The following year, on my birthday, Chad spent several months' salary on a diamond necklace.

I told myself again that it was fine. We had all the time in the world.

But things kept drifting further from what I'd hoped.

Chad came home later and later. I reheated dinner more times than I could count. Some nights, he didn't come home at all. Even when we were intimate, it was rushed and perfunctory.

I tried talking to him. The answer was always the same.

"I'm exhausted from work. Don't overthink it. Just get some sleep."

I convinced myself it was nothing but work pressure, and I threw myself into finding ways to ease his burden. If I couldn't help with his career, I'd make up for it in the kitchen. I rotated the menu weekly, never repeating a dish. I believed that with enough effort, things would get back on track.

Then I met Eunice Maddox.

I'd gotten up early that morning to make Chad's favorite corn and pork rib soup, and I brought it to the university before lunch. When I reached his office door, I could hear him deep in a heated discussion about a physics problem with a female colleague beside him.

The woman looked up, a flicker of confusion in her eyes.

"Can I help you?"

I gestured toward Chad. "I'm here for Professor Harding."

In that single moment, I caught it—a flash of panic darting through Chad's eyes. The hand that had been resting on Eunice's back quietly dropped to his side.

I set the soup on the desk. Chad poured half of it into a bowl for Eunice.

During the small talk that followed, she turned to me.

"Are you part of the university too, Mrs. Harding? Do you study physics as well?"

I shook my head and started to explain. "We're not actually married—"

Chad cut me off. "No. She never went to college."

Eunice gave me a long, knowing look and let out a soft, measured "Oh."

My cheeks burned. My fingers dug into the edge of the desk so hard the knuckles went white. I wanted to disappear.

I carried the emptied containers home.

I stood at the kitchen sink for a long time, staring at nothing.

I regretted it. I regretted not going to college. I regretted not continuing with physics.

In high school, physics had been my best subject. Every problem Chad couldn't solve, I'd cracked with ease. Now I couldn't even follow the terminology he and Eunice tossed around like it was nothing.

The gap between us was widening, and for the first time, I felt the ground shifting beneath my feet.

So I decided to change.

I started reading the physics textbooks stacked on Chad's desk. Whenever I hit something I didn't understand, I wrote it down and waited for him to come home so I could pester him for an explanation.

His answer was always the same: "I could explain, but you wouldn't get it."

Still, I was happy. At least we had something to talk about.

What made me even happier was the day I found a lace nightgown while organizing the closet. It was exactly my size.

A secret thrill ran through me. I figured Chad had finally gotten the hint but was too shy to give it to me himself.

That evening, I changed into the nightgown before he got home, dabbed on perfume, and slipped under the covers.

I fought off sleep until well past midnight before the bedroom door finally opened.

But when Chad pulled back the blanket, there was no surprise on his face. No warmth. Nothing I'd imagined.

His brow furrowed. His voice came out flat and cold.

"That doesn't suit you."

"You'd need to be curvier to pull it off."

Then he scolded me for going through his things and ordered me to take it off.

I stood at the foot of the bed with nothing on.

He rolled over, turning his back to me, and fell asleep without another glance.

The humiliation swallowed me whole. I lay there with my eyes open until dawn, tears soaking half the pillow.

After that night, we stopped talking. I packed my things and stayed at Lily's place for several days.

But I couldn't stop thinking about Chad. I worried he couldn't even manage three meals a day on his own. After all, I'd taken care of him for ten full years. Habits like that are the hardest to break.

In the end, I couldn't harden my heart. I loaded up on groceries at the supermarket and headed home, arms full of bags.

I pushed the door open.

Two half-naked bodies were tangled together on our bed.

Eunice was wearing the lace nightgown.

The grocery bags slipped from my hands and hit the floor.

I lost all reason. I lunged at Eunice like a woman possessed, clawing at the nightgown on her body. She shrieked, scrambling to hide behind Chad.

"Jade! That's enough!"

Chad's palm cracked across my face, and he wrenched me to the ground.

I didn't feel the pain. I threw myself at him, screaming.

"You ungrateful bastard! I took care of you for ten years! I put you through college!"

