Sierra loved the house and “aw”ed all over the painting Waylon had Vengeance bring back along with my yellow wardrobe from my otherwise completely abandoned apartment in Wilmington.

I thought she’d go into full-on interrogation mode after she asked Waylon to leave us alone for some girl time when the house tour was done. But I must have forgotten who I was dealing with—Sierra just wanted to give me all the tea on Jonathan while we drank coffee.

“At first, he had everybody feeling sorry for him. After they found him in the church library, he said, you ran off with some criminal who beat him up and robbed him at gunpoint—he said that had been your plan all along because you weren’t mentally stable due to what happened to you when you were a kid. He even used you leaving your purse behind as evidence that you weren’t in your right mind.”

“Wait, what?” I said. “That’s not how it went down!”

“That’s what I figured. But you know he’s a rich doctor, so the police just believed him. And he didn’t press charges—he told everyone some B.S. about not wanting you to get in any more trouble after the hard life you’ve led. He had them all believing he was some kind of saint.”

I shook my head, barely able to believe there was a time when I honestly thought marrying and procreating with Jonathan would bring me any happiness. “I guess I should just be grateful that he didn’t press charges.”

“Whatever, I am not even done,” Sierra answered. “So get this, there’s this ex-girlfriend of Jonathan’s—she’s some kind of self-help guru or something.”

“Missy Anders?” I guessed, remembering the book Jonathan gifted me at his birthday dinner.

“That’s her!” Sierra said, snapping her fingers. “Anyway, they gave her a talk show this year, and it sucked donkey balls. Real preachy—like women are doing everything wrong. And it was like, a ratings disaster, so they cancelled it. And I guess she got to feeling some kind of way about that. She does this big drunk tweet apology thread thingie about how she’s sick of pretending to have it all together, and how she’s full of shit, and how she’s always trying to be someone she’s not because she had this boyfriend in college who messed with her head and physically abused her. Now that got attention, and the thing is, she only had one boyfriend in college. So The Internet pretty much guessed it was Jonathan.”

“Oh my God!” I set my coffee cup down. It was a surprise but somehow not surprising to find out it wasn’t just me.

“Then what happened?” I asked Sierra.

“Girl, like three other women he’s dated since her come forward, and they were like, ‘That asshole put his hands on me, too!’”