Copyright 2018 by Colleen Hoover

No, Jeremy.
I run straight up to Verity’s room and stop short when I reach the doorway.
Jeremy is on top of her. Her arms are trapped beneath his knees, her legs are
kicking at the bed, her feet are digging into the mattress as she wheezes.
She’s trying to fight back, but he overpowers her in every way.
“Jeremy!” I rush to him and try to pull him off of her. All I can think of is
Crew and Jeremy’s future and how his anger is not worth a life. His life.
“Jeremy!”
He isn’t listening. He refuses to let go of her. I try to get in his face, to calm
him, to talk sense into him. “You have to stop. You’re crushing her windpipe.

---

They’ll know you killed her.”
Tears are streaming down his cheeks. “She killed our daughter, Low.” His
voice is full of devastation.
I grab his face, try to pull him to me. “Think about Crew,” I say, my voice
low. “Your son will not have a father if you do this.”
I see the slow change in him as my words sink in. He eventually pulls his
hands from her throat. I double over, gasping for as much breath as Verity is
right now. She’s sputtering, trying to inhale. She tries to speak. Or scream.
Jeremy covers her mouth and looks at me. There’s a plea in his eyes, but it’s not
a plea for me to call for help. It’s a plea for me to help him figure out a better
way to end her.
I don’t even argue with him. There is not a single cell in her body that
deserves to live after all she’s done. I step back and try to think.
If he chokes her, they’ll know. His handprints will be on her throat. If he
smothers her, particles from the pillow will be in her lungs. But we have to do
something. If he doesn’t, she’ll get away with it somehow because she’s
manipulative. She’ll end up hurting him or Crew. She’ll kill him just like she
killed her daughter. Just like she tried to kill Harper as an infant.
Just like she tried to kill Harper as an infant.
“You have to make it look like an accident,” I say, my voice quiet, yet loud
enough to be heard over the noises she’s making beneath the palm of his hand.
“Make her vomit. Cover her nose and mouth until she stops breathing. It’ll look
like she aspirated in her sleep.”
Jeremy’s eyes are wide as he listens to me, but there’s understanding there.
He pulls his hands from her mouth and then shoves his fingers down her throat. I
turn my head. I can’t watch.
I hear the gagging, and then the choking, and it feels like it goes on forever.
Forever.
I sink to the floor, my whole body wracked with tremors. I press my palms
against my ears and attempt to ignore the sounds of Verity’s last breaths. Of her
last movements. After a while, the sound of three people’s lungs turns into two.
It’s only Jeremy and me breathing right now.
“Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God...” I can’t stop whispering it over and over as
the enormity of what we’ve just done begins to register.
Jeremy is quiet, other than the cautious breaths he’s releasing. I don’t want to
look at her, but I need to know it’s over.
When I turn my body to face her, she’s staring at me. Only this time, I know
she isn’t in there, hiding behind that vacant stare.
Jeremy is on his knees by the bed. He checks her pulse, then his head

---

collapses between his shoulders. He sits, his back to the bed as he catches his
breath. He brings both hands to his face, cradling his head. I don’t know if he’s
about to cry, but I would understand it if he did. He’s been hit with the reality
that his daughter’s death wasn’t an accident. That his wife—the woman he
devoted so many years of his life to—was not at all the person he believed her to
be. That she was manipulating him the entire time.
Every good memory he’s ever had with his wife died right along with her
tonight. Her confessions ripped him apart, and I can see it in the way he’s
doubled over now, attempting to process the last hour of his life. The last hour of