Hypocrisy

On my husband's birthday, I poured my heart into preparing a feast and selecting the perfect gift. Yet, he didn't come home. Instead, I received a picture message—a snapshot of him at the hospital, standing outside the OB-GYN ward, his hand resting tenderly on his childhood crush's belly. Beneath the photo, a message read: [The best birthday gift and a symbol of our decade-long bond.] Furious, I called her. "Don't you know he's married?" Before I could say more, my husband snatched the phone and lashed out at me. "Yvonne just wanted to share the joy of becoming a mother. Why are you overreacting? "Yvonne and I have been best friends for over a decade. Your petty jealousy is disgusting!" I once believed his busyness was for our future, but now I knew—he had been busy supporting the girl of his dreams through her pregnancy. Clutching my own stomach, I bit my lip to stop the tears from falling. Ten years of love had drained away. It was time to let go.

From as far back as I can remember, I knew my mom hated me. She gives me sleeping pills when I'm three. When I'm five, she tries pesticide instead. But I'm hard to get rid of. By the time I'm seven, I've already learned how to fight back. If she refuses to give me food, I flip the table so no one can eat either. If she beats me up until I'm on the ground, writhing in pain, I go after her beloved son the same way, leaving him bruised and bawling. That's how we stay locked in battle until I turn 12. Everything changes when my youngest sister is born. I'm clumsily trying to help with her wet diaper when Mom suddenly shoves me against the wall. The look in her eyes holds both disgust and fear. "What were you trying to do to my daughter? I knew it. You take after that monster of a father. Why didn't you just die with him?" I hold my aching head. For the first time, I don't fight back. I believe she's right. My existence is a mistake. I should never have been alive.

Right before I hit forty, my husband hit me with: "I want a divorce." For the past ten years, I had been driving a truck outside every day to support my family, while he had been cheating on me at home. Even our child was no longer close to me. "Bad Mom! You hit Jenny! Bad Mom!" Willy cried. "I don't want Mom. I want Jenny. I wanna stay with Dad and Jenny!" Jenny. The neighbor. Single mom. Her kid and ours were tight. Ten years of grinding, running myself ragged—for two ingrates? All right! Wish your family of four a happy life! I didn't want my husband or son anymore.

After spending six months overseas expanding business, I had just closed a deal worth ten billion. Casually scrolling through the news, a headline made me stop dead in my tracks. [Shocking! Illegitimate Daughter Provokes Meyer Family Heiress, Teacher and Classmates Punish Her!] In the video, my daughter Maeve stood in the freezing snow wearing nothing but a tattered dress, her body covered in bruises. She was being forced to endure the cold, her little frame shivering uncontrollably. A female teacher poked at Maeve's head, ordering the entire class to call her a shameless illegitimate child. Maeve sobbed, insisting she wasn't, but all she got in return was crueler, more mocking laughter from everyone around her. Then a chubby little boy ran up and slapped her across the face. "Your mom's a mistress, and you're a filthy illegitimate child! You're both just gutter rats!" The teacher didn't stop him—she clapped her hands in approval. "That's right! The Meyer family heir isn't something just any nobody gets to pretend to be." "Besides, Mrs. Meyer picks up Clarisse every single day. Look at her—so elegant, clearly classy. And your homewrecker of a mother? Pathetic. She's not even in the same league." When I heard that last line, I slammed my laptop shut, shaking with rage. I turned to my assistant. "Book me the fastest private jet home. I want to see for myself exactly when Aaron, that worthless husband of mine, managed to father an illegitimate child."

Upon returning home from completing a vital national project, I find out that my grandfather has been reduced to a cripple after being beaten up by a famous Internet star, Nathan Larsson. All because Grandpa accidentally got in Nathan's way when he was picking up trash. Enraged, I choose to call the cops on Nathan. But my CEO wife, Whitney Backman, becomes Nathan's witness. She sits at the witness stand with a righteous look plastered on her face. "Grandpa is sickly, to begin with. Yet he insists on picking up trash on his own. After he tripped and fell, he accused Nathan of pushing him! I can't just sit by and watch an innocent man get slandered! That's why I chose to defend him!" Everyone present at the court supports Whitney's statement. Even the judge declares that Grandpa is guilty, and that we are to pay a huge compensation to Nathan. Hatred brims in my eyes as I turn on the livestream and dig out Grandpa's medals of valor as well as my dad's first class medals.

