Chapter 1
“Alex, thank you for supporting me all these years. I’m truly grateful.”
The woman before me smiled, radiant as a blooming flower. But my legs gave out beneath me, and I could only cling to the tablecloth as I crashed heavily to the floor.
Plates and bowls clattered and shattered around me.
I watched, my stunned gaze fixed on the beautiful woman as she slowly, deliberately pulled a sharp knife from within her clothes. A chilling glint of satisfaction danced in her eyes as she approached.
In my dazed state, she plunged the blade deep into my flesh. A scream tore at my throat, but no sound escaped. The pain was excruciating.
I wanted to demand, Why?
Her heavily made-up face twisted into a grotesque mask.
“It’s all your fault Liam died! Why wasn’t it you who died instead?!”
“This is what you owe Liam! You deserve to die! Because of you, I never even got the chance to confess to him!”
It hurt. So much.
But I couldn’t open my mouth. I could only helplessly widen my eyes, watching her plunge the knife into me again and again.
I guess I died.
Killed by a woman, by the girlfriend I’d pampered for seven years.
What a pathetic way to go.
After I died, my soul floated above, watching Chloe frantically stab my corpse.
My body was riddled with holes, blood pouring out relentlessly, making the scene a horrific, foul-smelling mess.
She seemed to finally believe I was dead.
Her hands trembling, she pulled out an old high school uniform and crammed herself into it.
The clothes were ridiculously ill-fitting, and with her heavy makeup, she looked like a grotesque clown.
My eyes widened in disbelief. The next second, the sharp blade pierced her own heart.
A faint smile on her face, Chloe slowly collapsed to the ground, whispering faintly, “Liam, I finally got revenge for you. Just wait for me down there, I’ll be right there with you!”
I watched her bleed out. I watched her take her last breath.
Liam, I thought. Who the hell is Liam?
I floated there for two hours, waiting for the housekeeper to arrive and call the police, waiting for the fully armed officers to sweep into the scene.
Finally, deep from the recesses of my memory, I dredged up some long-forgotten past.
Liam was Chloe’s high school sweetheart.
He’d died seven years ago.
And Chloe had only agreed to date me the month after Liam died.
At the time, I thought she’d lost her love and desperately needed a relationship to heal herself.
I poured everything into pleasing her, treating her like a fragile porcelain doll, coddling and spoiling her.
Throughout our entire relationship, she never had to lift a finger at home.
I thought, after all my effort, after seven whole years by her side, even a block of ice would have melted.
But it hadn’t.
Suddenly, a woman’s voice cut through the silence, sobbing, her voice tearing through her.
I snapped back to attention. A police officer had pulled a voice recorder from Chloe’s grasp, his finger still on the play button.
“Alex Cooper, you forced me to stay by your side, making me waste seven whole years of my youth!”
“Yes, I killed you. I want you to feel how painful death is, so you can know how much pain I suffered! This is all your fault! If it weren’t for you, I would have never lost Liam!”
The recording ended with her saying, “Alex Cooper, I hate you! I want you to go to hell and atone to Liam!”
I, along with the police, listened to that recording five times.
The scene was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop.
I was utterly speechless. Suddenly, my death felt so meaningless.
What on earth did I ever love about that lunatic?