Chapter 2

I shook my head.

"I saw another doctor this afternoon."

Sabrina's face changed on the spot.

Anxiety crept into her voice.

"What doctor? Why?"

I turned the question back on her, like I didn't follow.

"What kind of doctor would I be seeing?"

She knew perfectly well that Everett had been with her all afternoon.

But she recovered fast and rearranged her expression into something even more concerned.

"I'm just worried about you. Why didn't you tell me you were going?

"I'd have taken the day off and gone with you. In your condition, what am I supposed to do if something happens while you're out there alone?"

She looked entirely devoted to my wellbeing.

That act had trained me to blame myself for years.

I'd believed I wasn't good enough, that my illness had put her through hell.

So I'd worked at being better to her, constantly.

Now I understood the whole thing was a con.

Something hot and furious came up through my chest.

I held it down and kept my voice level.

"He said there's nothing wrong with me."

The sentence landed in her like a bomb.

Her voice started to shake.

"What did you say?"

I watched the panic move across her face.

It was the same face she'd worn the day we met.

Eight years ago, in the middle of winter, I'd finished working late and walked out of my office building.

Sabrina, out delivering food on an electric scooter, clipped me and put me on the ground.

She'd looked exactly this frightened then.

She apologized over and over and asked if I needed a hospital.

I got up, brushed the grit off my coat, and told her I was fine.

She kept apologizing.

"My delivery's already late and I didn't see you. Can we trade numbers? Text me if anything starts hurting."

She insisted, so we traded numbers.

Then I forgot about it.

A week later, I saw her outside my building again.

A customer was in her face, screaming at her because the food was late.

She looked about ready to cry.

I couldn't stand watching it, so I stepped in.

After that, she started messaging me all the time.

The more I learned about her, the harder I fell for a woman who'd come through a rough childhood without losing any of her optimism.

The day I told her how I felt, she got that frightened look again.

She only said yes after I'd reassured her a dozen times.

I thought we'd have a quiet, ordinary, happy life.

I never imagined it would end like this.

Sabrina kept pushing until my thoughts came back into the room.

Looking at the woman I'd loved for eight years, I remembered something my mother used to say.

"People who throw away a good heart end up choking on it."

My silence started to wear on her.

She began to doubt whether I'd really seen anyone at all.

"Dec, are you having an episode?

"Are you fighting the treatment again?"

She turned for the medicine cabinet.

I watched her do it like it was her right, and I smiled at the floor.

Three years of being told I had delusional disorder, and even Sabrina had come to treat the label as settled fact.

She brought me a pill and stood there until she was satisfied I'd swallowed it.

Only then did she pick up the phone that had been ringing and ringing.

The screen flashed for a second.

I got a clear look at the lock screen.

It was a photo of her and Everett.

They'd gotten careless enough to leave the truth sitting in plain sight.

"Hey, Everett..."

Her voice had a warmth and a sweetness in it I hadn't heard in years.

I'd assumed time had worn down what was between us.

That assumption made me try harder for her.

She'd already given all of it to someone else.