HHWM | Chapter 20: The Truth That Ruined Us

Greg was rushed into the emergency room in a blur of white coats and shouting, leaving Mayette frozen in the hallway. She lacked the strength to follow the stretcher; her legs felt like lead, her hands like ice.

She didn’t know what she was supposed to feel. Anger? Terror? Pity? She was a hollow shell of conflicting emotions. Despite the jagged glass Greg had shoved into her heart, she couldn’t bring herself to wish him dead.

She slumped into a cold plastic chair, her mind spiraling. Was it my fault? Where did I fail? Why wasn’t I enough? She wondered if her rejection tonight had pushed him over the edge—or if his own treachery had finally demanded a tragic price. Every second that passed felt like a hand tightening around her windpipe.

When Luis and Kyla arrived, Kyla gathered her into an embrace so fierce it felt as if she were trying to hold Mayette’s broken pieces together. Luis stood by, his face etched with worry, but Mayette’s attention was instantly diverted.

Selene was there.

Selene didn’t go to Mayette. Instead, she intercepted a nurse exiting the ER, her movements frantic, her voice a desperate interrogative. Mayette watched the girl’s face—the pallor, the brimming tears, the raw agony. It was a grief far too deep for a goddaughter. In that moment, the nameless fear in Mayette’s mind began to take a shape she didn’t want to recognize.

The doctor emerged, and before Mayette could even stand, Selene lunged forward.

“He’s okay, right? Please tell me he’s okay…”

The doctor looked at the group. “He’s stable. No fatal injuries. His stitches need time to set, and he likely won’t wake for a day or two.”

Relief washed over Mayette, nearly buckling her knees, but Selene didn’t wait. She slipped into the room to see Greg as if she possessed a higher right to be there than his own wife. Luis and Kyla exchanged a look of profound confusion, but for Mayette, the air grew heavy with a truth she was no longer able to outrun.

When they moved Greg to a private room, the hospital settled into a quiet hum. Selene eventually stepped out, attempting to brush past Mayette.

Mayette didn’t let her. She grabbed Selene’s arm, and in that instant, the scent hit her—the same expensive, floral perfume that had haunted Greg’s clothes. The suspicion solidified into a sickening certainty. Mayette looked into Selene’s eyes and spoke the word that ended her life as she knew it.

“You…?”

It wasn’t a question. It was a verdict.

Selene looked back at her—unblinking, devoid of fear or shame. “He told you?”

The last shred of Mayette’s hope disintegrated. Her hand recoiled as if burned. “Selene… tell me it’s not true. Tell me you didn’t do this. Tell me he didn’t do this to our family. Tell me it isn’t you.”

Selene’s lips curled into a bitter, insulting smile.

“Why? Do you want to keep pretending he’s the man you created? The perfect husband? The saintly father?” Selene stepped closer, leaning in until her breath was a cold mist against Mayette’s skin. “If you want to live in a delusion, go ahead. But don’t expect me to join you.”

She took a slow breath, her gaze lethal. “I won’t try to fix him, Mayette. I’ll take him exactly as he is—even the parts of him that terrify you.”

“Why, Selene?!” Mayette choked out, clutching her chest. “What did I ever do to you? Why him? Of all the men in the world, why my husband?!”

Selene’s expression shifted, not into anger, but into a chilling, ancient coldness. “I hated you from the start. You wanted me to like you because you couldn’t stand being childless. You were jealous of my mother because she had what you couldn’t. Stop pretending you’re a saint.”

A jagged smile touched Selene’s lips. “I hate how my mother adores you. I hate how Greg still chooses you… even after he’s touched me in ways you’ll never understand, he still crawls back to you.”

It felt like a physical blow to the stomach. Mayette’s knees gave out, and she collapsed to the floor, her body trembling with a pain too deep for tears.

The girl before her wasn’t just a mistress. She was a monster with a beautiful face.

The realization was a poison: the girl who used to come over for homework, the girl Mayette had mentored and loved, had been quietly, methodically dismantling her marriage behind her back for years.

“Aaaah!”

A scream tore from Mayette—a sound of pure, unadulterated devastation.

Luis and Kyla burst into the room. They found Selene standing tall, watching Mayette with a terrifyingly calm detachment. Mayette was on the floor, the color drained from her world.

Beside them, Greg lay motionless on the bed—pale, silent, and oblivious to the wreckage of the lives around him. With every mechanical beep of his heart monitor, the hope of ever returning to the life they once knew drifted further into the dark.