I was nursing more than a headache after reading the words splayed on the screen in front of my face, and thanks to Amalia's lack of personal space, I had to school my expression and features on my face otherwise she would immediately know how broken I was about the fact that Emmett was outwardly moving on, and with someone who's status was as intimidating as her beauty.

Sofia Renault was a singer, actress, dancer...she was everything most girls strived to be, especially considering she was an activist for the environment, women's rights, needy children and even more. She was the epitome of perfect, but it wasn't her looks or status that I was jealous of...no, it was the fact that Emmett Scott clung onto her waist in the red carpet pictures like he'd known her for years and was more comfortable than he'd ever been with me in public.

Granted, our relationship was more than short lived, it was practically a blip on the radar of my life when I accounted for how many years I'd wasted with Nate, but instead of rehashing the years I'd squandered on a lying sack of shit, I covered my face with a neutral expression and pretended like I was fine when I was really dying on the inside.

"Wow, Sofia Renault. He's definitely doing well for himself. Good for him."

I turned my back to Amalia and while she couldn't immediately get back in front of me because it was harder to maneuver herself around me in the narrow kitchen with her wheelchair, I still attempted to keep my emotions in check just in case she caught the reflection of my fractured face in the surface of the chrome appliances in the kitchen.

She'd been doing better in the previous months than she had in the first weeks after the accident, but the wheelchair was still an adjustment. I still couldn't get over her self deprecating humor as she explained it was hard enough to find a partner in life being a lesbian, but even harder being a paralyzed lesbian.

I always laughed with her at her jokes that were self inflicted upon herself but my smile never reached my eyes. It always felt like my fault that she had been injured and fully paralyzed from the waist down after the accident, if I'd never invited her back with me to live with me at Harvard then she wouldn't have been in the moving truck with me and we never would have been hit at the stop light by the driver that was texting and not paying attention.

I still shivered as I remembered the quick trial and how long he'd been sentenced to jail, but it was a welcome change from the 'he said she said' trials that accompanied sexual assault.

I sighed as I pushed the memories away from my consciousness and picked up my steaming mug of coffee and set myself on getting ready for the day. In my free time I'd taken up weight training and yoga along with running since the weather hardly permitted the outdoors activity and my physique gladly changed according to the physical activity I'd endured. I'd had to take it easy the first few months after the accident, my injuries superficial but still painful.

A few bruised ribs, a nasty cut on my face that left a lingering scar on my eyebrow and a broken pinky finger was all I endured, while my best friend would be paralyzed...forever.

I shook myself out of the thoughts and prepared myself for my workout.

I'd push myself to my limits every workout and didn't allow myself any junk food, the withdrawals from my guilty pleasure serving to punish myself for walking away from the potential of a great love but my body had praised me for doing so even if my mind was suffering because of it.

I snapped a quick picture in my mirror with my workout gear and yoga mat in the background and posted it. I didn't know what possessed me to do it, I just wanted to prove that I wasn't as broken up about Emmett posing with Sofia Renault as I felt on the inside.

I wanted him to see that I was okay without him, even if I was anything but.

Within a few minutes of posting it as I drowned my mind in complicated flexible poses and sweat inducing muscle straining activities, my phone beeped with a few notifications.

I tried ignoring them but the curiosity got the best of me as I finished off my workout early and was surprised at the influx of likes the photo had already received. I rarely posted anything despite the occasional self portrait and some girls who'd shared classes with me back at the state school in Texas had commented a few hearts while men I'd only met once or twice were leaving countless heart emojis and asking to message them.

I rolled my eyes and was about to delete the picture because the attention was making me uncomfortable as I pictured Nate finding it and finding out my location until I remembered that I was actively trying to take him down.

Let him come, let him find me. He wasn't going to intimidate me into changing anything- if I wanted to post pictures of myself that made me feel confident on my social media then like hell was I going to let him keep me from doing it.

The moment I spotted Nate again, I was going to turn into my calculating and cold self, and I was going to find a way to get him thrown in jail which was exactly where he belonged.

