Author: Momo Chan

My post-high school graduation trip with my childhood best friend, Ryan, was all planned out. Yellowstone. It was supposed to be epic. But as I was heading to the airport, I got a notification: my flight had been canceled. As I stood there, totally confused, words started scrolling across my vision, like comments on a livestream. 【Here we go! This is the part where the male lead, feeling sorry for the heroine who’s never been on a plane, cancels the side character’s ticket and gives it to her. The side character is about to totally lose it and have a huge fight with him.】 【Even when she buys a Greyhound ticket and finally gets there, the main couple will have already had a super romantic day together. They’ll be all over each other, and he won’t even have eyes for the side character anymore.】 【This is the fight that makes him realize how high-maintenance the side character is. Every time they argue, he discovers another amazing thing about the heroine. He pulls away from the side character, falls for the heroine, and boom, happily ever after. I ship it!】 【OMG, look! She’s about to text him! The drama is starting! Get your popcorn!】 I hesitated, my thumb hovering over Ryan’s contact. Should I text him? Before I could decide, my phone buzzed with a message from him. 【Hey Tatum. Winnie’s never been on a plane before, so I refunded your ticket and gave it to her.】 【Just buy a bus ticket and meet us there. We’ll wait for you in Wyoming!】 When I didn’t reply right away, another one came through. 【Are you mad? I know you’re not used to roughing it, you’re kind of a princess.】 【But Winnie can handle anything. Why is it always such a big deal with you?】 I stared at the screen, my blood running cold. The comments… they were all true. I bit my lip, opened the Greyhound app, and bought a ticket. Only, the destination wasn’t Wyoming. It was Denver. * 1 “Change of plans,” I told the Uber driver. “The bus station, please.” 【Weird. Why isn’t she fighting with him? If she doesn’t throw a fit, how is he supposed to get annoyed and see how much better our girl Winnie is? Ugh, she’s not following the script!】 【Right? She didn’t even text him back. And she bought a ticket to Denver? She’s just trying to make him feel guilty. What a classic mean girl move. No wonder he doesn’t like her. Growing up together means nothing!】 【Seriously, she’s the worst. Not like our Winnie. Winnie might not have money, but she’s strong and independent. A total girlboss.】 【This stupid side character needs to get with the program! Doesn’t she know she’s just an NPC? Her only job is to move the plot forward! How is Winnie supposed to shine if she has no one to contrast with?】 【OMG, switch screens! The main couple is checking in at the airport! Their sweet romance is about to take off in a few hours! Squeee!】 My grip on my phone tightened. Ever since Winnie transferred to our school, I couldn’t count the number of times Ryan had put her first and made me feel small. He always said she was strong and independent, that she knew the value of hard work because her family struggled. Meanwhile, I was just a spoiled princess who didn’t appreciate anything. We’d make plans to see a movie, and he’d cancel last minute. “Winnie said a $15 ticket is what she makes in three hours at her part-time job. She thinks it’s a waste.” “You should just go by yourself, Tatum. My parents work hard for their money, you know?” This from the guy whose parents had just bought him a $1,500 gaming laptop. Lunch for two became lunch for three. The grilled salmon and steak I ordered would somehow end up on Winnie’s plate. “You should eat more veggies, Tatum. You need to watch your figure.” I weighed 110 pounds. It went on and on. It got to the point where he even blew off my eighteenth birthday. I’d waited, refusing to blow out the candles until he showed up. Ten o’clock, eleven, then midnight. Not a single text. I tried to tell myself something important must have come up. Then I saw the video on someone’s Instagram story: Ryan and Winnie on his motorcycle, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist as they tore down an empty street, laughing. The next day, all he said was, “Oh crap. I completely forgot it was your birthday.” The boy I grew up with was slowly being replaced, and there was always a Winnie-shaped shadow standing next to him. This trip was supposed to fix things. We’d planned it three years ago. Back then, his grades were terrible, and I was a shoo-in for the best magnet high school in the state. He begged me to go to the same public school as him, and like a fool, my heart melted and I agreed. He promised me then. After graduation, we’d go to Yellowstone. And there, under the big sky, he would officially ask me to be his girlfriend. We’d go to the same college, get married after we graduated. I actually believed him. For three years, I dragged his grades up from the gutter until he was getting the same scores I was. But ever since Winnie showed up, it was like I didn’t exist. He was tutoring her, taking her to do all the things she’d “never done before.” 2 He did well on his SATs, but not quite well enough for the top-tier schools. He just assumed I’d do what I’d always done: stick to our plan and go to the state university with him. He didn’t know I’d already accepted an offer from Georgetown, a thousand miles away. Honestly, giving up that magnet school for him was one of the biggest regrets of my life. After being left behind so many times over the past two years, I wasn’t that same girl who put Ryan before everything else. I was originally going to use this trip to tell him. To tell him that I was going to DC for college. But he ditched me first. For Winnie. 3 It was Ryan who broke our promise first. 4 Getting a last-minute flight to Wyoming in the summer is nearly impossible. Once Ryan canceled my ticket, there was no way I was getting another one. Even the bus tickets were selling out. Luckily, I used an app and paid a little extra to snag a seat to Denver. A nice one, too. I’d just settled in when a text from him came through. 【Tatum, you’re taking the bus, right?】 【Winnie says even though it’s a long ride, like, two whole days, the scenery is amazing. You don’t get views like that from a plane. You totally lucked out!】 