CRUEL ROMANCE: MR. LANGSTON'S OBSESSION

TESSA

The bass pounds through the Castellano mansion but all I can hear is the sound of my soul being ripped apart piece by bloody piece.

I stand frozen in the archway of the main ballroom, champagne flute trembling so violently in my hand that the crystal sings a funeral dirge as I watch the two people I would die for murder me without even blinking.

Maya and Derek. My sister in everything but blood and the boy I've loved with every broken piece of my heart for two endless years. They're pressed against the marble pillar in the center of the room like Greek gods claiming their temple. His hands fisted in her hair while her legs wrapped around his waist as they kiss with consuming hunger.

Everyone is watching and smiling.

The sight burns through my retinas, searing itself into my brain where it will live forever… the moment I learned that love is just another word for self-destruction.

"Oh my God, Tessa!" Maya's voice cuts through the music as she spots me over Derek's shoulder.

She pulls away from him with what looks like genuine shock, her hand flying to her throat in a display of horror.

"Sweetie! Oh no, oh no! We didn't see you there!" Her voice cracks on the words, and for one desperate, pathetic moment, I think maybe this is a mistake. Maybe there's an explanation. Maybe the girl who braided my hair during sleepovers and held me while I cried about being unlovable hasn't just driven a stake through my heart in front of half the city.

The crowd around them parts like the Red Sea before Moses, creating a perfect amphitheater with me as the main attraction and them as the executioners.

Designer gowns rustle like the wings of vultures, expensive jewelry catches the light like the glint of knives, and I'm suddenly, brutally aware of every flaw in my appearance. The custom dress that cost three thousand dollars and still can't hide the body I hate, the professional makeup that took four hours to apply and can't disguise the face that's never been enough, the desperate hope I'd carried into this party like a shield that's now crumbling to ash in my hands.

Derek steps away from Maya, running a hand through his perfectly tousled golden hair. His face – the face I've memorized in a thousand stolen glances, the face I've dreamed of kissing, the face I've imagined looking at me with love – is twisted with something I can't place.

"Tessa, I'm so sorry you had to see that," he says in a voice rough with emotion. "We were just... God, we got caught up in the moment. We never wanted you to find out this way."

His green eyes find mine across the space between us, those eyes that have haunted my dreams and fueled my fantasies, the ones I've stared into while imagining a future that was obviously never real.

"It's okay," I whisper even though the words taste like poison and lies.

My voice is barely audible over the sudden, suffocating silence that's fallen over the room. But it's not okay. Nothing about this will ever be okay again.

Maya moves toward me with graceful steps, her silver slip dress flowing around her like liquid moonlight. She moves with that effortless elegance I've envied and adored my entire life, looking like a goddess who's descended from Olympus to deliver divine judgment.

She's always been beautiful – devastatingly and impossibly beautiful with her perfect figure and flawless porcelain skin and the kind of ethereal loveliness that makes men weep.

But tonight, she looks like a beautiful angel of death.

"Tessa, darling." Her voice breaks on every word as she reaches for my hands with trembling fingers. "There's something we should have told you months ago, but we didn't know how. We were so scared of hurting you, so terrified of losing you."

Tears are streaming down her face now, real tears, and my heart clenches with the familiar urge to comfort her. Even now, even as my world burns around me, my first instinct is to make Maya feel better.

The crowd presses closer, sensing blood in the water, but Maya waves them back with a desperate gesture.

"Please," she begs them in a voice thick with tears. "Give us some space. This is private."

But they don't move far. They hover at the edges like carrion birds with phones discretely raised, waiting for whatever carnage is about to unfold, ready to capture every moment of my destruction for posterity.

"What is it?" I ask even though every instinct I have is screaming at me to run, to flee, to escape before the final blow falls. But I can't move. I'm frozen in place like a deer in headlights, waiting for the impact that will end everything.

Derek steps forward with his face a masterpiece of tortured emotion. "Tessa, you know how much you mean to me. You're one of the most important people in my entire world, and the thought of hurting you is killing me. It's literally killing me."

His voice breaks on the words, and I see his hands shaking as he reaches toward me, then drops them as though he doesn't deserve to touch me.

"We're friends," I say desperately, clinging to that word like a lifeline. "We're best friends. That's enough. That's everything."

