Chapter 3
Tina stared at me in disbelief. She stumbled back two steps, then threw herself into Sam’s arms and burst into tears.
He comforted her softly, but when he looked at me, his eyes were full of disgust.
Turning around, Tina let tears stream down her face. “Xena, I wanted to keep this secret for you. But how can you still refuse to admit what you’ve done?”
She wiped away her tears, then looked at Sam and said in a firm voice, “I honestly thought Xena would change, which is why I never told you before. Every time she said she was going on a business trip, she was actually checking into hotels with different men. I have all the receipts.”
The next second, Tina pulled a thick stack of receipts out of her purse and handed them to him.
Every single one of them had my name on it.
I froze in shock. I hadn’t stayed at a hotel in ages, so where had Tina gotten those receipts?
Sam flipped through them one by one, his expression growing darker with every page.
Then, without warning, he flung the whole stack at my face and demanded to know how many times I had cheated on him.
I bent down, picked up a few of the receipts, and looked them over carefully. The dates and hotel names were all there in black and white. Each one even listed how many condoms had been used.
A sick feeling rose in me. Had someone been using my identity to rent hotel rooms?
Forcing myself to stay calm, I flatly denied that the receipts were real.
I said immediately that someone had to be impersonating me, and I demanded that we call the police and get it investigated.
But Sam refused to believe a word I said. Instead, he pointed at my chest and sneered that the evidence was already right in front of him, so what else was there to explain?
His voice was full of contempt. “If you hadn’t been messing around with other men, would they be hanging like that? Like a damn cow’s?”
The second I heard that word, my whole body went rigid. All the awful memories from middle school came rushing back.
Because I had developed earlier than the other girls, the boys at school used to mock me with that exact nickname.
Back then, Sam had even gotten into fights with them over it. He wouldn’t let anyone laugh at me.
But now, when he said it, he sounded no different from those boys back then, full of the same contempt and disdain.
Everyone there followed the direction of his finger and looked at my chest. Voices of envy and disgust rose one after another around the room.
A few women in the crowd who had bodies like mine immediately drew suspicious looks from their own boyfriends, who lowered their voices and asked if they had slept with other men too.
Instead of realizing their boyfriends were in the wrong, or questioning anything Tina was saying, they joined the crowd in blaming me.
They acted as if my supposedly messy private life was the reason they were being dragged into it.
And Tina chose that exact moment to start spouting fake “medical facts,” trying to pin the label of promiscuous on me for good.
She didn’t care in the least whether women built like me would be rejected by their boyfriends or disgust everyone around them.
She even used herself as an example, telling the men there that the smaller a woman’s chest was, the “cleaner” she was.
Chapter 4
Keeping my face cold, I pulled out a photo of me with my mother and held it up for everyone to see, asking Tina if she even knew what genetics were.
The moment she saw the picture, she acted like her professional authority had been insulted.
Flushed with anger, she snapped at me, “And how do we know your mom wasn’t doing the same kind of thing and dragging you along with her? Like mother, like daughter. Haven’t you ever heard that?”
The second I heard her insult my mother, all the anger I had been holding back finally exploded. I lunged at her and slapped her across the face several times.
Sam shoved me away and demanded to know if I had lost my mind.
Breathing hard, I demanded that Tina apologize, but she just clutched her cheek and shouted back at me.
“Xena, even if I played along with your lies and helped you cover everything up today, you still wouldn’t be able to hide the baby you’re carrying!
“Are you really going to wait until the baby is born before you admit you cheated on Sam?”
The moment Sam heard that, he shoved me to the floor. Then he planted his foot on my chest and ground it down hard.
Looking down at me, he demanded to know whose bastard I was carrying.
I started coughing violently. My chest hurt so badly I could barely get a word out.
Fighting through the pain, I forced myself to speak. “I just got my period two days ago. Whether I’m pregnant or not, shouldn’t you know that better than anyone?”
The pressure of Sam’s foot slowly eased, and he even reached a hand toward me, as if he meant to help me up.
But then Tina let out a long sigh.
She reached into her bag, pulled out a crumpled pregnancy test report, and held it up in front of me.
My name was on it, and the results clearly said I was twelve weeks pregnant.
I looked up at Tina. A flash of triumph crossed her eyes, as if that one piece of paper was enough to pin me to the wall in shame for good.
Once the people around us saw what looked like proof, they all started talking at once, throwing accusations at me from every direction.
Some even said I should be punished like women in the old days, so I would stop humiliating myself in public.
Then Tina, sounding almost casual, added, “For all we know, Xena’s so-called period was fake too. Maybe she made it up just to keep this hidden.”
At that, the hand Sam had reached out to help me changed direction.
He grabbed me by the hair and slammed my head against the floor again and again.
Even after my face was covered in blood, he still refused to stop. He even tried to kick me hard in the stomach.
I twisted away as fast as I could and, using every last bit of strength I had, forced myself upright.
I looked at Tina, curiosity in my eyes, and pressed her again. Since I was clearly not pregnant, where exactly had she gotten that pregnancy test report?
Tina let out a scornful laugh, her face full of provocation.
“If you say you’re not pregnant, then prove it.”
As she said that, a nasty glint flashed in her eyes. Her hand shot straight for the hem of my skirt, clearly intending to strip me in front of everyone.
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