Chapter 3

A self-mocking smile pulled at my mouth, and I answered flatly.

"Fine. I'll put the money toward Mom's lungs instead."

Vivian froze. For a long moment she couldn't get a single word out.

I didn't give her time to recover. I hung up.

From now on, my time and my money were going to the family that had actually bled for me.

Vivian was a bottomless pit, and she'd swallow every one of us if I let her.

Mom and I could still build something better. The thought moved through me like warmth.

Then I opened our front door and found that my mother had taken her own life.

There was a letter still loose in her hand.

I fought the shaking in my whole body and took it from her.

"Son, I don't want to keep standing between you and Vivian. After I'm gone, put the money into her treatment and get her well.

"As long as you two stay together, I'll rest easy."

The handwriting was rough. My mother was a small old woman from the countryside with almost no schooling, and she'd given me every single thing she had.

I held that letter and cried until I couldn't breathe.

If I'd learned even a little sooner that Vivian's illness was a lie from the first day, my mother would still be alive.

The more I thought about it, the more the anger banked and burned in my chest.

That invented disease had killed both my parents and cleaned us out down to the floorboards.

Only after my voice had gone hoarse did I pull myself together enough to call emergency services and the police.

While I was giving my statement at the Havenford Police Department, one of Vivian's posts came up on my feed.

"To love someone is to hold nothing back."

The photo showed her at a candlelit dinner with Felix, the two of them looking at each other in a way that left nothing to guess at.

The comments were all congratulations and teasing about when the two of them would start a family.

Before I could type anything, the post was gone from my feed.

She'd blocked me from seeing it. Of course she had.

It didn't move anything in me. Where Vivian was concerned, I'd gone numb a long time ago.

When I finished my statement, Vivian called, furious.

"Julian, where are you? Nobody's home and my medicine isn't here!

"Are you honestly going to stand there and let me hurt like this? Bring it home. Now."

Every sentence was about her medicine. She hadn't even noticed my mother wasn't there.

Ice went through me. I forced the catch out of my throat and told her my mother was dead.

She rushed to the station soon after and pulled me into a tight embrace the second she saw me.

"I'm so sorry, Julian. I should've been here. I didn't know your mother had died, and I said those awful things to you. Please don't hold them against me."

I could feel her trembling, and I could smell her perfume.

Underneath it was Felix Danner's cologne.

It took everything I had to bury the revulsion and not shove her off me.

"Mom's funeral is tomorrow. What are your plans?"

The grief on Vivian's face turned into something evasive.

"Julian, I have something extremely important tomorrow. I don't think I can go with you."

I closed my eyes and felt the wound tear open again.

Tomorrow was Felix's real birthday. Naturally Vivian was going to be there.

Between Felix and me, she picked Felix and left me standing.

So I was done choosing her too.

"Julian, I know you're grieving, but please don't forget my medicine. We're out at home."

My mother wasn't even in the ground yet, and Vivian was already scrambling for her pills like she couldn't wait another hour.

"And now that your mother's gone, the money you were spending on her can go toward my—"

I turned and looked at her before she could finish.

Something in my eyes startled her. She gave a small, sheepish smile and said nothing more.