Author: Momo Chan

On our first wedding anniversary, Alex released the collection I had spent three grueling months designing – under Daphne’s name. The applause in the grand ballroom was deafening, a physical wave of sound that made the champagne in my glass tremble. On stage, Alex held her hand as they bowed, their smiles perfectly synchronized, dazzling. They looked like a pair of porcelain lovers atop a wedding cake. And there I stood, buried in the middle of the crowd, wearing the simple gold wedding band he’d slipped onto my finger a year ago. His words from that night whispered in my ear, a quiet, repetitive loop: “Let’s keep us a secret for now, Donna.” It sounded like a cruel joke now. Everyone who knew the truth – or at least, the tiny fraction of our lives he allowed to slip through the cracks – probably expected me to storm the stage. To scream. To claw back what was mine. Instead, a strange, cool sense of relief washed over me. If only he had told me sooner. If I had known he was going to hand my soul to her on a silver platter, I wouldn’t have spent the last week agonizing over my resignation letter. My quiet defection to his rival company wouldn’t have carried even a shred of guilt. … The launch event was a masterclass in corporate glamour. Alex stood at the center of the stage, his deep voice carrying through the microphone with practiced ease. “The Orbit Collection represents a new dawn for Aura Luxe, co-created with the brilliant vision of Ms. Daphne Humbert. Today, we officially present it to the world.” The flashbulbs erupted, a blinding wall of white light. Daphne stood beside him, wearing the bespoke silk dress I had pinned by hand, and the emerald necklace I had spent weeks sketching. She waved to the crowd, her smile sweet and modest. The audience was instantly charmed. “She’s incredibly talented!” a woman near me whispered. “Right? Beautiful, brilliant, and clearly born for this. Some people just have it all.” “And look at the way Alex looks at her. They are absolutely gorgeous together.” I stood just outside the warm glow of the spotlight, listening to the murmurs, my face completely blank. Beside me, two young women in cocktail dresses turned to look me up and down. One of them let out a quiet, disparaging laugh. “Look, isn’t that Alex’s quiet cousin from upstate?” “Oh, her. I heard she practically begged for an internship at Aura Luxe and just refuses to leave.” “She should look in a mirror. Does she really think she can climb her way into his circle like that? Delusional.” Their voices weren’t particularly quiet. They wanted me to hear. I didn’t bother reacting. Over the past year, I had developed a thick skin for this exact brand of cruelty. On stage, a reporter raised a microphone. “Mr. Hans, could you tell us more about your relationship with Ms. Humbert? What drew you to this collaboration?” Alex’s eyes softened, a genuine smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Daphne is someone very dear to me. She has a rare, instinctive gift. I have no doubt she is going to be one of the defining designers of her generation.” A collective, teasing sigh rippled through the crowd. Daphne lowered her head in mock embarrassment, leaning just a fraction closer to his shoulder. I slowly twisted the wedding ring on my finger, turned on my heel, and slipped out into the cool evening air. After the crowd dispersed, Alex tracked me down in the quiet corridor of the backstage dressing rooms. He was loosening his silk tie, his face wearing that familiar expression of faint irritation he reserved only for me. “Why the long face, Donna?” I looked at him, my voice remarkably steady. “That was my collection, Alex.” “Why do we have to draw lines between what’s yours and mine?” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Daphne just got back from Paris. She needs a stunning debut to make a name for herself here. You’re her sister-in-law, Donna. What’s wrong with lending her a hand?” We had been married for a year. To the world, I was the awkward cousin he kept around out of charity. But now, because his old flame needed a pedestal, I was suddenly elevated to the status of a “sister-in-law.” I wanted to laugh, but my throat was too dry. “Alex, I spent ninety-three nights staring at a drafting screen. I went through forty-seven iterations of those designs. And you just gave them to her with a single sentence?” His brow furrowed, his patience clearly thinning. “It’s just a set of drawings. You can always design another. Daphne is different. This is her first major showcase in the city. She can’t afford to fail.” “And I can?” He stayed quiet for a long second, then pulled a sleek black Amex from his wallet and slipped it into my palm. “Go get yourself something nice. Think of it as a little thank-you from me. Just don’t start a scene here. It’s bad for the brand.” It was always this. Money to quiet the noise. I looked down at the cool metal of the card, and my mind drifted back to a night exactly one year ago. He had taken me to a quiet French bistro downtown. He had gone down on one knee, his eyes shining with a tenderness that felt so real it made my chest ache. “Donna, this brand is our baby. You’re the only creative eye I trust. I don’t want our marriage to hide your brilliant mind. Come build this with me. I’ll give you the stage you deserve. And once we’re stable, we’ll tell everyone. I want the world to know you’re my wife, the driving force behind Aura Luxe.” I had been so hopelessly, foolishly moved. For twelve months, I didn’t ask for a single paycheck. I worked through the nights, ignoring the strain in my neck and the dark circles under my eyes, believing I was building our future. But I was never the co-creator. I was just the scaffolding he used to build a stage for his first love. “What are you daydreaming about?” Alex’s voice snapped me back to the cold hallway. “Stop sulking. Daphne is waiting for me at the afterparty. I have to go. Take a cab home.” He turned to leave, but stopped after a few steps, not even turning his head back to look at me. “Oh, and leave the silk dress and the emerald necklace with Daphne. She has a few galas to attend this week, and you rarely wear them anyway. It’s a waste to let them sit in the closet.” My mother’s emeralds. The only piece of her I had left after the cancer took her. I didn’t wear them because they were too precious to lose, but to him, that was a “waste.” I let it go. I didn’t argue. Because I didn’t care anymore. I pulled out my phone and replied to an email from Solstice Group – Aura Luxe’s biggest competitor – sent a week ago. I accept. The next morning, my phone buzzed with Alex’s name. I was in my home studio, packing my sketchbooks into a leather box. “Are you free today?” his voice was brisk, commanding. “I have things to do.” “Clear your schedule.” His tone left no room for negotiation. “Daphne just entered the local circle and doesn’t have anyone she can trust yet. Go be her assistant for a few days. Keep an eye on things so she doesn’t get pushed or taken advantage of.” My hands froze on the edge of the cardboard box. “What did you just say?” “I need you to assist her. She has a magazine editorial shoot today. Just help her carry her wardrobe, grab her coffee, keep things running smoothly.” I took a deep, steadying breath. “Alex, I am a senior designer. I am not a personal assistant.” “I know, I know,” he said, his voice instantly taking on that sharp edge of impatience. “It’s just for a few days until she finds someone permanent. Be reasonable, Donna. Don’t make things difficult for me.” Reasonable. He had used that word to keep our marriage a secret. To make me tolerate his constant late-night “check-ins” on Daphne. To swallow one unfair demand after another. “And if I say no?” The line went quiet for several seconds. When he spoke again, his voice had turned ice-cold. “Don’t act up, Donna. Daphne is fragile. You’re family. I trust you to protect her.” I let out a soft, humorless laugh. “Fine. I’ll go.” When I arrived at the studio, Daphne was already in the makeup chair. Seeing me enter, her eyes lit up with an innocence that felt entirely manufactured. “Donna! You actually came? Alex told me, but I felt so bad. How could I let you act as my assistant?” Her words were dripping with sweet concern, but her eyes held a quiet, triumphant gleam. I said nothing, standing quietly near the wardrobe rack. Once the makeup artist finished, Daphne turned to the mirror, her brow furrowing slightly. “This lipstick color is all wrong. It needs to be the warm nude shade from that boutique on 5th.” Her personal assistant immediately stood up. “I can run and grab it, Ms. Humbert!” Daphne looked past her, her gaze landing squarely on me. She smiled sweetly. “Donna, would you mind? I think you know the exact shade I mean. It’s only a few blocks away.” The entire room – stylists, photographers, interns – turned to look at me. She was testing her boundaries, showing everyone in the room exactly where I stood on the ladder. And under the current circumstances, I had no authority to refuse. “Sure,” I said softly. It was mid-June, and the city heat was oppressive. I walked for twenty minutes under the blazing sun, my shirt sticking to my back, my throat parched. When I finally returned to the air-conditioned studio, drenched in sweat, Daphne took the lipstick, swiped it on the back of her hand, and sighed. “Oh… it’s not the right shade after all. Donna, did you get the wrong one?” The challenge in her eyes was blatant. “Did I?” I replied, my voice completely flat. “I can go exchange it.” “Oh, don’t worry about it!” She grabbed my wrist, pulling me toward the break table. “It’s my fault. I must have remembered the name wrong. Sit down, have some water.” She picked up a tall glass of iced water from the table and went to hand it to me. But her hand “slipped.” The entire glass of ice water splashed directly over the front of my shirt. She gasped, immediately grabbing a handful of rough paper towels and pressing them hard against my collarbone. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry! I’m so clumsy. Donna, are you okay?” Her hands, heavily coated in residual foundation and makeup from the vanity, smeared across my sensitive skin. Within seconds, my collarbone began to break out in angry, red hives. I grabbed her wrist, stopping her mid-scrub. My grip was firm. “Daphne. You did that on purpose.” She froze, her eyes immediately filling with tears. “Donna, I swear I didn’t… If you’re mad at me, just say so. Don’t think of me like that…” “What is going on here?” Alex’s voice boomed from the entrance of the studio. He marched over, his eyes taking in my soaked, stained shirt, my red skin, and Daphne’s tear-filled eyes. His first instinct, without a second of hesitation, was to pull Daphne behind his shoulder. “Donna, what are you doing? It was just a cup of water. Do you have to be so hostile?” I looked at him, my voice barely more than a whisper. “I’m being hostile?” “Daphne said it was an accident. Can’t you be the bigger person for once? She has a major shoot this afternoon. If you ruin her focus and delay the production, are you going to take responsibility for the cost?” Daphne whimpered behind him, clutching his sleeve. “Alex, don’t blame Donna. It’s my fault. I’m just so clumsy today…” Alex’s expression softened instantly as he turned to her. “It’s not your fault. Go touch up your makeup. Don’t let this ruin your shoot.” Daphne nodded meekly, but as she walked past me toward the vanity, she shot me a slow, smug smile that Alex couldn’t see. Once the dressing room cleared, leaving only the two of us, Alex looked at my wet clothes and scowled. “Go change. Stop making a fool of yourself in front of the crew.” A deep, bone-weary exhaustion settled into my chest. “Alex, I quit.” He blinked, taken aback. “What did you say?” “I’m done. I’m not her assistant, and I’m not yours.” His face darkened, and he lowered his voice so the crew outside wouldn’t hear. “Are you done throwing a tantrum? It was a splash of water. Why do you have to be so incredibly petty? Daphne is practically a child in this industry. Can’t you just let things slide?” Daphne was twenty-six. She was exactly three months younger than me. To him, she was a fragile child to be protected. I was the adult destined to swallow every drop of poison. “Why should I?” He let out a sharp, angry laugh. “Because I’m your husband. Lest you forget, Donna, who was the one begging me to marry them?” A cold chill ran down my spine. It was true. I had spent three years loving him, chasing him, believing his quiet promises until he finally agreed to sign the marriage certificate. Because of that, in his mind, I had volunteered for this misery. I had asked to be his secret door, his quiet sacrifice. “Right,” I said softly. “You’re absolutely right.” Satisfied with my submission, he patted my head, his tone returning to its patronizing warmth. “Good girl. Go home, get changed. I’ll take you out for a nice dinner tonight to make it up to you.” Then he turned and walked back to the set, his attention entirely consumed by Daphne. I stood there in the quiet corner, the cold water seeping into my skin, freezing me from the inside out. Naturally, Alex broke his promise. At seven, my phone lit up with a text: Daphne’s exhausted after the shoot. Taking her out for sushi to celebrate. Eat without me. I stared at the screen for a long time before typing out a single word: Okay. Today was my birthday. I had bought a small cake, hoping we could share it tonight, hoping to tell him that my bags were already packed. Now, there was no point in waiting for the perfect moment. I went home to our quiet, dark apartment. I boiled a pot of water, dropped in some noodles, and added a single egg. As the steam rose, my eyes began to sting, and the tears finally fell, silent and heavy, into the bowl. At 2:00 AM, the front door clicked open. Alex stumbled in, reeking of expensive gin and the distinct, powdery floral perfume Daphne always wore. Seeing me sitting on the living room sofa in the dark, he startled. “Why are you still awake?” “Waiting for you.” He walked over, dropping his keys on the console. “For what? I told you to go to sleep.” “Do you know what day it is today, Alex?” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, his brow furrowing. “What day? The day Daphne’s campaign went live?” I let out a soft laugh. “It’s my birthday.” A brief flash of guilt crossed his face. He cleared his throat, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Oh. Right. I forgot.” “It’s fine. You’ve never remembered anyway.” His guilt instantly morphed into defensive anger. “Don’t start with the passive-aggressive act. I’ve been buried under work. It’s normal to forget things when you’re running a company.” Busy. Busy taking Daphne to dinners, celebrating her minor milestones, making sure her world was perfect. He just didn’t have the space in his mind for me. “Right,” I whispered. “You’re busy.” Perhaps feeling a rare twinge of conscience, he reached into his coat pocket and tossed a small, velvet-wrapped box onto my lap. “Here. Birthday gift. I have a board meeting tomorrow, so I won’t have time to do anything else for you.” I picked up the box and popped the latch. Inside lay a delicate rose-gold tennis bracelet, studded with tiny pink diamonds. I tried to slip it over my hand, but it wouldn’t close. It was far too small. It was Daphne’s size. “For me?” I asked quietly. “Who else? You like pink, don’t you?” I wear black. Since the day I met him, my wardrobe had been almost exclusively black. “Thank you,” I said, closing the box and setting it gently on the coffee table. He looked visibly relieved, checking his watch before turning back toward the door. “Daphne’s apartment building had a power outage, and she’s terrified of the dark. I promised I’d head back over to make sure her backup generators are working. Get some sleep.” Daphne was twenty-six, afraid of the dark. I was twenty-six, sitting alone in a silent house at two in the morning. I wasn’t allowed to be afraid. Because I had chosen this. The front door clicked shut. I unlocked my phone. The top trending topic on social media was already live: #DaphneHumbert: The New Force in Luxury Design. Right below it was another: #AuraLuxePowerCouple. Under the hashtag, Alex had posted a candid photo of Daphne laughing at the dinner table. His caption read: Proud of you, kiddo. @DaphneHumbert. The comments were a frenzy of romantic speculation. “Oh my god, Alex personally posted her! This is practically official!” “Kiddo! That is so sweet! When are they going to announce it? I’m ready to buy wedding gifts!” I scrolled down until I found a lone comment: “Wait, didn’t someone say Alex has a secret wife?” A user immediately replied: “Fake news. There’s zero proof. And even if there is, a divorce is probably coming. Look at how he treats Daphne.” I smiled, locked the screen, and went to bed. The next morning, my assistant, Lucy, called me twelve times in a row. I answered, still half-asleep. “Lucy? What’s wrong?” “Donna, we have a massive crisis! The design files for the new collection – they’ve been leaked online!” I sat up instantly, the blanket sliding down my shoulders. “What?” “Someone leaked the entire drive to the public forums. And our primary competitor has already set up pre-orders using our exact schematics!” I dragged myself to my laptop and pulled up the forums. The designs I had spent six months of my life perfecting were splashed across every design blog on the internet. And because of yesterday’s launch, the public believed they belonged to Daphne Humbert. Daphne had already posted a picture from a hospital bed, a saline drip attached to her hand. Her caption read: It was my responsibility to keep the creative files secure. I failed my team. I am so sorry, everyone. The comment section was overflowing with sympathy. “Daphne is literally hospitalized from the stress! Who would do something so malicious to her?” “Could it be Alex’s ‘cousin’? I saw her glaring at Daphne at the launch event…” “It has to be her! She looked so bitter!” I stared at the screen, my fingers trembling on the keyboard. She had stolen my work, and yet, she was the victim. The front door of my apartment was kicked open with a violent crash. Alex stormed into the bedroom, his eyes bloodshot, his face contorted with rage. He grabbed my wrist, pulling me out of bed. “Donna, did you do this?” I winced at the pressure on my skin. “Let go of me, Alex.” “I asked you a question! Did you leak the files? Because I gave the credits to Daphne, you decided to burn the entire company down just to ruin her? Is that what this is?” I looked directly into his eyes, a strange, chilling calm washing over me. “Why are you so sure it was me?” “Because you’ve been venomous and jealous of her from the very beginning!” He threw my arm back, sending me stumbling against the headboard of the bed. “You don’t have a fraction of her grace. She is kind, she is innocent, and you… you’re just full of spite.” I had loved this man for four years. I had turned down a prestigious graduate fellowship in London for him. I had handed him my career on a silver platter. And in the end, in his eyes, I was just a bitter, venomous woman. “If that’s what you believe,” I said, my voice dropping to a whisper, “then we have nothing left to say.” I reached into my nightstand drawer, pulled out a thick envelope, and handed it to him. “What is this?” He glared at the paper, refusing to touch it. “Divorce papers. I’ve already signed them.” He let out a dry, incredulous laugh, stepping closer until he was pressing into my space, pinching my chin between his fingers. “You think threatening me with divorce is going to make me back down? Let me tell you something, Donna – you want out? Not a chance. You are going to go to the hospital, you are going to apologize to Daphne, and then you are going to find whoever leaked those files. If you don’t, I will personally ensure you and your little independent studio are blacklisted from this industry forever.” I pushed his hand away with a cold, deliberate force. “Alex, have you forgotten? Those designs were mine.” I pulled a stack of documents from the bottom drawer and threw them directly at his chest. The papers fluttered through the air, scattering across the hardwood floor. “Those are the original CAD files and the forty-seven revision drafts, all timestamped two months before Daphne ever set foot in my office. Explain to me why I would leak my own life’s work.” The room fell into a heavy, suffocating silence. Alex looked down at the documents. His gaze lingered on the dates, the meticulous, handwritten notes in my handwriting, the timestamps on the digital logs. His face froze, the anger draining from his features, leaving him pale. “It… it wasn’t you?” “No,” I said, looking at him with absolute detachment. “And if you had a single brain cell left, you’d know exactly who did it.” His phone suddenly began to blare in his pocket. He pulled it out, his face pale as he listened to the voice on the other end. “Daphne? What do you mean? Don’t do anything foolish. I’m coming right now!” He hung up and bolted for the door. At the threshold, he stopped for a fraction of a second. I expected an apology. Or at least a look of remorse. Instead, he looked at me and said, “Donna, keep this quiet for now. Daphne is in a very fragile state. She can’t handle any more accusations. Just… consider this bad luck. I’ll make it up to you once this blows over.” The door slammed shut behind him. I stood alone in the quiet apartment, and for the first time in four years, I felt like I could breathe. It was over. When Alex arrived at the hospital, Daphne was weeping into her pillows. The moment he walked through the door, she threw herself into his arms. “Alex, I’m so scared. Are they going to ruin me? Are they going to think I’m a fraud?” Alex stroked her hair, his eyes fixed on the blank wall. “No. I’m here. I won’t let anyone hurt you.” His phone rang again. It was his operations director. “Mr. Hans, we have a massive problem. The production partners found out about the leak. They are pulling out of the launch!” “What?” “They are demanding we present two entirely new, fully realized design concepts within seventy-two hours, or they will invoke the breach of contract clause. We’ll be liable for a ten-million-dollar penalty!” Alex’s breath hitched. This project had swallowed over half of Aura Luxe’s liquid capital. If the partnership collapsed, the company would face immediate bankruptcy. He forced his voice to remain steady. “Don’t panic. It’s just two concepts. Three days is plenty of time.” The moment he hung up, he dialed my number. The user you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. He dialed again. The user you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. “What is Donna doing?” Alex muttered, slamming his fist against the hospital wall. “How can she turn her phone off at a time like this?” Daphne looked up from his shoulder, her voice small and tentative. “Alex, don’t be angry with her. Maybe Donna is just hurt. I’m sure once she calms down, she’ll come home and help you draw the new designs. She always does.” Alex paused, his tense shoulders relaxing slightly. She was right. For four years, Donna had never said no to him. She would always swallow her pride, come back to the desk, and work until her fingers bled just to make him smile. He let out a cold, confident scoff. “You’re right. She’s nothing without me. She’ll come back.” Daphne lowered her head, a small, dark smile touching her lips. At that exact moment, the door to the hospital room was thrown open. His assistant rushed in, breathless, holding a tablet with a trembling hand. “Mr. Hans, you need to see this! Solstice Group just started a live press conference!” “So what? Why should I care about Solstice right now – ” “They are launching their new line!” the assistant cried. “The concepts are identical to our Orbit Collection, but the execution… it’s flawless. It’s already trending everywhere!” Alex snatched the tablet from his hands. On the screen, a brilliant, high-production launch was taking place. The presenter’s voice was clear and resonant. “And now, please welcome the mastermind behind the Cosmos Collection – our new Executive Creative Director, Donna Galen!”

