Ink and Heartstrings

44. Disowned by Affection?

The house changed its breath the moment marriage was spoken aloud again.

It was no longer the warm, familiar home Maria had returned to for Christmas. It became something sharper—edges everywhere, silence that cut deeper than shouting. Her mother moved through the rooms with rigid purpose. Her father grew quieter by the hour, his silence heavy, simmering, angry in a way that never needed words.

The pressure came in waves.

Elena: "You are wasting time."

Elena: "Do you know how people will talk?"

Elena: "We raised you better than this."

Maria tried to respond. Tried to explain that she needed time, that she wasn't ready, that her life her work mattered. But every sentence she formed collapsed under her mother's certainty.

Richard said little, but when he did, it was worse.

Richard: "Enough. You will do as we say."

There was no discussion. No space for nuance. Only obedience or defiance.

And defiance, in this house, had consequences.

That night, Maria locked herself in the bathroom, letting the shower run hotter than necessary. The water pounded against her skin, drowning out the echo of her mother's voice still ringing in her ears. Her hands trembled as she leaned against the tiled wall, breath uneven.

She thought of Alan.

The way his voice softened when she cried. The way he never told her what to do only asked what she felt. The way he believed in her strength even when she doubted it herself.

Her phone lay on the sink, screen lighting up with his last message from earlier that day.

Alan: I wish I could take this weight from you.
Maria: Just knowing you're there helps me breathe.

She didn't hear the bathroom door open.

Elena stepped inside, her eyes sharp, scanning instinctively like a predator sensing something hidden.

Then she saw the phone.

Maria realized too late.

Maria: "Mom ????wait........"

Elena picked it up before Maria could reach it. Her eyes moved fast. Too fast.

Message after message.

I miss you.
I love you.
I'll wait.
You're not alone.

Elena's face drained of color, then hardened into something Maria had never seen before something cold and furious.

Elena: "Who is this?"

Maria reached for the phone, panic surging.

Maria: "Give it back."

Elena slapped her hand away.

Elena: "You lied."

The word cracked through the steam-filled room like a gunshot.

Elena: "All this time. You looked me in the eye and lied."

Maria's chest tightened.

Maria: "I was scared."

That was the wrong answer.

Elena stormed out, phone clenched in her hand. Maria wrapped herself in a towel and followed, heart racing, every step heavier than the last.