His Thirtieth Birthday Curse

The Johnson men never live to see thirty unless they marry into Georgina's family, and Georgina has spent three years secretly draining her own life force to keep Anderson alive. On their wedding day, Anderson tears up the marriage contract for his first love, Alice, a doctor who insists the curse is a lie and that science will keep him well. His mother, Laura, warns him of the uncles who died on their thirtieth birthdays, but Anderson holds a knife to his own throat until she gives in.

Cast out and branded a fraud, Georgina returns to an apartment defaced with slurs and her mother's keepsakes burning inside. Anderson watches her burn, then hands her to a mob of reporters and a beating. Her accounts frozen and her body festering, she crawls through the streets as the world celebrates her ruin.

Anderson's birthday is tomorrow, and his pulse is already unraveling. Georgina wakes in her teacher David's care, still refusing to stay away.