My Ex-Ugly Girlfriend's Mother Part 1 | STORY

Alex had always thought he was untouchable. Twenty-eight, ripped from endless hours training clients at the upscale gym downtown, with that cocky smile that got him whatever – and whoever – he wanted. Mia had been one of those “whoevers.” Nineteen, sweet, a little shy, with big eyes that looked at him like he hung the moon. They’d dated for three months – long enough for her to fall hard, short enough for him to get bored.

The breakup was brutal. He did it over text, because he didn’t want to deal with the tears.

*“Look, Mia, you’re just… not hot anymore. You’re kinda ugly now, honestly. I don’t want to be with you. Don’t message me again.”*

He hit send, tossed his phone on the passenger seat, and drove to the gym like nothing had happened.

He never saw the woman watching from across the street.

Vanessa was thirty-eight, divorced once, and fiercely protective of her only daughter. When Mia came home sobbing, phone clutched in shaking hands, Vanessa read the messages. Every cruel word. She felt something cold and sharp coil in her chest. She didn’t scream. She didn’t cry. She just memorized Alex’s face from the gym selfie Mia still had saved, and waited.

Three days later, she found him.

Alex was locking up late, gym bag slung over his shoulder, whistling as he walked to his car down a quiet side street. Vanessa stepped out from the shadows in front of him, heels clicking sharply on the pavement. Tall – taller than him in her stilettos – with long dark hair and a body that turned heads even when she wasn’t furious. Tonight she was furious.

He stopped, smirking. “Can I help you?”

“You’re Alex,” she said. Not a question.

“Yeah… do I know you?”

“You know my daughter. Mia.”

His smirk faltered. “Oh. Shit. Look, lady—”

Vanessa didn’t let him finish. She lifted one manicured hand, fingers snapping once. A strange shimmer rippled through the air, like heat rising off asphalt. Alex felt the world lurch, his stomach dropping as everything around him expanded impossibly fast. The ground rushed up. His gym bag crashed down like a falling building. When the dizziness cleared, he was staring up – way up – at Vanessa’s enormous face looming above him like a vengeful goddess...