Melting skin. Charred flesh. Heat ripping through my cells, crisping the side of my wilting face. The fire blazed around me, imprisoning me as flames climbed the kitchen walls, blocking my escape. I wanted to scream, but my voice fell mute. Then I heard her calling me, her silhouette visible on the other side of my fiery prison:

“Mackenzie.”

I couldn’t answer her. I choked on the thick smoke.

“Mackenzie!”

Except it wasn’t her. And it wasn’t back then. It was now, and it was Owen calling me.

“Babe, you’re burning the gravy,” he said.

I blinked myself back into my own kitchen, where I stood in front of the gas stove, eyes transfixed on the blue flame licking the pot. I turned off the burner and stirred the bubbling sauce. Outside the patter of rain tapped on the glass.

“Sorry . . . I must have been in a daze.”

“You look exhausted. Long day, huh?”

I nodded numbly, the vision still so clear, so alive in my mind. Over the years, I could never truly lay the memory to rest, no matter how hard I tried. A therapist once told me as long as I continued to harbor bitterness over the accident, I’d never move past it. But who could blame me? She had not only disfigured my face, but also marred my entire life. And somehow she was still my closest friend.

Despite the pact, bitterness over a distant mistake I had never forgiven festered in me like a cancer. Over time it began rotting the only good left in me. No matter how much time passed, the resentment rattled inside my heart.

After dinner was served, Owen talked about work while Aria caught me up on school and her weekend plans. I asked all the right questions and laughed at the right times, never uttering a word about my daymare, because it was upsetting to Owen, and God forbid my past trauma upset him. So instead I started writing about it in my journal of horrors. It didn’t matter anymore, though. Tonight I would shed my Owen-pleasing shell, initiating my revolution.

But like all revolutions, there would be bloodshed. For once, it wouldn’t be my own.

I am a people pleaser. And I fail at it miserably. The problem with people pleasers is that in their attempt to please everyone, they please no one. Least of all themselves.

Take tonight, for instance. It unfolded in the way that all people pleasing unfolds—where I’m always the loser. It was a role I had adapted to well over the years. But now I was determined to win, even at the cost of lying, of creating a secret that my husband would never forgive. I didn’t care about his forgiveness anymore. Tonight my people pleasing was put on hold as I put my plan in motion.