Chapter 1
Jeffrey Carter placed the divorce papers on the table. Then he suddenly smiled, "Actually, I'm not your husband."
Before I could process it, he pulled out a stack of photos from the drawer and spread them out one by one.
He said, "Your husband is in Nexus right now. He's the father of two kids."
Three years of my real love was ripped right out of my chest.
My throat tightened. "Then who are you?"
"Jeffrey's stand-in." He lit a cigarette and looked at the tears welling in my eyes with narrowed eyes and an unreadable half-smile.
He went on, "He said that after you two got remarried, you got needy and high-maintenance, like a surveillance camera. He got tired of it, fed up.
"So he had me get surgery to look like him. Drag you along. Leave you cold. Wait until you couldn't take it anymore and left on your own. Then he'd just sign the papers."
His eyes landed on my wedding ring. He paused. "But I got tired of it after only three months. I'm coming clean. Just go ahead and get the divorce."
I couldn't believe it. I flew to Nexus that same night.
On a foreign street where I didn't speak the language, I suddenly heard someone behind me saying in a whining voice in my own language.
She said, "Honey, I'm so painfully full again. It hurts."
I whipped my head around.
It was Lisa Evans. The same girl who had groveled at my feet three years ago and sworn to stay far, far away.
*****
On the other side of the world, Lisa didn't recognize me.
Her body was curvy. A thin top clung to her, every line barely visible beneath the fabric.
She was on her phone.
Almost without thinking, I found myself following her.
I could hear the voice from the other end. "Come home, hon. I'll help you with it."
Lisa let out a little squeak and blushed. "Keep your voice down. I'm on the street."
The person on the phone laughed, "So what? No one here understands Doric anyway. Tonight I'll change it up. I'll make you cry and beg me not to stop."
My blood went cold in that instant.
That "change it up", I'd seen it three years ago.
The moment the hotel door was kicked open, Lisa was there, crying out, tears in her eyes.
I pulled her hair, dragging her off Jeffrey.
She groveled in front of me and begged, "Sharon, I'm sorry. I'll go far away. I'll never show up in front of you again for the rest of my life."
Jeffrey cried and confessed, saying he had been drugged. "I swear, this is the only time I ever betrayed you."
I believed him. But I hated Lisa like hell.
To humiliate her, I had someone tattoo "Veyra's All-You-Can-Eat" on her body.
She cried and rolled on the floor, saying she would remember that shame for the rest of her life.
Lisa pretended to be annoyed. "If Sharon heard you talking like that, she'd be all over you about divorcing again."
There was a pause on the other end.
Then the voice said, "If I could stand being away from you, I would've flown home and divorced her by now."
I was shaking all over, but I still followed her like I was on autopilot.
She walked up to a big house, put down her shopping bags, and crouched down to trim the plants.
There was a lemon tree in the yard. A woven rocking chair sat by the flower bed.
I used to lie in Jeffrey's arms and draw those scenes for our future, one stroke at a time.
"Babe, come inside and grab the spray nozzle for me," Lisa called out.
Jeffrey came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her.
He was wearing a white T-shirt, looking like the perfect family man.
He slid one arm around her waist, grabbed her chin with the other hand, and bent down to kiss her.
I was rooted to the spot.
*****
I didn't know how much time had passed. The sky turned dark.
Jeffrey had Lisa pinned against the window.
"Jeff," she said, "I think someone's watching over there."
He turned her around by the waist, tilted his head toward the dark, and gave a small smile. "Let her watch."
The same scene from three years ago was playing out in front of me again.
My heart felt like it was being squeezed. Tears fell silently to the ground.
But all those sweet memories kept swirling uncontrollably in my mind.
*****
No one knew.
When I found Jeffrey, he was almost done for.
His right leg was shattered. He had over a dozen injuries, big and small, all over his body. He had severe memory loss. He couldn't even remember his own name.
I felt sorry for him. So I took care of him, carefully.
I cooked for him, changed his bandages, helped him to the bathroom, and massaged his wasting muscles.
"Sharon," he said, looking at me with red-rimmed eyes. "When I get better, I'm yours for the rest of my life."
I believed him.
That night, when he laid me down on the bed, his hands kept shaking.
Every time he moved, he stopped to look at me and asked if it hurt.
His sweat dripped onto my collarbone. His voice was hoarse as hell. "Say 'hon.' I'd give you my life."
I was too shy to say it. So he kept murmuring dirty talk in my ear, one line after another.
By morning, he buried his face in the crook of my neck and panted softly. "You're my life."
But later, he met Lisa, a college girl back then, at a party.
She was young and curvy. Her buttons were straining. Her waist was so thin that one could wrap one hand around it.
The day I went to catch him cheating, I heard Jeffrey say to her outside the door, "Lisa, I'd give my whole life for you."
After I dealt with Lisa, I walked away with nothing, just to get a divorce.
Jeffrey had to grovel at my mom's house for three days and three nights to win me back.
It was pouring rain that day. His knees were scraped raw. Blood ran down with the rainwater all over the ground.
He swore he would never do anything to hurt me again.
But now, that wound he had cut open had just stopped bleeding, and he drove it even deeper.
The pain was unbearable.