The Bride Who Jumped Instead

The day my biological parents brought me back to their gated estate, their adopted daughter was diagnosed with clinical depression. When they tried to change my legal last name back to theirs, she screamed and slit her wrists. When my older brother bought me a welcome-home gift, she climbed the terrace railing, threatening to jump. Even my engagement to Damian wasn’t spared—the night we set our date, she swallowed an entire bottle of sleeping pills. Over time, my parents’ initial guilt turned into quiet resentment. They stopped looking at me with pity and began regretting ever tracking me down. And Damian—the man who once swore he would choose me above anyone else—shifted from holding my hand to shoving me back with a cold, exasperated glare: "Could you stop triggering her? Just once?" To keep her docile, he went so far as to drag me through the courthouse eight separate times. Eight marriages, eight divorces, filing official certificates like they were tokens in a game of Candy Crush, all to indulge her twisted hobby of collecting the stamped decrees. No matter how I pleaded, no matter how many times I told them I was drowning, nobody believed me. Then, at the absolute bottom of that hopeless pit, the mechanical chime I hadn’t heard in years finally rang in my head. [Host, romance and redemption objectives have dropped below 60%. Mission failed. Would you like to extract?] [Please select your method of departure.] I looked across the room at the four people whose approval I had spent years desperately trying to earn, and I smiled faintly. "Give me depression," I whispered inside my mind. "Let me show them how it actually looks." 1 [Mission failed due to drop below threshold,] the system hummed cheerfully in my ear. [However, because your previous affinity levels peaked at 94.8%, you have accumulated massive surplus points. You may redeem them for physical restoration and over two billion dollars in liquid assets. Congratulations on returning to your original body in the real world.] [Host, you may choose any manner of death to initiate the severance sequence~] A long-tightened wire snapped cleanly in my chest. For the first time in years, the crushing weight vanished, and I let out a soft, genuine laugh. In the living room, Damian was lounging on the sectional with Kayla. She was pressed so tightly against his side that their thighs were fused, watching her phone screen as he tapped through colored gems. Hearing my footsteps, Kayla looked up, her wide, innocent eyes masking a razor-sharp cruelty. "Claire," she purred, tilting her head like a curious child. "After you and Damian get married this time, can you guys get divorced again real quick? I really, really want ten certificates. It completes the set, you know?" I met her gaze and smiled. "You didn’t manage to die last time. Why don't you try dying again today? Just to complete the set?" The room dropped into a suffocating, dead silence. Kayla’s face contorted. Suddenly, she unleashed a piercing shriek, tearing fistfuls of hair from her scalp and hurling the porcelain teacup off the end table. It struck my collarbone and shattered across the hardwood floor. Sobbing hysterically, she dropped to her knees, grabbed a jagged shard of glazed ceramic, and pressed it against her wrist. Damian sprang forward like a man possessed. He threw his arms around her, wrenched the shard from her fingers, and cast it across the room. Turning to me, his veins bulged against his neck. "Are you trying to drive your sister to suicide?" he bellowed. "Is that what it takes to satisfy you?" "Sister?" A girl who shared not a drop of my blood? "I told you, she’s just coping! It’s a game!" Damian’s voice cracked with fury. "I already agreed to marry you a ninth time, Claire. What more do you want from her?" He pulled Kayla against his chest, stroking her back as if she were made of spun glass. "Shh, Kayla, look at me. I’m here. She won't hurt you. I won't let her." Her skin, exposed against her ruffled sleeve, was utterly pristine. Not a single scratch. Not a drop of blood. I dug my nails into my palms, stepping closer to them. Damian immediately flinched, angling his broad shoulders to block her completely. "She’s on the verge of a breakdown because of you. Can’t you just let her breathe?" A dry, bitter laugh bubbled up in my throat. I had walked through this exact scenario dozens of times, yet my ribs still ached with the memory of phantom love. "Kayla," I asked, my voice calm, almost conversational. "Do you actually want to die?" Damian gritted his teeth. "Claire, shut your mouth!" All those years ago, I entered this world on a mission. But along the way, I had allowed myself to feel the warmth of family, the dizzying sweetness of falling in love. I had believed them when they said they wanted me back. And then Kayla claimed her