Ping. Ping. Ping.

I wake up with a start, my eyelids flutter open and a groan slips past my lips as my gaze lands on the ceiling. The vibrations coming from under my pillow cease, I retrieve my phone to place it on the stool and my legs tangle in the sheets as I roll to my stomach.

No sooner does the phone hit the stool when another round of incessant vibrations start and I kick the air in anger. Glancing at Clarissa still asleep on her side of the bed with a hand over her eyes and snoring softly, I pick the annoying device without unlocking it.

I am doing my best to stay away from social media, the constant buzz and unwanted updates. Whoever is calling better be worth the interruption from my peaceful, beauty sleep, the only time my mind allows me respite from a certain wickedly handsome man.

The number of notifications on my screen jolts me fully awake, I throw my legs over the bed and rub the back of my hand against my eyes. Sliding my feet into a pair of fluffy slippers, one of the many things Clarissa and I bought on our shopping spree a day ago, my heart hammers my chest and my hand lowers to tug on the hem of my nightgown.

I suck in my lower lip as I skim the pop ups on my screen, reluctant to open them.

Mails. Instagram notifications. Missed calls and texts. I blink and shake my head to clear the fog thickening in my brain from seeing strange numbers and messages from sites requesting an audience with me. There are so many of them. Too much. I spare another glance at Clarissa, we stayed up late, filling our bellies with the most impossible flavours of ice-cream and unhealthy snacks while reminiscing over our, mostly my new life.

Billionaire’s wife is what she called me, I scoff, as a joke but the words lashed at me and I visibly recoiled, remained mute minutes after her apology. I hate the title, the fact that she thought about it only reinforces his words about me being with him for my gain.

Those are big lies, yes, we married to help my family but circumstances have changed. I will rather be known as Brandon’s wife, the cream to his plain, bitter coffee. My chest falls, I stare at my feet with my fingers laced behind my neck. I don’t care about his wealth but him as a person. We need money but we will do just fine without billions of it.

Sighing softly, I massage my temples and cast a long look at the phone that had slipped through my fingers. What if the calls and texts are from Brandon? I sigh. I have left the fate of our marriage to him and a part of me, the one familiar with his callousness knows he’s not the caller. His rigidness and ability to go days, weeks without speaking to me has Joshua’s words ringing in my head but I refuse to give much thought to it.

I am not making a mistake.

The phone is cold against my palm, I didn’t think to get a case or screen protector for it. A sad smile takes over my lips as I inspect the phone like it was recently gifted to me, I run my fingers over the camera affixed at the upper left corner, then trace the apple logo. I wonder if I will have to return this and his other gifts if we end up breaking up.

I have half a closet of designer’s clothes, shoes, all thanks to him. Clothes I barely wear because they feel too fabulous for places like school, the diner and Clarissa’s apartment.

On closing my eyes, an image of him appears behind my shut eyelids. His brows crease, his lips curl into a scowl he tries to fight back after he finds out about my quick visit on foot to the thrift store. We went to donate some of my old clothes, but I couldn’t resist the urge to pay for the flowery patterned knee-length gown Clarissa held out to me.

Brandon is opposed to the idea of sharing and wearing people’s stuff, even if it’s only a day used. He won’t be found dead in a thrift store. Why share when you can buy it? For a man of his status, he can afford to buy what he wants but it is not the case for everyone.

In my opinion, some outfits will only ever be found at the thrift store, that too for cheap prices and great customer service. Drumming my feet into the new plush rug, I grip the edge of the bed and allow myself drown in my thoughts and endless possibilities.

At this point, I am tired of trying, of fighting for us, for him, for our marriage. My eyelids squeeze shut, I have every right to be. As a final year student, I should be more focused on rounding off with my grades and goals intact. But I have zoned out in classes more times in his absence than I have in my entire school year. I miss that man. I need him.

But I am tired.

A familiar heaviness sneaks into my heart. What will Ma say?

She will place her hands on her head, cry and ask me why we broke up over and over again. Pa will nod his support to me, try to calm her after her outburst which is borne out of the fact we have not recorded a single divorce in our family lineage. She will remind me about Pa and her, their arranged marriage that birthed me, but out of love.

At night, Pa will call me to the kitchen with a mug of whipped coffee and vanilla cupcakes on the round table. We will sit and have a long talk, I will cry, that’s for sure but he will pull me in for a long hug. He will promise to always support my decisions.

In the midnight, Ma will sneak into my bed to cuddle me and I will cry into her arms again while she rubs circles on the small of my back until I am okay. And I will be okay.

I want to think I will be, time will heal my heart because right now, I am not okay, I have no idea what it means to be okay. A piece of me is missing, that part of me he ripped off with his words and accusations. By taking off his rings and my wedding gift to him.

“Pick up,” Clarissa says, banging her fist into the bed with her face hidden in the pillow.

