3. Elise
— ? —
Elise
One Week After the Vow Renewal
I’ve been living in Maya’s guest room for seven days, and I’ve left the bed maybe three times.
The curtains stay closed. The lights stay off. I shower when Maya physically drags me to the bathroom and stands outside the door to make sure I don’t just sit on the floor and cry. Which I did, the first time. And the second.
I eat when she puts food in front of me - crackers, soup, things that don’t require chewing. I sleep when my body gives up on consciousness, which is often, because being awake means thinking, and thinking means remembering.
The video has twelve million views now.
I know because I keep watching it. Over and over, like picking at a wound that won’t heal. Watching Megan walk down the aisle. Watching Connor’s face when he realizes it’s over. Watching myself slap him, throw the ring, walk away.
The comments are the worst part.
She looks like she knew. Look at her face before the mistress even starts talking - she KNEW.
Connor Reid really traded in his wife for a younger model lmaooo men are so predictable.
Honestly the assistant is so brave for standing up for herself. The wife was clearly holding him back.
I feel bad for her but also like... how do you not notice your husband cheating for a whole year? Pay attention, ladies.
I read them all. Every single one. Maya caught me once and took my phone away for six hours, but I found it again. I always find it again.
I need to see what people are saying. I need to know how thoroughly my humiliation is being dissected by strangers on the internet.
It’s almost noon when I hear the knock.
Maya’s at work. She tried to call in sick for the entire week, but I finally convinced her I wasn’t going to do anything stupid and she needed to go back to her life.
So I’m alone in her apartment, wearing the same sweatpants I’ve had on for three days, my hair a greasy tangle, my face swollen from crying.
The knock comes again. Louder this time. More insistent.
Go away, I think. Just go away.
“Elise.” A voice through the door. Deep. Male. Familiar, somehow, but I can’t place it. “I know you’re in there. Open up.”
I don’t move.
“I’m not leaving until you open this door.”
Who the hell-
I drag myself out of bed for the first time today. My legs feel like wet noodles, my head pounds from dehydration, and I’m pretty sure I smell like sadness and stale crackers.
I open the door a crack.
And freeze.
Dominic Reid is standing in Maya’s hallway.
Connor’s older brother. The black sheep of the Reid family. I’ve met him maybe four times in six years - awkward encounters at holidays where he stood in corners, nursing whiskey and watching everyone with barely concealed contempt before disappearing early.
He’s tall. Taller than Connor, with darker hair and sharper features, like someone took Connor’s face and added edges. Tattoos peek out from under his rolled-up sleeves - I never noticed those before - and his jaw is covered in stubble that suggests he hasn’t shaved in days.
He looks at me. Really looks, taking in the sweatpants, the unwashed hair, the hollow eyes.
He doesn’t flinch.
“Have you eaten today?” he asks.
“What are you doing here?”
“Answering a question with a question.” He holds up a paper bag that smells like heaven - garlic and spices and something warm. “Have you eaten today?”
“I don’t - why do you care?”
Something flickers across his face. Something I can’t read.
“Because my brother is garbage,” he says, “and someone should check on you.”
I stare at him. He stares back.
“Can I come in?” he asks.
Every instinct screams no. He’s a Reid. He’s Connor’s brother. He’s probably here on some family mission, trying to smooth things over or convince me not to take Connor for everything he’s worth in the divorce-
“I brought Vietnamese food,” he adds. “Pho, banh mi, spring rolls. Maya said it’s your favorite.”
“Maya told you where I was?”
“Maya told me you haven’t eaten a real meal in a week and someone needed to do something about it.” He holds up the bag again. “I volunteered.”
I should slam the door in his face. I should tell him to go to hell, to take his sympathy and his Vietnamese food and shove them both-
My stomach growls. Loudly.
Dominic’s mouth twitches. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
I step aside.
***
We eat in silence at Maya’s kitchen table.
I don’t realize how hungry I am until I take the first bite of banh mi, and then I can’t stop. I demolish half the container before I even come up for air, and when I finally look up, Dominic is watching me with something that might be amusement.
“What?” I ask, defensive.
“Nothing. Just glad to see you’re eating.”
“I’ve been eating.”
“Maya said you’ve been surviving on crackers and spite.”
“Maya talks too much.”
He doesn’t argue. Just pushes the container of spring rolls toward me.
I take one. Then another. The food is warm in my stomach, solid and real, and I realize this is the first time in a week I’ve felt even remotely human.
“Why are you really here?” I ask.
Dominic sets down his fork. He has nice hands, I notice. Long fingers, a scar across one knuckle. Nothing like Connor’s soft, manicured hands that have never done a day of physical labor.
“I saw the video,” he says.
