Chapter 14 #2
Then the door slammed. The house went still, except for Mom crying.
I ran to the window. Philip was throwing his suitcases into the car.
He didn’t look back.
Not once.
For weeks after that, Mom was gone. They said she went on a trip. I stayed with Uncle Thomas and Aunt Cynthia.
Chloe, my younger cousin, kept asking me to play dolls with her. She didn’t understand that I didn’t want to play. My chest hurt all the time, and I didn’t know why it wouldn’t stop.
So I studied. Every day.
I wanted to make sure I still had the best grades… so when Philip came back, he’d see I was as smart as ever.
Always his little Maya.
Mom said she would bring him back. I believed her.
At school, our teacher asked us to write about someone we admired. I wrote about Philip, how he always listened when I talked about my essays, how he made people smile, how he said I was smart. I got the best grade in the class. There was even a gold star on top of the page.
When Uncle Thomas said Mom was coming home, I waited by the window all afternoon, clutching that paper in my hands.
I thought Philip would be with her. But when the car pulled up, she stepped out alone. Uncle Thomas went outside and they talked in low voices, too low for me to hear. Then Mom started crying. He hugged her, and she didn’t stop.
Aunt Cynthia called me into the kitchen and gave me cookies and milk with Chloe. Chloe laughed about something. I didn’t.
When we finally went home, Mom didn’t talk much.
She looked tired. Not like after a long day… tired in a way that made her eyes dull and empty. Like she’d left something behind and didn't know how to get it back.
Two weeks later, I found her in her bed. She wasn't moving.
She wasn't breathing. Her hand was cold when I touched it.
And that’s how I learned that love can kill you.
“My mother—my mother killed herself. That’s what your father’s love did to her."
I say it and wait for something, anything, to happen. She just stands there, studying me like a broken thing someone set on a shelf.
“She put on the last dress Philip gave her. Took a whole bottle of pills and lay down to die.”
I was the one who found her the next morning. There was no sound coming from the kitchen. No breakfast, no clatter of pans. Just emptiness.
“I called for her. Shook her. Shook her again. She was cold. I grabbed the phone and called your daddy. The first name that came to my mind—because he was the one who promised he would take care of us.”
I pause because the pain doesn’t fit a neat sentence.
“Do you know what he did? He ignored every call until he finally picked up. He said, “ ‘Don’t ever call me again,’and hung up."
I remember curling into a corner with the phone slipping from my hand. For hours. Until I called my uncle.
Cecily cuts in, eyes wide and accusing. “I’m sorry for what happened to your mother. I can’t even imagine the pain you went through.”
She pauses. “But all of this… you wormed your way into Colin’s life just to punish my father?”
She asks the question in a low tone, but there’s nothing soft about it.
“How sick do you have to be to ruin a family over someone else’s choices?”
“You will never understand what it feels like to be nothing to the person who was supposed to protect you,” I say, each word scraping my throat.
“Your father made promises he never kept. I lost my mother because of those promises. You losing your husband, who chose me, doesn’t compare.
I never forced Colin into anything. He chose me. ”
She looks at me like I’m the evil witch in her story. Like she’s trying to make sense of it, even as every part of her pulls away from me.
For a fleeting second, there’s something in her eyes. Something that looks a little like pity. A little like disbelief.
“I’m sorry for what happened to you as a child,” she says, her voice low. “No one, no little girl, should ever have to live through something like that.” She softens. “What happened to your mother… What you went through. It’s horrible.”
She swallows hard, refusing to look away.
“But that doesn’t absolve you, Maya. Pain doesn’t justify the damage you’ve done. You’re an adult now. You made choices. Selfish, conscious choices that tore apart lives completely unrelated to what my father did.”
She hesitates. “My daughter is almost the same age you were back then. Did you ever stop to think about that?”
Her voice wavers, just for a second.
“And the worst part is,” she continues, “I don’t see even a flicker of remorse in you. Not one.”
It hurts. But beneath the hurt, something hotter begins to simmer.
“You’re twisting everything because you don’t understand,” I say, my voice low, trembling but defiant. “Because it’s easier that way. I love Colin. Maybe it didn’t start like that. Maybe at first it was about revenge. About making your father pay.” I swallow. “But I love him. I do.”
I think about how it all began. Ten months ago, one click changed everything.
I was drunk, drowning in memories on the anniversary of my mother’s death. I hadn’t allowed that in years.
I opened Facebook. I typed his name.
There he was. Philip.
A public profile. Like someone who has nothing to hide.
Smiling, his arm wrapped around his precious daughter and son-in-law. A caption drenched in love and gratitude. Laughing emojis. Hearts everywhere. Everyone talking about how beautiful their family was.
How happy.
Pictures of trips, birthdays, grandkids. That perfect life he’d built on top of lies and deceit. People praising how good he looked, how kind time had been to him. Smiles in every picture… no trace of the man who left my mother to die alone.
No sign of what he did.
That was the moment anger and grief stopped being just pain. It became a plan.
At first it was a stupid game.
It would be easy—imply, provoke, be the distraction married men always fall for. Colin wasn’t the first. I’d done this before.
And I never regretted the fallout.
I’d seduce him, get the proof, and send everything to his wife. The texts. The pictures. The videos. The humiliation laid bare. And of course, I’d include the photos of her father with my mother, so she could see exactly what kind of men both her father and her husband really were.
I wanted Philip to watch his perfect little family collapse and realize how easy it was to tear the curtain away.
It wasn’t hard to get into Montgomery she just pulls, jaw tight, eyes burning.
“Don’t ever come to my house again. I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth.”
She throws the door open and shoves me outside.
I stumble forward, catching myself.
“If you show up here again, or even try to speak to one of my children,” she says, her voice cold despite the fury on her face, “I’ll call the police.”
The door slams shut.
I stand there, my heartbeat wild, my chest aching like it might tear open.
I want to go back. I almost do.
My hand lifts toward the doorbell. I think about shouting everything. About saying names. About ripping off her perfect little mask.
Instead, I take a breath and walk to my car.
Sitting behind the wheel, I grip it too tight, my arm burning where her nails dug in. I know that when I take this dress off later, there will be a physical reminder waiting for me. Of everything that was said in the last few minutes.
I start the car and pull away from the curb, barely registering the traffic around me as I drive. By the time I reach the bridge, my hands are steady, even if everything else isn’t.
As I cross it, I replay the whole conversation again and again, until the sting begins to fade. Or maybe I just get used to it.
I wait for that surge of satisfaction. The proof that I’ve won. That Philip will finally lose his perfect little family. But even when I pull into the parking lot of my building, all I feel is emptiness. A hollow echo where victory was supposed to live.
My hand drifts to my stomach.
“I have you,” I whisper. “You and your father. I just have to wait. And he’ll choose me again. Choose us.”