My Wife, The Butcher

I knelt on one knee, velvet box in hand, ready to propose to the woman I loved, a rising star in the theater world.

But instead of a yes, her cold voice cut through the silence: "I'm in love with someone else."

Instantly, her aunt, Nicole Johns, stepped from the wings, claiming she'd harbored a crush on me for years, and married me within a month.

Five years later, severely burned in a pyrotechnics "accident," I overheard Nicole, my wife, discussing my fate with the doctor.