Forced Beautification

James clenched his fists, hatred swirling in his eyes. "Are all of you stupid? How could you let a mere woman escape from here?"

Barbara patted his shoulder. "Maybe Anne just went out for a bit. She'll come back soon."

That made James even more angry. "Did I say she could go out?" he snapped unhappily.

Then, he turned to his assistant, Tom Hammond, and said, "Block all of Anne's cards. She'll come back when she has no money."

Tom hesitated before saying, "Boss, Ms. Jiles has never used any of the cards you gave her. She has always used her own money."

James was even more angry at that. "Then block her card too!"

Spouses did not have the right to terminate each other's bank cards. James was clearly furious enough not to think of that, so Tom just accepted the order for now.

James picked up his phone and began calling me.

My phone was just a few feet away from him. The screen lit up and went dark over and over again, yet he still did not notice anything.

In the end, furious, he began sending me a bunch of texts.

I stood beside my phone and watched as the texts came in.

"Where are you?"

"Come back here right this minute."

"Can you stop being jealous of Barbara? It's pointless!"

All of his texts went unanswered.

The feeling of losing control made James even more angry.

Barbara's mouth was twisted in a cruel smile when she saw James's attitude toward me.

I did not want to see the vindicative look on her face, so I tried to leave. However, a mysterious force pulled me back when I got to the door.

My soul could only linger beside the two of them.

James was quick to move on from me. Pretty soon, he got used to life without me.

He spent every day being sweetly in love with Barbara, only texting at night when he was bored.

Mostly, he just asked me to go back home. "Are you done sulking? If you are, come back. If not, then just stay out there forever."

He spent his days with Barbara, kissing her, eating with her, and talking to her while I was stuck in a cooler in the basement.

During their more intimate moments, Barbara would press herself to his body and ask, "Am I better than Anne, Jamie?"

James's answer was immediate. "She can't compare to you. She's old and ugly."

Barbara caressed his face. "I knew it. You got with her because you were upset that I went abroad."

My mind went back to the day I first met James.

It was a rainy night. Jacondale was caught in the middle of an unprecedented flood, and both James and I were trapped in it.

James had gotten hurt. His wound was infected, and he had lost consciousness.

My father had always taught me to be kind. Therefore, I carried him on my back and waded through the floodwaters to a rescue shelter.

He turned out fine. I, on the other hand, was not. My legs had been cut up badly by the debris in the floodwater. I had to walk with a limp for some time.

When James found out about this, he stayed by my side and took care of me without complaint.

It was only after we got together as a couple that I found out that he had a childhood sweetheart.

At the time, he had reassured me, "We were just friends. We would've been together a long time ago if that was a possibility."

I did not think that anything was wrong with that. Plus, James had been good to me, so I let down my guard and stayed with him.

However, after we got married, his attitude changed completely.

He would point at me and criticize me without any hesitation. "Your nose is flat. Your skin is terrible. You're not as pretty as Barbara."

I thought that my corpse would be kept in the fridge in Barbara's basement forever. Then, James went down to the basement for some reason during one of their dates.

I watched hopefully as he opened the door.

My body was completely mutilated by this point—every time Barbara got upset, she would come down to the basement and take a knife to my corpse. Blood and water mixed together on my face, frozen solid.

Therefore, James did not recognize me at first.

He thought that I was one of Barbara's scale models, the type that she used to do her research.

Then, he turned around and saw a diamond ring on my skeletal finger.

He had put that ring on my hand himself on our third anniversary.