The television screen shows my husband kissing another woman in a white dress, and I can't remember how I got here. My hands are strapped to the chair. Soft restraints, the kind that don't leave marks. The kind they use when they want you to understand you're not a person anymore, just a problem that needs to be managed. "Beautiful ceremony, wasn't it?" Simone's voice comes from behind me, sweet as poisoned honey. "Julian looks so happy." I know that voice. I know it the way you know the sound of your own heartbeat, the way you know the face of someone you loved before they destroyed you. Simone Webb. My best friend since college. The woman who visits me every week in this place, who sits across from me in the dayroom and whispers things the nurses never hear. Things like: *We started the fire together.* Things like: *Your children screamed for you.* Things like: *He never loved you. Not even on the day you met.* On the screen, Julian Harcourt—my husband, my husband, how is he my husband when he's marrying someone else—lifts the veil. The bride's face comes into focus. It's Simone. "Three years," she murmurs, her breath warm against my ear. "Three years you've been in here, Celeste. Declared mentally incompetent. All those lovely assets in Julian's name now. And today, well—today I finally get to be Mrs. Harcourt. The position that should have been mine from the start." I try to speak, but my tongue feels thick, wrong. The medications they give me. The pills that make everything soft and distant, that turn my memories into watercolors bleeding at the edges. But I remember the fire. I remember Mara's room, the way the smoke detectors should have gone off but didn't. I remember Owen's dinosaur nightlight melting in the heat. I remember Julian holding me back, his arms like iron bands around my chest, while our children— "The twins would be eleven now," Simone says. "If they'd lived. Such a tragedy. The poor mother, driven mad by grief." My vision blurs. Not tears. Something else. The room tilts. "You killed them." The words scrape out of me, raw and broken. "You killed my babies." "I whispered that to you, didn't I?" Simone laughs, light and careless. "Every week for three years. And you know what's beautiful? Even if you screamed it to every doctor in this facility, who would believe you? You're the one who's been declared incompetent. You're the one who sees things that aren't there, who has episodes, who needs to be restrained for your own safety." She walks around to face me, and she's wearing the same perfume she wore in college. Gardenias. It used to make me think of summer nights and shared secrets. Now it makes me think of smoke. "Julian's waiting for me at the reception," she says. "I just wanted to stop by first. To make sure you saw. To make sure you knew." She leans close, her eyes bright with something that might be joy or might be madness. "You lost everything, Celeste. And I won." I lunge forward. The restraints catch, bite into my wrists. Simone steps back, still smiling. "Nurse!" she calls. "She's having another episode!" The orderlies arrive in seconds. They always do. Strong hands on my shoulders, pushing me back into the chair. A needle sliding into my arm, the familiar chemical burn spreading through my veins. "Rest now," someone says. A man's voice. I don't know his name. I don't know anything anymore except that my children are dead and their killers are free and I'm— The world goes soft. Goes dark. Goes— I wake up gasping. Not in the chair. Not in that room with its industrial lighting and its television showing my life ending in real-time. I'm in a bed. A narrow bed with a lumpy mattress and sheets that smell like cheap detergent and someone else's body spray. Sunlight streams through a window, real sunlight, not the fluorescent glare of the facility. "Jesus, Celeste, finally. I've been trying to wake you for ten minutes." I turn my head. A girl stands beside the bed, dark hair in a messy bun, wearing an oversized State University sweatshirt. She's young. Early twenties. And I know her face, but I can't— "Your phone's been going off all morning," she says, thrusting the device at me. "Forty-seven missed calls from your mom. Whatever you did, it must be epic." I take the phone with shaking hands. The screen shows a date that makes no sense. Twenty-three years ago. The girl—my roommate, I realize, my college roommate, Sarah Brennan, who moved to Seattle after graduation and who I haven't seen in— "Are you okay?" Sarah asks. "You look like you've seen a ghost." My finger hovers over the missed calls. The most recent voicemail is from three minutes ago. I press play. My mother's voice fills the room, sharp and desperate: "Celeste, for God's sake, pick up. Don't accept Julian's proposal. I know he asked last night, I know you think you're in love, but you can't marry him. The family fortune is gone. Your father's business is collapsing. We need you to marry the Carmichael heir—the contracts are already drawn up. If you say yes to Julian Harcourt, you'll destroy this family. Please. Please call me back." The voicemail ends. I look down at my left hand. There's a diamond ring on my finger, bright and sharp and real.