Author: Momo Chan

On the fourth year of our secret relationship, Irene Drake cried on stage at the Golden Globes. Clutching her Best Actress trophy to her chest, her voice cracked through the microphone: “Someone has stood by me in the dark for four years. Without him, I wouldn’t be standing here tonight.” The crowd in the Beverly Hilton ballroom erupted into cheers. The host leaned in with a smooth, knowing smile. “And is this mystery man here tonight?” Irene nodded through her tears, her eyelashes heavy with mascara. “He’s sitting right down there.” Inside my tuxedo pocket, my fingers tightened around the velvet box. My heart hammered against my ribs so hard it was suffocating. I had stayed in the shadows for four long years. I was the sole heir to the Kingsley Media empire, but I’d frozen my own life, buried my real name, and stepped into the background. I became her personal assistant. I carried her luggage, shielded her from paparazzi, negotiated her contracts in dimly lit corners, and dragged her from an uncredited indie extra all the way to the Hollywood A-list. Irene wiped away a tear and stepped down from the podium, holding her golden statue like a shield. I stood up, adjusting my jacket, ready. She walked straight past me. She didn’t glance my way. She didn’t pause. Her eyes swept over me as if I were nothing more than a piece of set dressing, brushing past me to reach the second row. To Brody Callahan. The breakout star I had personally signed to her agency six months ago. Irene laced her fingers through his, stood on her tiptoes, and pressed a lingering kiss against his cheek. “Baby,” she whispered into his microphone, her voice picked up by the house speakers, “I got it.” The room shattered into deafening applause. The live broadcast feed blew up with millions of frantic comments. I remained standing in the aisle, an island in a sea of celebration. The air in my lungs felt like ice. In my pocket, my phone vibrated. A text from my father: “It’s time to come home. The merger with the Ashford family—you name the date.” I pulled my hand out of my pocket, dropped the velvet ring box into the dark, narrow crevice between the plush velvet seats, and loosened my bow tie. I typed a single word in reply: “Okay.” … 1 By nine o’clock the next morning, the internet had completely combusted over Irene and Brody’s hard-launch romance. The top three trending topics across every social platform belonged to them. #IreneAndBrodyOfficial #FourYearsInSecret #HollywoodsNewPowerCouple I sat on the edge of the worn sofa in my cramped Queens walk-up, staring at the glowing screen until my knuckles turned white. Four years. The “man who stood by her for four years” wasn’t Brody Callahan. He hadn’t even known her twelve months ago. She had taken four years of my devotion, my late nights, my quiet sacrifices, and handed them to another man like a prop. During our first year together, Irene lived in a frigid two-bedroom apartment with three roommates outside the city. On winter nights when the radiator rattled and died, she wrapped herself in my heavy down coat, shivering while she memorized lines. In our second year, I quietly used my father’s quiet leverage to land her first leading role. In our third year came her first major awards nomination. And in our fourth, the Oscar buzz, culminating in last night’s win. In all that time, I hadn’t used a single dime of Kingsley family money directly. Every door opened, every producer smoothed over, every crisis averted was carved out of my own sweat under the title of “Calum, Irene’s assistant.” She had never once asked how a low-paid assistant managed to get the most powerful showrunners in Los Angeles on the phone. She simply didn’t care about the answer. The magic happened, and that was enough. I put my phone down, went into the tiny bathroom, and splashed ice-cold water onto my face. The man staring back at me in the cracked mirror had dark circles carved beneath his eyes and dry, peeling skin at the corners of his mouth. Four years without a proper night’s sleep. Four years of hauling oversized luggage, booking last-minute flights, placating insane studio execs, and burying her scandals before the press caught wind. Calum Kingsley—the only son and heir of Victor Kingsley—had spent four years working as a glorified maid. And last night was my compensation. My phone buzzed again on the sink. A text from Irene. “Calum, handle my call sheet for tomorrow. Also, coordinate with Brody’s team regarding his availability—we need to align our schedules. Oh, and edit the red carpet photo of Brody and me before posting it to my official socials.” I stared at the glowing words. A knot formed in the back of my throat. It was so casual. So entitled. Not a single word of explanation. Not even a fleeting attempt to address the fact that she had introduced another man to the entire world as her four-year partner, right in front of my face. To her, I wasn’t even a human being with feelings. I was a tool. An appliance that functioned quietly, required no maintenance, and deserved no respect. I closed the app without replying. Scrolling down my contacts, I found a number I hadn’t dialed in over forty-eight months. I tapped call. It rang twice before a deep, measured voice answered. “Father.” Silence stretched over the line for two long seconds. “You’ve come to your senses?” Victor Kingsley asked. “Yes.” “Good.” My father’s tone didn’t shift, but I knew what that single word meant. It meant that every door, every fund, every network, and every corporate machine owned by the Kingsley family would tilt in my direction overnight. It meant that “Calum the Assistant” died the moment I pressed end call. “A car will pick you up at six tomorrow morning,” my father said softly. “Leave the junk behind.” “Understood.” After hanging up, I opened Irene’s chat one last time. I typed two words: “I quit.” Send. Three minutes later, a voice note came through from her. I clicked play. “Wait, what? Calum, is this a joke?” Her tone was light, laced with a faint, annoyed laugh. “We have a major brand shoot on Thursday. Stop throwing a tantrum—” It was spoken with the same breezy dismissal she used when complaining about bad weather. I didn’t answer. I dragged her contact card to the bottom of the screen and pressed “Block”. Then I powered off the phone. Outside, the New York night was dark and cold. I sat in the single armchair of the apartment I had occupied for four years. Two hundred square feet. A narrow bed, a rickety wardrobe, and a desk covered in call sheets and industry scripts. Tacked to the wall was Irene’s master schedule, color-coded by hand. I reached out, ripped the paper off the wall, crumpled it into a tight ball, and tossed it into the trash. Starting tomorrow, none of it was my problem anymore. … 2 At six o’clock the following morning, a sleek black Maybach pulled up to the curb outside the rundown building. My father’s driver, George, stood by the rear door in a tailored dark suit. When he saw me walking down the steps carrying a single leather duffel bag, his eyes glistened. “Young Master Calum,” he murmured, his voice trembling slightly. I offered a small nod. “Let’s go, George.” He opened the door, and I sank into the cool leather interior. The crisp smell of sandalwood and rich upholstery filled the cabin—a scent at once suffocatingly familiar and entirely distant. The moment I turned on my secondary phone, a torrent of notifications flooded the screen. Irene had sent a dozen messages over the course of the night. They started with “Are you serious?” and devolved into “Calum, stop being so childish”, before concluding at three in the morning with a cold finality: “Fine. Assistants are a dime a dozen anyway. Wish you the best in your future endeavors.” “Wish you the best in your future endeavors.” A quiet, hollow laugh escaped my chest. “Thank you, Irene. Really.” Right below her texts was one from Brody Callahan: “Hey man, heard you walked out? Who’s taking over our contract coordination now? Can you recommend someone competent at least…?” I deleted the thread without reading the rest. The Maybach cut through the morning traffic, gliding out of the city and onto the iron-gated driveway of a massive private estate in Greenwich. The wrought-iron gates swung open automatically. On the front steps, the butler and six household staff stood in two precise lines. “Welcome home, Young Master,” they bowed in unison. Stepping out onto the marble foyer felt like crossing an invisible boundary into an entirely different dimension. The polished floors reflected the soft light of crystal chandeliers, and the air smelled faintly of aged cedar and espresso. My father was sitting on the leather sofa in the formal living room, reading the “Wall Street Journal”. He glanced up over the rim of his glasses as I walked in. “Have you eaten?” “Not yet.” “Sit down and eat.” There were no grand speeches, no emotional reunions, and no sharp interrogations demanding to know what I had been doing with my life for the past four years. Victor Kingsley was a man who never cared about the process—only the outcome. He had known where I was every single day. He knew who I was with and what I was doing. But he had waited silently, knowing that when I returned on my own terms, it would mean the game was over. Breakfast was served immediately: smoked salmon, poached eggs, fresh fruit, and warm pastries. I ate hungrily. During my years with Irene, I rarely had time for a sit-down meal, often surviving on cold protein bars and lukewarm convenience store coffee while running her errands. “When you finish, go upstairs and change,” my father said, turning a page of his paper. “The Ashfords are coming for tea at two.” “The arrangement?” I asked. “Yes.” He paused, casting a quiet look at me. “The Ashford girl isn’t like the women you’ve spent time around. She’s a Columbia Law graduate, currently working as a federal prosecutor in the District Attorney’s office. Sharp. Grounded. But—” He smoothed his paper down. “If you don’t like her, we can treat it as a polite social call. I won’t force you.” I finished my coffee and dabbed my mouth with a linen napkin. “I’ll meet her.” My father’s mouth twitched slightly—the closest he ever came to a smile. “Good.” Upstairs, I showered and put on a bespoke charcoal suit that had been tailored to my exact measurements and waiting in my closet. Standing before the floor-to-ceiling mirror, the exhausted, disheveled assistant who had hauled luggage through airports was entirely gone. In his place stood the man I was always meant to be. My phone rang. It was Reggie Fox, the head of the boutique talent agency that officially employed me. “Calum! What the hell is going on with you? Quitting out of nowhere? Irene has three major press stops tomorrow—” “Find someone else, Reggie.” “Listen to me, you little—” “Reggie,” I interrupted, my tone icy and flat. “Every major studio relationship Irene Drake enjoyed over the last four years—the network execs, the luxury brand directors, the A-list producers—you and I both know who built those bridges.” The line went dead silent. “Now that I’m gone, those bridges are closed,” I continued calmly. “Consider this your courtesy notice.” “Calum… what are you talking about? What can a fucking assistant possibly do to—” I ended the call before he could finish. “What can an assistant do?” Irene believed her meteoric rise was entirely due to her own raw talent. She believed studio heads naturally reached out to her, that high-end fashion houses fell over themselves to book her, that top directors just happened to see her tapes. She had no idea that every single opportunity was the result of Calum Kingsley making a quiet phone call from the dark. I hadn’t told her then. And there was certainly no need to tell her now. … 3 At two o’clock in the afternoon, the Ashfords arrived. Judge Ashford was a distinguished man in his late sixties, a retired appellate judge whose family held deep roots in Manhattan real estate and banking. He greeted my father with a warm handshake and a booming laugh. Walking behind him was his granddaughter. I found myself looking at her longer than I intended. Tess Ashford had sharp, chin-length dark hair, a crisp silk blouse paired with tailored trousers, and an aura of effortless composure. Her features were striking, but what caught my attention was the steady, unbothered intelligence in her dark eyes. She wasn’t like Irene. Irene’s beauty was an engineered, desperate thing—crafted to demand the attention of everyone in the room. Tess was confident in a way that required nothing from anyone. “Tess,” she said, extending a hand directly to me. Her tone was cool and measured. “Nice to meet you, Calum.” I shook her hand. Her grip was firm and dry. “Likewise.” We sat in the glass sunroom while our elders talked business in the main hall. Tess took a slow sip of her Earl Grey tea, her eyes weighing me over the rim of her cup. “So,” she began plainly. “You’re the Kingsley heir who spent four years playing personal assistant to a movie star?” A direct hit. I held my teacup steady. “Word travels fast.” “It’s a small city at a certain level,” she replied softly. “I do have one question, though.” “Ask away.” “What were you looking for?” I went quiet for a moment, watching the afternoon light filter through the trees outside. “What was I looking for?” I had been looking for a woman I believed was worth giving up everything for. But standing here now, that answer felt irrelevant. “Youthful foolishness,” I said with a faint, dry smile. “I paid four years of tuition, and now I’ve graduated.” Tess looked at me, and a genuine, amused smile broke across her face—not out of politeness, but because she recognized absolute truth when she heard it. “Fair enough,” she said, setting her cup down. “As for this arrangement our grandfathers are pushing—I’ll be clear. I’m not opposed to getting to know you, but I won’t marry someone just because it looks good on a balance sheet.” “Agreed,” I said smoothly. “We take it slow.” She raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised by my lack of pushback. In the hallway, the two older men glanced toward the sunroom, exchanging pleased, subtle smiles. After an hour of conversation, the Ashfords departed. I stood by the grand entrance, watching their car pull away down the long driveway. My father walked up beside me, hands resting behind his back. “Opinion?” he asked quietly. “She’s impressive.” “Then keep in touch.” I nodded. My phone buzzed again in my pocket. This time, it wasn’t Irene, nor was it Reggie Fox. It was the true gatekeepers of the entertainment industry—the power brokers I had personally cultivated over the last four years under the strict understanding of my true family name. A text from Garrick Vance, CEO of Paramount Media: “Calum, heard you stepped away from that situation. Let’s get dinner this week. I have an upcoming slate of major features I’d love your family office to co-finance.” A message from the head of global marketing at Cartier: “Mr. Kingsley, we are reviewing our celebrity ambassador contracts for the coming fiscal year. Should we proceed with renewing Irene Drake, or would you prefer we reallocate those spots?” And a direct note from Leland Ford, the legendary showrunner: “Calum, that prestige drama series Irene was eyeing—we haven’t locked her in yet. I have two other actresses pushing hard for it. What are your thoughts?” I read through them slowly. For four years, none of these executives had ever messaged Irene directly. Every piece of business had passed through me. They didn’t care about a rising starlet; they cared about the immense capital and distribution power of the Kingsley empire. I typed out a single, uniform response and sent it to all three: “My personal involvement with Irene Drake has concluded. You may adjust your business decisions accordingly. Let’s catch up soon.” I put the phone back in my pocket, my expression unreadable. Irene didn’t know it yet, but the invisible foundation beneath her feet had just dissolved completely. … 4 Three days later, Irene’s agency assigned her a new assistant—a young, inexperienced girl fresh out of college. I knew this because my old contacts in production kept me quietly informed. “Calum, you wouldn’t believe the chaos over here,” whispered an associate producer named Dan during a brief phone call. “What’s happening?” “Cartier just pulled out of her ambassador renewal. Said their global marketing strategy shifted overnight. Reggie Fox called their senior VP five times, and his calls went straight to voicemail.” “And the prestige series with Leland Ford?” “Gone,” Dan chuckled quietly. “Leland announced an open casting call yesterday afternoon. Reggie looked like he was about to have a heart attack in the middle of the office.” I set my coffee cup down on the dark wood desk in my new office. It was only the third day. Irene hadn’t processed reality yet. She undoubtedly thought these setbacks were bad luck, scheduling conflicts, or standard industry volatility. She couldn’t fathom that every piece of her golden career had been held together by a single hand. That afternoon, I officially took my seat at Kingsley Media Headquarters as Executive Vice President of Entertainment & Private Equity. When I walked through the executive floor, fifty senior directors and analysts stood up to welcome me. “Good morning, Mr. Kingsley.” “Welcome, Mr. Kingsley.” I gave a polite nod and entered my corner office overlooking Manhattan. My chief of staff walked in, placing a thick leather-bound dossier on my desk. “Mr. Kingsley, as requested—here is the complete breakdown of Irene Drake’s active commercial contracts, film slates, and brand partnerships.” I flipped it open. Three dense pages. Eight major luxury endorsements, three pending studio pictures, two national brand campaigns, and a high-profile streaming series. I could collapse every single one of them with a few short emails. Not out of malice, but because she needed to understand a fundamental truth: some people are not tools to be used and discarded when their utility seems exhausted. I closed the folder. “Leave it for now. Let the momentum build.” My chief of staff bowed and left the room. I spun my leather chair toward the window, looking out over the city skyline. My phone screen flickered on the desk. A text from Irene. The light, patronizing tone was gone. “Calum, did you say something to people in the industry? Several of my deals just got frozen out of nowhere. What is going on with you?” I looked at the screen and said nothing. Another message hit a minute later: “Even if you quit, you have no right to sabotage my career! Those relationships belong to the agency, not to you personally. Stop acting out!” “Belong to the agency?” A faint, cold smile touched my lips. She still genuinely believed it was her agency’s power that opened those doors. Ten minutes passed before a voice message arrived. I tapped it. Irene’s voice spilled out of the speaker, stripped of its usual smooth polish, sharp with rising panic: “Calum, answer me! What are you trying to do? Are you throwing a fit because of what happened at the Globes? I told you, that was purely for PR! Brody and I—it’s just strategic! You shouldn’t take it personally. You’re my assistant, you’re not—” She broke off mid-sentence, catching herself. A long, heavy silence stretched over the recording before her tone softened into an anxious demand: “Just call me back, okay? We need to talk.” I listened to the message to the end. “You’re my assistant, you’re not—” Not what? Not my boyfriend? Not my partner? Not a real man in your eyes? She was right. I wasn’t. I had allowed myself to be erased for four years, mistaking her ambition for love. I closed her chat. I opened a new message thread with Leland Ford, the showrunner. “Give the lead role in the prestige drama to Sabrina West. Skip the formal auditions.” Leland replied within seconds: “Consider it done, Calum.” Sabrina West was Irene’s fiercest rival. They had come up together, but Irene had consistently edged her out for top roles over the past two years—not because Irene was the better actress, but because I had quietly cleared the path. I wasn’t going out of my way to ruin Irene Drake. It was simply that from this moment forward, resources would flow only where I chose to direct them. And for Irene Drake, the tap was officially off.

