Chapter 1 Chapter 1

I shuddered as the rope tightened over my wrists and legs. “Terence, I swear I didn’t ignore Sadie on purpose! You have to trust me. Please!”“Trust you?” Terence’s hand holding the rope paused. I nodded fiercely, tears streaming down my face. “Eight times!” He pinched my chin. "Sadie called you eight times, and you ignored every call! You didn’t even call her an ambulance! How do you expect me to believe you?!” His eyes flashed red with anger, and I felt my chest constrict. The typhoon made landfall in our city two days ago, and the emergency center where I worked had received countless calls. One number had called multiple times, but nobody was on the other end when we picked up. At first, I thought I was talking to an asthma patient who had experienced an attack due to the extreme weather, so I patiently waited for them to collect themselves and speak. “It’s alright if you can’t talk. If you need an ambulance, just knock twice on anything around you, and I’ll call one.” Then, the call ended. Thirty seconds later, another call came in. “Do you need an ambulance? I understand if you can’t talk. Please stay on the line. Our command center will locate your call.” The caller hung up again. After a few more times, I began to believe this was a series of prank calls. That night was especially accident-prone, and it was hectic at our emergency center. When the call came in again for the eighth time, I could not help but scold the caller. “Your prank calls are occupying the line and taking away help from the people who actually need it!” Suddenly, Terence’s voice shouted through my earpiece, “Melinda! This is the eighth time Sadie's called you for help! Haven’t you made her suffer enough?!” He was furious, and his tone was concerned in a way I had never heard before. Before I could say anything, he ended the call after threatening me with a ‘suitable punishment’. I did not expect him to be serious and actually restrain me to avenge Sadie. “How could you be so cruel? You’ll never learn if I don’t teach you a lesson now.” I snapped back to reality. He taped my mouth up before I could get a word in, and then he threw me into our basement, which was beginning to flood with seawater. He gave me a heartless look before locking the door. “You knew Sadie couldn’t talk because she hurt her throat, yet you still hung up on her! I'm going to make sure you feel the same hopelessness she felt!" For three whole days, I was submerged in the fishy seawater. By the time I finally escaped, blisters covered my body, and I felt raw all over from losing so many layers of skin. My left hand was fractured from detangling the ropes, and I was on the verge of death when when I was sent to the hospital by a neighbour. My wounds were festered with pathogens, and they had to remove a kidney to keep me alive. When the hospital called Terence, he merely scoffed and asked, “So, is she dead?”“What? Your wife is in critical condition. We need to perform surgery—”“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Terence did not even have the patience to listen to what the nurse had to say. “Sadie is still in hospital because of her! Tell her to get herself together and stop acting like some suffering maiden! She can die for all I care!”

Chapter 2 Chapter 2

The nurse ended the call before Terence could finish his rant. She looked at me with shock as if to ask, ‘Is that really your husband?’ My lips stretched into a bitter smile. “Can I sign it myself? You heard how he—” Tears began to stream down my face. Once again, Terence had made it clear that despite being his wife, I meant nothing to him compared to his first love. The nurse looked at me sympathetically as I signed the consent form. Just doing that drained all my energy, and I fell into a deep sleep afterward. In my dreams, I revisited a time from years ago. The year before this happened, Sadie suddenly left the country and cut off all contact. At the same time, Terence lost his father in a car accident. Both incidents happened one after the other, and Terence turned to alcohol to cope with the loss of his first love and his father. By the time he stopped drinking so much, his stomach was already in terrible shape. For a whole year, I was the one who dragged him home from the bar and took care of him during his darkest time. He remained indifferent toward me until his father’s death anniversary. Intoxicated, he got into a fight that quickly turned physical. I ended up taking a hit from a beer bottle that was meant for him. Red tinted my vision, and Terence looked furious. When we left the hospital, he pulled me into his shaking arms. He gasped, “How could you be so silly, Melinda?” Foolishly, I hugged back. “I’m glad you’re okay. It doesn’t hurt. Don’t worry.” That was the last time Terence drank. After that night, he threw himself into work and began to look at life more optimistically. Our relationship also improved, and things were nearly back to normal. After he closed his first deal, he bought an entire night’s worth of fireworks and lit them at the nearby river bed for me. Under the stars, he swore to love me and treat me well forever. That promise cost me seven years. However, Sadie’s return shattered the relationship and marriage I had given everything to protect.

