15 Chapter 15
“Don’t bother,” Albert interrupted her calmly. “Krista, were you really the one who saved my mother?” He stared at her, searching her face for any trace of deception.
Emma laid out the entire truth of that night six years ago: how Sherry had pulled Albert’s mother from the fire, how she had been hospitalized for her burns. She even showed him photos of Sherry’s injuries.
He finally understood everything. Not only was she not the savior, she was the arsonist who had nearly killed his mother.
She only woke up after Albert’s mother had been discharged. She never mentioned
what she had done.
She held her ground, but Albert had seen that initial hesitation. His heart sank. He pressed her for more details about the night of the fire, and her answers were riddled
with holes.
He thought he was going to lose his mother, but a firefighter told him she had been rescued by a brave woman. He’d burst into the hospital and found Krista sitting by his mother’s bedside. He had pieced together his own narrative and naturally assumed she was the hero.
Albert’s anxiety grew. He couldn’t imagine what he had done to Sherry, his true savior. When he arrived at the hospital, Krista was surprised to see him.
His world shattered, plunging him into darkness. His memory screamed that Krista had saved his mother that day, not Sherry.
If what Emma said was true, then not only had he mistaken his savior all these years, but…
“Albert, aren’t you supposed to be at your wedding with Sherry?” she asked. She noticed his injured hand and exclaimed, “What happened to your hand? I’ll get a doctor.”
She continued, her voice rising, “You didn’t even say thank you to Sherry back then, and now you treat her like this!”
But Emma said it was Sherry. Sherry, who had also suffered from smoke inhalation and
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burns, and was unconscious for three days.
Emma was furious that her best friend’s fiancé could forget something so important. She felt an immense wave of injustice for Sherry and disgust for Albert.
He remembered the fire, being stuck outside, his mother calling him. By the time he arrived, the fire trucks were already there.
Krista was clearly startled. A flicker of panic crossed her face, but she quickly composed herself. “Of course, I was. Your mother saw me when she woke up. Don’t you remember?”
…the baby in Krista’s womb was a monstrous joke. He rushed to the hospital, needing to find out what really happened that night. In the taxi, he desperately tried to recall the details.
Albert left Emma’s house in a daze.
“Your memory has a convenient way of being selective, doesn’t it?” she said, her voice dripping with contempt. “Or have you completely blocked out the fire from six years ago?”
