“He made my parents believe we’d fallen in love again while comforting each other. He made all our friends believe we had this secret love. He made them believe I was too ashamed to tell anyone I’d moved on. We weren’t even together as far as I was concerned, and he convinced everyone—everyone—that he was the only steady thing in my life, the only thing keeping me from falling apart completely. He worked them so well that if I dared object and say we weren’t involved, they’d give me a lecture about how I was lucky to have him, how it was okay to move on, how they understood how guilty I must feel but I deserved happiness.”

She shakes her head, and some of that sadness I saw in her eyes before burns away into anger. “I let it go on too long. Because I felt bad for him. Because I knew he was struggling with his own guilt and grief, I kept my mouth shut too long. He copied the keys to my house and always seemed to know where to find me. It wasn’t until later that I realized he put one of those trackers on my phone.”

“Jesus.” I thread my fingers through her hair and hold her tightly, as if I can somehow protect her from what he did all those years ago. I’d guessed it was bad, and if no one around her could see him for what he was, she must have felt trapped.

“He took control of my life inch by inch, and by the time I tried to take it back, it was too late. My friends turned on me. My family begged me to be reasonable. I got my locks changed and started going out again—bringing men home to spite him. I told Rich I didn’t care if everyone thought I was the biggest bitch in the world. We weren’t together and never would be.”

I kiss the top of her head. “That must have been awful.”

“I thought since I’d finally put my foot down, that would be it. I was an idiot. I should have done it weeks sooner. One night I came home from work—my house with its new locks that were totally going to keep me safe—and he was there. ‘You think you can lock me out?’ he asked, and when I threatened to call the police, he laughed in my face. He was the police. Everyone he worked with saw how crazy I’d become after losing Heath, and who were they going to believe?” She pauses for a long time, as if she needs to catch her breath. “Then he told me to pack my things. He couldn’t trust me living on my own anymore, and he’d talked to my parents about how I’d been sleeping around, and they agreed that I needed help. That I was self-destructing.”

“Your parents listened to him?”

She shrugs. “That’s just it. Rich’s manipulations were so good because he didn’t need to outright lie. I was sleeping around. I was drinking a lot. I was dealing with my own grief through all of this, but my parents are old-fashioned. They didn’t see Rich as a controlling narcissist. They saw him as the good guy who was trying to save me from myself. He’d manipulated them so completely that I couldn’t go to them for help. My friends didn’t trust me because of the poison he’d whispered into their ears. And he was a police officer, so I didn’t feel like I could call the cops either.”