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Transcript
00:01I was born cursed, a jinx that brings bad luck.
00:04At 18, the cheer captain mocked my weight and ripped my clothes open in front of everyone.
00:12You'll be disfigured. Scars across your face.
00:16No sooner had the words left my mouth than she fell from the platform,
00:20her face sliced by a shard of a beer bottle.
00:25Later, at an adult party, a member of a fraternity tried to drug and rape me.
00:31You'll die from an alcohol allergy.
00:35That night, he vomited blood all over the party and died with a glass clenched in his hand.
00:41After that, I became the monster everyone feared.
00:44So I learned to shut my mouth and play mute until the day I went to college and met Weston
00:48Blackwell,
00:49the most sought-after captain of the varsity hockey team.
00:52Weston never looked down on me.
00:54You're cute, Serena. Don't even listen to that crap. They're all idiots.
01:00Deeply moved, I spent one night with him and gave him my virginity.
01:04But when I walked into the sailboat bar, I found Weston kissing the most popular girl of the community.
01:10Weston, your little stutter's here.
01:12I hid the love letter behind my back, but Madison was quicker.
01:16She snatched it from my hand and read aloud.
01:19Dear Weston, I think I've fallen for you. Will you be my boyfriend?
01:24They all burst out laughing. Madison went at me, a smug look on her face.
01:29You think you can go after Wester? Have you even saw your face in a mirror?
01:33Weston grabbed the letter, sneering at the guys beside him.
01:37See? I told you. This little stuttering simp was going to confess to me today. I won.
01:42In an instant, Weston ripped the letter up right in front of me.
01:46A mute's a mute. She couldn't even be able to make a sound in bed.
01:51I stared at the little scraps fluttered down and didn't waver.
01:55Weston didn't know. I had a cursed tongue. Whatever I spoke came true.
01:59From that moment on, I was going to curse him.
02:04I was about to speak when Madison yanked me over to a big metal tub, a dozen apples floating on
02:09the surface.
02:11Grab one with your teeth, and we'll let you go.
02:14A hand slammed into the back of my head. Cold water rushed up my nose.
02:18The hand held steady. 30 seconds, my lungs started to burn.
02:22They finally let go. I hung over the rim of the tub, coughing and gasping, soaked hair plastered to my
02:27face.
02:28The makeup I'd so carefully done for Weston was completely ruined.
02:32Gross.
02:35Hey, mute. You should be grateful I was willing to touch you. Your body sucks.
02:40Something twisted deep in my chest, so I was just a plaything to him.
02:45Who said I mute?
02:46The whole party went dead silent.
02:48I warn you once I speak, fate obeys without fail.
02:52Oh my god, so she can talk? Three months of playing dumb?
02:56Was that all for attention, Serena?
02:58Weston stared at me, his face cycling through shock.
03:01He shoved me back.
03:03Oh, that's your big secret?
03:05You watch too many horror movies.
03:10Madison, before this party ends, you're going to fall headfirst into that mop bucket by the bathroom.
03:15In front of everyone.
03:19The room howled.
03:22A curse.
03:24She thinks she's a witch.
03:25Quick, someone protect Maddie from the big scary mute.
03:28Madison laughed the hardest of all.
03:30She sauntered toward the bathroom, hips swinging, and turned back to blow me a kiss.
03:34Watch closely, freak.
03:37I'm going to walk right past your magic bucket and nothing.
03:40Her body pitched forward, and Madison went headfirst into the janitor's mop bucket with a wet.
03:45For three full seconds, nobody breathed.
03:50It's the water, you idiots! The floor's covered in it!
03:54Coincidence! Oh my god, the timing, though!
03:57Madison pointed a trembling finger at me.
03:59She wet the floor!
04:01The psycho mute planned this!
04:03Weston draped his varsity jacket over her shoulders.
04:06He glared at me.
04:08Serena, this is pathetic.
04:09You predicted it because you set it up.
04:11That's not a curse.
04:12That's a crime.
04:14You know what's actually cursed?
04:16Your face.
04:17Laughter.
