I stared at him, disbelief twisting into something sharper, something that cut through every layer of trust I had left.
This is my fiancé... the man I was supposed to rely on... saying this to me? My arranged engagement meant nothing now—it was as if my disability had erased my right to dignity, reduced me to a label.
I swayed slightly, legs trembling, knees threatening to buckle.
The exhaustion pressed down on me from every angle: the physical weariness of a body conditioned for survival, layered with the raw ache of betrayal, grief, fear, and a simmering anger that I could neither release nor name.
My hands trembled at my sides, fingers curling into fists that did nothing but shake, useless.
My throat tightened so much that even trying to speak felt like splitting open from the inside.
A sob threatened, clawing up my chest, but I swallowed it down, sharp and bitter, tasting of humiliation and despair.
The silence between us was heavier than any scream. Each beat of my heart screamed a question I didn’t dare voice: Do I not deserve respect? Do I not matter?
“I thought...” I began, voice cracking, then faltered.
What had I thought? That this marriage might somehow be different? That Harris, after all the contracts, all the obligations, might look at me like I was more than a transaction, more than a bargaining chip?
Being here for another second after this level of humiliation felt like an abomination.
I turned, every movement trembling with a mix of shame and fury, my body aching with the weight of it.
Each step toward the door was heavy, deliberate, like I was dragging my dignity behind me.
My fingers trailed along the cool doorframe, seeking something solid in the world as if it could anchor me against the storm raging inside.
“Where are you going?” he asked, voice lazily amused, as though he couldn’t quite believe I was daring to leave.
“Home,” I said, voice tight, clipped. “I need... to be alone.”
He didn’t stop me. He didn’t rise. Didn’t move. Didn’t even look up from the slow swirling of the amber liquid in his glass.
He leaned back against the couch, sprawling with lazy arrogance, arms stretched along the backrest like a man who had never once been denied anything. A king on a throne built from other people’s sacrifices.
“You want to know one truth?” he said, lips curling. He didn’t wait for me to answer. He never did. “You disgust me.”
The words landed cleanly, precisely, like a blade finding a soft gap in armor.
“I don’t know if it’s that ugly scar on your cheek,” he continued, lifting a finger and gesturing vaguely toward my face, “where a normal woman would have a dimple, you’ve got this puckered, stinking mess—or because you’re...” He tilted his head, pretending to think. “You know. Disabled. Deaf. And dumb, for that matter.”
My chest constricted until breathing hurt.
It felt like someone had wrapped wire around my ribs and twisted.
To think I had come here seeking comfort, afraid of being alone after today’s sudden firing—yet here I was, humiliated by my fiancé with brutal indifference, every word crushing me deeper, leaving me exposed and small, as if my very existence were a mistake.
My fists clenched so tightly my nails cut crescents into my palms, skin breaking under the pressure.
Warm blood welled, unnoticed at first.
First Hargrove.
Now him.
Two men in a single day, stripping me down to the same word. Broken.
I forced my shoulders back, refusing to let him see me fold. “Everyone calling me disabled is laughable,” I said. My voice shook, but it didn’t break. “But I wasn’t always like this.”