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When we divorced, David said the thing he regretted most in his life was marrying me. I had drained three million dollars from his business account right when his company was on the verge of collapsing, vanishing into thin air. It took him two agonizing years to crawl back out of that hole and rebuild. He didn’t know those three million dollars went straight into covering up the fraudulent books his older brother had cooked up to save them from prison. And he didn’t know my disappearance wasn’t a choice. It was his brother, terrified the truth would come out, who pushed me over the railing of the Monroe Bridge and into the dark, freezing waters below. Three years after my death, my mother wandered off. She has Alzheimer’s, her mind frozen in time three years ago. The police found David’s number under her emergency contacts and brought her straight to his office building. She tugged on his sleeve, her face lit up with a gentle, motherly smile. “David, sweetheart told me to bring you some chicken soup. She said you’ve been pulling so many late nights at the office, you’re looking thin.” He brushed her off. I stood right beside them, my hands reaching out, but I couldn’t catch her as she stumbled backward. Three years later, and I still forget that I’m nothing but a wisp of cold air. A ghost. … My mother stumbled backward, the thermos nearly slipping from her hands. She didn’t cry or get angry. She just stood there, looking blankly at the ground for a few seconds. Then, as if she had suddenly remembered something, she chased after him with that same gentle smile. “David… the soup is getting cold. Let me heat it up for you.” David didn’t even turn his head. His voice was as cold as a December wind. “Go back and tell Emily that these pathetic little tricks only make me despise her more.” My mother froze. It wasn’t because he had been cruel. It was because she had suddenly forgotten why she was standing there. She looked down at the thermos in her hands, then up at the unfamiliar skyscrapers towering over her, whispering to herself: “Wait… what was I doing here?” Five or six seconds passed before she slapped her forehead. “Oh! The soup for David! Emily told me to!” She spun around to chase him, but her sense of direction was completely off. She stumbled straight toward the busy intersection. A city bus honked its horn violently, tires screeching as it slammed its brakes just inches from her. “Mom!” I screamed, lunging forward. My hands went straight through her shoulders. It was David’s assistant who grabbed her by the collar of her winter coat from behind, dragging her back onto the curb. The thermos hit the concrete. The lid popped off, and the warm chicken soup spilled all over the pavement. My mother dropped to her knees, desperately trying to scoop the broth back up with her bare hands. “Oh no, it spilled… my little girl is going to be so angry with me…” She had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s three years ago. Back when I was still alive. Every day, I used to brush her hair, feed her her pills, and write “You’ve eaten lunch” on the back of her hand so she wouldn’t keep eating over and over. Then I was pushed into the river. And there was no one left to write on her hand. David watched the scene unfold from behind the massive floor-to-ceiling glass windows of his office. His jaw clenched, a muscle twitching in his cheek. He told his assistant to look up my address and send her back. Ten minutes later, the assistant returned, his expression incredibly strained. “Mr. Shepard… there is no record of Emily for the last three years. No address, no phone number, no credit card activity, no bank transactions. It’s like… she vanished off the face of the earth.” David was silent for a few seconds. Even though I didn’t have a heartbeat anymore, my chest tightened. He laughed—a bitter, mocking sound. “She’s hiding. She spent all three million, and now she’s too ashamed to show her face.” He glanced at my mother, who was still kneeling on the pavement, wiping her eyes. “Bring her to my house. I don’t believe Emily would let her mother rot with me.” He was using her as bait. But a small wave of relief washed over me. At least with him, my mother wouldn’t wander the streets and get lost. When they arrived at the villa, the housekeeper tried to guide my mother to the guest room. She refused to go. Instead, she dragged a small wooden stool over to the entryway, sat down by the front door, and clutched the empty thermos to her knees. Her eyes were fixed on the door. The housekeeper tried to coax her inside for dinner, but she only shook her head. “I have to wait for Emily. If she comes and can’t find me, she’ll worry.” David walked past and cast a cold glance at her. “Let her be. She can wait until the end of time, no one is coming.” My mother didn’t seem to hear him. She reached deep into her coat pocket, pulled out a gold-wrapped Werther’s Original caramel, and placed it neatly on the threshold, lining it up perfectly. “This is for my little girl. She always loved these when she was small.” I knelt on the steps beside her, tears streaming down my face, disappearing before they could hit the floor. Ever since I was five years old, my mother always kept a candy in her pocket for me. She could forget her way home, forget if she had eaten, forget her own age. But that candy. She never forgot. The next morning, there was a quiet rustling in the kitchen. I drifted over and froze. My mother was standing by the stove, her hands trembling as she adjusted a heavy skillet. The housekeeper stood off to the side, looking utterly helpless. “Ma’am, please, let me handle this…” “No, no,” my mother insisted softly. “David’s stomach is sensitive. I can’t use too much oil.” She had only been to David’s house once before—on our wedding day, three years ago. Yet, she walked from the front door to the kitchen without making a single wrong turn. A lump formed in my throat. The year she was diagnosed, I was terrified she would get lost. I had held her hand and walked her from our front door to the kitchen twenty times, repeating, “Left at the door, then straight to the end.” Our old house was long gone. But the layout of this villa’s kitchen happened to be on the left side too. When David came downstairs, the dining table was set with four dishes. Slow-cooked pot roast, mashed potatoes, warm tomato soup, and a fresh cucumber salad. He stared at the pot roast, his throat tightening. “Who made this?” My mother stepped out of the kitchen holding a small dish of pickles, wiping her hands on her sleeves. The wrinkles around her eyes crinkled as she smiled warmly. “Eat while it’s hot, David. Emily always told me you love pot roast, but I have to use brown sugar instead of white, and the potatoes have to be extra smooth…” She counted the details on her fingers, one by one. David had never shared those preferences with anyone. It was because every time I visited her, I had patiently taught her how to cook these exact meals. I had been terrified that if one day I wasn’t around, there would be no one left who remembered what he liked to eat. I just hadn’t expected that day to come so soon. He didn’t pick up his fork. “Did Emily send you here to play the martyr? Quite the performance.” My mother blinked, confused. She had no idea what he was talking about. Just then, the old, cracked phone in her pocket began to ring. A voice, slightly distorted through the damaged speaker, floated into the quiet room. It was my voice. “Mom, it’s time for your medicine. Don’t forget, take a sip of water first before you swallow.” My mother obediently pulled out her small pillbox, shook two tablets into her palm, and swallowed them with the warm water from her glass. David froze entirely. Slowly, he reached out and took the phone from her hand. He swiped open the screen, which was webbed with fractures, and tapped into the alarm application. The screen was packed with dozens of alarms. “7:00 AM: Mom, wake up and drink some warm water.” “8:00 AM: Mom, it’s time for breakfast.” “9:30 AM: Mom, take your medicine. Two white pills, one blue.” “12:00 PM: Mom, don’t forget to eat lunch.” … The list went on, all the way to “9:00 PM: Mom, go to sleep early. I’ll come see you tomorrow.” Twenty alarms every single day. He kept scrolling. The start date began three years ago, programmed to repeat daily until the year 2087. I had set them to repeat indefinitely. Because I hadn’t known when her mind would slip away entirely, or how much longer I would be allowed to stand by her side. So, I had programmed the alarms to watch over her in my place. To remind her to drink water, to eat, to take her pills. To ring and ring, until she no longer needed me. David put the phone down, his face entirely unreadable. “Where is she?” “My little girl said she’d come pick me up as soon as she’s finished with work.” “Work? You mean spending my three million dollars to live comfortably?” My mother shook her head violently, suddenly panicked. “No! My Emily would never do that! When she was a little girl, she wouldn’t even let me buy her an ice cream!” Her eyes welled with tears. “She promised me… she said she’d come as soon as she was done…” Mid-sentence, her mind seemed to glitch, like a skipped track on a record. Her brow furrowed as if a memory had flashed just out of reach, but then she smiled again, gentle and simple. “She must be working overtime. My daughter is always so busy.” David pushed his chair back, the legs scraping harshly against the floor. “Get her out of here. Find a decent assisted living facility. I’ll cover the expenses.” The security staff gently guided my mother toward the door. She clung tightly to the empty thermos, refusing to let go, constantly turning her head to look back at the house. “Please, let me wait just a little longer… What if she comes back and can’t find me?” No one listened. The car stopped at an unfamiliar intersection, and the guard opened the passenger door. The sky was turning a bruised violet. My mother stood beneath a streetlamp, spinning around in slow, bewildered circles. She reached into her coat and pulled out a worn, faded photograph of me when I was twenty, smiling like an idiot. The edges were soft and frayed from how many times she had touched it. She pressed the photograph close to her chest. “Sweetheart, I don’t know this street… where are you?” Then, she began to dial my number. “The number you have dialed is no longer in service.” She dialed again. “The number you have dialed is no longer in service.” She didn’t believe it. She dialed seven or eight times, carefully and deliberately pressing every single digit. On the last attempt, she held the phone tightly to her ear, keeping it there for a very long time, as if she could still catch the echo of my voice. The night grew pitch black. She dug a crumpled ten-dollar bill out of her pocket, walked across the street, and bought a warm cinnamon roll from a bakery window. She tore it in half, eating the smaller portion. The larger half she carefully wrapped in a plastic bag and tucked deep into the warmth of her coat. “I’ll save this half for Emily. She always loved sweet rolls.” I collapsed against her knees, sobbing with a voice that made no sound. A cold gust of wind swept through the street, and she shivered, pulling her collar tight. The sound of footsteps echoed on the pavement. Someone stopped directly in front of her. It was David. I didn’t know how long he had been standing there, watching her from beneath the yellow glow of the streetlamp as she huddled on the curb. His expression wasn’t pity—it was a heavy, bone-deep exhaustion. “Emily, you really are incredible.” He clenched his jaw, his voice directed at the empty air. “Leaving your own mother on the street like this. Are you even human?” He took off his heavy winter coat, hesitated for a fraction of a second, and then draped it over her shoulders. My mother looked up. When she saw him, her eyes lit up instantly. “David! Did Emily send you to fetch me?” He didn’t answer. He reached down and pulled her up by the arms, his brow furrowing when his fingers brushed her icy skin. “Get in the car.” My mother followed him obediently for a couple of steps, then suddenly pulled the wrapped cinnamon roll from her coat. “David, keep this safe for me. It’s for Emily.” He took it from her hand and slipped it into his suit pocket. He didn’t throw it away. I looked at his profile, my chest aching with a complex, unnameable grief. When they returned to the villa, my mother immediately reclaimed her spot on the small stool by the door. This time, he didn’t try to move her. The housekeeper brought over a thick throw blanket. David took it from her and tossed it onto my mother’s lap. “Sit there if you want, just don’t freeze to death in my house.” Late into the night, wrapped in the heavy blanket, my mother began to hum a soft tune. The melody was unsteady and out of key, but I recognized it instantly. It was the lullaby she had hummed to me since I was a baby. When I was little and the thunder roared, I would scramble into her bed. She would wrap her arms around me and hum that song until my fears vanished. When I grew up, I would wrap my arms around her and hum it back to her. And then, I was swallowed by the icy December river. And there was no one left to hum it. David, holding a glass of water, paused at the top of the stairs. He knew that song. The first year we were married, he had come down with a high fever, burning at nearly a hundred and four degrees. In his delirium, he had felt someone stroking his hair, humming that exact melody. He had asked me what the song was. I had told him it was the lullaby my mother sang to me. He stood on the stairs for a long, quiet interval. Finally, he turned and went into his study, closing the heavy wooden door behind him with a dull thud. I couldn’t be sure what he was remembering. I could only see his knuckles resting on his water glass, turning completely white. Over the next few days, my mother lived quietly in his home. Every morning before dawn, she would wake up to prepare meals—every single dish tailored to his favorite tastes. He wouldn’t touch them, but she refused to throw them away. I watched as she carefully wrapped the leftovers in plastic wrap and slid them beneath the cushions of the sofa. “I have to save this pot roast for Emily. She loves it.” “The tomato soup has to stay too. She always drinks it when she gets a cold…” I squatted in front of her, watching her busy hands, my mind drifting to memories of years past. Back when my mother worked at the local textile mill, the cafeteria occasionally served beef stew for lunch. She never ate a single bite of it. Instead, she would pack it away in a small metal container to bring home to me. For years, I believed she simply didn’t like beef. Until the day she collapsed on the assembly line, and her coworkers told me she had been living on plain toast and black tea for months. Once I started earning my own money, I made beef stew for her every week. She would never touch it, smiling and saying, “I’m getting old, sweetheart, my teeth can’t handle it,” before transferring every piece of meat onto my plate. Now, she was hiding food beneath another person’s sofa. Waiting for someone who would never come to eat it. By the fifth day, her supply of Werther’s caramels was nearly gone. She searched her pockets multiple times a day. If she felt a candy, she would smile; if her fingers found nothing, silent tears would roll down her cheeks. The housekeeper mentioned it to David. Without looking up from his laptop, he said, “Buy a bag of the exact same ones and put them in her coat.” “What brand was it?” His pen hovered over the paper. “Werther’s Originals.” I stared at his expressionless face. He remembered. On the seventh day, the doorbell rang. My mother was the first to spring up, her eyes wide and shining like stars. “Emily!” She hurried to the door with trembling steps. But when she opened it, she was met by a young woman in a beige trench coat, her long hair perfectly styled, her makeup flawless. It wasn’t me. It was Rebecca. On the day we divorced, she had been sitting in the passenger seat of David’s car. I had watched her through the glass. My mother’s smile faded slowly, her eyes looking past Rebecca into the dark courtyard. “…Not Emily.” Rebecca walked in, looping her arm through David’s, casting a brief, curious glance at my mother. “Who is the old woman?” “A nuisance.” He didn’t look at my mother when he said it. My mother lowered her head, quietly adjusting the seventh caramel on the threshold, lining it up with the others. Rebecca walked over to the sofa. Just as she was about to sit, she suddenly covered her nose. “What is that smell? Ever since I got pregnant, my nose has been so sensitive. Everything makes me sick.” My gaze drifted down to her stomach, which wasn’t yet showing. He was going to have a child. My place had been given away three years ago. David caught the scent too. He looked toward the sofa, stepped over, and lifted the heavy cushions. Beneath them lay a collection of wrapped plates—pot roast, tomato soup, potatoes, and even a few biscuits. Some of the food had gone sour; some was covered in a fuzzy layer of white mold. And sitting right next to the plates, lined up in a perfect, neat row, were seven gold-wrapped caramels. One for each day. Rebecca took a sharp step back in disgust. The vein in David’s temple throbbed. “What is all this?” My mother threw herself forward, using her body to shield the decaying food. “Don’t touch them! Those are for my little girl!” She knelt on the floor, her hands frantically trying to reseal the plastic wrap around the plates. “She loves the pot roast… and the soup has to stay, she needs it when she gets sick…” She looked up at David, her face slick with tears. “Didn’t you tell me she was coming to get me? She has to eat when she gets here… my Emily has been hungry for so long…” David’s lips parted as if he wanted to say something sharp and dismissive. But no sound came out. My mother kept going, her voice cracking. “My girl had such a hard life… she was always so good, so sensible… she gave me all the best food…” “She always told me she wasn’t hungry, but I knew she was just saving her money to buy my medicine…” She wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve, but the tears kept coming. “She was so thin… I was always afraid to hug her too tight, afraid I’d break her…” I knelt beside my mother, leaning my forehead against her shoulder. I slipped right through her. I had forgotten again. Rebecca stood nearby, clearly unnerved by the breakdown, taking another step back. Her heel struck something on the floor. She looked down. It was a dusty, worn cloth pouch that had slipped from my mother’s embrace. It was embroidered with a crooked, amateurish sunflower. “What’s this?” Rebecca reached down to pick it up. “Don’t touch it!” My mother lunged, snatching the pouch back and clutching it tightly against her chest. I had sewn that pouch while lying in my hospital bed. During my final days, I had barely any strength left. It had taken me three days just to finish that single, lopsided sunflower, the stitching messy and uneven. But my mother had held it and told me it was the most beautiful flower she had ever seen. David’s eyes locked onto the sunflower. His gaze froze. He recognized the fabric. It was cut from one of his old shirts. He had worn it for three years until the collar frayed, and I had kept it, cutting a small square to make the pouch. His entire expression shifted. “What’s inside that?” My mother stared at him blankly, her lips trembling. She had forgotten again. She tried desperately to think, tapping her temple in frustration. “Emily told me… she told me to give it to… I have to give it to…” I stood beside her, my heart heavy with a bittersweet ache. I had tucked that letter into her pouch myself. On the night before Christian pushed me into the river, I had prepared everything—the bank transfer receipts, the photographs, and a long letter I had spent days writing. I had instructed my mother to give it to David. Back then, I wanted him to know the truth about the three million dollars. I wanted him to know exactly what kind of monster his beloved brother really was. But now, looking at Rebecca’s stomach, looking at this beautiful villa I had never stepped foot in, looking at the new life he had built… I wasn’t sure anymore. What would change if he found out? I couldn’t come back to life. It would only saddle him with a guilt that would haunt him for the rest of his days. When I first handed the pouch to my mother, I hadn’t thought about that. I had only cared about clearing my name. But after three years of being dead, my innocence felt trivial. I only wanted to spare him the pain. But my mother’s eyes suddenly cleared, lighting up as she looked at him. “It’s you! David! Emily said I had to hand this to you myself!” With trembling hands, she lifted the cloth pouch and offered it to him. She had forgotten almost everything. But the phrase “give it to David” was etched into her mind, deeper than the disease could reach. Just like the caramels she kept in her pocket. Some things were simply too deep to be erased. David didn’t reach for it immediately. He looked at my mother, then at the lopsided sunflower stitched onto his old shirt fabric. Slowly, he reached out and took the pouch. He untied the worn cotton string at the neck. Several folded sheets of paper slid out into his palm. He picked them up. They were bank transfer receipts. Amount: $3,000,000. Receiver: Vanguard Trading LLC. It was Christian’s shell company. The account his brother had used to hide his embezzlement. David’s hands began to shake violently. Another slip of paper fell, and with it, a photograph. In the picture, I was wearing his oversized green winter coat, standing near the railing of the Monroe Bridge. The December water behind me was a dull, heavy grey. I looked incredibly thin, my hair whipped wild by the wind. But I was smiling. On the back of the photograph, six words were written in my neat handwriting: “David, don’t hate me.” Beneath the photo lay a worn, brown paper envelope, the corners soft and rounded. It bore his name, written in my handwriting. The handwriting he knew better than anyone’s. “For David. Read in private.” My mother leaned closer, gently tugging at his sleeve, her face bright with a hopeful smile. “David, what does Emily’s letter say? When is she coming home to get me?” He couldn’t find his voice to answer. It took his trembling fingers three attempts before he finally managed to tear the envelope open. The moment he pulled the letter out, his eyes burned a deep, painful red.

