Verity

by Colleen Hoover

  I spin around while the coffee brews and wrap my arms around him. We hold each other in the kitchen for several minutes. Until he releases his hold on me and says, “I need to shower. I have dried blood all over me.”

  I notice it then. The drops on his arms, the smears on his shirt. It’s starting to be our thing, being covered in blood. I’m glad I’m not superstitious.

  “I’ll be in the office.”

  We kiss, and then he runs upstairs. I wait for the coffee to finish brewing so I can make myself a cup. I’m still not sure how to approach him with all my questions, but after reading that last chapter, I have so many. I think it might be a long night.

  I hear his shower start when I finish pouring myself a cup of coffee. I carry it back to the office with me and then spill it all over the floor. The cup shatters. The hot liquid splashes my legs and begins to seep under my toes, but I can’t move.

  I am frozen in place as I stare at the monitor.

  Verity is on the floor. On her hands and knees.

  I lunge for my phone at the same time I scream Jeremy’s name.

  “Jeremy!”

  Verity’s head tilts to the side, as if she heard my scream from upstairs. Before I can open my camera app with unsteady fingers, she crawls back into her bed. Gets back into position. Stills herself.

  “Jeremy!” I yell again, dropping my phone. I run to the kitchen and grab a knife. I run up the stairs, straight to Verity’s room. I unlock her door and swing it open.

  “Get up!” I yell.

  She doesn’t move. Doesn’t even flinch.

  I rip the covers off her. “Get up, Verity. I saw you.” I’m full of rage as I lower the side of her hospital bed. “You aren’t getting away with this.”

  I want Jeremy to see her for who she really is before she has an opportunity to hurt him. To hurt Crew. I grab her by the ankles and pull on her legs. I have her halfway out of the bed when I feel someone rip me from her. I’m swung around, carried to the door. He plants my feet on the floor of the hallway.

  “What the hell are you doing, Lowen?” Jeremy’s face and his voice are so full of anger.

  I step forward, pressing my hands against his chest. He pulls the knife away from me and grips my shoulders. “Stop.”

  “She’s faking it. I saw her, I swear, she’s faking it.”

  He steps back into her room and slams the door in my face. I open the door, and he’s lifting Verity’s legs back onto the bed. When he sees me entering the room again, he tosses the covers over Verity and shoves me out into the hallway. He turns and locks her door, then grabs me by the wrist and pulls me behind him.

  “Jeremy, no.” I’m grabbing at his wrist that’s locked tightly around mine. “Don’t leave Crew up here with her.” My voice is pleading, but he can’t hear the worry. He can only see what he thinks he knows, what he walked into. When we reach the stairs, I back up, shaking my head, refusing to descend them. He needs to take Crew downstairs. He grabs me by the waist and lifts me over his shoulder and carries me down the stairs, straight to my room. He sets me down onto the bed, gently, even in the midst of his anger.

  He walks to my closet. Grabs my suitcase. My things. “I want you to leave.”

  I lift up onto my knees and move to the foot of the bed, where he’s shoving all my things into the suitcase. “You have to believe me.”

  He doesn’t.

  “Goddammit, Jeremy!” I point toward the upstairs. “She’s crazy! She’s been lying to you since the day you met her!”

  I’ve never seen so much distrust and hatred pouring out of a human. The way he’s looking at me has me so terrified, I scoot away from him.

  “She’s not faking it, Lowen.” He tosses his hand in the air, toward the direction of the stairs. “That woman is helpless. Practically brain-dead. You’ve been seeing things since you got here.” He shoves more clothes into my suitcase, shaking his head. “It’s impossible,” he mutters.

  “It isn’t. And you know it isn’t. She killed Harper and you know it. You suspected it.” I climb off the bed and rush to the door. “I can prove it.”

  He follows after me as I run to Verity’s office. I grab the manuscript, every page of it, and I turn around just as he reaches me and I shove it against his chest. “Read it.”

  He catches the pages. Looks down at them. Looks back up at me. “Where did you find this?”

