The Accident That Changed Everything

Yelena was exhausted. Another contract for medical equipment supplies blurred before her eyes, turning numbers and clauses into a gray mass. She rubbed the bridge of her nose and leaned back in her chair, trying to regain focus.

Then the phone rang.
Her husband’s call came at the perfect moment — a brief escape from the tiring routine.

“Lena, hi. Look, I’m going to be late today. The meeting is running long.”

“Again?” she asked, flipping the page of the contract without thinking. “It’s already the third time this week.”

“What can I do? It’s work. Don’t make dinner; I’ll grab something on the way.”

“Alright,” Yelena replied, already used to Igor’s increasingly frequent “late work nights.” “See you at home.”

“Yes, sure. Bye.”

She was about to hang up when her hand suddenly froze over the screen.

A woman’s laugh echoed from the other end. A laugh she knew.

Yelena’s heart sank.

“Igor, you promised!” the voice said, now even clearer.

Anzhela.

Her former friend. The one she had cut ties with after a nasty incident involving money. They hadn’t spoken in two years.

What was she doing next to Igor?

Yelena stood motionless, listening to every breath, every sound.

“Be patient,” her husband murmured. “We have to be careful.”

“I’m tired of hiding! When are you going to make up your mind once and for all?”

Yelena felt her fingers go numb.
Make up his mind?
What were they talking about?

“It’s been two years already!” Anzhela complained. “She’s going to find out one way or another.”

“She will, but not now. I have a plan. Trust me.”

A plan.

Yelena’s throat dried up.

“Your Yelena is so naive…” Anzhela sneered. “She has no idea we did everything right under her nose.”

“Quiet,” Igor snapped. “She’s smarter than you think.”

“Igor, stop dragging this out! Finish the paperwork already and end this. I can’t keep pretending.”

Paperwork?
A cold chill ran down Yelena’s spine. Could it be… the divorce?

“Fine, fine. Next week I’ll meet with the lawyer. But you need to be more careful. If she suspects anything before the right time, everything could fall apart.”

“I promise,” Anzhela replied. “But I won’t wait forever!”

At that moment, the call dropped — or perhaps Yelena’s trembling hand pressed something without realizing.

She stared at the phone, hearing nothing but the pounding of her own heart.

For several seconds, she couldn’t breathe.

Betrayal. Planned. Organized.
Two years… exactly the time since her friendship with Anzhela had ended.

It was as if all the pieces finally clicked into place.

Yelena stood so abruptly the chair nearly fell over. She needed to get out, breathe, think — but as soon as she took two steps toward the office door, everything went black.

A weight on her chest. Sudden dizziness.

And — silence.

Half an Hour Later

When she opened her eyes, she was lying on the office floor. Her forehead throbbed, and her phone vibrated beside her with a missed call from Igor.

She ignored it instinctively.

As she tried to sit up, panic slowly gave way to a strange clarity.

The fall had been real. The fainting spell inevitable.
But in that moment, she realized something that made her breathe deeply:

That accident had saved her.

If she hadn’t dropped the phone, she would’ve kept listening.
And if she had kept listening, maybe she would’ve chased after Igor, confronted the betrayal, begged for explanations.

But now, lying there alone with the truth, she understood something simple:

There was nothing left to discuss.

Their plan was already set.
The divorce was already in motion.
They had been together for years.

And she… she could finally see the whole truth, without illusions, without false hopes.

The fall that hurt her had also awakened her.

She took a deep breath, wiped her tears, and stood up slowly.

From that moment on, she would no longer be the naive wife Igor thought he could control.

She would take charge.

For herself.

And for the first time in a long time, she felt something she had forgotten:

Freedom.