David wasn’t always like this.
Back then, he had trusted me without hesitation. He had followed me around everywhere.
Even when our parents sent me away to a boarding school a thousand kilometers from home—so they could keep Yvonne close.
Even then, he never let me go.
David went on a hunger strike for three days. He risked losing his inheritance, fought his family tooth and nail, all to force them into sending him to my school.
Back then, I thought—just like in fairy tales—that we could be happy together forever.
Even though I longed for my parents’ love, I still fought desperately for the sake of my engagement with him. But when I finally managed to escape from the basement where they had locked me up, the first thing I saw was him, in a grand, beautifully decorated wedding hall, sliding a ring onto Yvonne’s finger.
My parents told me that I would never measure up to her.
That once David realized it too, he chose her without hesitation.
I tried to convince myself it wasn’t true, but the way he smiled at Yvonne—that tenderness in his eyes—it wasn’t a lie.
Later, my parents came to me, begging me to go to the Gunn Family’s home and clean up the mess Yvonne had left behind. And in that moment, when I agreed, there was a part of me that still hoped. Hoped that maybe, just maybe, David and I could go back to how we used to be. But ten years of cold disdain and cutting remarks made it clear.
In David’s world, there was only Yvonne.
***
“Dad, what’s taking you so long? You went upstairs to call that stinky woman to cook and now Mom’s still waiting for her food!”
Tyler’s shrill voice snapped me out of my thoughts.
David cast a glance at me.
“Enough with the mind games. Go make Yvonne’s dinner. She specifically asked for your cooking. If you behave well, I might consider letting you stay here a little longer.”
My fingers curled tightly around the armrest of my wheelchair, suppressing the anger boiling inside me.
“I’m in this condition… and you still want me to cook for Yvonne?”
Tyler let out a dramatic scream.
“You’re stinky woman! It’s just a little injury and you’re acting like you’re dying so pitiful!”
A little injury?
The doctors said that if I had been brought in just half an hour later, I would’ve been permanently disabled. But to Tyler, it was nothing more than a scratch.