My daughter had fallen asleep on the couch waiting for me to come home.
My heart ached so badly it nearly crumbled. I was about to carry her back to her room when I realized her whole body was burning up, her little face flushed scarlet with fever.
I rushed her to the hospital by cab. It wasn't until the next morning that her temperature finally started to come down.
The doctor fixed me with a stern look. "This child had a fever for half the night before you thought to bring her in. A few more hours and she would've been severely dehydrated. Pills wouldn't have fixed that."
Guilt and fear gnawed at me. I hadn't slept all night and didn't dare close my eyes, staying glued to the chair beside her hospital bed.
Then I remembered the phone watch I'd bought her. I opened the companion app and checked the call log.
Over a dozen missed calls.
Every single one to Reginald.
He was the one who'd insisted on being listed as her emergency contact. He'd looked me in the eye and sworn, "I'll always be there for Moira. You can count on me."
And this was what that promise was worth.
A friend request notification popped up on my phone. No message attached. I recognized the sender from her latest Instagram story.
Fiona.
She'd posted a live photo of herself pouting, pressing a kiss to Reginald's cheek. In the background, clothes were scattered across the floor beside a sheet stained with smudges and water marks. When I tapped the photo, her coy, breathy voice filled my ears.
"Your phone's been ringing nonstop since we started. You're really not going to answer?"
Reginald's voice came through low and husky. "Nothing in the world is more important than you."
My vision went black. I couldn't bear to imagine it—every ring of every call my daughter made had been nothing but background music to their little performance.
Reginald didn't show up until that afternoon, dragging Fiona along with him.
He looked frantic. His voice dripped with guilt.
"How's Moira? This is all my fault. My phone was off last night—I never got the calls."
"You've been up all night. You must be exhausted. Go get some rest. Fiona and I can watch her."
But whether he truly never got those calls or chose to ignore them—I knew the answer better than he did.
My daughter was my bottom line.
I looked at Reginald, and whatever softness he'd managed to coax out of me was gone. Every wall snapped back into place, every thorn pointed outward. My voice came out cold as steel.
"No need. My daughter is mine to take care of."
"We're done."
I've always been a woman of my word.
When I said it was over with Reginald, I meant it. I blocked his number, his social media—every way he had of reaching me.
He resorted to showing up at my cart to buy breakfast burritos just to get a chance to talk.
The morning crowd pressed in on all sides. He opened his mouth, struggled, his face reddening.
"Fiona and I—it's not what you think."
I didn't look up. I finished making his order and held it out to him.
"What does that have to do with me?"
He stood there, frozen, for several seconds.
The color drained from his face, then flooded back in a mottled, livid flush. He never came to the cart again.
Instead, he paraded around campus with Fiona on his arm for all to see.
Everyone said I'd been dumped—that the secondhand goods had finally been thrown away. And because I was a divorced single mother who happened to be pretty, every creep in the area suddenly thought I was fair game.
One morning, a heavyset man with a bloated face leaned over the counter, pretending to buy a burrito. His thick fingers reached out and stroked the back of my hand.
I slapped his hand away. My expression turned to ice.
"If you're not here to buy food, move."
My voice carried. Every head in the crowd turned.
The man's face swelled an ugly shade of purple, humiliated in front of everyone.
"Stuck-up bitch. Someone offers you a little attention and you spit in their face?"
"You're damaged goods that's already been passed around. What's the big deal if I cop a feel?"
He grabbed the edge of my cart and flipped it.
The crash of metal slamming into pavement exploded in my ears. The scalding griddle smashed against my forearm.
White-hot pain shot through me, instant and blinding, like the skin was being ripped clean off the bone.
