"Harvey!" Evelyn's cry pierced the air. She surged through the crowd and threw herself into Harvey's arms, embracing him tightly. "My son! You've suffered so much!" Cupping his face in her trembling hands, tears streamed down her own as she choked out, "Look at you... look at what you've been through. I thought I'd lost you!" She then dissolved into uncontrollable sobs.
Then, with sudden viciousness, Evelyn's gaze snapped to me. Her finger shot out, trembling with rage as she pointed straight at me. "You! You don't know how much he's suffered! He was trapped in there and you, his wife, wouldn't even open the door!"
The crowd stirred uneasily, murmurs rippling through them like a rising tide. "Look at the kind of woman he married!" Evelyn's voice cut through the growing unease. "She's just standing there, waiting for him to die!"
Several people turned their cameras toward me, their lenses gleaming with the eagerness to capture my reaction. I could feel their eyes bore into me—cold, accusing, relentless. I stood still, my face an unreadable mask, refusing to shrink under their stares.
"Come on, everyone, take a good look at this heartless woman!" a man shouted.
"She wouldn't even unlock the door!" another voice added, laced with disgust.
"This is horrifying. She probably hoped her husband would burn to death in there."
"She's probably got another man," someone muttered darkly. "Why else would she act like this?"
The whispers swelled, a torrent of cruel accusations, each one more ridiculous and cutting than the last. Harvey, still leaning heavily on Lucia, lifted his head slightly. His face was pale, his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. He stared at me, his expression a mixture of confusion and pain.
"Maya..." His voice was weak, barely audible over the crowd's noise. Lucia, her arm still supporting him, looked at me with bitter scorn.
"If I had been a moment later," she spat out, her tone sharp, "he might've been burned alive. If he'd died, would you have been satisfied then?"
"Hmph! I think she's been plotting to kill my son all along!" Evelyn shrieked, her face contorted with rage. Her wild eyes darted between me and the crowd as though searching for allies. "Who knows what kind of woman she really is? That fire—maybe she set it herself!"