Chapter 1

When I found out that the man who'd gotten Greta Sullivan pregnant was the same classmate who'd bullied me in school, I picked up a knife and went to find Colin Fox.

A life for a life.

It was my father who threw himself in front of Colin.

His fist landed on my face.

"He's already destroyed your life once.

"Are you going to let him destroy it a second time?

"They're nothing but a piece-of-garbage man and a cheap woman. Are they worth throwing your own life away?"

I never got my revenge.

Greta never cut ties with Colin either.

The depression I'd developed from the bullying came back.

Every day there were fresh cuts on my wrist.

Until the news that Colin Fox had been stabbed eighteen times shook the whole city.

My father was arrested on the spot.

When the reporters asked him about it,

he looked into the camera, eyes red.

"Son, if this man had to die before you could put it to rest,

"then it still shouldn't have been your life that paid for it."

He smiled.

I fell apart.

After he was sentenced to death, I tried to jump off a building.

Greta stopped me, again and again.

"You jump, I jump.

"I caused all of this. Ash, if you want to hate someone, hate me. Don't punish yourself!"

Three years.

That's how long it took me to climb out from under the depression.

That day I went to the hospital for a follow-up.

And found Greta there too, at a checkup with an old man and a child.

My father was holding a little boy who looked exactly like Greta.

"I've put you through so much. Having to sneak around just to see your own child."

"How have you put me through anything, Dad. There's nothing wrong with me, and yet because of that lunatic, I have to live in the shadows."

My father smiled.

"If we didn't, sooner or later Ash would hurt Colin and the child.

"He only trusts me. Nothing would make him stop until I was dead."

Greta's eyes reddened. "Dad, thank you."

"Just be good to my godson."

The follow-up slip fell out of my hand and hit the floor.

They both turned.

Our eyes met.

...

"Ash?"

Greta and my father froze at the same time.

The child who looked so much like Greta was clutched tight in my father's arms.

Looking at the boy's face,

I understood.

This was Greta and Colin Fox's child.

But hadn't Greta told me she was sorry?

Hadn't she gotten rid of the child on her own?

Without meaning to, I started walking toward them.

"What do you think you're doing!"

Greta threw herself in front of my father and the child, shielding them behind her.

Almost at the same instant, my father clutched the boy and turned his body away.

The look in both their eyes was wary, tense.

Even my father...

was on guard against me.

was standing with the people who'd tormented me.

"Dad, take Toby and go first."

Greta kept her eyes locked on me.

My father glanced at me once.

Then, without hesitating, he hurried out the back door.

My hand froze in midair.

He wouldn't even give me a chance to speak.

"Move!"

Greta grabbed my wrist.

The whole way,

I was in a daze.

Was all of this a dream?

It wasn't until I was sitting on the couch at home

that I finally accepted it.

All of it had really happened.

"It's exactly what you saw."

Greta stood by the window.

She looked a little agitated. "I was afraid you'd never let it go, so the news was fake. The arrest, the interview, I hired actors to put on a show for you."

She sighed.

"For three years you never noticed a thing, so we let our guard down.

"We just weren't careful, and you saw."

"After everything, all you have to say is that you weren't careful?"

I looked up, eyes red.

"What do you want me to say."

"Greta!"

My fist was shaking.

"You know exactly how Colin Fox hurt me!"

The scars all up my arms.

My suicidal urges.

The years of not being able to sleep.

The reason behind all of it.

Greta knew better than anyone.

"Why did you cheat on me with him?"

I looked at her, tears in my eyes.

Greta blew out a ring of smoke.

"Ash, that's all in the past."

"What?"

I thought I'd misheard.

"It's over now."

"It isn't over! My illness never healed! What gives you the right to call it past! What gives you the right!"

"Because he could get me pregnant, and you couldn't!"

I went rigid.