My best friend Tiffany was obsessed with those novels where a mafia don spoils his woman rotten.
She was convinced she was the type of girl who could make a ruthless boss go soft, so she went after Vincent, the heir of a crime family, and got him.
His bodyguards, his dirty money, even the way he told her not to ask questions and just sit tight. She read all of it as devotion. And of course she had to drag me into it too, always with the same excuse: it was for my own good.
Last time around, her mess got me killed. Vincent's enemies mistook me for one of his people, and I died in a shootout that had nothing to do with me.
The second the blade opened my throat, all I could think about was her holding up a bloody knife, grinning, showing it off to me like a trophy.
"Margot, look. He gave me this. It means we're official now."
I remember feeling disgusted. I never thought that same knife would end up slitting my throat.
Blood pooled across the street while she hid in Vincent's arms, screaming, hands over her eyes. Later I heard her crying to someone, saying it wasn't her fault, that I just had bad luck.
I died inside her little romance fantasy. A nobody side character, wiped off the page without a second thought.
Then I opened my eyes, and I was back. Back to the afternoon it all started.