The Unravelling Truth

The Unravelling Truth

“She believed she could, so she did.” Ever since this life-affirming quote had fallen into her life, staring at her starkly in black and white, Ellie had become consumed by it. She was not one of life’s philosophers, but this had made her question everything; her linear thoughts were now spiralling in all directions. What was the meaning of this? Was the universe really talking to her? She couldn’t believe the poignancy of it, the divine timing of it…was this destiny? Were these seven words the words that would change the way she lived her life, forever?

She had given birth to this new concept of living in a Chinese restaurant; a unique place to bring life into the world admittedly, but as Ellie had recently learnt, life makes its own rules. It quite literally cracked open, bursting out of its hard shell and falling gracefully onto her plate, landing on a sea of black bean sauce. It was rescued by a slightly squiffy Ellie, who had been drowning herself in Baijiu for the last couple of hours. Her eyes blurry and her body drowsy, she held the half-sodden paper that was limp but alive and churned the words over and over in her mind until she was truly certain she had read them correctly. Her dormant nerves were awakened by a rush of energy; a life-force that had burst into being from the contents of this fortune cookie, which now lay broken but satisfied, having truly achieved its life-purpose: albeit short lived. The fortune cookie was almost rejected as at first it was received with a bowl of disdain and resistance from Ellie, whose most recent months had been nothing but a dish of cold, hard, disorientating pain.

Three months prior to that fateful ‘fortune’ night in Mr Li’s restaurant, her world had crashed around her one solitary brick at a time. She watched helplessly from the centre, consumed by the increasing rubble and dust that seemed to mutate tenfold. Her life as she knew it had been cremated without her say so, yet she was buried alive in the midst of its untimely death and was fighting for air. Fighting to breathe anything other than the violated fragments of her ghostly past, that drifted around her like burnt embers; teasing her with memories she would rather forget, because trying to cling on to them was far too painful.

She’d always been in control of her life. Always. From the moment she was born it was on her terms, and she navigated life like a conductor of a 1000-piece orchestra: seamlessly with centred grace and timeless beauty. She had decided to enter this world (much like the fated cookie) flying out with ease 3 weeks earlier than planned because she was ready. It was her time and Ellie was in control of every moment of her life and being in the womb didn’t prevent her from asserting this God-given power. After 8 months and 1 week of laying in a hammock in her mother’s womb, she decided on the 13th September 1985 it was her time to arrive. She came flying into the world with an insurmountable amount of zest and enthusiasm; immediately mustering excitement and joy into her families’ lives. And life had been like that for Ellie ever since: it was joyful and easy. Everything she wanted fell seamlessly into place. What she thought manifested into reality with wizardly precision. She had it all; the body, the doting husband, the career, the beautiful baby, the golden retriever (whose hair only ever seemed to malt when Ellie was ready to hoover) and the detached house complete with stunning garden. Life was straight forward. Pleasing. Compliant. Uncomplicated. Safe. One might describe it as a breeze and a gentle one at that.

But breezes, no matter how graceful they can be, can turn into gales, and gales can turn into world-shattering hurricanes. And that was what happened to Ellie.

She hadn’t noticed anything unusual or felt any differently. Her marriage to James had always been good- a steady, safe, predictable one, because this was Ellie’s life and that was always composed, controlled and in perfect order. It ran like clockwork. But on the 16th February 2025, the hands stopped turning; the comforting, familiar ticking-sound that was her life’s pulse stopped. Dead.

When he hadn’t come home at his normal time of 5.45pm, she’d initially thought nothing of it, assuming it was just rush-hour traffic, but an hour went by and the door remained shut. No sound of footsteps, no briefcase by the stairs, no gentle kiss on her soft, silky cheek.

She’d rang his mobile and it wasn’t ringing, it was never switched off and it now seemed to be registering as an invalid number. Ellie tried a few times with no answer. After three hours, she’d called all the local hospitals, and she’d rung a couple of his work friends and no one had any information about his whereabouts. There was no sight or sound of him. After a long, sleepless night of listening for the sound of the door and staring hopefully at her phone for any signs of life, she called the police. The officers came round and took some information, explaining there was nothing they could do just yet. So, she waited. And waited. After a week went by, an investigation into his disappearance was underway and Ellie lived in a permanent cloud of disorientation, not really knowing what was real and what wasn’t. Her life wasn’t her own anymore and she barely recognised herself in the mirror. Her immaculate hair lay dishevelled in a nest on the top of her head, her skin no longer glowed with its usual rose-tinted sheen, and her fridge (normally brimming with organic fresh green produce) housed only a couple of solitary beige items. And she’d started drinking, which she usually only ever did on special occasions, but this week alone she’d gone through three bottles of wine. The structure of her life had collapsed entirely and one by one, the bricks were beginning to fall.

