Chapter 5

Elena’s pov

I came out of the shower to the sound of Mom’s voice in the kitchen, low and controlled. She was on the phone. 

I paused in the hallway and listened without meaning to.

“No,” she said. “She won’t be speaking to any reporters. Don’t call this number again.”

A short silence. Then, sharper: “I don’t care what your source told you. If you print anything that makes this sound friendly, you’ll be hearing from us.”

She hung up. I heard her set the phone down harder than necessary.

I stepped into the kitchen. She looked up and smoothed her expression, but not quickly enough. I had already seen the anger.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Someone who works for a site that thinks private pain is public content.” She poured coffee and pushed a mug toward me. “They already have a version of the story. 

They’re calling it an amicable separation. Short courtship, mutual decision, best wishes for the future. Clean and tidy.”

I sat down at the table. The words felt unreal. “Amicable.”

“That’s the word they’re using.”

“He told me to leave on our wedding night. He accused me of lying about something I’ve never done. He had a car waiting downstairs. That doesn’t sound amicable.”

“No,” Mom said. “It doesn’t. But men like him don’t usually let the truth walk around unattended. Someone is shaping the story already.”

I stared at the surface of the coffee. “So the city is going to believe we just changed our minds.”

“Some of them will. Most of them won’t care enough to question it.” She sat across from me. “The people who matter to you will know better. The rest don’t get a vote.”

My phone buzzed on the table. Another email from the law firm. I opened it this time. The language was polite and empty. Preliminary documents. A request for my preferred contact method going forward. A note that Mr. Voss wished to keep matters private and civil.

Private and civil.

I set the phone down. “He’s already writing the public version.”

Mom’s mouth tightened. “Of course he is.”

“I don’t know how to answer any of this,” I said. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to feel first. Angry. Humiliated. Tired. All of it keeps switching places.”

“You feel whatever shows up,” she said. “You don’t have to pick one and stay there.”

We sat in silence for a while. Outside, the ordinary sounds of the street continued like nothing had changed. A delivery truck. Someone calling for a cab. A dog barking two floors down. The city had no idea what the inside of this apartment felt like.

Mom reached across the table and tapped the phone. “You don’t have to respond today. Let them wait. You’re allowed to take up space in your own timeline.”

“I keep thinking about the side room,” I said. “Right after the ceremony. He told me he wanted ordinary mornings. He said he meant every word. And then a few hours later he looked at me like I was someone he needed to remove.”

“I know.”

“I keep trying to find the moment I could have seen it coming. There isn’t one.”

Mom’s voice stayed quiet, but there was steel under it. “That’s because it didn’t come from you. It came from him and whatever someone put in his hand. You don’t have to carry the blame for a decision he made without you.”

I nodded, but the motion felt hollow.

Later, while Mom made toast neither of us particularly wanted, I opened a browser on my phone and searched my name with his. 

The first result was already live. 

A short piece with a photograph from the reception, both of us smiling. The headline used the word “amicable.” The article said we had “mutually decided to part ways after careful consideration.” It wished us both well.

I closed the tab.

Mom set a plate in front of me. “Eat something.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I know. Eat anyway.”

I picked up a piece of toast and forced a bite down. It tasted like nothing.

“They’re going to keep calling,” she said. “Reporters. Maybe people from his circle who want the private version. You don’t owe any of them an answer.”

“What if I just want to say it wasn’t amicable?”

“Then you say it when you’re ready, to the people who deserve to hear it. Not to strangers who want a headline.”

I looked at her. “You’re angry.”

“Yes.” She didn’t soften it. “I’m angry that he did this to you. I’m angry that he’s already controlling the story. I’m angry that you’re sitting in your childhood kitchen the morning after your wedding with lawyers in your inbox. I’m allowed to be angry. So are you.”

The honesty in her voice loosened something in my chest. I set the toast down.

“I don’t know how to be angry yet,” I said. “Mostly I just feel like someone took the floor away and forgot to tell me.”

Mom reached over and gripped my hand. “Then we sit here until the floor feels a little closer. And when the next email comes, or the next call, we deal with that too. One thing at a time.”

I nodded.

Outside, the city kept moving, full of people who would read the word “amicable” and believe it. Inside the apartment, the real version of the night sat between us, quiet and heavy and nothing like the story already being written.