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The fall semester of our junior year kicked off with the Student Government Association elections. My best friend, Betty, and I both made it to the final ballot for Vice President. Right before the votes were tallied, Betty proposed a playful bet: whoever lost had to dress up in a clown costume and run eight laps around the track field in front of the entire campus. I won by a narrow margin of ten votes. The applause hadn’t even died down when the screen behind the podium flickered. My boyfriend, Todd, stepped up to the AV system and projected a series of photos across the massive display in the auditorium. They were pictures from a nightmare I thought I’d put behind me—a night at a local lounge where a stranger had tried to corner me—spliced together with intimate, explicit photos of me asleep in bed. Todd grabbed the microphone, his voice cutting through the stunned silence like an ice pick. “I don’t believe someone who sells her body for money and lives a disgusting double life deserves to represent this university,” he announced calmly. In an instant, hundreds of eyes shifted toward me, heavy with disgust and malice, treating me like toxic waste. I was immediately disqualified and stripped of my SGA title. Staring at the familiar hotel headboard in those intimate photos, my chest heaved. I cornered Todd in the hallway behind the stage, my hands shaking uncontrollably. “Why are you lying?” I choked out, tears burning my eyes. “Those private photos… you took them when I was asleep. Why would you do this?” Todd stepped closer, leaning in with a faint, chilling smile. He lowered his voice so only I could hear. “Coral, baby, it doesn’t matter who took them.” “You know how sensitive Betty is,” he whispered, his breath warm against my cheek. “She cries if her hair gets slightly messy. If I forced her to wear a hideous clown suit in front of everyone, she’d be broken for a month.” “Besides, you “were” touched at that bar, and you “did” sleep with me. I just merged the two truths. Be a good girl. Once you finish running your laps, I’ll take you out to a nice dinner.” I stood frozen as he walked away, high-fiving Betty as they laughed and debated where to host her victory celebration. Wiping the cold tears from my cheeks, I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I had kept hidden for months. “Mom,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve made up my mind. I’m moving to London with you.” … Someone dragged a battered clown suit out of the SGA storage closet and dumped it at my feet. It was stained with a lukewarm, greasy liquid. The guy who threw it smirked at me. “Sorry about that, Coral. I spilled my cup noodles on it earlier. Don’t be picky.” “Then again,” he added, his eyes scanning me up and down with sleazy curiosity, “I hear rich guys in VIP suites like pouring champagne all over girls like you anyway. You’re probably used to it, right? Though if you want to run naked, we wouldn’t complain. Let’s see what the design department’s golden girl—or should I say, campus escort—is really packing under there.” The foul smell of stale noodle broth mixed with the crude laughter of the guys around me, suffocating me. The night at the lounge had been a terrifying near-miss. Todd had arrived just in time, pulled me out, and called the campus police before anything actual happened. I had been terrified of becoming the subject of vicious campus gossip, and Todd had kissed my forehead, promising on his life that he would guard my secret forever. Now, he was the executioner nailing me to the cross of public shame. When I stepped out of the restroom wearing the damp, ridiculous costume, Todd was leaning against the wall outside. “Don’t worry, I kept guard so those boys didn’t peek,” he said gently. “I told them to keep their mouths shut, too.” It sounded so considerate, so protective. Yet it sent a sharp, agonizing chill straight through my spine. I looked up into his handsome, familiar face. “You lied to me a few nights ago, didn’t you? You didn’t get your drink spiked at that networking event. You just wanted to get me to your room, wait until I fell asleep, and take those photos so Betty wouldn’t lose.” We had been secretly dating for five years, ever since high school, keeping our relationship hidden on campus. We had never crossed the line into intimacy—until a few nights ago. He had called me in a panic, crying that someone had slipped something into his drink at a fraternity mixer and begging me to come over. I had rushed to his side out of pure, unadulterated love, unaware that I was walking into a carefully laid trap. Before Todd could answer, Betty stepped out from behind him, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Coral, please don’t be mad at Todd,” she sobbed softly. “He was just worried I’d lose face. Why don’t you give me the suit? I’ll run for you. It’s fine if everyone laughs at me…” Todd immediately pulled her into his chest, frowning. “What are you talking about? You have delicate skin—you couldn’t handle wearing that filthy thing for a second.” He turned back to me, his brow furrowed in disapproval. “Coral, don’t be so bitter. They’re just a few photos. As long as I know you’re clean, isn’t that enough? You grew up in an orphanage, so you don’t care about social standing. But Betty’s family and relatives all know she was running for VP. If she loses, how is she supposed to face them?” A sharp pain constricted my heart, cutting off my air supply. I had never realized that growing up in foster care made me disposable in his eyes. The September humidity hung heavy over the campus track field. By the sixth lap, black spots danced across my vision, and my knees buckled, sending me crashing onto the rough dirt lane. “Are you okay?” Todd’s voice sounded behind me, sharp with worry. I instinctively turned my head, only to freeze. He wasn’t looking at me. He was standing near the bleachers, holding an iced latte in one hand while his other hand gently stroked Betty’s back as she patted her chest. His gaze was filled with helpless adoration. “Drink slowly, no one’s rushing you. See? You choked. Only two more sips—your stomach is sensitive, you know cold drinks mess you up.” He didn’t cast a single glance in my direction. A few freshmen coming off ROTC training walked past, recognizing Todd, and waved enthusiastically. “Senior Todd! Is she your girlfriend? You guys look amazing together! Wishing you two forever!” Other SGA members joined in the teasing. “Seriously, you two have been feeding us couple goals for three years now. When are you making it official? You’re buying us drinks tonight!” I watched Todd and Betty exchange a soft, knowing smile. Neither of them denied it. A scorching burn rose from my dry throat, spreading through my lungs and limbs. After the night at the hotel, I had asked Todd if we could finally make our relationship public. He had frowned and brushed me off: “Coral, we’re both in student government. We have to avoid conflict of interest. Otherwise, people will think I’m using my presidency to give my girlfriend special treatment. Let’s wait until graduation.” It was never about ethics. He just wanted to save the public spotlight for someone else. Trembling, I pulled my phone from my pocket and tapped the familiar contact. [Mom, I’ve made up my mind. I’m moving to London with you.] My biological mother had tracked me down two months ago. She was now a successful corporate executive based in the UK and had been desperate to bring me over to finish my design degree. I had repeatedly turned her down because I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Todd. I hadn’t even found the right moment to tell him about her. Now, I realized there was no need. I forced myself up and dragged my aching body through the final lap. I wanted nothing more than to retreat to my dorm and collapse, but Todd insisted that the team was heading to an upscale restaurant to celebrate Betty’s win, and that I had to come along. My head was spinning, and a dull, freezing ache had settled deep in my lower abdomen. I tried to refuse—after all, I was no longer part of SGA. Todd grabbed my wrist, his expression darkening. “Betty considers you her best friend, which is why she invited you. Do you really have to ruin her night by pretending to be sick? If you don’t go, she’s going to cry.” “Besides, everyone was just joking around earlier. Don’t take it so personally. A deal’s a deal, Coral. Don’t be a sore loser. Go change your clothes and don’t keep everyone waiting.” In the end, I was dragged along to the private dining room. Once the food arrived, an officer from SGA gave Todd a knowing wink. “Todd, didn’t you prepare a special congratulations gift for Betty? Bring it out!” Todd smirked and pulled a velvet box from his inner coat pocket. Inside lay an exquisite, glittering diamond bracelet. Betty gasped, covering her mouth in shock, while the rest of the table burst into screams. “Holy crap! Isn’t that from the luxury jewelry exhibition last week? That costs at least forty grand!” “No wonder Todd sold his brand-new luxury watch and emptied his personal savings! Betty really has you wrapped around her finger, huh?” My breath hitched. I instinctively looked at Todd’s wrist. It was bare. Last year, Todd had fallen in love with a limited-edition watch. His family was comfortable, but they weren’t the type to drop ten thousand dollars on a timepiece for a college student. To buy it for him, I had spent a year and a half working three part-time jobs, taking freelance design commissions late into the night, and dipping into the allowance my mother had sent me. I had finally surprised him with it on his birthday a few weeks ago. He had swept me into his arms, spinning me around in tears, swearing he would treasure it until he was eighty years old. And now, he had sold it to buy a bracelet for Betty. A wave of nausea hit me so hard my vision blurred. I scrambled out of my chair, the metal legs scraping loudly against the floor. Everyone turned to stare at me in surprise. Without a word of explanation, I sprinted to the restroom and threw up until my ribs ached. When I wiped my mouth and stepped out, Todd was waiting by the sinks, his face thunderous. “Coral, how long are you going to keep throwing this pathetic tantrum?” he demanded. “Do you have any idea how embarrassing it was when you stormed out like that? Betty thinks you’re still mad at her—she’s practically in tears in there! You’re going back in and apologizing to her.” A bitter, hysterical laugh bubbled up in my chest. “You sold the watch I bled to buy you just to get a gift for another woman, and I’m not allowed to be angry?” I whispered, my voice trembling. “Todd… do you even remember what today is? It’s our five-year anniversary.” Todd flinched slightly, his brows knitting closer together. “Stop making a scene! Who said I forgot?” He shoved a heavy manila envelope into my hands. “You want to be a jewelry designer after graduation, right? I took high-res photos of the pieces at the exhibition for you. They’re great study material.” I looked at the thick stack of printed photos, a hollow laugh escaping my lips. “So Betty gets a forty-thousand-dollar diamond bracelet, and I get a stack of cheap flyers you took on your phone?” I stared straight into his eyes. “Todd, who is actually your girlfriend?” Irritation flashed across his face. “Why do you always have to ruin things?” “We can celebrate our anniversary any day, but today is important to Betty. She’s wanted that bracelet forever. You’re her best friend and you didn’t get her anything, so I had to step up on your behalf!” “It’s just a piece of jewelry—do you really have to compete with her over everything? Once I start working, I’ll buy you something better. All you talk about is money, Coral. You haven’t even entered the real world yet—don’t become so damn materialistic!” I stared at him in utter disbelief as he spun on his heel and walked away. It was never about the bracelet. When I reached the dining room, the door was cracked open. They were playing Spin the Bottle. The bottle landed on Betty, and the dare was to kiss a member of the opposite sex for three minutes, or take a shot of whiskey. Betty caught my reflection in the glass door, a flicker of hesitation crossing her face. “Oh… my stomach isn’t feeling great tonight, but… I guess I’ll drink.” As her hand reached for the shot glass, Todd snatched it from her fingers. “Your stomach hurts and you’re drinking liquor? Are you trying to kill yourself?” Before she could respond, Todd cupped the back of Betty’s head, pulled her in, and pressed his lips firmly onto hers. Betty’s eyes drifted toward the door. The helpless, innocent act was completely gone, replaced by the cruel, triumphant smirk of a victor. I couldn’t watch another second. I turned and stumbled out of the restaurant into the thick night air. The moment I crossed the street, a sharp, excruciating pain ripped through my lower abdomen. Dizziness swept over me, and the world went pitch black. … When I woke up, the sterile smell of antiseptic filled my lungs. I was lying in a hospital bed. A nurse was adjusting my IV line, giving me a stern look. “What is wrong with you young girls? Running intense track laps while suffering from severe dysmenorrhea?” “It’s scorching outside—do you know how close you were to severe heatstroke and dehydration?” She sighed, her tone softening slightly. “Since you didn’t have any personal supplies, I placed a medical pad under you on the bed. You need to call your family or boyfriend to bring you a pack of pads and a clean pair of pants. Yours are ruined.” I hadn’t realized my period was coming early. My lower body felt heavy and chilled, and the IV fluids were making my bladder ache. I couldn’t even stand up to walk to the bathroom without bleeding through. Desperate, I pulled out my phone and dialed Todd. He declined the first four calls. On the tenth try, he finally picked up. “Todd,” I whispered, my voice trembling with embarrassment. “I passed out from cramps… I’m at the hospital. Can you please buy me a pack of pads and bring them over? And maybe a cheap pair of sweatpants…” “Coral, aren’t you tired of acting?” Todd interrupted, his tone laced with disgust. “Betty is having a great time right now. Why do you always have to ruin her happiness? I don’t have the time or energy to deal with your drama.” “Click.” The line went dead, replaced by the cold, rhythmic beep of the dial tone. In the end, it was my academic advisor, Professor Lawson, who saw my desperate text, brought a pair of her own workout pants, and stayed by my bed the entire night. The next morning, as I was being discharged, Professor Lawson looked at me with deep concern. “Coral, are you absolutely sure you want to process a complete withdrawal from the university?” I unlocked my phone. There were no missed calls or texts from Todd. Instead, a post from one of the SGA members popped up on my feed from late last night. [Congrats to the newlyweds! Heading into the honeymoon suite tonight~] The attached photo showed Todd supporting a tipsy Betty as they walked into a luxury hotel lobby. Betty had left a comment with blushing and laughing emojis. Todd had replied: [Cut it out. Delete this before Betty gets embarrassed.] He hadn’t denied it. Not even once. I stared at the screen for a long time, then locked my phone and looked up at Professor Lawson, offering a faint, hollow smile. “Yes, Professor. I’m completely sure.” I followed her to the administration office and signed the withdrawal papers. When I returned to my dorm room to pack my belongings, I found all my clothes, books, and design sketches piled outside in the dusty hallway. My mattress had been dragged into the corridor, drenched in bleach, reeking of harsh chemicals. I stared at my three roommates, my knuckles turning white. “What is the meaning of this?” Kendra, the head of the room, kicked a chair aside and pointed a finger at my face. “You still have the nerve to ask? Your ‘best friend’ Betty told us everything! You’ve been living a dirty double life, and you got hospitalized this morning because of some disgusting infection! How dare you live in our dorm? You’re a hazard to public health!” “We’re not sharing a space with trash like you. Grab your stuff and get the hell out, or I’m reporting you to the dean!” I stood paralyzed, my mind struggling to process her words. Becca, a roommate who had always been quiet and kind to me, pulled me away from the door and whispered nervously, “Coral… Betty accidentally posted some… explicit photos of you in the department group chat this morning.” “She deleted them right away, but hundreds of people saw them. Everyone’s freaking out. You should check the chat.” I opened the department chatroom—a group of over a thousand students that I had muted months ago. Scrolling up, my heart plummeted into a dark abyss. [Woah, didn’t know Coral had a body like that! Must have a ton of wealthy clients, huh?] [I heard someone saw her being escorted out of the hospital by an advisor this morning. She wasn’t even wearing the pants she wore yesterday. Did she get caught in a police bust? That wild, huh?] [Gross, that’s disgusting. What if she’s contagious? Feeling so bad for her roommates right now.] Below the messages, Betty had sent a shushing emoji. [Guys, please, it was an accident! I slipped and clicked the wrong file. Please pretend you didn’t see anything!] [Coral grew up without parents, so it hasn’t been easy for her to make money. As for whether she has an illness… I shouldn’t betray her privacy. Just please don’t discriminate against her, and make sure you sanitize your living spaces!] I didn’t need to guess. The photos Betty had “accidentally” posted and deleted were the exact intimate images Todd had projected on the screen during the election. The text blurred before my eyes. My hands shook so violently I could barely hold the phone. Todd had forwarded those photos to Betty. “This” was his definition of “guarding my secret”? I marched straight to the SGA office. Through the cracked door, I heard Betty chatting animatedly with another student. “Is the stuff about Coral really true?” the girl asked. “How can you still be friends with her? Aren’t you disgusted?” Betty sighed dramatically. “The pictures speak for themselves, and I’m terrible at lying. But I feel sorry for her. I heard her mother was a street worker who died of diseases, which is why her father abandoned her at an orphanage. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Rage surged through my veins, hot and blinding. I kicked the door open with a loud “BANG”. “You’re lying! My mother is nothing like that! Don’t you dare insult her!” I rushed toward Betty, my hand raised to slap the fake smile off her face. Before my hand could land, a powerful force shoved me backward. I stumbled and crashed onto the floor, the sharp edge of a metal desk catching the side of my forehead. A searing burst of pain radiated through my skull, followed by a warm trickle of blood pouring down my face. Todd stood over me, his eyes blazing with fury. “Coral, what the hell is wrong with you?!” Seeing the blood dripping down my cheek, Todd’s expression flickered with panic. He reached out to pull me up. “Co… Coral, are you okay? I didn’t mean to—” Betty immediately wrapped her arms around his arm, sobbing hysterically. “Todd, I was scared Coral was still mad at me, so I went to her dorm this morning to apologize! I was worried people were spreading rumors, so I tried to clear her name in the group chat, but she wouldn’t listen!” “She even stole the diamond bracelet you gave me! I tried to handle it quietly by calling her here so she could just give it back, but she tried to attack me!” The girl next to her quickly chimed in. “Yes! I saw it with my own eyes! Coral stole Betty’s bracelet!” Without asking, the girl grabbed my canvas bag off the floor and dumped its contents onto the desk. Among my notebooks and pencils, the sparkling diamond bracelet tumbled out. My breath hitched. I looked at Todd frantically. “I didn’t! She lied, she was the one who—” “Enough!” Todd shattered my explanation, his eyes filled with cold disappointment. “Coral, Betty has been trying to protect you at every turn, and you repay her by stealing her things? Are you really that jealous of her?” “You really are an uneducated brat raised without parents. Apologize to Betty right now!” I stared at him, my heart turning to ash. Years ago, when kids at school called me an orphan, I had been consumed by insecurity, desperately wishing for a family to love me. Back then, Todd had held me tightly, kissing my forehead. “Coral, you are the most incredible girl I’ve ever met. To me, you are stronger than anyone with parents. From now on, I am your family. I will love you twice as much to make up for everything.” It turned out that the person who knows where your wounds are is always the one who knows exactly where to plunge the knife. I looked at him, my voice completely devoid of emotion. “What if I refuse?” Todd looked at me deeply, then turned to the gathered crowd. “Call the police.” “And turn on the campus broadcast system. Announce to the entire university that Coral from the Design Department is a thief.” Someone hesitated. “Todd, are you sure? If we do that, she’ll get a permanent disciplinary record, and police involvement will ruin her future career. Since we found the bracelet, maybe—” “No,” Todd cut in coldly. “She stole from Betty today—who knows what she’ll do to hurt her tomorrow? She needs to learn her lesson the hard way.” It didn’t take long for the entire campus to brand me a thief. Amid the harsh jeers and disgusted glares of onlookers, the police escorted me toward the cruiser outside. Todd ran up to the car before the door closed, lowering his voice. “Coral… Betty is kind-hearted. She’s willing to settle, but because the bracelet is so expensive, you’ll have to stay in custody for a month before bail can be posted.” “Use this time to reflect on what you did. I’m doing this for your own good. Don’t worry about the criminal record—if you can’t find a job in the future, I’ll support you.” Looking at the man who had chosen to believe a lie without a second thought, without a single shred of concern for my dignity or future, a faint smile touched my lips. “Todd,” I said softly. “We’re over.” Todd froze, a sudden flicker of confusion passing over his eyes. Before he could say anything, the police officer shut the door. As the cruiser pulled away, I turned to the young female officer sitting beside me. “Officer,” I said quietly, “I have full video evidence proving my innocence.” … An hour later, I walked out of the police station a free woman. I called Professor Lawson to confirm that my university withdrawal documents had cleared, and asked her to mail the final transcripts to my mother’s address in London. Then, I boarded a one-way flight across the Atlantic. I didn’t want to spend another second in this place. Three days later, Todd had a free morning and decided to head to the station to visit me, only to run into Professor Lawson in the administrative hallway. When he mentioned his plan, Professor Lawson frowned. “You don’t need to go. The police cleared Coral days ago. She was completely innocent.” “In fact, she left the country three days ago to study abroad.”