04:18Phones out.
04:19Flashes going off.
04:21I stood in the middle of it, water dripping down my hair,
04:23and felt something inside me go very, very quiet.
04:26They'd had their explanation, but my words don't need anyone's belief.
04:30Fate obeys without asking permission.
04:33I walked to the door.
04:35Hand on the frame, I turned around.
04:37Weston.
04:38Tomorrow.
04:39The championship game.
04:40Third period.
04:41You're going to go down on that ice, and your leg is going to snap.
04:44They'll carry you off on a stretcher, and you will never skate the same again.
04:47Dead silence.
04:48Then Weston laughed, but I caught it.
04:50The half-second flicker in his eyes before the sneer came back.
04:53Get her out of here, and somebody call her a shrink!
04:58The next day, the whole school showed up to the rink.
05:01Word of my curse had spread overnight.
05:03Half the student section came just to watch me be humiliated a second time.
05:07Someone had printed a sign, witch, section, with an arrow pointing at wherever I sat.
05:12I climbed to the top of the stands alone and sat down, hands folded in my lap.
05:17Weston was on fire.
05:18Two goals in the first period.
05:20An assist in the second.
05:22Every time he scored, the crowd roared his name, and the student section turned around to jeer at my waves.
05:27How's the curse coming, Serena?
05:31Third period's almost here.
05:32Better start chanting!
05:33Third period.
05:34Four.
05:34One.
05:35Two minutes left on the clock.
05:37The championship was already decided.
05:39The arena was just waiting to storm the ice.
05:42Madison appeared at the end of my row, flanked by her friends.
05:45A victory smirk on her freshly made-up face.
05:48She'd come all the way up here just for this.
05:51Aw, look at her.
05:52Still waiting.
05:54Sweetie, the game's over.
05:55My boy's about to lift a trophy, and you're about to be the biggest joke in school history.
06:00She pulled out her phone.
06:02On the screen was a meme.
06:03My face was edited to look hideously ugly.
06:06Captioned with a single line,
06:07You're gonna break your leg.
06:09You should curse me again.
06:11The bucket thing was at least entertaining.
06:13On the ice, Weston stripped the puck at center and broke away.
06:16Alone, nothing between him and an empty net goal.
06:20The crowd rose to its feet, a wall of sound.
06:22And then the jumbotron found him,
06:2440 feet tall on the big screen.
06:26Weston looked up, straight at me.
06:28He grinned, wide and golden and untouchable,
06:31and mouthed two words, slow enough for every camera to catch.
06:34You suck.
06:35The student section screamed with laughter.
06:37Madison cackled beside me.
06:39Oh my god, he called you out on the jumbl scroll.
06:50His skate blade caught, nobody touched him.
06:53There was nothing to trip on.
06:54One moment, Weston was flying.
06:56The next his edge bit wrong.
06:57His leg folded beneath him at an angle.
06:59Legs are not built for.
07:01And 200 pounds of momentum drove him into the boards.
07:04The crack was loud enough to reach the top row.
07:06Weston screamed.
07:07The sound cut through the platform like a blade raw animal.
07:10Nothing like the boy who'd been smirking on a 40-foot screen two seconds ago.
07:15He arrived on the ice, clutching his shin, the knee twisted sideways.
07:18Wrong! Wrong!
07:21The arena's roar died in its throat.
07:23The jumbotron operator was too slow for three endless seconds.
07:26The big screen broadcast Weston's contorted face in high definition,
07:30tears freezing on his cheeks.
07:31Madison's laugh strangled off mid-breath.
07:36She turned to look at me.
07:38Her face had gone the color of the ice.
07:40I hadn't moved.
07:40Hands still folded in my lap.
07:42Third period.
07:43I said softly.
07:44Right on time.
07:45By the way, for pity's sake, somebody call him an ambulance.
07:48The arena doors slammed shut behind me,
07:51cutting off the wail of sirens and the announcer's shaking voice.
07:54I made it half a block before they cornered me.
07:56The alley beside the parking garage.
