Chapter 2 - The Locked Office Door
Ava lifted the phone again.
“There are more.”
Wade’s father made a broken sound.
Wade snapped, “Shut up.”
David’s hand came up, palm outward, stopping the room.
“No one touches her. No one touches that phone.”
Diane finally found her voice.
“David, please.”
He looked at his ex-wife.
She looked smaller than he remembered.
Blonde hair loose around her shoulders.
Light gray cardigan.
Jeans.
Barely any makeup left because she had cried through half the ceremony and pretended it was joy.
“Did she show you these?” David asked.
Diane’s eyes filled.
“She showed me pictures, but I thought—”
“You thought what?”
Wade cut in.
“She thought her daughter was jealous. Which she was.”
Ava shook her head.
“No.”
Wade laughed, but the sound shook.
“She has hated me since the engagement.”
David looked at Ava.
“Is that true?”
Ava’s voice was small.
“I hated him after he started locking the office door.”
The room changed.
One of the women on the sofa inhaled sharply.
Diane whispered, “Ava.”
Ava did not look at her.
“He said I wasn’t supposed to go in there anymore because it was adult business. But it was Dad’s old office. It still had my school printer in it.”
Wade’s face reddened.
David’s gaze moved toward the hallway leading to the office.
His old office.
The room where he had once helped Ava build a solar-system project, where he had kept deployment plaques he later removed because Diane said they made the house feel “stuck in the past.”
Ava continued.
“I heard him talking to his dad.”
Wade’s father closed his eyes.
David turned back to him.
“What did she hear?”
Wade barked, “Nothing.”
Ava’s hand trembled around the phone.
“He said Mom would sign after the ceremony. He said once the house was refinanced, it wouldn’t matter what I said.”
Diane’s lips parted.
“What?”
Wade turned on Ava.
“You little liar.”
David moved half a step forward.
Wade stopped.
Ava tapped the screen with shaking fingers.
Another photo appeared.
Not readable documents.
Not enough for anyone in the room to understand the details.
But enough to show Wade standing over Diane’s desk before the wedding, holding a folder near the old printer, his father seated in the chair beside him.
Diane stared.
“That was this morning.”
Ava nodded.
“I came downstairs because I couldn’t find my shoes.”
Wade’s father whispered, “Wade.”
Wade rounded on him.
“Don’t.”
David looked between them.
There it was again.
Not denial.
Fear.
Ava swiped to the next photo.
A close image of Wade’s hand gripping Ava’s wrist near the staircase.
His fingers pressed into her skin.
Her phone camera had caught it from an awkward angle, tilted, blurred, but clear enough.
Diane made a sound like she had been struck.
Ava’s voice cracked.
“He grabbed me when I tried to leave.”
Wade said, “Because you were running around taking pictures like a spy.”
“I was trying to show Mom.”
“You were trying to ruin her wedding.”
“You were hurting my hand.”
Wade pointed at his face again.
“And you hit me.”
Ava’s eyes filled.
“You wouldn’t let go.”
David looked at the bandage around Ava’s right hand.
Then at Wade’s swollen face.
“What happened?”
Ava swallowed.
“He took my phone. I grabbed it back. He grabbed my hand and twisted it. I hit him with the little silver tray from the gift table.”
One of the relatives on the sofa whispered, “Oh my God.”
Wade snapped, “She smashed it into my face.”
Ava’s voice rose for the first time.
“Because you said if I told Dad, you’d make Mom send me away!”
Diane staggered back one step.
The fireplace mantel caught her shoulder.
“No.”
Ava finally looked at her.
“Yes.”
Diane shook her head.
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“I did.”
“No, you said he yelled. You said he was being weird about papers.”
“I told you he scared me.”
Diane pressed both hands over her mouth.
May you like
Ava’s voice broke.
“And you said I was trying to ruin your happiness.”
