I Was Never Cursed

The second my message went through, Gavin Northwood came out, dressed and ready.

He caught me setting his phone face down exactly where I'd found it.

His expression darkened instantly, and he strode over and snatched it away.

"Maris, you know I don't like other people touching my phone."

I still hadn't come all the way back from what I'd just seen.

I kept my face cold and asked him, "Gavin, are you hiding something from me?"

His brows drew together, and the answer came out of him too fast.

"Because I don't like people digging into my privacy, now you suspect me?

"We've been together ten years and you don't trust me even that much?"

When I said nothing, he seemed to hear how defensive he sounded, and his voice softened.

"Don't be ridiculous. I don't keep secrets from you."

A cold smile tugged at my mouth.

Whenever somebody hit a sore spot, he attacked first. Every time.

Even the way his lashes moved when he lied hadn't changed.

The last thin thread of hope in me snapped.

I turned, sat down on the couch, and looked at my nails.

"Forget it. I'm tired. I don't want to see the adviser anymore."

Exasperation spread over his face at once, as though I were a child throwing a fit.

"You were the one who wouldn't stop pushing me to go yesterday. Why are you always up and down like this?"

Right then his phone rang.

The instant he saw who was calling, the anger in his eyes melted into something gentle.

"Mm. Whatever you want."

"I've got something to take care of. Think about what I said."

His black sedan pulled away from the house.

I clenched my fists, then hailed a cab and followed him anyway.

The sedan finally stopped somewhere painfully familiar.

Paige Merrick's wedding-planning studio.

I looked in through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

One glance was enough to knock the air out of me.

My stepsister, Serena Colebrook, was trying on a wedding dress.

Scout, the dog who was supposed to be dead of poisoning, bounced around her feet.

Margaret Northwood, who was supposed to have shattered her leg in a fall, was hurrying back and forth in perfect health, helping Serena compare styles.

My own mother, Denise Ellington, who was supposed to be flat on her back after a serious injury, crouched on the floor arranging Serena's hem.

And Paige, who'd told me just last night she had "something really important" on today, stood off to the side gushing.

"Serena, look at you. Look how beautiful you are."

Gavin's eyes followed Serena everywhere, full of a tenderness I'd never once seen turned on me.

My fingertips shook with the ache of it.

I could still see myself holding a barely breathing Scout, crying until my chest tore open.

Years ago, the spiritual adviser Elias Vance had told me Gavin and I were badly matched, and that marrying him would bring disaster.

I hadn't believed it at first, but the disasters really did start coming, one after another.

After what happened to Scout, Gavin disappeared for an entire month.

He drove me half insane, leaving me to blame myself every single day while I waited for word from him and begged to be forgiven.

When Margaret broke her leg, I even quit my job so I could take care of her.

After my mother was badly hurt, I cried until there was nothing left in me and finally believed every word Vance had said.

I climbed the steps of Hollowpine Abbey on my knees, stopping to bow every third step until the skin split open, because I thought I had to scrub some curse off myself.

And now their happiness, bright and loud in front of me, turned every one of those sacrifices into proof of how stupid I'd been, and it hurt so badly I could hardly stay upright.

I couldn't help myself. I messaged Gavin: "I'm sick."

He answered in seconds. "Medicine's in the nightstand. Get it yourself. You're thirty. Learn to be independent."

When I looked up again, he was already back at Serena's side, as though the message had never arrived.

My eyes stung.

It hadn't always been like this.

Once, whenever I got sick, he wouldn't leave my side for a second.

He'd cool my fever with damp cloths, make soup, and blow on every spoonful before he fed it to me.

Only now did it come back to me that everything had started changing the day Serena came home from abroad.

He started drifting, and he stopped hearing anything I said.

He hid parts of his social feed so I couldn't tell where he was anymore.

I'd believed ten years with me was enough to thaw Gavin out, enough to make him let go of the girl he'd wanted and never had.

And I'd assumed that Serena, after all that time studying overseas, would look down on him even harder than she used to.

But that awkward boy had grown into a polished, successful man, and Serena changed her mind.

And some corner of Gavin had never stopped belonging to her.

If he was always going to choose the other woman, why keep humiliating myself?

My phone buzzed again. It was the other man.

"Maris, are you serious about this?"

I didn't hesitate.

"Completely."