Chapter 2

After the wedding, Mom took me into a private lounge.

She rummaged through my bag, took out the antidepressants I carried with me, and placed them in front of me.

“Take your medication. We'll talk when you've calmed down.”

I didn't touch it.

“Who sent that wedding invitation?”

Mom avoided my eyes.

“A staff member sent it by mistake.”

At that moment, her phone lit up on the table.

The message was from Tristan.

The WhatsApp group was named “The Real Mercer Family.”

“Should we delete the old family group? Otherwise, she'll keep sending messages there and bothering us.”

I picked up Mom's unlocked phone.

Her face changed, and she reached for it.

I stepped back and opened the chat.

It had been created on the same day news arrived that Mom and Rosalie had died in the car accident.

Its members were Dad, Mom, Tristan, Alaric, and Rosalie.

I was the only one who wasn't in the group.

For three years, Mom had screenshotted every message I sent in the old family group and forwarded it to this new one.

On the first anniversary, I knelt in the rain before the five graves and wrote in the old group,

“I sold the house. I found you all a home.”

“Don't worry about me. I'll stay alive.”

The rain was so heavy that day that the memorial park staff feared for my safety and contacted Mom using the information on file.

Mom replied in the new group,

“I had the staff call her a car. Whatever happens, don't let her know I'm alive.”

Alaric wrote,

“If even one of us appears, she'll investigate the others. Everything we've done will have been for nothing.”

They had also known the day I quit my job and was diagnosed with severe depression.

Tristan had written only,

“She doesn't have the energy to bother us now. Rosalie can finally focus on getting better.”

On the second anniversary, I sat beside Alaric's grave and messaged them that I had dreamed about them again.

After reading the screenshot, Dad warned everyone,

“No one can give in.”

“She blames herself for all our deaths now. Hold out a little longer, and she'll eventually let Alaric go.”

That same day, they were in Switzerland celebrating Rosalie's recovery.

In the photographs, Mom was cutting her cake.

Dad and Tristan had piled the table with gifts.

Alaric stood behind her, placing an engagement ring on her finger with his own hands.

I begged forgiveness before five empty graves.

They gathered around another table, celebrating the new family they had finally formed without me.

Before the third anniversary, Rosalie suggested sending me the wedding invitation.

Mom tried to stop her.

“She's in terrible shape. It's better to keep hiding it.”

Dad agreed.

“We'll decide how to handle this after the wedding.”

But Rosalie replied,

“I don't want to spend my marriage hiding from her like a dead woman.”

“And I don't want her visiting Alaric's grave as his fiancée.”

“I want her to watch us get married and admit that Alaric belongs to me now.”

In the end, Alaric answered with only two words.

“Send it.”

The invitation had never been a staff mistake.

After taking my fiancé and the love of my parents and brother, Rosalie used it to drive me out one last time.

Mom finally snatched her phone back.

But I had already sent the crucial messages to my email.

I looked at the five living people in front of me.

“You saw every message I sent to that group for the past three years, didn't you?”

No one answered.

I looked at Alaric.

After a moment of silence, he admitted,

“I never deleted the old group.”

“I read every message you sent.”

I stared at him, hatred surging through my chest.

“So you watched me mourn at your grave for three years. You watched all of you torment me until I became this, and you still thought I deserved it?”

“Every one of you disgusts me.”