illness. My parents and my brother began to look at me like an intruder whose mere breath threatened their fragile doll. Damian, once my fiercest protector, began treating my dignity like scrap paper, shredding it again and again to coax a smile out of her. Whenever old acquaintances ran into me at parties or grocery stores, the pity in their eyes was unbearable: "Did you two divorce again? When’s the next wedding?" They had taken my heart and ground it under their boots. Fortunately, the nightmare was finally nearing its credits. I ignored Damian’s venomous glare and bent down, calmly picking up the sharp shard of ceramic he had discarded. I looked directly at Kayla. "Let me show you what it actually looks like when someone wants to end their life." I pressed the edge hard against the radial artery of my left wrist and dragged it down. Deep. Clean. Relentless. Crimson exploded, spattering across the polished marble and onto Damian’s white designer sneakers. The disgust on his face froze, shattering instantly into sheer, primal terror. "Claire! What the hell are you doing?!" I didn’t blink. I set the edge deeper, pulling it further along the vein. The agony roared in, hot and electric, but behind the pain was an intoxicating, boundless rush of freedom. In a frantic lurch, Damian threw himself at me, knocking the ceramic away. He tore a hand towel from the bar cart and crushed it against my wrist, his hands shaking so violently he could barely hold the pressure. Blood soaked through the cotton within seconds. Lightheadedness washed over me like a heavy velvet curtain, and my knees gave out. I collapsed into his chest. Looking up into his blood-drained, horrified face, I used my remaining strength to push weakly against his chest, laughing softly. "Kayla," I murmured toward the couch. "Did you take notes? That’s how it’s done." Kayla was frozen. Her hands had dropped from her head, her face pale, staring at me as if I were a demon clawed straight out of hell. I see. She still hadn't learned. Gathering every ounce of adrenaline left in my failing body, I shoved Damian off me with a sudden surge and bolted through the front doors. A trail of dark red marked every step I took across the flagstone patio and down the gravel driveway. I reached the curb just as an SUV swung around the bend of our private lane, its headlights blinding in the twilight. Without a second thought, I stepped directly into its path. The screech of rubber on asphalt tore through the quiet evening. Before the bumper could shatter my bones, a pair of arms violently wrapped around my waist, tackling me sideways. We slammed into the asphalt, rolling twice into the ditch. Damian’s arms locked around my skull, shielding my head from the concrete as gravel tore into his palms and forearms. "Are you out of your goddamn mind?!" he screamed, his eyes completely bloodshot. He hovered over me, checking my ribs, my neck, his voice trembling so hard it cracked. Finding no broken bones, he frantically ripped off his linen shirt, wrapping the fabric around my shredded wrist until his knuckles turned white. I lay there in the dust, staring up through the canopy of oak trees at the dull gray sky. "No wonder Kayla never pulls it off," I whispered, entirely indifferent. "Dying is actually… really exhausting." "Stop talking!" he choked out, scooping me into his arms with desperate, stumbling strides. "Stop talking, I’m getting you to the ER, just hold on!" For the first time in five years, he didn’t spare a single backward glance at Kayla, who was clutching her chest on the porch, forgotten. 2 I lay in the sterile white hospital bed, methodically tearing the IV catheter out of the back of my hand every time the nurse left the room. Blood dripped onto the bedsheets. Damian was on the brink of an absolute collapse. He lunged across the mattress, grabbing both my wrists in a desperate grip. "Claire, please! Stop this! What do you want from me? Tell me what you want!" I tilted my head, studying him with detached amusement. "Doesn't Kayla cry about wanting to die every single day? I’m just giving her a demonstration. She’s so bad at it." The hospital door slammed open with a violent crash. My mother stormed into the room, her designer handbag swinging, and struck me across the face before anyone could move. The slap echoed sharply off the tile. "What is wrong with you?!" she shrieked, her chest heaving with fury. "Do you know Kayla collapsed into a coma because of your little stunt? Do you know what you did to her?" A trickle of warmth ran down the corner of my split lip. I turned my head back slowly, meeting her trembling eyes. "Did she die?" I asked softly. My mother recoiled, her pupils dilating as if looking at a stranger—or a monster. The shock twisted instantly into blind rage, and she lunged forward, her manicured fingers wrapping tightly