Chapter 21
February
love pointed in the wrong direction
Cecily
The doorbell rings not even a full minute after I end a video call with my editor.
I frown, the muscles in my chest already tightening, bracing for another unwelcome visit, another wave of bad news waiting on my doorstep.
I open the app.
A young girl—no, a woman, but barely—stands outside, staring straight into the camera lens.
Something that looks like a large gift box is clutched tightly in her hands, her fingers curled around it as though letting go would mean losing her courage altogether.
I take a breath and walk to the door.
I open it only halfway, enough for her to see me, but keeping the door as a shield.
“How can I help you?” I ask, cautious.
“Hi,” she says, her voice little more than a breath. “I—I just… wanted to give you this.”
She lifts the box slightly, her fingers trembling around the edges.
“And to tell you something. I don’t need to come in.”
There’s something solemn in her eyes, a darkness that doesn’t belong to someone so young.
“I read your articles,” she says after a pause. “Your blog too.”
Her gaze drops to the ground, the words tumbling out like a confession she’s ashamed to make.
My heart pulls tight in my chest.
“I don’t even know how to explain it,” she continues, “but your words… they did something to me. You wrote with so much strength and honesty. Even when it was clear your whole world was collapsing. It made me think you might want to see what’s in this box.”
“I’m sorry… who are you?” I ask as a sudden chill runs through me.
She offers a small, nervous smile. “Of course—sorry. You don’t know me. I’m Chloe… Maya’s cousin.”
Her name, her relation, makes me tighten my grip on the door.
And now, looking more closely into her green eyes, I see that they’re almost identical to Maya’s. My stomach drops. I rub my arms through my sleeves as if I could scrub the resemblance right off my skin.
She hurries on, words tumbling out in an apologetic rush.
“I promise I won’t take much of your time. I just… need to say a few things, and then I’ll go. You’ll never have to hear about our family ever again.”
Her voice wavers, caught between guilt and determination. There’s a fragile quality to her tone, but a fierce honesty burns behind her eyes. It is the courage in her gaze that makes me want to hear her.
I don’t feel safe inviting her inside. Not alone, not with everything her last name carries.
I tell her to walk around the side of the house and wait by the pool. I grab my coat and my black wool hat with trembling hands, then step out through the glass doors. The cold air biting at my skin does nothing to calm my racing heart.
Chloe is already seated at the table closest to the pool, her shoulders drawn tight against the chill. I sit across from her.
The box rests on the table. Neither of us dares to touch it. For a moment, we both stare at it as the wind just blows around us.
“I’m not even sure coming here was the right thing to do,” she whispers. “But something in me said I had to. So I’ll just say what I came here to say… and then I’ll leave you alone.”
She swallows, gathering what little courage she has left. When she speaks again, her voice is steadier. Almost brave.
“My cousin… Maya… she wasn’t always like this,” she begins, her eyes distant. “When I was little, I wanted to be her. She was brilliant. She helped me with homework, though she’d sometimes say I was too slow. That I needed to work harder so no one would ever beat me.”
A faint, bittersweet smile forms on her lips. “We were almost like sisters.”
Her words feel heavy. There is so much grief and nostalgia in them.
“Even back then, Maya always craved attention,” she says. “But she was still good. Just… a sweet girl.”
She exhales, the breath trembling on its way out.
“When her mom died, something broke,” she says, her voice thinning.
“She had therapy for years. She had all the support and love my parents and our relatives could give, but none of it fixed what shattered inside her. Determination turned into selfishness. Intelligence turned into sharp edges meant to cut.”
Her gaze shifts toward the box, then back to me. She keeps going, because stopping would hurt even more.
“Your husband wasn’t the first married man,” she whispers.
“There was a scandal in our town. The wife—her best friend’s mom—came home early and found Maya in bed with her husband.
He was forty-one. She had just turned eighteen.
It makes me sick just thinking about it.
He deserved to be a pariah. I wish he’d been the one to lose everything, the one everyone truly turned their backs on. ”
My stomach twists.
“But the sad thing is, Maya liked it,” Chloe continues, tears glinting at the corners of her eyes. “She liked the chase. The power. When her best friend came to our house and demanded to know why she did it, Maya just said, ‘Because I wanted to. Because he wanted me, not your mom. Because I can.’”
