Chapter 22:

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She gave me a gift on our divorce day.

Standing outside the civil registry, Meredith already waiting for me by the car, Vivian pressed an envelope into my hands with this strange, serene smile. Like she knew something I didn’t. Like she was enjoying a joke I wasn’t in on.

“I wish you both the best,” she said. “Truly.”

I should have known then. Should have recognized that sweetness for what it was: the sugar coating on a poison pill.

But I was tired. Relieved, almost, to have the divorce finalized. Meredith was pregnant—pregnant—and I was going to be a father, and everything was finally falling into place the way it was supposed to.

I opened the envelope in the car. Meredith was checking her lipstick in the mirror, humming something under her breath.

Medical records. Insurance claims. A letter from a specialist dated three years ago.

Following extensive testing, we regret to confirm that natural conception is extremely unlikely due to…

I read the whole thing twice. Then I looked at Meredith—at the soft swell of her stomach, at the dreamy expression on her face—and I felt the first cold tendril of doubt snake through my chest.

“What’s that?” she asked, noticing my silence.

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“Nothing.” I stuffed the papers back into the envelope. “Just divorce stuff.”

She smiled and went back to her lipstick.

I told myself there had to be an explanation. Medical advances. A miracle. Something. Meredith was pregnant with my child, and Vivian was just trying to sabotage my happiness because she couldn’t accept that I’d moved on.

That’s what I told myself. For months.

Let me back up. Let me explain how I got here.

I proposed to Vivian to hurt Meredith. That’s the truth of it—the ugly, unvarnished truth I’ve never admitted to anyone. Meredith was getting married to someone else, and I wanted her to see that I could move on too. That I didn’t need her.

Vivian was convenient. Sweet, pretty, devoted. We’d grown up together, so everyone assumed we were meant to be. And she loved me—God, she loved me so much. She looked at me like I’d hung the moon, and there’s something intoxicating about being loved like that, even when you don’t deserve it.

Especially when you don’t deserve it.

After we got married, I suggested Marsten Bay. Told her I loved the ocean, loved the memories from college. The truth was simpler: Meredith lived there. Even if I couldn’t have her, I could exist in the same city. Catch glimpses. Maintain the possibility.

Vivian never suspected. She trusted me completely, and I took that trust and carved it into something ugly.

The thing is—and I mean this—I did start to appreciate her. She was thoughtful. Attentive. She decorated our apartment like something out of a magazine, and at night she’d curl against me and talk about our future with such certainty, such faith.

“I’ve loved you for nine years,” she said once, half-asleep. “We’re going to be together forever.”

I remember thinking: Maybe this is enough. Maybe I can learn to love her back.

Then Meredith got divorced.

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