around my throat. "You malicious, wicked girl! If I had known what a poisonous creature you were, I would have left you in that gutter! I should never have signed those custody papers!" The air was squeezed from my windpipe. The gray spots danced across my vision. I smiled against her thumbs. "Yes. Do it. Choke the life out of me." "Stop! Let her go!" Damian yelled, physically hauling my mother backward by her waist. "She just tried to kill herself! Can’t you see the bandages?" My mother stumbled back against the footboard, finally taking in my bloodied gown, the crimson soaked through the linen around my wrist, the hollow, vacant look in my eyes. Then she sneered, her lip curling with defensive disgust. "What, the quiet treatment didn't work, so now you’re using cheap melodramatics? You think slicing your skin will make us love you more?" A soft, hollow breath escaped me. It really was funny. When they first found me living in a subsidized studio on the wrong side of town, this same woman had wept until her silk blouse was drenched, wrapping me in cashmere, swearing before God that she would spend the rest of her life making up for the twenty years I had lost. And now, watching the blood pool beneath my bandages, she saw only an actress demanding attention. "Drop the act, Claire," she snapped, smoothing her jacket with shaking hands. "If you’re not dead, get out of that bed and come apologize to your sister. She’s in this state because of you. You knew damn well she loved Damian first—" She cut herself off abruptly, swallowing hard. Right. Because Kayla fancied him, I was supposed to endure eight public humiliations, smiling through eight fake marriages and eight dirty divorces, just to massage her delicate ego. In my original life, I was a tired orphan who worked eighty-hour weeks until my heart simply gave up behind a desk. The system gave me a second chance, dropping me into this world, promising me a family if I could win their hearts. When I first stepped into their home, I didn't hold a grudge against the girl who had lived the life meant for me. I baked for her. I covered for her. I wanted so badly to be her sister. Everything had been going well. The affinity meters climbed steadily. Until Kayla realized she wasn't the center of the universe anymore. Every time my brother brought me a pastry, she would lock herself in the bathroom with a razor. Every time my father praised my college transcripts, she’d crawl onto the roof. Terrified that she might actually slip, they began withholding their love from me. Then they began walking on eggshells. Finally, they came to hate me for existing, because my mere presence threatened their peace. When they threw me out the first time, Damian found me sitting on a curb in the rain. He took me in. He shielded me. When Kayla pulled her first crying fit in front of him, he looked her dead in the eye and called it a cheap show. I thought he was my anchor. I poured all my remaining hopes into loving him. And then, gradually, his words morphed. "Claire, I trust you" decayed into "Claire, why are you so cruel?" I watched the progress bars plummet. I had screamed. I had begged on my knees. I had cried until my capillaries burst. And they had looked down at me from their moral pedestals and murmured: "Stop making a scene. You look like a lunatic." I looked at Damian now, my grin widening. "Did you hear that? Mom thinks I’m faking it." Before either of them could react, I ripped the sheets aside and sprinted for the large third-floor sash window. My mother gasped. Damian’s eyes widened in sheer panic. I swung one leg over the sill, then the other, balancing precariously on the narrow stone ledge. The biting autumn wind caught the thin fabric of my hospital gown, snapping it against my bruised limbs. There was no fear. Only an intoxicating, crystalline silence. "Claire, no!" Damian lunged, his fingers grazing the cuff of my sleeve. I leaned back, letting gravity take the wheel. I didn't hit the pavement. My body came down with a bone-jarring crash onto the roof of an imported sedan parked directly beneath the wing. The windshield shattered into a web of white cracks; the metal groaned under the impact. Up in the room, my mother’s voice erupted into a sound that barely sounded human—a raw, tearing shriek. Footsteps pounded down the emergency stairwell like thunder. "Claire! Claire, look at me!" Damian was on his knees in the broken glass, his hands hovering over my shoulders, too terrified to move my spine. "Can you hear me? Are you broken? Have you lost your mind?! That was the third floor!" My mother hit the pavement a second later, stumbling, her face completely gray. "I didn't… I didn't mean it, baby, I didn't mean that…" I lay sprawled on the dented metal, staring up at the slate-colored sky, my pulse barely fluttering. I didn't say a word. My