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On my first day at the firm, Elliott put my desk directly across from his office. It was the best spot on the floor, flooded with New England morning light. Everyone in the office whispered that it was his special treatment for me, his girlfriend of three years. Until Lorraine Albright returned from London. The email from HR arrived at nine in the morning, telling me to pack up my things and move to the small office adjacent to the basement archives before the end of the day. They said Elliott himself had requested the switch to accommodate Lorraine. I carried my heavy cardboard box past his open door. He was leaning over Lorraine’s desk, eyes fixed on her screen, pointing at something. He didn’t even look up when my shadow fell across the glass. “Fay, just bear with it for a bit,” he said, his voice casual and dismissive. “Lorraine’s fresh off the plane from London. Everything here is foreign to her.” I carried my box down to the basement, where the fluorescent light buzzed with a dull, sickening hum. Before I could even set it down, my phone screen lit up. It was an image from Lorraine. A sleek marble desk in the sun, with a line of text beneath: “Fay, this spot is absolutely gorgeous. Elliott said it’s mine from now on.” On her wrist in the photo, slipping slightly over her sleeve, was a string of dark sandalwood prayer beads. I knew those beads. I had climbed up to a quiet Zen temple in Kyoto three years ago to get them blessed for him, his initials carved carefully into the wooden master bead. … The notification from HR had come in at 9:00 AM. I stared at the text on my screen for a few seconds, closed the window, and walked up to Elliott’s office. He was flipping through blueprints. Hearing me enter, he didn’t raise his eyes. “I made the call,” he said. He closed the folder and finally looked at me. “Lorraine just got back from the UK. I need her close so I can supervise her. She’s green, Fay. She needs someone watching her work.” He paused, his voice softening with that familiar, patronizing patience. “You’re older, more mature. You understand how this works. Just bear with it.” I stood there, my fingers digging into my phone. My mother had texted me just minutes before. My father’s condition was deteriorating, and the waiting list for a specialized bed at Mass General was endless. She knew Elliott’s uncle was on the hospital board and wanted to know if Elliott had finally made the call to help us bypass the queue. “Is there something else?” Elliott asked. Before I could open my mouth, the door pushed open. Lorraine peeked in, holding an empty mug, complaining about the espresso machine in the breakroom. Elliott stood up immediately, brushing past me without a second glance to help her. Lorraine gave me a sweet, helpless smile and slipped her hand through his arm. As they walked down the hall, her voice drifted back: “Do you think Fay is angry?” He didn’t answer. I went back to my desk and packed up my things. My pen holder, my calendar, and the little pothos plant I’d kept alive for six months. Passing the breakroom, through the glass, I saw him standing close behind her, his hand over hers, guiding her fingers over the buttons of the machine. I stood in the hallway for what felt like an eternity. He never turned around. When my phone buzzed with Lorraine’s photo of the beads, a cold, sharp ache bloomed in my chest. Three years ago, Elliott had been in a minor car accident. I spent hours in a quiet temple, kneeling on a cold tatami mat, praying for nothing but his safety. I walked straight into his office. “Where are the beads I gave you?” He looked up from his paperwork, startled for a second, then quickly smoothed his face. “Lorraine’s living alone in a new city. She’s anxious. I figured she needed the protection more than I do right now.” He looked at me, as if testing my reaction. “Besides, you’re not the type to get worked up over something so small, right?” I forced a tight smile. He was right. God protects everyone. But I wasn’t God. I was just a girl who had given away her own prayers of protection to a man who handed them to someone else. The landmark waterfront project kickoff was that afternoon. I had lived and breathed this project for eight months. Every line, every revision, every late-night calculation was mine. I had stayed up until 3:00 AM the night before, refining the deck to ensure every detail was perfect. But when I pushed open the conference room door, Lorraine was sitting in the seat to Elliott’s left—my seat. In front of her was the proposal binder. On the cover, printed in bold, heavy serif, was her name listed as the lead designer. The long table was packed. There were no empty chairs. I went to the adjacent storage room, dragged in a metal folding chair, and sat at the very end of the table. When Lorraine presented, her voice was quiet and hesitant. She stumbled three times. By the third technical slide, she froze, looking at Elliott with wide, pleading eyes. He stood up seamlessly, took the laser pointer from her hand, and took over. When he reached the core structural concept, his red laser dot hovered over the screen. “This particular layout is a cutting-edge approach Lorraine brought back from her time in London.” My fingers tightened around my pen until my knuckles turned white. That approach was something Elliott and I had hammered out over cold pizza and endless espresso two years ago. I had explained the math to him for four hours. He had kissed my temple and told me I was brilliant. Now, it was Lorraine’s genius. When the meeting ended, the room clapped. Elliott gave Lorraine a proud thumbs-up. She blushed, curtsied slightly, and said, “I couldn’t have done it without Elliott’s guidance.” I sat in my folding chair, a numb mask on my face, and quietly carried it back to the storage closet. He didn’t even notice I had left. At 11:00 PM, my phone finally rang. “Fay, Lorraine’s drawings are due tomorrow, but she’s stuck on the structural details. She can’t pull an all-nighter. I need you to finish them up.” “I’m exhausted, Elliott. I need to sleep too.” “This is a massive account for the firm, Fay. Be a team player. We need to think about the bigger picture.” “Fine. Email me the files.” I stared at our text thread. My last message to him, sent three days ago, was still unanswered: “I’ve gathered all of Dad’s medical records for the transfer. Let me know if we need anything else.” He hadn’t even read it. At 3:17 AM, I finished the final redlines and sent them back to him. The next morning, the clients raved about “Lorraine’s” drawings. My name was nowhere on the sheets. The firm hosted a celebration dinner at a high-end steakhouse downtown. Attendance was mandatory. I arrived and found my place card. Elliott walked in, scanned the room, and pointed to a small table directly beneath the blasting air conditioning vent. “Fay, do you mind sitting over there?” Then he swapped my place card with Lorraine’s. I shivered under the freezing draft all night. My fingers were so numb I could barely hold my fork. Across the table, Lorraine’s plate was a work of art. Elliott cut her filet mignon, trimmed the fat, carefully scraped off the caramelized onions and parsley she hated, and placed the perfect bites onto her plate. He remembered every single thing she disliked. Yet, in our three years together, he had never once remembered that I was deathly allergic to mangoes. As we left, my phone buzzed: “Lorraine had a bit too much to drink. I’m driving her home. Take an Uber, okay?” When I didn’t reply, he added: “Everyone tonight was saying how lucky I am to have such an independent girlfriend.” “You’ve been working hard. Get some rest.” I replied with a simple, “Understood.” I stood on the curb, waiting for my ride. Another text came in, this one from my mother: “Have you heard back about the hospital bed?” For three months, my mother had been asking. And for three months, I had been begging Elliott. His responses were always the same: “I’m on it. Busy right now. Don’t worry.” I called my mother back, forcing a cheerful tone, promising her it would happen soon. But Elliott’s car was already gone, disappearing into the city lights. The next day, the presentation screen in the conference room showed the RFP for the city’s new cultural landmark center. Everyone sat up. This was the project of the decade. I gripped my pen. My team had been working on the preliminary feasibility study for months. My name was signed on the cover of the draft. Then Elliott spoke: “Lorraine will be leading this bid.” His voice was perfectly level, as if announcing an indisputable fact. A few colleagues glanced at me, then quickly looked away, eager to see how I’d react. “Elliott, my team has been running the preliminary phase for six months,” I said. He looked at me, completely unbothered. “Lorraine needs a major win to establish herself here. You’re already a senior PM, Fay. This opportunity is more critical for her career trajectory.” “But the design direction is mine. Changing leads now will—” He cut me off. “You can hand over your notes to her. Let’s move on.” Then he added, “Also, the Seattle office is short-staffed. Fay, I’m sending you there to assist for the next six months.” Everyone knew what that meant. Sending a senior PM to another branch to draw basic CAD files wasn’t an assignment. It was a demotion. My work was handed to Lorraine, and I was being shipped across the country. Without even a private explanation. After the meeting, I followed him into his office and shut the door. “Elliott, it took me three years of eighty-hour weeks to make senior PM,” I said, keeping my voice tightly controlled. “And now you’re sending me to Seattle?” He leaned against his desk, crossing his arms in a classic defensive posture. “I know what you’re capable of, Fay. But Lorraine needs this. Going to Seattle will give you more ground-level experience. When you come back, it’ll make your transition to junior partner look seamless. I’m doing this for your own good.” “Be reasonable,” he added. “You’ll have other chances.” I stared at him. “Then why can’t she wait for hers?” He went quiet. Whenever I pushed, he fell back on silence, or that soft, condescending tone telling me to be the bigger person. I didn’t want to fight anymore. I turned and walked out. Back in my basement office, a memo was sitting on my desk. It was the annual bonus distribution list, stamped by finance. I had won a regional design award earlier that year, which came with a substantial cash bonus. I had calculated that amount a dozen times. Combined with my mother’s savings, it was exactly what we needed for my father’s surgery. But on the sign-off sheet, my name had been crossed out. Lorraine’s name was written in its place. My hands began to shake. The door opened. It was Elliott. He saw the paper in my hand and paused. “I authorized the bonus transfer.” I looked up. “Why?” “Lorraine needs credentials. The board only looks at project metrics and formal awards. If she doesn’t have a major win on her record, she won’t survive the partner review.” “What does her survival have to do with my money?” My nails bit into my palms. “That is my award. I spent a year of my life on that project. I drew every line. I calculated every load.” “I know,” he said, without a shred of remorse. “But you’ll have opportunities next year. She’s new. She needs this now. The firm’s cash flow is tight this quarter, but once things clear up, I’ll reimburse you out of my personal account.” No discussion. No heads-up. Just a decision made for me. “Elliott, that money is for my father’s surgery.” He frowned, an edge of impatience creeping into his voice. “I said I’d pay you back, Fay. Lorraine can’t wait. She’s younger, she’s under immense pressure. Why can’t you just help her out?” I looked at him, really looked at him. “My father has been sick for months. Have you asked about him once? Do you even care?” He looked caught off guard, his expression hardening. “That’s different.” “How is it different?” He didn’t answer. He turned and walked out, his footsteps echoing down the concrete basement hallway. I started packing my desk. The landmark project proposal was still open, covered in my red ink. Hours of sleepless nights, all handed over. My phone lit up. A text from my mom: “Fay, your dad seems a bit brighter today. He was asking when you’re coming home.” I flipped the phone face down on the desk. Three years ago, when I first started, Elliott had introduced me to the firm as “one of his own.” I thought that meant security. Now I realized what “one of his own” meant to him. It meant my things could be taken without permission. My desk could be moved, my money could be reallocated, because he assumed I would never complain. I dialed his number. It rang several times before he answered. “Did you ever make that call to Mass General for my dad?” There was a pause on the other end. “I did. The beds are full. We have to wait.” I closed my eyes. “Elliott, be honest with me. Did you actually call?” “I told you, I’ll handle it when this deadline passes.” “What are you actually handling?” Silence. “You promised me three months ago,” I said, my voice cracking. “In three months, have you visited him once? Have you called? Do you even know his name?” He had no answer. “You gave my beads to Lorraine. You gave her my office, my project, my bonus… and now you’re sending me to Seattle.” I took a breath. “Am I supposed to give you to her too?” Before he could answer, a muffled cry came through the receiver. It was Lorraine’s voice, thick with tears. “Elliott, my mom just collapsed… what do I do?” Elliott’s voice instantly shifted, muffled as he pulled the phone away. “Don’t panic, Lorraine. I’m right here. I’ll take you.” Then he spoke back into the receiver, his words rushed. “Fay, Lorraine has an emergency. I have to go.” He hung up. I stood frozen, listening to the dial tone. I walked up the stairs to his office. The door was half-open. Lorraine was on the sofa, burying her face in her hands. Elliott was kneeling in front of her, holding both her hands tightly. “Don’t worry, I’ve already sent someone from the office to the hospital. We’re going right now. I’ll drive.” His voice was incredibly gentle—a tone he had never used with me. He stood up, catching sight of me at the door. He paused. “Fay, I don’t have time for this right now.” I clenched my fists. “My father is in a hospital bed.” His lips parted, but before he could speak, Lorraine sobbed louder. Without another word, he grabbed his keys from the desk, guided Lorraine out by her shoulder, and walked past me. Her tears left wet spots on his shirt. He gently wiped her cheek as they walked down the hall, his quiet reassurances echoing through the corridor. “I’m here. It’s going to be okay.” He never looked back. My phone buzzed. A text from my mother: “Fay, your father is gone.” “The doctor said we could have had another two months, but we waited too long for the transfer. We couldn’t wait any longer.” I stared at the words, my knees giving out as I slid to the floor. My hands and feet grew cold, then completely numb. “We couldn’t wait.” I wiped my tears, dialed a recruiter’s number, and said, “Find me a position in Seattle. Any level. Just get me out of here.” I walked out of the building. When I first moved to Boston, Elliott told me the springs here were beautiful, full of blooming magnolias, and promised to take me to see them. Now, the magnolias were in full bloom along the avenue, but I was standing alone. I sent him one last text: “My dad passed away. You don’t need to call the hospital anymore.” I turned off my phone, took a deep breath, and walked away. Elliott didn’t realize I was gone until three days later. He had been so consumed with Lorraine’s family emergency that he had only glanced at my text on his lock screen without opening it. He assumed I was just throwing a quiet tantrum and would cool off in a few days. He didn’t think anything of the silence. Or maybe he just didn’t care. Until his phone rang. A mutual friend called him. “Elliott, have you talked to Fay? Do you know about her dad?” Elliott’s heart skipped a beat.

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When I shattered the glass, Jack was already halfway out the door to pick up his first love from the airport. Shards of glass bit deep into my palm. Blood dripped onto the hardwood floor, a stark crimson against the dark wood. He walked right past me. His polished leather shoes stepped carefully around the pool of blood, his eyes never dropping to meet mine. “Pick a better time to play the victim, Charlotte.” He tightened his tie, his voice entirely devoid of warmth. “Caroline is landing today. Even if you were dying in this house, I wouldn’t stay.” After the heavy front door clicked shut, I sat there in the middle of the broken glass. With my clean hand, I pulled out my phone and tapped open a highly upvoted post on a relationship forum: “How I Made My Cheating Husband Pay.” “The first night he didn’t come home, I canceled all his credit cards and humiliated him in front of his peers.” “When he pushed me down to protect his precious first love, breaking my arm, I leaked her corporate scandals to their entire company.” “When he caused the death of the dog I’d raised for ten years, I made him kneel in the pouring rain all night to beg for my forgiveness.” “Today, when he went to pick up his ex, I threw the divorce papers in his face and left him with nothing.” In the comments, one user’s reply cut straight to the bone: “Reading this just makes me feel suffocated. There are zero real, tangible details in this post. OP, you didn’t actually do any of this, did you? You’re just quietly enduring it all, writing these revenge fantasies online just to escape your own despair.” I stared at those words, my tears splashing onto the screen. Then, I hit the like button. For three years, I was the only one trapped in this place, spinning a web of lies to keep myself sane. But that was fine. This would be the very last time I lied to myself. … By the time I reached the ER, my right hand was entirely numb. The doctor used a pair of tweezers to pluck the final shard of glass from my palm. He looked up, his brow furrowed. “Do you have any family here with you?” I kept my eyes on the floor. “No. No one.” He hesitated, sensing the silence, and chose not to push. He simply instructed me to keep the wound dry for three days and change the dressings regularly. When I stepped out of the hospital, a biting autumn wind swept up my sleeves. My phone buzzed with notifications, but none of them were from Jack. He had probably already met Caroline. He was likely pushing her luggage cart, speaking to her in that low, gentle register, asking if her flight had been exhausting. I looked down at my hand, thick with white gauze, and a dry laugh escaped my throat. Three years of marriage, and whenever the pain became too much to bear, my only companion was that single word: “No.” When I unlocked the front door, a pair of women’s leather ankle boots sat in the entryway. Two large suitcases stood in the living room. Caroline was sitting on our sofa, her hair damp, wearing Jack’s wool coat over her shoulders. She looked up and offered a warm, easy smile. “Charlotte, you’re back.” Her tone was so familiar, so welcoming, as if she were the hostess and I was merely a guest. The kitchen door swung open, and Jack walked out carrying a mug of warm milk. His eyes swept over my bandaged hand. They lingered for a fraction of a second before darting away. “Keep your voice down,” he said quietly. “Caroline just got off a long flight. She needs to rest.” I stood frozen in the entryway, the plastic bag from the convenience store cutting into my fresh stitches, sending a sharp throb through my arm. “She’s staying here tonight?” Jack placed the mug on the coffee table in front of Caroline, his voice flat. “She just moved back to the country. Her apartment isn’t ready yet, so she’ll be staying with us for a few days.” Caroline rose immediately, her fingers nervously twisting the hem of her shirt. “Charlotte, if this makes you uncomfortable, I can easily find a hotel.” Jack reached out, his hand wrapping around her wrist to pull her back down. “No need.” Two words. Simple, effortless, and enough to completely erase my standing in my own home. I didn’t argue. I didn’t ask questions. I just gripped my bag of medication and walked toward our master bedroom. But when I pushed the door open, I froze. My pajamas had been folded and piled at the foot of the bed. Several unfamiliar skincare bottles sat on my vanity. Caroline’s light jacket hung over the back of my chair, and the air was thick with the sweet, floral scent of her perfume. I stared at the room for what felt like an eternity before I turned around. “Where am I supposed to sleep?” Jack stood in the doorway, a faint crease forming between his brows. “Isn’t the sofa in the study comfortable enough?” The study. In our three years of marriage, he had never liked me going in there. When I brought him coffee, he would tell me to leave it outside the door. When I offered to help organize his files, he told me not to touch his things. Once, while waiting for him to come home, I had fallen asleep on that very sofa. His first words upon returning were: “Don’t sleep in here again.” And now, the one room where I was deemed unworthy to spend even a few minutes had become the only corner of the house left for me. Caroline spoke up softly, “Jack, maybe I should take the study instead.” Jack’s voice softened even further as he looked at her. “You have jet lag. Don’t make things harder on yourself.” I nodded quietly, turned on my heel, and walked into the study. That night, I curled up on the narrow sofa, keeping my injured right hand suspended in the air, terrified of letting it brush against anything. Through the thin door, I could hear Jack’s voice drifting down the hallway. “Are you hungry? Your stomach has been acting up; you shouldn’t go to sleep empty-handed.” Caroline laughed softly. “I’m fine, really. Don’t fuss over me.” “You just got back,” he murmured. “I want to make sure you’re taken care of.” I stared up at the dark ceiling, my eyes burning. It turned out he wasn’t incapable of being attentive and caring. He had simply never cared to direct any of it toward me. Years ago, when my stomach pain became so severe that I was dry-heaving over the toilet, I had called him. He had only said, “There’s medicine in the cabinet. Go find it.” Eventually, I had to call an ambulance for myself. The paramedics, too, had asked where my husband was. Back then, I made excuses for him, telling everyone how busy his job was. Looking back, I was pathetic. I was so starved for affection that I mistook his scraps of obligation for love. The next morning, I sat at the desk in the study and opened my laptop. Sitting in my inbox was an email I had ignored for three months—an invitation to lead a major project at our European branch in London. I had been offered this opportunity three times before. The first time, Jack told me that long-distance right after our wedding wouldn’t be good for the marriage. The second time, he complained that the house would be empty and there would be no one to manage things. The third time, his mother was pressuring us to start a family, telling me that no matter how successful a woman’s career was, her true place was at home. So, I stayed. Every single time. I stayed to cook his breakfasts, iron his shirts, keep track of his business dinners, and wait up for him to come home. And my reward was watching him usher Caroline into our master bedroom. I stared at the “Accept Offer” button, my cursor hovering over it for a long, quiet moment. Then, I clicked. The system flashed: “Submission Successful.” In that instant, an overwhelming sense of calm washed over me. I began packing my things quietly, making sure not to make a sound. Over the past three years, I had convinced myself that I didn’t need much. Jack preferred minimalist design, so I stopped buying bright, colorful clothes. He hated clutter, so I confined my entire book collection to a single shelf in the corner. As I folded my belongings and placed them inside, my suitcase remained half-empty. Out of nowhere, my phone buzzed with a text from Jack: “We have a dinner party tonight. Be ready by six.” I texted back: “I’m not going.” Almost instantly, my phone rang. “It’s just our old friends,” Jack said when I answered. “Caroline is back, and everyone wants to welcome her. If you don’t show up, people are going to ask questions.” I looked down at the neatly folded clothes in my suitcase. “Ask what?” Silence hung on the line for a couple of seconds. “Ask about us. About our relationship.” A humorless laugh escaped my lips. So he actually remembered we had a relationship to speak of. I had no intention of going. But after we hung up, I sat on the edge of the sofa for a long time, suddenly struck by a morbid curiosity. I wanted to see just how much lower this marriage could drag me. The gathering was held at an upscale private lounge downtown. When I pushed the door open, the room was buzzing with laughter and teasing. “Now that Caroline is back, Jack can finally stop waiting.” “Honestly, if you two hadn’t broken up over that stupid misunderstanding years ago, none of this other stuff would have happened.” The laughter died instantly. Every eye in the room landed on me, and the atmosphere turned thick and uncomfortable. Caroline was seated right next to Jack, his coat draped over her shoulders. I stood by the door, frozen. Jack looked up, his expression unbothered. “You’re here. Have a seat.” Someone in the corner murmured under their breath, “Why did she show up?” Jack’s hand paused as he lifted his glass. “She’s family.” “Family.” It sounded polite, but it completely stripped away my title as his wife. During dinner, someone slid a glass of red wine toward me. “Come on, Charlotte, have a drink with us.” I tucked my bandaged right hand beneath the table. “I hurt my hand. The doctor said no alcohol with the medication.” The man laughed, dismissive. “It’s just a little scratch, isn’t it? Don’t be a party pooper.” He pushed the glass closer, and a splash of dark red wine spilled over the rim, soaking the front of my cream-colored dress. A few muffled snickers rippled through the table. Caroline stood up immediately, grabbing a handful of napkins. “Oh my god, Charlotte, are you okay?” She stood up so quickly that Jack’s coat slipped from her shoulders. Jack’s immediate, instinctive reaction was to reach out and catch her. “Are you alright? Did it startle you?” I looked down at the dark, wet stain spreading across my skirt. My fist clenched, the pressure sending a sharp jolt of pain through the stitches in my palm. But in that moment, I didn’t feel like crying. Perhaps I had been hurting for so long that I could no longer distinguish between the physical sting and the emotional ache. I excused myself and walked to the restroom. Locking the door behind me, I realized the blood had started to seep through the white gauze again. Mixed with the red wine, the stain looked messy and grotesque. In the mirror, my face was pale, hollow. I looked like a punchline. I suddenly remembered our wedding day. When the officiant asked Jack for his vows, he had stood in silence for a long time before finally saying, “I promise to fulfill my duties and responsibilities to you.” The guests had chuckled, whispering that he was just a man of few words, too shy for grand romantic gestures. I had laughed along with them. For three long years, I had made excuses for him. When he said he was busy, I believed him. When he said he was tired, I believed him. When he told me Caroline was ancient history, I believed him. But it had been three years. And not once had he ever given me a single reason to stay. I cleaned the blood off my skin and sent Jack a brief text: “I’m leaving.” He didn’t reply. I walked out of the venue alone. On the large display screen near the lounge entrance, a slideshow was playing—a “welcome home” compilation his friends had put together for Caroline. The photos cycled through their history: college campuses, streets in London, snowy winter landscapes. The final image was set inside our home. Caroline was sitting on the living room rug, clutching a plush toy, while Jack stood beside her, looking down at her with a soft expression. The date in the bottom right corner of the photo was from the second month of my marriage to Jack. I remembered that night vividly. He had told me he had to work late at the