Chapter 6 Too Late for the Truth
One day later, they discharged me.
The nurse said I could stay another night “for observation,” but I couldn’t stand the thought of another second surrounded by white walls and pitying looks. I told her I was fine, signed the papers, and left with a plastic bag that held my painkillers and a stack of instructions I’d never read.
No one came to pick me up.
I walked out of Riverton General with my hospital bracelet still on, the cold air cutting through my thin sweater. The sky was the color of ash. Fitting.
The cab ride home was silent. I stared out the window, counting the cracks in the road, the peeling billboards, the pieces of a world that just kept going like nothing had happened.
When I reached my building, the driver muttered a halfhearted “take care” as I paid him. I mumbled something back and climbed the stairs, every step heavier than the last.
That’s when I saw it.
A bright orange notice glued to my apartment door.
NOTICE OF EVICTION — 30 DAYS.
My stomach dropped. I tore it down, hands trembling, scanning the fine print.
Apparently, the “final warning” they’d sent two weeks ago hadn’t been an empty threat after all. I’d fallen behind on rent after losing my job, and my savings had bled dry weeks ago.
I pressed my back against the door, sliding down until I was sitting on the floor, the paper crumpled in my hand.
Inside, the apartment was exactly as I’d left it, unwashed dishes, unopened mail, a faint smell of stale coffee. The quiet felt different now, heavier, like the air itself knew something had died.
I slept in fits, woke up drenched in sweat, stared at the ceiling until the light changed. Sometimes I’d think about the baby, that tiny cluster of cells that had been part of me, and other times I’d force myself not to.
Mostly, I felt nothing.
But beneath that numbness, something darker started to stir.
At first it was a flicker. Then a spark.
Anger.
Not the wild, screaming kind, but a quiet, steady burn that filled all the empty places where hope used to live.
For a while, I’d wanted to disappear completely.
But now… I needed answers.
Thomas had been silent since that day in the church. But if anyone could tell me what the hell had happened, how everything went so horribly wrong, it was him.
And I was done waiting.
I didn’t even remember the drive. One moment I was pacing my living room, the next I was outside Thomas’s apartment, my hand slamming against the door.
“Thomas! Open the damn door!”
For a long moment, nothing. Then came the shuffling of feet, a muttered curse, and the sound of a lock clicking.
When the door finally swung open, I almost didn’t recognize him.
His eyes were bloodshot, his hair a mess, and he reeked of whiskey and regret.
“Ashley,” he rasped. “You… you shouldn’t be here.”
“You owe me the truth,” I said flatly. “All of it.”
He leaned against the doorframe, shoulders slumped like he was holding up the weight of a dying world. Then, with a slow nod, he stepped aside.
“Come in.”
The place was a disaster. Bottles everywhere, clothes tossed on furniture, a smell that was part alcohol, part sweat, part grief.
He sank onto the couch, rubbing his hands over his face.
“I owe you an apology,” he said hoarsely. “God, Ashley, I made the biggest mistake of my life.”
My throat tightened. “You think?”
He flinched. “I knew it the moment I said ‘no’. But it was already too late.”
I frowned. “No?”
He looked up, eyes glassy. “At the wedding.”
“What happened? Why did you say you had feelings for me?”
“It started about a month before the wedding,” he said. “You started texting me. Or… at least, I thought it was you.”
My stomach dropped. “What are you talking about?”
He gave a broken laugh. “At first it was innocent. Questions like, how are you doing? Are you nervous about the wedding? Stuff like that. You said it was from your work phone, so I didn’t question the number. We’d known each other for years. I thought maybe you just wanted to talk.”
“I never—”
“I know.” His voice cracked. “I know that now. But back then… it felt real. Every night, that person sent voice messages. I listened to them over and over. Ashley, it was your voice. If I didn’t know better, I would still think it was you.
I loved Payton. I did. But I was scared.
I don’t know… wedding jitters, maybe. And you, or the version of you I thought I was talking to, you listened. ”
He swallowed hard, his hands trembling. “I said things I shouldn’t have.
That person said things back. It was emotional, not physical, but it was still wrong.
I made the biggest mistake of my life, Ashley.
And I realized it the second I saw Payton crumble at the wedding.
I tried to explain, but she never gave me the chance. ”
His voice broke completely. “And then she was gone.”
“You were always so confused. Like you had no idea what I was talking about. At first I thought you were ashamed, trying to hide it. But then I started second-guessing everything,” he said, dragging a hand through his hair.
“I showed the texts and voicemails to one of the IT guys at work. The messages came from a spoofing app. And he used some kind of voice analysis software.”
He let out a shaky breath. “The voice messages were fake. Synthetic.”
“Deepfake?” I breathed.
He nodded miserably. “AI. Someone cloned your voice. Most likely they used your old voicemail recordings, your social media videos, whatever they could find.”
“I want to hear them,” I whispered.
Thomas looked pained but unlocked his phone and held it out. The messages were lined up in a neat, horrifying row. When he pressed play, the voice that came out sounded exactly like mine. Same cadence, same breath, same everything, but the words were wrong. All wrong.
I sank down into a chair, the world spinning.
“That has to be illegal,” I said, my voice shaking. “To steal someone’s identity like that. To pretend to be me.”
Thomas rubbed both hands over his face, pacing a tight line across the room like he was trying to outrun his own guilt.
“We should go to the police,” I said suddenly, standing. “Now.”
He looked at me. “It’s Friday afternoon, Ashley. And I’m still drunk.” He laughed weakly, a hollow sound. “Monday. We’ll go Monday. I’ll pull the messages, the logs, everything. I promise.”
I stared at him for a long moment. He looked wrecked. A ghost of the man I remembered.
“Fine,” I said quietly. “Monday.”
When I turned to leave, he stood and followed me to the door. Outside, the air was sharp, the sky heavy with clouds.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, voice breaking. “For all of it. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I am so damn sorry.”
Something in his eyes, raw, human, broken, made me pause. I hesitated, then stepped forward and hugged him.
He stiffened, then clung to me, shaking.
“I hope you find a way to forgive yourself,” I murmured.
When I pulled back, he wiped his face and managed a small, watery smile. “You’re a better person than I deserve.”
I shook my head. “No. I just know what it’s like to lose everything.”
He nodded, watching as I walked toward my car.
What I didn’t see was a figure across the street, crouched low behind a parked sedan, their phone raised and pointed straight at us.
By the time I started the engine, the photos were already uploading.
A photo of me and Thomas outside his building, his hand gripping my arm, my head pressed against his shoulder.
I hugged him because he was crying. Because I pitied him.
But that didn’t matter.
Before the night was over, the internet had a brand-new story:
“Ashley Richards seen embracing Thomas Hale — her dead best friend’s fiancé.”
The comments came fast, vicious, and endless.
“Didn’t waste much time, huh? #Homewrecker”
“Disgusting.”
“Didn’t even wait until the body was cold.”
“Homewrecking witch.”
“No wonder Payton drove off that night.”
Nick had been tagged a dozen times. I stopped scrolling after a while. But the words burned behind my eyelids anyway.