Chapter 3

"Audrey!"

He straightened up and left me nothing but one line: "I'm going to check on Audrey first."

A few steps out, he turned back to look at me. "Don't blame me for leaving you now. If you hadn't hit her first, none of this would have happened."

"Her parents are divorced, she basically lives alone, and you went and rubbed salt in her wound."

"You two!"

He looked at his friends.

"Help me get her to the hospital."

And with that, his figure disappeared from my sight.

I couldn't help a bitter, hollow laugh.

Tyler Gilbert, oh, Tyler Gilbert. He'd probably forgotten.

My parents died in the sea long ago, saving his family.

Their bodies were never even recovered, left to drift out there as lost, homeless ghosts.

I remembered how he'd knelt at the shore back then, facing me, swearing through his tears.

"Eve, don't be afraid!"

"From now on I'll take care of you the way your parents would have. I'll be the sky over you, protect you for the rest of your life, and never let you suffer."

The words were still there in my memory, but the man who swore them had changed long ago.

My vision blurred with tears. My head slowly sank against the floor. It was cold, without the smallest bit of warmth.

I never once imagined that the man who said he'd never let me suffer even a little would be the one to hand me more suffering than I could count.

I was only sixteen when I lost my mother and father. I'd told him clearly, if there was no love, then don't marry me.

He said there was love, and there was responsibility too. Both.

I had only just turned eighteen when I married him.

Audrey Finch's voice drifted over. "Go. I don't want you looking after me!"

"She's hurt worse than I am. You should go back and take care of her."

"This isn't serious? The skin's peeled right off my foot."

"You love looking pretty so much, how could you ever stand this?"

In the end, he lifted her into his arms and hurried off to the hospital.

And forgot that behind him, his wife had just miscarried, and needed a hospital too.

Why couldn't he take us both? I closed my eyes and shed my last tear for him.

Because Audrey Finch had once said she didn't like sharing a car with me.

Tyler Gilbert remembered that. The only thing he couldn't remember was what I liked.

"Eve, let me get you to the hospital."

Someone helped me up. The pain was so bad I couldn't walk.

Blood had soaked the bathrobe red, and he flinched back like it disgusted him.

"We'd better just call an ambulance!"

"Tyler, honestly. His wife's in this state and he doesn't even call an ambulance before he leaves."

"Can't you tell yet? There's only room for Audrey Finch in his world. Why would he ever remember Eve Henson?"

"Then from now on we'd better stick close to Audrey Finch, so Tyler treats us well!"

My awareness slipped away, and I closed my eyes and sank into unconsciousness.

When I opened them again, two days had passed.

The room was quiet enough to hear nothing but my own breathing. I was thirsty, desperate for water, and found there was none.

I lifted my head toward the nightstand. Someone had brought my bag over, I didn't know who.

I took out my phone, wanting to call someone, and realized I had no one to call.

A man who clearly saw his wife miscarry and still ran to another woman without a second thought. Calling him would be pointless.

I opened my messages and found a group chat where people were passing around the photos of my humiliation from two days ago.

Dozens of pictures, every one of my movements caught from a different angle.

The chat had gone wild.

"Damn! That body is unreal."

"Please. So she's got a couple extra pounds up top, and you men all lose it over that?"

"If you ask me, she's a real slut, running out without a stitch on."

"Ha, that's our Audrey for you. She actually talked Tyler into pranking her."

"..."

Every word, every line, blaming me, shaming me, leaving me nowhere to turn.

I wasn't the one in the wrong. Why should I be the one everyone pointed at and picked apart?

Taking my photos without my consent and posting them to humiliate me, that was a violation of my image rights.

I gripped the phone hard and dialed a string of numbers.

Only after I'd filed the police report did I leave the hospital.

I got home, and the moment I opened the door, someone yanked me inside in the roughest way possible.

"Are you out of your mind?"

"Audrey just used a few of your photos to have a laugh in a chat. And you call the cops to have her arrested?"

"Drop the case, now!"

Fresh out of surgery, I was weak, without any strength to struggle.

"Let go of me!"

Tyler Gilbert flung me down to the floor, out of all patience.

The pain twisted my face, and it took me a long while to climb back up.

But he wasn't done with me.

"Tsk. So now you've learned to play pitiful and beg for sympathy. Let me tell you, I'm not buying it."