  “It’s hers. It’s all there. From the day you met her up until her car wreck. Read it. At least read the last two chapters, I don’t care. Just, please, read it.” I’m exhausted, and I have nothing else in me but pleas. So I beg him. Quietly. “Please, Jeremy. For your girls.”

  He’s still looking at me like he doesn’t trust a single word coming out of my mouth. He doesn’t have to. If he would just read those pages—see what his wife was truly thinking in the moments she was with him—he’ll know I’m not the one he needs to worry about.

  I can feel the fear welling up in me. The fear of losing him. He thinks I’m crazy—that I was trying to hurt his wife. He wants me to leave his home. He wants me to walk out of here and he never wants to see me again.

  My eyes sting as the tears begin to fall down my cheeks.

  “Please,” I whisper. “Please. You deserve to know the truth.”

  I expect it to take him a while to read the entire thing. I’m sitting on my bed, waiting. The house is quieter than it’s ever been. Unsettling, like the calm before a storm.

  I stare at my suitcase, wondering if he’s still going to want me to leave after this. The entire time I’ve been here, I’ve been holding on to that manuscript, keeping it a secret from him. He may never forgive me for it.

  I know he’ll never forgive Verity.

  My eyes flick up to the ceiling when I hear a crash. It wasn’t loud, but it sounded like it came from the room Jeremy is in. He hasn’t been up there for very long, but it’s enough time to at least skim the manuscript and know that Verity was not at all the woman he thought she was.

  I hear a cry. It’s low and quiet, but I hear him.

  I fall onto my side and hug the pillow as I squeeze my eyes shut. It kills me to know how much he’s hurting right now as he reads page after page of a truth so harsh, it never should have been written.

  Footsteps are above me now, moving around upstairs. He hasn’t been up there nearly long enough to read the entire thing, but I can understand that. If I were him, I would have skipped to the end to see what really happened to Harper.

  I hear a door open. I run across the hall to the office and look at the monitor.

  Jeremy is standing in Verity’s doorway, looking at her. I can see both of them from the monitor. “Verity.”

  She doesn’t answer him, obviously. She doesn’t want him to know she’s a threat. Or maybe she’s been faking it because she’s afraid he’ll turn her into the police. Whatever her reason, I have a feeling Jeremy isn’t going to walk away from the room until he gets his answer.

  “Verity,” he says, stepping closer to her. “If you don’t answer me, I’m calling the police.”

  She still doesn’t answer him. He walks over to her, reaches down, and pulls one of her eyelids open. He stares at her for a moment, then walks toward the door. He doesn’t believe me.

  But then he pauses, like he’s questioning himself. Questioning what he read. He turns around and walks over to her. “When I walk out of this room, I’m taking your manuscript straight to the police. They’ll put you away and you’ll never see me or Crew again if you don’t open your eyes and tell me what’s going on in this house.”

  Several seconds pass. I’m holding my breath, waiting for her to move. Hoping she moves so that Jeremy will know I’m telling the truth.

  A whimper escapes my throat when she opens her eyes. I slap my hand over my own mouth before it turns into a scream. I’m afraid I’ll wake Crew, and this is not something he needs to walk into.

  Jeremy’s whole body tenses, and then he grabs his head in both hands as he backs
away from her bed. He meets the wall. “What the fuck, Verity?”

  Verity begins to shake her head adamantly. “I had to, Jeremy,” she says, sitting up on the bed. She’s getting into a defensive pose, as if she’s terrified of what he might do.

  Jeremy is still in disbelief, his face full of anger and betrayal and confusion. “This entire time…you’ve been….” He’s trying to keep his voice down, but he looks like he’s about to explode into a rage. He turns and releases his anger with a fist against the door. It makes Verity flinch.

  She holds up her hands. “Please, don’t hurt me. I’ll explain everything.”

  “Don’t hurt you?” Jeremy spins around, taking a step forward. “You killed her, Verity.”

