Eighteen years later, she'd still be repenting online for what she did that night.
"I'm sorry, Valerie. I shouldn't have thrown your gown on the floor."
But Valerie had no intention of letting me off that easily. "An apology should look like an apology. Otherwise, I'll think you're not sincere."
"Then what would you have me do?"
"Tell everyone here that you wanted to be Adam Sanchez's mistress. That you're just as slutty as your mother. Oh wait, no. You're worse than your mother."
"I don't want to be anyone's mistress. Adam and I are done."
I even pulled off the ring right in front of her. The one I'd planned to wear at our wedding.
"Take it back. We're finished."
Adam froze mid-step. He didn't reach for it. The ring hit the floor.
"I say you wanted it, so you wanted it."
Valerie grabbed a fistful of my hair and dragged me into the hotel banquet hall.
"Everyone, come look! Here's a woman who was begging to be someone's mistress!"
Someone asked, "Isn't that Adam Sanchez's girlfriend?"
"Not anymore." Adam's voice was flat. "My girlfriend is Valerie Herring. The new secretary at my company."
"Ah, that explains it." Knowing laughter rippled through the crowd.
A woman stepped forward. "I always said a mistress's daughter would grow up to be a mistress too. And to think, Adam, you used to defend her."
Valerie chimed in. "Oh, she even slapped herself across the face twice, trying to get his sympathy."
"But our Adam is a man of principle. He'd never fall for that kind of cheap seduction."
As she said this, Valerie leaned into Adam's chest.
I saw the way his expression twisted, something deeply uncomfortable passing across his face. But his mouth still moved in agreement. "Whatever you say, babe."
The words cut into me again. I opened my mouth to explain, but before I could get a single syllable out, someone threw a glass of champagne straight at my face. "You're a disgrace to women everywhere. Are there no single men left? You had to go after someone who's taken?"
The alcohol hit my open mouth. I choked, gasping, unable to speak, coughing so violently my ribs ached.
Then someone else followed suit, splashing another glass across my face.
"Homewreckers deserve to die."
After that it was one glass after another. Some drenched my chest. Some poured over the top of my head.
Someone grabbed my jaw, pried my mouth open, and kept pouring liquor down my throat.
I was the one being humiliated, branded a mistress, brutalized in front of everyone. And Valerie, the real other woman, was nestled in Adam's arms, laughing like she'd never been happier.
I couldn't even cry out that I was innocent before they shoved me to the ground. When the drinks ran out, they used their fists. Their shoes.
There it was. The thing I'd feared most had finally come.
My mother had lived through this exact nightmare before she died. The mob, the humiliation, the hotel. In the end, the shame was too much for her. She climbed to the rooftop and jumped.
That was why I'd broken things off with Adam so decisively. Because I was terrified this day would come.
And it came anyway, dressed up as justice, delivered through a lie.
The shadows Adam had once chased away gathered again, darker and thicker than before, closing over me. There was no light left in my world.
The light that had once shone on me was shining on someone else now.
I saw it. Adam was smiling at Valerie. Smiling so wide his eyes glistened with tears.
How happy he must have been.
Adam Sanchez. Why was the person who pulled me out of hell the same person who threw me back in?
Something snapped. I tore free from the crowd like a woman possessed, stumbled into the elevator the way my mother once had, and rode it all the way to the hotel rooftop.
Maybe because he remembered my mother too, Adam came running after me, his face white with panic, screaming, "Rosie, don't!"
But I didn't follow my mother off the edge.
I went up. One rung at a time, I climbed the ladder hanging from the helicopter above.
