Chapter 4

The old apartment building had no security cameras in the stairwell, but I had installed one myself.

The footage was crystal clear. Mila had grabbed me and dragged me down the stairs on purpose.

When I was ready to press charges, Dylan sat beside my hospital bed and said, "Sarah, this has nothing to do with her. It's all my fault."

He begged, "Let it go this one time, and we'll work things out between us. We'll rebuild what we had. Please?"

Watching him shield Mila again with my own eyes, something in my mind finally snapped.

I screamed at him until my voice broke. I demanded to know what he had done with the Dylan I used to know.

The Dylan from our teenage years would never have asked me to forgive someone who hurt me. He wouldn't allow it, even if that person was himself.

When his gambling addict parents showed up at the Stewarts' door, using him as leverage to squeeze money out of me, Dylan didn't even blink. He pressed a knife to his own throat.

They ran. And I broke down crying.

I sobbed, "Why would you do that? They just wanted money! I could've gone and begged them for it!"

He was the one bleeding, but he just smiled and wiped the tears off my face. He said, "Sarah, you won't even ask them to cover your own tuition. So how could I ever let you go beg them for anything? If you don't want to do something, nobody gets to force you."

He knew how awkward my place in the Stewart family was. He knew neither set of parents cared for me, and he knew the full history between Mila and me.

Right before the SATs, she "accidentally" shoved me down a flight of stairs. I shattered multiple bones and missed the exam entirely.

The hospital issued one critical condition notice after another, and the doctors told me the fall had damaged my spine. They said I might never walk again.

That year, Dylan showed up with a knife in his hand and murder in his eyes, ready to make Mila pay.

But he was one person against the entire Stewart family, and that was a fight he couldn't win.

When I signed the settlement papers, he knelt in front of me and swore he would never let anyone hurt me again.

But now, he was begging me to let Mila go.

I said, "What if I say no?"

He lifted his head and said, "Sarah, you will."

The security footage didn't just show Mila pushing me. It also showed me in lingerie, nearly naked.

I swung my hand and slapped him as hard as I could, but my voice came out shaking, raw with desperation. "Give me back the old Dylan. Please, just give him back to me!"

I screamed and sobbed and raged, but Dylan never said a word.

After I dropped the lawsuit, he moved back into our house as if nothing had ever happened.

He would wake up early to work out, then wash vegetables and cook breakfast before calling me out of bed. Whenever we disagreed at the office, he backed down without a fight.

He gave me everything I wanted, but the wound inside me only festered and spread.

I tormented Dylan like a woman possessed.

I made him write me a love letter every single day. I made him send me his live location every two hours. And every night, I made him stay wide awake and look me in the eyes the entire time we were together in bed.

But he disgusted me. His fake devotion disgusted me. I hated every time he touched me, and the moment it was over, I would scrub myself raw in the shower, desperate to wash away every trace he left behind.

Even our mutual friends couldn't stand it anymore. They would tease and nudge him at gatherings, saying things like, "What did you do to piss Sarah off this time, Dylan? Better get down on your knees and apologize before it gets worse."

One of them laughed and said, "I can't believe it. The perfect couple actually fighting? Come on, Sarah, give the guy a break. You treat Dylan like a dog on a leash. He's lucky he loves you so much, because any other man would've walked out the door by now."

I sat in the middle of the group and tipped back my glass. The liquor burned down my throat, but the aftertaste was nothing but bitterness.

None of them knew he had lost his memory. None of them knew he had fallen in love with someone else.

But I could see it clearly. Love couldn't be faked, and neither could the absence of it.

The moment I went after Mila, he finally snapped.

He threw himself in front of her without a second thought, and his eyes bore down on me with a cold warning. Dylan said, "Sarah, you've gone too far."

I stared back at him and laughed, a wild, reckless laugh. "What happened, Dylan? Done pretending you love me? You were always so good at pretending."

"Yes! I did it on purpose," I shouted. "Every single day, seeing the two of you together makes me sick! Why? Why did it have to be Mila? You knew that she—"

He cut me off before I could finish, his voice sharp with impatience. "Enough! Mila told me she just accidentally pushed you once. Are you really going to hold a grudge over something that happened so long ago?"

In that moment, I couldn't name what I felt.

It was the kind of pain that carved straight through the heart. But underneath it all, there was something else, something almost like relief.