"I'm sure you were so hurt," she said, her voice laced with sarcasm, "so shocked that they were playing you like a fool, that you forgot all about me. About us. While you were busy nursing your wounded ego, did it even cross your mind how I was doing? How it felt for me to watch you unravel over her?"
She took a step closer, her eyes sharp.
"I'm sure you're sad—devastated, even—because Laura, your precious Laura, isn't yours at all. She was never yours. She was his all along. Your dad's Laura." Her voice cracked slightly on the last word, but she pushed through. "And that must've hurt. That must've felt like betrayal. But the real betrayal?" She tapped her chest. "It wasn't what they did to you. It's what you let happen to me."
She paused, her tone softening just enough to cut deeper.
"You let yourself mourn the loss of a woman who never belonged to you, while I—your wife, the mother of your children—stood invisible in the wreckage you helped build."
The words hit me like a slap, "What? No. God, no." I took a shaky breath, hands trembling at my sides. "I don't care about her. I care that they used me. That my father—my own father—stabbed me in the back, like I was just another pawn on his goddamn board."
October tilted her head, eyes narrowing, like she was examining a fracture she'd always suspected was there but had finally split wide open.
"Your father has never been a considerate man, Thomas," she said, her voice eerily calm. "He was never generous. Never kind. Not to you. Not to your mother. Not to anyone unless it benefited him. So why are you acting so surprised?"
"Because I still had hope!" I snapped before I could stop myself. The words came out too fast, too loud. Desperate. Raw. "Because some part of me—some stupid, pathetic part—thought maybe this time would be different. That maybe, finally, he'd see me. That he'd stop testing me and just... be proud of me. Just once."
The silence after that felt like stepping off a cliff.
October looked away, "I empathize," she said, softly now, but with an edge that cut clean. "I really do. But this party—Thomas, last night—" Her voice cracked like a whip, hard and sudden. "You stood there and said nothing. Not one word. You let him spin the 온라인카지노게임 and sell the image."
She was breathing hard now, like the memory itself hurt to inhale. Her hands were clenched at her sides, as if holding herself together with sheer will.
"And then you danced with her," she said, her voice trembling—but not from weakness. From rage barely contained. "You danced with her, Thomas. In front of everyone. In front of me." Her eyes glistened, but no tears fell. She was past crying. "You didn't just go along with the illusion. You became it."
I opened my mouth, desperate to say something, to explain, to claw my way back into her trust, but there was nothing. Nothing that wouldn't sound like an excuse. Nothing that wouldn't make it worse.
"I hated every second of it," I said, my voice low, hoarse, like maybe if I whispered the truth, it would hurt her less.
"But you still did it," she said quietly.
Not accusing. Not dramatic. Just... final. Like a verdict handed down after a long, painful trial. And somehow, that calm, steady truth hurt more than if she'd screamed.
"You hated it?" she went on, her voice barely above a whisper. "But you smiled. You held her like she belonged there. You looked at her like you chose her." He was breathing hard now, like the memory itself hurt to inhale.
 "I stood there like a ghost, watching you put on a show feeling like I was nothing more than the shadow in the corner."