Andrea's mastery of manipulation was endless, a dark art she wielded with precision. She wove lies into their lives, isolating Bennett from friends, driving wedges between him and those who had once stood by him. "Your friends don't understand us," she would murmur, as if letting him in on some intimate secret. Slowly, surely, he became estranged from the world outside their home, his life shrinking until only Andrea's voice remained.
And then, the ultimate betrayal: the whispers that painted Bennett as a villain. She called him reckless, claimed he was a danger to their children, even hinting at his supposed addiction to substances he had never touched. "He's unstable," she told their friends, her voice cloaked in concern. With each lie, she tightened her grip, suffocating him beneath a veil of falsehoods that left him floundering in isolation.
He tried to confront her, but Andrea wore her victimhood like armor, deflecting every accusation, twisting every truth. Her tears were weapons, her cries calculated to shatter any shred of his defenses. And each time he rose to defend himself, she cast him down with a smirk hidden beneath her mask of sorrow.