When Love Becomes a Cage by Nora

Vinson looked like he had just dashed off a construction site, still clad in his work gear, his face smeared with dust, and breathing heavily.

But he couldn't care less, "What's up with Clyde?"

"What else could it be? It's all about that Rachel!"

Jade clenched her fists, seething with anger.

"Even if Clyde's been a mess, he couldn't have forgotten everything, could he?"

"And that Rachel, knowing full well the situation, how dare she try to step into your shoes?"

She and Eliana started ranting, while I closed my eyes, taking it all in.

Rachel might have fallen for Clyde back in college, and perhaps that's where her resentment towards me stemmed from.

Every time I bought her lunch, making excuses for not wanting it or being unable to finish it, I could see a glimmer of resentment in her eyes.

Back then, I thought she resented her own lack of means or her background.

It never occurred to me that she resented me.

She might have felt I was insulting her with my charity, or that I was just discarding things I didn't want onto her.

sharpened into a dagger

understood why she

fleeting moment of

echoed in

parents, to the years of agony being married to Clyde had brought me. She even overlooked

I deserved it

Rachel and Clyde, but their words were becoming a blur to me. Warren thought they were too noisy and

just watching my hand as the

"Vinson..."

"Does it hurt?"

both spoke at once, then fell

replying, "No, they

away, not wanting

injection hurt, and

my hand, I felt an

me to have children because it would be too painful, knowing how much I feared

pain

strayed, when I was sick, he'd be by

basic respect, thinking everything I did was to lure him

called out to me, bleeding, I saw Clyde hesitate, but

he saw