She’d never really known James’ family, he had always said they were estranged; his brother lived in New Zealand, his mother had passed away when he was 9 years old and his dad lived down south with his new wife of 10 years- they weren’t a close family so Ellie never really had any contact with them. His friends were all work colleagues whom she had met a couple of times at work events, and there were a lot of friends he played sports with who she had never met. Two nights a week he would be out till late enjoying games of squash or tennis. His work would take him away for weeks at a time and Ellie had always been accepting of this- in fact she enjoyed it, it made their connection stronger, their sex life more passionate and gave them something to look forward to after weeks apart. She didn’t ever question his travel; he would tell her where he was going and he would always call and text her religiously. She let him have his life- that was the healthy thing to do. That was one of the reasons they were so strong together. She was proud of their marriage; they had their separate lives and independence. She would have hated to be one of those couples that went to the gym together and were joined at the hip 24/7-urgh, she shuddered at the thought.

The following weeks quickly morphed into months, Ellie had thought of every scenario: death, drowning, abduction, kidnapping, brain injury causing severe amnesia, she’d even considered suicide. But where her brain hadn’t taken her was the harsh reality, one she would have never seen coming. Not in a million years.

Two months after her world was turned upside down, 8 weeks after the death of her former self, and 1,344 hours since her clocks stopped, there was a knock at the door. Ellie moved spectre-like across her living room, in the ghostly shadow of her former self, and without presence of mind or body- as if sleepwalking-she opened the door in a trance-like state. A blonde lady, pretty with a sweet, innocent face, stood on her doorstep and looked up at Ellie with an expression that was almost impossible to describe. It was a mixture of both shame, shock, intimidation and intrigue. Ellie half smiled and asked her how she could help. “My names Lilly and I know where your husband is.”

Those ten words were the only words Ellie remembers because everything after that was a blur. The two strangers had sat for several hours in the living room together. They had cried, hugged, sat in silence, shouted, tenderly touched hands as though they were long-lost friends. In that room Ellie’s life had unravelled. The string that was so neatly wrapped, lay tangled in a web of deceit, a web of lies, a web of cold, hard truths. The pain was suffocating. The disorientation was disabling. The first real taste of truth and reality was a dramatic awakening for Ellie, much like the freefall from a skydive, but one she hadn’t chosen; she was pushed out of this plane at 16,000 feet and the freefall never ended. There was no parachute to uplift her. No parachute to help her fly with an eagles-strength. No wings to carry her. She was alone hurtling through the air, unable to speak, unable to breathe, but to her surprise- she was for the first time in her life truly alive.

Lilly had entered her house clutching a photo from a newspaper report about James asking if anyone knew anything to come forward to the police. And in the other hand she had her phone with a screensaver of James’ face kissing Lilly’s and cradling their son of 4 years, Archie.

He wasn’t called James to Lilly; he was called Rob. Funny, as that was James’ middle name but Ellie didn’t even know if that was true now. At first, she’d thought it was a joke: a fake photo corrupted by AI and some sick twisted entertainment for this crazy lady who had sought her out and slipped into her world. But as they spoke it became clear it was James. It was her husband. And once the truth-gates opened the devastation wreaked havoc, flooding their lives with turmoil. It turned out he had taken £250,000 from Lilly and God knows where he was no., Perhaps he had another family somewhere else in the world, he was probably living under another guise with them. Another family where he played squash two times a week and went on work trips for weeks at a time. Ellie no longer had blood running through her veins, just a cold, lifeless liquid that lay stagnant and numb on one side and lava on the other: red flames of hot liquid ready to erupt from her at any time.

The month that followed wasn’t like anything Ellie had ever experienced before. She had lived through emotions so raw, so painful, so real, so indescribable, so exhilarating. Her life that had always been a merry go round, was now a terrifying roller coaster that was stuck in mid-air: always on the precipice. The pulse that gave her structure, familiarity, steadiness, safety; it now raced, it vibrated, it felt. It lived.

So, when she’d gone out for yet another meal (a habit that had evolved from the recent chaos) and drowned her sorrows that fateful night at Mr Li’s, the fortune cookie opened a door to a new beginning. For someone who had never had to try, never had to change or evolve, or believe in anything; this quote questioned all she knew to be true. For believing meant faith, hope, achieving or grasping something that was unreachable and this had never been something Ellie had ever needed to consider before, because everything always landed at her feet expectantly. For someone who had everything handed on a silver plate to her, she now had the only thing that mattered on the broken China plate in front of her. Sinking in the black bean sauce, this positive affirmation was more real than anything ever had been, it was more worthwhile than any silver platter- a soggy black sea of mess, because this- this was real life. And amongst that real mess was the first bit of hope Ellie had felt in months. It was the last taste of her old life and the first bite of her new: “She believed she could, so she did.”