office. I had cooked an elaborate dinner, waiting at the dining table from seven in the evening until two in the morning, only to receive a text: “Don’t wait up.” On the screen, they were both smiling, radiant and carefree. I stood in the cold night breeze, watching the image loop. It turned out that house had never had room for me. I was merely a squatter in a home already entirely possessed by their memories. When I got back, I began systematically erasing myself from the apartment. I pulled down the sticky notes from the refrigerator. I packed up the ceramic dishes I had picked out. I unplugged the small reading lamp beside the bed—the one I had spent weeks searching for. It wasn’t expensive, and its light was dim, but I used to believe that as long as there was at least one thing of my own in that house, I wouldn’t feel so incredibly lonely. I didn’t need that illusion anymore. Later that week, my mother made a surprise visit. She was carrying a warm container of soup, but when she stepped inside and saw the cardboard boxes scattered across the floor, her expression shifted. “Charlotte, what is all this?” I started to tell her I was just organizing for the new season. But her eyes had already landed on my bandaged hand, and then on Caroline’s suitcases peeking out from the master bedroom. She stood there in silence for a long, heavy moment. Finally, she walked over and gently cupped my injured hand. “Does it hurt?” I had been holding myself together so tightly. But at those three words, the dam broke, and tears flooded my eyes. My mother wrapped her arms around me, pulling me close. “You’ve been holding onto so much pain these past three years, haven’t you?” I buried my face in her shoulder and nodded, unable to speak. She rubbed my back with soft, steady strokes. “Then stop holding it. Let it go.” “Mom,” I whispered, my voice cracked and raw. “I kept thinking that if I just endured a little more, if I was just a little more patient, he would eventually love me back.” My mother didn’t say a word; she just held me tighter. A choked sob escaped me. “But he never will.” From that day forward, I began preparing for my departure in earnest. I submitted the paperwork to close our joint bank accounts. I finalized the transition plan for my projects at work. I stopped texting Jack to ask when he would be home, and I stopped cooking dinner for him. At first, he didn’t even notice. Or rather, he had always preferred my silence, so my sudden lack of engagement felt like a relief to him. Before, when I asked questions, he found it suffocating. Now that I asked for nothing, his life was much easier. Over the weekend, Jack mentioned we were expected at his parents’ house in Westchester for dinner. I told him I wasn’t going, but my mother squeezed my hand when I told her. “Go, sweetheart,” she advised. “Sometimes you need to look them in the eye and say what needs to be said. It’s better than leaving things unsaid.” I knew she was worried about me facing his family alone, so I agreed to go. When we arrived at the estate, Caroline was already there. She was wearing a soft cream dress, helping Jack’s mother arrange fresh flowers in the foyer. Jack’s mother smiled warmly at her. “Oh, Caroline, you have such an eye for this. Not like Charlotte. She’s always so consumed by her job; I honestly don’t know how she manages to run a proper household.” I stood in the doorway, offering no defense. Jack glanced at me, his voice a low whisper, as if guarding against a scene. “Don’t start anything today.” I looked at him. “Have I ever?” He frowned, looking annoyed. “You know what I mean.” Of course I did. In the eyes of the family, Caroline was the cherished guest, the fragile one who needed protection. And I was the wife. Therefore, I was expected to be understanding, to accommodate, to swallow every bit of humiliation without making a sound. Throughout dinner, Jack’s mother showered Caroline with attention, asking how she was adjusting to being back, if she had found a nice neighborhood to live in, and what dishes she missed most from abroad. When she finally addressed me, it was with a blunt demand: “So, when are you two going to finally give me grandchildren?” I placed my fork down neatly. “We aren’t planning on having children.” Her face darkened instantly. “You’re approaching thirty, Charlotte. What are you waiting for? Jack is busy climbing the ladder; as his wife, you need to step up and think about the family’s future.” Caroline spoke up, her voice sweet and soothing. “Oh, Mrs. Lennon, I’m sure Charlotte just wants to focus on her career for a bit.” Jack’s mother smiled, patting Caroline’s hand affectionately. “You always were the thoughtful one, dear.” She then gestured for the housekeeper to bring over a small velvet box. When she opened it, a vintage gold ring lay inside. I recognized it immediately. It was her grandmother’s heirloom ring, the one she had always promised to pass down to Jack’s wife. But right there, in front of everyone, she slid the ring onto Caroline’s finger. “Try it on, sweetheart. I’ve always felt this design would look beautiful on you.” Caroline glanced toward me, feigning hesitation. “Oh, Mrs. Lennon… is this really appropriate?” Jack’s mother laughed off her concern. “Of course it is. I adore you.” A heavy silence fell over the table. Jack looked at me, his lips parting slightly as if to speak, but he ultimately remained silent. “Let’s just eat, Mom.” I stared at the ring on Caroline’s hand and realized I couldn’t even summon the energy to feel disappointed. There had been too many moments like this. For his mother’s birthday, I had booked the restaurant, purchased her gift, and coordinated with all the relatives. Yet, she had turned to the guests and sighed, “If only Caroline were here. She always knew exactly what made me happy.” When Jack was named partner, I spent days organizing his celebratory dinner. During his speech, he thanked his team, his mentors, and even acknowledged Caroline, who was still living abroad at the time. He never once mentioned my name. Every single time, I had whispered to myself that it was fine. Only now did I realize that the most pathetic lie I ever told was telling myself it didn’t matter. Halfway through the main course, Caroline suddenly pressed her hand to her stomach, a faint wince crossing her face. Jack stood up instantly. “What’s wrong?” “I think the jet lag is just catching up to me,” she murmured. “My stomach feels a bit upset.” He grabbed his coat. “Come on, let me take you outside for some fresh air.” They walked out together, side-by-side. His mother watched them leave, her eyes filled with nothing but fondness. My mother sat beside me, her knuckles turning white as she gripped her napkin. After dinner, Jack’s mother pulled me aside into the study. “Charlotte, men are bound to be preoccupied with their careers, and sometimes they fall short. You shouldn’t be so sensitive. You are his wife, and you need to carry yourself with a bit more grace and stability.” I looked her in the eyes. “If a marriage requires me to spend three years constantly shrinking myself, is there really any point in holding onto it?” She stared at me, completely caught off guard. Before she could form a reply, Jack walked back into the room. Seeing the two of us standing together, his expression soured instantly. “What are you complaining to my mother about now?” I let out a soft laugh. “What could I possibly say?” On the way home, my mother took a cab back to her place. Caroline sat in the passenger seat of Jack’s car. Actively ignoring the tension, Caroline chattered happily, reminiscing about old college professors, mutual classmates, and long-past events. Jack chimed in occasionally, his tone softer and more patient than it had ever been with me. I sat quietly in the back seat, watching the city streetlights blur against the dark glass of the window. My phone buzzed in my lap. It was an email from the international HR department: “Dear Ms. Charlotte, your transfer request has been officially approved. Please confirm your final start date within three business days.” I stared at the text, my fingertips cold. It wasn’t fear. It was the quiet, sobering realization that the curtain was finally falling. When we got back to the apartment, I tucked my passport and visa documents into a drawer. Then, I pulled it open to check them one last time. I knew I couldn’t hesitate. If I lingered, I would let myself get swallowed whole by this house all over again. The next morning, my mother came over. She didn’t beat around the bush; she stepped inside and asked directly, “You’ve decided to leave, haven’t you?” I nodded. She sat down on the sofa, remaining quiet for a long time. I braced myself, expecting her to tell me to think it through. In our social circles, divorce was never a small matter. The Lennon family had a reputation to maintain, and Jack was a prominent partner at his firm. If I just kept keeping my head down, on the outside, we would look like a perfect couple. But my mother simply looked up and said, “Your room at my place is always ready for you. No matter what, you will always have a home with me.” My throat tightened. “Mom… I’m so sorry.” She looked at me tenderly. “You have nothing to apologize for, sweetheart. You tried so hard to make this work.” Those words finally allowed the heavy weight I’d carried for three years to melt away. I hugged her tight, tears stinging my eyes. Right then, the doorbell rang. I opened it to find Jack standing on the threshold. He was holding a takeout bag from the artisanal bakery I used to love, and in his other hand was a fresh tube of burn ointment. Seeing my mother sitting in the living room, he froze for a split second before recovering his composure. “Hello, Mrs. Morton.” My mother didn’t acknowledge him. Jack set the bag on the counter and looked at me. “Your hand is still healing. You need to make sure you’re applying the ointment.” I stared at the bag of pastries, making no move to touch it. I used to love that bakery. Mostly because during our first year of marriage, it was the only time he had ever bought me breakfast. I had been sick with a stomach bug, and he happened to pass by the shop and brought something home. I had treasured that memory for years. He never did it again, yet I held onto that single gesture, convincing myself it was proof of his love. When you are starved for so long, a single crumb feels like a feast. Seeing my lack of reaction, Jack softened his tone. “I’ve sorted everything out over the last couple of days. Caroline is already looking at apartments. Please stop being angry with me over this.” I looked up at him. “Are you saying that for my benefit, or your own?” He blinked, caught off guard. I pressed on. “If I hadn’t pushed back, would it have ever crossed your mind that bringing another woman into our home, packing away my things, and throwing me into the study was wrong?” Jack’s expression hardened. “She just returned to the country and had nowhere else to go. Helping out an old friend is a perfectly normal thing to do.” “Then why wasn’t it normal for you to help me when I was burning with a fever?” I asked, watching the frown deepen on his face. “Why wasn’t it normal when I had to go to the hospital alone?” “And why wasn’t it normal when my hand was sliced open by broken glass?” He had no answer. My mother sat on the sofa, her eyes misty, but she remained silent, letting me fight my own battle. Jack rubbed the bridge of his nose, exhaling a frustrated sigh. “Charlotte, you are blowing this entirely out of proportion.” Suddenly, the urge to argue drained out of me. I turned around, walked into the study, and fetched the printed transfer notice. I placed it flat on the table between us. “I’m leaving for London next week.” Jack stared down at the paper. It took several seconds for him to look up, his face blank with confusion. “What is this supposed to mean?” “Exactly what it says,” I replied quietly. “This isn’t a threat, and I’m not playing games to get your attention. Jack, I am leaving.” The color began to drain from his face. “When did you apply for this?” “The day you went to the airport to pick up Caroline.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. “Are you really going to do this over nothing?” I looked at him, a bittersweet smile touching my lips. “Do what, exactly?” “Ruining our marriage over something so trivial?” “Something so trivial.” Three years of heartbreak, three years of waiting, three years of lying to myself to protect his ego. To him, it was just “nothing.” I didn’t bother responding. Jack reached out, attempting to grasp my wrist, but I stepped back, smoothly slipping out of his reach. His hand remained suspended in the empty air. It was a small movement, but it made his face turn incredibly pale. He looked at me, losing his trademark composure for the very first time. “Think about this carefully, Charlotte. If you walk out that door, there’s no coming back.” I picked up my purse from the counter. “I never planned on it.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “536345”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The assignment was a failure. Just as I was about to be erased from existence, the System offered me a final act of mercy. “Host, I have secured ten wishes for you. If the female lead fulfills just one of them, you can return to your reality.” But she ruined the first nine. Every single time, without fail, her phone would ring. It would be him—the one she never got over—and she would walk away, leaving me mid-sentence, mid-moment, mid-breath. My final wish was simple: to finish watching a movie together. There were exactly ten minutes left on the runtime. Sally suddenly stood up from the leather sofa. “Elliott isn’t feeling well. I need to go check on him.” I caught the silk fabric of her dress, my fingers trembling as I held on. “There’s only ten minutes left. It’ll be over so soon!” She ripped her skirt from my grasp with a vicious snap of her wrist. “Noah! Do you have any empathy at all?” she snapped, glaring down at me. “We can watch a movie whenever we want. Elliott can’t wait!” “But we can’t watch it whenever, Sally.” “Because I am going to die.” 1 I furrowed my brow, holding up four trembling fingers like a boy taking a desperate oath. “Just ten minutes. I swear to you, give me these last ten minutes, and I promise I will never, ever bother you again.” Sally stared down at me, her silhouette cutting a sharp, unforgiving line against the ambient light of the television. She let out a dry, hollow laugh. “So you actually know how suffocating you are?” My head slowly dropped. The desperate energy that had fueled me a moment ago evaporated, leaving only a hollow ache. “I’m sorry. I really am. But I’m out of options. I just need ten minutes—” “Enough!” Her voice cracked like a whip, slicing through my plea. The look in her eyes was pure, unadulterated exhaustion. She was looking at me the way one looks at a stain that won’t wash out. “Last time it was the gallery opening. The time before that, it was the sunrise. Noah, you are becoming unbearable.” Sally turned on her heel and strode toward the foyer. She pulled her trench coat from the brass rack, pausing for a fraction of a second at the door. “Pause the movie. I’ll finish it with you when I get back.” 2 There wouldn’t be a “when I get back.” The mission could not be paused. Ignoring the heavy, crushing sensation building in my chest, I scrambled up and sprinted to block her path, pressing my back against the heavy mahogany door, my hands gripping the handle behind me. “Sally, listen to me. I know you resent me. I know you hate this marriage, this whole corporate alliance our families forced on you. Just give me ten minutes, and I swear I will disappear from this world entirely. Okay?” Her expression didn’t shift. Not a muscle in her face softened. She merely arched a perfectly groomed eyebrow. “Then I suggest you disappear right now.” Her tone was absolute ice. She impatiently flicked her wrist to check her Cartier watch, not even sparing me a glance. “Move.” “Sally!” I looked up, forcing her to meet my eyes. “I’m dying. You are the only one who can save me. I’m begging you. Just ten minutes…” “Not this again.” She sighed, running a hand through her hair. “I’ve told you a thousand times, there is nothing going on between me and Elliott anymore. It’s a matter of life and death, Noah. Are you really this vicious?” “Life and death?” “Vicious?” So this was it. Ten years of giving her my entire heart, of reshaping myself to fit into her world, and this was my eulogy. A vicious, suffocating burden. Elliott had just twisted his ankle. He claimed it was a horrific car crash, and Sally bought it without a second thought. But I was actually dying, and my wife thought it was a cheap manipulation tactic. I should have known. Sally’s heart was a fortress, and its gates had never been open to me. It had been ten years. From sweet sixteen to twenty-six. It was time to accept my fate. I slowly closed my eyes, letting out a long, ragged exhale. My fingers slipped from the brass handle, and I stepped aside, leaving the door wide open for her. I forced a stiff, mechanical smile onto my face. “You’re right, Sally. After today, I truly won’t bother you ever again.” “I’ll just make sure he’s not in critical condition. Once I know he’s safe, I’ll be back. It won’t take long,” she said, her tone softening just a fraction, perhaps unsettled by my sudden surrender. I shook my head gently. “There’s no need.” It wouldn’t matter anymore. The world had already spit me out. I wondered, idly, where I would go after the System erased me. Sally frowned, finally noticing the hollow look in my eyes. Her red lips parted slightly. “Are you… are you hiding something from me?” I managed a weak, translucent smile. I reached past her, pulling the heavy door open a bit wider. Then, I turned my back to her. There were still ten minutes left. I wanted to see how the movie ended. My life wouldn’t get a proper ending, but at least movies usually wrapped things up nicely. I shuffled back toward the living room, my slippers dragging against the hardwood. Suddenly, her hand wrapped around my forearm. “You’re acting strange today.” She took the trench coat draped over her arm and hung it back on the rack. She tapped the face of her watch. “Ten minutes. You have ten minutes.” 3 My arm twitched instinctively under her grip. I turned back, staring at her in utter disbelief. “What?” she challenged, meeting my gaze. “Afraid I won’t keep my word?” Sally pulled me back to the leather sofa, forcing me to sit before picking up the remote and hitting play. She checked her watch one more time. “When these ten minutes are up, I want to see what other excuses you have left.” I shook my head rapidly, desperate to keep her in the room. “No excuses. I promise.” The indie film resumed on the screen. In my mind, the System let out a profound sigh of relief. “Keep it up, Host. This is your very last chance.” “Please,” I prayed to whatever god was listening. “Just let this go right. Just this once.” But the universe had never been on my side. With exactly two minutes left before the credits rolled, Sally’s phone vibrated against the glass coffee table. She glanced at me. She didn’t say a word, but her eyes spoke volumes. “I said I’d watch the movie. I didn’t say I wouldn’t take a call.” She answered it, putting it on speaker as she reached for her shoes. “Sally… are you almost here?” Elliott’s voice was breathy, laced with manufactured agony. “It hurts so much. I think… I think I might be dying… Please, Sally. Can I just see you one last time before I go?” Panic seized Sally’s features instantly. “What did the paramedics say? Don’t be scared, Elliott, I’m on my way right now. You’re not going to die. I’m coming. I won’t let anything happen to you.” She shot up from the sofa. She didn’t even grab her coat. She just bolted. The heavy front door slammed open, and a brutal gust of autumn wind swept through the foyer, chilling the sweat on my spine and raising a map of goosebumps across my skin. “Sally,” I whispered. But the wind swallowed my voice. Nobody heard it. On the screen, the movie played out its final moments. A sprawling estate in Scandinavia, blooming with vibrant summer flowers. It looked like the end of the film was just the prologue to a beautiful new life. Then the screen cut to black. The white text of the cast list began to scroll. I sank deeper into the cold leather of the sofa, my breathing growing shallow. “The assignment failed. Didn’t it.” I stated it simply. Like observing the weather. The System remained silent. I knew what that meant. “How is it going to happen?” I asked the voice in my head. “Please tell me it won’t be pathetic. You know my whole life has been pathetic enough.” “Cause of death: Heart failure,” the System replied softly. Then, its voice grew agitated, almost angry at my peaceful surrender. “Why didn’t you stop her, Host?! You begged her, and she stayed! There were only two minutes left! Why didn’t you just beg her one more time?!” I didn’t answer. The System sounded frantic now. “Do you actually believe Elliott’s bullshit excuse? I told you, he just sprained his ankle! It’s been ten years, Noah. Sally isn’t entirely devoid of feelings for you.” “But it’s never enough, is it?” I whispered back. It was never enough. The gallery opening. She had promised. She had smiled and said we would go. But the morning of, Elliott called. He needed help picking out furniture. I stood outside the gallery in the freezing rain for four hours. All I got was a text saying she couldn’t make it. The sunrise. After days of me practically begging on my knees, she reluctantly agreed to go camping. But the moment the sun went down, Elliott called. He said the power went out and he was scared of the dark. Sally had left me alone in a tent on top of a mountain. She promised she’d be right back. I waited all night. Until the sun came up. She didn’t know how dark it got in that tent. The surrounding blackness seemed to swallow the tiny beam of my flashlight. The wind howled like a wounded animal. I sat there, feeling entirely, utterly discarded by the universe. I packed up the campsite by myself the next morning. Sally finally showed up as I was loading the car. She had just brushed it off. “Elliott wouldn’t let me leave. He’s not strong and independent like you, Noah. I’ll make it up to you. We’ll watch the sunrise next time.” There was always a next time for me. There was never a next time for Elliott. “I am never her first choice,” I told the System, my voice barely a rasp now. “But this time is different!” the System shouted. “You are going to die! Die! If you just keep her here for two more minutes, you get to live! Just call her! If she turns the car around right now, I can still mark the mission as complete!” 4 “She won’t turn around.” She hadn’t the previous nine times. Miracles weren’t written into my script. Yet, pushed by the System’s desperate pleading, a pathetic, dying ember of hope flickered in my chest. My hands shook as I unlocked my phone and dialed her number. “Ring. Ring. Ring.” She picked up. “Noah, can you stop being so goddamn unreasonable for one night?” Her voice was laced with pure irritation, entirely drowned out by the sound of her blaring the horn at the traffic in front of her. “Sally… I really am dying. Can you please come back? Just to see me one last time?” I borrowed Elliott’s exact words. I mimicked his fragility. Because when Elliott said it, she dropped everything and ran. But I had forgotten the golden rule of my life: I wasn’t Elliott. “Do you have a shred of humanity left in you, Noah? Elliott is in the emergency room right now, and you? You’re using death as a threat over a boring, pretentious movie that you can pause with a remote?” “I’m not threatening you…” I gasped, my chest tightening like a vice. I really was dying. But she didn’t let me finish. “If you think crying wolf is going to work on me, go ahead. Give it a try. Tell me, Noah. How exactly are you dying right now?” She sounded like a bored spectator rating a terrible performance. “Heart failure,” I wheezed. “Ha!” Sally scoffed, a sharp, ugly sound. “Cursing yourself to a heart attack just to force me to watch a movie. You really are something else.” “Sally, please… just believe me this one time. I promise I’ll never be a burden to you again. I swear to god!” I could hear her grinding her teeth over the line. “You sound like a broken record, Noah. I told you I’d finish the movie when I got back. I already bought VIP tickets for the gallery’s next exhibition. I booked a suite in Hawaii so we can watch the sunrise without you having to sit in the cold. I told you to just give me a little time. Why do you have to push and push and push?” “Because I’m out of time. Can you please just choose me? Just this once?” It was my final plea. Ten years. Couldn’t I be the priority just once? “Elliott is in the hospital! Does he have time?!” Sally yelled, her voice cold and furious. “When did you become so heartless? A man’s life is on the line, and you’re whining about a movie? You are… you are such a disappointment, Noah.” “But…” “But he only sprained his ankle.” “Enough! I’m done with this tantrum. You have two choices: wait quietly at home, or I block your number. Pick one.” I heard the screech of her tires as she hit the brakes. She was likely pulling into the hospital parking structure. The line went dead. I let my phone slide from my numb fingers onto the leather sofa. I looked up at the ceiling, a bitter, exhausted smile touching my lips. “See?” I whispered to the empty room. “I told you it wouldn’t work.” The assignment was over. I was dying. And my wife didn’t believe me. 5 I welcomed the dark with open arms. Suddenly, the silence was shattered by a ringtone. My tethered soul was now floating near the ceiling. I could only stare downward as my phone buzzed on the sofa, playing the same ringtone over and over. The noise must have bled through the walls. Martha, our housekeeper, emerged from the guest suite down the hall. She was rubbing her face, her cardigan pulled tight over her pajamas. “Mr. Noah?” she called out softly. My body didn’t move. Martha wouldn’t normally answer my phone, but it was ringing relentlessly, and the late hour suggested an emergency. She picked it up and swiped accept. Before she could speak, a smug, exasperated voice poured through the speaker. “Oh, playing dead now, Noah? If you’re so tough, why don’t you just ignore the call—” Martha cleared her throat, interrupting him. “Hello? Mr. Noah is asleep. Who is this?” “Wow. Noah really has no shame, sleeping like a baby right now…” Elliott chuckled softly, the sound dripping with malice. “Well, tell your boss that Sally won’t be coming home tonight. He knows who this is.” It was a ritual for him. Whenever he successfully dragged Sally away from me, he would call just to twist the knife. To remind me that in the hierarchy of her heart, he would always win without even trying. I looked down at my pale, unmoving shell. I felt nothing. No anger, no jealousy, no despair. Ghosts can’t cry. 6 Martha frowned, clearly confused. “But Mrs. Sally said she’d be right back. She said she was going to finish a movie with him.” “Ha!” Elliott sneered. “Sure. Tell him to hold his breath and wait. Let’s see how long he lasts.” The call disconnected. Martha placed the phone back on the sofa. She stepped closer to my body. “Mr. Noah? Wake up. It’s too cold out here, you’ll catch a chill. Mrs. Sally will be upset if you get sick.” “Upset? Sally?” If she cared about me catching a chill, she wouldn’t have left me on a freezing mountain peak overnight. But none of it mattered now. My consciousness was fraying at the edges. Soon, I would scatter into nothing. Martha couldn’t wake me. She reached out, gently shaking my shoulder. Her fingers brushed against my bare forearm. She flinched. “Mr. Noah, you’re freezing…” I didn’t stir. The remaining color was rapidly draining from my face, leaving behind a waxy, terrifying gray. Martha realized something was horribly wrong. Panic seized her features. She pressed two trembling fingers to my neck. Then she leaned down, putting her ear to my nose. She froze. She shook her head, muttering a frantic prayer as she pressed her ear to my chest. A second later, she was dialing 911, her fingers slipping on the screen. She screamed our address and my symptoms into the phone. The moment dispatch confirmed the ambulance, she dialed Sally. “Ma’am! Something’s wrong! You need to come home right now! Mr. Noah—he’s not breathing!”