07:58Madison, flanked by four guys I'd never seen on campus.
08:01Chains, cigarettes, the kind of men you hire by the hour.
08:04You think I don't know what you did?
08:06You sabotaged his skates?
08:07There's no such thing as curses, you freak!
08:10Even now, even after the crack of Weston's leg had echoed off the rafters,
08:13she'd rather believe I was a criminal mastermind than believe her own ears.
08:21Hold her down.
08:23Let's see if the little witch cries.
08:25Film it.
08:26Rip that ugly dress off her.
08:27I want the whole school to see what she really is.
08:30The first one lunged.
08:33I opened my mouth.
08:35The silver line whistled through the dark and cracked across his wrist.
08:38He howled and dropped.
08:42A man stepped between me and them,
08:44a fencing bag slung over one shoulder,
08:46and a pay bear in his hand, tall, unhurried.
08:49Four men against a girl half your size?
08:51Shame on you.
08:52Julian?
08:53Julian Ashford, you're Weston's brother.
08:55Frat brothers stand together.
08:57He just broke his leg.
08:58I was in the stands.
08:59Nobody touched him.
09:01Go, or campus police gets four assault charges and I get some practice.
09:07The hired muscle looked at each other
09:09and decided that Madison's paying them enough.
09:13She screamed something about lawyers and freaks
09:15as they dragged her out of the alley.
09:19Julian zipped the payback into its bag and looked at me.
09:22Not the way everyone looked at me, no fear, no disgust.
09:26Just looking.
09:27You okay?
09:28I nodded.
09:30If for what it's worth,
09:31I said shouldering the bag,
09:32if it was a curse he had it coming.
09:37He walked me to the edge of campus and left without asking for anything.
09:44Bye.
09:46I stood under the streetlight for a long time, Dot.
09:49So that was what it felt like.
09:50When someone held the umbrella instead of praying for rain,
09:53I'd always despise the way Madison operated.
09:55As her hired thugs fled the alley,
09:57she'd shot me one last look of pure contempt and scoff, Dot.
10:00So I spoke cold and quiet.
10:02Everything you've ever done to others will come back on you.
10:05Exactly.
10:06In full.
10:07To her retreating back,
10:08she didn't understand what it meant.
10:10Not yet.
10:10The day she got home,
10:14she found her mother collapsed on the floor,
10:16sobbing.
10:20Madison rushed to help her up.
10:22I have nothing left now.
10:24But you,
10:25you still have that pretty face.
10:27You still have that pretty face.
10:29Go.
10:30Use it.
10:31Make them want you.
10:33Madison's mother had been the mistress once.
10:35She'd schemed the first wife out of the marriage
10:37and held Mr. Whitmore's attention for 20 years.
10:39Now a younger woman had appeared at his side,
10:41younger,
10:41prettier and pregnant.
10:43Mr. Whitmore announced that his entire estate
10:45would go to the unborn child.
10:46Madison's name you've done't in the will at all.
10:48Everything you've done will come back on you.
10:50Madison nearly broke.
10:52And then she remembered my curse
10:53and ran straight to the hospital.
10:55Where Weston lay with his leg in a full cast,
10:57screws through the bone.
10:58She threw herself onto his chest.
11:00Wes,
11:01that Serena freak is tormenting me.
11:02You have to do something.
11:07Weston's eyes brimmed with contempt.
11:08Baby,
11:09don't cry.
11:10She's just an ugly little troll.
11:12I'll handle it.
11:13She's obsessed with me anyway.
11:15I'll make her kneel and apologize to you.
11:18Really?
11:19You have no idea how pathetic she was
11:21when she was crushing on me.
11:23Begging for scraps like a dog.
11:25Three months she's been in love with me.
11:26Serena's nothing but a simp.
11:28I heard every word from the doorway,
11:29where I'd come to drop off his homework
11:31as the RA had asked.
11:32My fists curled.
11:33In Weston's world,
11:35loving someone was the original sin.
11:37The one who loves first deserves no dignity.
11:39No standing deserves only the leftovers
11:41of the one being worshipped.
