Chapter 3

That night I locked myself in the bedroom and sat on the floor of my mother's dressing room.

Several sections of the rack stood empty.

I used to think the housekeeper had taken the pieces away to be cared for. Only later did I learn that Clara had helped herself long ago to my mother's cashmere coats, her watches, her pearl necklace.

She had even given away the jade earrings my mother wore at her wedding, handing them to Christine for some class reunion.

I ran my hand over the empty jewelry box, and tear after tear fell onto the velvet.

My mother died when I was seventeen.

The last time she was lucid, she took my hand and said, "Marty, I won't get to watch you grow up. Whatever you do from now on, don't let anyone wrong you. Don't just endure."

I nodded through my tears back then.

Yet now I had become the one who endured best of all.

Joshua said his parents came from a small town and weren't used to city life, so I let them move into the Pruitt mansion.

Christine said her classmates laughed at her for having no designer labels, so I got her one supplementary credit card after another.

Will used the Pruitt company's business partners as cover to wine and dine, even calling my family's driver to chauffeur him around, and I told myself he just liked to save face.

I gave them every out, every bit of dignity, everything I could give.

And they treated all of it as something I owed them.

My phone lit up. A message from Joshua.

"Baby, don't let your mind run wild. I'll always be here with you."

Right after that, his feed updated with a photo.

In it he was drinking with a few business partners out on the golf course, captioned: "Thanks to all of you gentlemen for looking after me. I hope you'll keep supporting the Pruitts going forward."

I stared at that line, my fingers shaking uncontrollably.

He hadn't been put in charge of anything at the Pruitt Group.

Yet here he was, brazenly using the Pruitt name to pave his own way in front of everyone.

I called my college roommate, Natalie Henson.

Natalie was a lawyer now, and she picked up fast.

"Marty, why so late?"

I opened my mouth, but my voice came out badly hoarse.

"Natalie, I think I've been deceived."

She didn't press for details. She only said, "Send me your address."

Half an hour later she was sitting in my room, reading the diagnosis, then taking the bag of soup from me.

When I told her about hearing people's inner thoughts, even I thought it sounded absurd.

Natalie didn't tell me I was crazy.

She just pushed tissues into my hand and said quietly, "Whether those voices are real or not, the soup can be tested, the diagnosis can be checked again, and the money and the documents can be looked into too."

"Don't rush to prove whether you're hearing things."

"Protect yourself first."

That was what finally broke me into sobbing.

I cried quietly, afraid of stirring the people outside the door, biting the back of my hand, not even daring to let my shoulders shake too hard.

Natalie held me and said nothing.

I didn't sleep that night.

I read through the messages Joshua had sent me over the years, again and again. All those "come home early," "don't wear yourself out," "it hurts me to see you like this" felt now like so many needles.

The part that hurt most wasn't that he didn't love me.

It was that even as he nearly had me killed, I was still crying and making excuses for him.