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I had spent my entire life perfecting the craft of acting, eventually capturing three Academy Awards for Best Actor. But at the peak of my glory, standing on the podium with the golden statuette in hand, a deranged anti-fan lunged forward and smashed a heavy brick right into my temple. Just like that, my lights went out. When I opened my eyes again, I was no longer on a stage. I had woken up in the body of a long-lost biological son, newly returned to one of the most powerful old-money dynasties in the country—the Blackwoods. But the grand estate wasn’t empty. Waiting for me was the fragile, sickly imposter who had lived my life. His name was Oliver. He was a boy who gasped after three steps, coughed after five, and looked as though a stiff autumn breeze would send him straight into a coma. At our very first meeting, in the middle of the sprawling, marble-floored parlor, he clutched his chest and collapsed weakly at my feet. “Brother,” he whimpered, “it’s all my fault. I stole your life, your luxury, for sixteen years. If you hate me… I’ll gladly end it all right now.” My father’s eyes welled with tears instantly. My older sister, Caroline, stepped protectively in front of him, brandishing her fencing foil, her eyes brimming with cold disgust as she glared at me. “The moment you step foot in this house, you drive Oliver to despair. You really are a backwoods savage, aren’t you?” “If anything happens to him, I’ll make sure you pay for it.” Even Victoria, my childhood fiancée, spoke with icy detachment: “The arrangement was made with the heir of the Blackwood estate. But Oliver is the one who has been by my side all these years. I will never abandon him.” I watched this pathetic little melodrama unfold. My eyes welled with tears on cue, and with a sharp, ragged gasp, I spat a mouthful of dark, metallic blood right onto my father’s pristine cream-colored rug. “Oliver, what are you saying?” I whispered, my voice trembling. “You only took my parents, my name, my sister, and my fiancée.” “How could I ever hate you?” The entire room froze. I let my knees buckle, collapsing weakly into my father’s arms, letting my head fall back as I murmured one last, devastating line: “I was just unlucky. I came back too late. I’m nothing but an eyesore to everyone here.” Oliver’s face drained of color. Oh, little brother. You want to play the victim? You’re trying to out-act a three-time Oscar winner. You are wildly out of your league. … The room went dead silent, paralyzed by the sight of my blood. My father’s hands shook as he held me. Oliver’s face went white, his voice trembling. “Elliott, don’t scare me like this.” “Did I say something wrong? Did I hurt you? If I did, I’ll beg for your forgiveness. Just tell me what to do.” He made a move to sink back down to his knees. What a beautiful, fragile little orchid. If he knelt now, everyone would assume I was the aggressor, that my sudden hemorrhage was just a theatrical play to bully him. In my past life, I had starred in thirty-seven films. I had won three Academy Awards. My absolute specialty was knowing exactly how to let a single tear spill over my lower lash line at the perfect millisecond to catch the camera’s light. So, I reached out and weakly gripped my father’s sleeve. I shook my head, letting a tear slip down my temple as my voice trailed off, faint as a dying breath. “Dad, please don’t blame Oliver. I’m the one who lived in the dirt for too long. My body is just… weak. I don’t deserve to hear such polite words.” My father’s posture went rigid. Oliver froze mid-kneel, caught awkwardly between standing and bowing. I lifted my eyes to Caroline. I flinched, looking terrified of the fencing foil in her hand, but forced a small, submissive smile. “Don’t be angry, Caroline. I know how much you love Oliver. After all, you’ve had sixteen years together.” “I’m new here. I don’t know the rules. I didn’t realize my very existence would be such an eyesore in this house.” Caroline’s expression shifted instantly. Slowly, the tip of her foil lowered to the floor. “I… I didn’t mean it like that,” she muttered. I lowered my head, coughing raggedly into my hand. A fresh smear of red stained my palm. The blood wasn’t entirely an act. The original owner of this body had been starved and beaten by his abusive foster parents in a rural trailer park for years. His health was a hollowed-out shell. My sudden reincarnation, paired with the emotional whiplash of this toxic family, made spitting blood a perfectly natural physiological reaction. But how to spit it, and who should see it—that was pure art. My father finally panicked. “Get the family doctor! Now!” A flash of pure resentment crossed Oliver’s eyes before he masked it with tearful concern, lunging forward. “Elliott, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t be here to ruin your life. I’ll pack my bags. I’ll move to the guest cottage over the garage. I won’t ever show my face to you again.” He reached out to support me, but his fingers dug sharply into a dark purple bruise on my wrist. The pain was sharp, but it almost made me laugh. Oh, little brother. Trying to pull a physical stunt off-camera? That’s how amateurs get exposed. I didn’t pull away. Instead, the moment his fingers made contact, I flinched violently as if struck, recoiling into my father’s chest. “Oliver, don’t touch me! Please… it hurts.” My father looked down, his eyes landing on my exposed wrist. It was covered in deep, mottled bruises. They weren’t from today. They were the physical records of years of abuse. A heavy silence fell over the room. Oliver’s hand hung suspended in the air, his face twitching as his mask of concern began to crack. “What is this?” my father asked, his voice shaking. I frantically pulled my sleeve down, my eyes darting around as if terrified of causing trouble. “It’s nothing. Just some accidents from working on the farm. I’m clumsy.” The more I tried to hide it, the worse it looked. The more I insisted it was nothing, the more it tore at my father’s conscience. The family doctor arrived quickly. After checking my pulse, his brow furrowed deeply. “The young master is severely malnourished, and his internal organs are weak from years of hard labor and exposure. If he is subjected to any more emotional shock or stress, it could cause irreversible damage.” My father’s eyes turned red with guilt. Caroline’s face drained of color. I knew they didn’t suddenly love me. But a long-lost heir dying of a broken heart on his very first day back? The Blackwood family’s reputation in high society would never recover from that scandal. Oliver suddenly let out a soft, delicate cough, his eyes rimming with pink. Usually, one cough from him would bring the entire household running to cater to his every whim. But this time, my father only spared him a brief, strained glance before turning to the house manager. “Move Elliott into the East Wing master suite. Hire two discreet, highly professional nurses to watch over him.” “And bring up the premium tonics from the private cellar.” Oliver’s face warped. As the attendants lifted my wheelchair to carry me out of the grand parlor, I caught his eye. In his gaze, I saw resentment, panic, and an unshielded, ugly hostility. I let the corner of my mouth curve into a tiny, imperceptible smirk. We’ve barely started, little brother. The stage is set. But that? That wasn’t even the dress rehearsal. The East Wing suite was originally meant for the true heir of the family. Oliver had lived there for sixteen years, only packing his things to move out the night before. The rooms still carried the faint, lingering scent of his expensive signature cologne. Felix, the young valet my father had assigned to me, whispered nervously as he smoothed the sheets: “Sir, I heard Master Oliver absolutely adored this wing. He must be heartbroken having to leave it.” I looked up at him. Felix immediately lowered his head. He was a servant handpicked by my father, but every word out of his mouth was clearly designed to test the waters on Oliver’s behalf. I smiled softly. “Do you feel sorry for him, Felix?” Felix fell to his knees in terror. “I wouldn’t dare, sir.” “Don’t worry, I’m just asking.” I pressed a silk handkerchief to my lips, keeping my voice quiet. “He lived like a prince here for sixteen years. Suddenly being moved to the guest house must feel like a punishment.” “But then, I slept on a wooden floor in a drafty trailer for sixteen years. Moving into this grand suite makes me feel incredibly anxious, too.” Felix’s face turned pale. I continued, “If you’d rather be with him, you should go back to his service. I’m a sickly patient, and I wouldn’t want my poor health to hold back your career.” At those words, panic took hold of him. My father had just been consumed by guilt. If word got out that the newly returned heir couldn’t even get a single servant to obey him, who would look bad? The family patriarch. Felix began to bow frantically. “Please forgive me, sir! From now on, my loyalty belongs only to you.” I closed my eyes, satisfied. The first rule of acting isn’t learning how to cry or laugh. It’s controlling the scene. The next morning, Oliver arrived. His face was pale, and he was followed by two maids carrying a bowl of bird’s nest soup. “Brother, I felt so terrible about yesterday. I couldn’t sleep all night. I made this soup myself to apologize.” Felix looked at me nervously. I glanced at the soup. Under the sweet, delicate aroma of the broth, there was a very faint, distinct scent of bitter almonds. The original owner of this body had a severe, congenital allergy to raw almonds—even a trace amount would trigger anaphylactic shock. The Blackwoods didn’t know this, but Oliver, with his extensive resources, must have dug up my medical history from the rural clinic before I was brought back. He didn’t want to kill me. He just wanted me to have an allergic reaction in front of everyone, so he could play the innocent victim who had been “falsely accused,” painting me as a paranoid, unstable drama queen who couldn’t tolerate his existence. I accepted the bowl, smiling warmly. “You’re so thoughtful, Oliver.” A flash of smug satisfaction lit up his eyes. I lifted the spoon, but just as it reached my lips, I stopped. My eyes slowly pooled with tears. “Back in the country, I used to stand outside the windows of the wealthy estates, smelling the rich food they cooked.” “I used to wonder if my real parents ate like that too.” Oliver’s smile froze. I set the spoon down. “Something this precious… I can’t bear to eat it alone.” “Felix, go bring my father and sister. Tell them Oliver made this soup with his own hands, and I want to share this beautiful family moment with them.” Oliver’s face drained of color. He tried to stop Felix, but it was too late. My father and Caroline arrived shortly. Oliver forced a weak laugh. “It’s just a bowl of soup, Elliott. There was no need to disturb Father and Caroline.” Acting oblivious, I pushed the bowl toward my father. “Oliver worked so hard on this. Father, you should have the first bite.” Oliver began to cough violently. His maid stepped in quickly. “Sir, Master Oliver made this specifically for Master Elliott. Surely a gentleman of your stature shouldn’t eat leftovers?” Caroline frowned. I lowered my eyes, murmuring softly: “Oh. So this is meant only for me.” The words were quiet, but they stung. My father immediately picked up the spoon. “Nonsense. Why shouldn’t I try it?” Oliver panicked. “Father, no!” In his moment of sheer panic, I suddenly clutched my chest, gasping for air as if startled by his shout. “Oliver… why are you so afraid of Father tasting it? Did I do something wrong again?” My father paused, his expression darkening. The family doctor was summoned to examine the soup. A few minutes later, he knelt before my father. “Sir, this broth contains traces of bitter almond extract.” “It is harmless to most, but for Master Elliott, whose respiratory system is already compromised, it would cause severe breathing difficulties—perhaps even lung failure.” The room went dead silent. Oliver burst into tears. “I didn’t know! I swear I didn’t know! How could I possibly know about his allergies from before he came here?” I didn’t accuse him. I only stared at him, my eyes wide with hurt and a deep, terrified silence. I had shot this exact scene in an indie drama years ago. It was called The Silence of the Victim. Predictably, my father’s anger flared. He ordered the kitchen staff to be investigated. Oliver wept so hard he could barely stand. Caroline watched him, wanting to offer comfort, but her eyes kept drifting back to my pale, fragile face. In the end, she remained silent. I took a sip of plain water, hiding the faint smile on my lips. Scene One: Redirect the blow, and let the fire burn the instigator. The head of the kitchen staff ultimately took the blame, claiming he had mixed up the recipe for the medicinal broth. Oliver escaped unscathed, though he had to come to my room three times to apologize, eyes red and tearful. I knew this wouldn’t destroy him. Sixteen years of shared history couldn’t be severed by a single bowl of soup. My father felt guilty and suspicious, but he wasn’t ready to cast him out. Neither was Caroline. The lingering tenderness in her eyes when she looked at him was unmistakable. And then there was my fiancée, Victoria. She was even more interesting. On the third day, she arrived at the estate with a box of rare imported herbs. But she didn’t come to see me. She went straight to the guest house to see Oliver. Felix’s face was flushed with anger. “Sir, Miss Victoria is crossing the line. You are her fiancé!” I was looking in the mirror, practicing my smiles. The fragile one. The enduring one. The resigned one. The one that was completely heartbroken but still trying to maintain dignity. Hearing his words, I chose the last one. “How long has she been there?” “Almost an hour.” “That’s long enough.” I stood up and draped a cashmere coat over my shoulders. “Take me there.” The door to the guest house was slightly ajar. As I approached, I heard Oliver’s soft whimpering from inside. “Victoria, please don’t blame Elliott. He’s the rightful heir of this family. I took everything from him—it’s only natural that he resents me.” “My health is failing anyway. If I’m gone tomorrow, please… don’t be sad.” Victoria’s voice was firm. “Don’t talk like that. As long as I’m here, no one will push you around.” I stood at the threshold and let out a soft, delicate cough. Both of them spun around to look at me. Victoria’s brow furrowed immediately. “What are you doing here?” I looked at her, then at Oliver, letting all the color drain from my face as if a terrible truth had finally dawned on me. “So… this is what you look like when you’re together.” A flicker of discomfort flashed across Victoria’s face. Oliver quickly stood up. “Elliott, you’ve misunderstood. Victoria only came to check on my health.” I nodded softly, my expression gentle. “I understand. You grew up together. Your bond is deep. It’s only natural that she cares for you.” I was being too reasonable, too accommodating—the kind of grace that makes people feel deeply uncomfortable. Victoria’s expression softened slightly. “I’m glad you understand. I’ll speak to the families about the engagement. Oliver is fragile; he can’t handle this kind of stress.” I let out a soft, bitter laugh. “So, Miss Whitmore, you want me to call off the engagement myself to make way for the two of you?” She remained silent. Tears clung to Oliver’s eyelashes. “Elliott, I never wanted to take your fiancée.” I looked at him and took a step forward. He flinched back instinctively, as if expecting me to strike him. Instead, I simply pulled the antique jade betrothal ring from my pocket and set it gently on the table. “Since we’re being honest, let’s settle this today.” Victoria froze. I didn’t yell. I didn’t make a scene. I just looked at her calmly. “If you wish to break the engagement, please have your parents come to the estate. We will settle the contract, the family crests, and the gifts formally before both families and the attorneys.” “Don’t cling to him in secret while letting me carry the empty title of your fiancé just to keep up appearances.” Victoria’s face burned with embarrassment. Oliver panicked. He didn’t actually want Victoria to break the engagement immediately. He wanted me to become so thoroughly detested by high society that I would be forced to step down, leaving him with both the girl and his spotless reputation intact. But I wasn’t going to let him play that game. I pressed my hand to my chest, letting out a self-deprecating sigh. “I may have been raised in a trailer park, but I still know the value of honor. If your heart is not with me, I won’t force you. But I will not allow you to drag my dignity through the mud.” Victoria was left utterly speechless. Just then, a voice echoed from the hallway. “Elliott is absolutely right.” I turned to see my father and Caroline standing in the doorway. I kept my expression perfectly serene. I had purposely sent Felix to fetch them. If the stage is set, you must have an audience. My father glared at Victoria, his voice colder than I had ever heard it. “If you wish to call off this wedding, Miss Whitmore, have your mother call me herself.” “Elliott is the sole heir of the Blackwood family. He is not a piece of clearance merchandise to be picked over.” Victoria’s face went from pale to flushed. She curtseyed stiffly and took her leave. Oliver made a move to follow her, but stopped himself, turning back with tears streaming down his face. “Father, I swear I didn’t…” My father closed his eyes, looking incredibly weary. “Oliver, you are unwell. From now on, limit your visitors.” The words weren’t loud. But to Oliver, they were more devastating than a physical blow. I coughed twice, leaning heavily on Felix. Though my eyes shone with tears, a tiny, satisfying smirk played at the corner of my mouth. Scene Two: Retreat to advance. Let them destroy themselves. Three days later, an invitation arrived from the Harrington Estate. The Governor’s annual charity gala was approaching. Having heard that the Blackwood family had recovered their long-lost biological son, the Governor requested that my father bring both Oliver and me to the exclusive event. My father was thrilled. He immediately ordered the best tailors in the city to design custom suits for us overnight. Oliver sat quietly beside us, his demeanor meek and obedient. “This is Elliott’s first time attending such a high-profile gala. He must be nervous. The Governor is a renowned collector of fine art. If you’re preparing a gift, Elliott, perhaps you should paint a classical piece.” I glanced at him. Ah, here it comes. In my past life, I had starred in enough high-society political thrillers to know that these grand galas were the perfect breeding ground for sabotage. One wrong move, and you’d be humiliated—or worse, blacklisted from elite circles forever. I smiled faintly. “I was raised in the country, Oliver. My brushwork is crude. I’m afraid it wouldn’t be fit for the Governor’s eyes.” Oliver replied gently, “You shouldn’t undervalue yourself, brother. It’s the thought that counts.” The more he pushed, the more certain I was that he had planned something. I chose to paint a winter landscape. But instead of the usual scenery, I painted a single, bleeding winter rose blooming in the snow. The branches were sharp and twisted, the petals a striking, vivid red—a representation of a life stubbornly fighting its way out of the freezing cold. On the evening of the gala, Oliver brought a silk-wrapped box, which his valet carried with extreme care. When he saw my box, a subtle gleam flashed in his eyes. I pretended not to notice. The gala was held in the grand ballroom of the Harrington Estate. The room was filled with senators, old-money families, and prominent figures of high society. The Governor sat near the head of the room, exuding the quiet, formidable authority of a man who held the keys to the state’s power. My father led us forward to pay our respects. The Governor studied me for a long moment before speaking in a low, resonant voice. “So, this is the boy who was lost?” I kept my head bowed respectfully. “It is an honor to meet you, Governor Harrington.” The Governor sighed softly. “You’ve had a difficult path, son.” At those words, Oliver’s eyes turned red on cue. “The Governor is incredibly kind. Having Elliott back is a blessing for our family.” “Though I will miss being the only son, I am truly happy for him.” It was a beautiful performance. Even Mrs. Harrington spared him an appreciative glance. I didn’t try to interrupt. I just stood there quietly, my eyelashes fluttering slightly, looking both touched and deeply embarrassed. Sometimes, silence speaks louder than any defense. When it came time to present our gifts, the Governor smiled. “Since both of you represent the Blackwood family, let us see what you have brought.” Oliver shot me a quick look and stepped forward first, holding his box. I followed with mine. The event coordinators took our boxes. As they moved toward the display table, one of the coordinators—cleverly using the wide sleeve of her silk gown—swapped the two boxes with practiced, invisible ease. I saw it clearly. She was the one Oliver had bribed. The coordinator opened the left box first—the one now bearing my name. The moment she unveiled it, the Governor’s smile froze. It was a traditional calligraphy scroll wishing him long life. But the strokes were incredibly crude, and the central character for “Longevity” was painted completely upside down. A collective gasp rippled through the room. An upside-down longevity symbol. In old-money circles, it was considered a vulgar, deliberate curse—wishing an early grave upon the host. My father’s knees went weak; he looked ready to faint. Terrified by the sudden tension, the coordinator quickly opened the second box to salvage the atmosphere. The box, now bearing Oliver’s name, was opened to reveal my painting: the bleeding winter rose in the snow. The crimson flower bloomed starkly against the white snow, its thorny stem wrapping around a frozen stone. It was a masterpiece of resilient beauty. Oliver’s expression flickered with triumph before he threw himself to his knees, tears streaming down his face as he gestured to the offensive scroll. “Governor, please forgive my brother! I swear he didn’t do this on purpose! He only recently returned to high society and doesn’t understand our customs. He can barely write, let alone paint. Please, spare him!” Then, looking at the winter rose painting, he added softly, “That rose painting… that is the piece I spent three sleepless months working on to honor you, Governor. I wanted to show my deepest respect.” The room went deathly quiet. What a brilliant, calculated move. Every word he spoke sounded like a plea for my mercy, yet every word nailed me further into a coffin, all while claiming my masterpiece as his own. The Governor’s face was unreadable. “Elliott Blackwood. Is this offensive scroll your gift?” I slowly stood straight, my eyes red, but I didn’t rush to defend myself. A true actor never reveals his hand too early. I looked at Oliver, my voice trembling. “Oliver… you’re saying that winter rose painting is yours?” Oliver wept openly. “Elliott, does it matter right now? Just apologize to the Governor. He is merciful; he will forgive your ignorance.” I let out a soft, low chuckle. “But the crimson pigment on those petals… it wasn’t made with ordinary red paint.” The Governor paused, his sharp eyes narrowing. I slowly unwrapped the white linen bandage from my index finger. Three of my fingers bore fresh, neat needle pricks. They weren’t deep, but they were undeniably clear. “The red on those petals… is my own—”

