I’d just stumbled into bed after a long, draining night shift at the hospital. My legs ached, my eyes were burning, and I was seconds away from drifting into a hard-earned sleep when my phone lit up on the nightstand, vibrating like it was having a panic attack.
I groaned and reached for it with one hand, barely able to open my eyes.
Liam. My husband.
Why was he calling me now? He knew I’d just gotten home from a night shift. Something had to be wrong.
“Hello?” I rasped, my voice sounding like sandpaper.
But instead of a greeting, I got a shout that punched me awake.
“HOW COULD YOU CHEAT ON ME?!”
I shot up so fast I nearly threw my back out. “What?! Liam, what are you talking about?”
“Don’t lie to me, Ava!” he yelled. “It’s all over Facebook! My mom posted the photos! You and Mark! I can’t believe you’d do this to me!”
My stomach dropped so hard I felt dizzy.
“Mark? The 65-year-old doctor from Orthotics? That Mark?”
But Liam didn’t answer.
He hung up.
Just like that.
My hands were shaking as I opened Facebook. My screen lit up with red dots—notifications exploding like fireworks. My heart pounded as I scrolled to the post Liam had seen.
There it was. Eleanor—my mother-in-law—had posted pictures of me, outside a coffee shop, kissing someone who looked like our former neighbor Mark. A man I’d only spoken to politely in passing. And he’d moved away six months ago!
The photo looked so real. But it wasn’t. I knew that. I had never kissed Mark, never met him outside a coffee shop, never done any of this.
I called Liam back in a panic.
“Liam, I swear to you—I never cheated on you! Those photos are fake!”
He sounded wounded. “Are you saying my mom made this up? That’s your excuse?”
I felt like the ground was falling away under me.
“I don’t know where she got them from, or if she made them, but they’re not real! Liam, you know me.”
But that seed Eleanor had planted was already growing.
Liam had grown up thinking his mother was always right. She’d raised him to believe that no one could be trusted—no one but her.
The phone was quiet for a few seconds before he said, voice flat and cold, “I need time to think. I’m staying at Jake’s tonight.”
Then he hung up again.
I stared at the screen, completely frozen. My phone kept dinging—comments, likes, shares. I opened Eleanor’s post again.
People I hadn’t spoken to in years were suddenly gossiping like they knew the whole story.
Neighbors were tagging each other with laughing emojis. Old high school friends were commenting like they were relationship experts. My sister had left just a single question mark under the post. For some reason, that tiny symbol hurt the most.
That evening, I watched from the window as Liam packed his car. I saw him take off his wedding ring and place it on the dresser.
Then he drove off.
And just like that… Eleanor had won the first round.
Have you ever been the center of a small-town scandal? It’s a nightmare. I don’t recommend it.
At the grocery store, people paused mid-sentence when they saw me coming. At the pharmacy, Mrs. Henderson wouldn’t even look me in the eye as she handed me my prescription.
And the kids?
The sweet neighborhood kids who used to wave and run up to me when I came home now looked at me like I had some contagious illness. They actually ran away.
But the worst part?
Sarah from down the street. We’d been friends for three years—baking cookies, venting about our husbands, helping each other with sick kids. She unfriended me and posted one of those vague, passive-aggressive quotes:
“Honesty is the foundation of every relationship.”
I cried that night. Not over Liam. Not over Eleanor. But over Sarah.
Work became my only safe place. At least in the hospital, I could focus on patients, meds, and charts. But even there, the rumors crept in.
One patient’s daughter gave me the stink eye for an hour. A couple whispered behind my back when they thought I wasn’t listening. I could feel it spreading, poisoning everything.
Every night, I sat on the couch, staring at the photos again and again. Zooming in. Looking for flaws. I knew they were fake, but proving it? That was a whole different battle.
Three days later, the doorbell rang.
I almost didn’t answer it. I didn’t have the strength for another confrontation.
But curiosity won.
I opened the door—and there she was.
Eleanor. Standing on my porch like the queen of the world, perfectly dressed, lips curled in a fake smile.
“Hello, Ava,” she said sweetly. “I hope you’re doing well.”
I couldn’t even pretend to be polite. “What do you want, Eleanor?”
She stepped inside like she owned the place and held up a sleek black tablet.
“I have new evidence. Unless you divorce Liam quietly… I’ll post these next.”
She swiped the screen, revealing even more photos—worse ones. Intimate positions. Fake timestamps suggesting an affair over months. My face—flawlessly edited—on someone else’s body.
I felt something inside me snap.
“You seriously think I’m going to let you ruin my life just so you can keep your son to yourself?”
Her smile twitched.
“I’m protecting my family,” she said coldly.
“No,” I replied, stepping forward, “you’re a controlling woman who can’t stand that Liam loves someone else. But guess what, Eleanor? I’m done playing nice. Get. Out.”
She narrowed her eyes and waved the tablet in the air.
“I will destroy you, Ava. I’ll run you out of town. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
“Oh, I know exactly who you are. And guess what? You messed with the wrong woman.”
That’s when Eleanor made the biggest mistake of her life.
Right there in my living room, she opened Facebook, ready to post the new fake photos.
“You’ll regret this,” she muttered, tapping quickly, selecting the images.
My phone dinged. I glanced at it—and then I saw her face change.
All the smugness vanished. She looked terrified.
“No, no, no—damn it!” she hissed, tapping the screen in a panic.
I opened her post. And there it was.
She had accidentally posted a screenshot.
A screenshot of her private messages with someone named “DigitalDoc.”
“$500 for the first set,” it said. “Make sure it looks like they’re kissing. Add timestamps from last week.”
I read it out loud.
Eleanor looked like she was about to faint. “Delete it,” she whispered. “Delete it, delete it—”
Too late. I had already taken screenshots.
Then, as if karma herself stepped in, her tablet battery died. The screen went black.
I smiled. “Thank you, Eleanor. You just did all the work for me.”
Eleanor screamed and threw the tablet on the floor.
We were still yelling at each other when the front door burst open.
Liam.
He looked between us, then locked eyes with his mother.
“Mom…” he said quietly. “Was this you?”
Eleanor straightened up like nothing was wrong. “Liam, I can explain—”
“Was this YOU?!” he shouted.
The room went dead silent. I’d never heard Liam raise his voice like that.
Eleanor started to panic. “It was just a joke—a misunderstanding. I just wanted to protect you—”
“Stop,” Liam snapped. “Stop talking.”
He looked at her like she was a stranger. A stranger he hated.
“I don’t want you near Ava. I don’t want you in our lives until you fully admit what you did.”
Eleanor’s lip trembled. “Liam, I’m your mother.”
“And she is my wife. I let you ruin her reputation because I was too weak to stand up to you. But I’m done.”
She stood there, stunned, waiting for him to change his mind.
But he didn’t.
I walked over and closed the door behind her.
Then I locked it.
Liam turned to me, tears in his eyes. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve trusted you. I was wrong.”
He pulled me into a hug, and for the first time in days—I cried. Not because I was broken. But because I was free.
Outside, the neighborhood was buzzing. Phones lighting up with Eleanor’s accidental confession.
By morning, everyone would know the truth.
The woman who tried to destroy me had destroyed herself instead.
And karma?
Karma brought receipts.