So Be It

 

I knew I was pregnant because my breasts looked better than they had ever looked.

I’m very aware of my body, what goes into it, how to nourish it, how to keep it toned. Growing up watching my mother’s waistline expand with her laziness, I work out daily, sometimes twice a day.

I learned very early on that a human is not merely comprised of only one thing. We are two parts that make up the whole.

We have our conscious, which includes our mind, our soul, and all the intangible parts.

And we have our physical being, which is the machine that our conscious relies on for survival.

If you fuck with the machine, you will die. If you neglect the machine, you will die. If you assume your conscious can outlive the machine, you will die shortly after learning you were wrong.

It’s very simple, really. Take care of your physical being. Feed it what it needs, not what the conscience tells you it wants. Giving in to cravings of the mind that ultimately hurt the body is like a weak parent giving in to her child.

“Oh, you had a bad day? Do you want an entire box of cookies? Okay, sweetie.

Eat it. And drink this soda while you’re at it.”

Caring for your body is no different from caring for a child. Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it sucks, sometimes you just want to give in, but if you do, you’ll pay for the consequences eighteen years down the road.

It’s fitting when it comes to my mother. She cared for me like she cared for her body. Very little. Sometimes I wonder if she’s still fat—if she’s still neglecting that machine. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t spoken to her in years.

But I’m not interested in speaking about a woman who chose never to speak of me again. I’m here to discuss the first thing my baby ever stole from me.

Jeremy.

I didn’t notice the theft at first.

At first, after we found out that the night we got engaged became the night we conceived, I was actually happy. I was happy because Jeremy was happy.

And at that point, other than my breasts looking better than ever, I didn’t realize how detrimental the pregnancy was going to be to the machine I had worked so hard to maintain.

It was around the third month, a few weeks after I found out I was pregnant, that I started to notice the difference. It was a small little pooch, but it was there.

I had just gotten out of the shower, and I was standing in front of the mirror, looking at my profile. My hand was flat on my stomach and I felt something foreign, and my stomach was slightly protruding.

I was disgusted. I vowed to start working out three times a day. I’d seen what pregnancy could do to women, but I also knew most of the damage was done in that last trimester. If I could somehow figure out how to deliver early…maybe around thirty-three or thirty-four weeks, I could avoid the most detrimental part of pregnancy. There have been so many advances in medical care, babies born that early are almost always fine.

“Wow.”

I dropped my hand and looked at the doorway. Jeremy was leaning against the doorframe, his arms folded over his chest. He was smiling at me. “You’re starting to show.”

“I am not.” I sucked in.

He laughed and closed the distance between us, wrapping his arms around me from behind. He placed both hands on my stomach and looked at me in the mirror. He kissed my shoulder. “You’ve never looked more beautiful.”

It was a lie to make me feel better, but I was grateful. Even his lies meant something to me. I squeezed his hands and he spun me around to face him, then he kissed me, walking me backward until I reached the bathroom counter. He lifted me onto it, then stood between my legs.

He was fully clothed, just returning from work. I was completely naked, fresh from the shower. The only thing between us were his pants and the pooch I was still trying to suck in.

He started fucking me on the counter, but we finished in bed.

His head was on my chest, and he was tracing circles over my stomach when it rumbled loudly. I tried to clear my throat to hide the noise, but he laughed.

“Someone’s hungry.”

I started to shake my head, but he lifted off my chest to look at me. “What’s she craving?”

“Nothing. I’m not hungry.”

He laughed again. “Not you. Her,” he said, patting my stomach. “Aren’t pregnant women supposed to get weird cravings and eat all the time because of the babies? You barely eat. And your stomach is growling.” He sits up on the

bed. “I need to feed my girls.”

His girls.

“You don’t even know if it’s a girl yet.”

He smiled at me. “It’s a girl. I have a feeling.”

I wanted to roll my eyes, because technically, it was nothing. Not a boy, not a girl. It was a blob. I wasn’t that far along yet, so assuming the thing growing inside me was actually hungry or craving any particular type of food was absurd.

But it was hard for me to state my case because Jeremy was so ecstatic about the baby, I didn’t really care if he treated it like it was more than it was.

Sometimes his excitement excited me.

For the next few weeks, his excitement helped me cope. The more my stomach grew, the more attentive he became. The more he would kiss it when we were in bed together at night.

In the mornings, he would hold my hair while I puked. When he was at work, he would text me potential baby names. He became as obsessed with my pregnancy as I was with him. He went to my first doctor’s visit with me.

I’m thankful he was at the second doctor’s visit, too, because that was the day my world shifted.

Twins.

Two of them.

I was quiet when we left the doctor’s office that day. I had already feared becoming the mother of one baby. Being forced to love the one thing Jeremy loved more than me. But when I found out there were two, and that they were girls, I was suddenly not okay with being the third most important thing in Jeremy’s life.