mother was genuinely terrified now. Afraid I’d throw myself off a higher roof, they discharged me under strict family surveillance and dragged me back to the manor. I stepped through the front door behind them. In the great room, Kayla was lounging languidly across the plush velvet sofa. My father was crouched beside her, coaxing her to take a bite of an artisan French pastry. My brother, Brett, was perched on the coffee table, acting out animated jokes just to coax a giggle from her pale lips. A picture-perfect scene of a beloved princess. The moment they looked up and saw me, the warmth evaporated from the room. My father scowled, setting the porcelain plate down with a heavy clatter. "Damian, I trusted you to look after Kayla. Is this your idea of care? She was found unconscious on the living room rug!" Kayla reached out with a trembling hand, clutching my father’s sleeve. "Daddy, don't yell at Damian. It’s my fault. Claire told me I should try dying again, and I… my heart just couldn't take it. I’m just too weak…" She bit her lower lip, tossing me a frightened, doe-eyed glance. I caught her gaze. Underneath the feigned terror, her eyes were practically dancing with venomous triumph. 3 A second later, Kayla gasped, sitting up abruptly. Her gaze landed on Damian’s heavily bandaged forearms—scratched raw from tackling me off the road. "Damian! What happened to your arms? Did… did Claire hurt you?" She glared at me with sudden, vicious fury, stepping toward me with her hand raised as if to strike. Then, right on cue, she faltered, clutching her chest, breathing in rapid, theatrical gasps. She timed her collapse perfectly, letting her limp body tilt toward Damian’s chest. Before Damian could reach for her, I lunged forward, caught her wrist in a vice-like grip, and—before she could even register the movement—swung my hand and slapped her across the face with everything I had left. The crack resonated through the vaulted ceiling. Kayla hit the floor with a strangled screech, clutching her red, burning cheek, staring up at me in utter disbelief. I looked down at her from above, my tone icy and dead. "Still putting on a show, you shameless little leech?" "Crack." A violent backhand sent me crashing to the floorboards. Blood filled my mouth instantly. My father stood over me, his face purple with rage. "Have you completely lost your mind?!" "Kayla was the one promised to Damian from the start!" he bellowed. "You came in here, shameless and entitled, and stole her life! If anyone in this house is an interloper, it’s you!" My brother Brett grabbed me roughly by the arm, hoisting me to my feet so violently my bandaged wrist tore open, soaking red through the gauze. "You spiteful, venomous bitch," Brett hissed into my face. "You really think Damian actually wanted to marry you? He did it to keep the peace for Kayla! Apologize to her. Now!" My wrist burned as fresh blood dripped onto the floorboards. I looked around the circle. My brother’s face twisted in disgust. My mother looking away in profound disappointment. My father wishing I had died at birth. And Damian, his brow furrowed, looking miserable and conflicted, but keeping his mouth firmly shut. It was just like the first night Kayla had an episode. They had smashed my birthday cake onto the kitchen tile. Brett had forced me onto my knees to beg her forgiveness for existing. To keep her from hyperventilating, they had locked me out on the stone terrace in the dead of December without a coat. Damian had patted my shoulder through the French doors and whispered: "Just be good, Claire. When she calms down, I’ll let you back in." I had been wearing a paper party hat, looking like an absolute clown. Back then, I had sobbed, pounded on the glass, and begged them to love me. They had simply stood on the other side of the glass with warm mugs of tea, watching me shiver with cold detachment. Their eyes looked exactly the same today. A hollow, echoing laugh broke from my throat. I shoved Brett back with unexpected strength, snatched the metal dessert fork off the side table, and drove it violently into my own chest. Damian lunged forward on instinct, but Kayla threw her arms around his waist, screaming hysterically. "Claire, stop!" Damian roared. "You wanted an apology, didn't you?" I laughed, yanked the bloody tines out of my flesh, and slammed them back in. Blood sprayed across the cream-colored wallpaper. My mother shrieked and crumpled to the floor in a dead faint. My father froze, paralyzed, the blood draining completely from his face. Numb, feral, and laughing like a madwoman, I plunged the metal into my flesh again, and again, tearing through fabric and skin. "Is this enough?" I gasped between breaths of iron. "Or should I go to the kitchen and hack my own head off for her?" Seeing me stumble toward the knife block, Damian threw Kayla violently