11:43So I curved my lips and spoke.
11:44I curse you.
11:45From this moment on,
11:46Weston Blackwell is my simp.
11:48He will devote himself to me,
11:49please me,
11:49serve me,
11:50regardless of consequence,
11:51regardless of pride.
11:52The thing Weston despised most in the world
11:54was a simp.
11:55Now he'd learn the position from the inside.
11:57I wanted to see exactly
11:58how the great Weston Blackwell
12:00would grovel for someone
12:01he'd sneered at his entire life.
12:05It started immediately.
12:07Weston wrote me love letters
12:08he couldn't stop writing.
12:10Every morning he stood outside my dorm at dawn,
12:12breakfast in hand,
12:13balanced on his crutches.
12:14I glanced lazily at the bag.
12:16Weston looked like he was chewing glass.
12:18He'd been waiting two hours
12:19before I even woke up.
12:20His face was thunderous with rage,
12:22but his feet wouldn't move an inch.
12:23He could only stand there,
12:25planted at my door
12:26like a statue of his own humiliation.
12:28I took the breakfast, yawning.
12:29Weston opened his mouth to curse me out,
12:31and the words transformed on his tongue.
12:34Serena, I picked this out myself.
12:36Eat it while it's warm, okay?
12:37I stared at him for a long moment.
12:39Then deliberately,
12:40I dropped the whole bag into the trash can,
12:42trampling his effort
12:43the way he'd once trampled mine.
12:45Sorry, I don't eat from that place.
12:47There's a conja shop on the King's Cross Street.
12:49Bring me that every morning instead,
12:50on foot, or I won't touch it.
12:52Weston's knuckles went white on his crutches.
12:59He'd probably forgotten.
13:00When I loved him,
13:01I woke at six every morning
13:03to wait outside his favorite breakfast place.
13:05He never even looked.
13:06He threw every single one away.
13:07In front of his entire frat,
13:09Weston delivered a love letter to me.
13:11Serena, I like you.
13:13You're the light on the scene that moves me to-
13:15I took the letter,
13:15didn't read a word,
13:16and tore it to pieces in front of him.
13:18He dropped to his knees
13:19and gathered the scraps like they were precious.
13:21His fingertips were trembling.
13:23I stepped on his fingers.
13:24His face contorted in pain,
13:25and then, agonizingly,
13:27he squeezed out a smile.
13:28Did stepping on me hurt your foot?
13:30Here, let me rub it for you.
13:32Watching him grovel,
13:33something dark and sweet bloomed in my chest.
13:35Revenge, I discovered, has a flavor.
13:40The congee shop happened to be across the street
13:42from the university fencing hall.
13:44The first morning,
13:45Weston limped up with the paper bag
13:46sweat-soaked from the 40-minute walk.
13:48Julian was just pushing through
13:49the fencing hall's glass doors,
13:51gear bag over his shoulder,
13:52hair still damp from morning practice.
13:54He clocked the scene in about two seconds,
13:56me, on a bench in the sun.
13:58Weston Blackwell Campus Royalty Hockey God,
14:00his own frat brother,
14:01standing at attention beside me like a butler,
14:03holding out a bag of congee with murder in his eyes
14:06and devotion in his voice.
14:07Serena, careful, it's hot.
14:09Let me blow on it.
14:10Julian's eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch.
14:12Then he walked over,
14:13sat down on my bench uninvited.
14:15So, is this the curse thing,
14:17or did he lose a bet?
14:18Can it be both?
14:19He peered into the bag.
14:20Fair, that's a good congee place.
14:22He walked?
14:23He walks every morning.
14:24Doctor's orders.
14:25Mine, technically.
14:30Weston's jaw was working furiously.
14:32I could see the exact moment
14:33the insults formed on his tongue Ashford.
14:35You traitor, get away from her,
14:36and the exact moment the curse melted them into.
14:39Julian, great to see you, man.
14:41Can I get you anything?
14:42Coffee?
14:42I'll go get coffee.
14:44Black, two sugars, take your time.