Chapter 3 Chapter 3

It was four days later when I woke up again. My left hand was in a cast, and all my wounds were dressed. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was Terence and his angry gaze. Beside him stood Sadie, her eyes red and pitiful. Seeing that I had woken up, Terence stepped toward me and questioned, “Why are you lying to the internet about what happened?” He did not ask about my wounds at all. I was beyond confused. “What are you talking about?” Terence tossed his phone at me. “Quit playing dumb.” I took the phone and saw a post made at midnight: [Please Do Not Prank Call the Emergency Hotline.] The entire post was written from ‘my’ point of view, complaining about how Sadie deliberately stayed silent on call to wrongfully occupy the emergency hotline. It was an emotional post, and it was trending thanks to furious netizens reposting it and filling the comments section with comments taking ‘my’ side. Some netizens even found Sadie’s personal information and doxxed her address. “They’ve been stalking and harassing her ever since you posted that! Her phone is filled with people scolding her for something that isn’t even her fault! It’s because of you that she’s crying all the time and having nightmares! “When did you become so cruel, Melinda?” My nose felt hot, but I tried to keep the tears at bay as I met Terence’s gaze bravely. “Whether you believe me or not, the truth is that it wasn’t me who wrote that. I was still unconscious when the post was made.” Sadie sobbed as she made her way to me. She shoved her phone into my hands and blinked at me innocently. She had typed out her protests.“Mel! You didn’t do it on purpose, right?” Her gaze was taunting and prideful. I suddenly understood what she was trying to do. I raised the phone and looked at Terence. “Would you believe me if I told you she took my phone?” I watched as Terence’s expression changed from shocked to furious. “Are you telling me that Sadie used your phone to make a post about her being the bad guy?” He pointed at me, livid. “Melinda! You couldn’t even try to make up a better excuse?! How would doing that benefit her?!” Sadness filled my chest. It was exactly as I expected. Sadie’s plan was filled with loopholes, yet Terence believed her unconditionally. She did not even need to defend herself. My feelings of unjustness threatened to burst out. The more I tried to suppress them, the more my tears threatened to spill. “Do you not believe me at all?” Terence was silent for a long while before he scoffed. This was not the man I thought I married. “You’re still acting like you’re innocent, huh, Melinda? “You know Sadie can’t speak because her trachea was infected, don’t you?” He glared at me. “When the typhoon made landfall, glass shards pierced her ankle. She was bleeding nonstop, and she called you eight times, only for you to ignore her calls. I can’t imagine how hopeless she must’ve felt…”“Why don’t you believe me?! Why are you doing this to me?!” I roared, “They had to cut my kidney out to keep me alive!” Terence’s reply was cold. “I know what kind of person Sadie is. She would never lie to me. “What happened to you was karma. You did this to yourself. You should be begging for Sadie’s forgiveness.”

