ALICIA
“No,” I said, my voice shaking. “I’m not doing it.”
Patricia’s eyes narrowed, her expression turning cold and hard. “You don’t have a choice.”
“I’m not taking the fall for something I didn’t do. Diana did this. Not me.”
I was about to reveal what Diana did to me last night, but before I could open my mouth, Patricia dropped the one threat she knew would break me.
“I’ll stop your grandmother’s treatment,” she said quietly.
The air left my lungs.
My mouth hung open as I stared at her, stunned. “You wouldn’t.”
She didn’t blink. “Try me.”
My father married my mother first. They’d waited five years for a child. When she couldn’t conceive right away, he had an affair—with Patricia, his secretary.
Patricia gave him a daughter: Diana. Then my mother got pregnant. I was born, but she died during childbirth.
He married Patricia after that, and she raised me like I was nothing more than a stain in her picture-perfect family.
She never loved me. Never hugged me. Never called me hers. But my grandmother—my dad’s mom—she loved me more than anything. She showed me pictures of my mother, told me stories of how kind and beautiful she was. I grew up staring at those photos, wishing I could have met her just once.
When my dad died in a car accident, my world crumbled.
My granny’s heart couldn’t take it. She collapsed the day of the funeral and was hospitalized. She’d been there ever since—fragile, fading—but alive.
And Patricia?
She took control of everything. The company, the house, the money. Nothing was left for me.
But I didn’t complain. I had a roof over my head. I worked at the bar. I hustled. I earned just enough to survive.
And I still got to visit my granny.
That was enough.
Until now.
Now she was threatening to rip even that away.
“Please,” I whispered. “Don’t do this. I… I can’t lose her too.”
Patricia folded her arms. “Then do what you’re told for once. Unless you want to be the reason your granny dies, too.
You want to save her? Tell the police it was you driving the car. You’ll be out in a day or two. That’s what happens with these things.”
I didn’t believe her. Not fully. But I couldn’t gamble with my granny’s life.
So when the police knocked with a warrant, I just stood there… frozen.
They said a car belonging to Diana Stewart was involved in a hit and run. The girl who got hit was still in the hospital.
Patricia stepped forward, glaring at me like she was daring me to ruin everything.
“She’s my daughter,” she told the officers smoothly while pointing at me. “She was the one driving.”
I felt the words crash over me like cold water.
I turned to Diana, who was standing in the corner, pale and quiet. She wouldn’t even look at me. Just let out a shaky sigh like someone had just unclenched her noose—and handed it to me instead.
I didn’t say a word as they read me my rights.
Didn’t scream when they cuffed me.
Didn’t beg when they took me away.
I told myself I was doing the right thing. But every step away from home felt like a funeral march.
At the station, they took my blood. Said they were checking for alcohol. Then they locked me in a cell.
It was small and cold.
I’d never been inside one before.
I kept thinking Patricia would show up. That she’d bring a lawyer. That she’d keep her word and get me out.
But the hours dragged. The walls closed in. My stomach twisted with fear.
And no one came.
The night in the cell felt like it would never end.
I sat curled up on the cold bench, arms wrapped around my knees, trying not to break. But it was impossible not to. Every creak of the metal bars, every distant scream, every footstep in the corridor made my chest tighten with fear.
I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t. The lights never went off, and the air smelled of sweat, metal, and despair. I kept replaying Diana’s face in my head—the way she’d sighed in relief when the cops took me away. She didn’t even say thank you. Not even a whisper of guilt.
My back ached. My eyes burned. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I just wanted it to be over.
By morning, when a guard came to take me out of the cell, I thought maybe—maybe—Patricia had finally come. Maybe there was a lawyer, maybe I could go home.
But it wasn’t a lawyer.
It was the prosecutor.
He looked at me like I was a nuisance he had to deal with before lunch. “We got your blood test results,” he said. “You had alcohol in your system when you hit that girl.”
My throat closed.
“I didn’t….” I tried to speak, but he cut me off.
“You were drunk. That’s a crime. Driving under the influence, reckless endangerment, and the list goes on.
I froze.
Alcohol?
That damn drink Diana forced on me.
I never drank. I didn’t even like the taste. But I had taken a glass just to get my mother’s bracelet back. That one sip… that was all it took to make things worse.
Maybe I should’ve spoken up. Maybe I should’ve screamed Diana’s name at this point, but I didn’t.
“When… when do I go home?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
He scoffed. “Home? You should worry about your arraignment.”
Before I could ask what he meant, everything spiraled.
I was taken into a courtroom and made to stand in front of a judge I’d never seen before. Everything was moving too fast. My brain felt like it was on fire. I hadn’t slept. I hadn’t eaten. I hadn’t even processed what was happening.
“Do you plead guilty or not guilty?” the judge asked after I was made to take an oath.
I wanted to scream not guilty. I wanted to say Diana’s name. I wanted to tell the truth. But in the back of my mind, I heard Patricia’s voice again—“I’ll stop your grandmother’s treatment.”
And just like that, I admitted that I was guilty.
The judge asked for details of the accident. I had none. How could I give details about something I didn’t do?
Then the prosecutor spoke. He painted me like a spoiled little rich girl, entitled and reckless. A drunk teenager who thought she was above the law.
I barely recognized the person he was describing.
But the judge? She seemed convinced.
“You show no remorse,” she said, eyes cold. “Girls like you kill with your carelessness, then cry in designer dresses for sympathy. You think human life is disposable? I will make an example out of you.”
My heart dropped. “Wait—no—please. It was a mistake, I…..”
“Silence!” she snapped.
Then she started reading my charges. “Driving under the influence. Hit and run. Second-degree murder.”
Second-degree murder?
My knees buckled.
The girl… she had died?
The world started spinning around me. I felt like I was underwater, screaming, but no one could hear.
“I wasn’t the one driving,” I finally blurted out. “Please, I didn’t—It wasn’t me! It was my sister, she….”
“Enough!” The judge slammed her gavel down.
“Sentenced to life imprisonment,” she said. Just like that. Like she was talking about a parking ticket.
I didn’t even feel the guards grab me.
I screamed, kicked, thrashed at the air as they dragged me out of the courtroom. My voice cracked. My throat burned.
“I’m innocent! I didn’t do it! PLEASE!”
“Please…. I don’t even have a car!”
No one looked at me. No one listened.
The door slammed behind me.
And just like that… my life was over.
