EMMALINE
I don’t remember how long I sat frozen on that floor, my scream tearing through the house until Maggie and Nico came running.
My voice cracked as I stammered through what happened—how we’d been eating, how Alexander had suddenly collapsed, how everything unraveled too fast for me to understand. They believed every word, too consumed by the horror to see past the tears streaming down my face.
And the tears. Goddess, the tears came so easily. Hot and raw and relentless. I tried to tell myself they were part of the performance, just another layer of the mask. But I knew better. They were real. I wept for him because despite everything—despite the lies and the cruelty and the sharp edges that cut me open—I had fallen for the version of him I thought I knew.
They rushed him away,