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My roommate stole my online persona to go on a real-life blind date with our campus heartthrob. When she came back, her face was flushed with triumphant pride. “Dylan told me that compared to the online version of me, he vastly prefers the real thing.” She started dating Dylan right then and there while guarding him against me like I was a biohazard. What she didn’t realize was – I had never intended to meet Dylan in real life in the first place. I’m just a nerdy, overworked STEM student. The only reason I was venting on that forum was because my graduate coursework was crushing my soul. Our chat history wasn’t just 90% fake; it was 90% unhinged and inappropriate. Meeting in person wasn’t a romance – it was a total social execution. 1. Stepping out of the science building, I ran straight into Dylan and Kendra. Dylan was decked out in head-to-toe designer drip. Tall, broad-shouldered, with pale skin and sharp, handsome features. I had to give it to him – as campus royalty went, he was undeniably eye candy. The moment Kendra saw me, her face drained of color, panicking as if facing a mortal threat. Honestly, she was overreacting. She was wearing a tailored designer sundress with flawless makeup. On a beauty-rating forum where Zendaya scored an eight out of ten, Kendra had managed a solid 5.8. Meanwhile, in the tagged photo she posted of me in the comments, I had earned a generous 3.8. At this exact moment, I was wearing a faded, oversized thrift tee, hair thrown back in a scraped-together bun, face glistening with a sheen of lab grease. I couldn’t be bothered to care, but after hours of suffering through corrupted research data, my brain desperately needed a distraction. So, I deliberately waved and smiled. “Oh, hey! What a coincidence. You guys here to study…?” “Do you mind backing off, student?” Before I could finish, Dylan cut me off cold. He instinctively pulled Kendra behind him, shielding her like a bodyguard while casting a hostile glare my way. Kendra leaned up and whispered a couple of hurried sentences into his ear. Instantly, Dylan’s expression shifted to pure disdain. “So you’re the one who’s been isolating Kendra in the dorm just because you have an unrequited crush on me?” “I don’t know when you started stalking me or when you developed this little obsession – ” He scowled, his tone dripping with icy impatience. “But let me make one thing crystal clear: Kendra is the only person I care about.” “If I catch you picking on her again, I’ll make sure you regret it.” “Get lost.” Kendra peeked over his shoulder, throwing me a smug, victorious smirk. I curled my toes inside my peeling flip-flops. The secondhand embarrassment was unbearable. I cleared my throat and tried to explain. “Uh, look, if I told you that ‘Married10TimesToGetLove’ was actually – ” Dylan let out a harsh laugh. “Kendra called it,” he sneered. “You really would do anything to get to me, wouldn’t you? Even impersonating her.” Annoyed, I pulled out my phone and shot a quick message to my online buddy [D]: “Did you get dropped on your head as a infant?” A bright red exclamation mark popped up. “Message failed to send.” Dylan had blocked me. Right in front of me, he pulled out his phone and nonchalantly waved the screen at my face. “Stealing Kendra’s handle won’t work anymore. I already added her new account.” I snapped back to reality, instantly chilling to the bone. “What was I doing?” If Kendra hadn’t covered my tracks so thoroughly, I would have been completely exposed right here! Having delivered his grand speech, Dylan dismissed me entirely and pulled Kendra by the wrist. “Let’s go, babe. I booked us a table at a Michelin-star spot.” Kendra beamed, pouring on the enthusiastic praise. “You’re so generous, babe! Taking me to such a high-end place!” Dylan frowned in slight confusion. “Didn’t you tell me you’ve eaten exclusively at Michelin restaurants since you were a kid? And that you always order two tables – one to eat at, and one purely for photo ops?” Kendra’s face turned white. “Huh? Oh! Right, right, of course!” 2. Dylan and I met when I was trying to sell off some old gear online. I had posted on the campus market board: “Anyone interested in a cute little bear? Looking for someone to take care of it!” Dylan assumed I was illegally rehoming an exotic bear cub and added me. It turned out I was just trying to get rid of a Bear-brand mini rice cooker. Once I realized his intellectual capacity was… adorable, I started using him as my personal void to shout into. I told him everything, confident he wouldn’t get it anyway. Dysfunctional family baggage. Crushed dreams. Brutal academic pressure. Nightmare lab partners. Trash-talking men. … Then Dylan suddenly insisted on meeting up in person. Kendra had caught a glimpse of our chat log on my laptop in the dorm once. Back then, she had mocked me for cyber-flirting, completely unaware that the guy behind the screen was the campus golden boy. And then, she inadvertently saved me from total social death. While I was slaving away in the research lab, their romance escalated at lightspeed. Half the campus witnessed their high-profile courtship. Kendra, the finance major, had successfully bagged the brooding art school heartthrob. Dylan waited on her hand and foot, driving his sports car all the way to the suburbs just to buy her favorite artisanal boba. Both came from wealthy backgrounds – a match made in high-society heaven. A picture-perfect romance of the elite. When I got back to the dorm, our other two roommates were crowded around Kendra, hungrily digging for details on her love life. The moment I walked through the door, the room went dead silent, followed by an even louder burst of performative chatter. One of the roommates raised her voice deliberately: “Some girls from broke families should stick to studying instead of eyeing other people’s boyfriends.” “Being poor isn’t a crime, but stealing someone else’s man sure is!” She was referring to something that happened a while back. Kendra had misplaced a bottle of luxury perfume. Since I was the only one in the room at the time, she immediately accused me of stealing it. I had been completely defenseless. Once the two roommates were done making their point, Kendra stepped in with her usual gentle tone. “Alright, guys, we all live together.” She turned to me. “Cecilia, I know things are tight for your family. Next time you want to borrow something, just ask me.” I nodded smoothly. “Sure.” “I actually have a blind date tomorrow. Mind lending me that new bag you just bought? You’re so generous, I’m sure you won’t mind, right?” Kendra’s smile stiffened. I knew for a fact she had just bought a pre-owned Hermès Kelly. Dylan had casually asked her why she wasn’t carrying the Hermès her mother supposedly bought her, sending Kendra into a frantic panic to buy one secondhand. What she didn’t know was that my mom had actually bought a cheap knockoff, a detail I had never bothered correcting Dylan about. Kendra stared at me, her eyes narrowing with heavy subtext. “It’s always better to be authentic, Cecilia. Don’t blow things out of proportion just to save face – whether it’s for a blind date or chatting with random people online.” “Your date probably isn’t high-class anyway. You wouldn’t need a bag this expensive.” The other two jumped in to agree. Yeah, definitely low-class. Word was he was some bleach-blonde fuckboy. But the sweet older couple setting it up promised me a bonus allowance if I behaved on the date. I ignored them and grabbed my washbag, but Kendra called after me again. “Oh, by the way, my boyfriend is treating us all to dinner tonight.” “Cecilia, you should come too.” Free food before a long night of studying? “Sure thing.” The moment the words left my mouth, snarky comments floated from behind me. “A place that high-end… if it weren’t for Kendra’s boyfriend, she probably wouldn’t step foot in one her entire life.” “Kendra, aren’t you worried she’s still lingering around your man?” Kendra tilted her chin up, offering a poised, delicate smile. “What’s there to be afraid of?” “Dylan would have to be blind to choose her over me.” 3. I splashed some water on my face and headed to the restaurant. I pushed open the door to the private room. Only Dylan was sitting there. I glanced at my watch. I wasn’t early. The moment Dylan saw me, the smile on his face vanished, replaced by an unmistakable flicker of disgust. My gaze settled on his face. Say what you will, the guy might lack brain cells, but his face was undeniably pretty. A shame, really. He knew far too much about my dirty laundry; we were fundamentally doomed. Fragments of our old chat history flashed through my mind – “I’m so lonely.” “I’m actually a deeply romantic person. Generous to a fault with my friends. Even though I’m only twenty-four, I think things through carefully. I’d argue I’m more mature than most forty-two-year-olds, though I act like a total baby in private…” “By the way.” “How big are you? I mean your age.” “I only date pure, untouched boys with their V-cards intact.” … Along with a mountain of unhinged, trash-talking rants. It was utterly unwatchable. As my mind wandered, my gaze lingered blankly on Dylan’s face. He caught me staring and defensively shifted his chair backward. “Stop looking at me. It’s gross.” “Oh. Right.” First time I’d seen someone self-deprecate so accurately. Just then, Kendra arrived, flanked by our roommates. Her eyes caught mine, and she forced a look of polite surprise. “Cecilia, you came?” I raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you invite me?” One of the roommates sneered. “Kendra was just being polite. I can’t believe you actually had the nerve to show up. Arriving so early just to get alone time with Dylan, huh?” Kendra smoothed things over with a sweet smile. “It’s fine, the more the merrier.” Dylan took her hand warmly. “You’re just too innocent, babe. Online you were like a feisty little kitten, but in real life, you’re so kind and sweet.” Kendra blushed delicately and ducked into his chest. I felt a sudden wave of goosebumps. Truth be told, Dylan had zero banter online and couldn’t catch my jokes to save his life. If he hadn’t occasionally sent handsome selfies, I would have blocked him months ago. Dylan handed the menu to Kendra. She pointed to a few dishes, stopping at the mango foie gras. Dylan’s expression visibly froze. Oh, right. I had told Dylan online that I was deathly allergic to mangoes. 4. Dylan stared at Kendra as she happily ate her mango starter, his eyes clouded with utter bewilderment. Noticing his intense gaze, Kendra blushed and offered him a tender glance, placing a piece of pan-seared fish onto his plate. Dylan didn’t move his fork. He hated seafood. He had explicitly told “Married10TimesToGetLove” about it. When he was a kid, his mother favored his younger brother, giving all the seafood to the brother first. In a fit of petty rage, Dylan swore he would never touch seafood again for the rest of his life. What a tragic childhood. What traumatic family baggage. At the time, “Married10TimesToGetLove” had comforted him: “If it were me, I’d pee in the seafood dish so nobody gets to eat it!” How could Kendra forget something like that? Dylan’s hand holding the chopsticks went rigid, his eyes growing increasingly lost. I took the opportunity to check my phone. The information about my blind date tomorrow had been updated. Good news: He wasn’t a bleach-blonde fuckboy; he had silver hair. Better news: His photo was stunning. Easily three points hotter than Dylan. Bad news: Complicated family structure, complete with an illegitimate older brother. I looked at the dish on the table and sighed thoughtfully. “Wow, that’s actually fish? It’s so tender, I almost mistook it for tofu.” Kendra snapped back to reality, frantically trying to cover her track. “Oh, right, right, of course…” Having skimmed my chat logs before, my subtle reminder sparked her memory. She looked at Dylan with a face full of self-reproach. “Babe, it’s all my fault, I forgot…” Dylan let out a long sigh of relief. He patted her head gently. “How could I ever blame you?” They embraced tenderly. A mutual, passionate connection. How sweet. I only hoped my thesis defense would go this smoothly. After dinner, Dylan went to settle the bill. Kendra wiped her lips elegantly with a napkin. “You guys go ahead back to the dorm. Dylan and I are going somewhere else.” The two roommates squealed and teased her. She offered a coy scold. “Stop it, we’re just going to see a movie. He said the first time needs proper romance; he won’t rush things.” My hand wiping my mouth paused. I opened my mouth, then shut it. Kendra pulled me aside after dismissing the other two. “I was going to tell Dylan the truth, but as you can see, he’s totally head over heels for me.” “If you had met him instead, he wouldn’t even look at you.” “You have no idea what kind of background Dylan comes from. He’s the eldest heir to a multi-billion-dollar corporate empire. He doesn’t have time to play around with a broke girl from the slums.” I was temporarily rendered speechless. Kendra continued, “Thanks for helping me out back there, though I would’ve remembered on my own anyway.” “I’ll let the whole perfume stealing incident slide. We’re even now.” Just as she finished, Dylan returned to pick her up. Kendra shot me one last pitying look before walking away, completely satisfied. 5. The next day. I arrived early at the restaurant for the blind date. My date showed up fifteen minutes late, bearing fresh bruises on his face. I paused my phone game and took a couple of seconds to inspect him. I decided to grant him a temporary pardon for his tardiness. Sensational silver hair. A silver cross necklace, black tee, black jeans. His style leaned a bit edgy-edgy, but his face was exquisitely breathtaking – better looking than any plastic surgery could achieve. A cool, sweet boy. He opened his mouth and dropped a megaton bomb: “My mom said you’re her childhood friend’s daughter and forced me to marry you.” Whoa. A mama’s boy. “I didn’t agree, so I got into a fistfight with her before coming here.” Oh. Never mind then. I hadn’t eaten breakfast, so I ordered a few extra dishes. The silver-haired boy, Felix, raised an eyebrow. “What, expecting another date?” The meal lasted an hour, filled with random banter and casual roasting. Zero romantic sparks. I checked my watch, preparing to make a polite exit, when the waiter walked over. “Sir, since you ordered the couple’s set menu, if you post an intimate photo of the two of you on social media, you can get twelve percent off!” Felix turned to look at me, confusion in his eyes. “The set menu was cheaper,” I explained, adding offhandedly, “I can pose for a picture with you, but I’m not posting it. You post it if you want.” Surely the young master of the wealthy Kerwin family didn’t care about a twelve percent discount. To my surprise, the moment the words left my mouth, Felix whipped out his phone. “Snap.” “Again, you blinked.” “Snap.” “Again, is your mouth glued shut?” “Snap.” Felix reviewed the photos, nodded in satisfaction, and slipped the phone back into his pocket. The waiter and I exchanged a bewildered look. The waiter kindly reminded him, “Sir, it needs to be posted on social media – like Instagram or TikTok.” Felix shook his head. “Nah. Do I look like I care about your twelve percent off?” Me: … “Then why did you take the photos?” Felix spoke with absolute seriousness: “It’s my first blind date. Keeping a souvenir.” “Who knows, might be my last.” 6. Felix walked me back to campus. Don’t get the wrong idea – he didn’t drive. He took an Uber here and decided to ride the subway back with me. He was actually pretty nice, managing to snatch a subway seat for me during rush hour. For a second, I almost felt like I was pregnant. After an hour on the subway, we finally arrived at the campus gates. Felix accompanied me all the way. I didn’t have a car, but I had acquired a dedicated escort. As we reached the gates, I saw Dylan and Kendra holding each other in a sweet embrace from a distance. “Tsk.” A sound of intense disgust came from right above my head. I was a bit confused. Honestly, setting aside everything else, purely as an aesthetic visual, the two of them looked quite striking together. Felix pointed at Dylan. “That’s my brother.” I was stunned. “Full brother?” “No. Illegitimate.” What a small world. I turned to Felix. “Don’t you have places to be? Why aren’t you leaving?” He shook his head. “My time isn’t that valuable.” “Come on, let’s go eavesdrop and see if we can catch some dramatic tea.” Saying that, he dragged me closer to Dylan and Kendra, creeping around like a stealthy stray dog. We heard Dylan saying in a dead serious tone: “Babe, you’re just too naive. Make sure you stay far away from that Palmer girl.” “She looks like she still hasn’t given up on me.” Kendra replied softly: “Don’t be like that. Cecilia is just jealous that I have such a great boyfriend, which is why she targets me everywhere.” “I saw her spending hours dressing up early this morning. Apparently, she went on a blind date with some off-campus guy… probably some shady loser.” Her tone dripped with fake concern, as if deeply worried I’d be scammed. The shady loser standing next to me, Felix, rolled his eyes. “Gross. I’m nauseous.” Dylan fell silent for a moment, appearing to ponder something. A second later, he let out a cold snort. “I could actually introduce her to a few decent guys, though they might not even look down at her level!” Kendra froze, hurriedly saying, “No need, really, she knows plenty of guys…” Ignoring her, Dylan continued self-importantly, “I have a cousin who just broke up with his girlfriend. He’s more than enough for her.” “When the time comes, she’ll owe you a favor and be utterly grateful to you. It’ll also finally sever her lingering feelings for me!” Seeing how set he was, Kendra could only nod along. And just like that, without my knowledge or consent as the actual subject, my next blind date was officially locked in. A second later, my phone buzzed with a text from Kendra. She was inviting me for coffee tomorrow, claiming she wanted to introduce me to a guy. I had zero interest. I was just about to text back a refusal when I turned my head and caught Felix staring intensely at my phone screen, radiating an aura of tragic longing out of nowhere. Spooked by his expression, my fingers glitched. I sent back a single word – [Sure].

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Mom bought a new phone. Her lock screen was my older sister, Vanessa, posing in a pink ballet tutu; her home wallpaper was my younger brother, Ted, grinning as he palmed a basketball. There was no trace of me—the middle child wedged invisibly between them. At every family gathering, Mom would smile and nudge me out of the frame: “You’ve got the steadiest hands, Laurel. Take a nice picture of the three of us.” I’d raise my camera and say sure, believing that as long as I was a good, quiet backdrop, there would come a day when I’d finally earn a spot in that frame. Until the night my stomach perforated. I collapsed alone on the floor of my rented apartment, needing an immediate signature from next of kin to go into surgery. Shaking from the white-hot pain, I called Mom. Her end of the line was a wall of deafening scream-singing from a concert stadium: “Hold on a second, Laurel! Vanessa’s favorite artist is coming on stage, I have to record this for her!” I called my dad. He was sitting courtside at Ted’s high school championship game: “You’re a twenty-three-year-old adult. Can’t you just pop some antacids and get yourself to urgent care?” I ended up curled into a tight, shivering ball on a gurney outside the operating room. The ER nurse looked down at me with a heavy, unspoken pity. They didn’t show up until dawn the next morning. Vanessa was busy posting her signed concert merch on Instagram; Ted was replaying his game highlights on his phone. Mom handed them both warm lattes, then turned around to frown down at me in the hospital bed: “What kind of drama do you have to pull in the middle of the night? None of us got a wink of sleep.” Nobody asked about the critical condition consent form I had signed with my own trembling hands hours before. I pulled the IV needle out of the back of my hand, opened my phone, and silently left the group chat named “The Happy Porter Family”. The three of them made a complete family without me anyway. It was time I stepped out and took a solo picture. … I stared at the pale water stain on the hospital ceiling for a long time. The signed consent form was still tucked under my pillow, the paper slightly warm. When the night nurse couldn’t reach any of my emergency contacts, I had signed it myself. My phone screen flickered in the quiet room. A single system notification from the chat app: “Laurel Porter has left the group.” Hours had passed since then. Not a single person had texted to ask why. The last update in the chat was a nine-photo grid posted by Mom. Vanessa had been lifted up near the front row at the stadium, clutching a water bottle thrown by the pop star, laughing like she’d won the lottery. Mom’s caption read: “Big girl’s dream night! I was even more excited than she was!” Underneath, Ted had replied with a thumbs-up emoji and a selfie of himself holding his MVP trophy. Mom had replied instantly: “My two babies are the absolute stars of the night!” That was where the conversation ended. Nobody asked where Laurel was. Nobody asked why Laurel hadn’t responded. Nobody wondered if Laurel was still alive. I flipped the phone over, face down on the nightstand. “Where’s your family, dear?” Mrs. Greg, the elderly woman in the neighboring bed, spoke up again. “When they brought you in last night, I heard the nurse call several numbers. No one picked up. You were out there all alone by the surgical doors. Broke my old heart just watching.” “They’re away on business,” I lied softly. “Out of state. They couldn’t get back in time.” Mrs. Greg gave a soft “oh” and didn’t press further. She poured half a bowl of warm oat porridge from her thermal flask and slowly shuffled over to my bedside. “Can’t take solid food right after abdominal surgery. Have a few sips of this to line your stomach.” I took the bowl. As I took a small sip, a sudden, sharp sting hit the back of my nose. Twenty-three years. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had brought me a bowl of warm soup without me having to ask for it first. At two in the afternoon, the attending physician came in for rounds. He flipped through my chart, his expression solemn. “Your stomach lining is in terrible shape. Severe chronic inflammation, irregular eating habits, extreme stress, plus an underlying infection. You’ve got the digestive tract of a thirty-five-year-old.” He took off his glasses and looked at me. “How old are you?” “Twenty-three.” “Twenty-three, and your stomach looks worse than mine, and I’m forty-five.” He sighed, jotting down a line on my chart. “Where are your guardians or family? I need to go over post-op care instructions.” “I can take notes myself.” “You signed your own critical release form last night. Standard protocol requires us to notify someone.” “Doctor, I’m an adult. I have full legal capacity.” He opened his mouth to say something, but ultimately let it go. He simply scribbled a small note in the margin of my file: [Patient lives alone. No family present. Monitor post-op psychological state.] I pretended not to see it. On my fourth day in the hospital, my family finally called. It was Mom. Her tone was sharp and hurried. “Laurel, Vanessa has a brand sponsorship meeting the day after tomorrow. She needs her personal highlight video compiled. All the raw files are on your desktop computer—edit it real quick and send it over.” “I’m in the hospital.” There was a half-second pause on the line. “What is it this time? Food poisoning from takeout again? How many times have I told you to cook for yourself—” “A stomach perforation. I had surgery.” About three seconds of silence followed. Then Mom’s voice came back, laced with impatience. “Well, can you move around now? Just email the files. This event is huge for your sister, it’s a big-brand endorsement. If she misses it, it’s gone.” I closed my eyes. “The project files are on my desktop, Drive D, third folder. The password is your birthday.” “Alright, good. I’ll have Vanessa go over to your place and copy them onto a flash drive. Where’s your spare key?” “Second shelf of the shoe rack by the door.” “Got it. Rest up. If it’s nothing serious, don’t waste money staying cooped up in a hospital room. Just grab some prescription meds and go home.” Before hanging up, she added, “And as soon as you’re discharged, come home and cook something for your sister. Her appetite hasn’t been great lately.” The call cut off. From beginning to end, she never asked which hospital I was in. She never asked if the surgery had gone smoothly. She never said she was coming to see me. That night, I pulled out my phone and logged into the creator dashboard of an account named “Third Lens”. Follower count: 1.27 million. Latest video views: 3.4 million. I hesitated for a moment before tapping on an unread Direct Message I had left unanswered for days. It was a job offer from a prominent media company in Los Angeles. The salary and benefits were more than enough for me to live comfortably. More importantly, it was thousands of miles away from home. I used to think that as long as I stayed close, my parents would eventually see me. Now, I realized how foolish that was. My fingers hovered over the keyboard, and I typed back: [Mr. West, I’m in.] I locked my phone and checked my personal messages one last time. Since leaving the family group chat, my parents hadn’t texted me privately. Neither had Vanessa, nor Ted. It was as if my presence—or absence—made no difference to them at all. When I was nineteen, I received my college acceptance letter. Top-tier university, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, majoring in Cinematography. That day, I had run home clutching the letter, bursting through the front door, only to find the living room buzzing with a celebration. They weren’t celebrating me. Vanessa had just been accepted into the state dance troupe. Mom had ordered a three-tier cream cake with dark chocolate lettering that read: “To Vanessa, the future is yours.” Dad had uncorked a bottle of vintage wine he’d been saving for years. Ted was whistling and cheering in the corner. I had stood in the foyer, the paper in my hand slowly drooping toward the floor… On the fifth day, I checked myself out of the hospital. As the nurse pulled the IV cannula out of my vein, the door to the room opened. It was Mom, carrying an insulated lunch bag, with Dad trailing right behind her. “Laurel, why didn’t you tell us you were getting discharged today?” I froze. “What are you doing here?” “You were hospitalized, so we came to check on you.” Mom set the bag on the nightstand, glancing around the room. “This place looks pretty expensive. How much did the stay cost?” “Insurance covered most of it.” “Good.” Mom nodded, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Your father’s workplace is setting up a housing co-op fund, and he’s short fifteen thousand dollars. Do you have any savings? Lend it to us first.” My hands tightened into fists. “I don’t have money.” “How could you not have money? You’ve been working for over a year.” Dad spoke up from the doorway, his brow furrowed. Mom’s face darkened immediately. “Whenever the family needs help, you always come up with excuses. You live alone, how much could you possibly spend? You should have plenty saved up from your salary!” “My salary is thirty-five hundred a month. My rent is twelve hundred, utilities are two hundred. What exactly do you think I’m saving?” Mom scowled. “A college graduate making only thirty-five hundred?” Dad cut in, annoyed. “Can you help us with the money or not?” “No.” Mom stood up abruptly. “We raised you all these years! Now that we need a little help, you’re suddenly unwilling?” “Raised me?” I stood up too, the back of my hand aching where the IV had just been removed. “I paid for my college tuition with student loans. My living expenses came from working three part-time jobs.” Mom pointed a sharp finger at my face. “Are you saying you don’t even owe us a debt of gratitude now?” “I do,” I said, looking her dead in the eye. “Which is why over the years, I did everything you ever asked me to do. But starting today, I’m done.” “What did you just say?” “I said,” I enunciated every single word, “I’m done being the ghost in this family.” The hospital room door swung open, and the nurse poked her head in. “Please keep your voices down, this is a recovery ward.” Mom took a deep breath, her eyes cold. “So this is your attitude now? Fine. I’ll remember this.” Dad stepped forward, raising his hand as if to strike me. “Don’t you dare!” The nurse darted in, stepping directly between us. “Sir, calm down! We do not tolerate violence here, or I will call security and the police.” Dad’s hand froze mid-air. Mom pulled at his sleeve. “Let’s go. We raised an ungrateful snake. Why waste our breath!” They stormed out. I sat back down on the mattress, my whole body trembling with a deep, bone-chilling cold. The nurse poured a glass of warm water and handed it to me. “Are you alright?” “I’m fine. Thank you.” She hesitated for a moment. “Some family ties… they aren’t your fault.” I nodded slowly, silent. That afternoon, I took a taxi back to my apartment. The moment I pushed open the door, I knew Vanessa had been there. My desktop monitor was still glowing, and a half-empty cup of boba tea sat on the desk. Stuck to the plastic cup was a yellow sticky note in Vanessa’s handwriting: “Thanks~ Got the files! Left the tea for you, get some rest!” I picked up the boba tea and tossed it straight into the trash can. Then I sat down, opened my computer, navigated to Drive D, and selected every single file, photo, and video related to the Porter family. “Permanently Delete.” My phone vibrated with an email notification from Simon West: [See you next Monday in LA. Company apartment is all set up.] … The air in Los Angeles was crisp and filled with the scent of salt and asphalt, completely different from the humid, suffocating winters back home. I stood in front of the high-rise building