Chapter 2 Plan B
For the next forty-eight hours, I became one with my bed.
No calls. No outside world. Just me, a pile of blankets, and the crushing weight of humiliation.
That slap from Rhys wasn’t just a blow to the face. In so many ways, it was a slap across my entire life—one steeped in desperation, delusion, and pathetic longing. It forced me awake. It forced me to look back on everything I’d ever done to make him notice me, everything I did for a fantasy called “us” that had never truly existed.
God, where do I even begin?
Like the time he casually mentioned he liked girls with smooth, silky hair. That night, I ordered three bottles of the shampoo he’d once praised. My scalp broke out in hives. I smiled through the pain and said, “It’s fine—some allergic reactions are worth it.”
Or when he told me he was too busy with work to grab dinner, so I stayed up learning how to bake and brought him a box of pastries in the rain. He didn’t even open the door—just had the receptionist tell me, “Don’t bother next time. I don’t like sweets.”
Then there was that night at his friend’s dinner party. I forced down oysters—my most hated food—just to seem “graceful and agreeable.” I spent the entire night crouched over a toilet, writhing in pain until 3 a.m. He didn’t ask if I was okay. He laughed and said, “Can’t even handle seafood? That’s just dramatic.”
But the worst?
That time he quoted a line from The Godfather he liked. I stayed up all night reading film essays just to casually drop the quote at a party. I got it wrong. He corrected me in front of everyone, sneering, “Don’t pretend to like things you clearly don’t understand.”
And I laughed. I laughed and said, “You’ve got such a good memory.”
What a joke. I never realized I was never the person he wanted.
He never really saw me. To him, I was nothing more than a low-rent version of the “perfect and untouchable” Katherine. A cheap stand-in.