I tried to force my smile when he’d talk about them. I would act like it filled me with joy when he rubbed my stomach, but it repulsed me, knowing he was only doing it because they were in there. Even if I delivered early, it didn’t matter. Now that there were two of them, my body would suffer even more damage. I shuddered daily at the thought of them both growing inside me, stretching my skin, ruining my breasts, my stomach, and god forbid the temple between my legs where Jeremy worshipped nightly.

How could Jeremy still want me after this?

During the fourth month of my pregnancy, I started hoping for a miscarriage.

I prayed for blood when I went to the bathroom. I imagined how, after losing the twins, Jeremy would make me his priority again. He would dote on me, worship me, care for me, worry for me, and not because of what was growing inside me.

I took sleeping pills when he wasn’t looking. I drank wine when he wasn’t around. I did anything I could to destroy the things that were going to push him

away from me, but nothing worked. They kept growing. My stomach continued to stretch.

In my fifth month, we were lying on our sides in the bed. Jeremy was fucking me from behind. His left hand gripped my breast, and his right hand was against my stomach. I didn’t like it when he touched my stomach during sex. It made me think of the babies and ruined my mood.

I thought maybe he had reached orgasm when he stopped moving, but I realized he’d stopped moving because he’d felt them move. He pulled out of me and then rolled me onto my back, pressing his palm against my stomach.

“Did you feel that?” he asked. His eyes were dancing with excitement. He wasn’t hard anymore. He was excited for reasons that had nothing to do with me.

He pressed his ear to my stomach and waited for one of them to move again.

“Jeremy?” I whispered.

He kissed my stomach and looked up at me.

I reached down and teased at strands of his hair with my fingers. “Do you love them?”

He smiled because he thought I wanted him to say yes. “I love them more than anything.”

“More than me?”

He stopped smiling. He kept his hand on my stomach, but he scooted up, sliding an arm under my neck. “Different from you,” he said, kissing my cheek.

“Different, yes. But more? Is your love for them more intense than your love for me?”

His eyes scanned mine, and I was hoping he would laugh and say,

“Absolutely not.” But he didn’t laugh. He looked at me with nothing but honesty and said, “Yes.”

Really? His reply crushed me. Suffocated me. Killed me.

“But that’s how it should be,” he said. “Why? Do you feel guilty because you love them more than me?”

I didn’t answer. Did he really think I loved them more than I loved him? I don’t even know them.

“Don’t feel guilty,” he said. “I want you to love them more than you love me. Our love for each other is conditional. Our love for them isn’t.”

“My love for you is unconditional,” I said.

He smiled. “No, it isn’t. I could do things you would never forgive me for.

But you’ll always forgive your children.”

He was wrong. I didn’t forgive them for existing. I didn’t forgive them for forcing him to put me third. I didn’t forgive them for taking the night we got engaged from us.

They weren’t even born yet, but they were already taking things that had once belonged to me.

“Verity,” Jeremy whispered. He wiped a tear that had fallen from my eye.

“Are you okay?”

I shook my head. “I just can’t believe how much you already love them and they aren’t even born yet.”

“I know,” he said, smiling.

I didn’t mean it as a compliment, but he took it that way. He laid his head back on my chest and touched my stomach again. “I’ll be a fucking mess when they’re born.”

He’s going to cry?

He had never cried for me. Over me. About me.

Maybe we haven’t fought enough.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I whispered. I didn’t have to go, I just needed to get away from him and all the love he was aiming in every direction but mine.

He kissed me, and when I climbed off the bed, he rolled over, his back to me, and forgot we’d never even finished fucking.

He fell asleep while I was in the bathroom, attempting to abort his daughters with a wire hanger. I tried for half an hour, until my stomach started to cramp and blood was running down my leg. I was certain more would follow.

I climbed into bed, waiting for the miscarriage. My arms were shaking. My legs were numb from the squatting. My stomach hurt and I wanted to puke, but I didn’t move because I wanted to be in the bed with him when it happened. I wanted to wake him up, frantic, and show him the blood. I wanted him to panic, to worry, to feel bad for me, to cry for me.

To cry for me.

Image 13

 

 

 

I drop the last page of the chapter.

It flutters to the polished wood floor and disappears under the desk, like its trying to get away from me. I immediately drop to my knees, searching for it, arranging it back into the pile of pages I’m determined to hide. I’m… I don’t even…

I’m still on my knees in the middle of Verity’s office when the tears come.