"The thing is," Maya continues, her voice gentle but relentless, "Derek and I... we've been together for a while now. Eight months, actually. We've been in love for eight months, and every single day of keeping it from you has been agony."

Eight months. The words hit me like a physical blow, doubling me over as if she'd driven her fist into my solar plexus.

Eight months of living in a fantasy, of believing Derek's gentle smiles and thoughtful gestures meant something more than pity. Eight months of funding their love story with money stolen from my parents, thinking I was helping a friend when I was actually paying for my own destruction.

"We love you so much, Tessa," Derek adds in a voice thick with emotions. "You're such a vital part of both our lives. We never wanted you to find out this way. We wanted to tell you gently, privately, somewhere safe where we could hold you while you processed it."

Around us, I can hear whispers starting, but they're not cruel laughter yet. They're the hushed, horrified murmurs of people watching a public execution, waiting to see if the condemned will beg for mercy or face death with dignity.

"I understand," I manage to say. "I'm happy for you both. I want you to be happy."

My champagne flute is trembling so violently now that I'm afraid it might shatter and cut me, adding physical pain to the emotional agony.

Maya heaves a sigh of relief. "Oh, Tessa, you're being so brave about this! I was so terrified you'd hate us. I was so scared we'd lose you forever."

"Never," I whisper, because what else can I say? That I've been in love with Derek since the moment I met him? That I thought his kindness meant he might love me back? That every gentle word from him has been treasured like a sacred relic? That I've built my entire identity around being worthy of their friendship because I've never been worthy of anything else?

"You're such a beautiful soul, Tessa," Derek says with that warm smile that's always made my heart race and my palms sweat. "That's actually something we need to talk to you about."

The temperature in the room seems to drop ten degrees. "What do you mean?"

Maya and Derek exchange a look – not the cruel, calculating glance of conspirators, but something that looks almost... apologetic? Like parents about to deliver terrible news to a beloved child?

"Well," Maya begins carefully. "You've been so incredibly generous with Derek lately. So selfless, so giving. Helping him with his car payments, his mother's medical bills, all those financial emergencies that kept coming up."

"You didn't have to do that," Derek adds quickly. "But it meant everything to us. It allowed Maya and me to build our relationship without the stress of money problems. You made our love possible, Tessa."

The words hit me with the force of a bullet. Around us, the whispers grow louder as people begin to understand what's being revealed, but Maya and Derek don't seem to notice. They're focused entirely on me, their faces masks of loving concern.

"Every romantic dinner where we fell deeper in love, every weekend getaway where we discovered new pieces of each other's souls, every piece of jewelry that became a symbol of our commitment," Derek's voice grows stronger and more confident. "It was all possible because of your beautiful, generous heart, Tessa. You didn't just make our relationship possible… you made our love possible."

"That's not..." I start, but Maya cuts me off.

"Tessa, we know you took that money from your parents," she says softly. "We never asked you to do that. We never wanted you to put yourself at risk for us. But we're so grateful, so incredibly grateful for the sacrifice you made for our happiness."

The crowd presses closer now with phones no longer hidden.

I can see the recording lights multiplying like red stars in the darkness, the eager faces of people who've stumbled onto the social event of the year. My destruction is being captured from every angle, preserved for eternity.

"We're so grateful," her smile is warm and seemingly sincere. "Twelve hundred dollars last weekend alone, for the penthouse suite where Derek and I made love for the first time in months." She blushes prettily. "The champagne was Dom Pérignon 2008 – your father has exquisite taste. We toasted to you, Tessa. We toasted to the friend who made our perfect night possible."

The laughter starts then. Not from Maya and Derek who maintain their expressions of loving concern and devastating gratitude, but from the crowd. Soft at first, just a few snickers from people who are beginning to understand the magnificent tragedy unfolding before them, then growing bolder and more vicious as reality sinks in.

"She funded their entire relationship," someone whispers, loud enough for everyone to hear.

"She's been paying for her own heartbreak," another voice adds with delicious cruelty.

"Oh my God, that's the most pathetic thing I've ever seen," a third person chimes in with a mixture of secondhand embarrassment and sadistic glee.

Maya turns to the crowd with apparent distress, tears streaming down her perfect face. "Please don't," she begs them. "Tessa is our dearest friend. She was just trying to help us find happiness. Her heart is so pure, so beautiful."

Her words only make it worse, because now everyone understands the full scope of the tragedy.