Then came the rumors.
He told mutual friends I had killed his cat.
At first I laughed because we had never owned a cat. I am severely allergic. Once, years earlier, Ethan had insisted we consider fostering a kitten because “it would make the house feel warmer,” and I had responded by sneezing for twenty straight minutes in a pet store parking lot just from being near the adoption event. The idea that I had secretly murdered a feline that had never existed should have discredited him instantly.
Some people still believed it.
That was the exhausting part. Not the stupidity of the lie, but the willingness of people to accept anything if it helped them maintain the version of a charming man they had always preferred.
Finally, when outrage, slander, and attempted entry failed, Ethan reached for the oldest trick of a drowning man.
Pity.
He called my mother.