They don’t spill; I hold them off with deep breaths, focusing on the grinding pain in my knees to distract my thoughts. I don’t even know if it’s sadness or anger. I only know this was written by a very disturbed woman—a woman whose house I currently inhabit. Slowly, I lift my head until my eyes are fixed to the ceiling. She’s there right now, on the second floor, sleeping, or eating, or staring blankly into space. I can feel her lurking, disapproving of my presence.

Suddenly, I know, without a doubt, that it’s true.

A mother wouldn’t write that about herself—about her daughters—if it weren’t the truth. A mother who never had those feelings or thoughts would never even dream of them. I don’t care how good of a writer Verity is; she would never compromise herself as a mother by writing something so horrid if she didn’t actually experience that.

My mind begins to spin with worry, sadness, fear. If she did that—if she actually tried to take their lives over a streak of maternal jealousy—what else was she capable of?

What actually happened to those girls?

After a while of processing it, I put the manuscript in a drawer, beneath a slew of other things. I don’t ever want Jeremy to come across that. And before I leave here, I will destroy it. I can’t imagine how he would feel if he read that.

He’s already grieving the deaths of his daughters. Imagine if he knew what they endured at the hands of their own mother.

I pray she was a better mother after they were born, but I’m honestly too shaken to continue reading. I’m not sure if I want to read more at all.

I want a drink. Not water or soda or fruit juice. I walk to the kitchen and

open the refrigerator, but there’s no wine. I open the cabinets above the refrigerator, but there’s no liquor. I open the cabinet below the sink and it’s bare.

I open the refrigerator again, but all I see are small boxes of fruit juice for Crew and bottles of water that aren’t going to help me shake this feeling.

“Are you okay?”

I spin around, and Jeremy is sitting at the dining room table with papers strewn out in front of him. He looks concerned for me.

“Do you have anything alcoholic at all in the house?” I plant my hands firmly on my hips, attempting to hide the trembling in my fingers. He has no idea what she was truly like.

Jeremy studies me for a moment, then heads for the pantry. On the top shelf is a bottle of Crown Royal. “Sit down,” he says, concern still embedded in his expression. He watches me as I take a seat at the table and drop my head in my hands.

I hear him open a can of soda and mix it with the liquor. A few moments later, he sets it in front of me. I bring it to my lips so fast, a few drops spill onto the table. He’s back in his chair now, watching me closely.

“Lowen,” he says, watching as I try to swallow the Crown and Coke with a straight face. I squint because it burns. “What happened?”

Oh, let’s see, Jeremy. Your brain-damaged wife made eye contact with me.

She walked to her bedroom window and waved at your son. She tried to abort your babies while you were asleep in your bed.

“Your wife,” I say. “Her books. I just... There was a scary part and it freaked me out.”

He watches me for a moment, expressionless. Then he laughs. “Seriously? A book did this to you?”

I shrug and take another sip. “She’s a great writer,” I say, setting the glass on the table. “I’m easily spooked, I guess.”

“Yet you write in the same genre as her.”

“Even my own books do this to me sometimes,” I lie.

“Maybe you should switch to romance.”

“I’m sure I will once this contract is over.”

He laughs again, shaking his head as he begins gathering the papers in front of him. “You missed dinner. It’s still warm if you want some.”

“I do. I need to eat.” Maybe that will help me calm down. I carry my drink to the stove, where there’s a chicken casserole covered in tinfoil. I make myself a plate and grab a water out of the refrigerator, then take a seat at the table again.

“Did you make this?”

“Yep.”

I take a bite. “It’s really good,” I say with a mouthful.

“Thanks.” He’s still staring at me, but now he looks more amused than concerned. I’m happy to see the amusement take over. I wish I could find this entertaining, but everything I just read makes me question Verity. Her condition.

Her honesty.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Jeremy nods.

“Just tell me if I’m being too nosey. But is there a chance Verity could make a full recovery?”

He shakes his head. “The doctor doesn’t believe she’ll ever walk or talk again since she hasn’t already made that kind of progress.”

“Is she paralyzed?”

“No, there wasn’t any damage to her spinal cord. But her mind...it’s similar to the mind of an infant now. She has basic reflexes. She can eat, drink, blink, move a little. But none of it is intentional. I’m hoping with continued therapy, she’ll be able to improve a little, but—”

Jeremy looks away from me, toward the kitchen entryway, when he hears Crew coming down the stairs. Crew rounds the corner in his footed Spiderman pajamas and then jumps onto Jeremy’s lap.

Crew. I forgot about Crew while I was reading. If Verity actually despised those girls after they were born as much as she despised them in utero, there’s no way she would have agreed to have another child.

That can only mean she must have bonded with them. That’s probably why she wrote what she wrote, because in the end, she fell just as in love with them as Jeremy was. Maybe writing about her thoughts during pregnancy was like a release for Verity. Like a Catholic going to confession.

