Chapter 1

The auditorium buzzed with voices. Congrats everywhere.

All I felt was cold.

Photos from Edward's life started flashing across the big screen.

In the lab, he sat in his wheelchair while a woman in a white dress leaned down and adjusted the microscope for him.

On the campus lawn, she pushed his chair while they looked up at the clouds, smiling like some perfect couple.

In the library, she rested against his shoulder while they read the same book. Sunlight poured over them like a cheesy romance poster.

In every photo, the woman looked perfect. Light makeup. Clean dresses. That soft, scholarly vibe.

And me?

Every day I stood in a seafood market, surrounded by rotting fish and greasy water. My hands rough. The smell stuck to me no matter how hard I scrubbed.

I didn't even have one photo with Edward.

Because he said he was sick and hated pictures.

Turns out he just hated taking them with me.

Now the woman stepped up beside him onstage and smoothed his doctoral gown like she'd done it a hundred times.

Edward lifted his hand and held hers.

The look he gave her—soft, warm, almost worshipful.

Yeah. I'd never gotten that look.

Students and professors below the stage started cheering, teasing the campus power couple.

Meanwhile, the actual wife who carried him for four straight years?

Standing in the crowd. Invisible.

For four years, I spun like a top just to cover Edward's "treatments" and PhD bills.

Before dawn, I was at the seafood market gutting fish.

Daytime, I washed dishes in a greasy restaurant kitchen.

At night, I ran a food stall.

The grind wrecked me.

And it cost me two unborn children.

When I miscarried, I didn't even have time to cry.

I kept telling myself things would get better once he graduated.

Instead, I got Edward's betrayal.

I couldn't watch that gut-twisting scene anymore. I bolted back to our tiny rental—barely three hundred square feet.

The shelves were crammed with his textbooks. Every single one wrapped by me.

Even his wheelchair—I'd searched the whole city to find the lightest, most comfortable model.

Every corner of that room carried proof of how much I loved him.

And every corner laughed at how stupid I'd been.

Maybe Edward was riding too high today. The desk drawer he always kept locked was sitting open.

He'd always claimed it held important research and never let me touch it.

I didn't care anymore. I yanked it open.

No research inside.

Just a diary.

Sitting there like it had been waiting for me.

My hands shook as I opened it.

The words sliced straight through me.

[February 5. The greatest luck of my life was meeting Margot. Not like Linsay, who reeks of fish and only knows how to gut them.]

[March 10. Margot's morning sickness was bad today. She couldn't stomach the fish soup Linsay made. Pregnancy is really hard.]

[April 2. The research stipend came in today. Didn't tell Linsay. Bought Margot some prenatal vitamins.]