Maya
The bed beneath her was unfamiliar. She lay still for a moment, eyes closed, and let it come back in pieces. The fun run. The bright, easy energy of that morning—the volunteers in their fluorescent shirts, the families gathered.
Reid walking toward her.
The way his face had looked wrong.
Her eyes opened.
The ceiling above her was unfamiliar. She stared at it.
The handcuffs. The cold, impersonal weight of them. The sound they had made closing around her wrists—that metallic click that she could still feel in her teeth.
The crowd. Faces she knew. People who had smiled at her that morning, who had signed up to volunteer, her friends.
Reid not looking at her.
Maya lay there and let herself feel all of it—the humiliation, the bewilderment, the agony of sitting in that cell waiting for him. She knew that Reid would come, because he knew her, and because he knew she was innocent,
Maya turned her head slightly into the pillow.
He hadn’t come.
Maya closed her eyes again. Reid had not come for her.
“You’re a liar. And a thief.”
Her own husband thought she was a monster. Her own husband had arrested her.
Maya opened her eyes again. She pushed herself up.
She was not a thief.
She was not a liar.
She threw back the covers and stood. Rolled her shoulders back.
She was innocent.
Maya lifted her chin slightly.
“Fuck Reid Lawson,” she said.
Maya pushed the door open almost forcefully.
The kitchen was bright, morning light spilling in through wide windows. Edith sat at the table, buttering a slice of toast. Thomas stood at the counter, pouring coffee.
A younger woman was setting a plate down. She was visibly pregnant, her dress loose but not disguising it. She spotted Maya, her face lighting immediately.
“Good morning,” she said. Her hand rested absently against the curve of her stomach as she spoke, the gesture unconscious.
Edith looked up. “Morning, Maya dear,” she said, as though Maya was simply a regular houseguest. “You fell asleep before dinner. You must be starving.”
Thomas set the coffee pot down and turned toward the younger woman. "Jenny, could you grab another cup?"
Maya didn’t move.
“I didn’t do it,” she said. Her voice came out sharper than she intended. “I didn’t steal money, I didn’t—” Her breath hitched. “I didn’t do anything.”
Jenny handed Thomas a cup and he poured the coffee. “Of course you didn’t,” he said.
Edith gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “We didn’t think you had for a second.”
Thomas carried the cups over and set one in front of the empty place at the table. “We know you,” he said. “You think we’re going to believe you were stealing from your own charity?”
Maya blinked. “Well,” she said, the word coming out brittle, “my husband believed it.”
There was a beat.
“Yes,” Thomas said. “Well, that makes him an idiot, I’m sorry to say.”
Maya felt her mouth hanging open and closed it with a snap.
Edith clicked her tongue softly, already reaching for the jam. “Honestly. The nerve of it.”
She looked up at Maya.
“You’ll stay here,” Edith said. “No arguments. You’ll be staying with us until this ridiculous situation is sorted out.”
Maya blinked.
“I—”
“Looks like my grandparents have already adopted you.” Jenny pulled out the chair for her. “You may as well stop fighting it.”
Maya dropped into the chair.
Thomas nodded at the coffee. “Drink,” he said.
Maya wrapped her hands around the mug.
Nobody here were questioning her. They weren’t waiting for her to convince them.
They had already decided.
She pictured Reid, standing there so certain, so convinced he was right. And she felt a wave of hot anger. Anger at her husband who was supposed to be the one person she could trust above all others. But underneath that, a different anger—
Her fingers tightened slightly around the mug.
Anger at herself. Anger that she had let herself be hurt in this way. Anger that she hadn’t protected her heart.
She could still feel the door slamming in her face.
Like she had been… disposable.
Everything else—her work, the charity, the people who relied on her—she gave that away willingly.
But Reid?
He was supposed to be hers. Her marriage was the one place she didn’t have to give, didn’t have to be useful, didn’t have to earn her place.
But she’d been wrong. He’d found her lacking and thrown her away.
Maya stared down into her coffee.
The pain was overwhelming but behind it was something worse. She was afraid. What happens now?
Trial. Charges. Her name dragged through something she couldn’t control.
No. She didn’t want to feel afraid.
Her grip on the mug steadied.
She wanted to feel angry.
She was innocent and her husband had arrested her.