Chapter 3

Adeline's POV

The words turn my stomach. How can he say that so easily, like our baby was nothing, like the woman who killed them isn't the reason we're in this car right now?

"No thanks," I say. "I don't want any."

Tristan's jaw tightens. He doesn't push it.

The car pulls up in front of the care facility.

He gets out, pops the umbrella, and comes around to open my door. Then his phone rings.

He glances at the screen and something shifts in his face immediately. He answers without a word to me, leaving me standing in the rain.

"Brielle? Don't cry. It's okay, just tell me what's going on."

Her voice bleeds through the speaker in broken pieces. "Tristan, I'm scared. There's thunder and I'm here by myself and I keep seeing the fire again. Can you please come?"

"I'm on my way." His voice goes soft in a way it has never once been with me. Gentle. Urgent. Like she's the only thing that matters.

He hangs up and looks at me, and just like that, the warmth is gone.

"Brielle's having an episode. I have to go. Go see your brother. I'll have someone come pick you up later."

He gets back in the car without leaving me the umbrella. The engine turns over and he's gone, swallowed up by the rain.

The cold soaks through me instantly.

I stand at the top of the steps and watch until his car disappears.

This is what you gave everything up for, Adeline. This is the marriage you chose.

One fake tear from her, and you and everyone you love aren't even worth a second thought.

I visit my brother alone, then take a cab back to the estate.

At eleven that night, the front door opens. Tristan comes in carrying the cold and the sickly-sweet cloud of Brielle's perfume.

I'm sitting in the dark living room. I never turned the lights on.

"Why is it dark in here?" He hits the wall switch and sees me on the couch. His expression goes flat. "What now? The housekeeper said you didn't even eat."

"You were with her." I look straight at him. "Weren't you."

"Brielle is sick and she needed me." He drops his jacket on the couch, voice edged with impatience. "Can you stop making everything into a thing? You didn't used to be like this."

"Making everything into a thing." I stand up. Everything I've swallowed for days comes up all at once. "Tristan, she killed our baby. You covered for her and threatened my mother's life to keep me quiet. And then you left me, fresh out of the hospital, to go be with her. And I'm the one making things into a thing?"

"I said drop it." His face goes rigid. "I'm not doing this again. It was an accident."

"It was murder." I grab something off the coffee table and hurl it at the floor. "You're both going to burn for this."

"Adeline."

He crosses the room in three steps and hits me. Hard. Harder than before.

I go down. My forehead catches the edge of the coffee table on the way and blood runs into my eye.

"Why can't you just be like Brielle and handle things like an adult?" He stands over me, breathing hard. "God, I don't even know why I married you."

I lie there on the floor and listen to him and feel nothing. Just a hollow, tired nothing.

Handle things like an adult. Sure. I've been so good at that I nearly lost everything doing it.

I look down at my left hand. The ring catches the light.

He put it on me three years ago. I thought it was the start of something. Now I know what it actually was: a leash I put on myself and called it love.

I pull it off. The band drags across my skin and draws blood, a thin bright line across my finger.

"What are you doing?" His voice sharpens.

"This thing disgusts me."

I throw it at him. It bounces off his face and hits the floor somewhere in the dark.

"You disgust me, Tristan."

His chest heaves. His mouth opens and closes. Then his expression hardens into something cold and final.

"Fine. When you're ready to calm down, we can talk."

He slams the door on his way out.

The house goes quiet.

When I can finally get up, I go to the bedroom, pull my suitcase out of the closet, and start filling it. Three years of being stupid, packed up piece by piece.

The next morning, I go to see an attorney. I leave with a draft divorce agreement in my bag and head toward the estate to collect the last of my things.

A black van cuts across the curb in front of me and stops hard.