He didn’t pick it up. Instead, he looked toward his mother, Mrs. Clarice, who already had her phone in her hand, a staged conversation glowing on the screen like proof of something terrible.
“You cheated on me.”
That was all Lucas said, his voice cold and final.
Adriana tried to speak, but her suitcase had already been tossed into the hallway. The flour from the cake she had been baking still covered her hands, as if time had frozen in the middle of a moment meant to be loving.
Mrs. Clarice smiled without warmth.
“A girl with no family doesn’t belong in our story.”
Before Adriana could even process what was happening, the last humiliation arrived: six months’ rent handed to her as if it were payment for silence. Lucas looked down at the floor. And that simple act—refusing to look at her—was what finally shattered something inside Adriana.
She left carrying a suitcase that wasn’t even hers and a baby growing inside her without a name.