of Echo Creative, dragging my rolling suitcase, and looked up at the neon logo on the top floor. “Laurel?” A man in a relaxed linen shirt walked out through the revolving glass doors. “I’m Simon West. Welcome.” He extended a hand. “Rough flight? Let’s get you upstairs to complete your onboarding. The company apartment is already cleaned and waiting.” The onboarding paperwork was straightforward. Under the “Emergency Contact” section, I left the lines completely blank. The young HR assistant looked up at me, paused, and wrote a small note in parentheses: [None] Simon led me to the creative team’s open workspace. A massive wall of floor-to-ceiling windows offered a panoramic view of the city skyline stretching out toward the ocean. “Your desk is over there. Your gear arrives tomorrow.” He pointed to a spacious corner desk by the window. “This documentary series focuses on solitary seniors living in major cities. It’s a six-month project. Your visual tone is perfect for it.” I nodded. “Thank you, Simon.” On my third day in LA, I posted my first video on “Third Lens” since moving. It was shot at 6:00 AM at Santa Monica Beach—the gentle tide pulling back, leaving intricate wet patterns in the sand under the pale golden dawn. No people. No voiceover. Just light and ambient sound. The comment section exploded as usual. [Who is behind this camera? Every single frame feels like it’s breathing.] [I’m crying and I don’t even know why. It feels like the person filming this is deeply lonely, yet totally free.] The follower count jumped from 1.27 million to 1.43 million overnight. Three major brands sent partnership inquiries in my inbox. I replied with my standard rate card. I had secretly created this account during my sophomore year of college. Back then, after filming Vanessa’s dance rehearsals or Ted’s games, I would take the leftover landscape B-roll, edit it into my own atmospheric style, and post it online. Nobody in my family knew that the creator behind “Third Lens” was Laurel. During my first weekend in LA, as I was organizing my camera lenses in the company apartment, my phone buzzed with a text. It was from my brother, Ted. “Where are you? Come home and grab your stuff. Mom says she’s clearing out your room to make space for my new study room.” The room they had promised would always be kept for me. Now, it was becoming Ted’s study. I typed back a single sentence: “Throw it all away. I don’t need it.” Ted replied almost instantly: “K.” A week later, on a Tuesday afternoon, I was color-grading in the editing suite. My screen lit up with an Instagram notification from Vanessa’s public profile. A new family portrait. They were sitting in the living room at home. Mom was in the middle, Vanessa in a white lace dress on her left, Ted in his team jersey on her right. All three were beaming at the camera. Caption: “Mom’s new phone is finally here! Anniversary portrait!” A relative had commented underneath: “Where’s Laurel?” Vanessa had replied: “She’s busy out of town! Next time~” Next time. Always “next time.” I scrolled past the post without stopping. If I had seen something like that months ago, my heart would have ached. Now, I felt nothing at all. By May, I had been in Los Angeles for two months. The documentary was halfway complete. I had followed six elderly subjects and accumulated over four hundred hours of raw footage. Simon announced at our weekly meeting that the rough cut was receiving rave reviews, and a major streaming platform was already negotiating early distribution rights. After work, I stayed behind at my desk to organize the day’s shooting logs. The office was quiet. Suddenly, a text notification popped up on my phone. A bank deposit alert: [Account ending in 367: Direct Deposit +$500.00. Memo: Travel Expenses – Mom] I stared at the notification, my thumb hovering over the screen. A moment later, a text from Mom arrived: “Laurel, your sister has a huge showcase performance in June and needs a five-minute promo documentary. Hiring an outside production team costs way too much. Can you take a few days off and come back to shoot it for her? I sent you $500 for your flight. Let me know if you need more.” Out in the industry, a polished five-minute commercial profile carried a starting price tag of fifteen thousand dollars. To her, my labor was worth five hundred. I took a screenshot of her text and saved it into a secure notes folder on my phone. The folder was named [Settled]. There were several other screenshots inside it. One was from the summer I turned sixteen, when I spent two full months filming Vanessa’s intensive dance camp. Mom’s compensation for me back then had been: “Well, you had nothing better to do anyway.” Another was from when I was twenty. Ted’s high school basketball team needed promotional posters. I spent two weeks scouting locations and doing high-end photo retouching. Dad’s exact words had been: “We’re family, why bring up money? When your brother makes it big, he’ll take care of you.” Another was from last Thanksgiving. Mom made me edit all forty photos from the family dinner. I stayed up until 3:00 AM perfecting every shot, only for her to text the family group: “They look okay. Laurel still needs more practice.” I didn’t keep these records out of a desire for revenge. I kept them to remind myself whenever I felt a moment of weakness—there were no sweets on the road backward. Only knives. I closed the note, opened my banking app, and refunded the $500 transfer directly back to her account. I typed a single word in the memo box: “No.” I didn’t reply to Mom’s text. Instead, I opened the “Third Lens” inbox. A major brand had just accepted my sponsorship terms. Quote: $20,000 for a single video integration. I clicked “Accept”. On the very same night, under a different name, my work was worth twenty thousand dollars. The next day, I made a final decision. I spent the afternoon going through my phone, deleting every contact named Porter. I removed Mom, Dad, Vanessa, and Ted from my main messaging apps. I didn’t block them. Blocking was a statement, and I didn’t even want to offer them an attitude anymore. When I was finished, I ordered myself a high-end salmon sashimi platter from a local Japanese spot down the street. I sat on the small balcony of my apartment, picked up a slice of fresh salmon, and dipped it in soy sauce. It tasted clean, bright, and fresh. In early June, on a bright Wednesday morning, I was setting up lighting gear at the home of one of my documentary subjects when Simon called. “Laurel, heads up.” He paused on the line. “Your family just walked into the building lobby. Front desk says an older woman is claiming to be your mother and demanding to know which floor your desk is on.” My hands froze on the tripod adjustment knob for a brief second. “Tell reception you don’t know who that is.” Simon let out a low sigh. “Already handled. I told security we have no employee by that name. Keep shooting where you are, don’t rush back.” “Thanks, Simon.” I hung up and went back to adjusting the softbox lights. My subject, an eighty-year-old retired carpenter named Mr. Hogan, sat in his armchair holding a faded photograph. “You look a little pale today, Laurel. Did you skip breakfast?” “I ate,” I said, offering him a soft smile. “Ready when you are, Mr. Hogan.” When I returned to the office building that evening, the sun had already set. The lobby guard nodded at me as I walked past. “Ms. Porter, an older woman stood outside the glass doors for over three hours today. We finally had to escort her off the property. She left a bag at the front desk for you.” I walked over to the reception counter and looked inside the plastic bag. Inside were two jars of preserved peaches, a bag of dried dates, and an unsealed envelope. They were all Vanessa’s favorite treats. Even when bringing me a peace offering, she couldn’t help but pack it with my sister’s tastes. I pulled out the letter and skimmed the handwritten lines. Mom’s handwriting was shaky, clearly written through tears: “Laurel, Mom knows you’re angry. But no matter what, you came from my body. You can’t truly abandon this family. Besides, Vanessa’s event in June really can’t happen without you—she hates the way outside photographers shoot her. Just come home once. Mom will buy you a new camera, okay?” The final line read: “You were always the most sensible child. Don’t disappoint Mom.” I stuffed the letter back into the bag, along with the peaches and dates, and handed it right back to the receptionist. “Please throw this away. I don’t need it.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “558494”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

When my boyfriend, Larry, woke up from his coma after the car crash, his memory was a shattered canvas. He took one look at my best friend, Amber, and called her his fiancée. To spare his fragile brain from further trauma, I agreed to a temporary illusion: Amber would play the role of his girlfriend, and I would step into the background. A strict, temporary boundary. No physical intimacy, no real commitment—just a gentle charade until his memory returned and our lives swung back onto their proper axis. Six months passed. Larry showed no signs of getting better. Until tonight, when I was idly scrolling through a local forum on my phone and stumbled upon an anonymous cry for help. Post: [Accidentally mistook another girl for my girlfriend after an accident. Now I’ve genuinely fallen in love with her. How do I explain this to my original girlfriend?] The top comment had thousands of upvotes: [Keep playing amnesiac! It’s the ultimate win-win. You can push forward or pull back whenever you want. Even if you regret it later, you can just claim your memory suddenly came rushing back.] Below it was a tiny heart icon: “Liked by Original Poster.” I froze. When I looked up, Larry and Amber had just walked through the front door. He was carrying several heavy brown-paper grocery bags from Whole Foods, walking half a step behind her. When his eyes landed on her, the affection in his gaze was so thick, so undeniable, it practically overflowed onto the hardwood floor. The charade had long ceased to be an act. Larry had turned fantasy into reality. … “Jocelyn! You’re home so early today,” Amber said, her voice bright with easy charm as she kicked off her heels. “Larry and I just grabbed sweet butternut squash and fresh rosemary at the market. How about we whip up that cozy roasted squash and apple bisque you love?” Larry stood behind her, offering me a polite, distant nod—the kind you give a roommate’s friend you barely know—before turning toward the kitchen. Ever since Larry lost his memory, I had been forced into the humiliating role of a long-term houseguest in what was supposed to be our shared home. I was his legitimate girlfriend, yet every single day, I had to choke down bitter jealousy while watching him pour his heart out to another woman. Every time they held hands, every time he pulled her into a quiet hug in the hallway, it felt like a serrated blade sawing through my chest. I had spent six excruciating months whispering the same mantra to myself: “Just wait until his memory comes back. Everything will return to normal.” I suffered through a half-year of torture. I didn’t get his recovery. Instead, I got the soul-crushing revelation that he had fallen for Amber. Amber followed my blank stare toward the kitchen, where Larry was already busy unpacking the groceries. She leaned in close, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m so sorry, Jocelyn,” she murmured, eyes brimming with performative guilt. “It’s my fault. I’m useless—Larry still hasn’t remembered anything.” I lowered my head, a hollow, bitter laugh catching in my throat. What she didn’t understand was that you can never wake a man who is pretending to be asleep. “But don’t you worry,” she added, squeezing my forearm. “I’m keeping a close eye on him for you. I won’t let him stray.” “Right,” I swallowed down the acid rising in my throat. “I just came back to grab something. I have to head out again soon.” Inside the kitchen, Larry called out for Amber to help him prep dinner. She couldn’t rush over fast enough. “You go take care of your errands, Jocelyn!” she called over her shoulder. “When you get back, dinner will be hot and ready.” I stood frozen in the foyer, watching through the glass kitchen partition. Amber chopped garlic on the butcher block, then held her sticky fingers up to Larry’s nose. “Smell,” she teased, crinkling her nose playfuly. “Do my hands smell awful?” Larry caught her wrist, his expression melting into a helpless, adoring smile. He pressed a tender kiss to her fingertips. “Not at all. You always smell like wild honey.” They giggled and flirted, moving around each other with the effortless rhythm of a long-wedded couple. It was a scene straight out of the future I had spent four years imagining for myself. Except I wasn’t the leading lady. Assuming I had already walked out the front door, Larry casually broke the silence. “Jocelyn’s been staying in our guest room for six months now. Hasn’t she found her own apartment yet?” Amber paused, her voice faltering. “Well… no. It’s not safe for a single girl to live alone in the city, and rent around here is insanely expensive. Staying with us gives her an easy commute, and it keeps my mind at ease. Why bring it up out of nowhere?” Larry picked up a chef’s knife, his tone steady and unyielding. “I want her to move out. The three of us living together is awkward. Every time I want to touch you or be intimate, I have to worry about a third wheel in the house. Besides, I hate seeing you walk on eggshells because of her.” He set the knife down, turning to face her. “I came home planning to make your favorite skillet chicken piccata and parmesan risotto tonight. But the second you saw her, you immediately switched the menu to her cozy squash soup instead. This is your home, Amber. Why do you keep acting like the guest?” Amber went silent for a few seconds. Then, she reached up and pressed a slow, sweet kiss to his cheek. That kiss cut through my heart like an icicle. Months ago, Amber had sworn to me under oath that she would keep her distance from Larry. In front of me, she had always made a point of pulling away from his touch. But somewhere along the way, her restraint had vanished, replaced by a casual, practiced intimacy. “I know you’re trying to protect me,” Amber hummed softly against his ear. “Let’s talk about it later. Finding a good rental in this market isn’t easy.” “I’ve already looked into it,” Larry replied seamlessly. “I had a friend screen two places downtown earlier this week. Close to us, and close to her office.” Amber finally gave in. “Okay. When she comes back tonight, I’ll bring it up.” My eyes stung with hot, unshed tears. I looked around the sunlit living room—the mid-century armchair I had spent weeks hunting down, the linen curtains I’d picked out, the framed prints we had bought together at an art fair. When Larry woke up with amnesia, my status in my own home shifted from owner to unwanted visitor. My personal belongings had been quietly boxed up and shoved into the cramped, windowless guest bedroom. In just six months, Amber had systematically erased every trace of my existence from this space. And now, Larry was throwing me out entirely. The sound of their shared laughter inside the kitchen buzzed in my ears like static. I took a deep, shaky breath, turned on my heel, and slipped quietly out the front door. I didn’t go back to work. Driven by a desperate, pathetic shred of hope, I drove straight to the university hospital. “What if that forum post wasn’t Larry’s? What if his mind was still broken? What if his devotion to Amber was just a terrible byproduct of a confused brain?” “Larry Rory?” Dr. Stevens finally pulled up his medical record from a towering stack of files on his desk. “Oh, he called me three months ago for a follow-up. He told me his memory had fully returned.” The doctor paused, tapping his chin. “I remember it clearly—it was right around Thanksgiving. I even congratulated him on getting his life back just in time for the holidays.” I turned stone cold. Thanksgiving Day. I remembered it vividly. Amber’s parents had flown in from Ohio, bringing a homemade pumpkin pie and slow-roasted beef brisket. Larry had personally driven to the airport, greeted them with warmth and respect, and brought them back to the condo for a feast. That exact same afternoon, my own parents had taken a train into the city, carrying containers of my mother’s famous herb-roasted turkey and cranberry sauce for us. Larry had claimed he didn’t recognize them. He had called building security and had my parents escorted off the premises like trespassers. When I couldn’t cover for him any longer, I had broken down in tears and confessed his ‘amnesia’ to my parents. My mother had patted my hand, sighing softly: “As long as he’s alive and healthy, sweetheart. The doctor said memory takes time. We can wait.” He hadn’t been lost. He had been entirely sane. On Thanksgiving Day, Larry knew damn well he wasn’t Amber’s boyfriend. He knew I was the woman he had loved for four years, the woman he was supposed to marry. Yet, he chose to welcome Amber’s family with open arms while having mine thrown out into the cold. He had already decided to play the amnesiac for the rest of his life. Seeing my ghost-white face, Dr. Stevens frowned. “Is something wrong? Is he experiencing complications?” I shook my head, my voice barely a whisper. “No. I just wanted to check… to see if the blood clot in his brain had dissolved.” Dr. Stevens offered a comforting smile. “Don’t worry. His scans were completely clear during his last checkup. He’s fully recovered. It won’t affect your upcoming wedding—or your future together.” When Larry had been in a coma for seven agonizing days, I took leave from work and stayed by his bedside without sleeping, wiping his brow and holding his cold hands. And yet, during the fifteen minutes I stepped downstairs to settle his hospital bill—asking Amber to watch his monitor briefly—Larry had opened his eyes. From that moment on, no matter how hard I pleaded, he insisted Amber was his world. Dr. Stevens had warned me back then that traumatic brain injuries made patients fragile. He had pulled me aside and said, “I know you love him, and I know you two were about to get married. Give it time. Three months at most, his memory will clear up. It won’t ruin your wedding.” How ironic. There was never going to be a wedding. Stepping into the elevator, my mind was a chaotic blur, replaying every interaction with Larry over the past ninety days. His act had been sloppy, full of plot holes. I had simply built excuses for him out of my own desperate denial. Lost in thought, I followed the crowd out of the elevator, only to realize I had stepped off at the wrong floor: Obstetrics & Gynecology. I turned to head back to the elevators, but a familiar profile caught my eye down the brightly lit corridor. Larry. He was supposed to be at home, chopping vegetables for soup with Amber. My feet acted on their own, drawing me toward the open doorway of a private consultation room. Inside, an OB/GYN was looking over a chart. “You’re pregnant. Eight weeks along,” the doctor said matter-of-factly. “Are we keeping the baby?” Before Amber could speak, Larry’s voice cut through the air, sharp with raw excitement. “Yes! Absolutely, we’re keeping it!” He grabbed the ultrasound printout from the doctor’s desk. Without waiting another second, he pulled Amber into a fierce, breathless embrace. “Did you hear that?” he laughed, his voice cracking with emotion. “We’re having a baby!” He was already babbling, his mind racing ahead. “We need to get married at the courthouse right away before you start showing. I’ll call my parents tomorrow to set up a dinner. It’s rushed, I know, and I hate rushing this for you, but I promise you won’t miss out on anything. I’ll give you the wedding of your dreams.” Larry’s back was facing the hallway, but Amber was looking directly over his shoulder. Her eyes met mine. Seeing me standing there in silence, her face drained of all color. She violently pushed Larry away from her. Larry stumbled back, confused, and followed her gaze toward the door. When he saw me, a fleeting shadow of panic crossed his eyes before vanishing behind a wall of irritation. “Jocelyn? Weren’t you supposed to be at work?” he demanded, stepping forward. “What are you doing in the OB unit?” I ignored him. My eyes stayed locked on Amber, my voice dead and devoid of warmth. “You’re pregnant?” Amber dropped her head, clutching her purse against her stomach, unable to meet my eyes. Larry stepped squarely between us, his jaw set defensively. “We’re engaged. When two people are in love, accidents happen. It’s completely normal.” I let out a hollow, bitter laugh. I couldn’t tell if I was answering him or mourning myself. “Right. You two are the engaged ones now.” … On the drive back, Amber sat in the backseat next to me, her chin tucked into her chest, completely silent. Larry, in the driver’s seat, was on high alert. His eyes flicked constantly to the rearview mirror, tracking my every movement as if he feared I might lunge at his precious fiancée and strangle her. I paid them no mind. Pulling out my phone, I composed an email to my company’s HR director. “Regarding the overseas transfer to our Milan office: I accept.” During the mid-year review, corporate had announced an aggressive expansion into European markets and solicited senior engineers to relocate. Coincidentally, I was the only engineer in the regional branch who had minored in Italian during college. Before, with Larry’s recovery uncertain, I couldn’t bear the thought of a long-distance relationship. Given the choice between my career and Larry, I had chosen him. I would never make that mistake again. From now on, every decision I made would be for myself. When we pulled up to the condo, I found out why they had rushed out earlier: Amber had suffered a bout of severe morning sickness while prepping dinner. Panicked that it was a stomach bug, Larry had thrown her into the car and sped to the emergency room. Fearing the smell of seared meat would trigger her nausea again, Larry turned to me in the hallway and ordered me into the kitchen to finish preparing dinner. Amber gave me an anxious look. “But Larry… Jocelyn doesn’t really cook.” Larry guided her gently down onto the sofa, wrapping a fleece throw over her legs. “She can learn. You’re pregnant now, Amber. I’m not letting you slave over a hot stove anymore.” The word “pregnant” stung my ears like an open flame. I turned without a word and walked into the kitchen to clean the counter. A moment later, Larry followed me in. He shut the door behind him and turned the lock with a sharp “click”. “If anything happens to Amber or that baby because of you,” he whispered, his eyes dark with malice, “I will destroy you.” It felt as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to my chest, shattering my heart into jagged shards. Cold wind seemed to blow right through the cavity. I kept my head down, scrubbing the cutting board furiously under cold water so he wouldn’t see the tears brimming in my eyes. I kept my voice flat. “You’re delusional. Amber is my friend. Why would I hurt her?” Larry searched my face intensely, as if trying to gauge whether I knew about his restored memory. After a long silence, his harsh stance softened just a fraction. “I’m just saying… you two are best friends. You should be helping me take care of her right now.” I didn’t answer. Ten minutes later, Amber used the excuse of wanting artisanal gelato to call me out to the living room. When Larry stepped back into the kitchen, Amber stood before me, tears trembling on her eyelashes. I looked at her, my expression entirely numb. “When did it start?” She collapsed into tears, clutching her hands together. “It was that night we both got drunk… I swore I took emergency contraception the next morning! I don’t know what happened, Jocelyn. Maybe the pill was expired… I never meant for this to happen!” She had never mentioned a word of that night to me. I had been played like a complete fool—believing Larry was just a tragic amnesiac who needed patience, believing Amber was a loyal friend who would never betray me. They had crossed the line behind my back months ago while I was busy agonizing over his health. Suddenly, Amber dropped to her knees at my feet and slapped herself hard across the face. “I’m awful! I’m a terrible friend!” she sobbed hysterically. “I lost my mind, Jocelyn! Just say the word—say it, and I’ll go to the clinic tomorrow and terminate it!” “No need,” I said softly. Amber froze mid-sob. She raised her tear-streaked face, staring at me in utter disbelief. “What… what did you say?” I pulled my skirt out of her desperate grip. “The child is innocent.” Her eyes widened. “Then what about you? What are you going to do, Jocelyn?” Just then, the kitchen door clicked open. Larry walked out carrying a warm serving dish, catching Amber on her knees at my feet. His face flushed with instant, towering rage. He slammed the dish onto the dining table, rushed over, and yanked Amber up by her arm, pulling her protectively behind his back. “Everything I said to you went in one ear and out the other, didn’t it?!” he barked at me, his eyes bloodshot. “Amber was nice enough to let you stay under our roof, and this is how you treat her? By forcing a pregnant woman onto her knees?!” Amber caught his arm, sobbing uncontrollably. “It’s not her fault, Larry! I slipped! I fell, and Jocelyn was just trying to help me up!” Larry’s chest heaved. He smoothed Amber’s hair, attempting to compose himself, before turning his icy gaze back to me. “Fine. I won’t press charges for what just happened,” he spat out. “But you are moving out tonight.” “Larry!” Amber gasped softly. “She has to go,” Larry insisted coldly. “You’re carrying my child. I won’t have a hostile stranger living in our home.” Amber stiffened, sneaking a cautious glance at my face. “Okay,” I said. Without a single argument, I turned around, walked into the guest room, and pulled my suitcase out from under the bed. As I rolled my luggage toward the front door, Amber ran over, grabbing my arm with trembling hands. “Jocelyn, please… don’t go like this. I’ll convince Larry to let you come back tonight, I promise—” “Don’t bother,” I cut her off calmly, disengaging her fingers from my sweater. I pulled my suitcase out into the hallway and pulled the door shut behind me. Standing by the elevator, I immediately dialed my real estate agent. “Mark? It’s Jocelyn Darnell. Put my downtown condo on the market. Sell it as fast as humanly possible.” Larry had lived in his amnesia fantasy for so long, he seemed to have completely forgotten: That condo wasn’t his. My parents had bought it for me with cash as a wedding gift.

