Chapter 2

Standing on a street back home, I still felt dazed.

As if it had all just been a dream.

My phone buzzed. A text from Marcus Sherwood.

"Bella, remember to take your medicine on time."

"Don't do anything reckless with your life and make me worry."

I looked down at my watch. Eight in the evening, exactly.

He was like a set alarm. Every night at eight, right on schedule, he reminded me to take my pills.

Because only if I took them on time could my mind and my moods stay stable.

"Be good. I'll be back from my trip tomorrow, and once I'm home I'll go with you to your treatment."

If I hadn't seen with my own eyes how he'd been abroad, keeping his first love company, I might really have believed his lies.

After I got back, I didn't make a scene.

I didn't even confront anyone.

I just went through the same life as before, step by step, like a walking corpse.

Marcus noticed nothing off, and kept going away on business every few days.

Every time he came back he carried the smell of perfume.

He explained it as company obligations, entertaining clients.

Next week he had another three-day trip.

I nodded and said fine.

At dinner he glanced at me. "Bella, how have you gotten so quiet lately?"

"What is it, no more scenes like before."

The routine we used to act out in this house every single day

was me weeping in front of my mother's memorial photo, a huge fight, and then forcing Marcus to kneel and apologize.

Blaming him. If not for the affairs he carried on outside,

my mother would never have swallowed those pills.

And in the end it always turned into a farce where neither of us would give in.

I shook my head with a bitter smile. "There's no point anymore."

"If I made you kneel and apologize every day, would it bring my mother back?"

Something like relief showed in Marcus's eyes, and he came and sat down beside me.

"Bella, I'm glad you can let it go."

"Forget the past. Let's just wipe the slate clean."

He tried to get close, even suggested we sleep in the same room tonight.

But I drove him off with one cold line. "I don't like having anyone next to me."

So he took his pillow and went to the study.

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.

My mother's memorial photo was still set out in the living room.

In it she smiled so kindly. Truly ironic.

The first thing I did after getting up the next morning

was pull out from under the bed that box I'd treasured, ready to throw it away.

The box held all of my mother's belongings.

After she swallowed the pills in the bathroom and killed herself, I'd sunk into enormous guilt and self-blame.

When the depression was at its worst, only looking at those things could make me feel a little better.

After my mother died, Marcus was also full of guilt, falling into silence now and then.

But more than that, he simply vanished.

Going off alone to drink.

Or leaving on long trips, gone for ten days, half a month at a stretch.

Back then the reason he gave me was:

"Bella, I can't bear to look at your face. If I do I'll think of your mother, and of the child of Yasmine Aldridge's that you drove to its death."

So we'd start fighting again, freezing each other out, our relationship getting worse and worse.

But it never once occurred to me that those days he disappeared weren't because of any cold war with me.

He'd gone abroad to reunite with his first love and her child.

Because Yasmine Aldridge had just given birth and needed him most.

Yet lately, Marcus's monthly trips had dropped off quite a bit from before.

Probably because my mother, over there, was taking such good care of Yasmine Aldridge.

I came home from the hospital.

When I pushed the door open, Marcus was sitting on the living room sofa.

"You're back?"

He stood up and pointed at the gift box on the coffee table.

"Brought it back from abroad this trip. For you."

I said nothing, changed into my slippers, and set my medical record book down on the entryway cabinet without a thought.

"You went for a checkup?"

He came over and picked up the report to read it. "What did the doctor say? Any better?"

I said nothing. He read it for a long time.

Long enough that I came back out in my house clothes.

He was still standing in the entryway, his brow drawn tight.

"Severe depression, eating disorder, insomnia…"

He read it aloud, his voice strained.

"Bella, weren't you taking your medicine on time? How did it get worse again?"

I walked into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water.

"I'm fine."

He caught my wrist. "You've lost this much weight, and you call that fine?"

I gently pulled free without answering.

He followed me into the kitchen, stood behind me, silent for a long time.

"I… won't travel for work anymore. I'll stay home with you this whole time."

"Bella, your health is so bad right now."

And then, softening, he suddenly pulled me against him.

Breathing in that familiar scent, I felt like crying, but I held it back.

So what if he was tender now?

Their betrayal of me was real.

Nothing could ever erase it.

I gently pushed him away. "I need to go take my medicine."