Love's Dusk: The Dawn of Freedom

On a whim, I peeled a mango for my daughter, posted it on Twitter, and jokingly mentioned that I wasn't worthy of eating it myself. Unexpectedly, it went viral, and I was blasted online.

A popular actress, Cynthia Thompson, reposted my tweet, encouraging women to bravely be themselves.

As the waves of online hatred poured in, a wealthy heir in Ignisreach posted two large boxes of mangoes on Twitter and tagged me. His tone was gentle and doting: [These are all for Amy. You're allergic to mangoes, so you can't eat them.]

——

My sweet daughter was sick and begged me to peel a mango for her.

I looked down at my freshly done 2000-dollar manicure, sighed helplessly, and complied.

I posted a photo of the peeled mangoes on Twitter.

Feeling a bit hard done by, I posted a photo on Twitter, making fun of how I couldn't eat the mango I had peeled.

After my beauty treatment, my best friend, Donna Hayes, called to tell me I had gone viral. She urged me to check the top trending topic.

Puzzled, I opened Twitter.

At the top of the trending list was a piece of news: [Popular Actress Cynthia Thompson Says Women Should Be Brave and Be Themselves!]

Confused, I wondered what that had to do with me.

Notifications of message replies kept popping up.

Feeling uneasy, I checked the comments.

To my dismay, I saw Cynthia had retweeted my post with the caption: [Women should bravely be themselves.]

I felt speechless and checked the comments.

Floods of abusive comments hit me.

[If you can't afford to have kids, don't have them!!]

[Self-pitying is just disgusting.]

[Seriously, lady? It's just a mango. Why aren't you worthy of eating it?]

[This is terrifying. If I have kids and can't even eat a mango, why bother having kids?]

[So sad. As a mother, you're not even worthy of eating a mango?]

I stared at the comments, baffled.

It wasn't that serious. I was just joking about my mango allergy.

How did it escalate to this? Were netizens today that imaginative?

Even if it's a self-indulgent post, so what?

I posted it on my social media, and no one was forced to see it.

My daughter was happy eating it, and I was happy peeling it. Why should others care?

Comments were welcome, but why the vitriol?

Nowadays, netizens were too aggressive.

Even a passing dog would get cursed.

I checked my inbox.

It was filled with abusive messages, full of vile language.

Only a few supportive messages, mostly from other moms, comforted me to withstand the online abuse, understanding my devotion to my child.

I looked at the messages, amused and annoyed, just as my husband called.

Matthew Sullivan sounded worried and asked what was going on.

I shrugged helplessly and explained, "Amy wanted me to peel a mango for her. After peeling, I joked about not being able to eat it due to my allergy, and the netizens overreacted."

After a moment of silence, Matthew listened and said a bit resentfully, "You've never peeled a mango for me."

I was both amused and exasperated by his comment. "Is that the point? The point is your wife is being cyberbullied right now!"