Chapter 6: Vanessa’s Confession
Vanessa looked nothing like the woman who had stood beside me at the altar. The bright confidence was gone. She was thinner, paler, and full of shame.
She said Luke told her after the diagnosis. He needed the lie to look real, and she helped him because he believed breaking my heart would make me hate him enough to survive losing him.
I asked if she had thought about Miles watching his father choose someone else.
She covered her mouth and cried.
Nothing about it made the lie right. Every cold text, every emotionless message about pickup times, every polite distance I had mistaken for guilt had been part of a terrible disguise. I turned back to Luke’s bed and realized I had lost a year to the wrong pain… Continue Reading ⬇️
