“and then the scene sped forward once more. ‘NO!’ I yelled, only it came out as a barely audible whisper. Like one of those nightmares where you try to scream for help but nothing more than a rasping breath escapes your lips. It was beyond cruel. My life had ended, and yet I wasn’t given time to mourn, or even process what had just happened. Murmurs rose and fell, and the court went on. ‘How many of you agreed to the verdict and how many dissented?’ It didn’t even matter. It meant nothing that one person argued in my favour while the rest casually sealed my fate with their assumptions. I was guilty. I would be sent back to prison with all hope of escaping from this nightmare extinguished. And the person who killed Calum would carry on as though nothing had happened. I was powerless to stop it. All I could do was sit, silent, blood lining the inside of my mouth, and wait to learn how many years of my life would be stolen from me. Chapter Fifty-five Calum had told me, moments before he died, that I needed to choose. ‘It’s time for you to make a decision,’ he’d said. I’d needed to decide whether I loved Jason or not. Whether I wanted my marriage to be riddled with lies, or whether I wanted to make it work with the man I’d promised to be faithful to forever. I’d known he was right, but I’d been a coward. For so long I had been waiting for life to make the hard choices for me.”