Weird Coworker Spread Marriage Gift-Money Rumors, I Raged

After the engagement, I went back to work and handed out celebratory candy to my coworkers.

Amid all the congratulations, one voice cut in out of nowhere.

There's no point marrying a man you don't love.

Marrying a man I don't love?

I didn't get it, and I looked over at the coworker who'd said it.

He wore a smile that wasn't a smile.

"You want the car, the house, the wedding gift money before you'll agree to marry him and be with him."

"And after the wedding, with that marriage certificate, you could walk away with more than half of everything he owns in a divorce."

"But Sister Three doesn't want the car, doesn't want the house, doesn't want the money. She's willing to be with your husband just as he is."

"And if she and your husband split up, she couldn't take a single cent of his."

"You're in it for money. Sister Three isn't. So tell me, do you really love your husband?"

1.

I froze for a second, not catching what he meant.

But in the cluster of male coworkers beside him, three of them caught on fast.

"Huh? You know what... he's kind of right!"

"Yeah! Marriage, true love, wanting this and that! Sister Three, who everyone loves to trash, wants nothing at all!"

"So-called true love is in it for money, not the man. Sister Three's in it for the man, not the money!"

Over the three men's marveling, the coworker spoke again.

"And studies have actually found that the kids Sister Three has for a man are more likely to be his than the kids his own legal wife has for him!"

"So you tell me, who's the man's true love?"

His eyes turned to me, taunting.

"So like I said, you don't love your husband, you're only in it for money, there's no reason for you to marry him, no reason to ruin his life."

I looked at the coworker in front of me, the one named Adam Cannon, his eyes daring me to react.

I looked at the three men egging him on.

And it finally clicked, late.

My brows drew together, my face went hard, and my voice came out cold.

"Quit spouting garbage. I"

I didn't finish. Adam cut me off again.

"Just curious. Legally speaking, after you're married it's not a crime whose kids you have."

"So are you planning to have your husband's kids? Or some kids for whatever men you've got on the side?"

He finished his little speech and immediately laughed, pleased with himself.

Before I took time off for the engagement, the boss had come to find me.

He'd had a document in his hand, glancing quickly left and right.

Then he stopped at my desk, the nearest one, and pointed at the numbers on the page.

"Take a look. Are these payment figures right?"

I skimmed it quickly, front to back, and answered him.

"Based on past projects, the amount on this one is on the high side."

The moment I said it, the boss suddenly picked the document back up, spun, and flung it at Adam, who'd been trailing behind him.

"And you told me the payments were normal."

"Anyone off the street could see it's too high!"

"Take it back and redo it. Find a new supplier!"

Adam caught the document against his chest and ducked his head, meek.

"Yes, I'll go fix it right now"

His voice was all sincerity.

But the instant the boss turned away, his eyes went vicious, glaring straight at me.

We'd been at the same company for years, but I didn't really know him, and we'd never had a problem.

When he opened his mouth just now, once I understood, this whole scene came right back to me.

The boss had come to me on his own.

The boss had found the problem.

I hadn't known the how or the why of it.

I'd told the truth.

And in the end, he was the one who got chewed out, the one who had to redo the document.

By any measure, none of that was my fault.

But he was sitting on all that resentment.

He didn't dare take it out on the boss, so he took it out on me, on purpose, right when I was this happy, just to make my skin crawl.

I stopped him cold, and that little thought of "we're all coworkers, better to let a big thing shrink into a small one" vanished completely.

I folded my arms and stared him down.

"My husband and I paid for the car and the house together."

"Whatever he gives for the wedding gift, I match it with my dowry. It all goes into our home, and we build our home together."

"If you think I'm bleeding my husband dry, you're worrying way too much."

Adam let out a scoff.

"Sounds nice, but really"

I'd already given him his chance to read the room and shut up.

He hadn't taken it.

Now it was his turn to shut up and mine to talk.

I cut him off flat.

"You make Serena sound so good, so noble, so pure-heartedwants nothing but the person themselves."

"So how come you don't have one on your arm?"

"Serena only wants the person, right? Unless"

I paused on purpose and looked him up and down.

"you're not a person? You're an animal?"

Laughter broke out all around us.

And it wasn't only the female coworkers beside me, the ones who'd been frowning at Adam's twisted logic.

Even the male coworkers were laughing.

I turned to the three men who'd jumped in earlier to back Adam upand they were laughing too.

"Hm? What about you three?"

The three of them caught my meaning at once.

The grins froze on their faces. Their mouths opened, but nothing came out.

