“Mark, can’t you see what Emma’s doing?” Sarah had pleaded. “Alice is your wife! Emma is destroying her, and you’re letting it happen!”
But that same night, Emma struck.
She told Mark she’d seen me with another man at a hotel. The lie was crafted perfectly, with just enough detail to seem real.
Mark’s fury was instant and violent. His palm cracked across my face before I could speak, the sound echoing in our kitchen.
“You ungrateful whore!” he had roared, veins standing out on his neck. “After everything I’ve done for you! Is this how you repay my kindness?”
No amount of explaining could reach him. My tears, my pleas, my truth
none of it mattered.
Emma just hugged him, playing the concerned friend perfectly. “Oh Mark, I hate seeing you hurt like this. I should never have told you… I just couldn’t bear keeping such a terrible secret…
Her performance was flawless. The trembling voice. The hesitant touch. The downcast eyes.
Even her kidney failure was a lie, a masterpiece of manipulation.
I discovered it by accident one day at the hospital – overheard her laughing with a doctor she’d bribed. The sound drew me to her private room.
“Just keep telling him it’s critical,” she had said, her voice dripping with amusement. “I want to see how far he’ll go. Will he force her to donate? Or will she refuse and make herself the villain?”
She wanted me dead. The kidney was just an excuse, a way to either kill me through surgery or turn Mark against me completely when I refused.
Suddenly, Mark’s eyes widened. A memory flashed through his mind.
He bolted from the morgue, racing home like a madman. His hands shook as he accessed the home security system, pulling up footage from two months ago.
The screen flickered to life.
There he was, stumbling drunk, barely able to stand. And there I was, struggling to help him into the living room. Emma followed close behind.
The Mark on screen collapsed onto the sofa, mumbling incoherently.
Emma turned to me, her perfect mask slipping. Her eyes gleamed with malice.
“Look at him,” she sneered. “Even drunk, he calls for me. Not you.”
Her hand cracked across my face. “You’ll never be anything but a replacement.”
+25 BONUS
Present–day Mark’s eyes grew bloodshot with rage. His hands clenched the desk until his knuckles turned white.
“That witch,” he snarled. “All this time…”
I watched his anger with bitter amusement. Do you see Emma’s true face now, Mark? Too late.
The footage continued. After Emma left, my tears fell freely. But I wiped them away and continued caring for him.
I gently cleaned his face with a cool cloth. Suddenly, he pulled me close, kissing me softly.
“I love you,” he mumbled.
My heart had leaped – until he called out: “Emma…”
Present–day Mark froze, watching his past self break my heart yet again.
He grabbed his hair in despair, slapping his own face repeatedly. He fell to his knees before the
screen.
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I’m so sorry, Alice.”
“I did love you,” he choked out. “But I was bitter… Emma left me when I was nothing, when I was poor. When you loved me despite my nothing, I… I resented it.”
I looked at his broken form, What use were his realizations now?
I was already dead, killed by his precious Emma’s schemes.
Some truths come too late to matter.
Right now, Emma was probably at the hospital, waiting for Mark. Playing the brave patient, hiding her triumph behind a mask of suffering.
I could almost see her proud smile as she talked to the nurses, spreading her poison with every word.
“That handsome detective? He’s my husband in all but name. So devoted. He’ll drop any case to be with me. Isn’t that true love?”
She would pause for effect, then sigh softly.
“His actual wife? Oh, she’s so difficult. Won’t even donate a kidney to save my life. But Mark knows who really loves him. He knows who deserves his devotion.”
Mark’s hands clenched into fists as realization dawned.
“All those times you tried to tell me… about Emma’s tricks, about her lies…”
“If I’d just listened… if I’d just believed my own wife…”
His colleague touched his shoulder gently. “The ultrasound shows she was telling the truth
+25 BONUS
about everything, Mark. The pregnancy, Emma’s threats, all of it.‘
I watched as Mark broke down completely.
If only he had talked to me like this while I was alive.
But it was too late now. No amount of regret could bring back his dead wife and child.
The bond between us had broken long ago, every time he chose to believe Emma’s lies over my truth.
Emma had shown her hatred from the day I married Mark.
She turned our friends against me.
Spilled drinks and “accidental” pushes were just the beginning of her torments.
Yet she always played the victim to Mark: “I try so hard to be friends with Alice, but she’s so cold to me. Is it because of your past feelings for me?”
Mark would sigh and lecture me: “Alice, Emma’s been nothing but kind. You need to try harder.”
“She’s been part of my life for so long. You two need to get along.”
But they conveniently forgot how Emma had systematically destroyed my life, piece by piece.
As if marrying Mark meant I should accept any cruelty from his precious first love.
Sarah had seen through Emma’s act.
She’d tried to help me prove Emma’s lies.
But Emma was too clever, too manipulative.
Now Emma sat in her hospital room, probably gloating over her victory.
She smiled brightly whenever she saw Mark, playing the brave patient.
Facing the nurses, she’d beam with pride: “Isn’t Mark wonderful? Dropping everything to be with me. That’s true love.”
Looking at her triumphant expression, I felt sick.
Her happiness was built on my suffering, my death.
Why did Emma get to push me into my grave while enjoying Mark’s devotion and care?
