Rise of the Formidable Ex-wife (Lucia and Alex) novel Chapter 124

Chapter 124

Ria found Monica sitting on the bathroom floor at two in the morning, her back pressed against the cold tile wall. The light was off, but moonlight through the small window showed Monica’s pale face and empty eyes staring at nothing.

“Monica?” Ria whispered, careful not to wake anyone else in the house. “What are you doing in here?”

Monica didn’t answer. She didn’t even look up. Her arms were wrapped around her knees, and she was rocking back and forth in tiny movements, like she was trying to comfort herself.

Ria stepped closer, her bare feet silent on the bathroom floor. “Hey, are you sick? Do you need help?”

Still nothing. Monica kept rocking, her breathing shallow and quiet. She looked like a ghost sitting there in the darkness, like she might disappear if Ria blinked too hard.

“Monica, you’re scaring me. Please say something.”

Finally, Monica’s eyes moved to Ria’s face. But they were blank, distant, like she was looking through her instead of at her.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Monica said, her voice flat and emotionless.

“So you came to sit on the bathroom floor?”

“It’s quiet here. Cold. I like the cold.”

Ria knelt down beside her sister, studying her face in the dim light. Monica looked terrible. Her hair was greasy and tangled, her skin pale and thin. Dark circles shadowed her eyes like bruises.

“When was the last time you ate something?”

Monica shrugged. “I don’t remember. Food tastes wrong now.”

“Wrong how?”

“Like nothing. Like eating cardboard.” Monica’s voice was so quiet Ria had to strain to hear her. “Everything tastes like nothing.”

Ria felt a chill run down her spine. This wasn’t normal teenage sadness. This was something deeper, something broken.

“Come on, let’s get you back to bed.”

“I don’t sleep anymore.”

୮

“What do you

mean?”

“I lie there and stare at the ceiling. Sometimes I count the cracks in the paint. Sometimes I just think about how everything is wrong and I can’t fix it.”

Ria reached out to touch Monica’s arm, but Monica pulled away like Ria’s hand was made of fire.

“Don’t touch me. I don’t like being touched anymore.”

The rejection hurt more than Ria expected. When had Monica become this stranger who flinched away from comfort?

“Monica, I’m worried about you. We all are.”

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Chapter 124

“Me and Lucas. We’ve noticed you’re different. Distant. You don’t talk to us anymore.”

Monica’s laugh was harsh and bitter. “Why would I talk to you? So you can tell me more lies about how everything will be okay? So you can pretend we’re still a real family?”

“We are still a family.”

“No, we’re not. We’re just three kids stuck in a house with two adults who hate each other. That’s not a family. That’s a nightmare.”

Ria wanted to argue, but the words died in her throat. Because Monica was right. Their house felt like a war zone most days, with Margaret drunk and angry and their father obsessed with revenge against their mother.

“It doesn’t have to be this way forever,” Ria said weakly.

“Doesn’t it? Mom’s married now. She promised to love someone else for the rest of her life. Someone wire isn’t Dad. Someone who isn’t us.”

The pain in Monica’s voice was raw and terrible. Ria felt tears burning behind her eyes.

“Maybe we could still fix things with her. Maybe if we tried harder.”

“There’s nothing to fix.” Monica’s voice was dead, final. “She doesn’t want us anymore. She has a new daughter now. A better daughter who didn’t betray her.”

“Monica.”

“I need to be alone now.”

Ria stayed kneeling on the bathroom floor, watching her youngest sister retreat back into herself like a turtle pulling into its shell. Everything about Monica felt wrong. Her posture, her voice, the way she wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes.

“I’m not leaving you here.”

“Then sit there all night. I don’t care.”

They stayed in silence for twenty minutes, Ria watching Monica rock back and forth in her tiny, rhythmic movements. Finally, Ria gave up and went back to her room, but she couldn’t sleep. Something was seriously wrong with Monica, and she didn’t know how to help.

The next morning at breakfast, Lucas noticed it too.

“Monica, you’re not eating again,” he said, gesturing to her untouched plate of eggs and toast.

Monica poked at the food with her fork, moving it around without taking a bite. “I’m not hungry.”

“You’re never hungry anymore. You’re getting too thin.”

“I’m fine.”

But she wasn’t fine. Anyone could see that. Her clothes hung loose on her frame, and her face looked gaunt and hollow. She moved like an old person, slow and careful, like everything hurt.

“Ria told me she found you on the bathroom floor last night,” Lucas continued. “What’s that about?”

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Chapter 124-

Monica’s fork stopped moving. She looked up at Ria with something that might have

“You told him?”