14:45Westall body shook with the effort of not screaming.
14:47Then his legs turned him around
14:49and marched him back down the street.
14:50Julian watched him go.
14:52I should feel bad for him.
14:54Do you?
14:55I keep trying.
14:56He turned back to me,
14:57and there was that look again,
14:58the one from the alley.
14:59Not fear.
15:00Not fascination with the freak show.
15:02Just me.
15:02It's not taking.
15:06Weston delivered breakfast.
15:08Julian appeared sweaty and unbothered
15:10and stole half of it.
15:11Weston fetched coffee for the man
15:13sitting too close to the girl
15:14he was cursed to worship,
15:15and every morning his eyes
15:17got a little more bloodshot.
15:18You should learn to fence.
15:20Julian said one morning apropos of nothing.
15:22Why?
15:24Because the next time someone corners you in an alley,
15:26I might be at practice.
15:28Also, you'd be good.
15:30You've got the temperament.
15:32Which is?
15:33Patient.
15:34Economical.
15:36Vindictive.
15:36I laughed, actually laughed.
15:38The sound startling me.
15:39For all these years, mute and feared.
15:41And this man handed me compliments.
15:42So he taught me.
15:44Tuesday and Thursday evenings,
15:45the fencing hall empty,
15:47his hands correcting my grip.
15:48Loosen your fingers.
15:49It's a blade, not a grudge.
15:53I hold everything like a grudge.
15:55I've noticed.
15:57He stepped back,
15:58mask under his arm,
15:59and looked at me.
16:01For the record, I don't mind.
16:02The fluorescent lights hummed.
16:04Neither of us said anything else.
16:05The three feet of air between us said quite enough.
16:11Weston found out about the lessons, of course.
16:13He followed me everywhere.
16:15He stood at the edge of the pist,
16:16cursed to hold my water bottle and my towel,
16:19watching his frat brother adjust my stance
16:21with two fingers at my elbow.
16:23Serena, you're doing amazing.
16:25Julian's a great teacher.
16:27So great.
16:27The best.
16:29Every word cost him a year of his life,
16:31I could tell.
16:32Weston, the towel.
16:34Julian didn't even look over.
16:36Weston's arm extended the towel.
16:38His face did something that would haunt a lesser man dot,
16:41and then Madison walked in.
16:42She tracked him here phone in hand,
16:44ready to catch her cursed lover in servitude.
16:47Instead, she caught the full tableau me flushed from footwork.
16:50Julian standing close enough to share breath,
16:52and Weston holding my towel like a squire.
16:56You...
16:56You witch!
16:57It's not enough to steal Weston?
16:59Now you're seducing Julian too?
17:01He was supposed to...
17:02She strangled the rest of the sentence,
17:04but everyone heard it.
17:05He was supposed to be my backup plan.
17:07The hall went very quiet.
17:11Julian pulled off his glove finger by finger, unhurried.
17:14Madison,
17:15to steal something, it has to belong to you first.
17:17He picked up his epay and turned back to me
17:19as if she'd stopped existing.
17:21Again, from the fourth parade.
17:23Julian!
17:24Weston's control cracked clean through rage,
17:26punching a hole in the curse for one raw second.
17:29She's a freak.
17:30She did this to me.
17:31She's not even...
17:31She's nothing.
17:32She's a mute charity case
17:34who stalked me for three months.
17:36The curse slammed back down mid-sentence.
17:38His mouth kept moving.
17:39She's perfect,
17:39and I'm so lucky to carry her towel.
17:41The whiplash was so violent
17:43that Madison burst into tears.
17:45Julian looked at Weston for a long, cold moment.
17:47He turned to me and raised his blade
17:48in a salute formal, old-fashioned, absurdly sincere.
17:52Their loss.
17:56Weston ran errands for me all day, every day,
17:59while his eyes filled with more and more hatred.
18:01He sent me a thousand texts daily.
18:03If I didn't reply, he simply kept sending.
18:05He became an ATM for love, sending me money.
18:07Four or five hundred dollars a day
18:09with little heart emojis he clearly wanted to die over.
