Chapter 1

My best friend Rosemary Barnes had a severe anxiety disorder. When it flared up, her whole body shook.

For three years I turned down every business trip to stay with her, ranking her ahead of even my fiancé, Myron Henson.

That day Myron kicked the coffee table in a temper. "She's faking it. Playing sick to milk your sympathy, and you actually treat her like she's precious?"

I slapped him across the face, grabbed my suitcase, and walked out.

Four months. I worked day and night out of town to finish the project, then flew back three days early.

When I pushed open the apartment door, Rosemary's stilettos were scattered across the entryway.

The bedroom door wasn't shut all the way. Myron had her pinned against the foot of the bed, kissing her, breathing hard as he said, "The second she's back, I'm ending it. I've had enough of her."

Rosemary looped her arms around his neck and laughed. "She really thinks she's some kind of savior."

I leaned against the shoe cabinet and slowly pressed record.

The door opened.

Both their faces froze at the same time.

The smile hadn't left Rosemary's lips yet.

Myron let go of her all at once, his mouth trembling as he took a step forward.

I shoved my suitcase over and looked at them.

"This apartment was left to me by my mother. Be out in half an hour."

I paused. "Before you go, settle up three years of her medical bills. Every last cent of it, I paid."

...

The color drained from Myron's face.

He started toward me, but my cold stare pinned him where he stood.

"Celia Pruitt, let me explain."

"Explain what?"

I stepped around the fallen suitcase and walked into the living room.

"Explain that you'd had enough of me a long time ago? Or explain that she isn't a savior?"

The recording echoed clearly through the empty living room.

Every word out of Myron's mouth, every one of Rosemary's laughs, drove in like poisoned needles, straight through the airtight loyalty I'd once wrapped around them.

Rosemary's body began to shake. She clutched Myron's arm, tears rolling down in fat drops.

"Celia, I... my anxiety's acting up again, I don't know what I'm saying."

It really did work.

For three years, one use of this trick and I'd walk through fire for her.

I walked up to her and looked down at her.

"Is that so?"

"So these past three years, every time you had an episode, the medicine, the therapist, tell me which bill I didn't pay?"

"You're shaking so hard right now. Want me to book you another appointment?"

Rosemary's crying stalled.

Myron finally snapped out of it and pulled her behind him.

"Celia, that's enough!"

"She's sick, and you have to provoke her like this?"

I laughed.

"Myron, four months ago you said she was faking."

"What, one night in bed and it became real?"

The line landed like a slap across both their faces.

Myron's face flushed red, and he forced the words out through his teeth.

"We genuinely love each other."

"Genuinely love each other?"

I repeated it, finding it beyond ironic.

"Love each other so much you're living in the apartment my mother left me?"

"Love each other so much you wore the watch I bought you, the suit I bought you, to go hold another woman?"

I pointed at the door.

"Get out."

"Take every last one of your things with you."

Myron's chest heaved. He stared at me hard, like he was trying to bore a hole through me.

"Celia, you'll regret this."

I ignored him, turned, and pulled a thick stack of receipts out of the drawer.

"Before you regret anything, settle the bill."

I threw the stack onto the coffee table.

"Three years of Rosemary's therapy, medication, and hospital stays. Three hundred seventy-eight thousand six hundred, all told."

"Which one of you is paying?"

Rosemary looked at the stack and shook even harder, but this time all I felt was disgust.

Myron snatched up the receipts, glanced at the number, and his hands started to shake.

"Celia, are you insane?"

"You spent this much on an outsider?"

I looked at him and said it word by word.

"Before, she wasn't an outsider."

"But now, the two of you both are."

"Half an hour. If you're not gone, I'm calling the police."

With that, I stopped looking at them, walked straight into my study, and locked the door behind me.

I leaned against it, every ounce of strength drained out of me.

My stomach churned, and I rushed into the bathroom and threw up until I couldn't see straight.

Nothing came up but bile.

I looked at my own ashen face in the mirror and suddenly felt these past few years had been a joke.

A complete and total joke.

Half an hour later, I heard the door close outside.

I went out. The living room was empty, nothing left but the couch and coffee table they'd knocked out of place.

Not one thing of theirs remained.

They'd cleared out completely.

My phone buzzed. A message from Myron.

"I'll pay you back. But remember this, Celia, you're the one who stopped caring about me first."

I stared at that line and laughed.

I stopped caring about him?

Because of one comment about wanting to put down roots in Ashford, I worked myself to death, trying to pay off the mortgage sooner.

Because his stomach was bad, I learned to make all kinds of chicken soup for it.

Because of him...

Forget it.

I blocked his number, then opened Rosemary's profile.

Her last post was from yesterday.

【Anxiety's acting up again. Thank goodness I have a knight watching over me.】

The photo was Myron's face in profile, gently tucking the blanket around her.

I saved that photo, packaged it up with the recording from earlier, and sent it all to our shared friend group chat.

Then I sent the digital copy of the bill to Rosemary alone.

With a note: 【Pay me back within three days.】

Once all of it was done, I switched off my phone and dropped myself hard into the couch.

The ceiling light stung my eyes.

I didn't cry.

I just felt like a piece of my heart had been hollowed out.