My throat tightens. “Everyone saw the video.”
“I wanted to... I don’t know. Make sure you were okay.” He looks uncomfortable - like emotional conversations aren’t exactly his forte. “You shouldn’t have to go through this alone.”
“I’m not alone. I have Maya.”
“Maya’s at work.”
“So?”
“So you were alone. In a dark room. Probably reading the comments.”
I flinch. He notices.
“They don’t matter,” he says. “The comments. The opinions of strangers who don’t know you, who have no idea what you’ve been through - they don’t matter.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one being called pathetic by twelve million people.”
“No. I’m the one who spent six years watching my brother waste the best thing that ever happened to him.
” His voice is quiet but certain. “Those people don’t know you, Elise.
They don’t know how smart you are, how talented, how much you gave up to support his bullshit dream.
They see a thirty-second clip and think they understand the whole story. ”
I don’t know what to say to that.
“You didn’t deserve this,” he continues. “Any of it. And I’m sorry I didn’t... I should have said something. Years ago. When I first suspected he was-”
He stops.
“You knew?” My voice comes out sharp, accusatory.
“I didn’t know about Megan specifically.” He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated. “But I know Connor. I’ve known him my whole life. He’s always been like this - wanting everything, earning nothing, collecting people like trophies and then getting bored when they stop being shiny and new.”
“Then why didn’t you warn me?”
“Would you have believed me? On your wedding day, if your new brother-in-law pulled you aside and said, ‘He’s going to break your heart’ - would you have listened?”
I open my mouth to argue. Close it again.
No. I wouldn’t have believed him. I would have thought he was jealous, or bitter, or trying to sabotage his brother’s happiness out of some petty family rivalry.
“I tried anyway,” Dominic says quietly. “At the reception. My toast.”
I remember his toast. My brother has a way of getting what he wants. I hope he realizes what he has.
I thought it was a compliment at the time. A blessing wrapped in brotherly ribbing.
Now I realize it was a warning.
“I kept my distance after that,” he continues. “Told myself it wasn’t my place. You seemed happy, and I-” He stops. Swallows. “I wanted you to be happy. Even if it wasn’t with-”
He doesn’t finish the sentence.
The silence stretches between us, thick with something unspoken.
“Dominic,” I say carefully. “Why are you really here?”
He looks at me for a long moment. Those dark eyes, seeing too much.
“When you’re ready to stop grieving and start fighting,” he says, “call me. I know the best divorce lawyer in the city. She owes me a favor.”
He pulls a card from his wallet and slides it across the table. Plain white, black text. Victoria Cross, Attorney at Law.
“I don’t want your charity,” I say.
“It’s not charity. It’s strategy.” He stands, pushing back from the table. “Connor’s already spinning the narrative. Playing the victim. ‘My marriage was falling apart, Megan was there for me, I never meant to hurt anyone.’ I’ve seen the interview requests.”
My stomach turns. “He’s doing interviews?”
“Not yet. But his publicist is fielding offers.” Dominic’s jaw tightens. “If you don’t get ahead of this, he’s going to bury you. Take everything. Make you look like the villain.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Since when has that mattered?” He heads for the door, then pauses. “For what it’s worth - I’ve always cared, Elise. About what happened to you. About whether you were happy.”
“Why?”
He doesn’t answer. Just looks at me with that unreadable expression.
“Call Victoria,” he says. “And call me when you’re ready to fight back.”
The door closes behind him.
I sit at Maya’s kitchen table, surrounded by empty takeout containers, staring at the business card in my hands.
For a week, I’ve felt nothing but despair. Shame. Humiliation. The crushing weight of public failure.
But now, for the first time since I watched Megan walk down that aisle-
I feel something else.
Rage.
***
That night, I take my first real shower in days. Wash my hair. Put on clean clothes.
Maya comes home to find me sitting at the kitchen table with a legal pad and a pen, making a list.
“What’s all this?” she asks, setting down her bag.
“I’m done crying.”
“...Okay?”
“Dominic came by. He brought food. And advice.”
Maya’s eyebrows rise. “Dominic Reid? Connor’s brother?”
“He gave me a lawyer’s name. Said Connor’s already planning his PR recovery.” I look up at her. “I’m not going to let him spin this. I’m not going to let him take everything and make me look like the villain.”
“So what are you going to do?”
I think about the video. The comments. The twelve million people who watched my marriage explode and decided I was the pathetic one.
I think about Connor, probably sleeping peacefully in the house I helped him buy, with the woman he chose over me.
I think about everything I gave up - my career, my ambitions, my self - to be the perfect wife for a man who was never going to love me enough.
“I’m going to destroy him,” I say.
Maya grins.
“That’s my girl.”