18:12His brain had fully converted to lovesick mush.
18:14He thought I was perfect.
18:15He became a tool to be used at will.
18:17He even taught himself to cook for me.
18:19Scalding steam blistered his hand into a welt,
18:22and still he carried the finished kiji to my table.
18:25It's burnt.
18:26Every bit of it is burnt.
18:27How am I supposed to eat this?
18:28And Weston arrogant, untouchable Weston
18:30had become timid, servile.
18:32He apologized instantly.
18:33I'm sorry.
18:34I'll make it better next time.
18:35Please don't be mad at me, okay?
18:37He was so afraid of saying the wrong thing
18:40that he apologized twice more, just in case.
18:42He followed me everywhere, a little tag along.
18:45I called him the tag along to his face,
18:47and he trotted after me happily anyway.
18:53No status.
18:54No dignity.
18:55If I said go east, he would never go west.
18:57If I said cook, he'd joyfully produce a full table,
19:00every dish something I loved.
19:02As long as I looked happy, Weston was satisfied.
19:04My happiness above everything,
19:06even when my happiness was built directly on top of his pain,
19:09exactly the way he'd once demanded to be loved.
19:11Madison found out, of course.
19:12She came running immediately to mark her territory.
19:15She dabbed at her tears,
19:16Weston's heart broke on cue,
19:17and he turned on me in fury,
19:19a simp allowed.
19:20Apparently, one exemption.
19:21I watched the two of them play star-crossed lovers
19:24torn apart by a cruel witch.
19:26Weston was very obedient these days,
19:27so I told him to kneel.
19:29He knelt.
19:29I smiled down at Madison.
19:31The cake on the floor at the party?
19:32You made them grind my face into it, I remember.
19:37So here's your curse.
19:39Right now, this instant,
19:40the two of you slap each other.
19:45The sound of palms on cheeks rang down the hallway
19:48as I shut my door on them.
19:49Madison couldn't control her own arm.
19:51Neither could he.
19:52By the end,
19:52both their faces were swollen like bread dough,
19:55and they clung to each other like tragic lovers in a war film.
19:58Madison still couldn't let him go.
20:00I watched it all on the hallway camera, expressionless.
20:02You picked this fight, both of you.
20:04I smiled and spoke to the empty room.
20:06I curse Madison Whitmere and Weston Backwell.
20:09The moment they get intimate,
20:11their bodies will stick together like industrial-scrate superglue.
20:14This time, they'd humiliate themselves in front of everyone.
20:19What I hate most is betrayal.
20:21Weston had accepted my love without ever refusing Ithod,
20:24even enjoyed being worshipped,
20:26the way he always did.
20:27On the surface, he was devoted to me.
20:29Behind my back, I'd caught Madison meeting him again,
20:31and agon whining, plotting, clinging.
20:35Madison was cornered by my first curse.
20:37If she didn't have Weston,
20:38her mother would sell her off to whoever paid,
20:40so she wrapped herself around him tighter.
20:42Before their date, she made a point of finding me.
20:46Serena, you vicious little witch.
20:49You think you can chain his body?
20:50You'll never hold his heart.
20:53He's going to be mine by tomorrow.
20:55I said nothing.
20:56I just watched her and waited for the show.
20:58That night, they went out, kissed under a streetlight,
21:00and stumbled into a motel,
21:01and Weston's body sealed to hers like a bead of superglue between two fingers.
21:05He couldn't move.
21:06He panicked, tried to wrench himself free,
21:08and the more he struggled, the tighter the bond.
21:11Madison tried to push him off,
21:12their bodies just locked together, rigid, helpless.
21:17Even their mouths stuck shut,
21:19like someone had painted their lips with adhesive.
21:22Weston, drenched in sweat,
21:23finally managed to knock the phone off the hook and dial the front desk.
21:28The clerk walked in, and his soul left his body.
21:31He tried to pull them apart with nothing.
21:34He called 911.
21:37Medics arrived fast,
21:38and the two of them were carried out on a single stretcher.