That thought calms me, along with Jeremy’s explanation of her injuries. She has the physical and mental capabilities of a newborn. My mind is making all of this more than it is.

Crew leans his head back against Jeremy’s shoulder. He’s holding his iPad, and Jeremy is scrolling through his phone. They’re cute together.

I’ve been so focused on the negative things that have happened in this family, I need to remember to focus more on the positive that still remains. And that is definitely Jeremy’s bond with his son. Crew loves him. Laughs around him. He’s comfortable with his dad. And Jeremy isn’t afraid to show him affection, because he just kissed the side of Crew’s head.

“Did you brush your teeth?” Jeremy asks.

“Yep,” Crew says.

Jeremy stands up and lifts Crew with him, effortlessly. “That means it’s

bedtime.” He throws Crew over his shoulder. “Tell Laura goodnight.”

Crew waves at me as Jeremy rounds the corner and disappears with him upstairs.

I take note of how he calls me by the pen name I’ll be using in front of everyone else, but he calls me Lowen when it’s just us. I also take note of how much I like it. I don’t want to like it.

I eat the rest of my dinner and wash the dishes in the sink while Jeremy remains upstairs with Crew. When I’m finished, I feel somewhat better. I’m not sure if it was the alcohol, the food, or the realization that Verity probably wrote that horrific chapter because a much better one follows it up. One where she realizes what a blessing those girls were to her.

I walk out of the kitchen, but my eye is drawn to several family photos that hang on the hallway wall. I pause to look at them. Most of them are of the kids, but a few of them have Verity and Jeremy in them. They bear a striking resemblance to their mother, while Crew takes after Jeremy.

They were such a beautiful family. So much so that these photos are depressing to look at. I take them all in, noticing how easy it is to distinguish the girls from each other. One of them has a huge smile and a small scar on her cheek. One of them rarely smiles.

I lift my hand to touch a photo of the girl with the scar on her cheek and wonder how long she’d had it. Where it came from. I move down the line of pictures to a much older photo of the girls when they were toddlers. The smiling one even has the scar in that picture, so she got it at a young age.

Jeremy walks down the stairs as I’m looking at the photos. He pauses next to me. I point at the twin with the scar. “Which one is this?”

“Chastin,” he says. He points to the other one. “This is Harper.”

“They look so much like Verity.”

I’m not looking at him, but I can see him nod out of the corner of my eye.

“How did Chastin get that scar?”

“She was born with it,” Jeremy says. “The doctor said it was scarring from fibrous tissue. It’s not uncommon, especially with twins because they’re cramped for room.”

I look at him this time, wondering if that’s actually where Chastin’s scar came from. Or if maybe—somehow—it was a result of Verity’s failed abortion attempt.

“Did both the girls have the same allergy?” I ask.

As soon as I ask it, I bring a hand up and squeeze my jaw in regret. The only way I know one of them even had a peanut allergy is because of what I read about her death. And now he knows I was reading about the death of his

daughter.

“I’m sorry, Jeremy.”

“It’s fine,” he says quietly. “And no, just Chastin. Peanuts.”

He doesn’t elaborate, but I can feel him staring at me. I turn my head, and our eyes meet. He holds my gaze for a moment, but then his eyes drop to my hand. He lifts it with delicate fingers, flipping it over. “How’d you get this one?”

he asks, running his thumb over the scar across my palm.

I make a fist, not because I’m trying to hide it. It’s faded, and I rarely think about it anymore. I’ve trained myself not to think about it. But I cover it because of how my skin felt when he touched it, like his finger burned a hole right through my hand.

“I can’t remember,” I say quickly. “Thank you for dinner. I’m gonna go shower.” I point past him, toward the master bedroom. He steps out of my way.

When I get to the room, I open the door quickly and close it just as fast, pressing my back against the door, willing myself to relax.

It’s not that he makes me uncomfortable. Jeremy Crawford is a good man.

Maybe it’s the manuscript that makes me uncomfortable, because I have no doubt that he would have shared his love equally with his three children and his wife. He doesn’t hold back, even now. Even when his wife is virtually catatonic, he still loves her selflessly.

He’s the sort of man a woman like Verity could easily become addicted to, but I don’t think I’ll ever understand how Verity could be so consumed and obsessed with him, to the point that creating a child with him would ignite that kind of jealousy in her.

But I do understand her attraction to him. I understand it more than I want to.

When I push off the door, something pulls my hair, and I end up back against it. What the hell? My hair is tangled in something. I pull at my hair until I break free, and then turn around to see what I got hung up in.

It’s a lock.

He must have installed it today. He really is considerate. I reach up and lock the door.

Does Jeremy think I wanted a lock on the inside of this bedroom door because I don’t feel safe in this house? I hope not because that’s not why I wanted the lock at all. I wanted a lock so they would all be safe from me.