  I can hear the anger in his voice, and it’s just over the monitor. But Verity has a front row seat to it. She tries to jump off the bed to escape him, but he doesn’t allow it. He grabs her by the leg and yanks her back onto the bed. When she starts to scream, he covers her mouth.

  They struggle. She’s trying to kick him. He’s trying to hold her down.

  Then his other hand forms a circle around her throat.

  No, Jeremy.

  I run straight up to Verity’s room and stop short when I reach the doorway. Jeremy is on top of her. Her arms are trapped beneath his knees, her legs are kicking at the bed, her feet are digging into the mattress as she wheezes.

  She’s trying to fight back, but he overpowers her in every way.

  “Jeremy!” I rush to him and try to pull him off of her. All I can think of is Crew and Jeremy’s future and how his anger is not worth a life. His life. “Jeremy!”

  He isn’t listening. He refuses to let go of her. I try to get in his face, to calm him, to talk sense into him. “You have to stop. You’re crushing her windpipe. They’ll know you killed her.”

  Tears are streaming down his cheeks. “She killed our daughter, Low.” His voice is full of devastation.

  I grab his face, try to pull him to me. “Think about Crew,” I say, my voice low. “Your son will not have a father if you do this.”

  I see the slow change in him as my words sink in. He eventually pulls his hands from her throat. I double over, gasping for as much breath as Verity is right now. She’s sputtering, trying to inhale. She tries to speak. Or scream. Jeremy covers her mouth and looks at me. There’s a plea in his eyes, but it’s not a plea for me to call for help. It’s a plea for me to help him figure out a better way to end her.

  I don’t even argue with him. There is not a single cell in her body that deserves to live after all she’s done. I step back and try to think.

  If he chokes her, they’ll know. His handprints will be on her throat. If he smothers her, particles from the pillow will be in her lungs. But we have to do something. If he doesn’t, she’ll get away with it somehow because she’s manipulative. She’ll end up hurting him or Crew. She’ll kill him just like she killed her daughter. Just like she tried to kill Harper as an infant.

  Just like she tried to kill Harper as an infant.

  “You have to make it look like an accident,” I say, my voice quiet, yet loud enough to be heard over the noises she’s making beneath the palm of his hand. “Make her vomit. Cover her nose and mouth until she stops breathing. It’ll look like she aspirated in her sleep.”

  Jeremy’s eyes are wide as he listens to me, but there’s understanding there. He pulls his hands from her mouth and then shoves his fingers down her throat. I turn my head. I can’t watch.

  I hear the gagging, and then the choking, and it feels like it goes on forever. Forever.

  I sink to the floor, my whole body wracked with tremors. I press my palms against my ears and attempt to ignore the sounds of Verity’s last breaths. Of her last movements. After a while, the sound of three people’s lungs turns into two.

  It’s only Jeremy and me breathing right now.

  “Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God...” I can’t stop whispering it over and over as the enormity of what we’ve just done begins to register.

  Jeremy is quiet, other than the cautious breaths he’s releasing. I don’t want to look at her, but I need to know it’s over.

  When I turn my body to face her, she’s staring at me. Only this time, I know she isn’t in there, hiding behind that vacant stare.

  Jeremy is on his knees by the bed. He checks her pulse, then his head collapses between his shoulders. He sits, his back to the bed as he catches his breath. He brings both hands to his face, cradling his head. I don’t know if he’s about to cry, but I would understand it if he did. He’s been hit with the reality that his daughter’s death wasn’t an accident. That his wife—the woman he devoted so many years of his life to—was not at all the person he believed her to be. That she was manipulating him the entire time.

  Every good memory he’s ever had with his wife died right along with her tonight. Her confessions ripped him apart, and I can see it in the way he’s doubled over now, attempting to process the last hour of his life. The last hour of Verity’s life.

  I slap my hand over my mouth and I start to cry. I can’t believe I just helped him kill her. We just killed her.

  I can’t stop looking at her.

  Jeremy stands and then lifts me into his arms. My eyes are closed as he carries me out of the room and down the stairs. When he lays me on the bed, I want him to crawl in with me. Wrap his arms around me. But he doesn’t. He starts pacing the room, shaking his head, muttering under his breath.

