Chapter Three

After that blowup, Caleb and I fell into a total cold war.

The only way I could track him was through Larissa Moreau’s Instagram—she updated almost daily. Sometimes it was the corner of a coffee cup on a breakfast table. Sometimes a blurry side profile in a robe reflected in a window at midnight.

After blow upon blow, I finally broke.

Late one night, I logged into a Twitter account I barely used and posted my marriage certificate with Caleb, along with wedding photos from St. Patrick’s Cathedral: us exchanging vows before the priest, our fingers wearing only the plainest silver rings.

Then I tagged both of them.

But that weak spark didn’t even have time to light the prairie of public opinion before Caleb crushed it—fast as thunder.

Less than four hours after I posted, I got an emergency call from my mother’s nursing facility.

The director apologized profusely and informed me that due to a “force majeure compliance review,” the special medical assistance program funded in partnership with the Fickett family foundation had been “temporarily frozen.”

Which meant my mother’s expensive dialysis three times a week, all imported medications, and twenty-four-hour professional care would now have to be paid out of pocket immediately.

With the pathetic balance in my account, I could hold on for three days at most.

Less than ten minutes after that call ended, Caleb called.

His voice came through the receiver briskly, almost impatient. “Delete the photos. Post a clarification statement—say you had delusions, that it was Photoshop and forgery. I want to see it within an hour.”

I held my phone, and it felt as if every drop of blood in my body froze solid.

“Caleb…” My voice shook beyond control. “You know my mother’s kidney failure can’t wait… you know stopping treatment will kill her. How can you… how dare you?!”

I heard the crisp flick of a lighter, then the soft exhale of smoke.

“Elena,” he said at last. Each word was an ice spike dipped in poison. “Don’t ruin her. You know I won’t show mercy.”

He hung up.

In that moment, a suffocating pressure I’d never known before wrapped around my throat.

I collapsed on the icy floor, a broken, tuneless whimper spilling out of me. And I finally understood: the man I’d shared youth, poverty, struggle, and every dream with had died long ago—without my noticing when.

For my mother, I had no second choice.

An hour later, I posted the clarification statement.

I admitted the wedding photos were “forged while mentally disoriented due to emotional setbacks.” I admitted my “false accusations” against Mr. Caleb Fickett and Ms. Larissa Moreau came from “pathological jealousy and delusions,” and I “sincerely apologized.”

Instantly, my Twitter, Instagram, Facebook—every social platform—was overrun. My comments filled with filth:

“Crazy bitch—take your delusions to a psych ward!”

“Disgusting slug. No shame. You think you can clout-chase Mr. Fickett?”

“This woman’s terrifying. A stalker. Call the cops.”

“+1 for calling the cops. Protect my baby!”

“Someone crowdfund her a mirror so she can see what she looks like.”

“I’ll throw in ten bucks—maybe she’ll wake up.”

During that stretch, I lived like a walking corpse.

I didn’t dare check my phone, didn’t dare go online. Every day, my only route was to that mediocre facility in Queens, sitting by my mother’s bed.

Maybe I didn’t hide it well enough. Maybe it was a sensitivity she was born with. Either way, my mother still noticed.

One afternoon, she sighed, eyes turned toward the window as if staring into a faraway past.

“Do you remember? In high school, Caleb always used to follow behind you in secret. He was so skinny back then, so small, his clothes always washed to a pale white…”

As a teenager, Caleb—poor, with a mother who’d stowed away from Sicily—only dared to follow after school from half a block away, making sure I got home safely.

Until one stormy evening, when I was cornered in an alley by a few punks. He threw his thin body over mine and shielded me.

When the police arrived, his face was covered in blood and a few ribs were broken—yet he still forced out an ugly smile and said, “Don’t be scared, Elena. It’s okay now.”

After that, we naturally ended up together.

His family was struggling. My mother—also a single mom scraping along the poverty line—invited him to eat at our place again and again. When his grandmother fell gravely ill, she even pulled out her meager savings to cover part of the medical bills.

“He’s a good boy…” my mother murmured. Her cloudy eyes glimmered faintly. “Just… born to suffer… You two… should live well…”

I gripped her hand tightly and buried my face in her bony palm. The tears finally broke loose.

Yes. Live well. For my mother, I could swallow every humiliation.

But fate seemed to take pleasure in tormenting the unfortunate.

Late one night, the facility called again—this time the nurse’s voice was urgent, panicked:

“Elena, your mother has sudden cardiopulmonary failure! She’s critical—resuscitation is in progress!”

I didn’t even have time to put on a coat. I grabbed my car keys and rushed out the door.

But the moment I opened it—

A crowd surged out of the shadows.