Chapter 4

Two weeks later, an embossed invitation arrived at the cheap motel I was staying in. "Matthew Clark & Associates request the pleasure of your company at their Engagement Gala."

I shouldn't have gone. I had no connection to these people. But the name Matthew Clark was all over my journal, the source of so much of Jocelyn's obsession and my own past misery. A strange sense of morbid curiosity pulled me there.

I was standing near the bar, nursing a club soda, when she found me.

Jocelyn looked stunning in a red dress, but her face was a mask of fury. She marched right up to me, her eyes blazing.

"I knew you'd show up. Can't stand to be out of the spotlight, can you? Still trying to get my attention?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said honestly. "I got an invitation."

"Don't play dumb with me!" she hissed, her voice low and venomous. People were starting to stare. "You thought you could make me worry, make me miss you. Well, it didn't work."

I just looked at her, my expression blank. I felt nothing. No anger, no sadness. Just a profound sense of distance.

My indifference seemed to enrage her more than anything else could have.

"You ungrateful stray!" she suddenly shrieked, grabbing a glass of red wine from a passing waiter. "I gave you everything! A home, clothes, a life! And this is how you repay me?"

Before I could react, she flung the contents of the glass at me. The cold, sticky wine soaked the front of my cheap, rented tuxedo. Gasps rippled through the crowd.

"Jocelyn, that's enough!"

A man's voice cut through the silence. Matthew Clark himself. He stepped between us, his fiancée on his arm. He looked at Jocelyn with disappointment, then at me with a hint of concern.

"The man has done nothing but be good to you for five years," Matthew said, his voice firm. "Whatever your issues are, humiliating him in public is not the answer."

Jocelyn stared at him, her mouth opening and closing, speechless for the first time.

Suddenly, there was a commotion from the side. A man with wild eyes and a disheveled suit lunged from the crowd, screaming about a hostile takeover and ruined fortunes. He was holding a knife, and he was heading straight for Matthew.

Instinctively, Jocelyn threw herself in front of Matthew, a desperate, protective gesture.

I was standing right there, close enough to intervene. I could have pushed her. I could have tackled the man.

I did nothing.

I just stood perfectly still, watching with cold, detached indifference as the blade flashed. The man's arm swung, and the knife sliced across Jocelyn's arm.

She cried out, more in shock than pain. She stumbled back, clutching her bleeding arm, and her eyes locked with mine. In that moment, as she stared at my blank, emotionless face, a look of pure horror dawned on hers.

She finally understood. I really had forgotten her. The man who would have died for her just a few weeks ago no longer existed.