Mason blew out the candles without interest and picked at the meal I'd reheated more times than I could count.
That day, I gave Mason every dollar I had. I invested it all in his company.
I told him, "I believe in your dream more than anyone. I believe in you more than anyone."
I saw his eyes go red and wet. Mason almost never cried.
He pulled me into his arms. He didn't say a word. He just held me, tight.
At the time, I thought I had finally melted through that wall of ice. I thought I'd finally made it into his heart. All those years of waiting had finally paid off.
I had no idea it was the rope that would drag me into the abyss.
After that, I quit my job. I devoted myself entirely to taking care of Mason.
His company grew bigger. More business partners appeared around him.
I loved to eat, and it showed. I was a little heavy, a little loud. The partners looked at me with barely concealed disgust.
But I didn't care. Love was between two people. That was all that mattered.
A year of that life passed before the company ran into trouble.
I was pushed forward, made the legal representative on paper.
They said everything was my doing. They claimed they knew nothing.
I listened to the testimony, my fists clenching on their own, my eyes burning red, locked on Mason.
Mason's face was blank. His eyes were like a dark pool I had never once been able to read.
In seven years of prison, he never came to see me. Not once.
Yet after I got out, this cold, unreadable man told me he felt guilty. That he wanted to make things right.
The thought of it pulled a laugh out of me. A short, hollow sound, nothing close to joy.
I stared at my right leg. The wound was slowly scabbing over, a reminder etched into my skin of everything that had happened.
Two silhouettes walking side by side flashed through my mind, squeezing my heart like a fist.
I didn't sleep that night.
The next morning, my doorbell rang.
Mason. Again.
"Bridget, how's your leg? Let me take you to the hospital."
I looked at that handsome face, and the pain twisted through me so sharply I could barely breathe. I turned away from him and staggered into a chair.
Everything from yesterday flooded back.
A dull, creeping ache coiled through my body.
My eyes burned red. I ground the word out through clenched teeth: "Get out."
Mason acted like he hadn't heard. He walked toward me, reaching down as if to pick me up.