ter 7
Kimberly’s POV
The video of my confrontation with reporters exploded online within hours.
Cedric issued a terse statement: “I will never divorce my wife. Stop harassing her.”
By that afternoon, Katie’s journalist friend had been fired.
Social media became a cesspool of hatred directed at me:
“This woman is toxic AF. If she didn’t want to marry him, nobody forced her. Playing victim much? ?”
“Everyone’s like ‘she’s his soulmate‘ but I’m seeing manipulative gold digger vibes only.”
“The way he protects her when she clearly doesn’t appreciate him… I can’t even.”
“She dumped him when he was broke, then crawled back for his millions. Classic.”
“Having her cake and eating it too. Wants the lifestyle but acts above it all.”
Suddenly, an anonymous account cut through the noise: “STFU if you don’t know the real story. Seriously. Just stop.”
The comment section exploded, everyone demanding this person reveal what they knew.
The truth behind our twisted relationship was heartbreakingly mundane.
That year, my mother had been diagnosed with a terminal genetic condition–one with an extremely high hereditary probability.
Not only was I likely to develop the same disease, but any children I might have would face the same devastating odds.
The day my mother’s condition became undeniable, she’d soaked through towel after towel with blood from her nose.
After collapsing from blood loss, she fell into a three–day coma. When she finally opened her eyes, she told me to break up with Cedric.
I stared at her, my voice small: “Mom, he wouldn’t hold this against me.”
The words were as much for her reassurance as for my own desperate hope.
She squeezed my hand with what little strength she had left. “I know he’s a good man.”
She paused, a gentle smile forming. “You two have been together since you were sixteen. I’d see him waiting every morning on that second–hand bike at the corner. Did you think I was blind?”
“I watched him once, buying you breakfast. A sandwich that cost ten pounds.”
“He had twelve pounds in his pocket–I saw him count it out. Ten for your food, then the last two on drinks for both of you.”
“You were always so hungry, always thinking with your stomach. He told you he’d already eaten, and you believed him, happily demolishing that sandwich while his own stomach growled.”
“That poor boy. Parents divorced and wanting nothing to do with him. Living on scraps each month like he was nobody’s child.”
“Twelve pounds was probably his entire day’s money, and he spent it on making you smile without a second thought.”
“I knew then my daughter had found something rare,”
“Smart, hardworking, loyal to his core.”
“It was precisely because he was too good that my heart ached for him.”
That same year, Cedric’s grandmother–the only person who had ever truly loved him–was hospitalized with heart failure. He’d been raised by her
since age seven
He was running himself into the ground trying to care for her, working three jobs between danses
My mother said Cedric’s shoulders weren’t broad enough yet.
Carrying the weight of his dying grandmother and a girlfriend with a genetic time bomb would crash his chances for the future
i dug my nails into my palms until crescents of blood formed, finally whispering through a throat right with unshed tears. “Mom…. I can’t bear to leave
him
with those simple words “I can’t bear it“-everything I felt for him, everything he meant to me, crashed through the dam I’d buit. Tears flowed ww hecked down my face as the magnitude of what I was being asked to do hit me fally.
Chapter 8
