Aileen sobbed even harder, cutting me off mid-sentence, her whole body trembling.
"You're insane! My husband comes to every parent meeting. Everyone here knows him. How could he possibly be your husband?"
A parent from the class stepped in to back her up.
"She's right. That boy is in our class. His dad is wonderful. He shows up for every family day to spend time with his son."
The crowd erupted. Fingers pointed. Voices sharpened into blades, all aimed at me.
As if I really were something shameless. Something low.
"His father doesn't want you. Why are you still clinging to him?"
"Disgusting. She's a complete psycho!"
"Look at her. A washed-up nobody trying to steal someone else's man!"
Aileen's son charged at me and kicked me hard in the shin. I nearly fell.
"Get away from my daddy, you evil woman!"
I stood in the center of it all, surrounded, every finger pointed at my face, every mouth spitting venom.
"She's the mistress!" I blurted out. "That boy is illegitimate!"
The words tumbled out in a desperate rush.
No one listened.
My heart went cold. All the way through.
Maybe this was how the world worked. The shameless survived. The shameless thrived.
I was the real wife. The innocent one.
And somehow I'd become the villain in everyone's eyes.
Then Jayden came running over.
I looked up at him, holding on to something fragile and impossible to name. Hope, maybe. A sliver of it, already cracked down the middle.
I hoped he would say one thing for me.
Just one thing.
"It's not what it looks like."
That would have been enough. Enough to prove that the years I'd spent loving him, giving everything I had, weren't completely worthless.
But he didn't.
He rushed past me and pulled Aileen behind him, shielding her with his body.
His voice dropped. Gentle. Tender.
"Are you okay? Don't be scared. I'm here."
It was a softness I had never once heard from him.
Then he turned to me. Shoved me so hard I stumbled backward.
His voice came out vicious, his finger jabbing at my face.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Get lost! I'm telling you right now, you and I will never happen. Aileen is the only woman I love!"
His eyes looked like he wanted me dead.
The pointed fingers, the shouting, the contempt from every direction. Each one was a knife sliding between my ribs, and the pain was blinding.
He wrapped his arm around Aileen and her son, guiding them away, shielding them like something precious.
Aileen glanced back at me over his shoulder.
And smiled. The smile of someone who had already won.
The insults kept coming, wave after wave, but the sound had turned hollow and distant. I stood alone in the middle of it all.
Even breathing hurt.
"I brought our marriage certificate."
My voice came out barely above a whisper.
The crowd went quiet.
I reached into my bag and pulled out the certificate I'd prepared.
"She really is the wife."
"That Aileen woman lied through her teeth without even flinching. Unbelievable."
"What do you expect from a homewrecker? And that man is absolute garbage."
"He just stood there and let the whole crowd tear his wife apart. What a piece of work."
Jayden's expression twisted. Something savage flashed in his eyes. He spun around, stormed back, and snatched the certificate out of my hands.
He tore it to shreds.
"This lunatic flashes a fake certificate and thinks that makes her the wife?"
Then he leaned down close to my ear, his voice low and lethal.
"Be smart about this. Play along, and you can still have a roof over your head. Push me, and don't forget: your therapist from when you had your breakdown? He's a friend of mine. You don't want to spend the rest of your life locked up in a psych ward, do you?" His breath was hot against my skin. "And if that happens, I won't spare our daughter a single glance. She can fend for herself."
He shoved me to the ground as he said it.
Then he turned, pulled Aileen close, and walked away without looking back.
My knee was bleeding. I could see the red spreading through the torn fabric.
But I couldn't feel it.
Because my heart hurt so much worse. It felt like it was splitting apart.
My daughter. The child I had loved and cherished like she was the most precious thing in the world.
To him, she wasn't even worth a dirty rag.
I had told myself that even if he didn't love me, surely he felt something for her. Some flicker of connection. She was his blood.
I was wrong.
Dead wrong.
He was an animal. There was no such thing as family loyalty in him.
I wiped the blood from my knees and made the call.
"Attorney Harding, I just sent you the latest evidence I recorded. We can prosecute them for bigamy now."