I walk to the bathroom and turn on the light. I look down at my hand, trailing my fingers across the scar.

After the first few times my mother caught me sleepwalking, she became concerned. She put me in therapy, hoping it would help more than the sleeping pills did. My therapist said it was important to unfamiliarize myself with my

surroundings. He said it would help if I created obstacles that would be hard for me to move past while I was sleepwalking. A lock on the inside of my bedroom door was one of those obstacles.

And, while I’m almost certain I locked it before I fell asleep all those years ago, it doesn’t explain why I woke up the next morning with a broken wrist and covered in blood.

Image 14

 

 

 

I choose not to read more of Verity’s manuscript. It’s been two days since I read about the attempted abortion, and the manuscript is still at the bottom of her desk drawer, hidden and untouched by me. I can feel it, though. It exists with me in Verity’s office, breathing shallowly beneath the junk I covered it with. The more I read, the more unsettled I become. The more unfocused I become. I’m not saying I’ll never finish it, but until I make progress on what I’m here to do, I can’t get sidetracked by it again.

I’ve noticed, now that I’ve stopped reading it, being in Verity’s presence doesn’t creep me out as much as it did a few days ago. I actually came up for air after working all day yesterday in the office to find Verity and her nurse seated at the dinner table with Crew and Jeremy. In the first couple of days I was here, I was in the office while they had dinner, so I wasn’t aware that they brought her to the table when they ate together. I didn’t want to intrude, so I went back to my office.

There’s a different nurse today. Her name is Myrna. She’s a little older than April, round and cheerful with two rosy spots on her cheeks that make her look like an old-fashioned Kewpie doll. Right off the bat, she’s a lot more pleasant than April. And honestly, it’s not that April is un pleasant. But I get the vibe she doesn’t trust me around Jeremy. Or Jeremy around me. I’m not sure why she dislikes my presence, but I can see how being protective of her patient would mean judging another woman who is staying in her invalid patient’s home. I’m sure she thinks Jeremy and I lock ourselves in the master bedroom together after she leaves every evening. I wish she were right.

Myrna works on Fridays and Saturdays, while April takes the rest of the week. Today is Friday and, while I expected to be moving into my apartment today, I’m relieved it’s all worked out the way it has. I would have left here unprepared. The extra time I’ve been given has been a lifesaver. I’ve knocked out reading two more books in the series in the past two days, and I actually enjoyed them a lot. It was fascinating, seeing how Verity always writes from the antagonist’s point of view. And I have a good sense of the direction I need to

take with the series. But just in case, I still search for notes now that I know what I’m actually looking for.

I’m on the floor, digging through a box when Corey texts me.

 

Corey: Pantem did a press release this morning, announcing you as the

new co-author of Verity’s series. Sent a link to your email if you want

to take a look.

 

As soon as I open my email, there’s a knock on the door of the office.

“Come in.”

Jeremy opens the door, peeking his head in. “Hey. I’m headed to Target to get a few groceries. If you make me a list, I can grab whatever you need.”

There are a few things I need. Tampons being one of them, even though I only have a day or two left of my period. I just wasn’t expecting to be here this long, so I didn’t pack enough. I’m not sure I want to tell Jeremy that, though. I stand up, dusting off my jeans. “Actually, do you mind if I go with you? Might be easier.”

Jeremy opens the door a little wider and says, “Not at all. Leaving in about ten minutes.”

•••

Jeremy drives a dark grey Jeep Wrangler with jacked-up tires, covered in mud.

I’ve never actually seen it because it’s been in the garage, but it’s not what I expected him to drive. I assumed he’d drive a Cadillac CTX or an Audi A8.

Something a man in a suit would drive. I don’t know why I keep picturing him as the professional, clean-cut businessman I met that first day. The man wears jeans or sweatpants every day, is always outside working, and has a rotating stock of muddy boots he leaves by the back door. A Jeep Wrangler actually fits him better than any other vehicle I’ve been picturing him in.

We’re out of his driveway, about half a mile down the road, when he turns down his radio.

“Did you see Pantem’s press release today?” he asks.

I grab my phone from my purse. “Corey sent me the link, but I forgot to read it.”

“It’s only one sentence long in Publishers Weekly,” Jeremy says. “Short and sweet. Just how you wanted it.”

I open the email and read the link. It’s not a link to Publishers Weekly, though. Corey sent me a link to the announcement made on Verity Crawford’s

social media page, via her publicity team.

 

Pantem Press is excited to announce that the remaining novels in

The Virtue Series, made successful by Verity Crawford, will now

be co-written with author Laura Chase. Verity is ecstatic to have

Laura on board, and the two are looking forward to the co-

creation of an unforgettable conclusion to the series.

