by Britney King
Her expression is loose, and I know this is a positive sign. The drugs are working their magic. I pull the sheet up to her chest. Patients often complain of being cold when waking after anesthesia. “I know you’re probably wondering what this is all about and to what extent. Well, darling, I’ve performed enucleation surgery.”
Her vitals change. I watch the monitor for several seconds. Sometimes this can be a pain response. This time, I don’t think so. She does have some concept of what I’m saying. “I know you know this but I’m going to be thorough for the sake of being thorough. You know how I hate when details are left out. And I know how you hate loose ends. Although, I’m sure all of that is behind us now. Anyway—enucleation is the surgical removal of the eyeball, or in your case my love, both eyeballs. Not to worry though,” I say patting her arm. “The muscles that were attached to the outside of the eyeball to control its movement and other tissues that surrounded your eye within the bony socket of the skull have been left intact. In time, if you’re good, these muscles will be attached to a round, marble-like implant that will replace the tissue and volume lost. Attaching these muscles to the implant will offer some movement of the artificial eye after surgery.”
I know that she isn’t yet lucid enough to offer a response but I also know that she is worried about her appearance. My wife is always worried over her appearance and I want to put her at ease, so I say: For now, a small plastic conformer that resembles half an almond shell has been placed behind the eyelids to maintain their shape. In addition, a single stitch has been placed in your eyelids to temporarily sew them together. The conformer will serve as a placeholder for the artificial eye that, like I said, if you’re good, will be fitted in a few weeks, after the swelling subsides. You’ll understand that we need sufficient healing to take place before we discuss the next steps. The good news: I’ve picked out the perfect shade of green for your new eyes. You know how I’ve always loved green eyes. They’re so rare and a redhead really should have green eyes. I know you’ll like them. Even better, with a few modifications, your condition shouldn’t affect your work inside the home. You can still manage the hotline and you can still write. We'll just have to keep you out of the public eye,” I say pausing to clear my throat, “sorry for the pun. We’ll have to keep you close to home for a bit—until the proper announcements can be made. You’ve suffered giant cell arteritis.”
When I was summoned to Sadie’s hospital room and she handed me this wonderful little story of hers, I must say, it was quite eye-opening. I hadn’t realized how many mistakes my wife had made. Sadie had video evidence I wouldn’t want anyone to see, in addition to audio recordings from my home ready to be sent to the police. Ann was negligent. Incredibly so. Suffice it to say, I learned a lot. I learned that some things are hard to see until they’re right up close and spelled out with ink.
The truth is, Ann invited her in. She invited a whole series of unfortunate circumstances upon our family. In a way, she asked for this. An eye for an eye, I suppose. Or in my wife’s case, both eyes. Really, it’s not like I had a choice.
It was one of Sadie’s conditions. I tried to warn Ann about her. I tried to take care of the problem. But the problem just keeps coming back. As they say, love is blind.
Ann whimpers indicating the drugs are wearing off. She absently reaches for my hand and I let her have it. “I know you’re confused,” I whisper, smoothing her hair. She grips my hand, digging her nails into my skin. I take her hand from mine and force it to relax. I know what she’s thinking the way you do when you’ve been with a person long enough. She doesn't recall what I’ve just told her. She’s thinking, what have you done?
“Shhhh,” I tell her, knowing how much she likes it when I read her mind. “I’ll explain it all again in time.”
In time, she’ll ask why I didn’t just kill Sadie Hightower. I could have. I could have done us all a favor and finally ridded my family of her all together. But something Sadie said made sense. She said this situation could help people. She said it could help Ann’s career. It could show that we can all overcome things, no matter our circumstances. Partly, that is true. But something bigger and more profound occurred to me. Something I realized as I read her story.
My wife will never stop. If it weren’t Sadie, it would always be someone else. Sadie is the lesser of all evils, so far as I’m concerned. At least with her, it isn’t my wife she’s in love with. It’s the fame, the acknowledgement. The celebrity. The desire to be needed. The desire to not be left behind.
And now, with my wife blind, Sadie is needed. Without a doubt, Ann’s life will be indefinitely more limited from this point forward. But it isn’t the end of the world and as Sadie proposed, she is here to help with that.
I had to admit, her terms and conditions of not publishing the story, of not going to the police made sense, as skewed as it may sound. Sadie was right. Now, Ann can never leave me. Better yet, she’ll be less likely to betray me again as well.
What can I say? Two birds, one stone.
EPILOGUE
I wish someone had told me: worry is a waste of time. The real troubles of your life will be things that never bothered to cross your mind. Nine months, three days, and nineteen hours, I’ve lived down the street from her. If you really think about it, a person can do a lot in nine months. They can gestate a fetus and deliver it safely into the world, and they can also plant roots and create an entirely different life altogether. That’s what she did.
