Chapter 8

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. Do you understand me?”

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. Like it was a business deal that didn’t work out.”

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.” My voice came out flatter than I meant it to. “He accused me of lying about something I’ve never done. He had a car waiting downstairs. 

He wouldn’t even look at me when he said the marriage was over. How does that turn into amicable?”

Mom sat across from me. “It turns into amicable because men like him don’t usually let the truth walk around unattended. 

Someone is already shaping the story. Probably his people. Maybe him directly. Either way, the clean version is the one the city is going to see first.”

I wrapped my hands around the mug. “So everyone is going to believe we just changed our minds. Like it was polite. Like we sat down and agreed.”

“Some of them will. Most of them won’t care enough to question it.” She watched my face. “The people who matter to you will know better. The rest don’t get a vote in your life.”

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 harder than I meant to. “He’s already writing the public version. 

He’s controlling it while I’m sitting here trying to remember how to breathe.”

Mom’s mouth tightened. “Of course he is. That’s what he knows how to do.”

“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. One minute I want to scream. 

The next minute I can’t feel anything at all.”

“You feel whatever shows up,” she said. “You don’t have to pick one emotion and stay there. You’re allowed to be a mess for a while.”

We sat in silence for a moment. Outside, the ordinary sounds of the street continued like nothing had changed. 

A delivery truck backing up. 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. They don’t get to rush you just because his side is already moving.”

“I keep thinking about the side room,” I said. “Right after the ceremony. He told me he wanted ordinary mornings.

He said he wanted arguments about nothing important and then making up. 

He said he meant every word. And then a few hours later he looked at me like I was someone he needed to remove from his life as efficiently as possible.”

“I know.”

“I keep trying to find the moment I could have seen it coming. There isn’t one. That’s what keeps catching me. There was no warning. Just the folder and the decision.”

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. You don’t have to make his certainty your fault.”

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 turned the screen toward her. “This is what they’re reading.”

She looked at it, then back at me. “Close it.”

“It’s already out there.”

“I know. Close it anyway. You don’t need to sit here and absorb their version.”

I closed the tab and set the phone face down.

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

“I’m not hungry.”

“I know you’re not. Eat anyway. You haven’t had anything since the reception, and that was mostly air.”

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 so they can feel informed. You don’t owe any of them an answer. Not today. Not until you decide you want to give one.”

“What if I just want to say it wasn’t amicable?” I asked. “What if I want someone to know he accused me of something I didn’t do and threw me out before the night was over?”

“Then you say it when you’re ready,” she said. “To the people who deserve to hear it. Not to strangers who want a headline and a click count. There’s a difference between telling the truth and feeding a story.”

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 narrative while you’re sitting in your childhood kitchen the morning after your wedding. 

I’m angry that lawyers are in your inbox before you’ve even had a full night’s sleep. I’m allowed to be angry. So are you. 

You don’t have to protect him from the consequences of what he did by staying quiet and polite.”

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. Everything still feels a little tilted.”

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. You don’t have to fix the whole thing this morning.”

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.