Ten years of marriage to Lionel Dickerson.

Our only communication was bank transfers.

Fifty thousand dollars meant he wouldn't be home tonight.

Two hundred thousand meant a three-day business trip.

I kept telling myself it was normal. He was a top surgeon,

held people's lives in his hands. Of course he'd be cold.

The day I was diagnosed with late-stage stomach cancer, I swallowed the pain and asked if he could have dinner with me.

This time, it wasn't a transfer.

It was a photo.

"Hey sis, Dr. Dickerson's hands are just as steady with bra clasps as they are with a scalpel."

"You take care of his paralyzed parents, I take care of his stress. Fair trade, right?"

I choked back the blood rising in my throat and took a cab to Lionel's private hospital.

Through the crack in the door, I saw him, a man so fastidious he couldn't stand a crease in his coat, burying his face in a female intern's neck.

Wet sounds and heavy breathing tangled together, and every one of them burned through me like acid.

I stood there for a long time. Then I slid my diagnosis report through the gap in the door.

——

I stumbled away, half-blind with shock.

And ran straight into Drew James at the corner. Lionel's best friend.

He took one look at my ashen face and, meaning well, steered me into Lionel's office.

Lionel's reaction was instant. He pulled the woman into his arms, shielding her behind him.

Then he grabbed the photo frame off his desk and hurled it at us, his expression black with rage.

"Get out!"

Drew winced and pulled me back through the door.

I had no room to notice the words stuck on the tip of his tongue.

All I could see was the shattered photo on the floor.

It was our first picture together, Lionel's and mine.

That day, he'd braved all the gossip to confess his feelings to me, right by the lake on campus. Drew had taken the photo for us.

Lionel had treasured it ever since.

No matter which office he moved to, that photo always sat in the upper right corner of his desk.

Now he'd smashed it to pieces. For an intern.

The chime of my phone dragged me back.

I unlocked the screen. Another transfer.

Five hundred thousand.

That meant sorry.

The office door opened at the same moment.

When his eyes met my reddened ones, something flickered across Lionel's dark expression. A crack, just for an instant.

He called my name.

"Moira Swanson, go hit the shops with a friend or something before you head home. I'll have your sister come watch Mom and Dad. Take the day off."

No explanation.

Just a day off he'd decided to grant me, like loose change tossed on a counter.

I didn't answer. My gaze stayed locked on the door behind him.

"You're not going to explain?"

He stepped into my line of sight and dropped his voice to a warning.

"Moira, this is a hospital. Don't make a scene."

The tears broke before I could stop them, and ten years of swallowed grievances came pouring out in words I couldn't control:

"You know damn well this is a hospital, Lionel! Where was all that decency when you were rolling around with that tramp in there?!"

Crack.

Before the last word left my mouth, his palm connected with my face.

He didn't hold back.

Heat bloomed in my nose, and the taste of iron flooded my mouth.

Lionel's pupils contracted. The hand hanging at his side wouldn't stop shaking.

"Moira, you... Don't you ever talk about her like that!"

There was a time Lionel had protected me the same way.

The second year of our marriage, both his parents were paralyzed in quick succession, and I became their punching bag.

They said I was a freeloader. Said I was dragging Lionel down.

The cruelty came down like a monsoon, and every word stung.

Lionel had covered my ears with his hands, gentle and firm. It was the first time he'd ever raised his voice at his parents. He threatened to cut them off, swore he'd move us out.

For ten full years, every time they came at me, he stood between us.

But my memory must have been lying to me.

The man who once shielded me now stood on the other side, shielding someone else.

I wiped the blood from my nose with the back of my hand, shoved Lionel aside, and walked into the office.

The slim figure darted into the attached lounge before I could reach her.

I tried to follow, but Lionel caught me around the waist and pulled me down onto the couch.

He sat behind me, one hand pinching the bridge of my nose while the other carefully wiped the blood from my face.

Close as we were, I could smell another woman on his fingertips.

"Moira, I'm sorry. I lost my temper. But you shouldn't talk to a woman like that."

"Go home and be good. Leave her alone, and I won't let any of this touch you."

He murmured the promise in the same gentle tone he'd used the day he married me ten years ago. Only back then, the words were different:

"Moira, I'll be faithful to you. Always."

So this was where Lionel's "always" ended.

My stomach lurched violently and the nosebleed surged back, soaking his white coat red in seconds.

Something close to concern flickered in his eyes. He grabbed a fistful of tissues and pressed them against my nostrils.

I watched his hands work, then smiled a thin, ruined smile.

"Couldn't you two have waited until I was dead?"

Lionel's expression went blank.

I pulled free of his arms, walked to the door, and picked up the medical report crumpled with shoe prints. I held it out to him.

He was about to take it.

The lounge door opened from inside.

"Dr. Dickerson, you tore my clothes..."

The voice was syrupy, with a lilt I recognized.

I turned around and every drop of blood in my body went cold. The report slipped from my fingers and drifted to the floor.

Fay Simmons stood there wearing Lionel's dress shirt, the hem barely reaching her upper thighs.

Lionel's gaze dropped to the skin the fabric couldn't cover. Mine locked on Fay's face.

Of all people, this was who Lionel had been protecting.

