Chapter 3

The two weddings happened on the same weekend. Sabrina's was a loud, boisterous affair at the local community hall, filled with Brian's friends and cheap beer. Mine was a quiet, formal ceremony in a judge's chamber, attended only by Andrew's parents and their lawyer. I signed the papers and became Mrs. Andrew Lester, wife to a man I had never spoken to.

Life at the Lester estate was nothing like the prison I had imagined. It was peaceful. The house was vast and quiet, surrounded by acres of green fields and old oak trees. Andrew's mother, Eleanor, was a surprise. I had expected a cold, distant matriarch, but she was warm and gentle, her eyes filled with a deep, weary sadness. She treated me not as a caretaker, but as a daughter.

"Thank you, Jocelyn," she told me one afternoon, her hand resting on mine. "For giving our son a future, even if it's... like this."

I found a strange purpose in my new life. In my first life, after Brian broke my legs, I had spent months in physical therapy, desperately trying to learn how to walk again. I read every book I could find on nerve stimulation and muscle atrophy. Now, I put that knowledge to use.

Every day, I would sit by Andrew's bed, talking to him, reading to him. I would work his limbs, performing the same physical therapy exercises I had once used on myself. The nurses were skeptical, but Eleanor supported me. It gave me a sense of control, a way to heal someone else when I couldn't heal myself in my past life.

Meanwhile, reports of Sabrina's life trickled back to me through town gossip. The honeymoon phase was short-lived. Brian's charm, which had so captivated her, quickly wore off, revealing the insecure, possessive man beneath. The first public sign of trouble was a heated argument at the grocery store. Then, Sabrina started wearing long-sleeved shirts in the middle of summer.

I knew the pattern. I knew what came next.

About four months after the wedding, the inevitable happened. The polished gates of the Lester estate swung open to admit my father's battered pickup truck.

A bruised and terrified Sabrina stumbled out, her face swollen and tear-streaked. My mother and father followed, their faces a mixture of anger and desperation. They marched up to the front door of the mansion as if they owned the place.

They were here to beg me for help.