Part 3She Laughed At My Real Corpse

For weeks, my soul drifted aimlessly behind Chloe.

I watched her move through the house I had meticulously designed for her, sleeping in the bed I had picked out, laughing with another man. Every corner of the house, right down to the ornate bronze oil diffuser in the hallway, had been placed there by me.

Brady stepped out of the shower one evening, toweling his hair. As he walked past, his foot shot out, casually kicking the heavy bronze diffuser. It clattered against the wall, the glass reservoir shattering across the hardwood.

"What happened?" Chloe called out, stepping out of the bedroom.

Brady looked down at the mess, his expression the picture of innocent dismay.

"Oh, damn. This was one of Holden's little projects, wasn't it? Supposed to be romantic or something. My bad, Chloe. Total accident."

Chloe stared at the broken glass for a moment. Then, she let out a dismissive scoff.

"Typical Holden. Always wasting his time on useless, flashy garbage just so he could play the martyr. He loved putting on a show to prove how much he 'suffered' for me. Never once stopped to ask if I actually wanted his help."

My spectral hands curled into fists. The ache in my chest was a physical, pulsing thing.

I just loved putting on a show?

Chloe had severe, chronic asthma, complicated by a rare allergy. Whenever the seasons changed, or when the stress of running her company peaked, she would spend nights gasping for air, her face pale, terrifyingly close to suffocation.

I hated seeing her in pain. I scoured the country for holistic specialists, finally tracking down a retired herbalist in the Pacific Northwest who formulated a customized, eucalyptus-based medicinal wax. Every night, I would set it in that diffuser, letting the slow heat fill the room with a vapor that opened her lungs.

Once, after a brutal business trip, she collapsed from a severe respiratory attack, burning with a high fever.

I lit the diffuser and sat by her bed, trying to keep the vapor near her face. But she was delirious, thrashing wildly, cursing my name, refusing to let me near her.

Terrified she would knock the scalding oil onto her face, I took the medicinal wax, smeared it directly onto my own forearm, and held it over the open candle flame, letting the heat vaporize the medicine from my skin. I sat there like that all night, breathing with her.

The hot wax and the open flame blistered my arm terribly. But I would have set myself on fire if it meant Chloe could breathe.

When she woke up the next morning, her lungs were clear. My arm, however, was covered in weeping, agonized burns.

I didn't complain. A husband is supposed to protect his wife. You don't hand the woman you love an invoice for your sacrifices.

But when Chloe saw my bandaged arm, she simply rolled her eyes, told me I was clumsy, and walked out of the room.

Now, I watched Chloe nudge a piece of the broken glass with her slipper. "Sweep it up and throw it out," she told the maid coldly. "Holden is trash, everything he touched is trash. It all belongs in the dumpster."

She turned and curled into Brady’s chest, smiling up at him.

"He's such a coward. He doesn't even have the guts to face me. Going through all the trouble to fake a corpse, just because he knows the second I see him, I'm shoving divorce papers down his throat."

"He knows his entire status in Boston rests on his marriage to me. His parents tolerate him because he's tied to the Lynn family. If I dump him, he's back to being nobody."

She laughed, a sharp, brittle sound. "But he’s an idiot if he thinks hiding in some rat-infested motel will save him. I'll drag him back by his hair if I have to."

I listened to her speech with a tired, hollow smile.

I gave her my soul, and in return, she saw me as a pathetic, gold-digging coward clinging to her coattails.

Brady’s eyes flickered, calculating. "Have your private investigators found anything yet? Chloe... is it possible the body was real? What if he actually is..."

"Impossible!" Chloe snapped, suddenly stepping away from him, her body rigid.

"If it weren't for him, I never would have endured what I went through! Dying is too easy for him! He doesn't get to just die!"

She paced the room, her chest heaving. "That thing in the morgue was a prop. It's a sick joke. He's probably watching from somewhere, getting off on my reaction."

Suddenly, she spun around, throwing her arms around Brady’s neck and pressing her lips aggressively against his.

"Distract me, Brady. Wash the thought of him out of my head. He makes me sick."

Brady let out a low laugh, scooping her up into his arms and carrying her toward the bedroom. "Happy to oblige."

They crashed onto the mattress, tearing at each other with a frantic, desperate energy. Chloe's screams of pleasure echoed off the vaulted ceiling.

I stood by the doorway, gripping the frame.

I thought I had run out of tears. I thought ghosts couldn't cry.

But the agony tearing through me was so absolute, it felt like I was dying all over again.