 

Verity is ecstatic? Ha! At least I know never to trust another publicity announcement. I start reading the comments below the announcement.

 

-Who the heck is Laura Chase?

-WHY IS VERITY HANDING OVER HER BABY TO SOMEONE

ELSE?

-Nope. Nope, nope, nope.

-That’s how it usually works, right? Mediocre author gets successful, hires shittier author to do her job?

 

I set down my phone, but it’s not enough. I turn off the ringer and put it in my purse, then zip it shut. “People are brutal,” I mutter under my breath.

Jeremy laughs. “Never read the comments. Verity taught me that years ago.”

I’ve never really had to deal with comments because I’ve never really put myself out there. “Good to know.”

When we arrive at the store, Jeremy hops out of the Jeep and runs around to open my door for me. It makes me uneasy because I’m not used to this kind of treatment, but it would probably make Jeremy even more uneasy if he allowed me to open the door myself. He is just the type of guy Verity describes him to be in her autobiography.

This is the first time I’ve ever had a guy open a door for me. Dammit. How messed up is that?

When he grabs my hand to help me out of the Jeep, I tense up because I can’t prevent my reaction to his touch. I want more of it when I shouldn’t want any of it.

Does he feel the same around me?

Sex for him has been out of the picture for quite a while now, which leads me to wonder if he misses it.

That has to be a hard adjustment. To have a marriage that seemed to revolve around sex in the beginning, only to have sex ripped out of the marriage overnight.

Why am I thinking about his sex life as we’re walking into Target?

“Do you like to cook?” Jeremy asks.

“I don’t dis like it. I’ve just always lived alone, so I don’t make meals very often.”

He grabs a shopping cart, and I go with him to the produce section. “What’s your favorite meal?”

“Tacos.”

He laughs. “Simple enough.” He grabs all the vegetables he’ll need to make tacos. I offer to make spaghetti for them one night. It’s really the only thing I cook that I can honestly say I’m good at.

He’s on the juice aisle when I tell him I’ll be back, that I need a few things outside of the grocery department. I get the tampons, but grab other things to throw in the cart with them, like shampoo, socks, and a few shirts since I didn’t really bring any with me.

I have no idea why I’m embarrassed to buy tampons. It’s not like he’s never seen them. And, knowing Jeremy, he’s probably purchased them for Verity a few times. He seems like the type of husband who wouldn’t think twice about it.

I find Jeremy in the grocery section, and as I walk toward him, I notice he’s flanked by two women who have abandoned their carts to talk to him. His back is pressed against the ice cream cooler, giving the impression that he wishes he could melt right into it and escape. I can only see the backs of their heads as I approach, but when Jeremy’s eyes meet mine, an attractive blonde turns around to see what he’s looking at. The brunette seems more my speed, but only until she looks at me. Her glare changes my mind instantly.

I approach the cart as if it’s a wild animal, cautiously, timidly. Do I place my items into the cart or will that make this awkward? I decide to set my things in the upper basket, a clear line in the red-cart sand: We are together but not together. The women both look at me, simultaneously, their eyebrows climbing higher with each item I set in the basket. The one standing closest to Jeremy, the blonde, is staring at my tampons. She looks back up at me and tilts her head.

“And you are?”

“This is Laura Chase,” Jeremy answers. “Laura, this is Patricia and Caroline.”

The blonde looks like she’s been handed a warm cup of gossip tea. “We’re friends of Verity’s,” Patricia says. She gives me a very noticeable condescending look. “Speaking of, Verity must be feeling better if she’s got a friend in town.”

She looks at Jeremy for more explanation. “Or is Laura your friend?”

“Laura is here from New York. She’s working with Verity.”

Patricia smiles at the same time she makes an mhm sound and looks back at

me. “How does one work with a writer, exactly? I assumed it would be more of a solitary job.”

“That’s usually what non-literary people assume,” Jeremy says. He nods at them, dismissing us from the conversation. “Have a good afternoon, ladies.” He begins to move the shopping cart, but Patricia places her hand on it.

“Tell Verity I said hello and we hope she’s recovering well.”

“I’ll share the message,” Jeremy says, walking past her. “Give my best to Sherman.”

Patricia makes a face. “My husband’s name is William.”

Jeremy nods once. “Oh. That’s right. I get them confused.”

I hear Patricia scoff as we walk away. When we make it to the next aisle, I say, “Um. Who is Sherman?”

“The guy she fucks behind her husband’s back.”

I look at him, shocked. He’s smiling.

“Holy shit,” I say, laughing. When we get to the register, I can’t stop smiling. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that kind of epic burn in person.

Jeremy begins placing things on the conveyor belt. “I probably shouldn’t have stooped to her level, but I can’t stand hypocrites.”

