3: 3
I opened his profile again and started from his very first video.
His tenth video was filmed at his graduation.
The full name of the school was right there in plain view.
The caption read 【Finally graduated~ officially a working adult now~】
Scrolling further down, one video showed a medical-test photo from the mask era.
His surname was printed on it.
Whitney, and two more characters blacked out.
Three characters in all.
So I opened my laptop.
I went to the homepage of his school, and pulled up every graduate from his year.
I searched for an hour.
Finally, going by the IP and the profile details, I narrowed it to two suspicious names.
One was Oscar Whitney. The other was Amos Whitney.
This Amos was clearly a girl.
But I couldn't be certain the person spreading the rumor was a man.
So I kept going through his videos.
The twentieth video was a rant.
【Girls these days are so materialistic. First thing out of their mouths is twenty grand in wedding gifts. Is this a marriage or are they selling off their daughters!】
From that alone, I was almost sure.
The person had to be a man.
Which ruled Amos out.
I glanced up at the time.
Two in the morning.
My eyelids were already fighting me, and I couldn't stop yawning.
I got up and went to the bathroom to splash water on my face.
Then I went out to pour myself a glass of water.
Passing the guest room, I heard faint snoring coming from inside.
Theodore was already asleep.
I was still hunting for the person who slandered me, and he was already asleep.
I stood outside the guest room door for three seconds.
And I started thinking about this marriage.
Theodore was my husband, the man meant to stand by me through the rest of my life.
Faced with a stranger spreading lies about me,
his first reaction was to interrogate me.
His second was to run.
He'd chosen to leave me to face someone else's slander alone.
He couldn't even hold his ground against his own mother's questions.
Could a man like this weather anything with me?
I was starting to doubt it.
I made myself a cup of instant coffee.
I carried it back to the room and kept digging.
The thirtieth video was two movie tickets.
So I opened a map and searched for local movie theaters.
Using the theater as the center, I searched for every school within a twelve-mile radius.
Then I checked the teacher listings one by one.
By four in the morning, I finally found it in one school's public roster.
The name Oscar Whitney.
To make sure my information was accurate,
I searched for that school's page on social media.
I scrolled for an hour.
Finally, in an April 7, 2025 post about outstanding teachers,
I found Oscar Whitney's name.
At the end there was a photo.
One glance was all it took to know which one was Oscar Whitney.
It was only a guess.
But I was certain.
Near enough dead-on.
I opened the ticketing app right then and booked the earliest train to Phoenix.
By the time I finished, the sky was just beginning to lighten.
I was still wearing my red toasting dress.
I hadn't even had the chance to take the pins out of my hair.
The train left at six.
I didn't even have time to sleep.
I pulled the ornaments out of my hair.
Washed my hair, showered, changed into clean clothes.
And I realized I wasn't the least bit tired.
If anything, I felt a little exhilarated.
