Chapter 4

I stood there long after the last firework faded, staring up at the smoke-laced sky. The night air was cold, and a damp chill settled on my shoulders, finally pulling me from my trance.

I pulled my jacket tighter and walked back toward the silent mansion. A light was on in the kitchen.

Grady was inside, humming softly to himself. The air smelled of ginger, a scent I hated. He was on the phone, his voice low and tender.

"Yes, of course I miss you. Go back to sleep, baby."

A pause, then a soft chuckle. "Okay, okay, you win. I'll make your favorite ginger soup and bring it up."

I watched him, a stranger in his own home, doting on another woman. The murmur of their conversation was a dull ache in my chest.

I turned to leave, but he walked out of the kitchen just then, carrying a steaming bowl. He stopped when he saw me.

"Oh, Em. You're still up." He hesitated for a second, then held the bowl out to me. "Here, you have this. It's cold out."

He turned back to the kitchen to make another bowl for Kandy.

"You need to take better care of yourself," he chided gently as he worked. "Kandy is the same way, always forgetting to wear a jacket."

He smiled over his shoulder at me. "Don't worry, Em. I'll find a good guy for you soon. Someone to look after you."

The words were meant to be kind, but they felt like stones thrown at my heart.

From the hallway, I could hear two of the maids whispering.

"Did you see the fireworks? He used to do things like that for Miss Emely all the time."

"I know. It's so sad. To be so in love one minute, and a complete stranger the next. Poor girl."

I dropped my gaze, forcing back the heat that pricked at my eyes. I murmured something noncommittal in reply to Grady's offer.

It didn't matter. I knew my body was a ticking clock. A partner would only be a burden, another person to watch me decay.

Grady seemed not to notice my silence. He just said, "Get some rest," and headed upstairs, his steps light and eager.

I wondered if he heard the maids. I wondered if it even registered.

My hand, the one holding the bowl of soup he'd given me, suddenly went numb. The porcelain slipped from my grasp and shattered on the marble floor.

The sharp crash echoed in the silent hall.

The numbness was a familiar, terrifying sensation. The disease was starting.

I wasn't interested in guessing games anymore. I knelt and calmly began picking up the broken pieces, my mind cold and clear.

I didn't tell anyone about the incident. I went to my room, crawled into bed, and forced myself to sleep, the only escape I had.

The next few days were a new kind of torment. I was constantly woken by the sound of construction in the yard.

Grady was having the old wisteria-covered swing set torn down. It was the swing he had built for me, where he had taken a photo of me every year on my birthday.

"Just one more," he'd said on my last birthday, the eighteenth, "and we'll have enough to fill our wedding album."

Now, he was having it ripped out to build a lotus pond. Because Kandy liked lotuses.

The wisteria wouldn't even bloom for another few months. He' d forgotten.

He'd forgotten everything.

As the last pieces of the swing set were hauled away, Kandy intercepted me by the now-empty patch of dirt.

She held up her hand, showing off a delicate ring on her finger. It was a silver band, fashioned into a lotus flower.

"Grady made it for me," she announced, her voice dripping with pride. "He asked me to marry him."

My eyes focused on the ring. It was a design I had sketched in a notebook years ago, a favorite of mine. He must have seen it and stored it away in his memory, a memory now repurposed for another woman.

"It's beautiful," I said, my voice genuine. "It suits you."

Her smile faltered, replaced by a dark look. "I don't like it," she snapped, her insecurity flaring up. "And I don't like you being here, Emely. You're a ticking time bomb."

"What do you want, Kandy?" I asked, my patience wearing thin.

She opened her mouth to reply, but before she could speak, she took a deliberate step backward and threw herself into the muddy, half-dug pit of the future lotus pond.