Chapter 3

Maybe it was the way my emotions had swung so hard, but by the time I got home, I'd spiked a fever.

After the miscarriage, after the depression that followed, I'd tried to kill myself more times than I could count.

Every sharp knife in the apartment, every kind of medication, Nat had hidden them all away where I couldn't reach them.

I searched through the haze in my head for a long time before I finally dug out a single fever pill.

I swallowed it with cold water, turned the TV up as loud as it would go, and lay down on the couch, drifting slowly into sleep.

By the time the sky was going pale and the fever had broken, I sat up and took the signed divorce papers out of the drawer.

I was about to call Nat when he punched in the code and shoved the door open, storming in.

He grabbed my scarred wrist, and his voice came out low and cold.

"Geraldine, putting Mia in the hospital wasn't enough for you?"

"From start to finish, the only person who wronged you is me. I'm the one who wouldn't leave her alone while I was married to you. None of it has anything to do with her!"

"However disgusted you are, however much you hate me, take it out on me!"

"Why would you go online and smear her when she's this fragile?!"

"Do you have any idea? That project she worked so hard on for so long, someone took the whole thing out from under her!"

His grip was shocking, like he wanted to crush the bones in my wrist, and the pain drained what little color was left in my face.

I forced back the tears and shook my head, choking on the words.

"I didn't. I had a fever last night. I slept the whole night through."

He flung my hand away, contempt all over his face, and shoved his phone in front of me.

The alumni group chat was full of it, messages about how Mia had repaid kindness with betrayal, how she'd wormed her way into our marriage.

And there was more, a piece written in my voice, in my writing style, posted for everyone to see.

Nat's lab had felt the fallout too.

Seeing me with nothing to say, Nat let out a scornful little laugh, his eyes full of mockery.

"Still won't admit it? Isn't this exactly the whiny little style you use in that diary of yours?"

I stood frozen, at a loss, my head swimming, and tried to explain.

"I really didn't!"

I held the divorce agreement out to him as I spoke.

"If I really wanted to put all of that online for everyone to see, I wouldn't have this divorce agreement ready!"

"I'd just cling to you the way I have all these years—"

"Geraldine, would you stop putting on an act!"

Nat cut me off sharply, snatched the papers out of my hand, and tore them to pieces.

"Do you have any idea how much I hate you like this?!"

"I actually used to think you were a kind person, and now you want nothing more than to drive Mia out of her mind!"

"If I'd known you'd turn into this, I should have just let you die together with that baby!"

My head snapped up, my eyes locking onto his.

My heart felt like it was being kneaded and crushed apart, the pain so total I couldn't breathe.

I lifted my hand and, with everything I had, slapped him hard across the face, screaming it out.

"Nat! You bastard, that was your child too!"

As if he couldn't feel the sting at all, he stared at my flat stomach and sneered.

"If my child really had come from you, then he'd have gone his whole life without a father's love."

My ears rang, and everything around me seemed to slow.

I forced down the metallic taste rising in my throat, pressed out a bitter smile, and looked at him, taunting.

"Right. Your child with Mia will get your love."

"Except his mother is a mistress, and he'll be an illegitimate child no one can acknowledge!"

Nat looked at me quietly, let out a long sigh, and a faint, unreadable smile crossed his face.

"Gerry, did you forget? That grandmother of yours with dementia, she's still living in the nursing home."

A shudder went through me, and my arms and legs went weak.

After my mother died and I sank into the worst of it, Nat had brought my sick grandmother from my aunt's house into the city.

He found the best nursing home, took care of her down to the smallest detail, and little by little she could even recognize me again.

From then on, my grandmother had been the one thing keeping me alive.

But it had never once occurred to me that he would use her against me.

When I said nothing, he pulled out an invitation and tossed it on the table.

"The day after tomorrow, come be the bridesmaid at my wedding to Mia."

"Then tell everyone that you were the third person who came between us."

"Do that, and whether you want the divorce or the money, we can talk."

I looked at that invitation, bit down on the tip of my tongue, and nodded, hard.