“I’m worried about you, Monica, We both are.”

“Well, stop worrying. I didn’t ask for your concern.*

been betrayal

Lucas leaned forward, his voice gentle but persistent, “Something’s wrong with you. Really wrong. You need to talk to

someone.”

“I don’t need to talk to anyone.”

“You barely leave your room. You don’t eat. You don’t sleep. You sit on bathroom floors in the middle of the night Lucas’s voice grew more urgent. “That’s not normal, Monica.”

“Nothing about our life is normal!” Monica’s voice cracked like a whip. “Our parents hate each other! Our mother abandoned us! Our stepmother is a drunk! Our father is planning God knows what kind of revenge! Nothing is normal.”

The kitchen fell silent. Even Margaret, who was nursing her morning hangover at the counter, stopped moving

“But that doesn’t mean you have to fall apart,” Ria said softly.

“Fall apart?” Monica stood up so fast her chair tipped over. “I’m not falling apart. I’m already broken. We all are. We just pretend we’re not.”

“Monica, please.”

“Please what? Please pretend everything is fine? Please act like we’re a happy family? Please keep lying to ourselves about what we really are?”

“What are we?” Lucas asked quietly.

“We’re the children nobody wanted to keep.” Monica’s voice was hollow, empty of everything except pain. “Dad didn’t want us enough to stop cheating. Mom didn’t want us enough to take us with her. Margaret doesn’t want us at all. We’re leftovers. Unwanted leftovers.”

The words hung in the air like poison. Ria felt them seep into her skin, into her bones, because part of her knew Monica was speaking the truth they’d all been avoiding.

“That’s not true,” Ria whispered.

“Isn’t it? Then why are we here? Why are we stuck in this house with people who resent us? Why didn’t Mom fight for custody? Why didn’t she take us to her new perfect life?”

Neither Ria nor Lucas had an answer.

Monica picked up her backpack and headed for the door. “I’m going to school. Not because I care about learning anything, but because it’s better than being here.”

“Monica, wait.”

But she was already gone, leaving Ria and Lucas sitting at the breakfast table with cold food and colder truths.

“She’s getting worse,” Lucas said after a long silence.

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Chapter 124

“What do we

Ria looked at the mess their hes had become. Their father locked in his study

Margaret drinking herself into oblivion. Monica disappearing into some dark place they continward

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t know how

bx any of this

Monica sat on her bed staring at the art supplies scattered across ber desk. Paule uses the Colored pencils with tips that had grown dull from neglect. A half–brushed caturas downg

when the colors stopped making sense to her eyes.

Art had been her escape for as long as she could remember. When her parens fugir de fer prives yo gardens. When school stressed her out, she painted abstract swirls of color that beget cam ser mad he she used when regular words failed her.

But now, looking at the brushes and paints felt like staring at objects from another persons ide. Someone the set to Le could no longer remember how to become.

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. A text from Sarah Martinez: “Art cub meeting a 3 Ace you comm

Monica read the message three times before deleting it without responding Art dub head been her favorite pan of witcies, Every Tuesday and Thursday, she would spend two hours in the bright studio classroom, working on project with writer students who understood that sometimes pictures said more than words ever could

She hadn’t been to art club in three weeks.

The thought of walking into that room, of picking up a brush, of trying to create something beautiful when everything inside her felt broken and gray, it seemed impossible. Like asking someone with broken legs to run a marathon.

Her chest started tightening, the familiar squeeze that had been happening more and more often lately. Her breathing became shallow and quick. The room seemed to shrink around her, the walls prewing closer and closer until she felt trapped in a box that was getting smaller every second.

Monica wrapped her arms around her knees and tried to count her breaths like the counselor at school had taught hep In for four counts, hold for four, out for four. But the numbers got jumbled in her head, and the breathing technique that w supposed to help just made her feel more panicked.

Her heart hammered against her ribs like a bird trying to escape a cage. Sweat beaded on her forehead even though her room was cool. Her hands shook as she gripped her legs tighter, trying to hold herself together when everything felt like was falling apart.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered to her empty room. “I can’t keep doing this.”

The panic attack lasted fifteen minutes this time. When it finally ended, Monica felt drained and hollow, like someone had scooped out her insides and left only an empty shell. She lay down on her bed and pulled the covers over her head, blocking out the afternoon sunlight streaming through her windows.

Sleep didn’t come, but she stayed under the blankets anyway. It was easier than facing the world outside her room. Easier than pretending she was fine when every breath felt like work.

A knock on her door made her freeze. “Monica? It’s Ria. Can I come in?”

I’m sleeping. Monica called back, her voice muffled by the blankets.

4/7

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