"You wouldn't even have gotten the chance to go to school if it weren't for me! And this is how you repay me?"

"You two deserve each other! Karma will come for both of you!"

Chad watched my breakdown with cold detachment, looking at me the way someone looks at a lunatic.

Then he grabbed my wrists, tied them behind my back, and shoved me into the storage closet.

I hit the floor hard, and the impact kicked up a cloud of dust.

The coughing started immediately. Violent, uncontrollable. My asthma.

I pounded on the door with everything I had, my words slurring together as I begged.

"Let me out, Chad."

"Please... let me out..."

I couldn't even finish a full sentence.

On the other side of the door, Eunice whined, "God, she's so loud. When is she going to shut up?"

Chad knew I had asthma. He knew. And still he said, "She needs to learn her lesson this time. I'm going to make sure she remembers."

Gradually, each breath became harder to draw. My fists against the door grew weaker and weaker.

Lily saved me. She'd gotten my message just in time.

The doctor shook his head. "Young lady, that was a close call. One more minute and you wouldn't have made it."

Surviving that brush with death changed something in me. It was like a fog lifted.

If I wasn't the one who was supposed to die, then someone else deserved to.

I went to Chad's university and reported their affair. Then I compiled a full twenty pages of evidence into a presentation and posted it online.

But justice never came. What came instead was Chad, trying to talk me down.

"Jade, I do love you. I just... lost my way for a moment."

"Can you stop making a scene? If you're willing to let this go, you can go right back to your easy, comfortable life."

"All you have to do is stay home like before. You don't have to go out and deal with the world. Isn't that nice?"

So that was it. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year of devoted, tireless care, and in Chad's eyes, I'd just been sitting at home.

I couldn't understand how my life had come to this.

My mind started to crumble, piece by piece.

Every window ledge I passed made me want to jump.

Standing on the beach, I'd find myself drifting toward the water without thinking, wanting to keep walking until the waves swallowed me whole.

Then one night, late, when no one was around.

I pressed a blade to my left wrist and cut deep. Warm, thick liquid pulsed out in steady streams.

I closed my eyes and felt my body temperature draining away, degree by degree.

What pulled me back was a phone call from Sunnyside Group Home.

"Jade, we've found your birth mother."

"She's in the hospital right now, but her condition is stable. You should come see her when you get the chance."

A mother I had never met in my life reached across the void and pulled me back from the edge of death.

She reminded me that I wasn't alone in this world. That somewhere out there, someone still cared whether I lived or died.

I'd thought we would have plenty of chances to see each other again.

But then Chad said he wanted to meet me, that he had something important to give me.

I arrived at the agreed spot and waited for hours before he finally showed up.

He handed me a puzzle and told me, "If you ever run into trouble, open it up."

Right then, my phone buzzed twice and the screen went black. Dead battery.

No one could have predicted that my mother's condition would deteriorate so suddenly.

Because of Chad. Because of that puzzle. I missed the call from the hospital.

I missed my mother's final moments. She died without ever seeing her daughter.

"Your mother-in-law keeps so many flowers in this old house. You have to water them every couple of days. Doesn't that get exhausting?"

Lily's voice snapped me back to the present.

I smiled at her. "My mother-in-law's been so good to me. Watering a few flowers is nothing."

"Besides, the house my mom left me is right next door. I can pop over and check on it whenever I want."

Lily grinned. "Oh, we all know your mother-in-law adores you. That heirloom bracelet on your wrist alone is worth eight figures."

We locked up the house, still chatting, and walked out through the courtyard.

A black Bentley sat parked by the gate. A man in a tailored suit leaned against it, and the moment he saw me step out, he crushed his cigarette under his heel.

Wallace Walker closed the distance between us in two strides, slipped the bag from my hand, and pulled me into his arms. His lips found mine in a soft, unhurried kiss.

Lily groaned in protest. "You two have been married four or five years. How are you still this disgustingly sweet?"

"Go be lovey-dovey somewhere else!"

Wallace looked thoroughly pleased with himself. "We plan on being this disgustingly sweet for the rest of our lives. I'm afraid you'll just have to keep watching."

The words had barely left his mouth when a voice carried over from down the street.

"Jade, who is he?"