“Those photos. Those messages. Who else could have sent them besides you?”

He grabbed my wrists.

“Stella, calm down!”

“How am I supposed to calm down?!” I screamed at him.

“If anything happens to Dad, I’m going to kill you!”

The ward door opened.

The doctor stepped out and removed his mask.

“I’m sorry. We did everything we could.”

In that moment, my world shattered.

The funeral was held three days later. My mother would not let me through the door.

“Go away,” she said through the closed door. “Your dad wouldn’t want to see you.”

I stood and waited outside from morning until night.

In the afternoon, Dan and Hayley arrived.

They placed a white lily arrangement near the front of the chapel.

The card attached to it read: With deepest sympathy, Dan and Hayley Hill.

Hayley noticed me and spoke softly.

“My condolences.”

I looked at Dan. If looks could kill, he would have dropped dead where he stood.

The color drained from his face.

Hayley tugged gently on his sleeve.

“Come on. We should go.”

Without another word, they turned and walked away.

Mom finally opened the door.

When she looked at me, all I saw in her eyes was hatred.

“Are you happy now? Your dad is dead. Happy now?”

I stepped forward and tried to hug her.

“Mom...”

“Don’t touch me!”

She shoved me away.

“I don’t want a daughter like you!”

I stayed there frozen and unable to move.

A week after my father’s funeral, I received a call from the company.

“Stella, your employment has been terminated.”

The voice from the human resources department was cold and detached.

“The grounds are gross misconduct and breach of professional ethics. During your assignment in the desert, you allegedly engaged in inappropriate relationships with multiple male colleagues.”

I rushed straight to the office and stormed into the human resources office.

“Where is your evidence?”

The human resources director tossed a stack of photographs onto the desk.

They were ordinary job-site photos of me and my coworkers. However, they were overlaid with obscene and defamatory captions.

“This is defamation!”

“Where there is smoke, there is fire.”

The director looked at me as he said, “The company cannot tolerate an employee like you.”

So, I went to see Dan.

His assistant stopped me outside his office.

“Mr. Hill is in a meeting.”

I waited until nightfall.

When he finally stepped out of the conference room, his steps faltered the moment he saw me.

“I know what you’re going to say,” he said.

“It’s the company’s decision. There’s nothing I can do.”

“Dan, you framed me.”

“It wasn’t me.”

He frowned.

“Hayley said—”

“And you just believe whatever she tells you?”

I stepped closer.

“She killed my father. Now, she’s trying to destroy me. Are you going to help her do that too?”

He took a step back.

“Stella, you need to calm down.”

“I’m perfectly calm,” I said.

“I just want to know one thing. Can you really live with yourself?”

He did not answer.

I turned and left. As I reached the ground floor, a crowd suddenly closed in around me.

Seven or eight people stood there holding signs.

“Homewrecker!”

“Witch!”

“Get out of our town!”

Someone threw something at me.

It was a bucket of red paint.

It drenched me from top to bottom.

I stood there motionless as I dripped crimson from head to toe.

Dan’s car emerged from the underground garage and stopped at the curb.

He got out and dispersed those people.

Then, he looked at me and sighed.

“Stella, why can’t you just take the high road? Why does it have to come to this?”

I wiped my face.

The red ran down my fingers in streaks.

“Take the high road?”

I laughed.

“How exactly am I supposed to do that?”

He said nothing. He got back into his car and drove away.

When I got back to my apartment, I found that the locks had been changed.

My luggage had been dumped outside the door.

The landlord poked his head out.

“I packed up your things. You need to leave.”

“Why?”

“Someone filed a complaint against you. People are saying you are the kind of person who brings trouble wherever she goes. It’s bad for the building.”

The landlord waved his hand.

“I’m not renting out to you anymore.”

I crouched down beside my suitcase.

It was the same suitcase I had taken with me to the desert five years ago. It was the same one I had brought back.

Nothing had seemingly changed, yet everything had.

I spent the entire night nursing a cold cup of coffee in an all-night diner.

The city awoke in the morning light.

It was beautiful.

However, I no longer wished to remain here a moment longer.