Chapter 9: The Breaking Point

She started up again.

Her voice rose, shrill and unyielding. The officers ushered her into a private room, but her shouting carried through the walls. My head ached with every word.

I spent the whole afternoon at the station with the mother making a scene, wasting over five hours.

I sat on the plastic chair, numb, watching the clock crawl past noon, then three, then dinner. My stomach growled, but I ignored it. Derek brought me a vending machine Coke and a stale bag of chips. The officers apologized, but there was nothing they could do.

After briefly meeting Derek that night, I went home.

He drove me, making sure no one followed. The neighborhood was quiet, but every shadow felt dangerous. I double-checked every lock before finally collapsing into bed, too tired to dream.

The next day, while tidying up my shop—

I picked up broken glass, swept away wilted flowers, tried to make the place look like it hadn’t been the center of a hurricane. The bell above the door jangled, and I braced myself.

The mother suddenly barged in with her child, shoving a phone in my face, filming: “Everyone, look! This is the scumbag shop owner who molested my three-year-old daughter!”

She waved the phone wildly, narrating in real time to her followers. I raised my hands, stepping back, trying to keep my voice calm.

She smashed up my shop, forcing me to admit to molesting her daughter.

She knocked over chairs, swept cups off the counter, screamed at me to confess. I told her over and over—I didn’t do it.

I said I didn’t do it.

She shouted, “My daughter already said it was you who took her to the basement, took off her pants, and slapped her!”

I said, “We don’t have a basement.”

She glared at me, fists clenched, as if I was gaslighting her. I gestured to the floor—solid concrete, no hidden doors, no stairs.

“Then! Then it’s the second floor!”

I shook my head. “There’s no second floor either.”

“Then it’s the storeroom! Anyway, it was you. If it wasn’t you, then who molested her?”

Her voice was a fever pitch. I could hear customers outside, unsure whether to come in or run away.

She screamed hysterically.

The words blurred together, rage overwhelming logic. The little girl hid behind a stack of boxes, clutching her bunny to her chest.

The girl cowered behind her, clutching her clothes, trembling all over. “Sob sob, mommy… mommy…”

My heart broke for her. She didn’t ask for any of this. She just wanted her mom, her home, her peace.

I suddenly felt so sorry for the little girl.

She looked at me with big, scared eyes. I wanted to tell her everything would be okay, but I didn’t believe it myself.

“Why? Does someone have to have molested your daughter? Can’t she just be safe and sound?” I asked the mother.

The question was half plea, half accusation. My voice cracked, but I didn’t care. I just wanted the madness to end.

She squinted at me. “She’s my daughter—of course I want her to be safe! But she was molested!”

She spat the words like gospel truth, her conviction unshakable. The customers outside turned away, shaking their heads.

She trashed my entire shop, then made her daughter identify me at the door.

She grabbed the girl’s arm, dragging her to the threshold. The little one sobbed, clinging to the doorframe, refusing to look at me.

At the entrance, the mother pinched the girl hard, making her cry in pain.

The girl yelped, her sobs rising in pitch. I took a step forward, but the mother blocked me, phone still rolling.

The mother was satisfied and raised her phone.

She panned over the scene, narrating, “See? As soon as we got here, she started crying. She knows what he did.”

“Today I brought my daughter to identify him. As soon as she got to this shop, she refused to go any further, crying the whole time.”

She posted the video, the girl’s sobs echoing in the background. The comments poured in, more hateful than ever.

Sure enough, after she got home, she posted this staged video online.

I watched the notifications roll in, my stomach twisting with every ping. The hate was relentless, drowning out every plea for reason.

The video went viral again.

It landed on the front page of Reddit, was clipped for TikTok, even made the local evening news. I watched my own life unravel, powerless to stop it.

The girl’s timid sobbing made me look even more like a monster.

I became a meme—a villain in a story that would never be mine to control. I watched myself disappear beneath the weight of lies.

People online furiously pounded their keyboards, driven by a sense of justice, launching a relentless torrent of abuse at me.

They organized boycotts, started petitions, called for my arrest. The shop was vandalized nightly. My friends stopped coming by. I was utterly alone.

At this point, the police station notified me that the case had been officially opened.

An officer called, voice clipped and businesslike. The investigation was now criminal, and I was at the center.

Derek saw my shop smashed to pieces, patted my shoulder, and said, “Man, the second half of this year..."

He trailed off, jaw working, voice thick with emotion. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, squeezing hard. For the first time in months, I let myself cry, the weight of everything crashing down on both of us. Outside, a police cruiser idled, lights spinning in the dusk, promising nothing but more questions and a long, uncertain road ahead. Somewhere down the block, a phone camera caught it all. Tomorrow, there’d be a new headline. But tonight, I was still standing. For now.