Page 14 of The Humiliated Wife

Wait. What?

There was a ripple of laughter—good-natured, mostly. Scattered applause. Someone nearby gave a low whoop.

Fiona offered a bewildered smile. She touched her cheek and felt the heat blooming there.

“Why is he pointing at me?” she whispered to the woman beside her. “Why did he say my name?”

The woman—bronzed shoulders, perfect eyeliner—grinned. “Oh my god, you’retheFiona? From the account? Dean’s account?”

Fiona blinked. “What account?”

“You know,” the woman said, laughing. “His “Fiona” posts. We’re obsessed. Honestly, you’re like our team mascot.”

Fiona pressed her fingers to her cheeks. Her ears were hot. Her heart was doing a weird, floaty skip in her chest.

Dean posts online about me?

She glanced up at the stage again, Dean was looking at her. She gave him a little wave. She could feel the grin stretching across her face.

It was... a little embarrassing.

But it was also kind of sweet.

She kept smiling, cheeks flushed, heart floating just slightly out of her body.

A voice beside her said quietly, “Hey.”

She turned. It was a woman she hadn’t spoken to all evening—soft brown eyes, a wineglass in hand. Fiona vaguely recognized her from the seating chart. June, she thought her name was.

June didn’t smile. “I think you should see this,” she said, and offered her phone.

The screen glowed in the dim light of the banquet hall, the app already open.

@shitfionasays

Fiona blinked.

Fiona's thumb moved automatically. The most recent post was a screenshot of a somewhat redacted text message—her text message.

She spent her grocery money on a kid who "looked sad." This is why teachers stay broke.

At first she didn’t understand what she was seeing. She could see it was her text—sent in a moment of genuine worry about one of her students who was having a rough day—but the unfamiliar context threw her.

Why would this text be on the internet?

And who had added the cruel caption?

The laughter in the banquet hall seemed to echo in her ears. Knowing laughter. The kind that said everyone was in on something except her.

"Oh my god, she’s actually real!” someone at a nearby table called out, loud enough for half the room to hear.

Fiona's smile was frozen on her face. The applause felt mocking now, like people clapping at a circus act.

She scrolled down. Another post. A caption with her thoughts, twisted to make her a joke.

Babe heard our neighbor arguing with his girlfriend through the wall and left homemade cookies outside their door with a note that said 'hope your day gets better.' She genuinely thinks baked goods solve everything. It's like being married to a Disney princess who never learned how the real world works.#peak_naivety

It didn’t make sense. It had to be a mistake.