Hello again! Just to clarify: The last chapter, The First Meeting, was between Bella and her husband and the first time they met. Charming, as they all are in the beginning. I will go back and clarify that when I have a free minute. I'm so close to freedom for the summer I can taste it!
"Have a great time on your honeymoon," someone I don't know says as we're leaving our reception. We've played our parts for the night. Rings are on our fingers like the liars they are. The cake we shoved into each other's faces has now been cleaned. I remember hoping he would choke on his. "We'll be living vicariously through your socials!"
He is more active than I am on social media, making sure to document the fabulous life we pretend to live together. Smiles on tanned faces with white sand and turquoise water in the background. Toasted and melting marshmallows on the end of sticks inside of a raging fire with green trees and brown boulders looming behind us.
He makes sure not to post the bloody nose he gave me after dinner for thanking our waiter for an extra glass of water.
Oh, we play the part quite well. Beautiful couple in the middle of a small town. Successful. Quiet. Isolated from prying eyes because he's always preferred not to have anyone in his business.
"You know how small towns are, Bella," he had said when we bought a house on a quiet street in town.
I did know, but only because I had heard our names come out of stranger's mouths more than once. Before we had officially met in the coffee shop, I knew of him because he was new in town. His family moved here several years before, came in, and opened a string of successful family health offices - General Practitioners, Licensed therapists - you name it, his family claimed it.
And our small town here in Rhode Island loved them all.
So, I agreed with him. I did know how small towns could be - I can still remember the shock everyone had when word had gotten out that the young son of the ambitious family had chosen Bella Swan to settle down with.
Isabella Swan, with the beautiful, older sister who had taken care of her since their parents died when they were younger.
Bella Swan who preferred to stay in the shadows instead of in the limelight.
I was his perfect prey.
I see that now.
I feel that now, as blood seeps through my fingers and onto the cold, gray tile beneath manicured toes.
Times like these make me think back to the man I thought he was.
See you tomorrow! And, as always, thanks to Fran and my prereaders for keeping me on track!