Chapter 4 Chapter 4

That day, I learned how true love could make Terence abandon all logic. I had done nothing wrong, yet he assumed the worst of me. It started drizzling outside the hospital. Terence squinted, and his voice was cold. “You’re unresonable!” … After the two of them left, I searched online for a tech-savvy hacker and paid him to look up the poster's IP address. Then, I called my colleague and asked her to send me a recording of the calls from that night. My heart sank when I heard her words. “Sorry, Linda. We just lost all the data from that day. The IT department is trying to recover it now. “But don’t worry. Before the data was lost, your husband and some girl dropped by to collect a copy.” I clenched my fist. I knew Sadie was involved in getting rid of the call logs. I had to find other evidence. Before I knew it, the sun had set. Too much had happened that day, and I was exhausted, so it did not take long for me to fall asleep. The next morning, I was woken up by a series of phone calls. It was noisy on the other end of the line, but I could roughly make out the sound of camera shutters in the background. Our neighbor’s tone was laced with concern. “You need to come back quickly, Melinda! A huge crowd of people just came to your house, and they have your grandmother surrounded.” My mind went blank, and I felt a shiver run down my spine. I got off the bed and ran out of the hospital as I dialed Terence’s number. He picked up quickly. “You’re behind this, aren’t you? You must really have a bone to pick with me! Why couldn’t you leave Granny out of this? You know she’s supposed to be resting!”“Do you understand how scared Sadie felt that day now?” Even though it was coming from my phone speakers, Terence’s voice sounded so far away. His response dazed me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”“You’ll never understand how she felt unless I make you feel it for yourself." His tone was indifferent. "You should experience everything that happened to her.” Anger and anguish filled my chest. I growled, “If anything happens to Granny, I will kill the two of you, I swear to God!” I got into a taxi and finally had the time to look through my phone. Thanks to Sadie’s ‘half of the story’, I was trending on social media again. #911OperatorMocksPitifulMuteGirl #EmergencyOperatorMelindaSnyderRefusesToCallAmbulance #MelindaPlannedEverything #ApologiseNowMelinda I tapped on the first hashtag, which led me to Sadie’s response video. At the end of the video was my voice, “I won’t call an ambulance for you if you don’t speak. “Please end the call if you can’t talk.” … The recording was edited to make it look like I was mocking Sadie’s call for help. Netizens were in an uproar over the video and Terence’s subsequent response, and they managed to find my house. By the time I arrived, Granny had already been forced into a corner. Not only were there netizens, but reporters from many media outlets were present too, shoving their cameras in Granny’s face. “Ma’am, what are your thoughts about Melinda mocking a girl who couldn’t talk when she needed help the most?”“Are you ashamed to have such a heartless woman as a granddaughter?”“I heard that Melinda lost her parents when she was young. Is that why she’s so heartless?” Granny was helpless against the barrage of questions, and she turned to look at Terence for help. “That’s not true. Melinda would never do something like that. She’s always been a good girl!” My fingernails dug into my palms as I squeezed through the crowd.

Chapter 5 Chapter 5

Once the reporters saw me, they turned to shove their microphones in my face instead. “Miss Snyder, is Ms. Walsh telling the truth? Did you really mock her?”“Of course not—”“She did.” A text-to-speech generated voice rang out. It was Sadie. She looked at me, then began to type on her phone. The automated voice continued, “I didn’t want to tell the whole world at first, but the harassment was becoming too much. I had to get the truth out there.” Terence stepped forward in agreement. “Sadie is right. I may be Melinda’s husband, but I don't agree with what she did that day.” He grabbed my wrist and shoved me forward. “Melinda, you should take this chance to apologize to Sadie in front of everyone today.”“Apologize?” I looked at Sadie and asked coldly, “Do you think you deserve my apology?” Sadie looked uneasy and began to type, “I don’t know why you mocked me and lied on the internet, Mel, but I want to believe that you didn’t do it to hurt me. “If you don’t want to apologize, I won’t force you.” Everyone was in awe over how ‘kind’ Sadie was. “Ms. Sadie, you’re too kind.”“Yeah! How can you still forgive her after what she’s done to you?”“I can’t believe Melinda still won’t apologize! How disgusting. I can’t believe an emergency operator could be so heartless.” Sadie’s eyes twinkled with mirth. “Sure, I’ll apologize,” I suddenly said before slapping Sadie twice. “How do you like my apology?” The anticipation in her eyes turned to shock. “Are you crazy, Melinda?!” Terence pushed me away and cradled Sadie in his arms. I ignored him and stared at Sadie instead. “I haven’t collected all my evidence yet, but why don’t we do something fun? Let’s make a bet.” Once I was sure everyone’s attention was on me, I stared deep into Sadie’s eyes and continued. “You dialed 911 eight times. Every single time, I answered patiently and asked you what was wrong. I told you to knock on your surroundings if you couldn’t speak so I would know to send an ambulance to you. “I told you to stay on the line while our command center traced your call. “But every single time, you ended the call after I spoke. Every. Single. Time. “I didn’t make that post either. I still don’t know how you got a hold of my phone.” Then, I turned to look at Terence. "But your dear lover over here tied me up and locked me in a basement flooded with seawater for three whole days. “My wounds were severely infected, and the doctors had to cut my kidney out to save my life. “I was unconscious when the post was made. So, tell me, how the could I have posted it?” The crowd was silent as if everyone was holding their breath. The only sound was the shutters and flashes of the cameras surrounding us. Sadie typed frantically, “That’s not true! That’s not what happened!”“No?” I leaned into her personal bubble and smirked. “I swear on every word I said just now. “If any of it was a lie, then may God doom my career, my love life, and my remaining health so I will never know a day of peace again.” Staring deep into Sadie’s terrified gaze, I grabbed her hair and tugged. “What about you, Sadie? Do you swear on your words?”