Chapter 3

The muscles in Liam's face twitched violently.

The scene from five years ago flooded between us like icy water.

Liam's mother had suffered from severe asthma for years.

That year, in a moment of kindness, she sponsored Mia, a student from a poor background, and even invited her home.

But out of jealousy over how well Liam's mother treated me, Mia played a cruel prank—she replaced all the emergency asthma medication on the nightstand with white vitamin pills.

Late that night, Liam's mother had an asthma attack and collapsed in the hallway, clutching her throat in agony, gasping for help.

And Mia just stood three steps away, holding up her phone with a giggle, recording a video.

"Stop pretending. I just saw you—you were fine."

Liam's mother died of suffocation amid those piercing, desperate gasps for air.

When Liam arrived at the hospital, all he saw was a body covered with a white sheet, and that video Mia had posted on social media, bragging about her "prank."

Liam knelt outside the morgue, his eyes bloodshot, and vomited up a mouthful of blood.

His mother had raised him alone. She was the only light in his life within this family full of cold calculations.

He held me and cried like a child whose soul had been drained.

"Claire, I don't have a mother anymore. I only have you."

For three months after that, he locked himself in a pitch-black basement. Self-harm. Starvation.

I was the one who fed him cold oatmeal spoonful by spoonful into his trembling mouth. I was the one who held his skeletal body and shielded him from the nightmares that wanted to kill him.

I was the one who walked with him through that coldest sea of death.

"I haven't forgotten."

Liam's eyes instantly reddened, his voice vicious as he gritted his teeth.

"A woman that evil wouldn't be worth my mother's life even if she died ten thousand times."

"Claire, if you hadn't been with me, I would've died long ago. In my eyes, Mia isn't even worth as much as a prostitute."

His eyes were red-rimmed, veins bulging on the back of his hand.

But his thoughts struck like a sledgehammer, shattering all the devotion I'd given during those years.

[It's been so long. Mia was only eighteen then. She just wanted to play a joke. How was she supposed to know it was life-saving medication?!]

[She's already been so guilt-ridden she's cut her wrists twice. Her wrists are covered in scars. Why is Claire so vicious, insisting on dragging up things about dead people?]

[Mia is so kind she wouldn't even step on an ant. She's been having nightmares and crying lately. I can barely keep up with comforting her.]

[The dead aren't as important as the living. The past isn't as important as the future.]

My nails dug deep into my palms, leaving crescent-shaped blood marks.

How ridiculous.

On the surface, he said he'd never forgive her, but secretly he felt sorry for the scars on his murderer's wrists.

The three months I spent with him meant less to him than a few fake tears from Mia.

Thinking I was caught up in grief over his mother's death, he reached out to comfort me, but I dodged him.

I stared hard at his ring finger, my eyes burning, almost splitting open.

This wasn't our wedding ring.

Our wedding rings were supposed to be a pair of simple bands he'd designed himself, with our initials engraved inside.

He'd said the purest love needed no elaborate decoration.

But what he wore now on his ring finger was a pink diamond ring—clearly a women's style of couple's ring. It was even the wrong size, stuck at his knuckle and leaving a glaring red mark.