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When my girlfriend, Georgia, woke up from her car accident with temporary amnesia, she mistook my best friend, Brad, for her fiancé. To spare her any emotional trauma, I agreed to temporarily swap roles with him. Brad and I made a strict pact: play the parts, but cross no lines. No intimacy, no real obligation. Once her memory returned, everything would slide back into place. Six months passed. Georgia showed no signs of getting better. Until late one evening, while mindlessly scrolling through a local forum, a post caught my eye: “Lost my memory in a crash and mistook another guy for my boyfriend. Now I’ve actually fallen in love with him. How do I explain this to my original boyfriend?” The top-voted comment laid out a cold, calculating strategy: “Keep pretending you have amnesia, obviously! You get to explore the new guy with zero guilt, and if you ever change your mind, you can just pretend your memory magically came back.” The post showed a notification: “Liked by OP.” I looked up from my phone just as Georgia and Brad walked through the front door. She was carrying grocery bags from Whole Foods, walking a step behind him. The way she looked at him—with an effortless, radiant adoration—was sickening. This wasn’t an act anymore. Georgia had turned our lie into her reality a long time ago. … “Sean? You’re home early today,” Brad said, stopping in the entryway. “Georgia and I just hit the market. I’m making slow-braised short ribs over garlic mashed potatoes—your favorite. How’s that sound?” Georgia stood behind him, giving me a polite, distant nod before heading straight into the kitchen. Ever since her accident, in order to stay close to her, I had become a glorified guest in my own home. I was the unwanted roommate living in the shadow of her and Brad. I was her actual boyfriend. But every single day, I swallowed my jealousy, forced to watch her pour her heart and soul into another man. Every time they held hands or shared a casual touch in front of me, it felt like a serrated blade tearing through my chest. I kept telling myself to endure it. Just hold on until her memory returns. Everything will go back to normal. I endured six agonizing months. I didn’t get her back. Instead, I got the crushing realization that she had fallen for Brad. Brad followed my gaze toward the kitchen, where Georgia was setting down the groceries. He leaned in, lowering his voice to a penitent whisper. “I’m so sorry, Sean. I’m useless. She still hasn’t remembered anything.” I bowed my head, letting out a hollow laugh. He didn’t get it. You can never wake someone who is pretending to be asleep. “But don’t worry,” Brad added, tapping my shoulder. “I’m keeping an eye on things. I won’t let any other guys get close to her.” “Thanks,” I muttered, the word tasting like ash. “I just stopped by to grab a few things. I have to head back out.” Just then, Georgia called Brad into the kitchen to help. He couldn’t get away from me fast enough. “Alright, go handle your business then! Dinner will be ready when you get back!” I stood frozen in the hallway, watching them through the glass kitchen doors. Georgia was peeling Yukon potatoes over the sink while Brad crushed a clove of fresh garlic, holding his fingers up to her nose. “Smell this. Are my hands gross?” Georgia kissed his fingertips, laughing softly. “Even if they were, I’d still love you.” They giggled and bumped shoulders, the picture-perfect image of a couple madly in love. It was the exact life I had envisioned for us after marriage. Every detail was right—except the leading man wasn’t me. Assuming I had already left, Georgia suddenly asked Brad, her voice dropping to a casual tone, “Is Sean still staying in our spare room? Hasn’t he found an apartment yet?” Brad hesitated, shifting uncomfortably. “No, not yet. Rent in the city is insane, and his salary isn’t great. Paying rent on his own would eat up most of his paycheck. Plus, staying here keeps his commute short. Why do you bring it up?” Georgia washed a stalk of rosemary, her tone firm and unyielding. “I want him to move out. The three of us living together is uncomfortable. Every time I want to wear something comfortable or lounge around in a silk robe, I have to remember there’s a strange man in the house. Not to mention… it ruins any chance of us being intimate.” She paused, turning to look at him softly. “Besides, I hate seeing you compromise for him in your own home. You promised to make your favorite pan-seared salmon tonight, but the second you saw him, you switched to short ribs just because it’s his favorite. You’re acting like a guest in your own house, Brad.” Brad went still for a second. Then, he leaned down and pressed a tender kiss to her cheek. That kiss cut straight to my heart like a hot needle. Six months ago, Brad had sworn on his life that he would keep his distance from Georgia. In front of me, he had always acted hesitant, walking on eggshells around her. I hadn’t noticed when it shifted—when his touch became so effortless, so natural, so entirely devoid of guilt. “I know you’re looking out for me,” Brad murmured, pulling back. “We’ll talk about it later. It’s hard to find a good rental on short notice.” Georgia was prepared. “I already had a friend check out two places last week. They’re close to his office and affordable.” Brad relented. “Okay. When Sean comes back, I’ll talk to him.” My eyes stung, tears burning behind my lids. I looked around the apartment—the custom lighting, the exact shade of warm gray on the walls, the furniture I had spent months selecting for our future together. When Georgia lost her memory, my title changed from owner to intruder. My belongings were crammed into the tiny guest room. In just half a year, Brad had methodically erased every trace of my existence from this home. And now, Georgia was throwing me out entirely. The sound of their laughter echoed from the kitchen, grating on my ears until it felt like physical pain. I took a slow, deep breath, turned on my heel, and slipped silently out the door. …… I didn’t go back to the office. Holding onto a microscopic shred of hope, I drove to the hospital instead. What if the forum post wasn’t hers? What if she really hadn’t recovered? What if her feelings for Brad were just a tragic misunderstanding brought on by her trauma? “Georgia?” Dr. Hilary finally pulled her chart from a thick stack of medical files. He glanced up, surprised. “I called her three months ago for a follow-up scan. She told me her memory had fully returned.” He smiled warmly at the memory. “It was Thanksgiving weekend. I remember congratulating her, saying it was a miracle she recovered just in time for the holidays.” I froze. Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving day, Brad’s parents had flown in from out of state. Georgia had driven to the airport herself, warmly welcoming them and hosting them at our apartment for a lavish, multi-course Thanksgiving feast. That exact same afternoon, my parents had driven three hours with trunks full of homemade holiday casseroles and fresh pumpkin pies to surprise us. Georgia had looked at them with a blank face, claimed she had no idea who they were, and called building security to have them escorted off the property. I had been forced to tell my parents the truth about her car accident and her amnesia that day, unable to hide it any longer. My mother had held my hand, sighing softly. “As long as she’s okay, Sean. The doctor said it’s just a matter of time. You two can always push the wedding back.” She had recovered three months ago. She remembered everything. She knew Brad wasn’t her boyfriend. She knew I was the man she had loved for four years, the man she was supposed to marry. Yet, she chose to host Brad’s parents for Thanksgiving dinner. She chose to have my parents thrown out by security like vagrants. She had been planning to play the victim of amnesia for the rest of her life. Dr. Hilary saw me staring into space and frowned. “Is something wrong? Is she experiencing complications?” I shook my head, my throat tight. “No… I was just checking. I wanted to make sure the blood clot in her brain had completely dissolved.” Dr. Hilary gave a light chuckle. “Don’t worry. Her scans were completely clear. She’s fine. It won’t affect your marriage or your future together.” When Georgia lay in a coma for a week after the accident, I took time off work and stayed by her bedside, barely sleeping for seven days. The only time I left her side was to go downstairs to settle the hospital bill, asking Brad to watch her for thirty minutes. And in those thirty minutes, Georgia woke up. No matter how hard I tried to explain, she clung to Brad, screaming that he was her fiancé. Dr. Hilary had warned me then that her brain was fragile from the trauma and shouldn’t be stressed. “I know you love her, Sean. I know you were planning a wedding. Trust me, three months max. Her memory will return, and you’ll still have your wedding.” Fate was a sick joke. There would be no wedding. Not for us. Riding the elevator down, I replayed the last three months in my head. Her act had actually been horribly transparent. The subtle slip-ups, the deliberate distance, the way she avoided looking me in the eye. I had just used “amnesia” as a shield to rationalize every single red flag. Lost in thought, I stepped out of the elevator without realizing I was on the wrong floor. I was in the OB-GYN wing. Realizing my mistake, I turned to head back toward the elevators, but a familiar figure near the consultation room made me stop dead in my tracks. Georgia. Why was she here? She was supposed to be at home making dinner with Brad. I moved toward the half-open door of the clinic, stopping just outside. Inside, the doctor pulled off her gloves and looked up at the couple. “You’re pregnant. Eight weeks along.” The doctor paused. “Do you plan on keeping it?” Before Brad could even digest the news, Georgia answered desperately. “Yes! Of course we’re keeping it!” Georgia clutched the ultrasound scan in her trembling hands, throwing her arms around Brad’s neck, hugging him with everything she had. “Did you hear that? We’re having a baby!” She was already breathlessly planning out the future. “We need to get the marriage license and throw the wedding before I start showing. I’ll call my parents tomorrow to figure out the arrangements. It’s short notice, Brad, but you better not cheap out on me!” Georgia had her back to the door, but Brad was facing forward. His eyes met mine standing right outside the door. The color drained from Brad’s face in an instant. Horrified by my expressionless gaze, he violently pushed Georgia away from him. Georgia stumbled back, turning around in confusion. When her eyes landed on me, a flash of blind panic flickered in her expression. “Sean? W-why are you here? Why are you in OB-GYN?” I didn’t answer her. My eyes were fixed entirely on Brad, asking a question I already knew the answer to. “Georgia’s pregnant?” Brad dropped his head in shame, unable to meet my eyes. Georgia stepped in front of him, her brow furrowed in defensive annoyance. “We’re engaged, Sean. We’re getting married. We got caught up in the moment and forgot protection. It’s completely normal.” I let out a soft, self-deprecating laugh. “Right,” I whispered, to her or perhaps just to myself. “You two are the engaged ones now.” …… On the drive back, Brad drove in agonizing silence, staring straight at the road. Georgia sat in the passenger seat, reflexively placing a protective hand over her stomach. She kept checking the rearview mirror, watching me with hawk-like suspicion, as if terrified I might snap and attack her unborn child. I just stared out the window, pulling out my phone to reply to an email from HR. “Regarding the corporate transfer to the Milan office in Italy—I accept.” Earlier this year, corporate had announced an expansion into the European market, selecting senior engineers from regional branches for a three-year deployment. Coincidentally, I was the only engineer in our division fluent in Italian, having taken it as a minor in college. When Georgia was “recovering,” I had quietly declined the offer. Even if she had been healthy, I couldn’t bear the thought of a long-distance relationship. Given a choice between my career and Georgia, I had chosen her. From now on, every decision I made would be for myself. …… When we got back to the apartment, Georgia was hit with a wave of severe morning sickness from the kitchen cooking smells. Brad, frantic with worry, had rushed her straight to the clinic without thinking. To spare her the smell of food, or perhaps to buy a moment alone with me, Brad suggested I help him in the kitchen. Georgia glanced at me, skeptical. “Sean can’t even boil an egg. What’s he going to do?” Brad guided her gently to the sofa. “He can learn. We can’t have a pregnant woman doing house chores while two grown men sit around.” The word “pregnant” stung like a slap to the face. I turned into the kitchen and began rinsing the cutting board under cold water. Brad followed me in, locked the door behind him, and instantly dropped to his knees on the tile floor. “Sean, I’m a scumbag!” he sobbed, tearing at his hair. “Hit me, kick me, do whatever you want! I won’t fight back, just get it out!” I looked down at him, my voice flat and terrifyingly calm. “When did it start?” His face twisted in guilt, tears streaming down his cheeks. “That night… we were both drunk. I swear I used protection, Sean! I even made her take emergency contraceptive the next morning! The pills must have been expired or defective, I don’t know! But she got pregnant anyway!” He hadn’t mentioned a single word of this to me. I had been played like a complete fool. I thought Georgia was a fragile, traumatized girl who had lost her way. I thought Brad was my loyal best friend, a guy who would never betray me. In reality, they had crossed every boundary behind my back long ago. Brad suddenly slapped himself hard across the face, the crack echoing against the kitchen tiles. “I’m disgusting. I betrayed you. It was a moment of weakness!” He grabbed my jeans, looking up desperately. “Say the word, Sean. Just say the word, and I’ll take her to the clinic tomorrow to get an abortion!” “No need,” I said softly. He blinked, stunned. “No… I’ll take her right now—Wait, what did you say?” I pulled my jeans out of his grip. “The baby is innocent.” Brad’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Then… what about you?” Just then, Georgia slammed the kitchen door open, catching Brad kneeling at my feet. Brad scrambled up, trying to shield me. “Georgia! It’s not what it looks like! I just slipped and fell, Sean was helping me up!” Georgia wasn’t listening. Her temper exploded. She grabbed a dining chair from the table and slammed it into the glass kitchen door, shattering the pane into a million pieces. “Do you think I’m stupid? You think I’d buy a ridiculous lie like that?!” She lunged forward, thrusting Brad behind her and glaring at me with pure hatred. “Sean! You live in my apartment, you eat my food, and you have the nerve to abuse Brad?! Are you trying to stress me out and kill my baby?!” A massive, ragged tear opened in my heart, icy wind howling through the void. I didn’t look up, terrified she’d see the moisture in my eyes. I kept my voice deadpan. “You’re overthinking it.” “Brad’s my brother. Seeing you two happy is all I ever wanted.” Georgia stared at me, searching my face to see if I knew the truth about her memory. Brad stepped in front of her. “It’s really not Sean’s fault, Georgia. Don’t blame him.” Georgia took a deep breath, trying to control her breathing for the sake of her stomach. She looked at me coldly. “Fine. I won’t push what just happened.” “But you are moving out today. Right now.” “I’m pregnant. I won’t have a stranger living under my roof.” Brad went rigid, looking at me with a mix of terror and pity. “Okay,” I said without a second of hesitation. I walked past them into the guest room and pulled out my suitcase. As I rolled my luggage toward the front door, Brad caught up to me, whispering frantically, “Don’t worry, Sean. Tonight, I’ll convince Georgia to let you move back in—” “Don’t bother,” I cut him off. I opened the front door, dragged my suitcase out, and immediately dialed a real estate agent I knew. “I’m putting my condo on the market. Sell it. As fast as possible.” Georgia had been pretending to have amnesia for so long, she seemed to have forgotten one crucial detail: This “shared apartment” was a luxury condo my parents had bought for me in cash as a wedding gift.

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Another episode. Another night lost to the dark. My best friend yanked the knife from my hand with a look of pure, unadulterated disgust. “When is this madness going to stop?” Travis yelled, his voice echoing off the narrow hallway walls. “You use this fucking depression of yours like a weapon to ruin everything! No wonder Claire dumped you!” I froze, my body numb, my fingers still locked in the shape of a blade that was no longer there. Travis let out a long, shuddering breath, looking like a man who had finally put down a heavy burden. “I should have told you straight up. Claire asked me to guard you today. She was terrified you’d show up and wreck her wedding with Bryce.” He planted himself in the doorway, chest puffed out, radiating righteous fury. “Listen to me, Devin. Even if you slit your wrists and bleed out right here, you don’t get to be the home-wrecker. You don’t get to play the side-piece. So what if you saved her life years ago? She spent three years babysitting a broken shell like you. She doesn’t owe you a single damn thing anymore.” My father hurried through the front door a minute later, rushing in to relieve Travis so Travis could go be Bryce’s groomsman. Dad didn’t look at me with anger. He looked at me with a desperate, pathetic plea. “If it weren’t for Claire’s family, our company would have gone under years ago,” Dad whispered, his voice trembling. “Have a heart, son. Be the bigger man. Let Claire go find her own happiness.” A wave of violent, suffocating absurdity washed over me. My phone sat quietly on the nightstand, glowing with a text message Claire had sent me just yesterday: “Babe, I’m flying overseas to meet a top specialist for you. Don’t worry, I’m going to get you cured. Once you’re whole again, we’ll finally get married.” I sank to the hardwood floor, my knees giving out. Tears dripped silently onto the phone screen, blurring her words. None of them knew. I didn’t have depression. I had late-stage, incurable abdominal cancer. I had already decided I was done dragging Claire down with me. I looked up at my father and forced my pale, bloodless lips into a hollow smile. “Okay,” I whispered. “I promise you. I’ll let her go.” … “Really?” Dad stared at me, his eyes wide with suspicion. For the past three years, I had been utterly codependent on Claire. I couldn’t survive a day without her near me. Even today, at her own wedding venue, she had spent a full week nursing me through a breakdown just to buy herself a few hours of breathing room. I let out a bitter, silent laugh. “Her heart isn’t with me anymore. What’s the point of clinging to a ghost?” Dad’s posture instantly melted. He pulled me into a tight embrace, sobbing hysterically against my shoulder like a man released from a life sentence. It felt like hours before he pulled back, scratching the back of his neck with an awkward, hesitant grimace. “Will you… will you be okay here by yourself for a bit? I… Claire asked me to be the officiant…” That was when the blade dug deeper. My father hadn’t just approved of the groom—he was the one who had introduced Bryce to Claire in the first place. I nodded mechanically. “Go ahead.” I understood him. Half of our extended family worked for the firm Claire’s family owned. To my father, Claire—and the security she provided—was far more important than a sick, dying son. Dad left with light steps, relief practically radiating off him. But seven years of deep, bone-deep love pulled at my soul like a sick tether. Driven by some dark, masochistic impulse, I dragged my weak, aching body out of the apartment and followed my father to the country club. White lilies. Pale blue balloons. The entire venue was decorated exactly the way Claire and I had spent years planning our own dream wedding. “Devin?” Travis was the first to spot me in the crowd. I stood near the back of the garden, pulling down the sleeves of my oversized sweater, exposed and helpless beneath the cold, judgmental glares of high-society guests. Up on the altar, Claire was leaning in to kiss the groom. Hearing my name, she froze. She turned around slowly, her face draining of color, forcing a shaky, frantic voice through her lips. “Dev… Devin? What are you… why are you here?” A ripple of disdain echoed through the crowd. She stumbled down the altar steps, rushing toward me, her hands trembling, words tumbling out in a panic. “Devin, listen to me, this… this is all just a huge misunderstanding… I…” Before I could open my mouth, my father sprinted out from the side aisle and kicked me hard in the back of my knees. “Crack.” Pain exploded through my joints as I hit the gravel. “You swore to me!” Dad roared, standing over me. “You promised you wouldn’t come! Why are you doing this?!” I gasped, agonizing pain shooting through my abdomen and legs. “Uncle… Dad, stop! Don’t hurt him!” Claire instinctively stepped between us, trying to shield me. But Travis grabbed her arm, his brows knit in frustration. “Haven’t you been dragged down enough by him, Claire? It’s been three years! When was the last time you slept through the night without dealing with his psychotic episodes?” Travis paused, muttering under his breath with shameless disdain. “Besides, the guy isn’t even a real man anymore. Look at how much of a burden he’s been…” My fingers dug into the gravel until my knuckles turned stark white. Three years ago, Claire was kidnapped by a ruthless business rival. I went in alone to save her. They beat me savagely. The physical trauma to my lower abdomen left me with permanent nerve damage—and severe, humiliating performance issues. It also left me with night terrors that caused me to thrash and grip Claire’s wrists until they were covered in dark, terrible bruises. Back then, whenever I woke up weeping with remorse over her bruised skin, Claire would hold my face and whisper that it was okay, that she owed me her life. “Shut your mouth, Travis!” Claire snapped. “Is this Devin?” A smooth, cultured voice broke through the tension, cutting off Claire’s defense. Bryce walked over, stepping fluidly into the light. He looked effortlessly handsome in a custom charcoal tuxedo, his tall, athletic frame radiating health and success. I looked down at my own body—emaciated, skeletal, worn down by terminal cancer. Instinctively, I shrank back a step. Bryce offered me a glass of champagne with a polite, generous smile, though his eyes remained entirely cold. When I didn’t take it, his hand hovered in the air, his eyes shifting subtly toward Claire. Claire’s forehead creased with deep annoyance. She grabbed my arm and dragged me forcefully toward a secluded corridor. “Go home, Devin,” she hissed under her breath. “I’ll explain everything to you later. Just don’t embarrass me in front of everyone today. Please.” “Okay,” I said quietly. My immediate compliance caught her off guard. She blinked, thrown off. Before she could speak, a violent spasm tore through my stomach. The cancer was clawing at my insides. I bent over double, my face turning deathly pale, a strangled gasp escaping my throat. Claire’s expression shifted to panic. She shoved me deeper into the shadow of the alcove. “I’m begging you, Devin! Don’t throw a scene here! If you ruin this, my family will never accept us! They’ll lock me out forever!” Travis strided over, pulling Claire firmly behind his back, eyeing me like I was a piece of trash on his shoe. “Didn’t you promise me you wouldn’t pull this fake sick act again?” Travis sneered. “What, your depression acting up right on cue?” I pressed my lips together, refusing to open my mouth, terrified that the thick, metallic taste of blood pooling in my throat would spill over. Seeing my silence, Travis snapped. He grabbed my collar and shoved me violently toward the exit doors of the venue. “You promised me you wouldn’t use your illness to play the victim! Devin, I swear to God, I regret ever calling you my friend!” I swallowed the warm blood back down, tears biting at the corners of my eyes as I turned my back on them. If everyone was this disappointed in me… then there was no point in saying goodbye. I bought a one-way train ticket to my old, rural hometown back in Oregon. In the final days I had left, I didn’t want to be a burden to anyone ever again. I stumbled back to our apartment to pack my few belongings. Sitting on the coffee table was a leather-bound wedding planner binder. Whenever I had a nervous breakdown, Claire would pull out that binder and read through the venue ideas to soothe me. I had asked her once why we had to wait until I was “fully healed” to get married. She had stroked my hair and said it was a strict requirement from her high-society family. She asked me to be patient. I knew her family looked down on me. Years ago, to be with me, Claire had even defied her wealthy parents, getting cut off and living in a cramped, drafty studio apartment with me, eating dollar-store ramen while we launched our company. Now that her firm was thriving and her family was finally easing up, I hadn’t wanted to cause her any more friction. I had swallowed every drop of my own hurt. Looking back now… she had never intended to marry me at all. In truth, I had met the groom before. Bryce was one of my father’s former university students. He worked in Claire’s marketing department. Months ago, when I stopped by her office to drop off lunch, I saw Claire—who was notoriously impatient with subordinates—sitting beside Bryce, softly talking him through a project proposal. My instincts had screamed that something was wrong. I felt an immediate threat to my territory, and I fought with Claire over it that night. It was my father who had stepped in to smooth things over. “If you don’t trust Claire, don’t you trust your own father?” Dad had berated me. “Bryce has a serious girlfriend! Stop embarrassing yourself in public!” Travis had sent me text messages too, claiming he had hung out with Bryce and his girlfriend at a double date, insisting they were deeply in love and getting married soon. Under my father’s intense pressure, I had been forced to apologize to Bryce in person. I remembered how Bryce had turned his head away, avoiding my eyes. Now I realized the truth: he wasn’t avoiding my gaze out of guilt. He was hiding a smirk. Every single person I trusted had banded together to play me for a fucking fool. … Late that night, the front door clicked open. Before I could react, a pair of warm, familiar arms wrapped around me from behind, making me shudder violently. “Dev… Devin? Are you really packing? Are you really leaving me?” Even though I was terminally ill, the agonizing fury of betrayal surged through my veins. I shoved her away with all the strength I had left. “Enough!” I yelled, my voice hoarse. “Stop acting! What, do you expect me to stay and be your secret side-guy?!” Claire stumbled back, startled. Then, her face settled into a heavy, exhausted sigh. She collapsed onto the sofa, looking completely drained. “Devin, I’ve taken care of you for five straight years,” she whispered, her tone dripping with quiet resentment. “Can’t you try to understand me for once? Being with you… it’s exhausting. My family is a high-profile dynasty. I need a respectable, normal husband by my side, not…” She stopped herself. My fists clenched so tightly my nails bit into my palms. I knew what she was going to say. “Not a crazy, impotent psycho.” “If you hated what I became, Claire, you could have just broken up with me years ago!” I choked out. “You didn’t have to pull a sickening stunt like this—” “Devin.” She interrupted me softly, stepping closer, her tone dripping with gentle, dangerous affection. “How could I ever hate you? You’re the man I actually want to spend my life with.” She took my hands. “Bryce knows the truth. He’s just a front to satisfy my parents and the media. Once I have a child to carry on the family name, I’ll sign a quiet divorce agreement with him.” My jaw dropped. “A child?” “Yes,” she said smoothly, as if discussing a business contract. “With your mental and physical state, I can’t take the risk. What if your conditions are genetic? I can’t pass that to a baby.” I stared at her, horrified. It was like looking at a stranger. A front. Unfit to be the father of her child. In her meticulously planned future, she had mapped out every detail—and systematically erased me from ever being a real part of it. Suddenly, my stomach twisted into a violent, fiery knot. The nausea rolled over me so fast I had to turn my head and grab the trash can, violently vomiting bile into the liner. “Are you… disgusted by me?” Claire watched me, her face twisting into a look of deep, wounded rage. She reached out and yanked up my sweater sleeve, pointing to the faded, jagged red scabs covering her own wrists and forearms. “Look at this, Devin! For five years—five long years—you dragged me through hell every night! Do you know how many nights I woke up with you digging your nails into my skin?! Is it really so evil of me to just want a normal husband? A normal child?!” She was breathing heavily, pouring out half a decade of accumulated resentment like toxic waste. I knew. God, I knew. Over the years, I had watched the look in her eyes shift from desperate worry to helpless patience, then to sheer exhaustion, and finally to a fleeting, buried flash of disgust. My father’s words and Travis’s taunts echoed in my skull like a deafening drumbeat. My stomach burned like acid, but it didn’t compare to the agony in my chest. I kept my head down, staring into the trash can, hiding the streaks of dark, clotted blood at the bottom so she wouldn’t accuse me of faking it for sympathy. After a long, suffocating silence, Claire closed her eyes and grabbed her coat from the rack. “I know you need time to digest this,” she said quietly, her hand on the doorknob. “I’ll wait for you. We’ve been together too long, Devin. We can’t be undone.” The heavy “thud” of the door shutting behind her carried away the very last shred of love I had left for her. … I didn’t even get the chance to mourn my dead relationship before Claire returned the next morning—this time, with Bryce trailing behind her. She slammed the door open, her face pale with fury. “Devin! I told you Bryce was just for show! It wasn’t enough that you crashed my wedding—now you’re trying to destroy his life, too?!” I sat on the edge of the bed, bewildered. Travis burst into the apartment a second later, shoving his phone directly into my face. “Look at what you did, you sick bastard! Who’s the real home-wrecker here?! You’re the one who isn’t even legally tied to her, clinging to her like a leech!” I looked at the screen. Someone had recorded a video of me crashing the wedding yesterday and posted it online. Internet sleuths had already dug up my past with Claire, and the top-trending comments were brutally crucifying Bryce as a gold-digging side-piece who stole an heiress. “I… I didn’t post anything…” I rasped out. Bryce stepped forward, his eyes rimmed with red, gently tugging at Claire’s sleeve. “Claire, Travis… please don’t yell at Devin. His mental health is so fragile… I’m just scared he might do something drastic…” His poisonous, passive-aggressive words painted me as a unhinged psycho while making