Chapter 9: Public Shame

"Rachel Smith, that little tramp, carried James Carter home and stayed in his house for half an hour before coming out."

"I saw it with my own eyes! When Rachel came out, she was soaked, her clothes clinging to her body—oh, it was indecent!"

"Since she was touched and held by James Carter, she’s no longer a virgin."

"Our Parker family doesn’t want shoes that the crippled James has already worn!"

The yard was deathly silent. The wind rustled through the bare branches, the tension thick enough to choke on.

My mother opened her mouth, her voice hoarse and dry. "You’re lying. My Rachel isn’t that kind of person."

Seeing my mother falter, my mother-in-law grew even more arrogant. She seemed to swell with power, feeding off the hurt she caused.

"Pah!"

She spat right on the porch boards, shooting me a look that could sour milk.

"A man and a woman alone, pressed together the whole way. No matter what you say, your daughter isn’t clean."

"I heard people say, to save a drowning person, you have to give mouth-to-mouth."

"Who knows how Rachel Smith saved the crippled James? I don’t want such a filthy woman as a daughter-in-law."

Mom broke down, rushing forward to fight my mother-in-law. The porch shuddered with the force of her fury.

"Shut up! You shut up!"

"I won’t allow you to talk about my daughter that way!"

I pulled her back, my face pale. The heat of shame and anger mixed in my blood, leaving me shaky. My hands trembled so hard I nearly dropped my mother’s dish towel.

"Mom, let’s break off the engagement."

In this world, women face so much injustice. No matter how hard we try, our worth is always measured in whispers and suspicion.

Reputation and purity are shackles that bind us for life. The rules written by others, enforced by silence.

All I did was save someone. A simple act of decency twisted into something ugly.

But others won’t see it that way—they’ll believe my mother-in-law’s words and think the worst. The story would grow in the telling, no matter what I said.

From today on, rumors about me and James Carter will spread everywhere. The damage already done, the echo of it haunting every hallway.

And the only way to silence those rumors is for me to marry James Carter. Otherwise, my parents will be shamed because of me, and my female cousins will be gossiped about.

I can’t be the one to disgrace the Smith family. The cost of pride too high for just one person to pay.