All they could do was shuffle back a couple of awkward steps, putting more distance between themselves and Adam.

Adam's face went dark. He glanced at the empty space around him and shot me a vicious glare.

"Who the hell are you calling not a person, calling an animal!"

"Gold-digging bitch, I called out that you married for money, and now you're humiliated and going after me personally!"

Me, going after him personally?

What a joke.

Memory of a goldfishseven seconds and it's gone?

Already forgot what he said a minute ago?

And I hadn't attacked him one bit.

I'd only followed his own logic, gone right along with him, and turned his words back on him with a question.

"You said the child a woman like Serena bears is more likely to be the man's biological child than the wife's"

"So what about you? Are you your father's biological son?"

I stepped forward, each word landing hard.

"If not, then whose seed are you?"

"And if you are, then what does that make your mother"

I didn't even finish. Louder laughter erupted.

"Hahaha, he picked up a rock and dropped it on his own foot!"

"If he's not his dad's, then he's a bastard!"

"If he is his dad's, then his mom's a woman like Serena!"

"Either way he's screwed!"

"Hahaha, he set out to disgust and corner Layla, couldn't manage it, and made a fool of himself instead!"

"Serves him right. Spewing garbage right after Layla got engaged, when she's this happyserves him right!"

The coworkers who'd been annoyed earlier didn't bother to hide what they said.

Adam's face went darker still, his eyes brimming with venom.

He whipped his hand up and swung a slap straight at me, hard.

"Screw you, filthy bitch!"

"You're the goddamn bastard, your mother's the one like Serena!"

Chewed out by the boss, sitting on a bellyful of resentment, picking the soft persimmon to squeeze, spewing filth at me right out in the open.

A working professional.

At this point it was already way over the line. This was open war.

What I never expected was that Adam, this freak, would actually dare to lay hands on me.

Caught off guard, I flinched back on instinct and barely dodged in time.

Adam's slap hit nothing, and he still wasn't done.

He actually came after me, another slap!

"Filthy mouth on you!"

"I'll beat your mouth to a pulp, teach you to keep it filthy!"

My eyes went cold.

None of the shock from the first slap this timeI threw my arm up at once.

My forearm slammed hard into Adam's wrist as the slap came down.

A dull "crack."

My forearm went numb instantly, and Adam's slap stopped dead.

He looked at his own halted hand and still wasn't finished.

He shot his hand out, going for my hair.

If he didn't get to "teach me a lesson," he wouldn't rest.

But it was too late.

Given a chance and he didn't take itI wasn't about to go easy on him.

I drove my knee up hard, straight into Adam's groin.

A high, agonized howl tore out of him.

Adam's hand, already reaching to grab a fistful of my hair, jerked, then snatched back.

The same hand that had slapped me pulled back too.

He dropped with a thud, curled up on his knees, both hands clutched over his groin.

The crowd of coworkers gasped and instinctively fell back a step.

Then, catching up to what had happened, they surged in again.

A few of the women I was close with grabbed my hand, checking it, tense.

"Layla, are you okay? He didn't hurt you, did he"

"Your forearm's all red and swollen. He put everything into that slap!"

"This guy's actually sick! He started it, he lost the argument, and he still has the nerve to throw hands!"

The three men who'd been backing Adam up crowded around him.

They stole nervous glances at me, hesitated, then gave his shoulder a little push.

"You you okay? How are you doing"

Before they finished, Adam, seemingly already recovering a little, snapped his head up.

His face was twisted, teeth clenched viciously, glaring straight at me.

That look said he wasn't done.

Right then a male coworker stepped in between me and Adam.

He raised his hand, pointed at the camera in the corner of the ceiling, then pointed at me.

"You hit him too hard. You're in the wrong."

Then he pointed at Adam.

"You started it, you kept pushing it further, and you threw the first punch. You're in the wrong."

"Keep this up, let it blow up, and the two of you and all of us standing around watching are going to get burned."

"There's no point."

Adam wasn't hearing any of it.

"Screw her! She hit me where it counts. I'm not letting this bitch off after that"

He didn't finish the shout before the coworker cut him off.

"Hit you where it counts? And you're back on your feet in under thirty seconds?"

"Fine, fight then. Go on, keep fighting. I'll go get the boss right now."

"I'll 'make up for my part,' clear my own name out of it."

"You two can beat each other bloody, and none of it touches me."

He finished and turned to go.

Adam, mid-curse, still had his mouth open.

But suddenly there was no sound coming out.

The coworker glanced at him, stopped, then looked over at me, sizing me up.

He paused.

"Good. No more of this. It ends here."

