My First Love, My Last Revenge

Jane Bradley POV: For two years, I lived in a sun-drenched dream. Booker and I built a life in that small apartment, a quiet bubble of peace and happiness. I was eighteen now, no longer a child, and our relationship had deepened into something tender and passionate. He was my first everything, and I believed he would be my last. Then he had to go abroad for a month-long business trip. "I'll be back before you know it, Lemon," he promised, kissing me at the airport. "Don't miss me too much." But I did. The apartment felt empty without him. A week after he left, I started feeling sick. A persistent nausea in the mornings, a deep, bone-weary fatigue I couldn't shake. I went to a clinic. The doctor, a kind woman with graying hair, asked me a series of questions, then ran some tests. When she came back into the room, her expression was gentle. "Jane," she said. "You're pregnant." The word hung in the air, electric and terrifying. Pregnant. A baby. Booker's baby. A wave of emotions crashed over me. Fear, joy, panic. A child. A piece of him, a piece of me. A family. Something I had never truly had. "If you're considering... termination," the doctor said softly, "it's better to do it sooner rather than later." "I need to think," I said, my hand instinctively going to my flat stomach. "I need to talk to... my boyfriend." "Of course. But don't wait too long. The further along you are, the harder it is on your body." I rushed home, my heart a frantic drum against my ribs. I had to tell Booker. I dialed his international number, my hands shaking. It rang and rang, unanswered. I tried again. And again. On the fourth try, someone picked up. It wasn't him. "Hello?" a woman's voice, sleepy and annoyed. My blood ran cold. "Who is this?" I asked. "I'm looking for Booker Harvey." "He's in the shower," the woman said with a yawn. "Who's calling?" The shower. A woman answered his phone while he was in the shower. The floor seemed to tilt beneath my feet. "I'm... I'm his sister," I lied, the words tasting like acid. "He never told me he had a sister," the woman said, but she called out, "Booker! Honey! Your sister is on the phone!" I heard muffled sounds, then his voice, slick with irritation. "I don't have a sister." A strangled sob escaped my lips. The line went dead. He had hung up on me. I waited. For a day. For a night. I stared at the silent phone, praying it would ring, praying there was some kind of explanation. A mistake. A misunderstanding. It never rang. Numb with a pain so deep it felt hollow, I took a bus back to the Harvey mansion. I don't know what I was looking for. An explanation? A confrontation? I found Cathleen in the garden, pruning her roses. She saw me and a smug, triumphant smile spread across her face. "Jane. I was just about to look for you." She beckoned me over. "I have something to show you." She held out her phone. It was a picture from a society blog. Booker, smiling, his arm wrapped tightly around a beautiful, sophisticated-looking woman. They were at some gala, looking perfectly matched, a golden couple. "Who is she?" I whispered, my voice trembling. "That," Cathleen said with relish, "is Amelia Vanderbilt. His girlfriend. They've been together for years. Her family is just as wealthy as the Harveys. Isn't it a perfect match?" "Perfect," I echoed, my throat closing up. "You see, Jane," she said, her voice dripping with false sympathy, "a man like Booker... he might play with a girl like you for a while. It's a fun diversion. But he was never going to be serious. You have to know your place." She patted my arm. "You're still young. Don't waste your life pining for someone who was just using you for fun." Her words were cruel, designed to break me, and they were working. I knew she hated me. I knew she couldn't stand that Booker had chosen me, even temporarily, over her own daughter. She wanted to see me fall, and she was enjoying every second of it. I tried to speak, to defend myself, but she cut me off. "In fact," she said, her eyes glittering with malice, "let's clear this up right now." She dialed a number. Booker picked up on the first ring. "Booker, darling, it's Cathleen," she chirped. "I have Jane here with me. She seems to be under some... misapprehensions about your relationship. Could you perhaps clarify for her?" She put the phone on speaker. I could hear the sounds of a party in the background. "Oh, that," Booker said, his voice light and dismissive, laced with amusement. "God, is she still hung up on that? Tell her it was just for fun. A game. She shouldn't take it so seriously." Just for fun. The words hit me with the force of a physical blow. The world went silent. The sun-drenched dream shattered, and I was left in the cold, hard wreckage. It was all a lie. The two years of happiness, the tenderness, the new name, the future I had dared to imagine... it was all a game to him. Cathleen hung up, her smile wider than ever. I took a deep breath, and the girl who cried, the girl who begged, the girl who loved, died in that moment. A new person, cold and sharp as glass, took her place. "You're right," I said, my voice steady and clear, surprising even myself. "I need to move on. Can I borrow some money, Cathleen? I want to leave the city, get a job." I looked her straight in the eye. "I'll pay you back. Every month. With interest." She was so shocked by my sudden composure, and so delighted at the prospect of getting rid of me for good, that she readily agreed. "Of course, dear," she said, practically beaming. "Anything to help you get back on your feet." She wrote me a generous check, a payoff to ensure I never came back. "You won't see me again," I promised her. It was a promise I intended to keep. I had always known she hated me, always known my existence in her life was a tightrope walk. That's why I had tried so hard to be perfect, to be invisible. Now, I didn't have to try anymore. I took her money. I walked out of that garden without looking back. I went straight to the clinic. I signed the papers. I lay down on the cold table. And I let them take the last piece of Booker Harvey from my body. A week later, my wounds still fresh, both inside and out, I bought a one-way bus ticket to a city I'd only seen on a map. As the bus pulled away from the station, I didn't look back. Jane Bradley was dead. I had killed her myself.