"Say you want to sleep with another man's wife, but you're afraid her husband might come home and catch you. What do you do?"

Someone answered:

"Easy. Have the woman park her car in her husband's spot. That way, when he comes home and needs the space moved, he'll call her first, and she'll have a heads-up..."

I used to torment myself with regret. Why didn't I just call Gretchen and ask her to come downstairs?

Why did I have to go up alone?

Why, when I heard the sounds coming from inside the apartment, did I have to push open that door?

If I hadn't done any of those things, could I have gone on living in blissful ignorance forever?

Would my brother and my wife still be alive, instead of killing themselves out of guilt?

Would my parents not hate me so much?

But there are no do-overs.

The moment I pushed the door open, I saw my wife's betrayal and my brother's treachery laid bare.

I broke down sobbing, lunging at Rex to slap him across the face.

Gretchen shoved me away.

She stood in front of Rex, shielding him, her eyes fixed on me with a wary, guarded look:

"If you want to blame someone, blame me. This has nothing to do with Rex. I fell in love with him while treating him. I'm the one without professional ethics. I'm the one who couldn't control my own heart."

Even my parents, who had rushed over after getting the call, sided with him. They said, voices stiff with disapproval:

"Enough. You've already made a scene. What more do you want? Are you going to force your brother to get on his knees and apologize?"

"Your brother has depression. He's finally found someone he cares about, someone who gives him a reason to live. Can't you just be generous for once and let him have this?"

I screamed and cried like a madman, pouring out every injustice I'd ever swallowed:

"Why do you keep doing this to me?! All these years, just because Rex has depression, because he can't handle the slightest upset, I've been forced to give in over and over and over again!"

"He was fragile! He was in a bad mood! So from the time I was a kid, you wouldn't let me go out and play! Wouldn't let me have friends! Wouldn't let me do anything fun! I had to stay by his side! But then you'd turn around and take HIM on vacations, and call it 'treatment'!"

"He was too sick to study for the SATs. So you wouldn't let ME go to college! But then you sent HIM to study abroad!"

"I finally married someone I loved and had a home of my own! And you forced him to move in with us! Because Gretchen was a psychologist, you said, and having her care for him around the clock might cure him!"

"You were so afraid he'd hurt himself that you made me agree to let Gretchen stay by his side twenty-four hours a day!"

"And now? Because he 'can't handle stress,' he gets to steal my wife, and I'm supposed to forgive him?!"

"On what grounds?! Tell me on what grounds!"

I was gasping between sobs when I turned to Gretchen.

She used to stand by me without hesitation.

Whenever Rex pulled his usual act, playing the pitiful depressive for sympathy,

she would cut through it without a shred of courtesy:

"Mr. Swanson, don't bother putting on a show for me. I'm a psychologist. I am absolutely certain you don't have depression. This is just the tool you use to bully my husband."

"Don't think you can keep using this to hurt him. I'm going to expose you for what you really are, and I'm going to make your parents see just how badly they've treated Maxwell because of you."

"Everything you owe my husband, I will get back for him."

But now, watching her gaze at Rex with tender, protective eyes,

my heart shattered into dust.

I grabbed at her sleeve, grief clawing through every word as I asked her again and again:

"You said it didn't matter who else he fooled, he'd never fool you. You said you'd protect me forever! That you'd never let anyone wrong me again! Gretchen, how could you forget what you promised me? How could you take his side too?!"

Gretchen's hand froze mid-reach where she'd been shielding Rex. She looked at me, her expression tangled with guilt.

Rex went white. He spun around and climbed onto the windowsill. While my parents screamed, he let out a bitter laugh through his tears:

"Max, I had no idea you'd been suffering so much because of me all these years."

"I've always known I was nothing but a burden, dragging all of you down. If it weren't for not wanting to break Mom and Dad's hearts, if it weren't for meeting Gretchen, I would've killed myself a long time ago."

"It's not too late. Let me die now. Consider it my way of making it up to you."

My mother shrieked, begging Rex not to move, then whipped around and hit me:

"You won't be satisfied until you've driven your brother to death, is that it?! Tell him now! Tell him you were wrong!"

Even Gretchen grabbed my hand, squeezing it so hard her knuckles went white, demanding I apologize to Rex immediately:

"Max! Just listen! Apologize to Rex first! You can't just stand there and watch him die!"

I let a mocking smile spread across my face.

"In your dreams."

"He's been pulling this suicide stunt for over a decade. If he actually wanted to die, he'd be dead already."

"He's just using your sympathy to put on a show and push me around."

A slap cracked across my face. My mother glared at me like I was her worst enemy and screamed:

"How did I raise such a vicious son?! If anything happens to my boy because of you, I will never let this go!"

In the end, Rex didn't jump.

Because Gretchen broke down sobbing, screaming that it was all her fault, that if anyone should die it should be her.

She ran downstairs with her swollen belly and threw herself into traffic.

