Chapter 4: The Secret Unveiled
Three weeks passed, and Lila tried to get back to normal. She took Jax to soccer practice every Tuesday and Thursday, baked allergy-safe cookies for his class parties, and even went back to Oak Street Bistro with a group of friends, just to prove that she could overcome her fear of restaurants. But she still thought about Mia every day. She checked her social media accounts, hoping to see a post from her, but there was nothing. She even called the police station twice, asking if they’d found her, but they said she was still a missing person.
Then, on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, Lila got a knock on her door. It was a police officer, standing on her porch with a man she didn’t recognize. “Ms. Hart?” the officer said. “This is Detective Jameson. We found your friend, Mia Carter. She’s in the hospital, and she wants to see you.”
Lila’s stomach dropped. She’d been afraid that Mia had hurt herself, after what she’d done. She grabbed her coat and followed the detective to his car, her hands shaking the whole way.
The hospital room was dimly lit, with beeping machines lining the walls. Mia was lying in a hospital bed, her face pale and gaunt, with an IV in her arm. When she saw Lila, she started to cry. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I never meant to hurt Jax. I never meant to hurt you.”
Lila sat down next to the bed and took her hand. “What happened?” she asked.
Mia told her that she’d driven to a nearby park after the restaurant, and she’d tried to overdose on her prescription pills. A hiker had found her and called an ambulance, and she’d been in the hospital ever since. She’d called the police the night before, turning herself in, and she’d confessed to everything. She’d been charged with attempted murder, but the judge had agreed to reduce her sentence to probation and mandatory mental health treatment, after Lila wrote a letter asking for leniency.
“I didn’t mean to hurt Jax,” Mia said, sobbing. “I was so angry, and so sad, and I didn’t know what else to do. I saw how happy you were with Jax, and I hated myself for being so jealous. I thought if I made you suffer, it would make me feel better.”
Lila hugged her, careful not to knock over the beeping machines. “I forgive you,” she said. “But you have to get better. For yourself. For me. For Jax.”
Mia nodded, her head resting on Lila’s shoulder. “I will,” she said. “I promise.”
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Over the next few months, Mia went through intensive therapy and started taking antidepressants. She got a new job at a local non-profit that helped people with mental health issues, and she began to rebuild her life. Lila visited her every week, bringing Jax along, and slowly, their friendship started to heal. Jax even started calling Mia “Aunt Mia” again, and she would bring him allergy-safe cupcakes for his birthday every year.
But Lila still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. She’d seen the security footage of Mia sneaking the cake into the restaurant, she’d read her letters, and she’d heard her confession. But there was one thing that didn’t add up: the scar on the woman’s wrist in the security footage. Mia’s scar was on her left wrist, but the woman in the footage had a scar on her right wrist.
