MELISSA.
For a second, I genuinely thought I had misheard her.
My name left her lips in that fragile, trembling tone, thin and quivering like glass about to shatter. It wasn’t just weak. It was wounded. Accusing. As if I had already betrayed her and she simply needed me to admit it.
“What did you put in my food?”
The words didn’t sound real. They hung in the air between us, suspended, sharp and ugly.
The dining room seemed to tilt beneath my feet.
I stared at her.
Stunned.
Puzzled.
Confused enough that a disbelieving laugh almost clawed its way up my throat.
This had to be some kind of mistake. A misunderstanding. A dramatic overreaction to a sudden wave of dizziness.
But before I could form a single word, before I could even process the sheer absurdity of what she had just impl