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When I was ten, my parents split up, scrambled to start their new, shiny families, and left me with my grandfather. We didn’t see each other again until the summer after my high school graduation. They had come to the restaurant where I worked to book private dining rooms, and it just so happened to be my shift. My father held his stepson’s shoulder, smiling proudly. “My boy scored a 1450 on his SATs,” he told me. “We need your largest private room.” My mother, holding her little daughter’s hand, was booking the adjacent room. “It’s my daughter’s seventh birthday. We’ll need a spacious room, too.” They glanced at each other, then quickly averted their eyes. “Throwing such a lavish birthday party for a seven-year-old? You certainly spoil her,” my father remarked with a tight smile. “And your stepson is the real star,” my mother replied politely. “He’s going to do great things.” And me? The state valedictorian. Their biological son. Neither of them recognized me. I wiped the grease from my hands onto my apron, quietly taking down their reservations. My father ordered a lavish seafood feast, noting it was his son’s favorite. My mother had brought a custom-made cake, asking for it to be kept in the freezer. Before leaving, my father casually asked, “What about… him? Haven’t heard anything. Did he fail his exams?” My mother paused. “I don’t know. He hasn’t called.” I didn’t look up. I was busy texting the real estate agent on my phone. Once my grandfather’s old house was sold, I could leave this city with absolutely no regrets. … At 6:00 PM, the manager called me to the back. A reservation room had a setup issue, and the guests demanded an apology from the staff responsible. I took off my dishwashing gloves and apron, rubbing at a grease stain on my chest. It only smeared wider. I bit my lip and followed the manager to the private room my father had booked. Through the heavy oak door, I could hear his voice comforting Logan. “Don’t be upset, Logan. The staff here are just uneducated. They can’t even blow up a balloon arch properly.” “Didn’t you want the new MacBook, iPad, and iPhone? We’ll go to the Apple Store right after dinner and get you the absolute best specs.” I looked down at my worn, faded canvas sneakers. My living expenses for next semester were still up in the air; if I lost this gig, it would be instant ramen for another month. Pushing the door open, I gave a deep, polite bow. “I’m so sorry. That was my mistake.” “A mistake?” Logan pouted. “The balloon arch is completely deflated at the top! It looks awful. The photos are going to look so cheap.” My father instantly soothed him. “I know, I know. We’ll make them redo it. All new balloons.” I climbed the step ladder, reaching up to untangle the sagging balloon. An uncle sitting next to my father used me as a cautionary tale for his own kid: “See that? You need to study hard like Logan. If you don’t get good grades, you’ll end up working service jobs like this waiter, stuck at the bottom forever.” My father beamed, wrapping an arm around Logan’s shoulders. “Our Logan is smart and hardworking. He really outdid himself this time, scoring way higher than his practice exams.” I pretended not to hear, channeling all the suffocating noise in my chest into inflating a fresh balloon. I couldn’t even remember the last time my father had called me smart or good. In my memories, he was always screaming at my mother, slamming doors, breaking dishes. When he was angry, his eyes would lock onto me, spitting venom—calling me an eyesore, a burden, a mistake that ruined his life. When I got accepted into the top boarding academy in the state, I secretly used my grandfather’s flip phone to text him. He replied: “I have a happy life now. Please don’t disrupt it.” I had wanted to tell him that my grades were actually much better than Logan’s. I wanted to tell him I was good, that I wouldn’t be a burden. I didn’t want to disrupt his life. I just… missed him. But he didn’t know. Or maybe, he just didn’t care to know. After fixing the balloon, I stepped out, only to be called into the adjacent room. “Hey, could you help us cut the cake?” Inside, my mother was posing for photos with her little daughter. Noticing me standing in the background of her shot, she frowned. “Can’t you see we’re taking a photo? Does this place hire people with zero common sense?” I quickly stepped back into the shadow of the corner. My mother picked up a plastic Barbie tiara. “Look, sweetie. It’s the Barbie crown you wanted. Mommy had it specially made. Do you love it?” The little girl ran around the room, giggling. My mother chased after her with a soft, bright smile, keeping a protective hand near the table corners so she wouldn’t bump her head, gently wiping the sweat from her forehead with a tissue. The sheer tenderness in her eyes made me dizzy. For a second, I wondered if I had mistaken her for someone else. When I was five, she forgot about my severe mango allergy. I spent a week in the ICU. When I was eight, she got the parent-teacher conference date wrong, and I was mocked by my classmates for having a mother who didn’t care enough to show up. Earlier this year, when Grandfather passed away, I didn’t find out until after the funeral because I was away at my boarding school. Our neighbor, Mr. Davis, later told me that my mother couldn’t remember which school I went to or how to contact my advisor, so she simply forgot to notify me. It turned out she didn’t have a bad memory. She wasn’t careless. She simply didn’t have any love left over to spare for me. I turned and quietly shut the door on their warmth. But when I looked up, I froze. I was looking straight into a pair of familiar eyes. “What are you doing here?” I asked. My eyes drifted down to the gift box in Chelsea’s hands. Chelsea tilted her head, instinctively tucking the gift behind her back. Logan poked his head out of his family’s room. “Chelsea! You’re five minutes late. You owe me an apology!” Chelsea took a step forward, passing him the box. “Traffic was bad. Here, I got you something.” She glanced back at me, her expression fraught with awkwardness. “Connor, I’ll explain later.” I stood frozen. An hour ago, she had texted me saying she was going out with her parents to visit some family friends and wouldn’t be able to reply tonight. She hadn’t mentioned that those “friends” included my biological father. And I never could have guessed that my childhood friend—the girl who grew up sharing popsicles with me on summer afternoons—shared this kind of easy intimacy with Logan. Logan’s smile faded. He looked from Chelsea to me. “Connor… Wait, are you Connor?” Before I could answer, he turned and shouted into the room, “Dad! Guess what? Connor is here spying on you!” All eyes in the hallway turned to me. I gripped the hem of my apron, my gaze finding my father. The proud grin on his face faltered, freezing into a stiff grimace. “Oh,” he muttered, clearing his throat uncomfortably. “It’s you. You’ve grown so tall, I didn’t even recognize you.” I let go of my apron and spoke quietly. “I’m not spying.” He blinked, stepping out into the hall. “Then what are you doing here?” “Working. To pay for college.” My father swept his eyes over my grease-stained uniform. “Why are you dressed like that? Are you trying to embarrass me?” He lowered his voice, his tone sharp. “Look, we’re celebrating Logan’s scores today. I don’t have time for this. Go find your mother. She’s right next door.” With that, he knocked loudly on the adjacent door. “Diana, your son is out here.” “What son? I only have a daughter…” My mother stepped out, her voice cutting off as her eyes landed on me. After a few agonizing seconds, she let out a strained, nervous laugh. “Connor? What are you doing here?” She stepped closer to the doorway, lowering her voice to a whisper. “We’re celebrating your sister’s birthday. The room is full of guests. This is really inconvenient.” “Whatever it is, can we talk tomorrow?” She looked up at my father. “I really can’t do this right now, Richard. You’re his father. He’s clearly here for you.” My father sneered. “I’m busy too. You’re his mother. He’s your responsibility.” The tension spiked, their old bitterness flaring up instantly. “You gave birth to him, Diana,” my father hissed. “Why are you trying to dump him on me?” My mother’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t make him by myself! Why is he solely my problem?” And just like that, I was a pinball again, bouncing between them. It had always been this way. They fought over who had to cook for me. They argued over who had to pay my school fees. In the divorce court, when the judge asked who I wanted to live with, my father yelled that his salary was too low to feed another mouth. My mother cried that as a single woman, she couldn’t possibly raise a boy alone. They screamed until they were red in the face, treating me like a defective product neither of them wanted to be stuck with. Years had passed, and I was still the same unwanted baggage. I took a deep breath, cutting through their bickering. “You don’t need to worry about me.” “I didn’t come here looking for either of you.” The hallway went cold. Suddenly, Logan smiled from the doorway. “Dad, let him in. We can easily squeeze in another chair. No need to cause a scene in the hallway for everyone to stare at.” The tight lines on my father’s face immediately softened. “See? Logan is always the mature one.” He cast a cold glance at me. “Come on in, then.” One of my father’s friends patted my shoulder, nudging me inside. I was steered to a seat in the far corner of the long table. Logan’s mother offered a polite, hollow smile. “Connor, is there anything you want to eat? We can order a few more dishes.” My father didn’t even look up from his menu. “He’s not picky. He’ll eat anything.” “But Logan loves the lobster. Let’s order another plate of that.” I swallowed a sip of ice water to wash down the burning lump in my throat. A man sitting next to me nudged my arm. “Hey, kid, aren’t you going to greet your dad’s friends?” I looked at my father, my tongue feeling like lead. The winter after my grandfather died, I had tentatively dialed my father’s number. When he picked up, the background was filled with the warm laughter of a holiday dinner party and the faint crackle of a fireplace. Shivering in the cold, empty house, I had whispered, “Dad.” But it was Logan who snatched the phone. “There’s no ‘Dad’ here for you. Don’t call this number.” “Did your mom not buy you a father? Why are you trying to steal mine?” In the background, I heard my father’s distant, annoyed voice: “Who is that? Calling during the holidays. How irritating.” I had hung up, humiliated. That was the moment I realized the word “Dad” no longer belonged to me. “Forget it,” my father grumbled, his expression darkening. “He’s always been like this. Just like his mother—cold and stubborn.” Logan leaned affectionately against my father’s shoulder. “Well, Dad, I must have gotten my charm from you. Otherwise, how could I be this handsome?” My father pinched his cheek playfully. “Of course. It’s fate. You were always meant to be my son.” The air felt thin, and I struggled to draw a full breath. Everyone raised their glasses in a toast. My father smiled at Chelsea. “Chelsea, Logan tells me you both committed to universities in Boston. I’m counting on you to look out for him.” Chelsea smiled warmly. “Don’t worry, Mr. Adams. I’ll make sure he stays out of trouble.” I wanted to laugh. Only yesterday, when we were choosing our college tracks, she had promised we would go south to Georgia Tech together. In less than twenty-four hours, that promise had dissolved. My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a text from Chelsea. “My parents made the decision for me. They want me in Boston because we have family there who can look out for me.” “Logan’s dad is a close friend of my father’s. I couldn’t just ignore him. You understand, right?” I wasn’t even angry. I just wondered why she hadn’t told me sooner. If she had, I wouldn’t have spent years believing that she, my oldest friend, was the one person who would never leave me behind. Another text popped up. “Why don’t you change your commitment too? We can all be in Boston. Wouldn’t that be nice?” No. It wouldn’t. I looked up at the table. My father was huddled over the menu with Logan, discussing dessert. He knew exactly how Logan hated spicy food and loved sweets. Chelsea had gloves on, carefully peeling shrimp and placing them on Logan’s plate. In all the years I had known her, she had never done anything so sweet for me. There was no room for me here. No one cared what I ate, and no one would care if I left. I quietly stood up, stepping away from the table without making a sound. As the door clicked shut behind me, the laughter inside didn’t miss a beat. No one noticed I was gone. Back in the kitchen, I put my apron and gloves back on and submerged myself in the greasy dishwater. At 9:00 PM, I walked out of the restaurant, my shoulders aching. “Connor!” My mother’s voice cut through the damp night air. “Your grandfather left some things for you. Wait here.” I stood on the curb until her SUV pulled up. Her new husband and daughter were inside. The little girl was fast asleep in her car seat. I reached out to open the back door, but my mother winced. “Actually, just take an Uber.” “If you open the door, you’ll wake your sister, and she’ll be fussy all night.” Before I could say a word, she scribbled an address on a scrap of paper, tossed it to me, and hit the gas. The exhaust fumes stung my eyes, making me cough. I checked my bank account balance against the estimated Uber fare, sighed, and walked toward the bus stop. Two transfers and an hour later, I stood outside her suburban home. The last time I had been here was when Grandfather was diagnosed with cancer. He had begged her to let me stay with her because he was too sick to care for me. I hadn’t even made it past the threshold. I had stood on the porch, listening to her shout at him inside. “My daughter is starting kindergarten! How am I supposed to handle a teenager too? He’s old enough for boarding school. Send him there. Stop dumping your problems on me!” I pressed the doorbell. My mother opened it, her expression tight with annoyance. “You took forever. You’re just as slow as your father.” She threw two pairs of paper shoe covers at my feet. “Put these on.” Before I could even step into the foyer, she dragged a plastic stool over, placing a sheet of paper on top of it. “Sit there. Don’t get dirt on the hardwood.” I didn’t sit. “Just give me Grandfather’s things. I’ll leave.” The door to the living room cracked open. My little half-sister peeked out, her eyes wide with curiosity. “Mommy, does he not have a home? Why is he here so late?” Meeting her innocent gaze, a lump formed in my throat, choking back any words I had. My mother quickly shoved two heavy plastic bags into my hands. “Your grandfather wanted you to have these personal files and old junk. He left them at the hospital.” “Alright, you should go. Your sister needs to sleep.” I turned around and walked back out into the dark. The buses had stopped running. I stared at my phone, but my stubborn grip on my meager savings won out over my aching body. I started walking. It was a fifteen-mile trek from the suburbs back to my grandfather’s old apartment. I walked through the night, stopping to rest when the blisters on my feet burst and bled. By the time I reached the apartment building, the sky was turning a pale, dusty blue. The local bakery owner, who was setting out his morning racks, gasped when he saw me. “Connor, kid, what happened to you? You look like a ghost.” I forced a weak smile. “I’m okay, Mr. Henderson. I just had a very long walk.” But no walk could ever be as long as the life that lay ahead of me—a life where I was entirely, utterly on my own. A month later, I received my final paycheck from the restaurant. The real estate agent called with good news: the sale of Grandfather’s apartment had gone through seamlessly. I began mailing my belongings to my new dorm in the South, piece by piece. The day before I was scheduled to fly out, my parents showed up at the apartment together. It was the first time they had ever agreed on anything. “Connor,” my mother began, her voice dripping with maternal concern. “I realized you’re starting college soon. What are you planning to do with this apartment?” “Your mother is right,” my father added. “You’re too young to hold onto property. It’s easy for scammers to take advantage of you.” “It’s better to sell it now. We can put the money into a high-yield trust fund for you, so you’ll have a down payment when you’re ready to buy a house of your own later.” I looked at them, keeping my expression perfectly blank. Ten minutes ago, they had been arguing on the landing, unaware that the thin apartment door carried their voices perfectly. My mother had claimed the apartment belonged to her family line and should go to her. My father had laughed, arguing that the down payment had come from joint marital assets, meaning he was entitled to half. They had completely forgotten. When they threw me away like trash, Grandfather’s sole condition for taking me in was that they sign over the deed of this old apartment entirely to my name. “Sure,” I said quietly. “Call the agent. We can do it.” “But I’m really tired today. Let’s handle it tomorrow.” Relief washed over their faces, and they left, smiling and chatting like old friends. The next morning, they knocked on the door right on time. When I opened it, they tried to push past me, but froze. A middle-aged couple was already inside, holding a tape measure against the living room wall. “Who are you?” my father demanded, his voice rising. “What are you doing in here?” “We’re looking for our son…” my mother started. “What son?” the woman with the tape measure snapped, interrupting her. “We closed on this place yesterday. We’re measuring for renovations.” “This is the home of the state valedictorian. We paid a premium for the good luck. If you’re not supposed to be here, get out!”

