down the Fulbright scholarship and disappeared from campus, the Dean was devastated! We all thought something terrible happened. You left everything behind—your clothes, your books... it was like you just evaporated."

The room went silent.

Alexander’s hand froze on his phone. He turned his chair toward the girl, his voice a low growl. "She didn't go to Europe?"

The girl frowned. "Europe? No. She never even picked up her plane tickets. She vanished the night before the flight."

Lydia tried to cut in, her voice frantic. "Alexander, this is obviously an actress. Iris is just trying to manipulate you—"

Alexander ignored her. He grabbed my wrist, his grip bruising. "Is she telling the truth? You never left the country?"

I pulled my arm back, my heart feeling like lead. I looked at Lydia, then back at Alexander.

"I’ll look into this," Alexander muttered, his voice shaken. He turned to Lydia, his tone turning sharp. "Get out, Lydia. You've overstepped."

"But Alexander—"

"Go," he barked. Lydia scrambled to grab her bag and fled, her face pale.

I didn't say a word. I sat on the edge of the bed, feeling a strange numbness. I looked down at my hands and gasped.

My fingertips were becoming translucent. I was starting to fade.

I looked up, wanting to call out to him, but Alexander was already rolling out the door, his mind clearly miles away.

I let out a long, shaky sigh. "Whatever," I whispered to the empty room.

Three days later, Alexander appeared at my door.

He looked exhausted. He rolled to my bedside and pulled a small, velvet box from his pocket. Inside was a ring—a simple gold band, worn and slightly tarnished.

"I bought this ten years ago," he said, his voice raw. "I carried it every day for a year. Iris... if I asked you now, would it be too late?"

I looked at the ring, then at him. "What about Lydia?"

He didn't answer. He just took my hand and slid the ring onto my finger.