The spotlight hit me, and every eye in the hall turned my way.
Nora's voice rang out, brimming with fervor. "This is our patient for today. I'm sure most of you recognize her. After she was kidnapped, she was toyed with for three months and dumped in the deep mountains. When she was found, she barely had any clothes left. This is our heroine, Charlene Henson."
"I'm not!" I screamed. "Let me go!"
"Dishonesty. She lay around with someone else, and still she thinks herself innocent, blameless. That is a form of psychological defense." Nora looked down at me from on high. "Only by admitting her own wrongs can she have any hope of recovery. So we must make her face her own shadow."
On the LED screen, the two livestreams played on a loop.
The lenses fixed on me sobbing and screaming, magnifying my agony for everyone.
Every look of contempt came rushing back.
They ignored my pain, pulled out their phones, filmed while they commented. "Saving this one. This woman really goes wild, huh."
"Good thing her dad died early. If he'd seen this, he'd have been furious to death all over again."
"Ahhh!" I crouched down, covered my ears, shaking without stop.
"Charlene Henson, do you admit you're a slut, a cheap little tramp? Do you admit you got with the kidnappers?"
Nora's voice was like a devil murmuring low.
"It wasn't me! It was you people! Let me go!" I struggled to run, but the bodyguards clawed at me and pinned me to the stage.
My dress tore in the pulling, and when I tried to cover myself, the bodyguards yanked my hands away out of pure spite.
"Marvin, let me go! I'm begging you!" I sobbed.
Marvin stood and rushed toward me, but after only a few steps he glanced back anxiously at Nora on the stage.
In my earpiece, his voice came strained.
"Be good. Admit fault first."
"I did nothing wrong. Why should I admit anything!" My tears soaked the carpet as I screamed in despair.
"This launch matters to Nora. Only if her treatment is proven to work can she become a nationally certified counselor." He sounded rushed, pressing. "Be good. Just admit fault, that's all."
The blood ran cold all through me, and behind me my own screaming on the LED screen seemed so far away.
Marvin's voice forced at my ear. "You don't admit fault, you stay up there."
Tears slid down. I gave up struggling, knelt before Nora, and said it word by word. "I admit fault. I'm a slut. I'm a cheap little tramp. I killed my own parents."
Nora spoke with satisfaction and contempt. "Good. The first step of treatment is working. The second step is atonement. Once you speak out all your guilt, the shadow in your heart will disappear."
She put on a troubled look. "But Miss Henson's family is all dead. There's no one left for you to confess your guilt to."
"Here's an idea." She pointed to her own chest, playing the magnanimous one. "You know, you and I are quite fated. When your father passed, the heart he gave up was transplanted right into me. Why not apologize to me? Consider it an apology to your father's heart."
She laughed, smug and venomous, waiting for me to bow my head, waiting to grind me into the mud in front of everyone.
I looked at her coldly. "No need to make it so complicated."
I turned and threw myself off the meter-high stage, slamming hard onto the marble floor, blood spattering out in petals.
Amid the crowd's screams, I spat out a mouthful of blood. "There. Enough?"
"Enough." Marvin rushed over and wrapped me in a blanket.
His eyes were red, and the hands holding me were actually trembling. "Hospital. To the hospital, now."
"Marvin, my stomach hurts so much." Nora's cries came down from the stage. "She scared me."
Marvin's arms around me went stiff.
Just one second, then he shoved me at the assistant and ran to Nora without a backward glance.
The last thing I saw before I blacked out was Marvin kissing Nora deeply to comfort her.
Not until the tenth doctor said the baby in Nora's belly was fine, and Nora even more fine, did Marvin let out a breath.
Then he thought of Charlene, and the image flashed through his mind of her covered in blood as she fell off the stage.
She was pregnant too, wasn't she.
"As long as you're all right. I'll call Peter for you..."
Marvin was in a hurry, suddenly remembering that Charlene was also a pregnant woman carrying a child.
"Marv." Nora's eyes reddened. "Lately he's fallen for some college girl. He has no time for me."
Sidney Finch saw her tearful eyes, felt a stab in his chest, and pulled her into his arms. "If I'd only held on a little longer back then, you never would have had to suffer like this. Every time I see how well I protected Charlene, and then see you hurt like this by Peter, I regret it."
Where he couldn't see, Nora curled her red lips. "So you understand now why I don't like you getting close to Charlene? The one who should be suffering this is Charlene, and the one who should stay by your side living happily is me. I'm suffering in Charlene's place. She owes me."
On any other day Marvin would have held her tight with an aching heart and soothed her. "As long as you're happy. I'll do anything you ask."
But right now the image of Charlene covered in blood rose in his mind.
He hesitated a moment. "I'll do anything you ask, but Charlene... she's already suffered enough."
Nora froze, disbelief and jealousy flickering across her face.
"Then you'd better comfort me properly right now." She threw herself into Marvin's arms, all coy and clinging, and the two of them tangled together.
Afterward Marvin tucked the blanket over Nora and hurried home.
Today was Charlene's birthday. He really ought to be at her side.
But when he got home and looked at the cold, empty rooms, it suddenly came to him.
Charlene had been hurt today. She'd be in the hospital now.
The housekeeper came over carrying a gift box and a document.
"Sir, Madam said she won't be coming back tonight. This is the gift she prepared for you."
Marvin stood dazed for a moment, then after a long while he sighed softly and smiled.
Charlene loved him too much. He'd gone so far these last few times, and still she'd thought to prepare a gift for him.
It seemed he really did need to set aside some time for her... he'd stay by her until she recovered, then. When the time came he'd let her carry a child. Call it making it up to her.
Smiling, he tore open the gift box, only to be cut off by the assistant charging in, panic all over his face.
