Influenced by Eva Robinson (love story books to read .TXT) 📕

it never worked. Each time she checked the comments or messages, it only dug a deeper hole she had to climb out of.

Already, she had a message from a different Victorian clown. They’d made a new profile after being blocked.

She clicked accept on the message, then opened it.

Your disgusting. I hope you die slowly and soon.

It wasn’t even creative. Not an ounce of wit, just pure vitriol. For just a moment, she considered writing back to him. She wanted him to know that his trolling had no effect on her, and she really didn’t care at all.

But that was a lie, and fear was spreading through her gut. She turned off her phone.

Her brand made people angry. Admiration and escapism had festered into jealousy, then loathing, then sadism. They wanted to hurt her.

If she was going to stay safe, she needed to become someone else—someone they could continue to admire. Someone flawless.

She needed to become like Arabella.

Seven

Arabella’s stomach was on fire, and she gripped it tight. It was like someone was carving her open from the inside out.

She opened her eyes, trying to reorient herself. The bright hospital lights seemed to blind her. She hadn’t been admitted yet, but she was sure she would be. For now, she was in an exam room with a curtain pulled in front of her. A beeping noise rang in her ears, and she realized the little plastic clip had fallen off her finger—the thing that measured her oxygen. She couldn’t find it now in her bed, and it felt like her throat was closing up. Someone would need to check on her. She opened her mouth to call for someone, but her voice wasn’t loud enough.

Shouldn’t someone come running when the machines were beeping? What was the point of the alarms if no one paid attention?

And it wasn’t just the monitor she needed. While she was stuck here in the hospital, she wouldn’t be able to walk Penny. And Penny needed her dog insulin. Adam never remembered to give her the insulin or walk her.

Penny must be very confused right now, staring out the window. Adam would need to give her extra hugs when he got home, because she’d be panicking.

Arabella’s stomach cramped, and that beeping noise was making her heart race. Not again. She couldn’t stop throwing up. Clearly, something bad was happening, on top of the pain ripping her gut open. Someone should be helping her, right? When the machine started beeping, she’d expected a team of people to come running in to fix the situation, but time seemed to stretch on for hours. She wondered if they’d forgotten her completely. Were they just going to leave her to die here?

If she could get out of the bed, she’d find someone and explain that her insides were on fire, and that someone had to take care of Penny.

Hadn’t the nurse said a doctor would come in to see her? That must’ve been hours ago.

And why wasn’t Adam here? Her husband should be here advocating for her, but he seemed to think she was overreacting, as usual. He’d feel terrible when he found out she wasn’t, and that she had kidney stones or appendicitis.

At last a nurse came in and pulled the curtain open. “Let’s get that monitor back on you.”

“What’s happening to me?” Arabella rasped. That morning, she’d been the picture of health, and now she felt like she was dying. “My limbs feel numb. I can’t feel my feet.”

“That oxygen is low,” said the nurse in a grim tone.

Arabella gasped for breath. “Why?”

Appendicitis didn’t affect your oxygen levels. What if…

What if someone had come after her? Because of what she’d uncovered? This felt like poison.

A new surge of panic washed over her, and she didn’t want Adam anymore. She wanted Mum. Her mum was so far away in their little home in Kent. That was where Arabella should be now, she thought—out in the back garden, walking barefoot in the grass. She’d read out there, in the sun. If she survived this, that was the first place she was going. Home again, to nap under the birch tree. Maybe she shouldn’t have come to America, because look what was happening to her now. Everything had fallen apart; her husband thought she was an idiot, and corruption seethed around her.

Mum was the worst cook in the world, but she always made a fuss when Arabella returned home. Burned rice, undercooked lentils…

A sharp pang of nausea rose in Arabella’s stomach again, and she couldn’t keep it down. She turned over, vomiting on the rail on the side of her bed.

Where had the nurse gone?

Her hands were shaking, and she tried to wipe her mouth as she settled back into the bed, but the numbness in her hand confused her. She felt like she’d done something wrong again—the hospital was supposed to be a clean place, and she kept throwing up all over it.

“Can you help me feel better?” Please make it stop. “I can’t feel my feet.”

Somehow, the numbness disturbed her more than the searing pain in her gut.

She’d once seen a movie about the people who’d worked on the atom bomb, and she thought now of how their bodies looked, swollen with radiation. That was how she felt—corrupted. It wasn’t radiation, of course; that was only how she imagined she looked.

From a distance, she heard herself moaning. She had to get home, so Penny would know Arabella hadn’t abandoned her. Penny would be whining at the front window, desperate.

They were moving her now through the halls. Where was her mobile phone? Maybe it was still in the exam room. She needed to prompt Adam again, needed to get him to hug Penny and then actually show up.

The doctors would fix this, though, wouldn’t they? Boston had the best doctors in the world. Whatever was happening, they would make her better. She’d go to sleep for a little while, and she’d wake up fine. Then she’d go home to Kent, and