I scoffed and put my phone on silent. No reply. To be honest, after he canceled my ticket, I thought about just going home. But after thinking it over, I decided to see it through. The trip wasn’t just about him. It was something *I* wanted to do, a step in my own life plan. I wasn’t going to let him ruin it. And stopping in Denver wasn’t a bad thing. I’d always wanted to see the city. This was the perfect chance. Still. He knew it was a grueling 40-hour ride. And he just went ahead and canceled my flight without even asking. He used my money, my time, my first-time-traveling-alone nerves, all to give Winnie her perfect first flight experience. Even though I knew I had to let him go, my chest still felt tight, a dull ache that wouldn’t go away. The comments flickered back into view. 【LOL, you gotta admit, the side character is obsessed. Even after getting ditched, she’s still chasing after him. Doesn’t even care that she has to take a detour through Denver first. Pathetic!】 【This is perfect! I was worried the romance would stall without the annoying side character there to stir things up. But look, she’s following the plot anyway. A few bumps in the road, but she’s still on her way. Awesome!】 【Does she have any self-respect? He dumps her over and over, and she just sticks to him like glue. This girl is the definition of a doormat, lmao!】 I glanced at the words and then looked away, out the window. 5 The bus ride was actually peaceful. It cost more for the better seat, but watching the landscape change outside my window, my mood slowly started to lift. The next day, I arrived in Denver. I bought a map, circled a few spots I wanted to see, and looked up some guides online. It was getting late, so I booked a hotel near a cool neighborhood I wanted to explore. Just as I was about to fall asleep, I saw Winnie’s new Instagram post. 【They gave the last room to this cute couple, so I guess I have to share with a certain someone tonight! 🙈】 The picture was of a hotel room. She didn’t show the whole bed, but you could see Ryan sitting on it, playing on his phone, perfectly reflected in the glass of a framed picture on the wall. My hand froze. My phone vibrated again. A text from Ryan: 【Where are you? Winnie said the views on the way are incredible, send me some pics.】 When I didn’t answer, a single【?】followed. I let out a bitter little laugh, set my alarm for the morning, and turned off my phone. Time to sleep. 【Ooh, look at her, playing hard to get. Does she really think ignoring him is going to make him miss her?】 【She’s looking up stuff to do in Denver, like she’s planning to stay for a few days. How selfish can you get? Doesn’t she know the main couple is waiting for her in Yellowstone?】 【Right? Didn’t you see how he was barely paying attention to Winnie until he saw the side character’s text? Can she just stop being a drama queen and let them have their moment? God, she’s such a villain!】 【It’s fine, let her pout. By the time she gets to Yellowstone, our couple will have already had their big romantic moment. Let’s see how she feels then, hahaha!】 【Yeah, let her play her games. We’ll get to see her completely lose it soon enough. I can’t wait!】 I ignored the comments and closed my eyes. 6 After a fantastic day exploring Denver, I finally opened the bus app again. There were plenty of tickets from here to Wyoming. But I didn’t buy one. Instead, I booked a ticket to Moab, Utah. Ryan, probably annoyed that I still hadn’t replied, called me. I fumbled my phone and accidentally answered. “Tatum? Where are you?” Hearing his voice, I paused. “What’s up?” I said, my tone flat. There was a silence on his end. He could obviously tell I was cold. He tried to sound cheerful. “Hey, where are you? I’ll come pick you up from the station.” “Don’t bother,” I said. “You guys have fun.” Predictably, he blew up. “Tatum, what is that supposed to mean? ‘You guys have fun?’” “This whole trip to Yellowstone was your dream! I canceled a trip to Florida with my buddies to come to this godforsaken place with you, and now you’re going to act like this?” When I stayed silent, his anger seemed to cool a bit. “Tatum,” he asked, his voice uncertain. “You’re not actually mad, are you? Just because I gave Winnie your ticket?” Before I could answer, he scoffed. “Oh my god, Tatum, that’s enough! How long are you going to drag this out? I already told you, I was just trying to give Winnie the experience of flying for the first time! Is that so much to ask? You have to make everything about you!” “Just keep up this attitude! No one else would ever put up with you but me!” The line went dead. I stared at the phone, a heavy sigh escaping my lips. *I* have an attitude? He’s the one who ditched me. I hadn’t even said a single mean thing to him. How was I the one with the problem? 【Hahaha, she’s so clueless. With our sweet, understanding heroine as a comparison, did she really think he was still going to baby her?】 【Playing games, going to Denver, now she’s trying to go to Moab! She really overestimates her importance to him, lmao!】 【Seriously, doesn’t this girl know when to quit?】 I didn’t bother with the comments. I spent three amazing days in Moab, then took a little side trip to see the incredible rock formations in the national parks. The vast desert landscapes and stunning arches were like nothing I’d ever seen back home on the East Coast. It was breathtaking. I stayed for another three days before finally booking my bus ticket to Wyoming. The weird thing was, over those nine or ten days, I barely thought about Ryan. It was like the moment I decided to let him go, he just faded from my mind. I’d read somewhere that it only takes a week to break a habit. I guess that’s true. Even in the quiet of the night, my thoughts rarely drifted to him. After that angry phone call, he hadn’t tried to contact me again. But his Instagram was blowing up. He and Winnie were together constantly. Sharing a room. Making heart shapes with their hands in front of the mountains. Posing at Old Faithful. They even bought matching flannel shirts in one of the tourist shops. He posted eight times a day, and every single picture was of the two of them. When I saw it, I felt… surprisingly, nothing. In fact, I thought they looked pretty good together.

