A lie, of course. I didn’t want him to be happy; I wanted me to be happy. If I couldn’t have him, I’d destroy him instead. And several spiked drinks later, he was putty in my hands.

I touched Tony’s face, tracing his chin. The past twelve months had distanced us, and yet I felt closer to him now more than ever. And it wasn’t just the after-sex high. We had shared something real, and while I had spent our entire marriage erecting a wall he couldn’t penetrate, it had merely been a wall of glass. He had seen the broken girl behind the glass and loved her anyway.

From under the covers he stirred, and I snuggled into the crook of his body. It felt so warm and safe, unlike all the other men I had dated over the past year. They had been hard bodies intended to fill a temporary gap between my sheets, but they had never been Tony. No one could compare to him.

I remembered when the accident first happened, I had been left crippled both emotionally and physically. The cuts all over my body represented the cuts all over my soul. The strong, independent woman I had been suddenly vanished into a fearful sobbing mess. I could barely function, the constant pain shredded my will to live, and the surgery to repair my back left me swollen and scarred. Yet through the opiates, the physical therapy, the slow healing process, Tony assured me of how beautiful I was, how strong I was—all that motivational shit people feed you when you want to shove a pistol in your mouth and be done with it.

He had been right, though. My body eventually healed, my scars faded . . . but the drugs . . . those I couldn’t shake. Whether it was phantom pain or full-blown addiction, I don’t know why I couldn’t stop. Tony had begged, pleaded, threatened—and yet the pills always came first. I always chose them, or maybe they chose me. I don’t know. But eventually Tony gave up, and I couldn’t blame him. I certainly wouldn’t want to live with someone like me, never knowing from one day, one hour to the next which version of me you were getting.

The day he left, he broke me for good. I couldn’t see myself through the haze after that. I became a shattered mirror, my cracks hiding any good left inside me. My weakness became my weapon, shards of glass I’d cut myself with: Alone, slice. Depressed, slice. Ugly, slice. Until I’d bleed my heart out onto the floor, staining everything and everyone around me. Friends, family, lovers. I became unbearable to be around, so I buried the pain a little deeper.

Tony had been my only chance at redemption, and I had blown it back then. But I wouldn’t lose him again, no matter what it took.