Chapter 5

With that, I opened the car door and slid into the back seat.

Right before the Uber pulled away, I heard Ethan shouting in anger, but the closed window muffled his voice. I felt a slight urge to look back, but the roadside hedges soon blocked my view.

Forget it. I was leaving anyway.

What was there to look at?

From now on, they had nothing to do with me.

When I got back to the hotel, I took a long nap.

When I woke up, I opened Snapchat and saw that Clara had posted several updates on her Instagram story.

[Shopping with my little princess! She said she loved every single dress, so we bought them all!]

[Capturing sweet family moments! With you guys by my side, every day is a fairytale.]

The photos were of Lily, Ethan, and Clara—a perfect little family. They were posing inside a high-end designer boutique and a luxury indoor theme park.

I glanced at them and swiped away.

The next day, more photos flooded my feed.

In the morning, Ethan even sent me a photo of the three of them eating breakfast together, only to quickly delete it a second later.

I rolled my eyes.

How pathetic.

Lily was an incredibly picky eater, and Ethan was even worse.

In those photos, most of the food on the table was stuff they absolutely hated.

I remembered how, for the past six years, I had spent hours every day researching recipes to cook for them. But if a single dish wasn't perfect, Ethan would frown and put down his fork, and Lily would push her bowl away, crying that it tasted "disgusting."

Yet here they were, smiling widely for Clara’s camera in front of food they despised.

I suddenly realized.

They weren't unhappy with the food.

They were unhappy with the person who made it.

My finger hovered over the screen. I put both Ethan and Clara on my blocked list.

I should have done this a long time ago.

But I never expected that just as I was checking out of the hotel, I would get a frantic call from Lily's preschool.

The teacher’s voice was shaking with terror. "Lily’s mom! There's a fire!"

"We've set up an inflatable rescue mat on the ground floor, but Lily is terrified of heights! She refuses to jump! The activity room door is jammed, and the fire is spreading to the third floor! The firefighters are on their way, but you need to get here right now!"

My heart stopped.

Without a second thought, I rushed out of the hotel and hailed a cab. Fortunately, the airport was close to the preschool.

By the time I arrived, the building was engulfed in thick, black smoke.

Clara was standing safely on the lawn, trembling.

The school principal was shaking her arm, pleading, "Ma'am! When you ran out, why didn't you bring Lily with you?!"

"If we wait for the firefighters to break down the door, the debris might hit her. Please, put on this protective gear and go in with us. You can talk to her and guide her to jump onto the mat. It's completely safe!"

Clara violently slapped the principal’s hand away, her voice screeching in panic.

"Are you insane?! It's a fire! Of course I was scared! If I had tried to carry her, I wouldn't have made it out alive!"

"Aren't the firefighters coming? Why do I have to go back in?! Lily isn't deaf, just yell at her from here! Why should I go in? What if I get burned?!"

She was screaming so loudly that Lily, crying at the third-floor window, heard every word.

The little girl wailed in despair, "Mommy! I want Mommy! Mommy, save me!"

But Clara only looked up, yelling back in frustration, "Stop crying!"

"The rescue mat is right there! Just jump! You won't die!"

"Stop calling me! I don't want to get burned to death!"

The principal was at a loss.

She prepared to put on the heavy fire-resistant jacket herself, but I snatched it out of her hands.

"Lily's mom! You're here!"

"We can't wait for the firefighters," I said, throwing the heavy gear over my shoulders.

"The door might be fireproof, but the curtains aren't. It's windy today. If the wind blows the flames inside, the whole room will go up. She won't even have a chance to jump."

As I spoke, a gasp erupted from the crowd.

"The curtains! The curtains are on fire!"

I looked up. Embers had caught the wind-blown curtains hanging outside the window. They were burning rapidly.

There was no time.

Before I could even zip up the protective suit, I rushed headfirst into the burning building.

I had been to this preschool countless times. Even through the suffocating smoke, I navigated my way to the third-floor activity room.

The door was completely jammed. I had to go through the window from the adjacent balcony.

"Lily, move away! Hide under the red table! Stay away from the curtains!"

"O-Okay, Mommy!"

I took a few steps back, took a deep breath, and threw my entire body against the glass window.

The glass shattered instantly.

I crashed onto the hard floor, pieces of glass tearing through my protective suit and slicing deep into my back. I could feel the warm blood instantly soaking through my shirt.

But I didn't have time to scream. I scrambled to my feet.

I scooped Lily up from the corner and rushed back to the window.

Just as I was about to jump, the burning curtain blew inward, heading straight for Lily’s face.

She shrieked in terror, "Mommy! Fire!"

There was no way to dodge it.

I spun around, using my own back as a shield.

The moment the flames licked my back, a wave of agonizing heat nearly knocked me unconscious.

I gritted my teeth, held Lily tightly, and jumped out of the window.

We crashed heavily onto the inflatable rescue mat.

Lily had already fainted from sheer terror in my arms.

I quickly handed her over to the school nurse.

By then, the fire trucks had finally arrived, and the firefighters rushed to extinguish the flames.

I pulled off the ruined protective gear. The burns weren't too bad, but the deep cuts on my back from the shattered glass were bleeding profusely. After the paramedic quickly bandaged me up, I walked away.

I had a flight to catch.

By the time Ethan arrived, the fire was mostly put out.

Lily was safe, though still unconscious from shock.

Ethan let out a breath of relief, but when he heard the teachers explaining how I had lunged through a window into a burning room to save Lily, his heart leaped into his throat.

He looked around frantically, shouting my name.

"Naomi! Naomi! Where are you?!"

A nearby parent pointed toward the road. "Mr. Vance, I saw Naomi get into a cab. She probably went back to her apartment."

Ethan immediately ran to his car.

He drove toward my apartment while calling Thomas on FaceTime.

"Naomi is hurt! She has burns and deep cuts! Call our family doctor and tell him to meet us at her apartment right now!"

Thomas sounded shocked. "Mr. Vance, she's not at the apartment!"

"After she left the villa, she had me drop her off at a hotel near the airport. She said she was divorcing you and going back to her hometown."

"Hurt like that... she must have gone straight to the airport!"