she wouldn’t depart this world without the final word.
Tears fell in steady streams down her cheeks as she opened the camera on her phone, switched to video mode, and pressed record.
“Mason, you dumb son of a bitch. You fucked up. You fucked around, and you fucking lost me. I’d say that I hope it was worth it, but I know it wasn’t. The moment you put your dick in her, you ruined both of our lives.”
The light post across the bridge illuminated a halo behind her, but the screen showed only her face. A ghastly, puffy-eyed, old face. She stared at the image for several seconds, shocked by her reflection.
“The face staring back at me isn’t mine. It’s the face of a defeated woman. I don’t recognize her. I don’t accept her, and I fucking despise her for the things she cannot change.” She swiped at the torrent of tears, unable to rein in the fury in her voice. “I read your messages and listened to your voicemails. You claim it was just sex with that woman, that it meant nothing. If that were true, why do I feel so dead? I used to get tingles every time I thought of you. Now I just feel cold and sick with this slimy, hateful sensation stuck in my gut. That’s never going away. So I have a choice. I can live with the pain. Or I can end it.”
Her hands trembled so violently she jostled the phone. Readjusting her grip, she swallowed. Blinked. Cleared her voice.
“Maybe I feel too much. Do I? I think I do. I think I loved you too much. Certainly more than you deserved. So I’m going to stop that. I’m just going to stop feeling. I gave you thirteen years, and what did I ask for in return? Fidelity? I wish you would’ve told me that was too much to ask. Maybe you didn’t know. But you should have. You’re a fucking doctor. All that schooling to learn how to heal people, and in the end, you hurt the person who loved you the most. Well, you can just fuck right off. You did your thing, and now I’m going to finally do something for me. I’ll see you in hell.”
Numb, she stopped the recording. She was spent. Empty. There was nothing left.
She had no living family. No one to mourn her death.
Except him.
He would watch the video after she was gone, and maybe it would wreck him so completely he would eventually follow her off the bridge. It was the cruelest, most selfish thing she could do. The person she was before would’ve never been so vindictive.
But that person was already dead.
She opened her email to forward the video to him. By the time he received it, she would be at the bottom of the river.
The tightness in her chest choked her breaths. Her eyes were so hot and swollen it was like looking through ripped scabs. She rubbed her lashes and squinted at the screen.
A new email had popped up. Weird. It wasn’t in her inbox but in the unknown account she’d logged into weeks ago.
Her finger hovered over it.
No. Forget it. She should just send the video and be done with this.
But that account… Why was it receiving an email now? It had never been used. No incoming or outgoing messages ever.
A month ago, she bought a jacket at a thrift store in El Paso. In the pocket, she’d found the email address and password scribbled on a scrap of paper. At the time, the romantic in her had been drawn to the username.
Tommysgirl.
Someone had created it a few months before she’d acquired the jacket. They seemed to have forgotten about the account.
She’d forgotten about it, too.
“It’s not important. Just delete the account and erase everything.”
She didn’t want anyone thinking she’d been having an affair with a guy named Tommy.
As she switched to the account to remove it, her attention snagged on the subject line of the message.
I need you.
Three words, so simple and ambiguous, yet they sneaked beneath her desolation and shone a blinding light on the most broken parts of her.
She desperately needed to be needed.
The fog in her head lifted as she quickly opened the message and read the first line.
I know you’re dead, but you’re still my girl. I need you.
Her gaze skipped to the bottom of the letter and landed on the signature.
Tommy.
Who was he? Who was Tommy’s girl?
Her heart hammered as she absorbed the rest of the