Verity

by Colleen Hoover

Lowen Ashleigh, falling for an unavailable man with more baggage than even she has. Now that’s karma.

But I’m tired of the moments in this house that send my pulse racing like it is right now.

I put my hand on the mattress to lift myself up off the floor, but immediately shift backward onto my palms when I catch Verity watching me. Her head is in a different position, turned to the right, her eyes on mine.

“It’s not. Your daughters are perfectly healthy. Both of them.”

I rolled my eyes and thought to myself, I have loved someone this much, Jeremy. You. For four years. Thanks for noticing.

“She was diagnosed with Asperger’s when she was three. She wasn’t very expressive.”

He looks back at me, and he doesn’t even have to say why he was angry at her. He thinks she hit the tree on purpose.

and never come back to this house of sadness.

But it’s not respectful to discuss people like her as though they aren’t right in front of you.”

but it isn’t as wrong as crossing that line with him physically would be.

After he was gone, I would put them back in their cribs, unplug their monitors and go back to bed.

I’ve been under the impression that Verity might have been a sociopath, but now I’m leaning more toward psychopath.

I squeeze my eyes shut. Please, God. No. No, no, no, please don’t tell me I am in Verity’s bed.

How did I lose track of time? I guess that happens when you’re reading about a psychotic woman abusing her children.

‘God punishes the wicked, Jeremy.’ I hung up on him. Haven’t heard from them since.”

“I’m thinking it’s late. And I should probably lock you in your room now.”

“I’m the one who read your book. And it was good. Phenomenal. Which is why I suggested your name to her editor.”

It’s the only meal Jeremy ever threw against the dining room wall.

“That’s good,” Jeremy said, scrolling through his phone with one hand and eating with the other.

“It’s constant, Verity,” he said. “You talk about her constantly. You never talk about Harper. You never tell me what Harper learned in school or how Harper’s doing with potty training or all the cute things Harper said. It’s Chastin, all the time, every day.”

“They think Harper is on the autism spectrum?”

I nodded. I was lying, of course, but I wanted the mood of the night to disappear. I wanted him to be happy. And he was so happy after I told him I was pregnant again.

If there was one good thing the girls brought to our life, it was that Jeremy seemed to love me the most when I was pregnant. Now that he thought I was about to give him a third child, I could already feel his love multiplying again.

Miscarriages were just as easy to fake as pregnancies.

I keep glancing at the top of the stairs because I have the perfect view of it from the couch,

What happens when one of those is cut short, but the other is expected to live out those vows for the rest of their life?

I get actual chills. He didn’t even touch me—he touched my fucking driver’s license—and it turned me on.

I lift my head to watch him, but my blood runs cold when my eyes are pulled to the figure standing at the top of the stairs. She’s just standing there, watching her husband as his mouth roams over my breast.

“Your fucking wife was standing at the top of the fucking stairs, Jeremy! I know what I saw!”

“I know,” he says. “But Verity wouldn’t fake something like this. No one would. It would be impossible.”

From his point of view, I’m a hysterical mess of a woman who wakes up in his wife’s bed in the middle of the night and then claims I see his wife standing at the top of the stairs after he finally kisses me.

But I will forever think of that fucking disgusting raw chicken when I think about the moment we were told we lost Chastin.

So many potential accidents I could have staged. Should have staged.

Disturbing is putting it mildly.

“You’re a fucking cunt,” I mutter.

I open my eyes, my mouth inches away from the headboard. Inches away from the bite marks Verity left behind from all the times he had her in this same position.

Which meant I had spent one hundred eighty-two and a half days building resentment for the child responsible.

Back to the day Harper got what was coming to her.

but I didn’t because part of me knew I had messed up. I could see it in Jeremy’s face. This one would be even harder for him to recover from than Chastin.

“I love you, Harper. I love you, Harper. I love you, Harper.”

His reaction wasn’t quite what I had planned, but I realized he was in shock. He’d adjust. He just needed time.

No matter the condition of his marriage or his wife, he’s sleeping in their bed with another woman. There’s not much justification for that.

Proving that Verity murdered Harper wouldn’t make Jeremy feel better. It would make him feel worse.

He deserves to be with someone who will put her love for his children before anything else.

“Mommy said I shouldn’t talk to you if you ask me questions about her.”

I’ll read as I keep an eye on her movements.

“Why did you tell Crew to hold his breath, Verity?”

Will it be at the hands of Jeremy? Or will it be by my own hand?

If that’s the case…so be it. I’ll just drive my car into a tree.

I am frozen in place as I stare at the monitor. Verity is on the floor. On her hands and knees.