  We’re both in shock, I think. I want to reassure him, but I’m too scared to speak or move or accept that this is real.

  “Fuck,” he says. And then, louder. “Fuck!”

  And there it is. Every memory, every belief, everything he thought he knew about Verity is sinking in.

  He looks at me and then strides over to the bed. His trembling hand pushes back my hair. “She died in her sleep,” he says, his words both quiet and rigid. “Okay?”

  I nod.

  “In the morning…” His voice is mixed with so much breath as he tries to stay calm. “In the morning, I’ll call the police and tell them I found her when I went to wake her up. It’ll look like she aspirated in her sleep.”

  I haven’t stopped nodding. He’s looking at me with concern, with empathy, with apology. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry.” He leans down and kisses me on the top of my head. “I’ll be right back, Low. I need to go straighten up the room. I need to hide the manuscript.”

  He kneels down so that he’s eye to eye with me, as if he wants to make sure I’m getting it. That I understand him.

  “We went to bed like normal. Both of us, around midnight. I administered her meds, and then, when I woke up at seven to get Crew ready for school, I found her unresponsive.”

  “Okay.”

  “Verity died in her sleep,” he repeats. “And we’re never going to discuss this again after tonight. After this moment…right now.”

  “Alright,” I whisper.

  He blows out a slow breath. “Alright.”

  After he leaves the room, I can hear him moving things around, walking back and forth, first to his room, then Crew’s room, then Verity’s room, then the bathroom.

  He walks to the office and then the kitchen.

  Now he’s back in bed with me. Holding me. He holds me tighter now than he ever has before. We don’t sleep. We only fear what the morning will bring.

  Seven months later

  Verity died in her sleep seven months ago.

  Crew took it hard. So did Jeremy, publicly. I left the morning she died and went back to Manhattan. Jeremy had a lot to deal with that week, and I’m sure it would have been even more suspicious had I stayed in his home following the death of his wife.

  My outline was approved, as well as the two subsequent outlines. I turned in the first draft of the first novel two weeks ago. I’ve requested an extension on the deadline for the next two novels. It’s going to be hard working on them with a newborn.

  She hasn’
t arrived yet. She’s not due for another two and a half months. But I’m confident, with Jeremy’s help, I’ll be able to catch up on any work I fall behind on. He’s great with Crew, and he was great with the girls, so I know he’ll be great with our baby girl when she arrives.

  We were shocked at first, although not surprised. Things like this happen when you aren’t careful. I worried how Jeremy would take it, becoming a father again after losing two children so close together. But I realized after seeing his excitement that Verity was wrong. Losing one child, or even two, doesn’t mean you’ve lost them all. Jeremy’s grief over the deaths of his daughters is separate from his joy over the impending birth of a new one.

  Even after all he’s been through, he’s still the best man that has ever entered my life. He’s patient, attentive and a much better lover than Verity could have possibly described him to be. After her death, when I had to go back to Manhattan, Jeremy called me every day. I stayed away for two weeks—until everything began to settle. When he asked me to come back, I was there that same night. I’ve been with him every day since then. We both knew we were rushing things, but it was hard being apart. I think my presence brought him comfort, so we didn’t worry about the timing or if our relationship was too much, too soon. In fact, we didn’t even discuss it. The definition of our relationship was unspoken. It was organic. We were in love and that’s all that mattered.

  He decided to sell the house shortly after we found out I was pregnant. He didn’t want to remain in the same town where he and Verity had lived. And honestly, I didn’t want to remain in that house with all those terrible memories. We started fresh three months ago in North Carolina. With the advance and Verity’s life insurance, we were able to pay cash for a home right on the beach in Southport. Every evening, the three of us sit on the deck of our new home and watch the waves crash against the shore.

  We’re a family now. We aren’t made up of all the members of the family Crew was born into, but I know Jeremy is appreciative that Crew has me in his life. And he’ll be a big brother soon.