The Cruelty of Cheapness

The Cruelty of Cheapness
Then… a chant at my apartment door started…
It was a challenges.
No sleep tonight…
The chant was unmistakable now, bleeding through the thin veil of the night like a wound reopening.
“Heartless… cold…”
“Liam’s broken toy…”
The cadence was cruel, their voices mocking, perfectly synchronized as if rehearsed. It was theatrical, meant for one audience… me.
My whole body went rigid. I shoved the covers off, my feet already hitting the floor. “They won’t do this in my home,” I hissed, fire blazing in my chest. “They can’t stand there and sing about me like I’m some… some joke…”
Vivienne’s hand shot out, gripping my wrist like iron. She had barely moved all night, but now her strength startled me. “Stop.”
“Stop?” My voice broke on the word. “Do you hear them? They’re up there, mocking me… mocking everything…”
Her gaze was steady, her jaw locked. “This is exactly what they want.”
“I don’t care what they want!” I snapped, shoving against her hand, but she didn’t let go. My mother… who had spent years keeping distance between us… now held on as though her life depended on it.
“You should care,” she said evenly, her tone sharp enough to cut. “Because if you go out there now… half-dressed, furious, trembling… they will have won before you open your mouth. They will leave with more than your silence. They’ll leave with your humiliation.”
The words landed like stones. I froze, my chest heaving.
The chanting rose again, louder now, almost gleeful.
Vivienne leaned closer, her voice a whisper meant only for me. “I’ve watched you fight battles until there was nothing left of you. But tonight, you do not fight. Tonight, you let them spend their breath shouting at shadows. Because the silence they’ll meet… that is stronger than rage.”
I bit down hard, my teeth grinding. My body shook with the need to storm out, to scream, to force them to stop. Every nerve in me was a fuse, burning, ready to explode. But my mother’s hand… her rare, unrelenting hand… anchored me.
The bedroom door creaked open.
“Are you hearing that?” Celia’s voice cracked with disbelief, followed quickly by Beatrix’s sharper, composed tone: “We both heard it. They’re from the rooftop terrace.”
I turned, still trembling. Celia padded inside, her hair mussed, her eyes wide with fear. Behind her, Beatrix glided in like a queen unbothered by the hour, though her eyes glittered with calculation.
“They’re mocking you,” Celia whispered, wringing her hands. “Your breakup, Liam, everything. Like… like they planned it.”
“They did plan it,” Beatrix said coolly, closing the door behind her. She stood in her silk robe, not a single line of her posture breaking. “This is no drunken accident. This is staged. A message.” Her gaze cut to me. “They want to paint you as fragile. To make you rise to their bait and prove them right.”
Her calmness enraged me more than the voices. “So I’m supposed to just sit here? Pretend it’s not happening?”
“Yes,” my mother answered at the same time Beatrix did. Their voices overlapped, one gentle, one like a blade.
I laughed, bitter and hollow. “Of course. Just sit here. Let them sing about me as if I were a corpse they can dance on.”
Beatrix stepped forward, her eyes sharp. “Child… ”
“I’m not a child!” I snapped, glaring at her.
“No,” she said, her voice low, deliberate. “You are a woman. Which is precisely why you cannot afford to act like one ruled by temper. They expect fury. They expect screaming. They expect you to claw at the door and prove every lyric of their little chant true.”
Her words stabbed deeper than I cared to admit.
Celia, standing near the edge of the bed, hugged herself tighter. “But… but it’s cruel. They can’t just… they can’t…” Her eyes filled with tears, her body trembling almost as much as mine.
Beatrix turned her gaze toward Celia, softer now. “They can, darling. Because cruelty is cheap. It costs nothing to perform. But dignity? Restraint? Those cost blood.”
The chanting grew harsher, their voices climbing like wolves baying at the moon.
“Heartless!”
“Cold!”
My stomach twisted. Every word was a dagger, each syllable a reminder of Liam, of everything shattered. My nails dug crescents into my palms. “I can’t listen to this,” I whispered.
“You can,” Vivienne said, her voice steady. Her hand still held mine, firm, unshakable. “And you will. Because silence will hurt them more than a scream.”
Tears burned hot in my eyes, sliding down my cheeks unchecked. My lips trembled. “I hate this. I hate them.”
“I know.” She pulled me closer until my forehead rested against her shoulder. For the first time in years, she rocked me… just barely, enough to remind me of something I thought I had lost forever. “But hatred doesn’t build anything. Let them waste their energy in song. We’ll keep ours for tomorrow.”
I swallowed back the sob threatening to rise, my whole body shaking.
Celia stepped closer, her voice trembling but resolute. “Then let’s wait together. All of us. If they want her to feel alone, then we’ll make sure she doesn’t.” She slid onto the other side of the bed, curling against me.
Beatrix watched, her expression unreadable. Then, with a slow breath, she moved toward the chair in the corner and sat, crossing her legs with the elegance of someone who had faced courts and wars. “Then so be it,” she murmured. “Let them sing. They’ll tire eventually.”
The four of us waited.
Their voices rose and fell, cruel refrains looping endlessly, like vultures circling overhead. The minutes dragged like hours. Every word chipped at my walls, but every breath beside me… Vivienne’s steady hand, Celia’s trembling presence, even Beatrix’s silent watch—built them back again, brick by fragile brick.
When at last the outside fell silent, it wasn’t triumph I felt, but exhaustion. My head ached, my chest raw, my body limp against the bed.
“They’ve gone,” Beatrix said, standing with a predator’s grace. “For now.”
Celia let out a shuddering breath. “I thought they’d never stop.”
Vivienne smoothed my hair back, her eyes softer than I’d seen them in years. “They stopped because they didn’t get what they wanted. Remember that.”
I nodded weakly, my throat too raw for words.
Beatrix’s gaze lingered on me, sharp but almost approving. “You did well, Miss X. Better than I expected.”
I wanted to tell her it hadn’t felt like strength, only survival. But her words held weight, and in some fragile corner of me, I clung to them.
Celia curled closer, whispering, “You weren’t alone.”
And for the first time in years, as the night finally thinned toward morning, I believed her.
Then…
A pounding at the door. an a heavy shouting…
They are back.