Chapter 1 - The Tag on the Neck Brace(Approx. 800 words)
The room still smelled like cheap aerosol hairspray and sweet vanilla frosting when the photographer turned his camera screen toward the nearest guests.
Behind my shoulder in the magnified preview image, a stark white price tag hung limply from a foam neck brace positioned on the vanity. Another barcoded tag curled neatly beneath a piece of theatrical medical equipment restlessly balanced beside my hairbrush.
My husband, Julian, reached for the camera with a tight, nervous smile. "Let’s not get distracted by technical test shots, folks—"
"Don’t," the photographer said.
One word. Crisp. Unforgiving.
That single word cut through the ambient murmur like a razor blade.
A few minutes earlier, people had been crowding around Julian, placing comforting hands on his shoulders, telling him how brave he was for “holding the family together during this tragic chapter.” His sister, Chloe, had been hovering near the entry table, accepting crisp paper envelopes while tearfully explaining to anyone who would listen that my emergency surgery had come up without warning.
Now, several of those same guests were staring in stunned silence at the high-definition display.
The baby shower playlist was still humming softly from the sound system in the living room. Someone had left a paper plate piled with half-eaten cake beside the centerpiece. A gift bag decorated with pastel ribbons tipped silently against the leg of an armchair.
For several agonizing seconds, nobody cared about any of it.
Chloe reached out, her acrylic nails digging into my arm. "Tell them," she whispered, her breath smelling of mint and panic.
I looked down at the theatrical greasepaint covering the left side of my face—dark purple around the cheekbone, sickly yellow blending toward my jaw. Then I looked up at Julian.
“What exactly do you want me to tell them, Julian?”
His face went pale beneath the amber party lights. He tried to laugh it off, stepping forward to gently wrap a hand around my waist. "We were just trying to help, sweetheart. You know how tight money’s been with the baby coming. People were already on their way here... Chloe and I just thought... if people understood we were facing something truly serious, they’d be a little more generous. It was a group effort."
“Something serious?” I repeated, my voice barely audible over the hum of the air conditioner.
Julian’s eyes dropped to my bottom lip.
That part wasn't makeup.
It was swollen, jagged, and actively bleeding onto the collar of my maternity dress—the painful evidence of what happened twenty minutes ago when I tried to pull away from Chloe’s brushes, slipped on the hardwood, and slammed my face into the oak dressing table.
The photographer zoomed in further on the camera's LCD screen.
In high resolution, the harsh brush edges of the fake bruising were blatantly visible near my jawline. Behind me, an open contour palette sat right beside a pair of stainless-steel prop scissors. Worse, the digital timestamp in the bottom corner proved the photo had been taken long before any guest had arrived at the house.
One guest—Julian’s aunt—finally asked the question he had clearly never prepared to answer.
“What surgery, Julian?”
Julian opened his mouth, stammering.
Chloe stepped in instantly, her tone defensive. “The details are private! It’s personal medical history!”
A family friend near the entryway didn't say a word. She simply walked over, picked up the white envelope she had dropped into the decorative glass box five minutes ago, and slid it back into her purse.
Then another guest did the same. And another.
Julian stepped closer to me, lowering his voice into a dangerous hiss. “Maya, please. Don't make this worse than it is. We can fix this after everyone leaves.”
I stared at him as if seeing him for the very first time.
He had held my head down while the clippers buzzed away a thick patch of my hair near the crown. He had watched his sister paint fake traumatic injuries onto my skin. And when I had fought back, split my lip, and cried out in pain, neither of them had stopped. They hadn't checked on me. They had simply smiled because my real blood made their fake story look even more convincing.
That realization burned deeper than the physical sting on my face.
I walked steadily over to the entry table and shoved the heavy glass donation box away from Chloe.
“No more money,” I said clearly.
Julian grabbed my wrist. “Maya—”
I whipped my arm back. “Don’t touch me. Ever again.”
Chloe threw her hands up, her voice climbing into a dramatic screech. “Everyone is blowing this out of proportion! It just got out of hand! We were stressed!”
“It didn’t get out of hand,” the photographer interjected smoothly, switching his camera off. “And the fake bruises aren’t the only thing that bothered me today.”
Julian’s jaw tightened. “Mind your business, mate. You were hired to take photos, not lecture my family.”
“I was hired yesterday,” the photographer replied, looking Julian dead in the eye. “And you sent me explicit text instructions asking me to compose shots that made your wife look ‘terminally frail’ so you could use them for an online fundraising campaign.”
May you like
The room went dead silent.
Julian opened his mouth to lie, but the photographer didn't give him the chance. He popped the side latch of his camera, pulled out the high-speed memory card, and pressed it firmly into my hand.
