Terence recovered first, forcing out a dry little laugh.
"Erica... you came too."
Mavis chimed in, her voice noticeably short on nerve.
"Yeah, long time no see... are, are you doing okay?"
Erica said nothing.
They knew Carter was married. They knew Laura existed. They knew that she, Erica, had been kept in the dark and played for a fool for two years.
They'd probably eaten together, gone out to dinners, sat around a table figuring out how to keep it from her.
She'd once thought they were her friends.
But it turned out she was the one who didn't belong.
Oblivious to how strange the air in the room had gone, Laura tugged Erica warmly toward the table.
"Come in, come in! Don't just stand in the doorway!"
Erica let herself be pulled to the table and sat down.
The dishes were already laid out, steaming, the smell of them filling the room.
Mavis carried the last plate out from the kitchen, sauteed green beans, and set it right in the center.
"Here, here, this is my specialty, I made it just for you," Mavis said with a smile. "Laura's appetite's been bad with the pregnancy, so I picked something that'd whet it."
Laura clapped her hands and cheered.
"Mavis, you're the best!" She picked up her chopsticks, and the very first thing she grabbed was the green beans, dropping them into Erica's bowl. "Erica, try some quick, Mavis is such a good cook!"
Erica looked at the bright green beans in her bowl, her pupils tightening a fraction.
She was allergic to green beans.
Everyone close to her knew it.
She glanced at Carter without thinking.
"Eat. What are you sitting there for?" Carter's voice came from across the table, edged with impatience. "You're here now, so drop the death-warmed-over look. You're killing the mood."
Erica lifted her head to look at him.
He was sitting beside Laura, peeling shrimp for her.
"I'm allergic to green be—"
Before she could finish, Laura had already lifted a green bean, holding it up to her mouth with a beaming smile.
"Here, open up! It's so good, just try it!"
Erica instinctively turned her head to dodge it, but Laura moved faster than she expected, and the bean went straight into her mouth.
"Good, isn't it?"
Erica's face changed in an instant.
She wrenched her head aside, covered her mouth with her hand, and spat out the half-chewed bean, doubling over into a fit of coughing.
The whole table went cold.
Laura's smile froze on her face, her chopsticks hanging in midair, and she looked to Carter, at a loss.
Carter set down the shrimp shell in his hand, his expression darkening in plain view.
"Erica. What's your problem?"
"I'm allergic to green beans. I can't eat them."
Laura blinked, glancing helplessly between Mavis and Carter.
"Huh? You're allergic to green beans? I didn't know..."
Mavis's face went stiff, and she dropped her head without a word.
Carter stared at Erica, his gaze heavy.
"After all these years, that precious little act of yours hasn't changed one bit."
Something clamped down hard around Erica's heart, like an unseen hand.
Before she could get a word out, Carter was already on his feet.
He picked up the plate of green beans, came around to her, and in front of everyone's stunned eyes, took up the chopsticks, gathered a full load of the beans, gripped her chin with one hand, forced her mouth open, and shoved that big mouthful of beans down her throat.
"Eat." His voice was cold. "Laura went out of her way to serve you, so you swallow it. Don't be so ungrateful."
Erica choked, tears streaming down her face, her whole mouth flooded with the taste of the beans. Instinct told her to spit it out, but Carter's big hand clamped over her mouth, forcing her to swallow.
"Swallow it," he repeated.
Her throat was forced to work, several times over, choking the beans down bit by bit.
Tears slid down her cheeks and dripped onto the back of the hand pressed over her mouth.
Only then did Carter let go, step back, and sit down again with a bland look on his face.
Not a sound at the table.
Terence kept his head down, not daring to look. Mavis sat frozen, gripping her chopsticks.
Startled by the sudden turn, Laura mumbled under her breath.
"Carter... what did you do that for... if she doesn't want it, just leave it..."
Carter picked up another shrimp and peeled the shell off it, unhurried.
"It's fine. She just needs to be put in her place."
Erica sat in the chair, her whole body starting to itch.
Her memory ran back.
She and Carter had been out to eat, and she'd swallowed green beans by mistake. In under ten minutes her whole body had broken out in red welts, her breathing gone ragged, and it had scared Carter so badly he'd scooped her up on the spot and rushed her out of the restaurant, tearing across the city to the emergency room.
He'd paced back and forth outside the treatment room, fists clenched, looking worse than she did.
When she came out, his eyes were red as he took her hand, his voice shaking.
"Erica, this is my fault. I didn't watch what you were eating. I swear I'll never let anything like that near you again."
After that, anywhere she went, Carter would tell the restaurant and the kitchen in advance that not a single dish could have green beans in it.
He even saved pictures of the common kinds of green beans on his phone, checking carefully every time before he ordered.
Back then he'd protected her so completely nothing could slip through.
But now...
That man, and this one across from her coldly peeling shrimp, were they really the same person?
Or had the Carter who loved her died a long, long time ago.
And she was only finding out today.
Erica sat in the chair, and the red welts spread across her body at a speed she could watch with her own eyes.
Laura was the first to notice something was wrong.
"Erica? Your face..."
She set down her chopsticks, leaned in for a look, and her expression changed.
"Your allergy is really bad! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't know you actually couldn't eat them!"
She scrambled up and grabbed Erica's wrist.
"Come on, I remember there's allergy medicine in the nightstand in the bedroom, it should still be good, I'll go find it for you!"
Pulled to her feet, Erica followed her toward the bedroom on unsteady legs.
Behind her she heard Terence ask quietly, "Is she all right?", only for Carter's flat "What could possibly be wrong" to shut it down.
Laura brought her into the bedroom, sat her on the edge of the bed, and dug through the drawers for the medicine.
"I remember it's right here, found it!"
She pulled a blister strip out of the drawer, broke the foil, and tipped the pills into her palm.
Erica held out her hand, waiting for her to pass them over.
But Laura didn't give her the pills.
She looked down at the pills in her palm, then suddenly raised her head and looked at Erica.
The next second, Laura shoved the whole handful of pills into her own mouth.
Erica froze.
"You..."
Laura chewed twice and forced the pills down.
She lifted a hand and dug several red marks into her own arm, mussed up her hair, stumbled back two steps, and dropped to the floor.
“Erica! Erica, I'm sorry! I really didn't know you were allergic! Don't do this to me!”
The cry was shrill, thick with sobs, and it tore through the whole room.
Erica stood frozen where she was, her mind blank.
Before she could make sense of any of it, the bedroom door was kicked open.
Carter came storming in.
“Laura!” He rushed over, dropped to one knee, and pulled her into his arms, his voice shaking. “What is it? What happened?!”
Laura buried her face against his shoulder, crying so hard she could barely breathe.
“I was only trying to find her the medicine, and she grabbed the allergy pills and shoved them all into my mouth, forced me to swallow them, and pushed me.”
“Carter, will our baby be all right? I don't want to die!”
Erica's pupils shrank hard.
“I didn't! She did it herself—”
“Shut up!”
Carter's head snapped up.
“Erica, have you lost your mind? She's pregnant! And you put your hands on her?!”
