Watched Me Suffer and Called It Growth? Goodbye Forever to All Four of You! Chapter 01

I have severe emotional dependency.

As a kid I clung to my brother, Spencer Bennett, and the boy I grew up with, Garrett Hayes. After I grew up I latched onto my fiancé, Colin Mercer.

My best friend, Tessa Vaughn, kept saying I wasn’t independent enough. She told them to set boundaries and keep some distance.

So when someone groped me at work and I broke down crying, my brother said I wasn’t taking the job seriously and made me write a three-thousand-word written apology.

When I crashed the car and called Garrett for help, he hung up and reported my calls to the police as harassment from a stranger.

Later my best friend decided the environment still wasn’t harsh enough. I would never learn to stand on my own.

My fiancé picked a remote island on the spot and had me sent there that same night.

No matter how I begged, he didn’t flinch.

“Paige, this is only to teach you to stand on your own.”

“Once you really learn not to need anyone, we’ll come get you.”

On the island snakes and insects chased me. Sharks tore at me.

I cried until the tears ran dry and screamed until my voice broke. No one ever showed.

I kept telling myself I still wasn’t independent enough.

Until the day I found the camera overhead.

Tessa’s soft voice drifted out of it.

“I can eat on my own, you know. You’re going to spoil me rotten.”

My brother answered, “Doesn’t matter. Bennett Group can afford you.”

Garrett said, “You’re too good at carrying everything alone. It makes people want to take care of you.”

Colin’s voice was gentle. “Tess, I want you depending on us for the rest of your life.”

That was the moment everything went cold.

They didn’t hate being needed.

They just hated me.

I went quiet after that.

Three years later, when Colin finally came looking, I was calmly cutting the rotting flesh off my own calf.

He grabbed my wrist, his voice tight. “You’re hurt. Why didn’t you call me?”

I looked at the complicated expression on his face and almost laughed.

I pulled my hand free without a sound. “You said you didn’t like me depending on you.”

Besides, not once had my calls for help worked.

Colin’s breath caught. His fingers curled.

“That wound is bad. Do you even know what you’re doing?”

“I know.” I tore off a strip of cloth and wrapped the cut without looking. “Cut the dead meat out or it gets infected.”

He swore under his breath, scooped me up, and put me in the car.

The place that had trapped me for years fell farther and farther behind.

I held the door handle and felt nothing like relief.

At the hospital the doctors stared at the wounds and started debriding them.

Pain shook my fingers. I still didn’t make a sound.

After a long while Colin sighed. “Still this stubborn.”

He took the hair tie off his wrist, about to tie my tangled hair back.

For a second, my mind drifted. I used to want to give him a hair tie, like other girls did.

He’d refused.

Said it was too childish–no one would wear it.

The one on his wrist now I recognized. It was Tessa’s.

Faded already.

So this was what favoritism looked like?

“Don’t.”

I shoved his hand away the second it almost touched me.

He paused, looking down at me.

“Still throwing a tantrum? Mad we didn’t come see you all these years?”

“Or unhappy that Tess took your place?”

See, he knew everything.

I kept my voice even. “No.”

“I wasn’t independent enough. This is what I deserve.”

Colin’s eyes darkened.

“Not angry? Then why didn’t you take the ring with you?”

He opened his palm. A diamond engagement ring sat there.

The one he put on my finger the day of our third anniversary as a couple.

He said he’d replace it with a bigger one when we got married.

The one I took off and threw away the day they sent me to the island.

He’d found it.

Now it was in front of me again.

But to me, it was more like a joke.

After all, it no longer matched the ring on his hand.

A nurse pushed the door open.

“Mr. Mercer, your wife is looking for you. She’s having stomach pain.”

Colin frowned at me. “Tessa and I are married. She’s pregnant.”

“As long as you don’t act the way you used to, I can still–”

I cut him off. “No.”

“This is fine.”

His phone rang.

Spencer’s urgent voice came through the speaker.

“Colin, where are you? Tess keeps looking for you. She’s crying.”

“Garrett and I can’t calm her down. Get over here.”

“Okay.” He turned and left without another word.

I lowered my eyes, walked to the window, and opened my hand.

The ring fell.