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On the eve of our wedding, my fiancée, Nicole, abandoned me again. She went to accompany her foster brother, Chase, on a death-defying hike into the deepest, most treacherous peaks of the Alaskan backcountry. Everyone in our social circle was waiting for me to break. To scream, to cry, or to lose my mind in front of everyone. In my past life, that was exactly what I did. Terrified she would freeze to death or fall off a ridge in a storm, I spent millions mobilizing a fleet of search helicopters to scour the mountains, dragging her back just in time to walk down the aisle. The wedding went on as planned. She successfully inherited the multi-billion-dollar Lancaster empire. But later? She had me suspended from a helicopter, dangling in the freezing air like a broken kite, until my body was unrecognizable. All because on our wedding day, Chase had thrown a tantrum, vanished into the Alaskan wilderness, and was never heard from again. She had stood in the cabin of that helicopter, staring down at me with cold, venomous eyes. “I’d rather spend the rest of my life mourning at Chase’s grave than spend another second with a monster like you.” But God was merciful. When I opened my eyes, I was back—twenty-four hours before the wedding. Staring at the dismissive text Nicole had sent to my phone, I let out a cold laugh. I swiped to a different contact and typed: [Bring your bridesmaids tomorrow. Be at the house by six to pick me up.] Nicole, this time, I’m letting you go. I hope you don’t regret it. After all, whoever marries me is the one who inherits the Lancaster fortune. … “Is she out of her mind? I’m calling security to bring her back right now!” Tyler slammed his groomsman’s suit onto the sofa, reaching for his phone. I pressed my hand over his wrist and shook my head. He stared at me, bewildered. “You know Chase is doing this on purpose, Bradley. It’s his eighth stunt right before a major event. Even a saint would have lost their temper by now!” I looked down at my phone. A single word had popped up from the other woman: “Understood.” I smiled faintly, letting my gaze drift. “Let her go. If she wants to run off into the wilderness, let her. I won’t be the one regretting it.” Tyler, who had been my closest friend for years, immediately caught the shift in my tone. His eyes widened. “Are you saying…” I nodded, a calm smile playing on my lips. “The Lancaster family has more than one daughter.” Just then, a loud, obnoxious commotion echoed from the hallway. Nicole’s circle of spoiled, wealthy friends sauntered in, looking at me with smirks on their faces. “Well, well. Look at the groom-to-be,” one of them drawled. A girl with dyed red hair nudged her, snickering. “Careful, you have to call him the “older” groom. There’s a younger one waiting in the wings, after all. Let’s keep our grooms straight.” Tyler’s face flushed with anger. “Watch your mouth! Bradley doesn’t have to marry Nicole!” The redhead scoffed, taking a step forward. “Oh, the best man is getting defensive! Honestly, though, the older groom’s friends are quite handsome. Why don’t we piggyback on Nicole’s wedding and make it a double ceremony tomorrow? Don’t worry, honey, I’ve got plenty of experience. I’ll make sure you enjoy yourself…” “Slap.” My hand cut through the air, landing squarely across her face. The room fell deathly quiet. The redhead froze, her eyes wide with utter shock, unable to believe I had actually struck her. In my past life, I had been blind. I loved Nicole so much that I tolerated her toxic friends, swallowing every insult and cruel joke just to keep the peace. I didn’t want Nicole to be upset, so I let them walk all over me. Now I realized: birds of a feather flock together. They were all just a pack of parasitic sycophants. She pointed a shaking finger at me, her face twisting in rage. “You… Bradley! You’ve gone too far. I’m calling Nicole right now. A vicious, violent man like you? Nicole will never let you step foot into the Lancaster estate!” I let out a soft, mocking laugh. Step foot into the Lancaster estate? Nicole didn’t hold the keys to that kingdom. She dialed Nicole immediately and put it on speaker. “Nicole, you need to handle Bradley. He found out you’re in the mountains with Chase, and he’s completely lost his mind!” Nicole’s voice crackled through the speaker, sharp and annoyed. “Watch how you talk about Chase.” The redhead blinked, taken aback. Nicole continued, “Bradley is the groom, but Chase is family. Let me speak to him.” The redhead thrust the phone toward me like a weapon, her chin tilted up. “Nicole wants to teach you a lesson.” Nicole’s exhausted, impatient voice filled the room. “Bradley, stop being so incredibly petty. A wedding can be rescheduled anytime. Chase is your brother—are you really so heartless that you don’t care if he dies out there?” Even though she had caused my death in a previous life, hearing her blatant, casual betrayal still sent a dull ache through my chest. The phantom cold of that helicopter ride briefly gripped my throat. “My parents only had one child,” I said, my voice deadpan. “I don’t have a brother.” Her impatience flared, her voice rising an octave. “Enough, Bradley! I’ve given you far too much leeway lately. As the future husband of the Lancaster heir, can’t you show a shred of dignity or grace? For the next few weeks, you can go sit in my father’s private sanctuary and copy the family’s code of conduct until I get back. If you can’t even do that, don’t be surprised if I give your spot at the altar to someone else!” Just then, Chase’s trembling, tearful voice echoed in the background. “Bradley, it’s all my fault. Please don’t be mad at Nicole. I’ll make her go back. My life isn’t worth her risking hers in this storm anyway…” Nicole’s tone turned ice-cold. “Look at what you’ve done to him! I never realized you could be this malicious.” Without giving me a chance to respond, she hung up. The redhead lowered her phone, giving me a smug, superior look. “If you still want to marry into the Lancaster family, you’d better start walking to the sanctuary and get to writing.” With that, the group strutted out of the room, laughing amongst themselves. Tyler watched them leave, confusion written all over his face. “Do they seriously not know? Do they have no idea who actually holds the inheritance?” I shook my head. Neither my family nor Grandmother Lancaster had ever made the details of the trust public. Years ago, my grandfather had saved Grandmother Lancaster’s life, helping her build her business from a penniless start into the titan that now dominated the East Coast. She never forgot that debt. When my family fell on hard times, she stood by my grandfather’s deathbed and swore she would protect me for the rest of my life. My name, Bradley, had been chosen before I was even born. Regardless of gender, I was to inherit the promise. Because of this, the Lancaster daughters of this generation were named Nicole and Josephine. Technically, Josephine was the eldest, born to her late husband’s first marriage. But because I had been hopelessly, blindly in love with Nicole, Grandmother Lancaster had placed her in charge of the primary New York operations early on. Josephine had been quietly reassigned to manage the remote, less lucrative West Coast branches. Everyone assumed Nicole was the sole heir to the multi-billion-dollar empire. They had no idea that the power of choice had always belonged to me. Suddenly, the front door was kicked open with a loud bang. A group of burly security guards stormed into the suite. Without a word, they grabbed my arms, hauling me off the couch. Tyler tried to intervene, but he was shoved roughly to the floor. “Get your hands off me!” I struggled, but I was outnumbered and overpowered, dragged toward the door like a common criminal. “Mr. Lancaster ordered Bradley to be brought to the sanctuary immediately. The rest of you, get out of the house,” the lead guard barked at Tyler. I glanced back at my phone lying on the floor. Tyler caught my eye and gave a subtle nod. He knew what to do. They dragged me down the long, echoing corridors of the estate and pushed me through the heavy oak doors of the private gallery. When I finally stood up, the bespoke suit I had planned to wear tomorrow was stained with dirt and grease. It was a suit I had spent five years personally designing. There was no time to make another one before tomorrow morning. I clenched my fists. Nicole and her father had deliberately orchestrated this to humiliate me. Inside the gallery, the heavy scent of burning sandalwood was suffocating. Charles Lancaster—Nicole’s father—was slowly rolling a pair of silver meditation balls in his palm. His face was a mask of cold condescension. A guard pushed me down onto a velvet kneeling stool. I pushed myself up, refusing to stay down. Charles looked at me, his eyes filled with disgust. “So incredibly middle-class,” he sneered, his voice dripping with venom. “Throwing a tantrum over such trivial matters.” He set the silver balls down on a mahogany table, walking over to stand directly in front of me, looking down his nose. “Who do you think Nicole is? She is the future of the Lancaster dynasty, the heir to billions. What does it matter if she keeps a few close companions by her side? She’s merely accompanying your foster brother on a trip, and you make a public spectacle of it. You don’t have an ounce of the breeding required for a family of this stature.” Before I could speak— “Slap.” A sharp, burning pain flared across my left cheek. My ears rang from the force of the blow. Charles lowered his hand, his expression turning even more dismissive. “I’ll be honest with you—I have never liked you. But my mother insists on coddling you. That doesn’t mean you get to play the victim in this house.” “Nicole is royalty. She is going to run this entire empire. You were already punching far above your weight; how dare you make demands?” “The wedding will happen when Nicole decides it happens. If she chooses to stay away for three years, or five, you will wait. Quietly. Obediently. Stop these cheap, pathetic desperate cries for attention.” “Otherwise, with your jealous, petty attitude, I will personally ensure Nicole replaces you with a husband who actually knows his place.” My cheek throbbed, the iron taste of blood filling my mouth. In my past life, this man had humiliated me repeatedly. He taught me to endure, to tolerate Chase, and to sacrifice my dignity for Nicole’s whims. I had yielded every single time. And my reward had been a horrific, faceless death in the sky. A wave of cold, sharp hatred washed over me. Charles, entirely unaware of the fire burning behind my eyes, kept lecturing. “Your parents died too young to teach you respect, but now that you are entering our world, I will personally train you.” “Without the Lancasters, you are absolutely nothing. Know your place.” At the mention of my deceased parents, I snapped my head up. In the past, I tolerated this because I respected him as my future father-in-law, because I wanted to please Nicole. But today, I was done playing the martyr. This private sanctuary was filled with Charles’s life-long passion: rare, priceless European porcelain and glass artifacts. They were his absolute pride and joy. I took a deliberate step toward the nearest display case. With a smooth, sweeping motion of my arm— “Crash!” A million-dollar 18th-century porcelain vase shattered into a thousand jagged pieces on the marble floor. Charles’s pupils dilated. He froze, his face losing all color. “Bradley! Have you lost your mind?!” I didn’t answer. I didn’t hesitate. I swept my arm across the entire mahogany shelf. The sound of breaking glass and shattering ceramic echoed like gunfire in the quiet room. A lifetime of curated treasures lay ruined at my feet. The guards stood frozen, terrified to move. Charles was shaking so violently he could barely point his finger at me. “You… you manic lunatic! You’ve ruined everything!” He spun around, screaming at the guards. “What are you waiting for?! Beat him!” “Subdue this ungrateful piece of trash!” The guards snapped out of their shock, lunging forward to pin my arms. Just as their fingers were about to touch my jacket, a sharp, authoritative voice cut through the air. “Lay a single hand on Bradley, and I will have you ruined.” The guards froze instantly, dropping their hands. Charles whipped around toward the door, his arrogant posture evaporating in an instant. He bowed his head, his voice trembling. “Mother.” Staring at Grandmother Lancaster’s icy expression, Charles panicked, rushing forward to justify himself. “Mother, you can’t blame me! Bradley has completely lost his mind!” “He showed utter disrespect, destroying my entire collection! I was only trying to teach him some discipline!” The elderly matriarch looked at him with profound disgust. “Even if Bradley wanted to burn this entire estate to the ground, I would hand him the matches.” Charles gasped, his face twisting in protest. “Mother! How can you be so incredibly biased?!” “Nicole is the future of this family! She is inheriting a multi-billion-dollar empire! If she marries a violent, petulant man like this, what will high society think of us?!” Grandmother Lancaster let out a cold, sharp laugh, her heavy mahogany cane striking the floor with a resonant thud. “Who told you Nicole was the heir?”

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The moment I realized Cassie didn’t love me as much anymore, I became impossible to live with. I acted out. I picked fights over nothing, desperate to feel some friction, some sign that she still cared. But within minutes of any argument, she’d tune me out completely, treating me like white noise. Staring at her cold, impassive profile, I would slam the door and walk out into the night. But I never had the courage to go far. I’d stand on the sidewalk, shivering in the cold, bargaining with myself. “If Cassie comes out in the next ten seconds, I’ll forgive her instantly.” Then ten seconds would stretch into ten minutes. “If she just comes looking for me now, I’ll go right back inside with her.” I ended up standing out there in the freezing Chicago wind for four hours. The door never opened. My phone remained dead silent—not a single text, not a missed call. Eventually, numb and defeated, I let myself back in. The apartment was roaring with noise. Cassie was hosting an impromptu party, surrounded by her friends. A handsome young guy was leaning in close to her on the couch, laughing as he fed her a sip of wine from his glass. All the angry questions I’d spent hours rehearsing dissolved instantly, popping like tiny bubbles in a freshly poured glass of champagne. She glanced up, noticing my wind-bitten, bright red face. Her tone was casual, almost bored. “Done throwing your tantrum?” I looked at her, my throat tight, and answered softly, “Yeah. I’m done.” … There was a heavy, unmistakable exhaustion in Cassie’s eyes. She pulled out a cigarette, lighting it right in front of me—something she never used to do. “Then stop picking fights over every little thing.” We had fought four times in the span of three days. “I stood in line for thirty minutes after work to get you that cake, and you threw a fit because it was the wrong flavor and refused to touch it.” “Last night, I was at a business dinner and missed your calls, so you locked me out of our bedroom.” “This morning, I asked what you wanted for lunch and you gave me nothing. Then when the food arrived, you rolled your eyes and said you weren’t hungry.” “And then, when I told you some friends were coming over tonight, you lost your mind and threatened to storm out.” She reached out, her fingers pressing briefly against my freezing cheek. “Drew, if you aren’t tired of this cycle, I am. It’s exhausting.” She exhaled a stream of smoke. “Next time you decide to run away, at least bring a heavier coat. And when you’re done cooling off and realize you have nowhere else to go, just let yourself back in. You don’t need to make a scene.” If this had been a few hours ago, I would have cried. I would have screamed, desperately defending myself, unraveling in front of her. But now, I just swallowed the sharp ache in my chest and managed a quiet smile. “Okay.” Behind me, one of her friends watched me walk away and whispered to her, “Are you seriously not going to go after him? Back in the day, if Drew so much as frowned, you’d practically fall to your knees to make him smile.” Cassie shrugged, glancing lazily at her watch. “Back then, I’d spend days coddling him, walking on eggshells just to fix things. Now? I leave him alone to clear his head, and it only takes four hours.” She let out a soft, mocking laugh. “Honestly, looking back, I wasted so much energy. It’s almost embarrassing.” “Regret.” I let the word settle over me like ash. During those four hours in the cold, I had counted countless sets of ten seconds. I had paced back and forth near our street, terrified she might look for me and miss me. I had even held my phone high above my head, desperately searching for a signal while strangers gave me weird looks. A little kid playing nearby had stopped and stared. “Is the connection bad, or is my phone broken?” I had mumbled to myself. “Why isn’t it working?” The kid had jumped up, eager to help. “Let me see!” He peered at the screen, which was filled with my texts to Cassie. “Whoa, mister. You sent her a lot of messages. She barely says anything back. Are you waiting for her?” He tapped the screen with a serious look, acting like a little tech expert. “Your phone isn’t broken, mister. There just aren’t any new messages.” He giggled. “You’re silly.” Just then, the screen lit up. My heart leaped. I snatched it back, only to see a generic news notification. The phone was fine. Cassie just hadn’t reached out. Our chat history ended the night before. I had sent a dozen messages, none of which she’d answered. It started with me asking when she’d be home, shifted into anxious wondering if she’d even seen them, and devolved into raw hurt: “Are you really that busy? Just text me when you can.” After that, I had called her three times, and each time, she had pressed decline. That was when I started losing my mind, firing off frantic texts. “You’re looking at your phone. Why aren’t you answering? Did I do something wrong? Why are you ignoring me?” But all my desperation, all my tears, fell into a black hole. There was no echo. Just like tonight, while I was freezing on the street waiting for her, she was already surrounded by a room full of people. My presence, my absence—none of it registered with her anymore. A few days later, a video surfaced online. Someone had recorded Cassie’s little speech lecturing me at the party and posted it. The caption read: “How does a guy this needy land a girl this perfect? Meanwhile, I’m still single.” By the time I saw it, the comments were already flooded with hate. “If I worked a sixty-hour week only to come home to a high-maintenance child like this, I’d throw his bags out the window.” “Sis, break up with him. You’re out of his league, he’ll be begging on his knees in a week.” “Stop coddling him. This is exactly how I trained my boyfriend—ignore them and they fall right in line.” “Where do these drama queens come from? Let me humble this prince.” To make matters worse, some of Cassie’s friends chimed in under the comments, claiming I was actually far worse in real life. The video went viral. It started circulating among my coworkers, and eventually, it reached my family. The person who posted it was Enoch—the handsome guy who had been feeding Cassie wine. When I confronted her, she was casually scrolling through the comments. “I talked to Enoch,” she said, not even looking up. “He said he was just angry on my behalf and wanted to get some perspective. He didn’t realize it would blow up like this. The others were just looking out for me too.” She sighed. “I’ll have him take it down, so stop making a big deal out of it. Besides, nothing in that video is a lie. It’s just some comments from strangers on the internet. It doesn’t actually affect your real life, so let it go.” Before the video was taken down, a notification popped up on my phone. “Cassie liked this post.” Seeing my gaze fixated on her screen, she quickly unliked it, her expression entirely unbothered. “My finger slipped.” I didn’t say a word. But Cassie’s forehead creased in irritation before I could even open my mouth. “Are you going to throw another tantrum?” “I’m exhausted, Drew. I don’t have the energy to fight with you right now.” “Go cool off. You always think clearer when you’re alone anyway.” And so, I did. I cleared my head. I systematically stripped away every habit she had labeled as needy. I stopped asking if she loved me. I stopped getting upset over her coldness. I stopped asking where she was going, or expecting her to text me when she got there. Cassie smiled and told me I was finally growing up. But once I stopped watching her, she started coming home later and later. One night, Enoch brought her home. He was fluttering around her, pouring her a glass of water, gently massaging her temples to ease her hangover. He looked up at me with a practiced, sweet innocence. “Oh, right. I should go. I’m sure Drew wants to take care of you, Cassie.” But he didn’t move an inch. Instead, Cassie reached out and caught his hand. “Enoch.” “My head hurts.” He gave me an apologetic, helpless look. “She doesn’t want me to leave.” I leaned against the doorframe, watching their little performance like a detached spectator. “Then stay,” I said simply. Cassie’s coat, draped over the back of the sofa, carried the faint, sweet scent of Enoch’s cologne. It was the exact same smell that had triggered our very first real fight months ago. I had sat on the couch waiting for her until three in the morning. “You went completely radio silent today because you were with Enoch?” She had shrugged. “Enoch just got back from Europe. A bunch of us got together to welcome him home.” She hadn’t even looked at me, shedding her coat and loosening her collar as she walked toward the bathroom. I had followed her, feeling like I was standing on the edge of a crumbling cliff. “Cassie, did you forget what you promised me? You said you’d never see him again.” She had shot me a look of pure, unadulterated annoyance. “Are we really doing this again? Enoch confessed to me years ago. Can you please stop being so insecure? Focus on something productive for once, please.” She had pushed my hand off the bathroom door. The latch clicked shut, cutting me out of her world. I wasn’t blind to the shift in her. She would park her car in the garage and sit in it for an hour before coming upstairs. When we did speak, she’d cut me off after two sentences, claiming she was exhausted, and turn her back to me in bed. I used to wonder if she was going through a hard time at work. But eventually, I realized the truth: she was just tired of me. The more I felt her slipping away, the more desperately I tried to hold on. And the tighter I squeezed, the faster she pulled away. After that night she came home smelling like Enoch, the fights became a daily occurrence. But Cassie’s responses only grew colder. Eventually, the moment I opened my mouth, she’d put her AirPods in or walk out of the room. Once, I chased her down and ripped the earbuds out of her ears, tears streaming down my face. “Cassie, do you think I enjoy this?” “I just want to feel like you care, even a little bit. I just need you to explain, to hold me, to reassure me. Is that really so hard?” I had practically begged. “What happened to us? Did I do something wrong?” “Can we please just talk?” Cassie didn’t say a word. She snatched her AirPods back, put them in, and looked at me with flat eyes. “Do whatever you want,” she said. A sudden burst of laughter from the bedroom—Enoch telling Cassie to stop teasing him—jolted me back to the present. I forced myself to look away. I had spent weeks training myself to stop reaching out to her. I ate alone, slept alone, lived alone. I was slowly getting used to the quiet. What I didn’t expect was for my grandfather to go find her. My family had tried to get in touch with her for weeks, but she had ignored all their calls. When I finally found out where he was and rushed over, my grandfather was standing in her office reception, apologizing to her. His posture was humble, almost pleading, while Cassie sat comfortably behind her desk, accepting his deference as her due. “If only Drew were as reasonable as you are, Thomas.” My grandfather, a man in his late seventies, was standing awkwardly in front of her desk because no one had offered him a chair. “Cassie, I saw that video online, and I’ve been trying to reach you ever since,” he said, his voice trembling slightly. “I won’t stay long, I don’t want to disrupt your work. I just wanted to apologize on Drew’s behalf. If he’s been difficult, I am truly sorry. Please, don’t be angry with him anymore. I’m asking you as his grandfather.” One of Cassie’s friends, lounging on the office couch, laughed. “Old man, who do you think you are? You think a simple apology just wipes the slate clean?” A hot wave of anger rushed to my head. I stormed into the room, grabbing my grandfather’s arm to pull him out. Thomas patted my back gently. “Drew, please, let’s talk this out calmly.” But something cracked inside me. The dam finally broke. “The cake you supposedly stood in line for thirty minutes to buy?” I yelled, looking directly at Cassie. “You sat in your warm car while your assistant bought it. And she bought mango flavor—knowing damn well I’m severely allergic to mangoes. How was I supposed to eat that?” “You complain that I locked you out of the bedroom? You ignore every text I send and decline my calls. You have time to hit ‘decline,’ but you can’t spare a single second to let me know if you’re coming home?” “You say I wouldn’t tell you what I wanted for lunch? I booked a restaurant a day in advance and texted you the details. You agreed, and then you completely forgot. When you finally ordered food, you got nothing but spicy dishes, knowing I can’t eat spicy food.” “And those ‘friends’ you invited over? The main friend is Enoch—the guy who confessed to you, the guy I caught kissing you, the guy you swore you would never see again.” “Cassie, I’m done rehashing this. It’s exhausting and meaningless. But how dare you sit there and act like the victim in front of my grandfather? How dare you let him apologize to you?” I practically screamed those last words. Cassie sat up a little straighter, her eyes narrowing. Before she could speak, the door opened and Enoch strolled in. He walked right past me as if I were invisible, heading straight for Cassie. “Cassie, I loved that restaurant you took me to tonight. Can we go back there tomorrow?” The woman we couldn’t reach for days had been busy wining and dining someone else. I was too numb to care, but my grandfather’s breathing grew shallow and rapid as he put the pieces together. “So this is what it is,” he said, his voice trembling with indignation. “An affair and a homewrecker, and you try to blame my grandson for your own guilt?” He pointed a shaking finger at Enoch. “Do you boys have any sense of decency or self-respect?” Enoch’s expression soured instantly, his sweet facade slipping. “Watch your mouth, old man,” he snapped, stepping forward. He gave my grandfather a hard push. My grandfather lost his footing on the polished marble floor and went down hard. I heard the sickening crack of his bones hitting the stone. Even Enoch looked shocked by how easily the old man fell. Looking pale, he scrambled back to Cassie’s side, grabbing her sleeve. “Cassie, I didn’t mean to. He came at me, I swear.” I couldn’t hear their voices over the roaring in my ears. All I could hear was my grandfather groaning in pain on the floor. I fell to my knees beside him, terrified to move him. My hands were shaking so violently I dropped my phone twice before finally dialing 911. While we waited for the paramedics, Enoch clung to Cassie’s arm, his eyes brimming with fake tears. “Cassie, they insulted me first. You’re just going to let them leave like this? Everyone is watching. My friends are right outside. Am I just supposed to take this? You’re my—I mean, you’re supposed to protect me. I need you to set this straight.” Cassie remained quiet for a long moment. Then she looked down at me. “Drew. Apologize to Enoch. Do it, and you can leave.” I looked up, my temples pounding with raw fury. “Get the hell out of my way,” I spat through gritted teeth. “Let the paramedics through.” Enoch sneered. “What’s with your attitude?” Cassie pulled him behind her. She let out a small, humorless laugh. “Drew, and here I thought you’d actually grown up. Since a simple apology isn’t enough for you, how about a formal bow? You apologize properly, and then I’ll let the paramedics in. I have all night.” She tilted her head toward my grandfather, who was shivering on the floor. “But I don’t think your grandfather does.” My mind went completely blank. All those months of fighting and crying had been a desperate attempt to prove she still cared. But the truth I had been too terrified to admit was laid bare right in front of me. It was over. She didn’t love me. I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. The paramedics were being held at the security desk downstairs. My grandfather’s face was contorted in agony. Swallowing my tears, I forced myself up. I bent my waist and bowed. “Not low enough,” Enoch drawled. I swallowed the bile in my throat and bowed deeper, offering a profound, humiliating apology to the two of them. “I’m sorry.” A single tear hit the marble floor. Along with it, every shred of the love Cassie and I had built since high school shattered into dust. Fortunately, my grandfather was strong for his age. It was only a minor hairline fracture. In his hospital bed, he squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry, Drew. I made things worse for you. I saw that video of you online… you looked so close to tears, and it broke my heart. I knew how much you loved her. I just wanted to help make things right.” I buried my face in his calloused palm, my tears soaking his fingers. He was right. Cassie and I “had” been happy once. I remembered her driving across the city in the pouring rain just to drop me off after late-night study sessions in high school. I remembered when we got robbed on vacation in Italy; we had fifty dollars left between us, and she went hungry just so I could have a proper meal. I remembered her slipping a promise ring onto my finger after college graduation, swearing she’d love me forever and that I could throw all the tantrums I wanted because she’d always be there to comfort me. I hated the smell of smoke, so she had never touched a cigarette around me. Once, after our worst argument, I had flown to Boston for a business trip. She had hopped on a red-eye flight that very night, tracked me down at my hotel, and held me tight, whispering that she’d follow me to the ends of the earth. She had loved me once. Truly loved me. My grandfather stroked my hair. “Drew, let’s just go home. Our real home.” I wiped my eyes and nodded eagerly. “Yeah. Let’s go home.” Cassie showed up at the hospital the next day, but not to visit. Karma is a patient thing. This time, a video of her and Enoch from the office incident had leaked online. The internet hadn’t forgotten our last viral video. The public, realizing they had been manipulated into attacking a needy boyfriend, turned their collective rage on Cassie and Enoch. She stood by the hospital window, looking perfectly composed. “I’ve already had the video removed,” she said. “Enoch made a statement clarifying that we’re just friends. But people are still hounding his social media. I need you to post a clarification. Tell everyone your grandfather slipped and fell on his own, and that Enoch had nothing to do with it. Also, state that you know Enoch and I are just friends. After all, your grandfather did insult him first.” Her phone rang. It was Enoch, his voice loud enough for me to hear through the receiver. ‘Cassie, did he agree to clear my name yet? People are writing horrible things. I’m so scared. Can you please come back and stay with me?’ Cassie looked down at her phone. “You hear that? Enoch is a mess. Let’s keep innocent people out of our relationship issues.” I let out a dry, bitter laugh. “I thought you said getting dragged on the internet doesn’t actually affect real life? Why the sudden concern?” Cassie made a cutting gesture with her hand, signaling me to stop. “Don’t be dramatic, Drew. You handled it fine, didn’t you? Honestly, you’re suffocating me. Even now, you’re still obsessing over your petty jealousy.” She reached out to grab my phone from the bedside table, clearly done talking. I stepped back, keeping the device out of her reach. “No need,” I said quietly. “I’ll post it.” Cassie paused, dropping her hand. Her phone buzzed again—Enoch, no doubt. She checked the screen, and I caught a glimpse of her notifications. My contact name was buried at the bottom, marked with a gray ‘Do Not Disturb’ bell. Since I had agreed to write the post, she didn’t waste another second. She turned and left. After she left, I checked my grandfather out of the hospital. On our drive home, the car passed the neighborhood where Cassie and I used to live. I looked out the window as the familiar streets blurred into insignificance. I pulled out my phone, drafted a statement, and hit post. Within ten minutes, my phone began vibrating off the hook. Notifications from friends, acquaintances, and total strangers flooded in. Then came a barrage of texts from Cassie—more than she had sent me in the last six months. The final notification was a voice message, her tone dripping with barely controlled rage: ‘Drew, what the fuck did you just post? What is wrong with you?’