Zachary Quinn suddenly develops a fondness for going to a massage parlor after I'm discharged from the hospital—I was in an accident. He excitedly tells me that the masseuse there has the best skills he's ever experienced. "They even have free food and fruits! I bring my laptop there with me to work when I get tired at the office." I don't know why he's telling me these things. He knows my father got caught cheating at a massage parlor. I hate those places. It's only later that I learn the relaxation he describes isn't what I imagined. He's long since gone bad in places that I can't see.

I’d just wrapped up a short trip with my daughter, Elara. On the way back, I figured I’d swing by the Hale, our family’s casino, to check in on my son, Cassian. Maybe grab dinner together. I didn’t expect to be mistaken for his latest fling. Correction: not mistaken—accused. Violently. “You think you can just waltz in here like some queen?” she hissed. “I’m the woman Cassian loves! What kind of whore are you? And is this your bastard daughter with him?” She locked us in the basement. No phone. No light. Just concrete walls and the stench of mildew and madness. Then came the fists. She slapped me across the face—again and again—until my skin stung and my ears rang. When that didn’t satisfy her, she pulled a gun and aimed low. The bullet tore through my knee. I bit back a scream, shielding Elara with my body. “You need to die, whore,” she spat. One of her men hesitated, “We should at least tell Mr. Hale first. If we are going to kill these two in his casino.” Lila of course said no. But that man brought Cassian anyway. My son stepped into this dark little room like it was any other Tuesday—until he saw me. His whole body went still. The blood drained from his face. And then, in the smallest, most broken voice I’d ever heard from him, he whispered, “Mom? What are you doing in my basement?”

I had been with the company for eleven years. One day, the boss’ son was abruptly planted as my immediate superior. In order to establish his power, he started to humiliate me. He splashed coffee on my face in front of our client. “Why are you serving our most prestigious client this nasty drink? You’re embarrassing the company!” I was furious. However, I held my anger back for the sake of the company. During our townhall meeting, he threw my proposal to the floor. “We’re not an old folks’ home. We don’t take care of useless pieces of shit like you.” I did not leave the next day. Instead, I asked my personal assistant to publish a notice on the digital display at our office building. [Due to the tenant’s unstable emotions, the lease on the 17th floor of this office building will not be renewed when it expires next month.]

After giving my son, Cameron Spencer, one of my corneas, he had a memory distortion and confused me for his father's childhood sweetheart, Joanna Lister. Such dreadful news caused me to be in so much pain that I refused to wake up. However, during the time that I was semiconscious, I heard my son and my husband's conversation. "Dad, does this mean Joanna will keep me company in the future?" "Yes, it does. You've put on a great act, son!" My attending surgeon couldn't stand their heartlessness and said, "Mr. Spencer, your son’s eyes are fine, but you lied to Mrs. Spencer in order for her to donate her cornea for Ms. Lister. If Mrs. Spencer finds out, I'm afraid..." "There's nothing to be afraid of. She loves Cameron and me so much and she's an orphan as well. There's nowhere she could go after leaving us. Joanna's all alone in this city and she's almost gone blind. We can't waste any more time!" I lay on the bed as my hopeless tears soaked the pillow. All they cared about was Joanna. But what they didn't know was that I was dying due to the operation.

My crippled sister, Monica Porter, jumped from the roof of the classroom building. The day before she died, she had just been fitted with the custom prosthetic legs I had paid for with ten years of savings. She was glowing, excited to finally stand up on her own. But my wife's best friend, a guy she said was just like a brother to her, locked Monica inside an empty art room. He smashed her new legs, forced her to crawl on the floor and lick paint clean to retrieve the broken parts, and recorded everything on video. And my wife, a judge, ultimately ruled that the case could not stand. "The video cannot confirm the time it was recorded and may represent consensual performance art between both parties," she said. Sandra Pauley's final judgment was simple. "The deceased had a history of depression. The school and the defendant bear no responsibility." I smiled and cooked her a full table of food. The next day, I hung the bully, Eric Hoyles, from the school's flagpole and livestreamed it to the entire internet. "Honey, remember how you said Monica had such pretty legs?" I raised a claw hammer and brought it down on his ankle. "If you don't hand over the video evidence right now, I'll hook out his Achilles tendon one strand at a time and let him learn what it feels like to crawl!" The wind passed through. His screaming broke apart in the air, mixing with the strained creaking of the flagpole until it sounded almost like music. The live chat went insane. Meanwhile, I laughed until my eyes filled with tears.