Not that I realized it at the time, but in essence, that’s what she helped me do, too. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, as they say. Only she isn’t a bird. She can’t just fly away, the way she thinks she can.
She thinks she can migrate, start a new life elsewhere, someplace where she can be whatever she wants to be. In the heaviness of night, I know she is plotting her escape. Once I heard her whispering to Paul about moving back to the city where it would be easier for her.
Her recovery has been far worse than mine. Ann is angry. Combative. Paul has prescribed something for that. Sometimes she blames me and other times, it’s him. Never herself.
I realized all along what drew Ann to me. Partly, I was just a pawn in the sick game she plays with Paul. Not so different than the one Ethan and I played.
With Ann though, it was different. She wanted me to be her endgame. She wanted to be absolved of responsibility. That’s why she asked for my help. Again and again. She wanted me to be her mouthpiece. She wanted me to be her eyes and her ears, and now I am.
Obviously, this arrangement won’t last forever. She thinks I don’t know what she’s plotting. She thinks I don't know what she’s capable of. I know everything about her.
Also, she’s forgetting two things: wherever you go, there you are. And, there are people like me.
When I moved to this boring, homogeneous, monotonous little town, I did so with one intention and one intention only: to have a nice life. A quiet life.
That’s not how it played out. Not even close.
What can I say? I got swept up in it. She makes it easy. Her, with her impractical shoes and her perpetually sunny nature. For me, she has always felt a bit like spring in the middle of winter. She was then, and still is to me now, just about the most wonderful thing in the world.
But therein lies the problem. Nothing can last forever. And you always kill what you love in the end.
You do what you do. It is what it is.
You break wide open. Then you fix it.
Ann says we all have our own guidance system that lets us know what’s right. It’s there in the way we feel. She used to say that we can’t blame other people for what happens to us, even if it feels good to do. There is truth in that, I suppose. Her next book, her last, the one she’ll never finish, the one I’ve just finished reading talks about how we’re all writing our own parts in the stories of our lives. We make deliberate choices that then represent the way our storyline goes.
She is so very right about
that, and I have decided I can’t go another minute without letting her know.
At the top of the stairs, I will find her in her bed, third door to the right. By this time of night, she will be sleeping on her side, covers pulled halfway up. Her expression will be slack, but peaceful, for even in sleep women like her know only ease.
On the left side of the four-poster bed is a nightstand. On top of the nightstand rests the Bible she doesn’t read, the cell phone she’ll never reach, a glass of water she’ll never drink, the reading glasses she no longer needs.
I will attack from the right, stabbing her six times. I’ve mapped it out. Six stab wounds, one for each of the ways she has wronged me. In reality, it doesn’t take that much to kill a person. She probably knows this better than anyone. And if not, just in case, I want to make sure.
This time it will be different. I’m like still water, lost in the process, minimizing the moment, under reacting to everything. It’s not easy to get to this state. The hardest thing you can try to do is to be yourself when you’re doing something you really care about. It takes discipline.
I’ve worked hard. I’ve been disciplined. I had lots of time, caring for her, and before that lying there in the hospital, and then afterward in the rehabilitation center. So much time. So many hours to fill. Every single second I’ve spent in therapy, I worked. Every time, I fed her or helped her learn to navigate her new condition, I planned. I learned to perform well despite nerves and the physical symptoms that accompany them—trembling, wet hands, rapid heartbeat, a sinking feeling in the gut, and sometimes even a feeling that breathing is difficult.
I feel all of this now.
Ann says these physical symptoms of nerves are the products of inevitable chemical changes that occur inside the body during moments of high stress, changes like a shot of adrenaline. They’re outside our conscious control. So it’s a waste of time trying to avoid them.
Thankfully, this time, I don’t have to. She will not be surprised to find me in her room tonight. I am her caretaker. I am her children’s caretaker.
Paul is out of town again, as he so often is. Ann likes me to sleep in her room whenever he’s away, and tonight is no different. Sometimes we touch our own wounds to be punished. Still, she worries about him, I know. But as I lift the covers to her right and lean into Paul’s side of the bed, she sleeps soundly.
Until she isn’t. “Sadie?” she calls. “Is that you?”
When I don’t answer, she rolls over to make room for me and pats the mattress. “Come to bed, Sadie,” she whispers, her voice thick with sleep. “I’ve just had the best idea, and I want to tell you every little thing.”
