He Gave Me Fake Bags and a Fake Future Chapter 04
Our first snow. College graduation. Our first trip. Our first New Year’s Eve. The fireworks from the night he told me he loved me…
I opened to the first page. A photo of the two of us.
But someone had scribbled over my face in black marker until there was nothing left to see beneath the ink.
I turned the page. Same thing.
In every photo, Adrian was untouched, his features clear, his smile warm.
My face had been blacked out in every single one.
On the last page, a single line had been scrawled across the blank paper.
“Ugly bitch. Stay away from him.”
I closed the album, hugged it to my chest, sank into a crouch, and finally cried.
For eight years, I’d believed someone loved me.
All along, I’d been nothing but a joke.
When the tears finally stopped, I put the album back in the drawer, went to the bedroom, and started packing.
I folded my clothes one piece at a time and packed them into my suitcase.
I packed the only letter my mother had left me, along with my still-valid medical license.
By the time I came out of the bedroom, the rain had stopped. Damp summer air drifted in through the window.
I opened the door and walked out.
The next morning, I was curled up on a hotel bed when my phone buzzed me awake.
“Ms. Bennett, your birthday cake will be ready for pickup at three this afternoon. And the ring you asked us to hide in the center layer… would you like us to double-check that it’s secure?”
For a moment, I just held the phone, dazed.
It was my birthday.
I’d rehearsed the moment in my head a thousand times: candlelight flickering, me cutting into the cake, revealing the ring, then smiling at him.
“Adrian, I’m giving you me and the rest of my life. Do you want it?”
I’d told myself that if he wasn’t going to propose, I would.
Who cared which of us asked first?
As long as we ended up together, that was all that mattered.
Now it all felt like some absurd joke.
“I don’t want it anymore.”
“Throw away the cake and the ring.”
As soon as I hung up, my phone buzzed again.
Sloane had sent a message with a video attached.
[Claire, I guess no one ever told you the attack that ruined your hand wasn’t an accident, did they?]
My finger trembled as I opened the video.
On-screen, Adrian lazily swirled the wine in his glass. His voice came through loud and clear.
“The guy you found did a good job. Looked real.”
“Her right hand was basically done after that. Otherwise, knowing Claire, you think she would’ve willingly stayed home cooking for me?”
“Damn, Adrian. Cold, but smart.”
Another voice chimed in.
“One attack and suddenly she couldn’t leave you. Better yet, she spent years thinking you were the guy who saved her. Hell of a deal.”
The video ended there.
I stared at the screen, unable to blink.
That attack had destroyed the right hand I’d once taken so much pride in.
I’d spent countless nights crying myself sick with despair, only for Adrian’s promise to take care of me to give me hope all over again.
And all along, he’d been the one behind it.
Then another message popped up.
[Oh, and three years ago, when Dr. Whitmore recommended that treatment program in London? Adrian made sure the hospital received a refusal. He said if your hand got better, you’d be gone.]
I stared at the words, one hand clamped over my mouth as a muffled sob caught in my throat.
He’d dragged me out of the sky, ground me into the dirt, then held out a hand and made me grateful enough to take it.
Then he’d told me, “See? I’m the only one who’ll ever want you.”
And I’d loved him with my whole heart for eight years.
My phone buzzed again.
[Claire, I was never the one you should’ve felt sorry for.]
I hailed a cab and went straight to the hospital.
