Chapter 9
The younger girl beside me made a quiet sound.
Because now she understood too.
This was how Mia did it.
Not by inventing every betrayal.
By feeding on the cracks already there. Widening them. Lighting them from beneath until everyone online could point and say, see? I found rot.
Mia crossed her arms. “Exactly. Thank you. So he is trash.”
“No,” I said. “That’s too easy.”
The words surprised even me.
I had thought coming here would feel like a guillotine. Like the moment the blade dropped and everything finally became simple.
It didn’t.
It felt like standing in front of a shattered mirror and realizing I had to choose which pieces I would still let define me.
Aaron hadn’t booked the flight.
The ticket in her selfie had been real, but not his. The older woman with the folder—Nina, a former client who had later realized Mia kept charging women more to “push harder” when a man resisted—had gotten records from a civil complaint she was preparing with other women. Same airline template. Same fake blur style over the passenger name. Same hotel chain.
Mia ran patterns.
Templates.
Outrage as a business model.
But Aaron had still lied to me. Repeatedly. Smoothly. Looking me in the eye while doing it.
He had not physically cheated on me.
He had done something that, for me, had started to feel almost worse.
He had let another woman weaponize the private weak spots in our relationship because being desired by a stranger felt good, and because some ugly, selfish part of him thought if the whole internet already believed he was a cheater, maybe there was no harm in flirting at the edge of it.
When I confronted him with the logs at the airport before boarding, he had cried.
Actually cried.
Not because Mia had fooled him.
Because he knew the worst part had nothing to do with her.
He had looked at me in the departure lane, face gray with shame, and said, “I kept wanting to prove I could stop whenever I wanted. Then every time I should’ve told you, it got bigger.”
That was the only honest thing he’d said in days.
And I believed him.
I just didn’t think it saved us.
Mia lifted her chin. “So what now? You going to stand there and act superior? He betrayed you. I exposed it.”
I shook my head.
“No. You monetized it.”
I stepped toward the phone and read one of the comments asking if I was finally going to dump him on camera.
Another asking if there was a part two fee.
Another calling me boring for not slapping someone yet.
I felt, very suddenly, very clearly, how tired I was.
Not weak.
Not broken.
Tired.
Tired of every private wound becoming a public sport. Tired of being told trust made me stupid and cruelty made other people wise. Tired of women being pushed to perform humiliation like it was empowerment.
“You want the ending?” I asked the chat.
The comments exploded.
“Yes.”
“Dump him.”
“Drag her.”
“Call him.”
I nodded.
“Okay.”
I turned off the paid stream.
Just like that.
Mia lunged for the phone. “What are you doing?”
I caught her wrist before she reached it.
It was the first time I had touched her.
She was colder than I expected.
“No more money,” I said.