“Yes, but without hypocrites, there would be no epic karmic moments like the one I just witnessed.”

Jeremy grabs the rest of the things from the cart. I try to keep mine separate, but he refuses to let me pay for it myself.

I can’t stop staring at him as he runs his credit card. I feel something. I’m not sure what. A crush? That would make complete sense. I would develop a crush on a man who is so devoted to his ailing wife that he’s too blind to see anyone or anything else. He’s too blind to even see who his own wife was.

Lowen Ashleigh, falling for an unavailable man with more baggage than even she has.

Now that’s karma.

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I only arrived here five days ago, but it seems like longer. The days here drag, whereas in New York, well, New York minute.

I heard Myrna tell Jeremy this morning that Verity had a fever, which is why she didn’t bring Verity down at all today before she left for the evening. I wasn’t sad about that. It meant I didn’t have to be in her presence, or look at her from my office window during their outdoor breaks.

I’m looking at Jeremy, though. He’s sitting alone on the back porch, staring out at the lake, leaning back in a rocking chair that he hasn’t rocked in over ten minutes. He’s sitting completely still. Every now and then, he remembers to blink. He’s been out there for a while now.

I wish I knew what thoughts were going through his head right now. Is he thinking of the girls? Of Verity? Is he thinking about how much his life has changed in the past year? He hasn’t shaved in a few days, so his stubble is getting thicker. It looks good on him, but I’m not sure much could look bad on him.

I lean forward on Verity’s desk and drop my chin in my hand. I immediately regret moving, because Jeremy notices. He turns his head and looks at me through the window. I want to look away, force myself to appear busy, but it’s obvious I’ve been staring at him, now that I’m leaned forward on the desk with my head propped on my hand. It would look worse if I tried to hide it at this point, so I just smile gently at him.

He doesn’t return the smile, but he doesn’t look away. We hold eye contact for several seconds, and I feel his stare stirring things up inside me. It makes me wonder if it does anything to him when I look at him.

He inhales a slow breath and then lifts up from his chair and walks away, toward the dock. When he reaches it, he picks up his hammer and begins ripping at the remaining few slabs of wood.

He was probably craving a moment of peace, without Crew or Verity or a nurse or myself invading his privacy.

I need a Xanax. I haven’t taken one in over a week. It makes me groggy,

which makes it difficult for me to focus on writing or research. But I’m tired of the moments in this house that send my pulse racing like it is right now. Once the adrenaline kicks in, I can’t seem to reel it in. Whether it’s Jeremy, Verity, or Verity’s books, there’s always something wreaking havoc on my anxiety levels.

My reaction to this house and the people in it are more distracting than a little grogginess would be.

I walk to the bedroom to sift through my bag for the Xanax. As soon as I get the bottle open, I hear a scream come from upstairs.

Crew.

I drop my unopened bottle of pills on the bed and rush out of the room and up the stairs. I can hear him crying. It sounds like it’s coming from Verity’s room.

As much as I want to turn around and run in the other direction, I also realize he’s a little boy who might be in trouble, so I keep walking.

When I reach the door, I push it open without knocking. Crew is on the floor, holding his chin. There’s blood on his hands and fingers. A knife next to him on the floor. “Crew?” I reach down and pick him up, then rush him to the bathroom down the hall. I set him on the counter.

“Let me see.” I pull his shaky fingers from his chin to assess the injury. It’s seeping blood, but it doesn’t look to be very deep. It’s a cut right underneath his chin. He must have been holding the knife when he fell. “Did you cut yourself with the knife?”

Crew is wide-eyed, looking up at me. He shakes his head, probably trying to hide that he had a knife. I’m sure Jeremy wouldn’t approve of that. “Mommy said I’m not supposed to touch her knife.”

I freeze. “Your mommy says that?”

Crew doesn’t respond.

“Crew,” I say, grabbing a washcloth. It feels like my heart is stuck in my throat as I speak to him, but I try to hide my fear as I wet the washcloth. “Does your mommy talk to you?”

Crew’s body is rigid, and the only thing that moves is his head when he shakes it. I press the washcloth to his chin right before I hear Jeremy’s footsteps bounding up the stairs. He must have heard Crew scream.

“Crew!” he yells.

“We’re in here.”

Jeremy’s eyes are full of worry when he reaches the door. I step out of his way while still holding the washcloth to Crew’s chin.

“You okay, buddy?”

Crew nods, and Jeremy takes the washcloth from me. He bends down and

looks at the injury on Crew’s chin and then at me. “What happened?”

“I think he cut himself,” I say. “He was in Verity’s bedroom. There was a knife on the floor.”

Jeremy looks at Crew, his eyes full of more disappointment than fear now.

“What were you doing with a knife?”

Crew shakes his head, sniffling as he tries to stop crying. “I didn’t have a knife. I just fell off the bed.”

