Before the Dawn Falls

Five years ago, my then girlfriend betrayed me for Ethan Reid.

Together, they staged a car accident that killed both my parents. Then they hired someone to assault and murder my younger sister, who wasn't even sixteen, and framed me for it.

I was thrown in prison where I suffered every day.

It was Serena Cole who risked everything to become my defense attorney. She cleared my name and courted me with everything she had. She told me I was all she could see, that I was her whole world.

When I finally gave her my whole heart, I looked down from upstairs and saw her kissing Ethan like she couldn't get enough of him, days before our wedding.

Right there in our wedding car, they crossed every line.

"Bold move, bride. Not worried the groom might see?" Ethan whispered.

"His legs are crippled because of you. You know better than anyone whether he can even make it downstairs," Serena replied.

"What's this, feeling guilty now? Every dirty thing I ever did to him, you were the one who planned it. You want me to tell him that?"

"If you say a word, I swear I'll take you down with me," came her ragged response.

Ethan bit her ear roughly, driving her over the edge.

"Sure, sure. I know you love him so much. So doesn't this make it even more exciting? Say it. Who's your daddy?"

She broke apart beneath him, saying his name over and over, breathless and undone.

The tears hit me before I could stop them.

She had known. All along, she had known everything that happened to me. And not only that, she had helped plan it.

It was past midnight when Serena finally came home. Her legs were so unsteady she could barely walk straight.

She found me sitting alone on the couch in the dark and a flicker of guilt crossed her face.

"Why didn't you turn on the light? Babe, I'm so sorry I'm late. The girls just kept going and I could barely keep up. Didn't I tell you not to wait for me?"

She made her way toward me, stumbling slightly. There was a heavy, disgusting scent on her. Right as she leaned in to kiss me, I shoved her and she tumbled to the floor. I bent over and threw up.

"Babe, what's wrong? Is your stomach acting up again?"

She frowned and looked around the room. When she spotted the dinner sitting untouched on the table, her expression shifted.

"What were the caregivers even doing? How did they let you go this long without eating? Do they want to keep their jobs or not?"

"It's not their fault," I said. "I saw something that made me sick."

Her eyes were full of frustration and remorse, and she held me in her arms tenderly.

"Babe, I'm so sorry I left you here alone. What on earth did you see? It's all because Hannah and the others insisted on throwing me a bachelorette party. But in three days I'll be your wife. We're going to be together forever."

She kissed my cheek softly, then reached down and pulled the blanket over my legs.

"Give me a few minutes. I'll make you some oats to settle your stomach. Honestly, I've completely coddled your stomach."

I watched her without a word. Serena had always taken care of everything concerning me, and everyone knew she loved me above all else.

To get me to eat, she had taken cooking lessons from a top chef when she had never done any manual labor in her life.

She walked away from a deal worth tens of millions just to sit with me through physical therapy.

Serena had even gone bungee jumping despite being terrified of heights, just to understand what I was going through. She said it was so she could stand beside me and face whatever came next.

She poured everything she had into clearing my name.

But that love, the kind everyone praised, was all fake.

Every single thing that had happened to me, Serena had known about. She engineered all of it with Ethan. They had trampled my dignity, laughed at my helplessness, watched me drag myself through the wreckage of my life while they stood by and smiled. My family was gone because of them.

The person I thought had saved me was actually the demon who pushed me off the edge in the first place.

My fists tightened until my knuckles cracked. Tears slid down my face without a sound.

How did she become that good at pretending?

How much of any of it was ever real?