VOLUME I ACT I CHAPTER Six House of Cards (Part One)
VOLUME I
ACT I
CHAPTER Six
House of Cards
(Part One)
There was something ominous about the calm that followed that night. As if the truth I’d been hiding had finally started to seep through the cracks, and now everything around me was holding its breath. Waiting. Watching. Listening.
K hadn’t texted the next morning. That wasn’t unusual on its own. But after what he’d said, "If there's anything you ever need to tell me...", his silence was louder than any message.
I spent the first hour pacing my apartment. Then I cleaned the kitchen twice. I even sorted the spice rack alphabetically before admitting I was spiraling. The weight of anticipation is crueler than the confession itself. It clutches your lungs, squeezes your ribs, whispers that every minute you wait, the truth rots a little deeper.
By mid-afternoon, I finally cracked and texted him.
Hey. Are you okay?
No reply.
By 6 p.m., I was sitting by my window, staring out at the street below, phone still gripped in my hand like it was keeping me alive. My reflection in the glass looked pale, anxious, and nothing like the girl who had once confidently claimed fate brought them together.
Because fate didn’t bring us together.
I did.
And I was running out of time.
Around 7:30, there was a knock on my door.
I bolted to answer it, half hoping, half dreading. But when I opened it, it wasn’t K.
It was his mother.
Her eyes were red. Her mouth pressed into a thin, unreadable line. She wore a soft blue sweater I remembered from long ago, she used to wear it on Sundays when I’d come over with her younger son to study or watch movies.
“Hi,” she said, voice tight. “Can we talk?”
My breath caught. I stepped aside to let her in.
She didn’t sit. She paced instead, wringing her hands, her gaze flickering around the room like she was trying to understand something she hadn’t expected to see.
“K came home last night,” she finally said. “Didn’t say much at first. Just cried. Then around midnight, he told me everything.”
My knees buckled slightly, but I stayed standing.
“Everything?” I whispered.
“He showed me the post. The confession. He said he needed time. That he didn’t want a divorce, but he didn’t know how to feel.”
Tears burned behind my eyes. I didn’t know what to say.
She turned to face me fully, her expression a complicated mix of heartbreak and fury. “Why didn’t you tell us? Why did you come into our lives like that—through lies?”
“I didn’t lie,” I whispered. “Not exactly. I just… shaped the path. I loved him. From the moment I saw him. I knew I’d never feel that way again.”
She stared at me, disbelief written across her features. “You manipulated your way into his world. Into our world.”
“I got to know you. Your family. I became close with your son. And yes, at first it was all for him. But I didn’t fake the friendships. I didn’t fake loving any of you.”
She sat down then, heavily, as if the weight of everything had finally dragged her down.
“I don’t know what to do with this,” she murmured. “You’re my daughter-in-law. You’re sweet. Thoughtful. But this? It feels like a stranger did this.”
“I never pretended to be someone else,” I said, voice shaking. “I was just… always waiting to become the version of myself he could love.”
She looked at me, and for a moment, the fire in her gaze softened. “You don’t build a marriage on obsession. You build it on truth.”
“I know,” I whispered.
She stood again, brushing imaginary dust off her jeans. “He’s not ready to talk to you. But he will be. Eventually. You should be ready to tell him everything when he comes back. Not just what he knows. Everything.”
She walked to the door, then paused. “And when you do… don’t expect him to forgive you right away.”
The door clicked shut behind her, and I sank to the floor.
That night, I didn’t sleep. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, the silence pressing down on me.
I kept replaying the first time we officially met. Not the park. Not the stalking. The real meeting, at his house, during movie night with his younger brother. He’d offered me popcorn and made a joke about my name sounding like a princess. I’d laughed too loudly, cheeks flushed, thrilled just to be seen.
But even that moment, as innocent as it seemed, was built on a lie. I had engineered that meeting. Timed it perfectly. Chosen the movie. Chosen the seat next to his.
Every inch of closeness we had was built with careful, deliberate bricks.
And now the house of cards I had constructed was finally starting to sway.
Would it collapse?
Or would love somehow be strong enough to hold it together?
I didn’t know.
But I was finally ready to find out.
The next morning, I wrote a letter. I didn’t know if I would ever give it to him, but it helped to write it out. Everything. From the moment I first saw him to the day we got married. I wrote it all down.
And when I finished, I didn’t seal it.
Because maybe he would never read it.
But if he asked for the truth, the full truth.
I’d finally be ready to give it to him.
Even if it meant losing everything I built to be with him.