aside and lunged across the rug, wrapping his arms around me, pinning my bloody hands. "Call an ambulance! Somebody call 911!" he screamed, his voice breaking into sobs. Brett’s hands shook so badly he dropped his phone twice before dialing. Every single face in that room was carved with pure, unadulterated horror. A heavy, dark wave washed over me. My vision blurred, and my head fell limp against Damian’s shoulder. "Finally." I could finally go home. The system shielded my consciousness from the worst of the pain. When I opened my eyes, expecting the pearly gates or the sterile void, my fingers instinctively reached out for the warm, furry weight of Barnaby, my orange tabby who always slept on my pillow. Instead, my fingers brushed against warm, trembling skin. Damian sat bolted upright the second he felt me stir. "Claire? You’re awake. How do you feel?" I looked at his bloodshot, sunken eyes, at the stubble lining his jaw, and closed my eyes with a tired, silent groan. "Why am I still alive? I’m so damn tired." My parents and Brett hurried into the private room, having been notified by the nurse. My mother wept quietly against my father’s shoulder; my father looked aged by ten years. Brett’s voice was cracked and raspy. "Where did you learn to do something so sick?" I moved my cracked, dry lips into a smirk. "I learned it from Kayla, obviously. Doesn't she hold a knife to her throat every time she doesn't get her way?" "Turns out it works wonders. Look at you all. You’re practically crowding my bed." Brett’s face flinched, but he choked down his temper, his fists trembling at his sides. "Kayla has a diagnosed mental illness. You can’t just… imitate that." I let out a cold snort, turned my head toward the window, and shut my eyes. I didn't want to breathe the same air as them. Damian quietly escorted them out into the hallway. When the room fell silent again, he walked back to my bedside, sank into the plastic chair, and took my cold hand between his. "Claire," he murmured, his voice thick with unshed tears. "Let’s get married. A real wedding. Okay?" I opened one eye, mocking him. "Trying to hit double digits on our divorce records?" "No," he pleaded, holding my knuckles against his cheek. "I mean a real wedding. The massive one you always wanted, with the cathedral veil and the white roses. The one I never gave you." "As soon as you’re discharged, we’ll buy that custom gown you spent months staring at. Okay?" My fingers twitched slightly, but I didn't pull away. "What if Kayla has another episode?" I asked flatly. "We’ll hire round-the-clock medical staff," Damian said without hesitation. "The doctors will handle her." I stared at him for a long, quiet moment, and finally gave a barely perceptible nod. While Damian stepped out to consult the attending surgeon, the system’s synthesized chime echoed in my mind: [Host, Damian’s affection meter has reached 99%. Do you still wish to extract?] I stared at the peeling paint on the ceiling, the corner of my mouth curving into a bitter sneer. "Isn't there still one percent missing?" 4 After my discharge, Damian kept his word. He threw himself entirely into wedding preparations. We booked the grandest botanical ballroom in the city. We went to the private bridal atelier to pick up the hand-embroidered gown I had once sketched in my notebook. My parents and Brett attended every tasting, every fitting. Kayla was noticeably absent. I stood before the three-way mirror as the seamstress pinned the hem. My mother stepped behind me, gently smoothing down the delicate lace of my train, her eyes rimmed with red. "This is the first time I’ve seen you in a real gown," she whispered, her voice hitching. "My little girl is so beautiful." My father cleared his throat, visibly moved, while Brett walked over and clapped Damian on the shoulder, murmuring words about protecting me. For a fleeting second, it felt like an actual family. Then my father’s phone chimed. He pulled it from his breast pocket, glanced at the family group chat, and his face instantly lost all color. "Oh God," he breathed. "Kayla… Kayla just slashed her wrists." My mother’s hands jerked violently, dropping the cathedral veil onto the carpet. "Hurry! We have to go back right now!" Damian instinctively took two frantic strides toward the door before his brain caught up with his feet. He stopped dead, his posture stiffening, his face a storm of guilt and frustration. "You go," Damian told them, his jaw clenched. "I can't leave Claire alone." Brett gave me a conflicted, lingering look, said nothing, and rushed out the double doors, half-carrying our frantic mother. I raised an eyebrow at Damian through the mirror. "You can go, you know. Don't let me hold you back." Damian stepped behind me, wrapping his arms securely around my waist, resting his chin on my bare shoulder. "I told you. She has