The days after her discharge passed in strange stillness.
Her apartment felt smaller than she remembered—too quiet, too polite. The hum of the refrigerator filled the silences that used to hold conversation.
Her laptop sat unopened on the desk, the login screen frozen on her company's logo. She'd been granted a week off—"medical recovery leave" from the IT department—and she intended to make every hour of it count, though not in the way HR imagined.
She spent those days rearranging the puzzle of her life.
Replaying every detail of Miles's visits, every lie, every polite smile that had rewritten her past without consent. She wasn't angry anymore; anger was too small, too hot, too quick to burn out.
What she felt now was colder. Sharper.
Purpose.
The phone rang on the fourth morning, slicing through her thoughts.
Miles.
For three seconds, she only stared. Then she lifted the phone and answered, her voice calm and even.
"Hello."
"Willow," he said, relief flooding the word. "You sound better."
"From hello? Am I supposed to thank you for noticing?" she asked quietly.
A soft laugh—too rehearsed, too measured. "You're still sharp. That's a good sign."
He always talked that way when he wanted something, like a man easing open a locked door.
"You've been on my mind," he continued. "Christy's birthday is tonight. Just a few people on the rooftop—close friends, small thing. She asked for you. Said she misses you."
Willow's lips twitched. Christy misses me. Of course she did. The kind of missing that came wrapped in guilt and perfume, to be later shelved and forgotten.
"And you?" she asked. "Do you miss me too?"
He hesitated, the silence hanging just long enough to curdle.
"I think it would help both of us," he murmured, voice soft with self-pity disguised as care. "We were friends before all this, weren't we? And it's obvious you have Zane now. Zane will pick you up."
The words landed with that familiar Miles precision—gentle tone, cruel subtext. He made it sound like generosity, when really it was accusation wearing courtesy. Willow could almost hear the echo beneath it: You moved on first. You made me the victim.
She stared at the phone long after the line went dead, the silence dense and buzzing.
Incredulity broke first—then a low, disbelieving laugh. He had actually sounded wounded.
He'd rewritten the story, turned his betrayal into something fragile and noble, as if she were the one who had strayed, as if Zane's quiet decency were proof of her guilt. Miles had always been good at this—tilting truth until gravity bent his way. He fabricated a memory, invented a fact, and spoke it with such calm conviction that it almost sounded like history.
The audacity of it scraped something raw inside her—and, unexpectedly, steadied it.
If he wanted to play the victim, fine. She'd play the cure.
Her resolve hardened into something diamond-sharp. No more reacting. No more defense.
This time, she would write the story—and make sure he lived in its margins.
Her tea had gone cold. She set it down, rose slowly, and crossed to the bedroom.
The apartment felt too small for her pulse. Every breath sharpened the edges of things—the chair leg, the doorknob, the mirror frame—until the world itself seemed complicit in her humiliation.
If she was going, she would not go as the discarded woman limping through her ex-fiancé's pity party.
She would go as a problem that glittered.
She opened the closet. Rows of muted office clothes stared back at her—white blouses, camel skirts, silk that smelled faintly of boardrooms and fluorescent fatigue. Somewhere behind them hung the dress she'd never worn: deep emerald, low-backed, silk that clung like water. He'd bought it for their engagement dinner. The dinner that never happened.
Her fingers paused on the hanger. Then she pulled it free.
The fabric whispered over her skin as she slipped it on, cold at first, then almost tender. With each movement, it bared a little more than it should—as if reminding her she could weaponize softness. The neckline was modest until she turned, then dangerous. She fastened the clasp with her good hand, meeting her reflection like an accomplice.
Jewelry next. Not the diamond studs he'd given her; those belonged to the lie. She chose long gold earrings instead—a touch too bold for her usual self. They caught the light when she turned her head, like twin slivers of defiance.
Makeup followed. She wasn't gentle. Foundation erased the pallor of recovery, blush restored warmth that felt counterfeit but looked alive. The lipstick—crimson, not rose—went on last. It bled slightly at the corner of her mouth; she fixed it with deliberate care. She needed to look perfect—polished, untouchable, a woman armored in precision. Every detail was a barrier, every flaw erased into strategy.
The sling made every movement awkward, a reminder of weakness. She refused to let it show. She adjusted the strap beneath the fall of her hair until it nearly vanished. The effect was deliberate: vulnerability hidden in plain sight.
Her phone buzzed once—a message from Zane.
On my way. Thirty minutes.
She stared at the text until the letters blurred. Thirty minutes. Enough time to breathe. Or to detonate.
She walked to the mirror again. The woman staring back looked calm—posture elegant, mouth steady. But beneath that surface, something restless coiled and hissed.
She wasn't angry anymore; anger had burned itself out. What lived in its ashes was colder.
Purpose.
She picked up a perfume bottle—not the soft floral Miles liked, but a darker scent, oud and smoke. She sprayed once at her throat, once on her wrist. The air thickened with intent.
Every minute stretched, elastic and cruel. Her mind replayed the last three years in brutal fragments:
Miles laughing across their first dinner table.
His hand sliding a ring onto her finger.
His voice saying he needed her.
His holding Christy's hand.
His betrayal.
Her stomach knotted. Control. She had to keep control.
She fastened a thin gold bracelet, the same one she'd worn the night he proposed. She almost tore it off—but no. Let him see it. Let him remember what he broke.
A car horn sounded below, two short beeps. Her ride.
Willow slipped her phone into a small black clutch, checked the mirror one final time, and allowed a small, practiced smile to form. It didn't reach her eyes—that was the point.
She was no longer the wounded woman in the hospital bed.
She was the illusion of recovery—poised, serene, and loaded.
As she stepped into the hall, locking the door behind her, she whispered under her breath, "Let's see who bleeds first."