The blow spun me sideways. My temple hit the wooden pedestal with a sickening crack, and the chapel gasped as one. Before I fell, Ryan grabbed my hair and pulled me upright.
“Speak to me like that in public again,” he whispered, “and you’ll join them.”
Then he let me go.
Through my tears, I saw Brooke watching with a faint smile. Every instinct screamed at me to fight back. But then a cold clarity pierced through the grief.
If I screamed now, I would become exactly what Ryan had spent weeks painting me as: the unstable, hysterical mother.
He had cried beautifully for local news cameras, blaming the crash on bad weather and our babysitter’s driving. He had emptied our accounts. He had whispered to relatives that I was refusing food, losing my mind, and seeing things.
So I swallowed the blood in my mouth.
I let my shoulders fall.
I became the broken woman he needed everyone to see.
After the service, when the earth swallowed the last pieces of my life, Ryan gripped my elbow and guided me into the black town car.
“You did well in there,” he said coldly. “You’re fragile, Emma. You shouldn’t be alone. Brooke is moving into the guest room. She’ll help take care of you.”
I stared out at the gray gravestones and felt my grief harden into iron.
Ryan had forgotten one important thing about me.