himself look like an angel. Claire’s heart visibly softened as she looked at Bryce. Travis snapped completely. He reached out and drove a hard fist straight into my jaw. “BANG.” My head cracked against the wall. Blood bloomed in my mouth. “Look at Bryce, then look at yourself!” Travis yelled, grabbing the back of my neck and forcing my eyes onto his phone screen, scrolling through Claire’s private social media feed. “You thought you were her whole world just because of your history? Open your eyes! Bryce and Claire have been together for two whole years!” My breath hitched. Two years. I looked at the photos scrolling past. Two years ago, on the night my night terrors were at their absolute worst, I couldn’t get ahold of Claire or Travis for hours. Now I saw why. They were all together at a high-end steakhouse, celebrating Bryce’s birthday. It was Travis who had raised a glass, pushing Claire and Bryce to cross the final line into bed together. There were photos of them skiing in Aspen. Sunbathing on a private beach in Maui. Riding horses across Montana. Every single one of those places was a destination Claire had promised to take me “once I got better.” I was never going to get better. And she had taken another man instead. “They pretended to go on business trips just so they wouldn’t trigger your delicate little brain!” Travis sneered into my ear. “They even had to drag me along as a third wheel just to keep up the lie! Devin, do you have a heart at all?!” Claire shifted uncomfortably under my gaze, looking away. Bryce shot me a quiet, triumphant smirk from behind her shoulder. I looked at Travis, feeling a cold, hollow wave of absurdity. When Travis graduated college, his family went bankrupt. He was framed by his first boss and almost went to federal prison. I spent my own savings on a top defense lawyer to clear his name, then pulled strings to get him hired at Claire’s firm. He used to call me his brother for life. And this was how my brother paid me back: by helping my girlfriend cheat on me, gaslighting me every step of the way. My father rushed into the apartment then, taking in the scene. Without asking a single question, he stepped up and kicked me hard in the ribs. “I am so sorry, Claire, Bryce,” Dad panted, bowing repeatedly to them. “I don’t know how I raised such a toxic, ungrateful son…” Claire, who used to defend me against the world, stood there in absolute silence. She looked down at me with profound disappointment. “We’ve already issued an official statement online. But we need you to appear at the press conference tomorrow. The firm cannot afford a public relations nightmare right now.” I glanced at the phone screen on the floor. The “clarification posts” were already sweeping the internet: [I am Devin’s best friend. He has been obsessed with Claire for years, leveraging an old debt to stalk her. I apologize on his behalf.] [I am Devin’s father. He suffered severe trauma years ago and lost his sanity. I apologize for his behavior.] Every single word was a silver blade twisting in my heart. A sudden, sharp agony ripped through my gut. I doubled over, cold sweat pouring down my forehead, my vision turning spotty. “Call… call an ambulance…” I gasped, clutching my stomach. Claire instinctively reached out toward me, but Travis stepped in front of her. “Still acting?” Travis spat. “I’m… I’m not… it hurts…” “Enough!” Dad’s face turned thunderous. He grabbed Travis and Claire, pushing everyone toward the front door. “We spoiled him for too long! That’s why he thinks he can act like a tyrant! He can’t even fake depression convincingly anymore! Let’s go! Let’s see how long he can keep up this little show!” “Dad…” “I’m not faking depression.” “I’m dying of cancer.” The pain tore through my abdominal wall. My vision went completely black. The distant sound of their retreating footsteps faded into absolute darkness. … “Mr. Barrett.” The sharp, pungent smell of antiseptic woke me. A middle-aged doctor in a white coat stood over my hospital bed, holding a chart, sighing heavily. “Didn’t I warn you? You donated a kidney two years ago, which left your body severely weakened. With stage-four abdominal cancer, dragging yourself around like this… you won’t last another month.” I stared at the white ceiling, clutching the flat, empty space on the left side of my abdomen. Silent tears tracked down into my hair. The oncologist shook his head. “Are you really not going to tell Miss West or your family? You gave her your kidney. At the very least, they need to sign the consent form for your palliative surgery.” “Would it matter?” I whispered. If they cared, would I be lying in this bed alone? My phone buzzed on the tray table. A text from Claire: “Bryce feels sorry for your mental state, so he convinced me not to force you to attend the press conference. I’m staying at his place for the next few days to comfort him. Please, just give me some peace of mind, okay?” Below her text were dozens of unread messages from my father and Travis, all demanding that I “stop being selfish” and “be a man.” I didn’t reply. I cleared the notifications and turned off the phone. I checked myself out of the hospital, eager to leave this city forever. But as I reached the main lobby, I ran straight into Bryce. “Well, well. Back in the hospital pulling another sympathy stunt?” Bryce leaned in close, whispering in my ear with a cruel, mocking smile. “Too bad it won’t work anymore. Claire is pregnant with my baby. You lost, Devin.” I bit my lower lip so hard blood burst onto my teeth. “So fast.” “Congratulations,” I rasped out, my voice hollow. “I won’t bother her again.” Bryce stared at my ghostly, emaciated face and let out a cold laugh. “I don’t trust you, Devin. You still mean too much to her. You can’t blame me for protecting what’s mine.” Before I could process his words, Bryce suddenly grabbed my wrist with terrifying force and threw himself backward onto the polished marble floor. “BANG!” “Bryce!” The double glass doors swung open. Claire burst into the lobby, flanked by a swarm of reporters and flash cameras. She didn’t glance at me for a fraction of a second. She sprinted past me, throwing herself onto the floor, pulling Bryce into her arms. Bryce clutched his elbow, looking up at her with tear-filled, terrified eyes. “I… I was just worried about Devin being alone in the hospital… I accidentally let it slip that you were pregnant, and he… he just snapped…” Claire snapped her head toward me, her eyes ablaze with vicious, blinding fury. “How long are you going to pull this bullshit?!” she screamed, her voice ringing across the lobby. “Sick, sick, sick! How many people are you going to ruin with your pathetic little depression?!” She stood up, pointing an accusing finger at my face in front of dozens of flashing cameras. “You saved my life five years ago, and you’ve used that assault to hold me hostage ever since! Have you ever considered that getting attacked back then was your own damn fault?!” “BOOM.” My mind went completely blank. When I was beaten and abused by those kidnappers five years ago, Claire had immediately used her family’s power to seal all media records. Even when Travis brought it up at the wedding, he kept it vague. Now, to defend Bryce, she was tearing open my deepest, most horrific trauma in front of a dozen live broadcast cameras. She paused, her eyes cold with a disgust that ripped the breath from my lungs. “Do you want to know the truth, Devin? Two years ago, when I suffered total kidney failure, it was Bryce who secretly donated his kidney to save my life! That’s why I got close to him! He’s my savior too—so why doesn’t Bryce ever hold his sacrifice over my head?!” My head snapped up. My eyes met my father’s, who had just rushed into the lobby behind the reporters. Dad caught my gaze—and instantly looked away in guilty, sweating silence. A terrible, freezing realization shattered what was left of my soul. Two years ago, when Claire needed a matching kidney, I donated mine in secret. I was terrified she would feel burdened by owing me another debt, so I only told my father. My own father had taken my kidney donation, handed the credit to Bryce, and used my sacrifice to forge the path for Bryce to sleep with my girlfriend. Flashing lights blinded my eyes. The ambient noise of the crowd surged into a deafening roar. “No wonder Miss West ditched him… the guy isn’t even a real man, and he’s still acting like a psycho side-piece…” “Jesus, I bet he faked the whole kidnapping thing five years ago just to trap her! A real savior wouldn’t parade his sacrifice around every single day!” I stood frozen in the center of the lobby, cold tears streaming silently down my cheeks. Claire frowned, looking at my ghostly silence with mild discomfort. She reached down, entwining her fingers with Bryce’s, and gave me a look of final, brutal dismissal. “I’m done with your depression, Devin. I spent five years hiring the best therapists in the country, and you didn’t change a bit. I’m not playing this game anymore.” She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a icy whisper. “Sometimes, Devin… I truly regret ever meeting you.” She cut off all my credit cards that afternoon, issuing a strict order to her firm that no one was permitted to lend me a single cent. … I don’t know how long I sat on the curb outside the hospital. When the burning nausea in my stomach finally forced me awake, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the crumpled, faded train ticket. I took the overnight train back to my old hometown in rural Oregon. In the freezing, drafty bedroom of my childhood home, I lay curled in a fetal position on the worn mattress, shivering uncontrollably through endless cycles of vomiting blood, night terrors, and icy sweats. The small TV in the living room played ambient noise—local celebrity news channels endlessly dissecting the scandal of the “unmanly, parasitic ex-boyfriend who faked a sacrifice.” Beside my bed, a small mountain of trash overflowed with bloody tissues. My forearms were shredded, covered in deep, self-inflicted scratch marks from trying to distract myself from the agonizing tumor growing inside my abdomen. I couldn’t take it anymore. In a feverish trance, my trembling fingers reached for a small utility blade on the nightstand. When the sharp metal cut deep into my skin, the physical pain felt almost merciful. My vision began to fade into a peaceful, dark quiet. The very last thing I saw before the darkness swallowed me whole was Claire—drenched in red light, screaming as she sprinted through the front door toward my bed.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “558491”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Damian’s favorite game was making me open his “reconciliation mystery boxes.” Whenever we fought, he would block my number for three days, then drop a custom link into a text. “If you draw ‘Better Luck Next Time,’ don’t bother me.” “If you draw ‘Reconciliation Pass,’ I might condescend to let you apologize.” Over the years, I had drawn “Seven Days of Silent Treatment.” I had drawn “Public Apology.” I had even drawn a patronizing “Talk later” sent while he was having dinner with another woman. When I drew the Reconciliation Pass for the sixth time, Damian pulled me into his lap, his smile lazy and dark. “See, Jill? No matter how terrible your luck is, you always end up right back where you belong—with me.” I thought he was just being arrogant. Until I saw the custom mystery box app he built for Sadie, our company’s new intern. Her page had only one prize: [Damian’s Unconditional Favor.] Probability: 100%. When Sadie accidentally knocked over my hot coffee, Damian shielded her, checking her hands for burns. My own hand was scorched red, but when I gasped, he just knit his brows in irritation. “You’re not a little girl anymore, Jill. Can you stop demanding to be babied?” That night, he sent his seventh mystery box as usual. “Open it. Draw the pass and come back.” I stared at the glowing screen for a long time. Then, without opening the link, I hit “Block”. For the seventh time, I was finally ready to set myself free. … I was only halfway through packing when the door lock chimed. Damian walked in holding a brown paper bag from an artisanal bakery. The moment he caught sight of my suitcase sitting in the entryway, his face darkened. “What is this supposed to mean?” He slammed the door shut and walked straight up to me, shoving his phone screen almost into my face. In the messaging thread, a glaring red exclamation mark hovered beside the text he had just tried to send. “Blocking me? Packing your bags?” He stood over me, temper simmering beneath his breath. “What are you playing at, Jill?” “Nothing,” I said softly. Damian froze for a second. Usually, the moment he demanded an explanation with that cold tone, I would rush to give it. I’d explain everything—from why he protected Sadie to how badly the coffee had scalded my skin—my eyes red as I begged him to admit that he cared about me, even just a little. But this time, I said nothing at all. He stared at me for a few seconds, unaccustomed to my silence, before his lips curled into a faint smirk. “Nothing? Look at you, getting bold. Last time you drew seven days of cold war, you were creeping on my Instagram from an alt account by day two. You’re putting on quite a show this time.” Instead of answering, I hid my hand behind my back. “Why are you here?” “To make it up to you,” he said matter-of-factly. He unscrewed a tube of burn ointment and leaned down, dabbing it onto my hand. “If it hurt, why didn’t you dodge? Coffee splashes toward you and you can’t even move your cup?” I looked at him. “You were standing right beside me.” Damian paused, then chuckles softly. “So what? You want me to fire Sadie over a spilled latte? She’s fresh out of college; her face went white as a sheet. Why are you picking on her?” He blew gently on my skin, then pushed a box containing a chestnut tart onto the coffee table. “Eat a few bites. Clear your head. Your stomach is terrible—throwing a tantrum on an empty stomach only leaves me dealing with your mess later.” The words felt painfully familiar. Back in college, when my gastritis flared up, he had carried me six blocks through the pouring rain to find an urgent care clinic. Later, every time he hurt me, he used fragments of that old tenderness as currency to settle his debts. I had spent years letting those half-hearted gestures fool me, convincing myself he cared while I wiped the blood off the knives he drove into my chest. “Why does her mystery box only have “Unconditional Favor”?” I asked. “It’s just a game, Jill.” “Mine is a game too. So why does every option punish me?” Damian leaned back into the leather couch, reaching out to drag me down beside his knee. “Because you can handle it. Sadie’s fragile—if she drew a ‘Better Luck Next Time,’ she’d cry all night. You’re different. You’re mature.” “Mature.” Every time he praised my maturity, he was asking me to compromise. I pulled my hand back. “I don’t want to be mature anymore.” Damian stared at me for a beat, amused. “Fine. I’ll keep you even if you’re acting like a brat. Now unblock me once you’ve had your fit. Don’t make me take your phone.” Before the words fully left his mouth, his phone chimed. The contact name “Luna” flashed across the screen. Damian answered almost instantly, his voice dropping into a soft, protective hush. “Why are you crying? Take a breath, tell me.” Sadie said something on the other end, and he stood up, grabbing his coat. I looked at the tart on the table, only a single slice cut out. “Aren’t you here to make it up to me?” “She’s running a fever alone in her apartment. I need to check on her.” He leaned down, smoothing my collar. “Finish the tart. Apply the ointment. Don’t compare yourself to her, Jill. She needs me. You don’t.” At the front door, he turned back. “And don’t block me again. You can throw your little fits, but whether we break up or not is up to me.” As the door clicked shut, my phone vibrated with a text notification containing a new mystery box link. Damian had manually triggered a draw for me. [Congratulations! You won: Forgive Damian and text Sadie to ask about her fever.] Below it, he appended a text: “See? Even fate knows you can’t leave me.” I stared at the lines of text, then picked up the untouched tart and the ointment and threw them directly into the trash. Then I slipped off the matching silver ring I had worn for five years and packed it into the bottom of my trunk. …… At the morning meeting the next day, Damian set a warm chai latte in front of me. “Still pouting?” I remained silent. He pulled out the chair beside me and sat down, tapping the side of the cup with his knuckle. “It’s hot. Drink it before your stomach starts aching again and you accuse me of not caring.” Someone across the conference table chuckled. “Boss sure knows how to coax. Jill, you should give him a break by now.” Damian looked at me, raising an eyebrow playfully. “You hear that? The ramp is built right to your feet. Don’t just stand there.” Sadie stood near the projector holding her laptop, her eyes still puffy. Seeing me look over, she explained in a tiny voice, “Jill, yesterday evening Damian just dropped me at urgent care. Please don’t misunderstand…” Damian tapped the table softly. “Alright, she’s not that petty.” I picked up the chai and took a slow sip. Just as the corner of his mouth began to lift, Sadie opened the deck for the evening’s brand launch. In the next second, the room fell dead silent. Projected on the wall was the guest list sent to the client last night. The names and seating arrangements for all twelve VIP guests were completely wrong. The client was already downstairs; if this version went live, the entire launch event would become an industry joke. Sadie began to tremble in panic. “I… I checked it! But Jill told me to send it out last night!” Everyone turned to look at me. I raised my gaze calmly. “I didn’t create that file, and it never passed through my hands.” Damian spun his pen between his fingers, his voice dropping slightly. “You’re her mentor. If she was intimidated to come to you, did you really just wash your hands of it?” I met his eyes. “You were the one who told her last night not to bother me.” “I meant don’t poke you while you’re angry, not abandon the project.” “So it’s still my fault?” “Jill, this isn’t about right or wrong right now.” He set the pen on the table with a firm “clack”. “The client is downstairs. Fix the issue first. Apologize to Sadie so she doesn’t carry this negative energy into the event.” I thought I had misheard him. “She’s the intern, you’re the senior. She’s terrified right now—how is she supposed to work through the rest of the day?” Damian looked at me, his tone almost patient. “Don’t force me to say harsh words in front of everyone.” “I didn’t do anything wrong.” “Do you really have to be this rigid?” I clenched my hands in my lap. “What if I refuse?” He leaned in closer, leaning past my chair to tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear. The gesture looked intimate, but his voice was pressed dangerously low. “Jill, don’t force me to humiliate you in front of the whole team. Be good, and I’ll take you out to dinner tonight.” I looked at his face, inches away from mine, and suddenly remembered our sophomore year of college. He had gotten into a fistfight over me, leaving his eyebrow split open and bleeding. Back then, he had wiped the blood away and said, “Whoever makes Jill bow her head, I’ll make them kneel and apologize.” I used to think that was the backbone he gave me. So why was he the person making me bow my head the most? My chest constricted, aching with a suffocation that went deep into my ribs. I stood up and faced Sadie. “I’m sorry.” Sadie quickly wiped a tear. “Jill, please don’t be like that… it makes it seem like Damian forced you. I really don’t blame you…” Damian smirked. “She’s just stubborn. Once it’s out, she’s fine.” I spent the next hour re-adjusting the guest arrangements and calling the brand reps to apologize. During the final rehearsal, Sadie tripped over an AV cable, and the full glass of red wine in her hand splashed directly onto my dress. Damian’s knee-jerk reaction was to pull her into his chest, shielding her completely. “Did you fall? Are you okay?” Sadie shook her head, her face buried in his chest. “I’m fine… but Jill’s dress…” Only then did Damian look at me. Dark red wine was dripping down the hem of my cream dress, sticking uncomfortably to my legs. He knit his brows. “How much was it? I’ll reimburse you.” “It was my birthday gift from you last year.” “Even better. Buy a new one.” He slipped off his tailored suit jacket. I instinctively reached out, assuming he was passing it to me, but he turned and wrapped it gently around Sadie’s shoulders. “The AC is cold, and she had a fever last night.” Sadie huddled inside his oversized jacket, asking in a small voice, “Does Jill hate me?” Damian tousled her hair, but his eyes were fixed on my face. “She doesn’t hate you.” He paused, his smile casual and arrogant. “She just loves me too much.” The staff around us chuckled quietly. Standing in the middle of that laughter, I suddenly felt nothing at all—not even embarrassment. Damian held his hand out to me. “Let’s go.” “Where?” “Didn’t I promise to take you out to dinner?” He wrapped his fingers around my wrist, acting as if nothing had happened. “Tonight is all about you. Whatever you want, it’s yours.” …… Damian genuinely gave me his entire evening. He booked the corner table at the bistro where we had our very first date, ordered our steaks medium-rare, and even had the pastry chef swap out the dessert for the salt-caramel gateau I loved. He turned off his phone and pushed a deep blue velvet box across the crisp white tablecloth. “Open it.” Inside sat a ring. The center diamond wasn’t massive, but it was recut from the heirloom stone my late mother had left behind. I stared at it for a long time. Before my mother passed away, her biggest worry was my marriage. I had handed that diamond over to Damian three years ago, but he was always “too busy” to take me to a jeweler to get it set. I thought he had forgotten long ago. He took my hand, slowly pushing the ring onto my ring finger. “Pick a wedding date. So you stop overthinking every single day, worrying that someone else is going to take your spot.” I stared down at the diamond, unable to speak. He pinched my cheek gently. “Stunned silent?” “Why do you suddenly want to get married?” “It’s not sudden.” Damian leaned back into his chair, his tone relaxed. “You’ve been with me for so many years. Who else would I marry?” It wasn’t a romantic sentence. But for a split second, I wanted to cry. He looked up at me, his expression uncharacteristically earnest. “Jill, who else could I possibly end up with? Don’t you know that by now?” Of course I knew. And because I knew, I had stayed, over and over again. He pulled me into his arms, resting his chin against my head, kissing my temple. “Seventh reconciliation. Consider this your grand prize. Stop talking about ‘setting yourself free’—it sounds pathetic.” Leaning against his shoulder, I was a second away from telling him that the suitcase in the hallway was already packed, and that I had bought a one-way train ticket out of the city for next week. When the waiter brought out the cake, Damian stepped away to use the restroom. The phone he left on the table lit up suddenly. A text from Sadie flashed across the lock screen. “Damian, did you give her the ring? Is she super touched?” “Told you the mature type is easy to handle. Recutting her mom’s old diamond saves money and looks thoughtful so she stops nagging.” Immediately after, another message popped up. “Don’t forget my reward tomorrow at the press launch. I get my 100% Unconditional Favor! Whatever I ask, you can’t say no.” I stared at the glowing glass, the blood in my fingers turning ice cold. So even this gesture—this sweet, redemptive moment—was a script handed to him by Sadie. When Damian returned, he saw that I had pulled the ring off my finger. His face fell instantly. “What now?” I slid the phone toward him. He glanced at it, then pressed the side button to kill the screen. “She was just helping me brainstorm ideas to make you happy. You’re still not satisfied?” “That diamond was left to me by my mother.” “Which is why I turned it into an engagement ring.” He grabbed my hand, forcefully shoving the ring back onto my finger. The band scraped harshly against my knuckle, making me wince in pain, but he didn’t loosen his grip. “I pushed two meetings to eat dinner with you tonight. Are you really going to ruin everything over a single text?” I looked into his eyes. “If she asks for something tomorrow, will you agree?” “I don’t break my promises.” “What if what she wants is you?” Damian stared at me for a few seconds, then chuckled softly. “Then I’ll lend myself to her for a day. I’m coming home to you at night anyway.” I said nothing. He adjusted the ring so the diamond sat right in the center, his voice turning completely cold. “Jill, I’m giving you enough grace by marrying you. Whatever Sadie wants, I’m willing to give her—even if it makes you uncomfortable, just endure it.” He stood up and grabbed his jacket. “Keep the ring on. Tomorrow after the launch, we’re looking at wedding venues.” I lowered my head, staring at the ring. The light my mother had left behind was now locked onto my finger by him, like an inescapable chain. …… Before the press launch began the next morning, Damian thrust a cup of warm milk into my hands. “Last night is water under the bridge. After this, we go look at venues.” He adjusted the ring on my finger, his thumb grazing the old diamond. “Stop competing with an intern. You’re the one I’m marrying.” I had waited seven years for that sentence. I looked at him, and against my better judgment, I nodded. Maybe I just wanted to give this relationship one absolute, final chance. On stage, the host opened Sadie’s personalized mystery box. [Damian’s Unconditional Favor.] The host laughed, holding out the mic. “Miss Sadie, what are you going to redeem this favor for? Can you ask Damian to be your boyfriend for a day?” Sadie looked through the crowd directly at Damian. “I want him to propose to me in front of everyone.” The room erupted into wild cheers and flashing cameras. My fingers went rigid. Damian, however, showed no surprise at all. He just bent down and whispered in my ear, “Play along. Don’t make her look bad on stage.” I whipped my head around to look at him. “You knew?” “She mentioned it last night.” “Last night?” Last night, he had slid my mother’s diamond onto my finger and told me he was going to marry me. And on that exact same night, he had promised another woman that he wouldn’t say no to whatever she asked for. Damian frowned. “It’s just a show for the press. Where is your head going?” “What ring are you going to use?” His eyes fell on my hand. I immediately balled my hand into a fist. “Don’t touch it.” “Jill, the reporters are waiting.” “This belongs to my mother!” “It’s our engagement ring now.” He clamped his hand around my wrist, trying to pry my fingers open. The metal band scraped against my skin, leaving a raw, bleeding track across my knuckle. I was shaking from the pain, but he didn’t stop. “Your mom left this stone so you’d get married, didn’t she? What’s the harm in borrowing it for two minutes?” I pressed my thumb over the ring with everything I had. “I don’t consent to this.” Damian’s face went completely dead. “You were begging me for a marriage last night, and today you’re using this to negotiate with me?” He forced my fingers back one by one and stripped the ring off my hand. “I’m marrying you to give you dignity. Don’t take that dignity as your right to manage me.” I stared at my bare ring finger, feeling as though my chest had been carved open alive. “Damian, if you use that to propose to her, we are finished.” He let out a short, mocking laugh, as if he had heard the funniest joke in the world. “Threatening to break up again?” He leaned down, his breath cold against my ear as he whispered, “You’ve pulled this six times. Which time did you actually leave? Jill, don’t flatter yourself.” The spotlights flared brighter. He carried my mother’s diamond onto the stage, and amidst the roaring applause of the audience, he dropped to one knee before Sadie. “Miss Sadie, will you let me show you my unconditional favor this time?” Sadie nodded through her tears. He slid the ring onto her finger. Confetti rained down from the ceiling. On the jumbo screen behind them, they embraced—a picture-perfect, grand confession that demanded everyone’s blessing. It was beautiful. But standing in the darkest corner of the crowd, I felt as though my heart had been ground into raw meat. On her deathbed, my mother had held my hand and told me that this diamond was meant for the man who would truly cherish me. I had waited seven years, only to watch it placed onto the finger of another woman by the man who broke me. …… Backstage, Damian reached out to take the ring back. Sadie immediately shielded her hand, tears spilling over her eyelashes. “The press took photos of it! If I take it off now, won’t they think you were just making a fool of me?” I looked at him. “Give it back to me.” Damian glanced at me. “Let her wear it for now.” “I said, give it back.” “Enough!” He grabbed my wrist, dragging me forward until I was inches from his face. “This is Sadie’s first launch event as project lead. Are you really going to ruin her over an inanimate object?” A cold sensation ran through my entire body. “That is the last thing my mother left me.” “Dead people don’t die a second time just because a ring is missing.” The quiet in the green room was absolute. I stared at him, my ears ringing with a sharp, high-pitched static. Tears finally spilled over, completely out of my control. Damian saw them, but he just turned his face away in annoyance. “I’ll buy you a new one. Don’t cry here—it looks pathetic.” I raised my sleeve and wiped the wetness from my face. “You don’t need to buy a new one.” I looked at the diamond on Sadie’s hand, then raised my eyes to look at the man I had loved for seven years. “Keep the ring on her. And you can stay with her, too.” His expression turned icy. “Say that again.” “Let’s break up.” Damian let out a harsh laugh, his grip on my wrist tightening until it bruised. “Which time did you break up without waiting for me to come coax you back? If you really leave me, you won’t even survive long enough to draw the next reconciliation pass.” Before I could respond, Sadie’s phone rang loudly. She was swarmed by reporters in the parking garage, sobbing that she couldn’t breathe. Damian let go of my wrist instantly. I asked softly, “Didn’t you say you’d take me to look at wedding venues after this?” “She needs me right now.” “And what about me?” He grabbed his suit jacket, not even bothering to look back. “You’ll go home on your own once you’re done crying. If she collapses out there, nobody can clean up the mess today.” The heavy door slammed shut in front of me. I didn’t run after him. I didn’t wait. I went back to the apartment we had shared for five years, packed the rest of my clothes, erased my fingerprint from the smart lock, and placed the keys alongside the seven reconciliation passes inside a small paper box. This time, I was done waiting. In the back of his town car, Damian was leaning his head against the headrest, resting his eyes, when his phone buzzed. When he saw the app notification indicating I had sent him a mystery box, the corner of his mouth curved into a confident smirk. “Couldn’t even last three days,” he muttered to himself. He casually tapped the link. As the page loaded, the smile on Damian’s face froze completely.

