Chapter 2

Ronan used to say Blair was nothing more than a live-in housekeeper on his payroll.

Yet at lunch, she sat in my place beside him.

There were eight chairs around our dining table. Blair had chosen the one directly to Ronan's right, the seat I had always occupied before I lost my sight.

My chair had been moved to the far end of the table. A bowl of cold soup waited in front of it.

"Ivy can't see. If she sits on the side, she might knock over the wineglasses," Blair had explained.

At the time, Ronan praised her for being thoughtful.

Now I lowered my head and watched through the curtain of my hair as she moved asparagus from her plate to his and casually wiped a smear of sauce from the corner of his mouth.

Ronan did not pull away.

They looked like a couple who had shared a life for years. I looked like a patient temporarily placed at their table.

"I might be home late tonight," Ronan told me. "Blair's mother is in the hospital again. I'm driving her there."

Blair's eyes immediately filled with tears.

"I can go alone. Today is the day Ivy finishes her calendar. You promised you would stay with her."

Her words were considerate. Beneath the table, her foot pressed intimately against Ronan's calf.

Ronan closed one hand around her wrist.

"Your mother is more important. Ivy will understand."

For the past year, every time he chose Blair, I was the one expected to understand.

When Blair had a fever, he canceled my follow-up appointment.

On Blair's birthday, the afternoon he had promised to spend helping me practice going out alone became a party for her instead.

Even on the night I fell in the bathroom and needed four stitches in my forehead, he drove away first to pick up Blair because her ex-boyfriend was harassing her.

I once asked him through my tears why I was always the one he left behind.

He blamed it on anxiety caused by my blindness.

Eventually, I stopped asking.

The screen reader on my phone suddenly announced a new message.

"From Blair. One photo. Message reads: He says blue looks better on a woman who can still see him."

The dining room went silent.

The satisfaction on Blair's face lasted only a second before it turned to alarm.

"I'm sorry. I sent that to the wrong person. It was a joke for a friend."

I held out my phone toward Ronan.

"Look at what she sent me."

He did not take it.

"She already told you it was a mistake."

"Is that the necklace you gave me in the photo?"

"I only let her borrow it once." He lowered his voice. "Ivy, stop turning everything into a conspiracy against you."

"Then look at it."

I moved the phone another inch closer.

"If you still think it's a joke after you see it, I won't ask again."

Ronan's hand paused in the air. In the end, he reached for his car keys instead.

"I don't have time for this interrogation. Blair is worried about her mother, and you're fixating on one stupid sentence."

He stood and walked away.

Blair followed him. As she passed me, she deliberately stopped.

"Your soup is getting cold," she murmured. "Take your time."

When the front door closed, I removed the sunglasses I had kept on all day.

The soup remained untouched. My hands did not shake.

First, I saved the photo Blair had sent. Then I opened our security camera cloud account. After my accident, Ronan had installed cameras in every shared room because he said they would make me feel safer.

Only scattered clips remained from the past three months. Whenever Ronan claimed he was working late or traveling for business, footage from those hours had been deleted by an administrator.

Only two people had administrator access.

Ronan and Blair.

I recovered a thumbnail file from the night before that had not been fully erased.

In the video, Ronan stood in front of the living room windows with his arms around Blair from behind. She turned in his embrace and asked, "Once the doctors confirm she's permanently blind, are you really going to put her in a long-term care facility?"

Ronan was silent for several seconds.

Then he said, "If she stays here, she'll never learn how to live without me."

Blair smiled and kissed him.

"Then let her learn to be independent."

The video cut off there.

I looked down the hall. A wooden sign Blair had recently made hung on the door at the end. It read, "Ivy's Safe Room."

That room had once been our guest room.

Three months ago, Blair convinced Ronan to move me out of the master bedroom, claiming I might run into the furniture if I got up at night.

They had never been taking care of me.

They had been moving me out of my own home, one piece at a time.