Chapter 3

"Tony! Someone Melody sent tore down the house back home! Your father built that house brick by brick! It was the only thing I had left of him!"

The words cut through me like a knife, plunging straight into my chest without warning.

I broke down.

Despite the twisting pain in my chest, I dialed Melody's number with trembling hands. "How dare you have someone tear down my parents' house? My mother has always been so good to you!"

Melody's voice was icy. "If I'd been even a second later just now, Terrence would have overdosed on sleeping pills.

"Your mother called the school and reported Terrence as the other man in all this. She nearly drove him to kill himself!

"Now that the house back home is gone, she might as well move into the city."

After nearly ten years of marriage, I understood Melody's meaning at once. She wanted to cut off every option my mother had. She wanted to force my entire family to live right under her watch.

"Melody, why don't you go die with him!" I screamed hysterically.

She snapped that I was being unreasonable and hung up.

I had just fallen critically ill. I hadn't even left my hospital room yet.

My mother, shaken by everything that had happened, suffered a heart attack and ended up in the hospital too.

Blow after blow left me numb. I opened my phone and published my 100th post.

[My wife is pregnant with her lover's child. How do I make them pay?]

The post exploded. Within a few hours, it shot to the top of Twitter's trending topics.

Comments flooded Melody's Twitter account and tore into her:

[Knew she was a piece of trash. The two of them ought to just drop dead!]

[What gives a piece of work like her the right to stand in front of a classroom? The school should fire her!]

…

As I watched the internet rally to my side, I felt a satisfaction I had never known before. At last, something in my chest eased.

Then, out of nowhere, a statement appeared on my account.

[I'm sorry, everyone. All 100 of these posts were fabricated by me. I'm sorry for the trouble I caused my wife and Terrence.]

I tried to log in and delete it, only to discover that someone had changed the password.

That was when I remembered that Melody had taken the smashed computer.

Right afterward, Melody posted on Twitter.

[After I got pregnant, my husband developed delusions. He's constantly imagining something inappropriate going on between me and my student. For his sake, I already transferred Terrence to another team. But he still can't stop himself from posting lies every day. I'll have him come forward and apologize to Terrence. I'm very sorry for wasting everyone's time on this.]

I never imagined Melody could stoop this low and twist the truth so completely.

Almost instantly, my inbox flooded with abuse.

[Sick old man, just go die already! One look at him and you can tell he's the type to spend every day imagining his wife seducing someone else.]

[You getting sick is divine retribution, you understand? Trash...]

…

I was about to fire back when Melody called.

"Anthony, come to the school tomorrow and apologize to Terrence."

I shook with fury. "Why should I?"

Her voice seethed with barely restrained anger. "Terrence is innocent. It's my choice to have this baby. What does any of this have to do with him? If you don't want your mother's heart surgery canceled, get to the school right now and apologize to Terrence."

My mother had loved Melody like her own daughter. Yet for Terrence's sake, Melody was actually using my mother's life to threaten me.

I clenched my fists until my nails dug into my palms.

I bit my lip until it bled before I finally heard my own trembling voice. "Fine. I'll go..."

…

Once my mother was settled, I took a cab to the school.

Terrence stood behind Melody, his eyes red with anger. The moment he saw me, he lost control.

He rushed forward and slapped me across the face. "Mr. Sorloth, you've gone too far! You almost destroyed me!"

The students and teachers around us watched me with open contempt. Right in front of me, someone had propped up a phone and started livestreaming the confrontation.

Melody fixed me with a warning glare. "Tony. Apologize."

I swallowed the blood pooling in my mouth and was about to speak.

Then someone, though I never learned who, kicked the back of my knee. My knee slammed into the ground, and I collapsed in front of Terrence.

Someone ripped open my shirt and exposed the jagged knife scar across my back. I had gotten that scar when someone slashed me as I protected Melody.

"Figures. Ugly people always cause the most trouble. Even looking like that, he's still running his mouth and trying to frame someone."

"So gross. Even if he paid me to date him, I wouldn't want him."

Melody shot me a glance, her embarrassment plain on her face. She thought I was an embarrassment to her.

"Anthony, don't act like this is unfair. You posted 100 times, and all Terrence did was slap you once. You got off easy. I already transferred the money to your card. From now on, neither of us owes the other anything."

I climbed to my feet and stared at Melody, my eyes red.

What they owed me could never be repaid.

I forced down the hatred that threatened to consume me and rushed back to the hospital to see my mother, only to learn that she had been moved to the ICU.

A nurse gave me an update. "The patient fell down the stairs. She has intracranial bleeding and multiple fractures. She's in emergency surgery right now."