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I can only hear out of my right ear. Through seven years of dating, Noah Barrett was the picture-perfect boyfriend—attentive to every detail, praised by everyone we knew. “Even if the day comes when you can’t hear a single thing,” he used to whisper, “I’ll still be right here beside you.” Until the night of his company’s holiday gala, when someone suggested playing a game of Telephone. Whitney Ford passed the secret phrase to Noah. He stepped up to my right side—my good side—and spoke, leaning in close so I could catch every syllable: “June is dead weight.” I froze. Our teammates kept pushing me to pass it on, and Noah frowned down at me. “It’s just a game, June. Come on, say it.” I had no choice. I turned around and repeated it loudly for the room to hear: “June is dead weight!” The entire room erupted into laughter. Whitney giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. “I literally whispered, ‘Happy New Year, June!’ Why on earth are you talking trash about yourself?” I stood rooted to the spot, my body turning cold as I snapped my gaze toward Noah. He could have cleared it up. He could have told everyone what he actually said to me. Instead, he just looked down, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. Whitney leaned close to him, her voice dropping into a stage whisper. “I won the bet! You promised—if she humiliated herself in front of everyone, you’d take me to Iceland for New Year’s!” Noah let out a soft laugh, reaching out to ruffle her hair. “Yeah, yeah. You win.” Only then did he finally look up at me, his eyes soft with faux concern. “Whitney’s just teasing, sweetie. Don’t take it to heart.” I stared at him in stunned silence as the lie slid effortlessly off his tongue. In seven years of losing my hearing, I had mastered the art of reading lips. Just because I couldn’t hear clearly didn’t mean I couldn’t read his mouth. Right then and there, I made up my mind. I would accept the invitation from the clinic overseas for my treatment. From now on, I was going to walk my path alone. … The host quickly stepped in to smooth things over, laughing into the microphone as he announced the next group. The upbeat music swelled back up, and the crowd moved on, forgetting the small hiccup almost instantly. Only I remained stuck in place. The hearing aid in my left ear emitted a high-pitched, faint hum—like a fine needle stabbing repeatedly into my eardrum. I pulled it out, turned on my heel, and walked out of the ballroom. Noah caught up to me in the hallway, grabbing my wrist to pull me to a halt. “June, it was just a joke. Do you really have to throw a fit and embarrass everyone?” I kept my eyes fixed on the movement of his mouth. “Taking her to Iceland—is that a joke, too?” His expression locked up. He hadn’t expected me to read his lips. It took him a beat to find his voice. “Whitney’s wanted to go to Iceland forever, but she didn’t have anyone to go with. Your health is delicate, June. You can’t handle that kind of arctic climate. Once you’re feeling better, I’ll take you somewhere nice.” Before I could answer, Noah looked past my shoulder, and his gaze softened instantly. Whitney was running toward us, holding the train of her gown. “Noah! I cut my finger on the cake box earlier. Blow on it for me!” She slid her arm through his with practiced ease, sticking her tongue out at me playfully. Noah shook his head, gently bopping her nose with a finger. “Always so dramatic.” That light, effortless warmth—he rarely showed it around me. With me, he was always walking on eggshells, treating me like fragile glass that might shatter at any moment. “June, you should head home,” Noah said, turning back to me. “This crowd isn’t good for you anyway. I’ll call the driver. Keep your hearing aid in, okay? Don’t make me worry.” For the first time in seven years, I realized that taking care of someone and actually loving them are two completely different things. It was past two in the morning by the time I got back to the house. The living room was cluttered with items Noah had given me over the years: my very first hearing aid, my first sign-language guidebook, and a stack of index cards he had written by hand to communicate with me. The last card read: “No matter what happens, never let go of my hand.” I placed the cards into a cardboard box, sliding my engagement ring right beside them. A moment later, my phone buzzed on the counter. It was a call from the hospital. “Ms. Whitlock,” Dr. Hardy said, his tone heavy. “The follow-up results for your right ear came back. The degeneration is accelerating. If you don’t check into the hospital for immediate treatment, you’re looking at total hearing loss.” Noah called while I was in the back of an Uber on the way to the clinic. “Where are you?” he asked. “I came home and you weren’t here.” I gripped the edge of my phone. “The hospital called. My right ear is deteriorating.” Silence stretched across the line for a few agonizing seconds. “Don’t panic,” Noah said, his tone softening instantly. “I already spoke to Dr. Hardy, and I had my assistant reserve a private room for you. Where are you right now? I’ll have the driver pick you up.” That familiar tenderness made the back of my throat ache. Noah’s driver met me halfway and took over the ride. Two blocks away from the hospital, my phone buzzed with a text from Noah containing a pin drop for a location. “Stop here before you check in. There’s a short interview about living with hearing loss. It won’t take long.” My gut twisted. I texted back: “I don’t want strangers knowing about my condition.” Ever since I lost the hearing in my left ear, the one thing I couldn’t stomach was the pitying looks from strangers. Noah called back immediately, his voice patient and soothing. “I spoke to the specialists, June. Your hearing loss isn’t just physical—it’s tied to psychological trauma. The more you hide away from the world, the worse your recovery is going to be.” He let out a gentle sigh over the line. “June, I’m not trying to push you. For seven years, I’ve taken you to over forty checkups. I found the best doctors, learned sign language, and kept my phone on loud during executive board meetings just so I’d never miss your call. I didn’t do all of that just to watch you hide behind me forever. You need to face every single chance at healing. Otherwise… what was all my effort for?” His tone was still so gentle, but the words felt like a thin wire tightening around my windpipe. I couldn’t bring myself to say no again. The car pulled up outside a massive media skyscraper. A production assistant guided me into a dressing room and clipped a lapel mic onto my collar. Anxiety spiked in my chest. “Isn’t this supposed to be anonymous?” “Ms. Ford is running the segment,” the assistant replied crisply. “You can ask her about the details inside.” Ms. Ford. Whitney. A dark wave of dread washed over me. The studio doors slid open. Whitney was sitting in front of the multi-camera setup in a tailored white blazer, flipping through an interview outline. When she saw me, she stood up with a bright smile. “June! Noah said his ‘special guest’ was you, but I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.” I turned on my heel to leave, but the production assistant had already pulled the soundproof doors shut behind me. Whitney tapped the papers in her hand. “Don’t be nervous. Noah was afraid you’d back out if you knew I was hosting, so he asked me to keep it quiet. He actually helped me write these questions himself. He knows your story better than anyone.” My eyes fell on the outline resting on the glass table: “Do you feel inferior in an intimate relationship due to your disability?” “Does being cared for long-term make you feel like a burden to your partner?” “If you lose your hearing completely, would you willingly end the relationship to free your partner?” My hands clenched into tight fists. My nails bit into my palms. How was I supposed to answer these in front of a camera? “I’m canceling this,” I said, my voice trembling. “Take this mic off me.” Whitney’s smile faded slightly. “June, Noah poured a lot of capital into this project. Are you really going to throw his hard work back in his face?” I reached up to unclip the mic myself, but a red tally light flashed to life on the main camera in front of us. On the giant monitor mounted to the wall, a live-stream feed popped up. The viewer count was climbing by the thousands every second. Whitney turned toward the camera, flashing her pristine anchor smile. “Welcome to “Voices Unheard”. Today’s guest is June Whitlock—the hearing-impaired fiancée of Noah Barrett, CEO of the Barrett Group, who has devoted the last seven years of his life to caring for her.” Once the live broadcast began, Whitney didn’t start with the questions right away. Instead, she had an assistant bring out a clear acrylic box. “To give our audience a real understanding of what our guest experiences every day,” Whitney said into the camera, “we’re going to start with a three-minute silent experience.” Her eyes shifted to my left ear. “June, please remove your hearing aid.” My hand instinctively flew up to shield my ear. “This wasn’t part of the agreement.” Whitney put on a look of gentle concern for the camera. “But June, if you don’t even have the courage to take off your hearing aid, how can you prove to our viewers that you’ve truly accepted yourself?” The live chat on the side monitor began scrolling at breakneck speed: “It’s literally just three minutes, why is she acting like a drama queen?” “Noah Barrett has dealt with this for seven years? Man is a literal saint.” I looked past the camera crew toward the dark panel of two-way glass overlooking the set. Noah was standing inside the control booth, his brow furrowed as he spoke into an intercom. A second later, the live chat on the floor monitor was cut off. But the stream was still going live to the world. Noah stepped out of the control room and walked over to my right side. “It’s only three minutes, June,” he murmured. “If the stream abruptly stops now, it’s going to ruin Whitney’s performance review. You don’t want to make things difficult for her, right?” He positioned his body to block the main camera lens. “If you feel uncomfortable at any point, just sign to me. I’ll get you out of here.” Without waiting for my answer, his fingers reached up, unhooked the hearing aid from behind my ear, and placed it into the acrylic box. The world instantly submerged underwater. A heavy, suffocating silence slammed down on me. Noah gave my hand a reassuring squeeze before turning back toward the control room. Whitney immediately moved to my left side—my completely deaf side. She began speaking rapidly, her lips moving in a blur as she motioned for me to repeat what she said. All I could manage was a vague reading of her mouth. “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice sounding flat and unnatural in my own head. “I couldn’t catch that.” Muffled laughter rippled through the studio crew. I couldn’t hear the sound, but I could see the corners of their mouths twisting upward. Whitney tried again. And again. Each time, she spoke faster, deliberately lifting her cue card to cover her lower face. I couldn’t read a single word. On the screen behind us, the failure counter ticked from one up to five. The bright crimson numbers burned into my eyes. Cold sweat broke out across my back, and a high-pitched ringing began to thrum inside my right ear, growing louder and sharper by the second. “Enough,” I said, reaching for the acrylic box on the table. Whitney slammed her hand down onto the lid before I could reach it. “June, the three minutes aren’t up yet.” Suddenly, the large display screen behind us lit up with video footage. It showed Noah standing outside a clinic hallway, head bowed as he organized my medical records. It showed him practicing sign language late at night, his knuckles covered in Band-Aids. It showed him sitting by my bedside during a high fever, writing “Don’t be afraid” across my palm over and over again. Private, intimate footage from our lives—edited together into a slick, cinematic package titled “Seven Years of Devotion”. In the video, he was the selfless protector. And I was the perpetual invalid—pitied, managed, and tolerated. The live chat feed was restored on the floor screen: “What has she ever actually done for him?” “Calling her a fiancée is a stretch. She’s basically a charity case he’s been raising for seven years.” The blood drained completely from my face. I shoved Whitney’s hand off the box, pulled out my hearing aid, and jammed it back into my ear. “Shut down the broadcast!” Whitney stumbled back half a step from my shove, her eyes filling with instant tears. Behind the two-way glass, Noah took an instinctive step forward. He was watching Whitney, afraid she might fall. He didn’t even notice that my hands were shaking so violently I couldn’t get the earpiece aligned with my ear canal. Whitney faced the camera with a look of somber gravity. “It seems June’s psychological trauma is far more severe than we anticipated. That’s why we brought in a very special guest today—someone we hope can help her finally move out of the dark.” The heavy double doors at the back of the studio slid open. A middle-aged man walked into the room with his head low. Noah’s face dropped in the control room. And the moment I saw that man’s face, the blood in my veins turned to ice. The man walked up to the mark, stopping right in front of me, and bowed deeply. “Ms. Whitlock… I am so sorry.” His lips moved, but I didn’t see the studio anymore. I saw the violent glare of headlights, the pouring rain, and the swerving semi-truck from seven years ago. I remembered my father slumped lifeless over the steering wheel, and my mother wrapping her body around mine one last time in the dark. Out of three people in that crushed sedan, I was the only one who pulled out alive. Whitney handed the man a microphone. “Mr. Lawson has carried immense guilt over the years. He gave up his life savings to pay the court-ordered restitution after the accident.” The man, Frank Lawson, wiped his eyes, his voice choked with emotion. “I was driving a haul truck for my boss back then. The rain was too heavy, and the brakes failed. The court ordered me to pay, and I sold my house to cover every penny of the settlement. But… I have a wife and kids, too. For seven years, people have pointed fingers at my children. Does someone who made a mistake deserve to be punished forever?” The live chat flipped instantly, flooded with sympathy for him: “It was an accident! He paid what he owed.” “Forgiving him is the only way she’s ever going to heal herself.” A violent surge of nausea hit my stomach. “Not easy for you?” I grabbed a framed photo on the set desk and smashed it onto the floor right at his feet. Glass shattered everywhere. “You sold a house, but you got to go home to your wife and kids! Where do I take that settlement money to buy back my mother and father?!” Whitney immediately stepped in front of him, shielding him from me. “June, we aren’t forcing you to forgive him! We just want to help you reach closure!” “Closure?!” I pointed a shaking finger at the red light on the camera. “You brought the man who killed my parents into this room, put me on a live stream, and made the internet debate whether I should forgive him?! You call this “help”?!” I turned and bolted for the exit. Noah burst out of the control room, catching me near the doors and wrapping his arms tightly around my shoulders. “June, calm down! Look at me, calm down!” He snapped his head toward Whitney, his voice sharp. “Who authorized you to bring him here?!” Whitney’s eyes were red and wet. “You were the one who said she couldn’t move past the crash! I just wanted her to face her past! I wanted this segment to have a meaningful resolution!” “Let go of me!” I shoved against Noah’s chest with everything I had. Behind us, Frank Lawson suddenly dropped to his knees with a loud thud. “Cousin! You gotta help me out here!” The entire studio went dead silent. Noah’s body went completely rigid. The live chat went blank for a second, then exploded into chaos: “Did he just call the CEO ‘cousin’?!” “The truck driver is related to Noah Barrett?!” “Holy shit, look at this—Frank Lawson is Noah Barrett’s aunt’s son! After the crash seven years ago, the Barrett family hired the defense team for him and covered the settlement money!” An old family photo was uploaded into the live thread. In the picture, a younger Noah was standing next to his mother. Frank Lawson was standing right behind him, his arm draped over Noah’s shoulder like a brother. I stared at the image on the floor monitor, my voice barely a whisper. “Is this true?” Noah’s lips pressed into a tight, white line. He didn’t say a word. That single second of silence gave me every answer I would ever need. Tears spilled over my lashes without warning. “So when you approached me seven years ago… it was because of him?” “At the beginning… yes. I wanted to make things right,” Noah stammered, frantically grabbing at my hands. “But not after that! June, I swear to you, I grew to love you for real!” Whitney’s soft voice floated over from the side. “Even if it started out of guilt, Noah spent seven years taking care of you, June. You can’t expect him to carry his family’s sins for the rest of his life, can you?” Frank Lawson reached out and grabbed my wrist from the floor. “Ms. Whitlock! I gave up everything I had! What more do you want from me?!” So… all of this was “my” fault? The last thread holding my sanity together snapped. I raised my hand and swung it hard across Frank’s face. Noah’s instincts kicked in. He grabbed my forearm to stop me and shoved me back to protect his cousin. In the scramble, someone knocked over the heavy studio microphone on the table. It crashed directly against the main stage amplifier. A high-pitched, agonizing screech of audio feedback tore through the air, piercing straight into my right ear. A sharp, primal scream escaped my throat as my knees gave out, crashing onto the hard floor. And then, in the very next second… All sound vanished. Whitney’s panicked explanations, Noah’s frantic screams, the sound of boots running across the stage—it was all cut off, locked behind an impenetrable wall of absolute silence. I saw Noah drop to the floor, pulling me into his arms, his mouth moving wildly as he wept. But I couldn’t hear a single thing. … When I opened my eyes, I was lying in a hospital bed. Dr. Hardy stood beside me, writing on a notepad before handing it to me: “Severe, profound sensorineural hearing loss in your right ear. The probability of recovery is extremely low.” Noah sat by the edge of the bed, his eyes bloodshot and swollen. He held my hand, tracing letters into my palm over and over again: “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Then, his phone lit up on the nightstand. A banner notification from Whitney popped onto the lock screen: [Noah, everyone online is destroying me. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I’m so scared.] Noah stared down at the glowing screen for a long, agonizing moment. Then, he turned back to me and traced a final message into my palm: [I’m going to check on Whitney. I’ll be back soon.] As the hospital door clicked shut behind him, the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. He stayed by my side out of obligation. He ran to Whitney because he loved her. I checked myself out of the hospital, walked out to the curb, and caught a cab to the airport. As the plane cut through the heavy cloud cover, I looked down at the city lights one last time. From now on, there would be oceans and mountains between us. In this life, we would never meet again. … Noah rushed back to the hospital room late that night. The light inside was still on. He pushed the door open gently. “June, why aren’t you sleeping…” The figure sitting on the edge of the bed turned around slowly. When Noah caught sight of the face, his pupils shrank.

