On our wedding night, Jackson Simmons was called away by an urgent work call. He didn't come back until noon the next day.
He looked at the food I'd reheated over and over, then collapsed onto the couch, his voice worn thin.
'Camila Stewart, that wasn't a work call last night. It was your stepsister.'
'I was with her the whole night. She's a lot better in bed than you are. We had a wonderful time.'
My hand jerked.
The soup I'd just ladled from the clay pot spilled all over.
In an instant it scalded the skin off the top of my foot, and yet I felt no pain at all.
I stood frozen where I was, staring hard at Jackson.
Something about last night seemed to please him, a flicker of it dancing between his brows.
He lit a cigarette without a second thought and went on,
'Three years ago, those photos of you being violated.'
'I'm the one who had them posted online.'
He stretched and sank deeper into the couch, ash scattering onto the rug I'd just cleaned.
Beneath the lifted hem of his shirt, I saw the kiss marks covering his waist.
Noticing my gaze,
Jackson raised his eyebrows high and smiled at me.
'Actually, the man who violated you—I was the one who hired him, too.'
——
For a moment the world spun.
Three years ago, on the night of my birthday, I was dragged out of the restroom by criminals,
tormented at their mercy for three days and three nights,
and three hours after I was rescued,
those unspeakable photos were spread all over the internet.
The pain of skin flayed open by a whip,
the hatred of being exposed online, of strangers pointing at me and calling me a 'slut,'
stripped away my courage to keep living.
It was Jackson who dragged me, by sheer force, up out of that darkness.
Night after night I drank myself into a stupor,
and Jackson worked a full day, then stayed with me through every single night.
He pushed himself so hard that he collapsed right there in his office from exhaustion.
I overdosed on my medication,
and right after, Jackson deliberately drank until he gave himself a perforated stomach.
To this day, he still can't touch anything cold.
The time I broke down worst of all, I climbed to the roof.
Jackson stood up there with me and said that if I didn't want to live, then he would have to die before me,
so he could go on ahead and get our new home ready.
The moment he finished speaking, Jackson threw himself off.
He slammed down hard onto the emergency airbag, every bone in his body shattered.
I kept watch outside the ICU for seven days and seven nights, and after he was discharged, I said yes to his proposal.
All this time I had thought of Jackson as the redemption of my life,
but he had just said,
that on our wedding night, he'd gone to be another woman's groom.
That the thing that had driven me to the edge of the abyss, he was the one who did it.
'Wh… why?'
Barefoot, treading over the porcelain shattered across the floor, I walked slowly toward Jackson.
Bright red blood, mixed with greasy soup, left a streak of crimson across the spotless white tiles,
and yet I felt no pain at all.
'Jackson, why?!'
'Why would you do this to me?!'
Every word was like a thorn born in my blood,
piercing through my veins, tearing through my flesh, screaming out from inside my chest.
It hurt so much.
Jackson slowly sat up on the couch.
As he straightened his clothes, he caught sight of the long streak of blood behind me.
His brow tightened.
He crushed out the half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray,
reached into the first drawer on the left side of the coffee table with practiced ease and took out iodine and cotton swabs.
He came over and gripped my ankle, his tone flat but with a thread of tenderness running through it.
'You're bleeding. Let me take care of it.'
Watching Jackson kneel there in front of me, tearing open the swab packaging like it was second nature,
