I didn't leave my apartment for two days.
I called in sick to the diner. My manager didn't ask questions. I sat on the floor with my back against the kitchen cabinet and stared at the wall. The bruise on my hip had bloomed purple and yellow. I pressed it sometimes just to feel something sharp and real.
Eight years.
I kept coming back to that number. Eight years of cooking meals he never finished. Eight years of wearing secondhand dresses to his family events while Whitley wore designer. Eight years of being introduced as his girlfriend while she was introduced as his sister.
She was never his sister.
I should have seen it. The way he touched her shoulder when he thought I wasn't looking. The way she texted him at night and he'd smile at his phone before putting it face down. The way she called me three times a week to ask advice about men, about clothes, about life—always so sweet, always so grateful—and I'd felt needed.
I'd felt like family.
My phone buzzed. I didn't look at it. It had been buzzing for two days. Barrett's name. Whitley's name. I turned it off.
On the third morning, someone pounded on my door.
Not knocked. Pounded.
"Open up!" A woman's voice. Shrill. Furious. "I know you're in there!"
I stood slowly. My hip ached. I walked to the door and looked through the peephole.
A woman in her fifties stood in the hallway. Expensive coat. Hair sprayed into place. Behind her, I could see others. A lot of others. Neighbors from down the hall. People I'd never seen before. Someone had a phone up, filming.
I opened the door.
The woman's face twisted. "There she is. The homewrecker."
Before I could speak, she hurled something at me. Cold, filthy water hit my face and chest. It smelled like rot. I gasped and stumbled back.
"Mrs. Salazar—" someone said from the crowd.
"Don't you dare say her name!" The woman—Mrs. Salazar, Whitley's mother—stepped into my apartment. She grabbed my arm. Her nails dug in. "You tried to steal my daughter's fiancé. You think you can destroy a family and walk away?"
"I didn't know," I said. My voice came out hoarse. "I didn't know about Whitley."
"Liar!" She shoved me toward the door. I hit the frame. Pain shot through my shoulder. "Everyone knows. The whole neighborhood knows what you are."
She pulled something from her coat. A rope. Coiled and rough.
She looped it around my neck.
I grabbed at it, but she yanked hard and I choked. My hands flew to my throat. She dragged me forward. Out of my apartment. Into the hallway. The crowd parted.
"This is what happens!" Mrs. Salazar's voice rang out. Someone's phone was definitely recording now. Multiple phones. "This is what happens to women who destroy families! Look at her! Look at the whore who tried to steal another woman's man!"
I couldn't breathe right. The rope burned. She pulled me toward the stairs. My feet scraped the floor. I wasn't wearing shoes. I'd been barefoot in my apartment.
Someone laughed.
Mrs. Salazar dragged me down the stairs. Each step jolted through me. I didn't fight. I didn't scream. What was the point? I'd already lost everything. My father had been right. I'd walked away from everything that mattered, and this was what I got.
We reached the street. The late afternoon sun was too bright. More people gathered. Mrs. Salazar paraded me in a circle, narrating for the cameras.
"She knew Whitley was pregnant! She knew and she kept calling, kept showing up—"
I hadn't known. I pressed my thumbnail into my index finger but my hands were shaking too hard.
Then I heard it.
Engines. Multiple engines. Heavy and fast.
Three black SUVs with tinted windows screeched to a stop at the edge of the crowd. Government plates. The kind you don't see in this neighborhood.
Doors opened in perfect sync. Men in tactical gear stepped out. Not police. Something else. They moved like soldiers. They created a perimeter in seconds, and the crowd went silent.
A man in a dark suit walked through the line. Tall. Composed. I knew his face.
Tripp McDonald.
My father's head of security.
He walked straight to me. His eyes flicked to the rope around my neck. His jaw tightened, but his hands were perfectly steady as he reached up and removed it. He draped his jacket over my shoulders. It was warm. It smelled like the estate. Like home.
"Ma'am," he said quietly. Just to me. "We're taking you home now."
Mrs. Salazar's face had gone white. "Who—who are you?"
Tripp turned to face her. When he spoke, his voice carried across the entire street.
"Vanessa Foster. Daughter of General Richard Foster, United States Army, four-star general, currently stationed at the Pentagon." He paused. "You just assaulted a general's daughter in public. On camera."
The crowd didn't move. No one breathed.
Two operatives stepped forward and took Mrs. Salazar by the arms. She didn't resist. She looked like she'd been struck.
Tripp looked at me. "Can you walk?"
I nodded. I didn't trust my voice.
He guided me toward the SUV. The crowd parted like water. I saw Celeste, my neighbor, standing on the steps with her hand over her mouth. I saw the phones still recording.
I climbed into the back seat. The door closed. The world went quiet.
Tripp got in the front. The convoy pulled away.
I looked out the window at the crowd, at Mrs. Salazar being led to a second vehicle, at my apartment building disappearing behind us.
I pressed my thumbnail into my index finger one last time.
Then I let my hand fall open.
I didn't need the pain anymore.