I ran after her on instinct.

The moment the car was about to hit her, the part of me that still loved her made me reach out and shove her out of the way.

I was rushed into emergency surgery. They replaced nearly every drop of blood in my body before they managed to keep me alive.

But I was left permanently disabled, and I would never be a father.

Outside my room, Gretchen knelt on the floor, begging, her voice cracked and trembling as she asked what she could possibly do to earn my forgiveness.

I used every ounce of strength I had left to say one sentence.

"Gretchen, I will never forgive you. Not unless you're dead."

I lay in the ICU for three days.

On the third day, I was transferred to a regular ward. The first thing I did was have a lawyer draft a divorce agreement and a family severance document.

But before I could send either one out,

the news arrived first: Gretchen and Rex were dead. A lovers' suicide pact.

My parents burst into my room like they'd lost their minds and dragged me off the hospital bed,

calling me a murderer, a curse on the family.

My in-laws collapsed against the doorframe, fingers shaking as they pointed at me and screamed:

"You drove your brother and Gretchen to their deaths!"

"Why couldn't it have been you who died, you jinx?! You killed them! You'll rot for this!"

The scene drew a crowd of bystanders in the hospital. Someone filmed it and posted it online.

"Apparently this guy accused his own wife of cheating with his brother. She was heavily pregnant and he tried to force her into an abortion and a divorce. Then he got hit by a car. His wife was on her knees outside his room begging him not to leave her, and he told her to go die."

"His brother had depression and couldn't take the stress. So the brother and the wife drove off a cliff together. Said it was to atone..."

Fragments of the truth, twisted just enough to set the entire internet on fire.

Everyone called me delusional, psychotic, said I'd killed my own child, driven my wife and brother to their deaths.

My parents signed the family severance papers with bloodshot eyes, then looked at me and said coldly:

"You killed our son. Someone like you doesn't deserve to be called our son."

My father-in-law and mother-in-law were merciless, pouring every ounce of their grief onto me.

They hired men to drag me straight out of the hospital,

break my legs, strip me, and dump me on the side of the road.

Before they left, they held up photos of me at my most wretched and said:

"The people who hired us told us that as long as you're suffering, they're satisfied."

"You'd better keep your head down and stay invisible. If you so much as try to find a job, these photos go viral."

I gathered my clothes in numb silence, dragging my shattered legs behind me,

and fled to a remote small town like a rat driven from the gutter. I survived by picking through trash.

Five full years. It wasn't until I collapsed on the roadside and someone brought me to a hospital that I learned the truth: I had HIV.

The doctor reviewed my medical history. The sympathy in his voice was unmistakable:

"I'm so sorry, sir. Based on your records, I believe you were infected through a contaminated blood transfusion years ago. Rest assured, a medical incident this severe will be reported immediately. You will get answers."

"Your body is critically depleted, and multiple complications have already set in. At this rate, you have a month at most. You need to transfer to a specialized facility right away. There may still be a chance."

I laughed. I just started laughing, and then the tears came.

"No need. This is good. I'm finally going to die."

I'd killed my brother and my wife.

Now, at last, I could pay for it with my life.

At last, I could live out whatever was left in peace.

But even death wouldn't let me go quietly.

The complications hit all at once.

I vomited blood constantly, the pain so unbearable I'd collapse on the ground, panting like a dying animal.

Even the doctor's eyes were red when he urged me to take the strongest painkillers available.

But a single pill cost over a hundred dollars. How could I possibly afford that?

The hospital staff took pity on me and found me a job caring for a terminally ill dementia patient.

I thought I would die like that. Quietly. Without a ripple.

I never expected that in the final stretch of my life, I would stumble onto a lie that had destroyed everything.

But I had no strength left to hate. No strength left to resent.

All I wanted was to walk through my last ten days with whatever dignity and silence I could hold onto.

...

I returned to the ward without a word, carrying a clean basin to change out for the old man.

But my parents came back. They grabbed my hand.

"Your brother's lost too much blood! You're the only one whose blood type matches his! You need to come with us right now for a transfusion!"

I stood where I was. Didn't move.

"I'm not going."

"I can't give him my blood."

A blank look crossed my parents' faces, just for a second, before fury took over.

"Your brother is like this because of YOU! He's in hemorrhagic shock! You won't give him blood? You want to watch him die?"

"I know what this is. You're still holding a grudge over the accident five years ago, aren't you? Over Rex and Gretchen? You're the one who threw yourself in front of that car! What right do you have to blame them?"

I said nothing.

My mother seized my hand, her voice caught somewhere between rage and begging:

"If you want revenge, take it out on me! I'll get on my knees and knock my head on the floor if that's what it takes! Just spare your brother! He's already suffered enough!"

I turned my head away, swallowing the bitterness down.

"I need to get back to work."

Gretchen stepped in front of me and knocked the basin out of my hands.