"Break it up, break it up. Nothing happened. Nothing happened."

He waved his arms, scattering the crowd.

A few of the women shot Adam a hard glare and pulled me away.

Adam had picked this particular day on purpose.

Used arguments so absurdly, indefensibly wrong even he couldn't walk them back, all to attack me.

And in the end it had escalated to a fight, one that only barely got stopped.

There was no way he'd just let it go.

I stayed on guard against him.

I figured he'd act up again fast, come after me again.

But for two straight days, nothing.

On the work we had to coordinate on, he didn't trip me up once.

He just wore a sour face.

Had he changed?

Had the boss, had the office cameras really cowed him?

And just as I was puzzling over why nothing was happening on my end, something happened on my mother's.

At the factory where she worked, one of the production lines came down with a roar.

In the deafening crash, I watched the dust billow up into the air, and my heart lurched.

I called my mother in a panic.

The call had barely rung once when a woman grabbed my arm.

"You you're Serena's daughter?"

"Yes, it really is you, oh no, your mother"

Her finger pointed at the center of all that rising dust.

"Your mother, she she's still in there!"

I'd seen her beforeshe worked with my mom!

The production line collapsed

My mom's coworker said my mom was still inside

The thing I feared most had actually happened.

A high ringing filled my ears, and the whole world went silent.

I lost it. I bolted straight for the entrance.

Two security guards swung in front of me and grabbed hold.

Their mouths opened and shut in big, exaggerated shapes.

"What are you doing"

"Stop you can't go in"

But no sound reached me.

I fought with everything I had, shoved them off hard.

Dust rolled out to meet me, and I plunged inside.

Everything went black at once, only a blur in front of my eyes.

Powdered grit choked my nose, and I could barely breathe.

I didn't care.

I forced my throat wide open and screamed with everything in me.

"Mom Mom"

"Where are you"

"Can you hear me it's me Layla"

"Mom"

My throat burned, and my voice came back to my own ears.

I heard it slowly grow louder.

I heard it shaking, thick with crying.

The sound dragged my despair up out of me.

All this wreckage, and my mom was inside it, she

I couldn't let myself think it. My voice shook harder, more terrified, and I screamed louder still.

There was movement behind meseveral guards charged in, flashlights blazing.

"Get out! Get the hell out!"

"You think you can just walk into the factory floor?!"

"Get out!"

Just as the guards were forcing me toward the exit, a familiar voice reached me.

"Lay is that Lay?"

"How are you here?"

Weak, faint.

But in this silent ruin, it stood out clear as day.

I knew it.

It was my mom's voice.

I snatched a flashlight out of a guard's hand and aimed it toward the sound.

Out of the dark, my mom took shape.

She was covered in dust, her hair a tangled mess.

One arm hung limp, blood dripping from her fingertips.

I broke free of the guards and rushed to her.

My mom looked at me, gave a small shake of her head, the corner of her mouth straining upward.

I knew she was trying to tell me she was fine, that I shouldn't worry.

But the shake of her head was so small it was almost invisible.

And in the end, the corner of her mouth never made it into a smile.

My heart clenched and lurched up into my throat.

I held up my mom's weak body

I led her out of that choking cloud of dust

I took her to the hospital

Registering, the tests, getting her settled

The whole way there, I kept praying inside.

Praying her injured hand wasn't serious.

Praying she had no internal injuries, that she'd be okay, please.

Over the pounding of my heart, the doctor came to the bedside holding the scans.

His eyes moved to my mom on the bed, then to me beside it.

"Aside from the fractured arm and the scraped forearm, there are no other external injuries"

"She needs to rest, absolutely no strain!"

"She's getting on in years. A sudden shock like this is hard on the heart and the mind."

The knot in my chest loosened all at once, and I let out a long breath.

She was okay. My mom was okay.

She'd come around a little by then.

Now she was looking at me, guilt all over her face.

"I I made you worry"

What nonsense was that.

"As long as you're okay."

"What happened? Why were you in there?"

"Weren't we setyou take the afternoon off, I come pick you up, and we go celebrate your birthday?"

My mom's eyes went hazy for a second, then she spoke.

"I asked for half a day off, and the supervisor wasn't happy. Said I was holding up the work"

"He told me that before I left, I had to go check the line one more time."

"I did what he said, went and looked, checked it over"

"I'd just stepped in, and suddenly suddenly"

My mom stopped, and a shudder ran through her.

"I don't know what happened. The machine started up on its own."

"Before I could even understand what was going on, there was this hum, and it just"

"The whole thing shook once, and then it came down with a crash!"