“No,” I whispered.
The next morning, I woke up in the midst of absolute silence.
Adrian’s side of the bed was empty.
At first I thought I had come out. I waited for him to come back, but the minutes turned in hours.
Then the bedroom door opened.
Margaret was there, dressed in dark, with a cold expression and cruel satisfaction in her eyes.
“Where is Adrian?” I asked.
“She left.
I felt my heart stop.
Why?
He came over and lowered his voice.
He knows you were not pure.
By that afternoon, the whole town knew what Adrian had said.
He told everyone that I had cheated on him. He said he had entered his family by hiding a secret and could not continue to be married to a woman who had lied about his past.
People whispered my name like it was a curse.
Women stopped talking when I was passing. Men looked at me with contempt. The mothers removed their daughters from me, as if shame could be spread by contact.
They said he had humiliated Adrian’s family.
They said no respectable man would ever love me again.
Even my parents looked at me as if I had destroyed them.
When they came to take me back home, my mother didn’t hug me.
My father didn’t stand up for me.
“You ruined our last name,” he said.
