Chained to a Goddamn Wheelchair
My future husband, Darren Thorne, had an obsessive fan.
On the opening night of his Los Angeles concert, she stormed the stage and began grinding against him.
His fingers stilled on the guitar strings. "Get off," he said, his voice ice-cold. "Don't disgrace my music."
The influencer model, a woman named Colette Monroe, ripped off her top to reveal a flawless figure and pointed a manicured finger at me, her laughter wild.
"Why not give me a try, Darren? I can satisfy you in ways this cripple never could."
My hand froze mid-page in the lyric book.
The next second, Darren snatched the microphone and slammed it into her forehead, leaving a bloody gash.
From then on, she stalked him. The situation escalated. First, he had security remove her. Then he called the police. Finally, he resorted to ignoring her completely.
Until my 20th birthday. Colette and her friends dragged me from my home to a seedy motel, live-streaming the entire humiliation on Instagram.
Like a man possessed, Darren kicked down the door, bloodied and raging, and pulled me from that nightmare.
In the hazy aftermath, I heard her whisper in his ear, a light, mocking laugh in her voice.
"Darren, why the act?"
"Weren't you the one holding me in the recording studio last night, screaming my name?"
"You didn't want to get engaged to her tonight anyway. Consider this me doing you a favor, getting rid of your little burden."
A phantom agony, sharp and bone-deep, shot through my residual limbs. But it was nothing compared to the feeling of my heart being torn apart.
He didn't know I never planned on letting him marry me.
The doctor had already told me the infection had spread. Systemic sepsis. There was nothing more they could do.