ODSON

a final, brutal rejection of my sacrifice, my truth. I stared at his unconscious form, the lines of his face slack with alcohol and misplaced devotion, and a prof

of memories, sharp and painf

alone, injured, in a whiteout blizzard in the treacherous Sierra Nevada mountains. The rescue teams were struggling, conditions too sev

anket, swallowing the roads, blurring the lines between earth and sky. I abandoned my car miles from the base, strapping on snowshoes and a headlam

My heart shattered. I wrapped him in my emergency blanket, chafing his cold hands, murmuring reassurances against the wind. I force-fed him high-energy gels,

fted Killian out first, his face still pale, his eyes barely open. I was too exhausted, too frozen to go with him. I had to wait for the ground team, who found me hours later, h

story of finding him, of her heroic rescue, had already been woven into his consciousness. He looked at me with cold, distant eyes, as if I were an unwelcome intruder. His mysophobia, alread

sabel' s version was simpler, cleaner, perhaps more palatable. She was the beautiful,

sn' t looking. She knew. She knew my truth, and she reveled in his delusion. And

wn car, just as they had left me with a fractured truth and a broken heart two years ago. I had hailed a taxi with the last few dollars in my purse, but it only took me halfway. T

k me. My fingers fumbled with the key, the cold seeping into my b

hair, now perfectly styled, cascaded around her. Killian was kneeling on the floor beside her, his head bowed, gently massagin

e so sore from all that walking," h

illian. That horrible police station floor was j

inches from me at our wedding, unable to meet my eyes, unwilling to touch my hand. This was the man who had recoiled from

ze, my elbow brushed against it. It crashed to the floor, shattering

r just moments before, hardened into a terrifying mask of fury. His ey

dy as if I were a venomous snake. "Ava! What have you done?" he

voice barely audible. "

my feet. Specifically, my one remaining high heel and

track dirt into my house, you break my things, y

rds materialized from the shadows. They grabbed my arms,

a theatrical wail. "Her feet... they' re so dir

narrowed. "Take her out. And make

abel' s triumphant little laugh from inside. "Oh, Killian, you' re so good

white cloth. He, the man who despised anything impure, was cleaning another woman' s feet with a tenderness h

would worship the ground she walked on. It was then, lying on the cold stones, my ankle throbbing, my heart hollowed out, that I knew