Part of me feels bad, like I tattled on the poor kid. I try to cover for him. “He wasn’t holding it. I saw it on the floor and assumed that’s what happened.”

I’m still shaken from what Crew said about Verity and the knife, but I remind myself that everyone talks about Verity in present tense. The nurse, Jeremy, Crew. I’m sure Verity told him not to play with knives in the past, and now my imagination is turning it into more than it is.

Jeremy opens the medicine cabinet behind Crew and grabs a first-aid kit.

When he closes the mirror, he’s staring at my reflection. “Go check,” he mouths, motioning toward the door with his head.

I leave the bathroom, but pause in the hallway. I don’t like going in that room, no matter how helpless Verity is. But I also know Crew doesn’t need to have access to a knife, so I trudge forward.

Verity’s door is still wide open, so I tiptoe in, not wanting to wake her. Not that I could. I round the bed, to where Crew was on the floor.

There’s no knife.

I turn around, wondering if maybe I kicked it somewhere when I picked him up. When I still don’t see it, I lower myself to the floor to check under the bed.

It’s completely empty beneath the frame, other than a thin layer of dust. I slide my hand beneath the nightstand next to the hospital bed, but find nothing.

I know I saw a knife. I’m not going crazy.

Am I?

I put my hand on the mattress to lift myself up off the floor, but immediately shift backward onto my palms when I catch Verity watching me. Her head is in a different position, turned to the right, her eyes on mine.

Holy shit! I choke on my fear as I scoot myself backward, away from her bed. I end up several feet away from her, and even though her head is the only thing different about her from when I walked into the room, my fear is telling me to run for my life. I pull myself up, using the dresser for support, and keep my eyes fixated on her as I move back toward the door, facing her the whole time.

I’m trying to suppress my terror, but I’m not convinced she isn’t about to lunge at me with the knife she picked up from the floor.

I close her door behind me and stand there, gripping the doorknob, until I can

control my panic. I breathe in and out, steadily, five times, hoping Jeremy doesn’t see the terror in my eyes when I walk back to tell him there was no knife.

But there was a knife.

My hands are shaking. I don’t trust her. I don’t trust this house. As much as I know I need to stay in order to do the best job, I’d much rather sleep in my rental car on the streets of Brooklyn for the next week than sleep in this house another night.

I squeeze the tension from my neck as I return to the bathroom. Jeremy is bandaging up Crew’s chin.

“You’re lucky you don’t need stitches,” Jeremy says to Crew. He’s helping Crew wash the blood from his hands, and then tells him to go play. Crew brushes past me and returns to Verity’s room.

I find it odd that sitting on her bed while he plays his iPad is fun for him. But then again, I’m sure he just wants to be near his mother. Have at it, buddy. I don’t want to be near her at all.

“Did you grab the knife?” Jeremy asks, drying his hands on a towel.

I try to refrain from sounding as scared as I still feel. “I couldn’t find it.”

Jeremy eyes me for a second and then says, “But you saw one?”

“I thought I did. Maybe I didn’t. It wasn’t there.”

Jeremy brushes past me. “I’ll look around.” He walks toward Verity’s room, but turns around and pauses as he reaches her door. “Thanks for helping him.”

He smiles, but it’s a playful grin. “I know how busy you’ve been today.” He winks at me before walking into Verity’s room.

I close my eyes and allow the embarrassment to sink in. I deserved that. He probably thinks all I do is stare out that office window.

I should probably take two Xanax at this point.

When I get back to Verity’s office, the sun is beginning to set, which means Crew will shower and go to bed soon. Verity will remain in her room for the night. And I’ll feel somewhat safe, because for whatever reason, I’m only scared of Verity in this house. And I don’t have to be around her at nighttime. In fact, nighttime has become my favorite time around here because it’s when I see the least of Verity and the most of Jeremy.

I’m not sure how much longer I can try to convince myself that I don’t have a serious crush on that man. I’m also not sure how much longer I can try to convince myself that Verity is a better person than she really is. I think, after reading every book in her series, I’m beginning to understand the reason her suspense novels do so well is because of how she writes them from the villain’s point of view.

Critics love that about her. When I listened to her first audiobook on the drive over, I loved that her narrator seemed a little psychotic. I wondered how Verity got in the mind of her antagonists like she did. But that was before I knew her.

I still don’t technically know her, but I know the Verity who wrote the autobiography. It’s apparent that the way she wrote the rest of her novels wasn’t a unique approach for her. After all, they say write what you know. I’m beginning to think Verity writes from a villainous point of view because she’s a villain. Being evil is all she knows.

I feel a little evil myself as I open the drawer and do exactly what I swore to myself I wouldn’t do again: read another chapter.

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