Chapter 2

In the hospital, the sterile smell of antiseptic filled Sarah' s private room. She lay propped against a mountain of pillows, her leg in a pristine white cast. She smiled sweetly at Liam as he fed her a spoonful of soup. "You don' t have to do this, Liam. You should be resting."

"Don' t be silly," Liam said, his voice soft. "It' s my fault we were out there. I should have been more careful with you." He glanced away, a flicker of something dark in his eyes. "I just can' t believe Chloe would do that. To push you out of jealousy."

"She was just having a bad day," Sarah said, her voice dripping with false magnanimity. "You know how she gets."

Liam' s jaw tightened. He did know. He and Chloe had been together for years, since they were teenagers. He' d seen her sensitive side, her artistic temperament that sometimes tipped into what he considered moodiness. He remembered her as a vibrant, passionate girl who painted canvases with explosions of color, a girl who saw beauty in everything.

But lately, especially since Sarah had moved in with them after her mother passed away, Chloe had become more withdrawn, quieter. He had seen it as clinginess, as insecurity. He hadn' t seen the quiet desperation in her eyes. Now, her silence in the wilderness, her lack of a real defense, seemed like an admission of guilt.

A secret, ugly thought coiled in the back of his mind. He hadn' t been there for Chloe. Not really. He had been so focused on his work, on making a name for himself, that her needs had become background noise. Sarah' s arrival had been a relief, another person to fill the quiet spaces in their home.

Suddenly, the door to the room opened and a doctor came in, clipboard in hand. Chloe was with him, supported by a nurse, her face pale and her eyes vacant. There was a large bandage on her forehead, and she limped heavily.

"Mr. Patterson," the doctor said grimly. "We need to talk about Ms. Chloe' s condition. The fall was more serious than we thought. Her scans show a significant concussion and a hairline fracture in her left femur."

Liam stood up, startled. "What? A fracture?"

Chloe didn' t react. She just stared at a point on the wall, her expression unnervingly calm. It was a calmness that felt wrong, a stillness that screamed of a spirit that had already given up.

"She' s lucky the injury wasn' t worse," the doctor continued.

Chloe' s lips curved into a faint, ironic smile. She looked at Liam, her eyes clear for the first time. "Lucky," she repeated, her voice a soft, hollow echo.