Broken by the Man I Loved

2、

The rest room door burst open while I was still lost in a daze.

Whoever it was looked frantic, the words tumbling out.

"Odette, it's bad."

"The Swansons are redeveloping Longwater Street. They're forcing everyone off that block."

"Your grandmother's already been thrown out."

I shot to my feet, and the wound tore at me with a pain that went straight through the bone.

I gave it a few seconds to ease, then pulled on my coat and rushed out.

The sky outside was low and gray, like it might start snowing any minute.

By the time I reached the house, the noise inside was chaos.

Nora Fisher was slumped sideways on the floor, and what little furniture we owned had been smashed to pieces.

A few men in suits had my grandmother's hand clamped down, forcing her thumbprint onto a contract.

"Let go of her!"

I grabbed the broom and swung it across their backs, and while the crowd scattered I planted myself in front of Nora.

The contract had fallen to the floor in the scuffle, stamped now with a few black shoe prints.

I looked down. Where the compensation figure should have been, there was a bald, glaring zero.

Rage surged up hot into my head. I stared them down.

"This is robbery!"

Next door, Old Walter Lambert's door opened, and out poked his shock of white hair.

"Odette, you really should talk your grandmother into signing that contract."

"Five million. That's enough to pay for her treatment."

My mind went blank with a ringing hum. My voice came out dry.

"What five million?"

Walter looked puzzled.

"The compensation. The whole street's on the same rate."

I turned my head toward the men.

"Why?"

The one in charge let out a small snort.

"You've only got yourself to blame for crossing someone you shouldn't have. If you don't taste a little suffering, how are you going to learn?"

"Take my advice and sign the thing nicely. Otherwise, in the shape your grandmother's in, how many more days do you think she can survive us wearing her down?"

My heart sank.

Someone I shouldn't have crossed. The Swansons.

"This was Zoey Swanson's idea?"

None of them denied it.

I thought back to the night Ned James confessed to me, the night Zoey Swanson, who had never been anything but healthy, suddenly collapsed with some rare illness and was rushed into intensive care.

The whole Swanson household was thrown into an uproar.

When the call came, Ned was in the middle of fastening the James family heirloom necklace around my neck.

"Something's happened to Zoey."

He left those words behind and walked out without a backward glance.

The next time I saw him, that necklace was already hanging around Zoey Swanson's throat.

Ned stood in front of her, shielding her, as if I were some monster.

"Zoey adores this necklace. I'm letting her wear it for a while first."

When I showed no reaction, his face darkened.

"Since when did you get so petty, nickel-and-diming with someone who's sick?"

Zoey held my hand, her other hand resting on the pendant at her chest.

"I don't have much time left anyway, Odette. Don't hold it against me."

She said it so frail and pitiful, but the sharp nails of her hand dug hard into my flesh, leaving raw red streaks.

It was only from that day that I understood how Zoey Swanson felt about Ned James.

She hated me. Hated that I'd come along later and taken the place she wanted.

But it never occurred to me that her hatred ran deep enough to want me dead.

After the men left, I turned and helped my grandmother up.

As we went inside, fireworks bloomed in the distance, one bright burst after another.

Brilliant. Dazzling.

I lifted my head and found that, sometime when I wasn't looking, the snow had begun to fall.

Late in the fall, Ned had taken my hand and made me a promise.

"When the first snow comes, I'm going to give you a grand fireworks show."

"I'll let all of Rosewood witness how happy we are."

Now the snow had come.

But the fireworks, and the man, no longer belonged to me.