doctors." The day of the ceremony arrived with breathless speed. Because of the rushed timeline, only close family and a few intimate friends were invited to the private chapel. The organ music swelled. Clad in heavy silk and pearls, I walked down the aisle on my father’s arm, stepping forward until he placed my hand into Damian’s. Everything seemed poised to conclude. Damian lifted the platinum band, his eyes shining with something that looked remarkably like devotion. Then the heavy oak doors of the chapel burst open. Kayla stood in the entryway, clad in a tattered, blood-stained wedding gown of her own, a hunting dagger pressed directly against the center of her sternum. Tears streamed down her porcelain cheeks, beautiful, fragile, and utterly ruined. Fresh crimson seeped from the tip of the blade, blooming like a dark peony against the ivory silk of her bodice. "Damian!" she screamed, her voice cracking into a ragged sob. "Don't marry her! Please, look at me!" "I was the one who grew up with you! You were supposed to belong to me! You love me, don't you? Tell me you love me!" My mother gasped, clutching her heart. "Kayla! Oh sweet Jesus, put the knife down! Step away from the blade!" Brett lunged forward to disarm her, but Kayla took a frantic step backward toward the stone steps, screaming like a wounded animal. "Don't come near me! I’ll shove it all the way in! I want to marry Damian!" Blood dripped steadily onto the sanctuary floor. My mother collapsed to her knees in the aisle, turning toward the altar, sobbing toward me. "Claire! I’m begging you! Just let her have this ceremony! Just step aside this once!" My father pleaded, his voice breaking. "Claire, please! Your sister has a severe psychiatric condition! She can’t survive this shock!" Even Brett turned his desperate eyes toward me. "Claire, you used to care about her. Show some mercy! Just let her have him for today!" I stood on the dais, motionless, my veil slightly tilted. I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I simply looked at Damian. "What about you?" I asked, my voice cutting cleanly through the hysterical weeping. "Do you want to marry her?" Damian’s brow knotted in agonizing torment. His pupils shook. At that exact moment, my mother let out a blood-curdling wail: "Kayla! Don't do it! Damian, she’s fainting!" That broke him. Damian dropped my hand. The platinum ring slipped from his fingers, bouncing across the marble steps with a crisp, hollow ping. He didn't look at me as he bolted down the chancel steps. "Claire… next time," he threw over his shoulder, his voice breathless and frantic. "I swear to God, next time I will give you a real wedding!" There was no heartbreak left in me. No sorrow, no anger. Just a vast, hollow emptiness as I watched the four of them swarm around Kayla, shielding her, crying over her, lifting her like a fallen saint. It was always going to end like this. Some scripts were written in stone. I cast one last, indifferent glance over the altar, lifted the heavy hem of my silk skirt, and walked calmly out the side vestry door. Down in the chapel, the chaos was quickly repurposed. To keep Kayla from driving the blade into her heart, Damian allowed the minister to start the vows over, holding her bloodied, trembling hand. As he stood at the altar beside her, about to slip a ring onto her finger, Damian’s eyes involuntarily scanned the pews, searching for my white gown. He couldn't find me. A sudden, irrational panic flared behind his ribs. "Chime." The enormous projection screens mounted behind the altar flickered violently, cutting through the church’s dim candlelight. My face filled the displays. The wind was howling, whipping my dark hair across my cheeks. I was standing on the narrow edge of the cathedral’s rooftop bell tower. With a casual flick of my wrist, I unpinned my veil and let the white lace surrender to the gale, watching it dance away into the gray sky. "Hey, everyone," I said softly into the phone camera. Damian’s knees buckled. He recognized the stone masonry instantly. "Claire! What are you doing up there?!" My parents froze, their faces sagging into pure exhaustion. "Claire," my father groaned, rubbing his temples. "Can you please stop making a scene? We are so, so tired of this." Brett scowled, his fists clenching. "You walked away from the altar on your own! What are you throwing a tantrum for now?" I looked into the lens and smiled, though a solitary tear slipped silently down my cheek, catching the cold wind. "Kayla," I whispered. "You won." "Mom, Dad, Brett… I’m leaving them all to you. And Damian? You can keep him. I don't want any of it anymore." "Goodbye." Finally. My ticket was validated. I hit send, broadcasting thirty-four pre-scheduled video files directly into the family group chat, tossed my phone into the void, and stepped forward into the empty air.