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When my boyfriend, Mike, was reported missing after an accident during a geological survey, he managed to send back only three final messages. The first was a formal work update. The second was an apology to his parents. The third was a single sentence: “Kendra, you are my Quaternary Ice Age.” Kendra was my best friend. They were both brilliant geologists. Years ago, behind my back, they had applied to the exact same university program. Later, they became the most synchronized research partners in their field. Back then, just to understand the technical jargon they threw back and forth, I had forced myself to apply for a major transfer into geology. But in the end, I was nothing more than an errand girl in the research lab. Mike used to comfort me. “Everyone has their own strengths, Chloe. I’m just happy you’re my girlfriend.” Yet whenever he looked at Kendra, his eyes were always filled with that quiet, wistful admiration. And even in his dying moments, he used a language I could never decipher to confess his love to her. Not long after, Kendra died in a separate field accident. Because of their academic achievements, our alma mater buried them side by side as honored alumni. I lived the rest of my life consumed by quiet, suffocating regret. Then I opened my eyes—and found myself right back on the day I submitted my major transfer application in my junior year. Looking at the group chat on my phone, where the two of them were eagerly chatting while completely ignoring me, I let out a soft smile and hit “Cancel” on the transfer request. This time, I wasn’t going to spend my life chasing after them. … Even after I withdrew my transfer application, the group chat kept buzzing with non-stop notifications. The two of them were locked in a fiery back-and-forth. I typed out a quick message: “Have you guys eaten yet?” It was instantly swallowed up, swept away into the digital void like spam. Not a single person acknowledged it. Originally, the chat had been started to plan my birthday celebration for tomorrow. I had no idea at what point it had morphed into a dense technical debate on soil stratification that left me completely on the outside looking in. Without overthinking it, I tapped the screen and left the group chat. I didn’t expect Mike to send a single question mark within seconds. Then Kendra messaged me too. I didn’t reply. Moments later, my phone rang. Mike’s voice came through the speaker, as smooth and gentle as ever. “Chloe, why did you leave the group?” He didn’t notice my silence, offering a familiar, gently persuasive tone instead. “Kendra set up that chat for all of us. Throwing a sudden tantrum and leaving really hurts her feelings.” “If something’s bothering you, let’s talk tomorrow when we see each other, alright? Rejoin the chat first.” Even knowing I had been brushed aside, his immediate instinct was still to protect Kendra’s feelings. I sat motionless on the edge of my bed. The phone suddenly felt unbearably heavy in my palm, pressing down until it was hard to breathe. After hanging up, I rejoined the chat. But I didn’t send another message. The next morning, I was jolted awake from a light sleep by a barrage of phone calls. Kendra’s voice was bright and full of energy. “Chloe! Hurry up and come downstairs! We’ve got to celebrate your birthday before our afternoon lecture!” Out of habit, I dragged myself out of bed according to their schedule. It wasn’t until I reached the front of the dorm building that reality fully settled in. Before I could say anything, Kendra threw her arms around me in a tight hug. Mike followed right behind her, his face lit up with a warm smile, looking for all the world like “her” devoted boyfriend. Kendra pulled out an intricately wrapped gift box with an air of mystery. “Open it! Mike and I picked this out together for you.” Looking at the elegant packaging—identical to the one in my past life—I felt zero urge to untie the ribbon. Because I already knew what was inside: a generic, childish plush doll that boiled me down to a hollow caricature. In my past life, I had opened it with starry-eyed anticipation, only to feel like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over my head. Kendra and Mike had been brimming with excitement. “Isn’t it great? We spent so long picking it out—we both thought it looked just like you!” Back then, I hadn’t seen through them. It wasn’t until three months later, on Kendra’s birthday, when Mike went through endless backchannels to purchase a real piece of a lunar meteorite as her gift, that I finally understood what real effort looked like. I accepted the box with a flat expression. “Thanks.” Kendra pouted slightly. “Why do you look so down, Chloe?” Mike answered casually for me. “She’s been busy dealing with her major transfer paperwork these past couple of days. She’s just tired, not upset.” He certainly knew what I was busy with, considering he was the one who had convinced me to switch in the first place. At the time, Mike had told me: “If your current major is too exhausting, just transfer into geology with me. Kendra and I will protect you.” So, without a second thought, I had applied to transfer in my junior year. Yet later, when my lab advisor chewed me out for lacking foundational knowledge, Mike was the one who sighed with thinly veiled impatience: “You were the one who insisted on studying geology, Chloe, even knowing you weren’t built for it.” Listening to his confident assumption now, a quiet smile touched my lips. Neither of them had any idea that I was no longer transferring. Kendra nodded, grabbing my arm to pull me toward a nearby bistro. As soon as we sat down, Mike walked out from the kitchen area holding a birthday cake. The moment my eyes fell on the rich, sticky chocolate frosting, my stomach lurched with a sudden wave of nausea. “Why chocolate cake again?” Mike answered with total nonchalance. “You don’t really care for cake anyway, so I let Kendra pick.” Kendra chimed in, her tone sweet and playful. “Chocolate is delicious! Honestly, Chloe, you really should try expanding your palate.” “I don’t eat chocolate.” They both knew perfectly well that chocolate made me sick, yet every single time, Mike deferred to Kendra’s preference. Mike gave me an unusual, lingering glance. But before he could say anything, Kendra enthusiastically switched off the dining room lights. He pulled his probing gaze back. The tiny flame on the single candle flickered softly. Mike urged me impatiently, “Make a wish, Chloe.” I didn’t have the stomach for the spectacle, so I half-closed my eyes. Through the faint golden glow of the candlelight, I saw Kendra excitedly putting on the cardboard birthday crown, closing her eyes to make a wish right along with me. The warm candle flame illuminated Mike’s face beside her—and the tender, utterly devoted gaze he fixed entirely on Kendra. A sharp, sour ache surged through my chest, followed by a wave of repulsed clarity. So every single birthday I had celebrated had actually been shared with Kendra. No wonder the wish I made every single year—”I hope the three of us stay happy together forever”—had never come true. I hardly touched a bite for the rest of the meal. Mike looked over at me several times, but he didn’t ask a single question, clearly trying to avoid an unpleasant scene. Walking back to campus after lunch, I was initially walking between the two of them. Before long, they dove into a dense conversation about their research project. Step by step, without even realizing it, I was nudged off the sidewalk and onto the street below. They walked close together, laughing and talking in an effortless rhythm. It wasn’t until we reached the front gates of their university that Mike finally stopped and turned around, a helpless chuckle in his eyes. “How did you fall so far behind again?” He paused, then added, “I won’t walk you back to your dorm then. You can make it back on your own, right?” I looked up at the stone archway of their campus, watching couples walking hand in hand into the courtyard. A bitter irony settled in my chest. When we applied for college years ago, we had all agreed to go to the same university. Yet an hour before the application system closed, the two of them secretly changed their first choice to the elite institute right next door. They hid it from me for half a month, until the acceptance letters officially arrived. At the time, Mike had brushed it off with a casual excuse: “Their geology program is ranked much higher. We couldn’t just compromise our futures for your sake.” Kendra had smoothed things over too: “It’s no big deal! The campuses are literally right across the street from each other. We’re still together!” Yet over three years of college, every single walk back to my dorm had been taken completely alone. I pulled my gaze back, my expression entirely blank. “Sure.” Mike stared at me, his dark eyes searching my face. Suddenly, he said, “Actually, let me walk you.” Before the words fully landed, Kendra let out a soft, mournful sigh. “Aww, but our lab session starts in ten minutes! Chloe can walk a few blocks by herself, can’t she?” Mike frowned slightly, looking at me in silent conflict. I said calmly, “Don’t bother.” The tension instantly drained from his brow. “Alright. Next time then.” I turned on my heel and walked away. After taking only a dozen steps, I pulled out my phone and typed out a text to Mike: “Let me make it easy for you. Let’s break up.” Not long after sending it, hurried, panicked footsteps crunched against the pavement behind me. Mike caught up, his hand clamping tightly around my wrist. “Where is this coming from all of a sudden? Don’t make jokes like that.” “I’m not joking.” Mike let out a light, nervous laugh, reaching out to tuck a windblown strand of hair behind my ear. “Have you just been in a bad mood lately? If something’s bothering you, just talk to me.” He glanced back in Kendra’s direction, his voice dropping slightly. “But don’t bring this drama to Kendra. It’s finals week and her stress levels are through the roof. Don’t throw her off.” I stood frozen on the sidewalk. A deep, hollow ache bloomed in my chest, expanding until my throat burned. Even when I brought up breaking up, Mike didn’t take it seriously for a single second. His entire world still revolved exclusively around Kendra. Before Kendra entered our lives, Mike and I had been inseparable childhood sweethearts. When we were kids, if anyone called me dumb, Mike would throw hands without a second thought. As we grew older, he would invent endless creative ways to help me study. When my parents went through a messy divorce and abandoned me, Mike emptied his savings and gave me all his tutoring earnings just so I could cover my high school tuition. But the moment Kendra appeared—a girl who seemed to need constant protection—I became the one who was expected to step aside. By now, Kendra was already calling out to him impatiently from down the street. Mike hurriedly wiped away a tear that had slipped down my cheek. “I have class right now. Go back to your room and cool down.” I had heard that phrase a thousand times. Every time I argued with him over Kendra, it always ended with him telling me to “cool down.” As if the problem was always my emotional instability. While he stood safely on the bank, watching the fire burn without ever acknowledging my pain. That evening, the only communication I received from Mike was a single text: “Don’t forget to take your pain meds.” When the message popped up, a throbbing pain was radiating through my right knee. It was an old injury from my years of rigorous dance training as a kid. In my past life, after graduation, the condition had deteriorated so severely that surgery became unavoidable. Yet right when I was preparing for the operation, a two-year research project that Mike and Kendra had poured everything into lost its funding, threatening total collapse. At the time, I worked daytime shifts at the research institute and taught private dance classes at night to scrape money together. But it was barely a drop in the bucket. Watching them face failure after failure, drowned in silent despair, I made the choice to pull my surgical savings out of the bank to plug their financial hole. Their experiment survived. It was the single biggest regret of my entire life. Six months after handing over my surgery fund, my knee gave out during a late-night commercial dance gig. I plunged off a one-meter stage. By the time I was rushed to the ER, the orthopedic surgeon stared at the scans and shook his head in deep disappointment. “The damage here is pressing directly on the main nerve root. If you had come six months ago, surgery could have saved it completely. Now? You’re going to walk with a permanent limp.” I remembered sitting on that stark hospital bed in stunned silence, the white walls blurring into jagged smears of light. I tried calling Mike and Kendra. Neither picked up. Finally, I called one of their lab colleagues. The guy sent back a short video. “Someone in the department is celebrating a birthday—we’re all out at a karaoke lounge.” In the video, Mike and Kendra were tucked into a cozy corner of the booth, sitting impossibly close. Surrounded by cheering friends, they were playing that party game where you pass a thin cracker lip-to-lip. The way they looked into each other’s eyes during that split second was so raw it looked like a real kiss. The flashing neon lights in the video had burned my eyes, and my chest had ached with a suffocating weight. It wasn’t until the next afternoon that Mike finally called back. He dismissed the entire thing with effortless detachment: “Your leg is crippled? It’s fine. It just means you won’t be dancing in public anymore anyway. Honestly, putting yourself on display like that wasn’t a great look to begin with.” He seemed to have completely forgotten “who” had paid for his research to survive. A cold compress pulled me back from the dark spiral of my memories. Without hesitation, I opened my phone and booked an appointment with an orthopedic specialist for tomorrow morning. At the hospital, the doctor reviewed my MRI scans with a serious expression. “You caught this early. There’s still time for surgical intervention, and it shouldn’t impact your ability to pursue dance long-term.” “However, you must avoid strenuous physical activity before the operation. If the nerve compression worsens, even surgery won’t guarantee a full recovery.” Since summer break was just around the corner, I let out a massive sigh of relief. When I returned to my dorm building, I ran straight into Kendra and Mike near the entrance. Mike noticed the thick medical envelope in my hand, his brow furrowing. “What’s that?” I brushed it off. “Just a routine checkup scan.” Mike nodded, asking no further questions. Because a tearful Kendra was far more deserving of his attention. “Chloe, why do you want to break up with Mike? Is it because of me?” “Mike and I are just friends! You’re the most important person in the world to me—how could you misinterpret things like this?” I looked at her quietly. I couldn’t help but remember how, in my past life after Mike died, Kendra couldn’t accept the reality and shifted the entire blame onto me. “If you hadn’t sent him all those needy texts the night before, he wouldn’t have been exhausted! He wouldn’t have had the accident!” Because of Kendra’s tearful accusations, the entire department turned their anger on me. Local news outlets even quoted her words in their coverage. I was cyberbullied so severely that I developed deep depression and nearly ended my own life. Looking at her weeping face now, I asked flatly, “Kendra, aren’t you in love with Mike?” Kendra’s pupils contracted. She stumbled over her words. “How could I steal your boyfriend? Besides, if we were going to date, we would have done it years ago! Why would he end up with you instead?” Mike looked at me with profound disappointment. “Chloe, you shouldn’t doubt Kendra. She cares about you more than anyone.” His tone carried an absolute, commanding authority. “Apologize to her.” I cast a cool glance at him. “Whether she cares about me, I don’t know. But you certainly care deeply about her.” Mike’s face darkened instantly. Kendra stopped her sobbing, stepping forward to shield Mike behind her. “How can you talk to Mike like that? Hasn’t he been good enough to you? Without him, you wouldn’t even have been able to afford college!” To defend Mike, Kendra didn’t hesitate to tear open my oldest, most painful scars just to sting me. I swallowed the sharp pain in my chest, walked around them, and kept going. Kendra tried to chase after me, but Mike pulled her back. “Forget it. She doesn’t appreciate your concern anyway—look at you, crying like a little mess.” I heard Kendra whimpering softly against his shoulder. Mike comforted her in a gentle, hushed tone. “She’s just throwing a petty tantrum. We’re not actually breaking up. We’ll both always be here with you.” I let out a bitter laugh. The moment I got back to my room, I pulled up the student portal and submitted my application for the international exchange program. My academic advisor called me in to double-check. “The exchange spots are only open for your current performing arts major. Are you sure you don’t want to finalize your transfer to geology before applying?” Thinking of Mike’s unwavering confidence, I didn’t hesitate for a second. “I’m sure.” The next morning, Kendra sent a text: “Chloe, I was too hot-headed yesterday. Please don’t take it to heart.” “Mike said you’re in a funk, so let’s go hiking this weekend to clear your head! You love hiking, don’t you?” In the past, I had only lied about loving hiking because I wanted to spend time with them during their field outings. Just as I was about to type out a refusal, Mike called. His voice held a heavy, weary annoyance. “Just agree to go, Chloe. Otherwise, she’s going to keep coming to your dorm building to harass you.” “My leg is injured,” I said coldly. “I can’t hike.” Without waiting for his response, I ended the call. Yet when the weekend came, they were waiting right at the bottom of my building anyway. Mike’s tone left no room for debate. “It’s just a light trail, and there’s a cable car system near the peak. It won’t affect your leg.” The two of them essentially sandwiched me into the back seat of a charter van. There were other students in the vehicle—strangers from their department. Throughout the ride, the two of them chatted animatedly with the rest of the group, while I sat in the corner like an awkward outsider. When we arrived at the base of the trail, Mike naturally picked up my heavy backpack. “Hey, I want the exact same treatment!” Kendra pouted playfully, showing off her intimacy with Mike without a shred of restraint. Mike casually slung her bag over his other shoulder as well. It wasn’t until we began the ascent that I realized this wasn’t a recreational trip at all. It was another field survey for one of Kendra’s academic projects. I was merely an afterthought. Halfway up the trail, a sharp, throbbing ache began to radiate through my knee. “I’m not going any further,” I said, stopping in my tracks. Kendra turned around with a look of pure disappointment, said nothing, and kept climbing. Mike’s patience was clearly running thin. “Didn’t I already take your bag for you?” The other students bypassed me with visible disdain. “Complaining after a couple of miles? Why do beginners even bother coming on these trips?” I tossed my trekking poles onto the dirt path and turned to head back down. Mike stepped in front of me, annoyed. “Going down alone is dangerous. Just keep pushing upward—the cable car station is near the top.” We hiked for what felt like hours. The sky gradually darkened into a deep twilight, yet there was still no sign of the cable car station. My leg was trembling so badly I could barely keep my balance. “Where is the cable car?” This time, the entire group fell dead silent. Kendra’s voice quavered with panic. “We… we took the wrong fork.” I looked at Mike in utter shock. He pressed his lips into a tight line, saying nothing. Someone quickly dialed the mountain emergency rescue line. But because our exact location was uncertain, there was no telling how long it would take for help to arrive. As darkness swallowed the trail, fear began to spread through the group. I sank down onto a flat rock, my voice barely a whisper. “Mike… my leg hurts.” Before he could answer, a guy from their lab snapped aggressively, “Are you ever going to stop? If you’re injured, why did you come on a field survey in the first place? You just wanted easy extra credit by relying on Mike to carry you, right?” Others chimed in with cold side-eyes. “His actual girlfriend is sitting right here—how does she have the nerve?” Looking at Kendra’s guilty, averted eyes, the truth finally clicked. To the rest of the team, Mike and Kendra were the official couple. I was just an intrusive, shameless third wheel. Sweat poured down my face from the agonizing throbs in my knee. I curled up on the dirt, lacking even the strength to defend myself. Mike barked at the group, “Everyone shut up! Stop taking your frustration out on her!” He pulled out a emergency painkiller from his pack, handed it to me with water, and then crouched down in front of me. “I’ll carry you back down the path we came.” Suddenly, Kendra broke into frantic tears. “Mike… I’m scared of the dark.” Mike froze in place. “You have a high-powered flashlight, don’t you?” She tugged tightly at his jacket sleeve. “It doesn’t matter! I’m terrified without you!” Another student chimed in immediately. “Mike, you should take Kendra down first. She’s faint-hearted.” “Yeah, and Kendra’s safety is crucial for the department’s data.” In the pitch-black woods, every sound was amplified. I could hear my own racing heart, the quiet contempt in their voices—and the heavy pause before Mike stood back up. “Wait here for the rescue team, Chloe,” Mike said softly. “I’ll take Kendra down to the base and come right back for you.” I reached out with trembling fingers, clutching the hem of his jacket. “Don’t go, Mike. Please. I can’t wait out here.” With cruel precision, Mike peeled my fingers off his sleeve one by one. “Your leg isn’t that severe. The painkiller will kick in soon.” The rhythmic crunch of Mike’s boots carrying Kendra down the trail slowly faded into the dark distance. I sat on the cold ground, hollowed out. The mountain wind grew howling cold, stinging my tear-stained eyes. I don’t know how many hours passed. Just before unconsciousness claimed me, the flashlight beams of the rescue team cut through the trees. By the time Mike finally rushed into the regional hospital hours later, he was met by the uncomfortable, awkward stares of his lab mates. Above the double doors of the operating room, the bright red glow of the surgical sign made his scalp go entirely numb. “What was happening?” “Why was Chloe in surgery?” When I opened my eyes in the hospital room, a strange sense of rebirth washed over me. Then a splitting headache tore through my brain, reminding me that I had simply passed out from pain and exhaustion. It took a few agonizing seconds to regain sensation. The very first thing I did was reach down toward my leg. It was wrapped in thick, heavy layers of surgical gauze—just like after my fall off the stage in my past life. My heart slammed against my ribs. I opened my mouth to call out, but only a raspy, silent breath escaped my throat. “Was I really destined to end up a cripple all over again?” Despair settled over me like a suffocating blanket. Unable to accept it, I slammed my hand against the bed frame in frustration. The thud brought a rush of hurried footsteps outside. The door was shoved open with force. Mike stood at the threshold, his eyes wide with shock. “Chloe! You’re awake?” He scrambled to press the nurse call button, then poured a cup of water and held it to my dry lips. I grabbed his forearm tightly, my voice trembling. “Mike… my leg. How is my leg?” Mike’s face drained of all color. It took him several agonizing seconds to force the words out. “It… it was very critical at first. The surgery is over, but you’re still under strict observation.” His voice dropped to a barely audible whisper. “I’m sorry, Chloe.” A few minutes later, the lead surgeon walked in to inspect my vitals. “The operation went smoothly,” the doctor announced, checking my charts. “We managed to relieve the nerve compression just in time.” A massive weight lifted off my chest. “Thank God.” I hadn’t been dragged back into the abyss. However, the doctor tapped his clipboard with a stern expression. “You cannot ignore medical advice again. During the recovery window, you are strictly forbidden from engaging in any high-impact physical activity. If the nerve undergoes secondary trauma, the damage will be permanent.” Before I could respond, Mike—standing behind the doctor—clutched the metal footboard so hard his knuckles turned white. His face was ghastly pale. After the doctor left, Mike sat down by my bedside, staring blankly at my wrapped leg. After a long silence, his voice cracked with emotion. “Why didn’t you tell me it was already this serious?” The room was so quiet I could hear the faint strain in his breathing. My voice remained completely flat. “I did tell you.” “I told you I couldn’t hike. I told you I couldn’t walk anymore. I told you my leg hurt…” “Had I been unconscious so long that he had already forgotten?” “You should have told me the actual medical diagnosis!” he insisted, his tone defensive. I stared quietly at the plain white ceiling. In my mind’s eye, I saw his cold, indifferent face from my past life—the way he had mocked me when I told him the truth. I looked at him and asked softly, “Even if I had given you the exact diagnosis… would you really have stopped forcing me to climb that mountain?” “Of course I would have!” Mike blurted out. Then, just as quickly, his voice died in his throat. “No, you wouldn’t,” I finished the sentence for him. “You would have told me it wasn’t a big deal. You would have told me to compromise just one more time.” Mike went completely stiff. When our eyes met, a flick of deep, unsettling confusion passed through his gaze. Out of nowhere, I asked a quiet question. “Mike… what does ‘You are my Quaternary Ice Age’ mean?”

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