He Called It For My Good I Left

I had a dark birthmark that covered half my face. People mocked me with snide remarks and called me a freak, and I carried that insecurity around for 26 years. To cheer me up, my husband changed his profile picture, his wallpaper, even his lock screen to photos of me. He said my birthmark was the mark of an angel's kiss, and if anyone laughed at me, he'd knock them flat. That lasted until three years later, when his childhood friend, a plastic surgeon named Jasmine Monroe, came back to Casterholm. She said a rich man's wife had to look the part, and that settling for ugly was just being lazy. She put together a full "makeover plan" for me overnight, talked my husband, Spencer Weaver, into going along with it, and together they pressured me into surgery. The next day, my before-surgery photos were posted on a cosmetic surgery forum. The caption was pure pick-me energy, dripping with fake innocence. Helped my friend's wife get rid of that "angel's kiss." People are calling me a busybody, but I really couldn't stand to watch her stay ugly any longer. My embarrassing childhood photos were dug up too, and the nasty comments racked up 3,000 replies overnight. She liked the nastiest one and pinned it to the top. Forget the birthmark. This woman could get a full skin graft and still never be good enough for the Weavers. She can't hold a candle to Dr. Monroe. I lost it and smashed the living room mirror. Spencer caught my wrist and said earnestly, "This is Jasmine's way of training you to be resilient. What rich man's wife doesn't get gossiped about? There are no ugly women, only lazy ones. Jasmine and I are only doing this for your own good." After he left, I stumbled onto his secret second i********: account. His profile picture had been changed to a photo of someone else. His latest post was a photo dump of Jasmine laughing with her head thrown back, no makeup. The caption read: You're most beautiful just as you are. I could never bear to let you go under the knife. Then I checked the date. It had been posted just after midnight on the day Jasmine came back to Casterholm. I stared at the timestamp and let out a short laugh. So he had known all along how much plastic surgery hurt. But that tenderness had never been for me. Not even from the start. Since someone else had taken my place in his heart, I had no reason to hold on to him. ***** Carmen's POV: Three days after surgery, I went to a divorce attorney and had the papers drawn up. I got caught in heavy rain on the way home, and my incisions got infected when water seeped in. My fever spiked to 102°F, and my face was so swollen my eyes were almost shut. When Spencer opened the door, his eyes went red. He scooped me up and headed for the door. "Why didn't you just stay home? I'm taking you to the ER." But Jasmine came out of the guest room with a tablet and tapped the screen with her stylus. "Spencer, stop right there. Stress affects how the scars heal. It's the last thing she needs right now." She paused. "She's just been coddled. Lesson one for a woman in your position: no crying." Spencer stood in the entryway holding me. I felt his arms slowly loosen. He put me back on the bed and tucked me in, his voice turning cold. "Jasmine is a professional. I'll take you to the follow-up appointment first thing in the morning. Tough it out for the sake of getting prettier. Just think of this as the final stage of your resilience training." That night, the fever kept me half out of it, and old memories kept floating up. At a family dinner in our first year of marriage, I was cutting fruit in the kitchen and zoned out. The blade sliced across my fingertip. The cut wasn't deep, but I let out a hiss. Spencer rushed in from the living room, grabbed my hand, and kissed my fingertip.