I climb into bed and tuck the knife underneath the mattress. I live for Ann’s stories. I’m in love with her ideas. Especially when I get to take credit for them. Every love affair has its rituals. As she curls her warm body around mine, I think of the knife and I tell myself maybe tomorrow. But tomorrow usually turns out just the same.
A NOTE FROM BRITNEY
Dear Reader,
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I hope you enjoyed reading HER. If you have a moment and you’d like to let me know what you thought, feel free to drop me an email. I enjoy hearing from readers.
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Writing a book is an interesting adventure, it’s a bit like inviting people into your brain to rummage around. Look where my imagination took me. These are the kinds of stories I like…
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That feeling is often intense and unforgettable. And mostly, a ton of fun.
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With that in mind—thank you again for reading my work. I don’t have the backing or the advertising dollars of big publishing, but hopefully I have something better… readers who like the same kind of stories I do. If you are one of them, please share with your friends and consider helping out by doing one (or all) of these quick things:
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1. Visit my Review Page and write a 30 second review (even short ones make a big difference).
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Many readers don’t realize what a difference reviews make but they make ALL the difference.
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2. Drop me an email and let me know you left a review. This way I can enter you into my monthly drawing for signed paperback copies.
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3. Point your psychological thriller loving friends to their free copies of my work. My favorite friends are those who introduce me to books I might like.
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4. If you’d like to make sure you don’t miss anything, to receive an email whenever I release a new title, sign up for my New Release Newsletter.
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Thanks for helping, and for reading my work. It means a lot.
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Britney King
Austin, Texas
February 2019
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Britney King lives in Austin, Texas with her husband, children, two dogs, one ridiculous cat, and a partridge in a peach tree.
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When she's not wrangling the things mentioned above, she writes psychological, domestic and romantic thrillers set in suburbia.
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Without a doubt, she thinks connecting with readers is the best part of this gig. You can find Britney online here:
• britneyking.com
• Email
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Goodreads
• BookBub
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always thank you to my family and friends for the endless ways you provide love and inspiration.
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Thank you to my friends in the book world. From bloggers to my editor to all of the people I’m lucky enough to do business with—you make this gig so much fun.
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To my beta readers and my advance reader team… there aren’t enough words to describe the appreciation I feel for you—for being my biggest cheerleaders. To Jenny Hanson and Samantha Wiley, thank you.
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Last, but certainly not least, many thanks to the readers. I always say the best part of writing, for me, is the relationship I have with readers. Readers are the bee’s knees. Thank you for being that.
ALSO BY BRITNEY KING
The Social Affair | Book One
The Replacement Wife | Book Two
Speak of the Devil | Book Three
The New Hope Series Box Set
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The New Hope Series offers gripping, twisted, furiously clever reads that demand your attention, and keep you guessing until the very end. For fans of the anti-heroine and stories told in unorthodox ways, The New Hope Series delivers us the perfect dark and provocative villain. The only question—who is it?
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Water Under The Bridge | Book One
Dead In The Water | Book Two
Come Hell or High Water | Book Three
The Water Series Box Set
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The Water Trilogy follows the shady love story of unconventional married couple—he’s an assassin—she kills for fun. It has been compared to a crazier book version of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Also, Dexter.
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Bedrock | Book One
Breaking Bedrock | Book Two
Beyond Bedrock | Book Three
The Bedrock Series Box Set
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The Bedrock Series features an unlikely heroine who should have known better. Turns out, she didn’t. Thus she finds herself tangled in a messy, dangerous, forbidden love story and face-to-face with a madman hell-bent on revenge. The series has been compared to Fatal Attraction, Single White Female, and Basic Instinct.
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Around The Bend
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Around The Bend, is a heart-pounding standalone which traces the journey of a well-to-do suburban housewife, and her life as it unravels, thanks to the secrets she keeps. If she were the only one with things she wanted to keep hidden, then maybe it w
ouldn’t have turned out so bad. But she wasn’t.
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Somewhere With You | Book One
Anywhere With You | Book Two
The With You Series Box Set
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The With You Series at its core is a deep love story about unlikely friends who travel the world; trying to find themselves, together and apart. Packed with drama and adventure along with a heavy dose of suspense, it has been compared to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Love, Rosie.
GET EXCLUSIVE MATERIAL
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Looking for a bit of dark humor, chilling deception and enough suspense to keep you glued to the page? If so, tap the image to receive your starter library. Easy peasy.
SNEAK PEEK: THE SOCIAL AFFAIR
BOOK ONE
In the tradition of Gone Girl and Behind Closed Doors comes a gripping, twisted, furiously clever read that demands your attention, and keeps you guessing until the very end. For fans of the anti-heroine and stories told in unorthodox ways, The Social Affair delivers us the perfect dark and provocative villain. The only question—who is it?