One look at the phone I must have thrown on the bed and I let out a sinister chuckle as I place it on her pillow. To think I promised to stay away from this device today.

Clarissa groans, I mumble an insincere apology, enjoying her discomfort as she blindly tries to snatch the phone from me. One swipe on my screen, another on the notification panel and my mouth drops at the number of followers I amassed in less than a day.

Fifteen thousand followers.

My head sways with this discovery, my fingers tap rapidly on my screen with my lip between my teeth. I used to model but it has been so long it feels like a lifetime ago.

Yanking my bonnet has my hair spilling over my shoulders, I release my breath and let out a curse after tapping on my last post from two months ago, refusing to believe the numbers before me. My fingers weave into my hair, I grab a fistful and bite on my lip.

The number of likes under my last post has tripled. There is nothing spectacular about the picture, even if there is, it doesn’t explain the surge. A picture of me squatting in my baggy trousers and a tank top, one hand on my knee and the other hovering above the concrete floor with my face pointed to the sky, basking in the evening sun shouldn’t be worth the attention of over nine thousand people.  People always strike poses like this.

Sunkissed, happy and single.

A smile flits to my face, a ray of happiness shines on me as I swipe right on my screen, soaking myself in nostalgia at the memories crashing over me. My heart slows at the comments under my caption, the first word stops my fingers. I shift my weight on the bed and suck in a sharp breath when I open the comment section to loads of hate and bitter comments. I gulp, folding my legs under me and my slippers drop to the floor.

Gold digger.

This is the comment that slices through my heart, I take a shaky breath, close my eyes and exhale slowly. She doesn’t know me, if she does, she won’t be typing shit like this.

A quick tour of her empty profile reveals nothing, her bio has only her sun sign and I let out a long hiss. We share the same sun sign—Sagittarius but I am smarter than this, she probably falls into the category of girls who blames their stupidity on their zodiac sign.

I swipe at my thankfully dry eyes, heave a sigh and block her after deleting the comment but her words are permanently etched in my brain, same with those on the first page of my screen. The surprising part of it all is the number of likes her comment generated.

Two thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine likes. I scoff and hit the love icon beside her comment, I might as well get her to three thousand. A sharp pain pierces my skull, I blink back tears and massage my temples, she is not worth it, I can’t let her get to me.

Without another thought, I put my account on private. I don’t want fame if it comes with this amount of hate from people who have not met me and might never. I was satisfied with my former followers, their good vibes, hype comments and positivity were enough.

But I don’t get it, what did I do to get noticed? I have been indoors for most of the week.

Closing my eyes, I let out a small sigh. I shouldn’t do it, my teeth cut through my lip to stop me from giving in to my curiosity but my fingers lead me to Bee’s page and a string of curses escape me. A makeup-free picture of me is the first thing I see, I let out a snicker stemming from a pit of bitterness. I finally made it to their front page, lucky me.

My heart riots, my nostrils flare and the corners of my lips twitch uncontrollably. I stare at a picture of me and Clarissa hanging from the white walls with our arms around our shoulders, grinning at the camera, then lower my gaze to the aged bean bag by the desk.

Piles of books sit atop the study table, all of them belonging to my former roommate. I spent a lot of hours there, Clarissa has always favoured studying on the bed with her texts propped on the pillow. For me, reading on the bed is the fastest way to fall asleep.

Our blue dainty palms prints on the wall has the corners of my lips curving in a familiar smile that causes warmth to embrace me. Memories spill over me, I touch my finger to the tip of my nose, the exact spot Clarissa had smeared blue paint all over. It was my idea to customise the otherwise, bland white walls with our paint-stained palms.

Covering my mouth to stifle my giggles, my shoulders sag when reality sneaks up on me.

If I am gracing Bee’s front page, one of two things must have happened. I sigh. Praise or slander with the latter likely to be the case. Nine out of ten of their posts are bad news.

Afraid to know my crimes, my finger lingers on the screen for less than a second before I plunge into a world of intricately woven ridicule aimed at me. My fingers tangle in my hair, I lick my lips, take a deep breath and read out loud the first line of the blog post.

Who is she?

Looking up to the ceiling, words swirl in my head and I try to think of an answer to that.

Who am I?

A simple girl who misses her husband and wants to live her life without the spotlight. A final year student who hopes to graduate top of her class and start her business as soon as possible. A sucker for romance, happy ending, family and lover of all things sugary.

Clarissa makes no sound as my back connects with the pillow resting on the headboard to support my weight. My arms wrap around my ankle, a smile fleets to my lips as my cheek presses into my knee. I stare at my black screen, hesitant but curiosity trumps logic, soon, my screen lights up to reveal shitload of information that sounds nothing like Elna.

Of course, they will never put up the truth, it will bore their shallow-minded, dedicated audience. So, they spin a tale so juicy yet rigged with lies and half-baked truths gotten from their trusted but undisclosed source. I roll my eyes at my age, they have it wrong.

