I grabbed a fistful of her hair and slapped her across the face.
I was going in for another when someone seized my arm and wrenched it back.
"Renee, what the hell are you doing on campus again? I told you to stay home! Can you stop making problems for me? Today is Bess's academic presentation. Don't cause a scene!"
Jarvis hurled me to the ground.
Contempt. Pity. People watching like it was a show. I understood then—Bess had provoked me on purpose, goaded me into losing it so everyone here could see the crazy woman they'd all been told about. So she could step into my place. So she could close in on me from every side.
I stared him down.
"She showed my father a video of you two together. She killed him. And I shouldn't have hit her? I only hate myself for not beating her to death!"
Something flickered across Jarvis's eyes. Panic, maybe. Surprise.
Bess caught it instantly. She pressed a hand to her cheek, eyes reddening on cue.
"That's not true! Ms. Henson must not be right in the head. Why would I ever record something like that?"
One wounded look from her, and every trace of doubt in Jarvis vanished.
"You've completely lost your mind!"
I opened my mouth, reaching for the voice recorder hidden in my pocket, the one I'd brought to trap Bess into a confession.
But a heavy, dragging pain tore through my lower abdomen where I'd struck the curb.
I grabbed for his hand without thinking.
"Jarvis, I... my stomach hurts."
He glanced back at me, brow furrowed.
"Enough. You're a grown woman. Drop the act. Even if you collapse right here, it won't change anything."
"No one is ruining Bess's presentation today. Get out of here. Go home before you embarrass yourself any further."
He scooped Bess into his arms and walked away without looking back.
I fought through the pain, shaking as I got to my feet. I made it two steps before everything went black.
When I opened my eyes again, I was in a hospital.
The doctor stood beside the bed, frowning.
"You're pregnant. Two months along, and you haven't been careful at all. Where's your family? We need to get you admitted. You have to stay on bed rest."
My heart seized.
My hand drifted to my stomach, trembling.
The child we'd hoped for so desperately, and it chose now to come.
The man who used to panic if I so much as sneezed, who'd rush over asking if I was okay—that same man had just walked away and left me on the ground. That faint thread of joy vanished instantly.
Tears slid silently into my hair.
"I don't want it."
The doctor paused.
"A termination requires your spouse's signature on a consent form. Think it over."
I took my ID to the nurses' station to have the form drawn up, already trying to figure out how I'd get him to sign it.
The nurse frowned at her screen.
"Ms. Henson, according to our records you don't have a legal spouse. You can make the decision on your own."
I stared at her.
The absurdity of it crashed over me, and my voice shook so badly I barely got the words out.
"That's impossible. I've been married for years. My husband is Jarvis Swanson."
The nurse shook her head.
"I can't speak to that. Our records pull directly from civil registration."
I was still shaking when I got into a cab and went straight to the county clerk's office.
The clerk took my ID.
Every keystroke landed like a hammer blow against my chest.
After a long silence, her voice came out flat and routine.
"Your marriage to Mr. Swanson was dissolved three years ago. His current legal spouse is Ms. Hughes."
The room tilted. The light collapsed. Everything went dark.
I looked at the reissued divorce decree. The date on it was the day his father died.
My skull felt ready to split.
When I refused to lend Bess the surgery money, he'd promised he would take care of her, that he wouldn't abandon her. What he meant was divorcing me.
During the cooling-off period, he transferred out the money meant for my father's life-saving surgery.
Killed the man who had funded him, who had lifted him to the peak of academia.
Then turned around and married someone else.
A mouthful of blood surged up my throat.
Disgusting. Truly, utterly disgusting.
I didn't hesitate for a single second. I went to the hospital and had the abortion.
Lying on the operating table, I had Bess's social media feed open on my phone.
*Big win in the lab today All thanks to my amazing Professor—tonight's reward is on me*
The photo showed two hands with fingers intertwined, and on his hand was an unfamiliar wedding ring.
No wonder. No wonder they could flaunt their love openly in front of the students.
I was the only one kept in the dark about the divorce.
From start to finish, I was the other woman.
In that moment, every emotion came crashing back.
Only one thought left in my head: Why?
Why did their romance, their perfect life, have to be built on the blood and bones of my father and me?
How could anyone repay kindness with cruelty so thoroughly, so completely?
I refused to accept it.
I would make them pay.
I came off that operating table, wiped my eyes, and took one long breath. Then I did two things.
I pulled every recording from the voice recorder, bundled them with the experimental data and handwritten notes my father had saved on his computer—all dated three years ago—along with on-site photographs, and sent the entire package to their university and the Academic Research Council. Then I issued a public statement charging them with research data theft.
I hired the best lawyer money could buy and handed over three years' worth of living records, plus my psychiatric diagnosis report proving I was perfectly sane. I sued Jarvis for bigamy, and for conspiring with Bess to defraud and steal four hundred thousand from our family—money whose loss killed my father. I sued him for forging a psychiatric diagnosis report to brand me insane, and for forging official government documents.
When it was all done, I changed my phone number and blocked and deleted both of them.
This fake, laughable three years could end right here.
