Chapter 11: The Cracks in the Mirror
I started seeing Linda everywhere.
Not literally — I knew she was dead. But I kept catching glimpses of her in reflections. In shop windows. In the bathroom mirror when I brushed my teeth at night. Sometimes I would turn around quickly, heart pounding, only to find nothing there.
The guilt I had been pushing down for years was finally catching up to me.
It wasn’t that I regretted killing her. I still believed she deserved it. What I regretted was how much I had enjoyed it. How I had smiled while feeding her poison. How I had whispered cruel things into her ear while she was too weak to fight back.
I had become something monstrous.
And the worst part was that no one knew.
Ryan still looked at me like I was the perfect wife. His friends and family still praised me for how well I had taken care of Linda. I was living a lie so perfect that sometimes even I almost believed it.
One night, I had a nightmare.
I dreamed I was back in Linda’s bedroom, sitting beside her bed like I used to. She was staring at me with those terrified eyes. But this time, she could speak.
“You think you won,” she said in the dream. “But you didn’t. You became exactly like me.”
I woke up gasping, my heart hammering in my chest.
Ryan stirred beside me.
“Are you okay?” he mumbled sleepily.
“I’m fine,” I whispered. “Just a bad dream.”
He reached over and pulled me closer, wrapping his arm around me.
I lay there stiffly, staring at the ceiling.
For four years, I had been completely in control. I had planned everything carefully. I had executed my revenge perfectly.
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But now that it was over, I was the one falling apart.
And I didn’t know how to stop it.