The article is broken into parts, with pictures to support lines and lines of lies.

That familiar image of Brandon smiling at my car is back on their page but the focus is on a blurred image of my Audi. An Audi that shows up in their next slide to support the theories of my short-term relationship with Brandon. But first, they dissect the incident at the diner.

The Audi is mentioned again, linked to me and I let out a grateful sigh seeing the red circles made where our heads should be, they didn’t get clear images of us. I snicker at their explanations for our standoff, Brandon’s reason for storming out, Josh too.

Rubbing my hand on my legs, my head throbs at their obvious lies, they are fishing for facts I won’t give them, let them get it from their source. I straighten up at the next picture. Josh.

Our proximity betrays the anger laced in my eyes, to an outsider we look like lovers about to kiss. I scoff, they do a good job of fooling their readers. That thought vanishes at Joshua’s label, he is not identified as Brandon’s brother which has that niggling fear returning to tease me but as my latest conquest after playing with the billionaire’s feelings.

They support this with more blurry pictures of them storming out of the diner after finding out they had been conned. I blink at the intimate pictures from our honeymoon, heat floods my body at the memory of his lips pressed to my cheek with my hair billowing in the wind.

Joshua is given the spotlight for the next few seconds, I whistle at his net worth, surprised and shocked. He has that much money to his name. I sigh. I don’t know who, what is real?

Most of his wealth comes from inheritance, the same thing with Brandon but they fail to disclose his family. I doubt they know it. Massaging the kink in my neck, I take note of the fact they address Josh by Brandon’s maiden name, it is why I never guessed they were siblings. Since we share the same last name, I close my eyes and block out his voice. They don’t and he doesn’t even know that. When was the last time they spoke or he saw his family?

I try not to think of the reason for their strong hate, it is none of my business. Maybe it is.

Done with Joshua, they continue their analysis, comparing them and my taste in men. Arms wrap around me from the side, Clarissa tucks her head into the crook of my neck. I mumble a greeting to her, moving the phone out of her reach should she try to snatch it from me.

She does nothing and my eyes return to my phone, bad idea but I can’t stop. If I can see this, millions of others can too. People who will believe every line of falsehood they read here.

They didn’t use words like gold diggers but it was implied. My love for money and the finer things of life with a summary of my parents struggling business to explain my desperate need for funds. I scoff at the next paragraph, Brandon dared to love and I broke his heart.

Did they read this before publishing? I shake my head, this is utter balderdash. Don’t they have people to go through this well-written jargon? They are pretending to be experts where my husband is concerned, throwing theories left, right and centre with pictures.

Do they know about his long term obsession with unsweetened coffee? Or, his love for dark chocolates? Or, about his occasional tossing on the bed, the tightening of his arms around my waist in the aftermath of a nightmare he never talks about? What do they know?

They have the guts to feign concern for Joshua, with my unquenchable thirst for the good life, I might empty his pockets and move on to the next rich man without remorse. There is nothing on my presidency, achievements except for a one-line mention of my failed short term modelling career. My teeth sink into my lip until the sharp metallic taste of blood floods my senses. I left of my volition, it was one of those things I did to meet my needs.

Their timeline is warped but they manage to make it work, using it to explain Brandon’s new habit of shuffling women as a coping mechanism. I groan. God. How far will they go?

He is nursing a heartbreak. What? Healing is difficult for him. How? I am the one losing my mind here. He left. My head spins from all the lies, they are convinced my date with Joshua was borne out of spite because Brandon went on a date the morning of the same day.

A hollow sound pierces the air, I realise the sound is coming from me after my shoulders stop trembling and I yank my hair from the roots, welcoming the mild pain. I don’t get it.

I am the one hurting but they still label me the bad guy. Why?

“You should stop reading,” Clarissa says, no attempt to take my phone. I would have let her.

My eyes fall on her head resting on my shoulder. “Have you seen this?”

The ensuing silence is the only answer I get. I nod, she is right.

Her arms tighten around my waist to offer comfort I badly need, I squeeze her hand. We stay that way until I summon the courage to exit the app and uninstall all things related to social media on my phone.

My fingers hover above the green WhatsApp icon, against my better judgement, I open the app. His chat is pinned to the top, I do a double-take when a message pops in from him.

Hey.

Wicked, malicious laughter takes over me, tears roll down my eyes, I shake my head and Clarissa sits up to ask what is wrong. I wave her concern off and open the message, staring long and hard at those three letters. It took a scandalous article on his wife or whatever I am to him at this point to reach out to me, a stupid gossip blog.

Even our anniversary wasn’t good enough reason for him to call or text me.

I inhale feverishly and lean on her for emotional support. With my emotions now under control, I take another look at the phone, block him, then proceed to delete the app.