Chapter 5

Amelia watched from the shadows of the park across the street. David had brought Sarah to their spot, the place where he had proposed to Amelia six years ago. It was a small, secluded rose garden with a white gazebo. He was down on one knee, holding out the ridiculously large diamond ring. The scene was a grotesque parody of her own memory.

"Sarah, will you marry me?" His voice carried on the wind, earnest and full of false emotion.

"Yes! Oh, David, yes!" Sarah' s shriek of delight was like nails on a chalkboard.

Amelia felt a crack form in her icy composure. The pain was sharp and sudden, a physical ache in her chest. He was not just replacing her, he was erasing her, writing over their shared history with this cheap, tawdry affair. She stumbled back, away from the scene, and broke down. Sobs wracked her body, raw and painful. The fantasy she had clung to, the life she had built, was a lie. It had always been a lie.

She wiped her tears, the grief quickly hardening back into anger. She would not let them break her. She would watch. She would learn every detail of their treachery.

She saw them meeting with a wedding planner a few days later. It was Eleanor, the same planner from her "birthday" party. Amelia felt a bitter laugh escape her. David was lazy, unoriginal. He was recycling his life, just as he was recycling his proposal spot.

Amelia watched Eleanor show them venue options, catering menus, flower arrangements. It was all so familiar. The style, the choices, they were all echoes of her own wedding. He was trying to replicate what he had with her, but with a different woman. It was pathetic.

She couldn' t watch anymore. She got in her car and just drove, the city lights blurring through her tears. She drove for hours, with no destination in mind, just needing to escape the suffocating reality of her life. The cold of the car seeped into her bones, a deep, chilling loneliness that felt bottomless.

When she finally got home, a notification popped up on her phone. It was a message request on Instagram. She opened it. It was from Sarah.

The message contained a single photo. It was a close-up of Sarah' s hand, the gaudy diamond ring on her finger, resting on David' s chest as he slept beside her. The caption was simple and brutal: Soon.

Rage, pure and undiluted, surged through Amelia. This was a declaration of war. Sarah wasn' t just a passive participant, she was a malicious, taunting victor. Amelia' s hands trembled as she took a screenshot of the message. Then, with cold precision, she forwarded it to Lisa.

Her message to Lisa was just as simple. Print this. Poster size. And get me the number for Mark, Sarah' s ex-boyfriend. The one she dumped for David.

The next day, as she was driving to her bakery, it happened. A car ran a red light, slamming into her driver' s side door. The world spun, a chaos of screeching metal and shattering glass. The last thing she saw before everything went black was the other car speeding away.

She woke up in a hospital bed, a dull ache throbbing through her entire body. The first person she saw was David, his face a mask of concern.

"Amelia! Oh, thank God, you' re awake," he said, grabbing her hand. "The doctor said you have a concussion and a few broken ribs, but you' re going to be okay."

She looked at him, at his worried expression, and felt a profound, chilling sense of distrust. He was a good actor. A very good actor.

"What are you doing here, David?" she asked, her voice a hoarse whisper. His presence felt like a violation. Was this another one of his games? An opportunity to play the devoted, worried husband for the hospital staff? The thought made her stomach turn.