I feel sick. So profoundly sick.
It isn’t just hearing about Maya’s past. It’s the realization of the damage she learned to inflict long before she ever crossed paths with Colin.
“My father blamed himself for his sister’s death,” Chloe says, her voice trembling but clear.
“All that guilt blinded him. He enabled Maya because she reminded him of the person he couldn’t save. He did everything for her… everything he couldn’t do for his own sister. And she used that guilt like a weapon. Got away with things she should’ve been held accountable for, over and over again.”
She lets out a bitter laugh, one that sounds too tired for someone her age.
“But knowing now just how far she went this time… for the first time ever, I heard my mom say the word divorce this week.”
Her expression falters.
“After everything… even he can’t excuse Maya anymore.”
Her fingers trace anxious circles on the box. She looks away, lost in memories she can’t escape.
“We spent the week sorting through the apartment my father was renting for Maya,” she says.
“He told me things he’d been hiding for years.
He said he saw your father as a good man.
A friend. He felt relieved knowing his sister and niece were being loved and cared for by someone decent. A man of honor.”
Loved. Cared.
The words hit me like cold water.
“After my aunt died, he learned she wasn’t Philip’s first mistress. He confronted your father once, years ago. He had proof. He even thought about telling your mother. But he was scared she would end up like… like my aunt.”
Chloe’s tears finally fall.
I can’t move.
Not his first mistress.
The words replay endlessly, somewhere deep—where disbelief and shame blur into something that feels a lot like grief.
She pushes the box toward me, her hands trembling.
“Maya has kept this box since we were kids. I didn’t know she still had it. But I remember her hiding things in here more than once.”
She takes a shaky breath, her voice almost breaking.
“There are things inside I thought you should see. Do whatever you want with it. No one in our family wants those memories anymore.”
I nod. I can’t find my voice, and the only thing I can hear is the thud of my heart in my ears.
“I hope your family finds peace again,” she whispers. “I mean that. I hope you all heal.”
She stands to leave, but I can’t let her go yet. I swallow against the tightness in my throat and manage a broken whisper.
“Chloe.”
She turns—hesitant, unsure if she should stay a moment longer.
“Thank you,” I manage, my voice barely carrying across the distance between us.
Her smile is small, tired… understanding.
Then she turns back and walks away.
My hands tremble as I lift the box and head back inside. I sink onto the living room rug, setting it gently on the coffee table.
A logo catches my eye—a luxury children’s brand that was everywhere more than a decade ago. I find myself struggling to keep my breathing steady.
I lift the lid.
The scent that escapes is faint, like dust and the ghost of something once sweet. The first thing I see is a bouquet of tiny dried flowers. Their fragile stems are bound by a ribbon, faded and gray with time.
“He always brought a large bouquet of red roses for my mom, and a smaller one of daisies for me.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and lift the bouquet carefully, afraid it might crumble in my hands. A fragment of a life I never knew existed, held between my shaking fingers.
There’s also a bundle of photographs—some glossy, some Polaroid-sized—memories caught in stolen light. My fingers hesitate over the stack.
I pick up the first one with shaking hands. It’s a school hallway lined with paper flowers. Maya is in a princess dress, her plastic tiara tilted to one side. She’s smiling with her whole face, the kind of smile that belongs to a child who still believes the world is kind.
My father’s hand is holding hers as they walk away from the camera—these are the same hands that, back then, used to carry Ethan when he was only two years old, holding another child as if she were his to protect.
They’re turned slightly toward each other. They look like a father and daughter. A moment stolen from a family album that was never meant to exist.
I swallow hard. My throat burns as it hits me… betrayal doesn’t always look cruel. Sometimes, it looks like love pointed in the wrong direction.
I flip to another photo and the air catches in my lungs.
A carnival. Bright colors, neon lights, motion frozen mid-laughter.
My father stands between Maya and a woman with honey-brown hair—a woman who looks nothing like her, except for the eyes. The same piercing shade of green I’ve come to associate with cruelty and smugness.
He has his arm around the woman’s waist. Grace.
Grace is laughing.
Maya’s holding cotton candy with sticky fingers, her mouth caught mid-giggle.
They look like a happy family.
The photos keep going.