Fay greeted me as if nothing were wrong.

"Hey there, Moira! Long time no see!"

My teeth chattered beyond my control. My voice came out scraped raw.

"Why? Why her?!"

The fury I'd been choking down erupted. I seized Lionel's collar and shoved my face into his.

"She spread those fake videos of me. She got me expelled. Did you forget all of that?"

Lionel wrenched free and slammed me back onto the couch. His voice cracked into a snarl.

"Enough, Moira! Are you going to hold that petty crap over everyone's heads for the rest of your life? Fay was only eighteen. And let's not pretend you weren't the one throwing yourself at her boyfriend first!"

A ringing filled my ears.

For what felt like minutes I watched Lionel's lips move without hearing a single word.

He'd forgotten.

I'd only been nineteen that year.

I never threw myself at Fay's boyfriend. I was just a pawn in their game.

Fay launched her vendetta because her boyfriend glanced at me once in the dining hall. She hired a hacker to deepfake a video of me and my professor, then spread it across the university forums.

I was forced out of school.

My professor, a man with a spotless reputation his entire life, jumped from the faculty building.

And Fay Simmons, the one who destroyed us both, walked free on her father's money and connections.

Now she was tugging at Lionel's sleeve, smiling like a child.

"Don't fight with Moira because of me. If she needs to vent, let her. I don't mind!"

"Fine, let's say it was all my fault. Moira, I'm sorry. I really am!"

Fay dropped to her knees in front of me, grabbed my hand, and lifted it toward her own cheek.

The instant before the slap could land, Lionel caught my wrist. His grip was so tight I felt my bones grind together.

"Moira Swanson, how did I end up with a wife this petty and vindictive?"

"Fay is on her knees for you. What more do you want? You want her to die for your dead lover?"

I stared at Lionel, eyes wide, unable to believe what had just come out of his mouth.

"Lionel! He was your professor too!"

Lionel shook my hand off and turned his back to me. A long silence passed before he spoke.

"Where there's smoke, there's fire. You and him were probably sleeping together!"

Rage churned in my chest, burning so hot my throat seized.

Then the familiar pain ripped through my stomach, sharp as a blade.

I doubled over, retching, but nothing came up except bile.

Lionel's hand moved toward my back.

Fay's voice cut him short.

She picked up the report I'd dropped.

"So it really was you who asked my friend to fake a medical record!"

Lionel took the report from her.

Moira Swanson, followed by the words confirmed: stomach cancer. His eyes flinched.

He turned to Fay, his expression stone-cold.

"What are you talking about?"

Fay glanced at me with a look of rehearsed reluctance.

"The doctor is a friend of mine from school. She told me someone named Moira Swanson came in today asking her to fabricate a diagnosis. I assumed it was just someone with the same name, but..."

"Dr. Dickerson, please don't be angry. She probably just wanted your attention!"

With every word out of Fay's mouth, Lionel's face darkened another shade.

His hand closed around my throat.

"Moira Swanson. You faked a cancer diagnosis just to drag me home?"

His grip tightened until my face turned purple, and only then did he fling me aside.

I collapsed on the floor, gasping, swallowing air in desperate gulps.

Lionel stood over me, looking down with a cold sneer.

"Fine. I'll go home tonight, just like you wanted."

"And you. Stay here and think about what you've done."

He confiscated my phone and dragged me into the break room.

The cramped space still reeked of what he and Fay had done in there. I choked back the acid rising in my throat and begged.

"Lionel, don't leave me in here. You know I have—"

I grabbed the leg of his pants. He kicked me off.

"Claustrophobia. Yeah."

"You played me, Moira. This is your punishment."

"Lionel, I didn't lie to you. I really do have stomach cancer!"

I scrambled toward the door on my hands and knees. He'd already locked it and walked away with Fay on his arm.

Half a minute later, someone cut the power on his orders. The entire building went black.

I held on by the sliver of moonlight leaking through the window, barely lasting until the small hours.

Then the wind picked up outside. Branches clawed at the glass. Thunder cracked overhead.

A bolt of lightning split the sky and snapped something inside me.

One command pounded through my skull: run. Get out.

I clawed at the door seam with my fingernails. I slammed my head against the door.

All night long.

When Lionel opened the door in the morning, I was still repeating the motion, mechanical, empty.

"Moira. Have you learned your lesson?"

He tilted my chin up.

His eyes were threaded with red.

And in those pupils I saw myself: skull cracked open, blood matting my hair, wrecked beyond recognition.

"Don't ever bring up college again. Fay's career is just getting started. If you ruin her, I will ruin you."

"Remember: she is nothing like you."

I stared at the disgust in his eyes and laughed. A thin, hollow sound.

Lionel must have forgotten. I really was nothing like Fay.

Fay had barely scraped past the admission cutoff. I was the department's star candidate.

And Fay destroyed all of it.

When every appeal was denied, I took a scalpel and went looking for her. Lionel stopped me.

His eyes were bloodshot, and he held me with a stubbornness that wouldn't let go.

"Moira, don't do this! You can't throw away your life over someone that worthless!"

"Give me a chance. I'll fulfill your dream of medicine for you."

He proposed to me right there in front of the entire school, ignoring the laughter and the whispers.

And I drowned in his promise.