I didn't deserve to be in a happy and healthy relationship when there were girls out there being tormented by guys like Nate, someone that I knew was dangerous yet I did nothing to stop him because I was too weak.

I was too vulnerable and scared to go to the police because in that moment I really and truly believed that I deserved everything that came to me- even if it was a fist to my mouth or a kick to my gut.

I believed that I was worthless so I had to stay with Nate because no one else could love me like he did, but something snapped within me when I spotted him together with Layla and I knew it was time for me to stand up for myself and relinquish the pain and fear and self loathing that I'd been clutching onto like a life raft after the incident when I was so young, but I assumed the family denial and shame didn't help things either.

Once I could find a way to take down Nate and satiate my burning desire for revenge, maybe then I could finally be happy and settle down and work on my career in finding justice for my clients in the courtroom instead of as a vigilante...but that was a big maybe.

If I didn't deserve happiness then, what made me think that I would immediately feel deserving the second I took down Nate? It was wishful thinking at best but it was what kept me going even on the days that I wanted to drown my sorrows in bottles of amber liquor.

All the things Nate said to me when I was under his thumb reverberated in my head day in and day out telling me that I was worthless and no one would want me when he was finished with me. I still felt the sting of the cut on my lip from one of his fists, could still feel the dull ache throbbing in my stomach from a particularly nasty kick.

My mind had shut it all out in the days I was with him and even the weeks following the breakup, but ever since coming to Boston, the memories slapped me in the face even when I was doing the most rudimentary of tasks.

I'd be whisking away at something on the stove and the sound of his cold voice would snake around my neck like a living thing, evil and tempestuous and my heart would threaten to tear out of my chest at its irregular beating.

The fear coiled around my mind like a vise and I had to grip the countertop edge if I didn't want to pass out on the floor.

I didn't tell Amalia about my memories resurfacing, she had enough to deal with in the after math of her trauma with Raphael.

We were both in the same boat- both abused and left broken and stranded all alone with only each other as our life preservers. I had an option to have another float me to safety, but I chose to push him away instead.

I didn't want to take him down with me...and maybe that was selfish and illogical but I wanted him to thrive, not be stuck playing therapist and healer to a girl too broken to be put back together again. He deserved a better chance at happiness and love than I could ever give him.

Nate's words crept in, and for a few seconds I idled there in that in between place where I believed his cruel words. No one else could love me. I was unlovable because I was damaged, no one could love someone so fractured and completely, irreversibly broken.

And then I looked up and gasped for air. Perhaps it was time for another emergency therapy session...

Another notification stunned me, then. It was Layla and she'd liked my photo. I went to her profile and noticed that she was no longer with Nate, surprise surprise.

She messaged me then, and the contents crushed me. Just because I hated what they had done to me didn't mean that I had wished any harm on Layla, especially not the kind she described in her message to me.

Hey, so I know that you have no reason to believe me or even want to speak to me after what happened and we were awful human beings to you but honestly Nate was gaslighting me and told me all these nasty things about you like how you'd been cheating on him from the start of the relationship and at first I just went along with it but then I started being evil towards you too and I know now that everything that came out of his mouth was a lie.

He started cheating on me right after you left, probably before that honestly and I have some pictures of some bruises he left on me. I need to find out how to take him to jail and I know you're going to school to be a lawyer so I was wondering if you could help me?

Ask and ye shall receive.

I knew my next course of action, and it was going to be such sweet justice when it was finally carried out.

I messaged Layla back telling her that I didn't blame her for what she did to me even though that was far from the truth, I just needed her cooperation. I told her to keep tabs on Nate as best she could and to file a police report as soon as possible so that there was a police trail that could help in court when that day came. Next, I told her to try and find out if there were any other girls he was treating this way and to message me back when she got sufficient evidence that he was a serial abuser.

It was a bad day to be Nate Lexington, and a damn great one to be Lydia Montgomery, even if Emmett Scott was moving on with a certain raven haired beauty who, if I was being honest with myself, looked just a little bit like me.