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The very night my mother took her own life after discovering my father’s affair, he brought his first love’s sickly daughter, Deborah, into our home. At the time, my three older brothers stood in front of me like a protective wall, their voices thick with defiance. “Autumn is our only sister!” they shouted at him. But it took less than a week for their loyalty to shatter. “If you hadn’t encouraged Mom to go through with the divorce, she would never have run to that roof,” Chris, my oldest brother, had snarled at me. “Deborah’s health is only this bad because you terrified her,” Jordan, the second oldest, added. To make me a viable donor for Deborah, they forced me to eat, keeping me heavily overweight, hovering near two hundred pounds. It was as if they wanted to replicate Deborah’s physical misery onto me, tenfold, as a form of penance. Then came Deborah’s eighteenth birthday party. Alex Pierce, the youngest son of the prominent Pierce family, was the only one who stood up for me. “Don’t be afraid,” he had whispered, stepping between me and my brothers’ glares. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” He became my savior. He listened to me, encouraged me to start losing weight safely, and gently guided me out of the darkness. I truly believed he was the man I would spend the rest of my life with. But the night before our engagement party, I saw a group chat open on his laptop. It was a thread with my brothers, titled “Project Pig Pen”. “Weight loss successful, physical exam cleared,” Alex had texted. “We’re on track for the bone marrow transplant for Deborah next week.” Jordan replied with a thumbs-up emoji: “Being able to say ‘I love you’ to all that blubber… respect, man. Have you actually touched her yet?” “Her skin is all loose and saggy now,” Alex wrote back. “It’s repulsive. I can’t bring myself to do it.” Staring at the screen filled with laughing emojis, my chest went completely numb, cold as ice. I closed the laptop, picked up my phone, and called my mentor. “Professor Reynolds… that three-year residency program,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “I’ll take it.” … On my computer screen, the wedding planner’s final email was still open, showing the master track for our engagement party. I had spent two weeks perfecting it. Alex used to love hearing me sing. When he proposed, he promised he would play the piano for me for the rest of our lives. “Autumn’s voice was kissed by angels,” he’d say. But now, his messages in the chat read: “When she runs, she wheezes like a broken accordion. I’m honestly terrified she’s going to drop dead of a heart attack right in front of me.” “It’s wild how a girl can just let herself go like that. No self-control whatsoever.” “All that fat jiggling around, and the sweat… God, the smell. Jesus.” My third brother, Dylan, chimed in: “Got any videos?” Alex immediately forwarded a thread. [Alex & Deborah: 36 Shared Media Files] “Watch at your own risk,” he wrote. I clicked it. It was full of photos and videos Alex had taken of me during my workouts. At the very bottom of the thread, Deborah had reacted with a giggling emoji. My fingers trembled so violently I could barely hold my phone. He had turned my agonizing struggle into a running joke just to keep Deborah entertained. In the videos, my face was tomato-red, drenched in sweat, utterly pathetic. Yet, my eyes looking at the camera had been so full of hope and light. His words of encouragement echoed in my ears, suddenly sounding like a mockery. “Keep going, Autumn! If you fall, I’ll be right here to catch you.” “You’re cute when you’re chubby, but I want my sweet girl to be healthy. We need to live long, healthy lives so we can grow old together.” When I was too exhausted to take another step, he would grab my hand and pull me forward. When I tried to pull away because my palms were sweaty, he only squeezed tighter. “So what? This sweat is proof of how hard you’re fighting. Let me share some of that strength.” The wind had blown the hair from my forehead as I struggled to keep up with him, telling myself, “just one more step. Just one more.” I had pushed myself to lose over a hundred pounds in six months for him. How had I been so blind? The affection in his eyes wasn’t for me. It was for the healthy body I was building—a perfect vessel to harvest bone marrow for Deborah. He was no different from my brothers. Jordan typed: “Are you guys seriously getting engaged tomorrow?” The chat went silent for a moment. Then Alex replied: “It’s just an engagement. Think of it as a dress rehearsal for Deborah. Good practice.” “Won’t Autumn be pissed?” I held my breath, waiting. The next message popped up. “If Deborah really minds, I’ll just make up an excuse and not show up tomorrow. I’ll hire some stand-in or have someone fill in. Autumn is easy to fool. I’ll just pretend to be sick later, and she’ll be too busy worrying about me to care.” The glow of the screen cast a hollow, self-deprecating smile across my face. What was I even hoping for? None of them cared about my feelings. It had always been about Deborah. It was never about me. A text from the wedding planner flashed on my screen: “Hi Autumn, are we locked in on this version?” “No,” I typed back. “I’ll bring the final cut to the venue tomorrow myself.” I closed the window and redialed my mentor’s number. “Professor Reynolds… about the fellowship. I’ll go. I’ll see you at the airport on Saturday.” Professor Reynolds’ voice swelled with relief. “Wonderful, wonderful! I’m so glad you’ve finally seen reason, Autumn. I’ll arrange for someone to pick you up.” The National Opera Fellowship for Emerging Artists was a prestigious, highly selective three-year residency. It required total seclusion and had strict confidentiality clauses. I had turned it down once. For Alex. But Alex had taught me well. I still remembered what he told me a year ago: “You did nothing wrong.” He was right. I hadn’t. Which meant they were the ones in the wrong. And actions have consequences. When I woke up the next morning, the house was empty. I tried calling each of my brothers, then Alex. None of them answered. It turned out my ears hadn’t played tricks on me the night before. I remembered overhearing a whispered conversation in the hallway: “Deborah is upset about the engagement. Let’s agree—no one drives Autumn tomorrow. Let her walk down the mountain.” The estate was tucked deep into the hills, miles away from any main road where I could easily hail a cab. I had no choice but to take off my heels and walk. Five miles. On foot. Just as another blister on my heel burst, the purr of Alex’s sports car echoed behind me. The window rolled down, revealing Deborah sitting in the passenger seat. She was wearing Alex’s jacket, and a custom plushie—one I knew Alex had flown to Tokyo to get for her—was clipped to her seatbelt. Meanwhile, the hand-crocheted sunflower plushie I had spent a month making for him was tossed carelessly on the floor mat of the backseat, dirty and forgotten. “Autumn, why didn’t you wait for us?” Deborah asked, her voice dripping with mock innocence. “You’re going to make it look like we’re bullying you again.” I said nothing. I just got into the back seat, picked up the filthy sunflower, and tried to wipe a muddy footprint off its petals. My finger accidentally brushed the hidden button inside. The toy began to sway, but the recorded voice inside—my voice—stuttered out a distorted, broken “I… l-love… y-you…” Alex had practically begged me to make that for him. He said he wanted my voice recorded so he could feel close to me whenever he was driving. Deborah giggled, leaning her head onto Alex’s shoulder. “Autumn, are you seriously still into stuff like that? It looks so cheap…” Alex frowned, looking at me through the rearview mirror. “Are you deaf? Deborah asked you a question.” “I heard her,” I replied quietly. “I just don’t want to answer.” He sighed, his impatience flaring. “What is your problem today? You’re her older sister. Why can’t you act like it and take a page out of Deborah’s book?” I let out a dry, sharp laugh. “Take a page out of her book? You mean learn how to throw myself at my sister’s fiancé? Or maybe how to call another girl’s boyfriend in the middle of the night to beg him to soothe me to sleep? Or perhaps how to strip off my clothes when I’m drunk and crawl into his lap?” Alex’s face went white, then flushed red with anger. “Autumn! Why do you always have to be so paranoid, just like your mother was? Stop projecting your sick fantasies onto everyone! Leave Deborah out of your bitter drama!” I clenched my teeth, a sharp pain radiating through my chest. He had defended me with that same righteous fury once. Only now did I realize how much hypocrisy had been masked beneath his handsome face. They kicked me out of the car. It was pouring on the highway overpass. “Calm down and think about what you’ve done!” Alex yelled before speeding off. I pulled out my phone to call a cab, but the trending headlines on social media nearly made my knees buckle. [EXCLUSIVE: The Cornell Family Tragedy! How a Ruthless Daughter Drove Her Own Mother to Jump!] [The Dark Secret of a Prestigious Dynasty: Jealous Sister Steals Younger Sister’s Fiancé!] The gossip blogs had twisted the narrative, stitching together selective facts to paint my mother’s suicide as my fault. According to them, I was a tyrannical monster at home, and this entire engagement was forced upon Alex because I had blackmailed him using Deborah’s medical condition. Though the photos in the articles were blurred, I recognized them instantly. They were candid shots Alex had taken of me. The comment sections were a feeding frenzy of vitriol. – What a poisonous snake. She literally drove her own mother to suicide.” – I’m not one to judge by appearances, but with all that fat, she looks like a high school bully.” – The younger sister and the boyfriend are the real victims here. How tragic.” – Her brothers are saints for not disowning her. She destroyed a perfect family.” By the time I reached the venue, a crowd of self-righteous onlookers and reporters had gathered at the entrance. They swarmed me like piranhas catching the scent of blood, shoving cameras into my face and screaming accusations. I covered my face, trying to shield myself from the flashing lights. Security guards eventually pushed through to clear a path. My second brother, Jordan, grabbed my wrist and dragged me inside. “Autumn, are you completely brainless?!” Jordan hissed as soon as we were behind closed doors. “Did you not see the news? Why the hell did you let them spot you at the front entrance? Are you trying to remind the whole world that you’re the murderer who killed Mom? You’ve humiliated this family!” I yanked my arm out of his grip, my throat raw. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t kill her. I didn’t make Mom jump.” Jordan stared at me, letting out a harsh, mocking laugh. “Oh, outstanding. Now that you’ve got Alex wrapped around your finger, you think you can rewrite history? Let me remind you, Autumn—you owe this family a life. You will always owe us.” I took a deep breath, swallowing the bitter lump in my throat. I unlocked my phone and pointed to the username of the “anonymous insider” leaking the stories. “That is Deborah’s burner account. Are you really too blind to see that?” My oldest brother, Chris, walked into the dressing room, his brow furrowed in disapproval. “Enough. Stop shouting, Autumn. Even if it is her account, is there a single lie in those articles? If you had the nerve to do it, don’t play the victim now.” His eyes were heavy with a cold, familiar disappointment. “Or is fleeing from reality the only thing you managed to learn from Mom?” I stared into Chris’s eyes. There was only resentment. I couldn’t find a single trace of the boy who used to sing me to sleep when I was afraid of the dark. When our parents’ marriage fell apart, my brothers had dismissed our father’s affair as a temporary lapse in judgment. I was the only one who stood firmly by my mother’s side, urging her to file for divorce and free herself. After she jumped, my father couldn’t handle the guilt. He brought Deborah into our home, took our mother’s ashes, and retreated into a monastery, cutting off all contact. For years, my brothers blamed me. They believed that if I hadn’t encouraged her, Mom would never have given up, and our family wouldn’t have shattered. “I did nothing wrong,” I said, each word deliberate, my voice rising. “The ones who are wrong are Deborah, Dad, and all of you!” “Slap.” A sharp sting erupted across my cheek, forcing my head to the side. Alex stood there, looking at me with a mixture of disgust and pity, while Deborah lurked behind his shoulder, a smug, fleeting smirk on her lips. “Look at yourself,” Alex said, his voice dripping with disappointment. “You look manic. You’re in no state to go out there. Stay in this room and think about what you’ve done. Deborah will stand in for you to complete the ceremony.” The designer gown was brought in—and it fit Deborah perfectly. It was the dress my mother had left for me. When Alex had taken me to get it tailored, he had held me close, noting down the adjustments. “Just three more months, Autumn. By then, you’ll be down to this size anyway,” he had whispered. How blind I had been. The dress was never meant for me. It had been measured for Deborah from the very beginning. In the mirror, Deborah’s cheeks were flushed pink with health, showing no sign of her supposed frailty. “Autumn,” she cooed, “I saw the bridal makeup look you practiced last week. It was gorgeous. Why don’t you do my makeup for me? Your dress, your makeup design, your fiancé… if you think about it, it’s basically you walking down the aisle.” My eyes burned. “Take it off. That belongs to my mother.” It was the only tangible piece of her I had left. Jordan grabbed my shoulders, forcing me down into the chair in front of Deborah. His grip dug painfully into my collarbone. “It’s just a dress, Autumn. She’s doing you a favor so you don’t humiliate us out there. Don’t be ungrateful. Hurry up and do her makeup. Deborah’s health is delicate; she doesn’t have time to tolerate your tantrums.” Alex offered a warm, gentle smile to Deborah. “Thank you for doing this, Deborah.” I closed my eyes, my nails biting deep into my palms. “Just wait,” I told myself. “Wait until the ceremony starts. Wait until the live streams are running.” “Fine,” I whispered. Once the door clicked shut, leaving only the two of us in the dressing room, Deborah stared at me with a venomous smirk. “Autumn, don’t you ever feel like an utter failure? If I were you, I would have jumped off that roof right along with your mother.” My hand froze mid-air. My voice went cold as steel. “Shut your mouth. You don’t have the right to speak her name.” Deborah chuckled, entirely unfazed. “Your mother lost to mine, and now you’ve lost to me. Alex never loved you. Do you want to know why he actually proposed?” She leaned in close, her breath hot against my ear, her words winding around my neck like a venomous snake. “Because he couldn’t let you accept that fellowship abroad. He had to keep you here. You’re nothing but my backup organ bank, Autumn.” “You and your mother are identical—stepping stones for me. Honestly, I should thank her. If she hadn’t been stupid enough to believe me and jump, I wouldn’t have moved into the Cornell estate so quickly.” “And don’t worry, I don’t care about playing pretend today. What I want—what I’m going to get—is a wedding that is entirely mine.” She smiled, a chilling, deliberate expression. Before I could recoil, her hand shot out, clamping down on my jaw with surprising strength. A burning, acrid liquid was forced down my throat. Agony exploded in my chest. I fell to the floor, clutching my neck as my vision went dark and tears streamed down my face. I tried to scream, to call for help, but only a dry, raspy wheeze escaped my throat. Deborah smiled as she picked up an eyebrow razor, scoring a shallow, bleeding line across her own collarbone. Then she began tearing at the delicate silk of my mother’s dress, ripping the hand-stitched embroidery to shreds and trampling it under her heels. My mind went blank. Every ounce of sanity evaporated. I threw myself forward to stop her, letting out a horrific, animalistic screech from my ruined throat. “Stop! Stop! That’s all I have left of her!” Deborah didn’t fight back. She simply let herself fall backward onto the floor, screaming in terror. “Autumn, you’ve lost your mind!” The door burst open. Alex rushed in, shoving me hard against the vanity, and pulled Deborah into his arms. She trembled against his chest, her face pale, sobbing hysterically. “Alex… I’m okay… It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have worn her dress. I don’t deserve it…” Alex’s face was dark with fury. “Autumn, apologize to her. Now!” I stared at his hand resting protectively on her waist. My voice was gone. My throat felt like it was lined with broken glass. How was I going to sing? What was I going to tell my mentor? I pointed to my neck, tears streaming down my face as I shook my head, begging him with my eyes to look at me. To believe me just this once. If he couldn’t hear me, couldn’t he at least see my despair? But there was only cold disgust in his eyes. “Autumn, it’s a simple apology. Are you really going to play dumb and pretend you can’t speak just to get out of it? I’m so disappointed in you. Is a stupid ceremony really worth losing your sanity over?” Dylan strode into the room. He kicked the back of my knees, forcing me down. Ignoring the shattered glass bottles scattered across the floor, he shoved my shoulders, forcing me to kneel. Sharp shards of glass bit deep into my skin. A sickening pain shot up my legs. Alex flinched slightly, but before he could speak, Deborah clutched her chest, gasping for air. “Alex… I can’t breathe… Am I going to die?” Alex instantly tore the remnants of my mother’s dress away from her, wrapped his suit jacket around her shoulders, and lifted her into his arms. “You’re going to be fine,” he muttered, his voice shaking. “The engagement is off,” he barked at my brothers. “Jordan, Dylan, bring Autumn. We’re going to the hospital. Now.” I shook my head in terror, trying to crawl backward away from them. Alex looked down at me, letting out a heavy, weary sigh. “Autumn, please. Just cooperate for once. Deborah can’t wait. You’re the older sister, yet you’re always so incredibly selfish. You have no idea how much you owe her. Donating your marrow is the bare minimum. Stop throwing these childish tantrums. If you want a wedding, I’ll give you one after the surgery. We’ll give the townhouse to Deborah as an apology, and we’ll figure out how to make things right with her later.” Jordan and Dylan exchanged a glance, then stepped forward, grabbing my arms and dragging me to my feet. “Autumn, you’ve gone way too far this time,” Dylan muttered. Chris had the car waiting at the exit. They threw me into the back seat and escorted me directly to the private wing of the hospital, straight toward the operating rooms. “Ignore her bleeding knees!” Jordan yelled at the nurses. “Prep Deborah first! She’s the priority!” Just before the surgical curtains were drawn, I caught a glimpse of Deborah’s face. She was smiling. The cold sting of the anesthetic flowed into my veins, and the world began to slip away into darkness… Meanwhile, in the adjoining prep room, Deborah sat casually on the edge of the examination table, swinging her legs. Her phone was pressed to her ear. “Yeah, Mom, it’s almost done,” she laughed softly. “This family… God, they’re so incredibly stupid. You could combine all of their brains and still not make a single functioning one.” She tilted her head, her tone dripping with lazy amusement. “Her mother was a weak, pathetic fool when I pushed her off that ledge, and Autumn was born to be my plaything. I fed her brothers a couple of sob stories, and they ate it right up. Now she has nothing left. And with her throat ruined, let’s see how she plans on leaving the country.” Hanging up, Deborah let out a soft, mocking sigh. “Oh, Autumn. Your mother was a brainless dog, your brothers are rabid mutts who would bite their own family for a scrap of bone, and you… well, you’re not even an animal. You’re just a beautifully wrapped, self-delivering organ container.” Outside the half-open door, the medical consent forms slipped from Chris’s fingers, fluttering onto the linoleum floor. Alex’s face had gone entirely bloodless, white as paper.

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