Life as I know it is over.

Destroyed.

Forgotten.

I'm dragged down into a numb, gut wrenching haze so thick I spend my evenings dialing crisis hotlines. I always hang up as soon as someone answers.

I don't have the courage to tell anyone else I loved a violent psychopath. Not even enough courage to admit that deep down, a part of me still might.

Mom's condo feels like a tomb after the place the studio gave me, not to mention the nights I spent in Luke's luxurious splendor. Future accommodations given to the actors are up in the air, as is everything else with the movie while they desperately try to salvage the horrific PR damage inflicted by 'Mr. Black Hearted.'

That's what the press is calling him, ever since it lit up social media. Honestly, they aren't wrong.

Ever since we came face-to-face again after our long absence, I tried not to trust him. I feared the worst, but the absolute darkest places my mind went when assessing the risk a second chance with Lucus Shaw could bring never went here.

I sleep in my old guest bed, the one that used to be mine alone. Colder than I've ever been.

The only silver lining is, it hasn't taken mom long to recover. Somehow, the wound was worse than it looked, and the reconstructive jaw surgery they talked about hasn't been necessary. Her bruise is a little better every day, fading after a week, and it doesn't take much dental work to repair her two cracked teeth.

“One day at a time, sweetie,” she says, as if I have another choice. “You'll get through this. Learn to forget him. The more you dwell on the past, the more it'll control you.”

Wise words, if she lived by them herself. She hasn't shut up about how awful Frank Shaw was to her all these years. I think the only reason she doesn't discuss what happened with Luke is because she doesn't want to make me feel worse than I do.

Whatever, she's oddly supportive, when it should be the other way around. She goes about her life like nothing happened, staying strong for me. She'll probably have TMJ issues forever, but it seems she's decided I'm the one who's suffered more. I guess Luke told her about his plans to propose before their talk got heated, and he decided to smash her face in.

I don't know if he meant to.

I don't fucking care.

It's incredible what a bullet I dodged, escaping him before he decided to do something just as awful to me.

It isn't easy counting my lucky breaks, of course. I'm too eaten up with regret, shame, and disbelief that shouldn't even be there after what he did, after what I saw with my own crying eyes.

His brothers finally stopped calling this week. I told Hayden and Grant to fuck off, or else I'd seek a restraining order. Apparently, they listened. And no, I don't care what they want.

There's no fix for this except what I should've done years ago – write Luke out of my life. Forget him. Move on.

I'm not interested in excuses, or second guessing, or therapy. I want to finish re-shooting my scenes with his replacement, collect the royalties, and move far, far away.

Japan sounds good, or maybe New Zealand. Some distant island where Bare won't be the main American export for the next year. There has to be a magical place on this planet where I won't have to re-live this lie disguised as love, and where every day I survive a nervous breakdown feels like a major accomplishment.

* * *

Time's up. There's none left to cry, or reflect, or grieve because I don't let myself do it.

I ignore the headlines and the buzz on social media about the film. The studio wants me to finish my last scenes with Harkness first, before they find a proper replacement for Luke. I'm happy to comply.

I give my best tearful speech as Ali, pleading with the Senator for mercy. I'm supposed to make him show his weakness, giving Miles the opportunity he needs to save us by strangling the villain with his own handcuffs. Harkness gives an incredible performance with the stunt actor they've hired to stand in for Miles.

His fencing skills are truly a lost art. I thought the sword scene at the end sounded dumb the first time I saw it in the script, but that was before I saw what a living legend could do with his fancy footwork and heroic slinging.

“Truly a shame about your man,” he tells me one day, squeezing my shoulder, his wise old eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Thanks. It's not your problem.”

“Hang in there, lovely lady. These things have a funny way of working themselves out.”

I give him a fake smile. Older and wiser doesn't mean a thing when his advice is insane.

There's no happy ending here. No third chance, now that our second one is blown. Not after he savaged my mother, tearing my heart out in front of me.

Bebe calls me several times a week when I'm not on the set. She's in a mad rush to protect my mental state, hoping I won't breakdown and walk, causing her to lose an already tenuous commission.

I swear up and down that work is all I care about. It's a huge lie, of course, but since when were the comforting ones the most sinful?

Sweet distractions. Thank God for them.

They're a small relief from the nuclear surprise I'm doing my best not to acknowledge.

It doesn't hit me until I'm at mom's place again, alone during the nights, a sheet pulled up to my neck while I fight not to let my mind wander. She's taken several days off to go to a conference upstate, leaving me alone.

There's only one place my brain goes, and it isn't good.

Hell, will anything ever be good again after the pregnancy test last week confirmed my worst fears?

I'll never know how or why my birth control failed. It must've been our last night together, before the world came down the next day. He dialed my baby fever up to ten, or maybe I just missed a pill or two I really shouldn't have in all the commotion that started as soon as he went to prison.

No, I haven't been to a doctor yet.

Hell no, I haven't told mom.

For now, it's my secret, and it's the most bittersweet excuse to hide from the world when I'm not in front of a camera. It's also great motivation to get on with planning my life after the movie in earnest.

I need to leave Chicago, and never come back. Anywhere, far from the wealthy, evil reach of the Shaws will do.

This isn't about running from a big, fat mistake anymore. It's about keeping my baby safe, keeping it innocent, and most of all, making sure it never learns the truth about its father, Lucus Shaw.

They say a woman can't erase a man who's made his mark down to her DNA. Obviously, they're wrong.

They haven't felt the hate in my heart.

They haven't felt my pain.

They haven't figured out that with enough anger and hurt, a woman can do anything. That includes extracting the venom, erasing the good times and the bad, learning to forget the man who came to me camouflaged in love over and over, only to jam the dagger of truth he was hiding deep in my side.

No more. I'm pulling it out, however much it hurts, and then I'm walking away. One agonizing step at a time, I will leave Luke behind.