21:43The news traveled at the speed of screenshots.
21:45By sunrise, the whole city knew.
21:47They became the laughingstock of the city.
21:49The medical intervention was complicated,
21:51and when it was over,
21:53the doctors delivered the verdict quietly.
21:54The damage was permanent.
21:56Some things Weston would never do again.
21:58His face went black as a grave.
22:00Madison fainted from sheer horror.
22:02And in his hospital bed,
22:04Weston ground his teeth and swore he'd never forgive me.
22:07Serena, you vicious little...
22:08His leg carved up with hardware.
22:10His pride amputated.
22:11His future gone.
22:12He came up with one last vicious plan.
22:15To execute it,
22:16he'd have to keep playing the devoted simp.
22:17He made a phone call.
22:18I want five attack dogs,
22:20trained ones,
22:20today.
22:21They're a gift for someone special.
22:26Weston stood in front of me,
22:28holding five leashes,
22:29five muscled dogs straining against their collars,
22:31and said they were a present.
22:33Then he let go.
22:34The dogs came at me like starving wolves.
22:36I didn't move.
22:37Weston's mouth curled into an ugly, triumphant smile.
22:40The instant before the first dog reached me,
22:42I spoke,
22:43my voice clear and sweet.
22:44Weston colon,
22:45his body moved before his mind could scream.
22:48Shield me.
22:49He threw himself in front of me.
22:51Arms spread,
22:52using his own flesh as my wall.
22:53The first dog's jaws closed on his palm.
22:56He shrieked.
22:57The second locked onto his injured leg,
22:58right through the surgical scars.
23:00He howled and did not dare stand up,
23:02could not.
23:02The curse held him there,
23:03a human shield,
23:04while the dogs he'd bought to kill me took him apart instead.
23:07He passed out eventually,
23:09covered in a dense lattice of bite wounds.
23:11I nudged him aside with my foot,
23:12and looked down at him.
23:13You did this to yourself.
23:19He ended up in the ICU.
23:21Tubes in most of his body.
23:23Food through a straw.
23:24Rabies shots on a schedule.
23:26Three months minimum flat on his back.
23:27I thought about the way he used to sneer at me.
23:29Then I looked at him now,
23:30and felt,
23:31for once,
23:32completely at peace.
23:33So I brought a bottle of wine to his hospital room,
23:35sat down beside his bed,
23:37and drank,
23:38alone,
23:38slowly.
23:40Weston,
23:41having money made you untouchable, huh?
23:43You ground my dignity and my feelings into the dirt,
23:46but you never imagined a day like this.
23:48I swirled the glass.
23:49Oh, and for the record,
23:51I did love you once.
23:53Loved you until it tore me open.
23:54I took a sip.
23:57What made you think you were entitled to be loved?
23:59So,
24:00so here's my last gift.
24:02I curse you to never love and be loved again.
24:05You will spend the rest of your life alone.
24:11The fire of retribution inside me died down at last.
24:14I had settled every score,
24:15and there was nothing left for me here.
24:17My curse was a weapon,
24:18but I would not let it become my whole life.
24:20I booked a flight to the city I'd always dreamed of,
24:23and I was there before nightfall.
24:25I even paid for a private investigator monthly reports
24:28on Weston's life.
24:29Delivered to my inbox like a subscription service.
24:31His life was a wreck.
24:32No money,
24:33just a couple of properties left under his name.
24:35When he finally got out of bed months later,
24:37he'd aged visibly hollow, haggard.
24:39He tried the dating circuit.
24:40No one would look at him twice.
24:43And somewhere in those gray years,
24:44Weston genuinely fell in love with a girl.
24:46She couldn't stand the sight of him.
24:48She slapped him across the face.
24:50He'd received the curse at the exact age
24:51when he valued no one.
24:53So now,
24:53no one would ever value him.
24:55As for me,
24:55I closed the door on all this pain,
24:57and fate would soon lead me straight
24:58into Julian's gentle arms,
25:00where I would be cherished,
25:02safe,
25:02and truly happy for all my days.