Chapter 2

For two agonizing days, I was forced to watch Jonathan and Charlotte play house in that hospital room.

My initial, blinding rage slowly corroded into a hollow numbness.

I watched the high-and-mighty Jonathan, the man who claimed he didn't know how to do laundry, wash Charlotte's clothes by hand. I watched him carefully wipe her down with a warm towel.

The more I watched, the more I realized that for the last five years, I had been nothing but the punchline to a cruel joke.

On the third afternoon, the heavy door to the VIP suite was violently kicked open.

Sophie Hart stormed into the room with a thunderous face, her eyes blazing red.

She marched straight past the bed, grabbed Jonathan by the collar of his designer shirt, and slammed him against the wall. Her face twisted with fury.

"Emily died the most horrific death imaginable, and you're in here playing nurse with your little sweetheart?" she shrieked. "Get up! You're coming with me. Emily is waiting for you."

Sophie was my absolute best friend in the world.

She had never liked Jonathan. She always told me I deserved better, practically begging me to divorce him for years.

Sophie yanked his wrist, trying to drag him toward the door.

Jonathan's face turned glacial. He tried to rip his arm free but failed. Then he slapped Sophie hard across the face.

"Are you out of your damn mind?" he roared. "I don't give a shit if she's dead or alive. Tell her to stay the hell away from me. I was getting sick of her anyway. Now get out."

My pupils constricted as I balled my hands into tight fists, my head buzzing with a sickening static.

"What the fuck did you just say?" Sophie bellowed, veins bulging on her forehead. "Say it again. I dare you!"

Charlotte said, "Excuse me, this is a hospital. Who gave you the right to... Ah!"

Charlotte, attempting to play the noble peacemaker, had slipped out of bed with an icy stare. But before she could finish her sentence, a feral Sophie whirled around and kicked her squarely in the stomach, sending her crashing into the wall.

"I've been waiting to rip your hair out for years," Sophie snarled. "Emily is dead, and your hands are all over it."

Radiating pure violence, Sophie grabbed Charlotte by the hair and slammed her head against the drywall. Charlotte shrieked, completely defenseless against a woman running on raw grief.

She yelled, "You love playing the victim, huh? You love inserting yourself into other people's marriages, you fake, manipulative bitch! I'm going to make you pay for what you did to Emily-"

Sophie's scream was abruptly cut short. She staggered backward before collapsing to the floor. Dark blood began pooling from a gash on her forehead.

"Jonathan!" I yelled.

I stared in absolute horror. The rage boiling inside me threatened to incinerate my soul.

Jonathan tossed a heavy glass ashtray onto the floor, rushing over to pull a bruised and battered Charlotte into his arms.

"Charlotte, look at me. Are you okay?" he asked frantically.

"Jonathan, your wife is dead. Do you have no heart?" Sophie screamed from the floor, pressing a hand to her bleeding head, her eyes burning with rage. "The woman in your arms is a murderer."

I caught the split-second flash of terror and guilt in Charlotte's eyes.

Jonathan stood up, shooting Sophie a look of absolute venom.

"Don't think that just because Emily is your friend, I won't end you," he warned. "I am out of patience. Emily is the reason Charlotte's hand is mangled. She might never operate again because of Emily!

"If Emily has a shred of human decency left, you tell her to march her ass back here, get on her knees, apologize to Charlotte, and do her damn job as bait to lure the psycho.

"And if she wants to keep playing dead? Fine. Consider her dead to me. I'm cutting off every cent of her mother's medical funding today!

"That useless parasite isn't getting another dime from me!"

Blood continued to drip from Sophie's forehead. With bloodshot eyes fixed on Jonathan, her chest heaved with violent rage. She looked like a vengeful spirit crawled out of hell, desperate to skin him alive and tear him limb from limb.

She was my best friend. She knew exactly how much I worshipped Jonathan.

She knew I had thrown away my pride, my dignity, and my self-respect to keep him happy.

Neither of us ever imagined he was capable of being this downright demonic.

My ghostly hands went numb.

It turned out that for all this time, he saw me as a worthless gold-digger.

What a joke my life had been.

Sophie closed her eyes. Her entire body shook. It took a long moment before she could speak.

"Jonathan, please. I am begging you. Just come with me to the precinct," she pleaded. "Emily is really dead. She died in that alley. That psycho stabbed her twenty times. Twenty times, Jonathan! Do you understand what that means? Every single cut went straight to the bone. They even gutted her. They took her kidney..."

All of Sophie's pride shattered. She looked up at him with pleading eyes, her voice cracking into a gut-wrenching sob.

I had to look away. A bitter, suffocating guilt washed over me.

I didn't deserve a friend like her. I didn't deserve to have her abandon her dignity for my sake.

A flicker of genuine hesitation finally crossed Jonathan's face. But right on cue, Charlotte let out a pained whimper from his arms.

She said, "Ow!"

Jonathan's hesitation vanished instantly. He checked her arm, his face tight with worry. Charlotte offered him a wobbly smile.

Charlotte replied, "I'm fine."

When Jonathan looked back down at Sophie, his eyes were glacial. "If you two are going to keep up this sick prank, tell her to come back and sign the divorce papers."

He snapped his fingers, signaling the bodyguards stationed outside.

He demanded, "Beat her. Throw her out of the hospital. If she ever comes within fifty feet of this ward again, break her legs."

The bodyguards descended on Sophie.

Outnumbered and injured, she could only curl into a ball, shielding her head from their heavy boots. Like a dying animal, she roared at Jonathan.

"You're going to regret this, Jonathan. Emily is dead. If you want a divorce, you'll have to go to hell to get it. I'm going to live long enough to watch you drop to your knees and beg her ghost for forgiveness."

Watching the guards drag my bleeding best friend out of the room, I found a hysterical laugh bubbling up in my throat.

I was laughing at the fact that I spent five years pouring my heart into a monster.

I was totally stupid.