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My mom was a kid herself when she had me with some punk. We’ve hated each other our whole lives. She hates me for ruining her reputation, her future, her chance at marrying someone decent. I hate her for giving me a childhood with no love, no dad, and no normal family. The day I was born, she tried to smother me. When I was a month old, she left me in the desert for the coyotes. When I was five, she tried to sell me to some creeps for three grand. Luckily, my nana saved me every single time. But I wasn’t some pushover. The day she took her SATs, I stood outside the school and yelled “Mom!” for everyone to hear. The day she moved into her college dorm, I made sure all her roommates knew she had a six-year-old kid. On her wedding day, she locked me in my room, so I jumped out the window and crashed the ceremony. She stared at me that day, her eyes filled with pure venom. She collapsed on the floor in her white dress and screamed, “Why do you have to destroy everything for me?” I finally made it to my 18th birthday. And true to form, she celebrated by throwing my birth certificate at my face. “Ivy,” she snarled, “I don’t owe you a damn thing.” 1 My birthday is on Thanksgiving. While every other family was having a turkey dinner, my mother, Melanie, was stuffing my clothes into a trash bag and tossing it on the front porch. “You’re 18 now. An adult. You can finally get the hell out,” she said. “I have no legal obligation to you anymore. You don’t need a guardian. Ivy, I never want to see your face again.” There was no love in her eyes. Just hate. Pure, uncut hatred. The feeling was mutual. I’ve always known she resented me. I was the living proof of the mistake she made when she was fourteen. I was the stain on her life. But how is that my fault? She’s the one who brought me into this world. I didn’t ask to be here. Why should I have to pay for her mistake with 18 years of her rage? So, from day one, I fought back. She never let me call her “Mom” in public. So I did it every chance I got, as loud as I could. After having me, she went back to high school, telling everyone she’d been out sick for a year. So on the day of her SATs, I ran up to the entrance of the testing center and yelled: “Mom! Good luck on your SATs! I know you’ll do great! Your baby loves you!” The look of shame on her face was priceless. She looked like she wanted the ground to swallow her whole. I was ecstatic. It was payback for trying to smother me in my crib and leaving me as coyote food. But I underestimated her. Even with everyone whispering and pointing, her focus was so intense she still aced the test and got into a good state school. Fine. The day she moved into her dorm, I tagged along with my nana and made sure to introduce myself to her new roommates. “Please don’t judge my mom,” I’d said, putting on my best sad-puppy face. “She just got pregnant really young. But she’s super smart, and she’s the best mom in the whole world. I love her so much, so please don’t be mean to her!” By the end of move-in day, the whole campus knew that Melanie, the 20-year-old freshman, already had a six-year-old daughter. She was so furious she dragged me into a bathroom stall, shaking with rage. “Ivy, why won’t you just disappear? Why are you so determined to ruin my life? What did I ever do to deserve this?” What did *I* do? I didn’t do anything but be born. She made my life hell, so I made hers hell right back. 2 She barely came home during her four years of college. The first time she did, it was to announce she was getting married. I met the guy. He was handsome, had a good career, came from a nice family. Nana was thrilled. Melanie was even more thrilled. I was disgusted. How does someone as selfish and heartless as Melanie deserve to be happy? She couldn’t even be a mother to her own kid. What right did she have to marry a good man? She knew I wasn’t going to make it easy for her. On the morning of the wedding, she locked me in my bedroom. “Ivy,” she warned through the door, “today is the happiest, most important day of my life. Don’t you dare ruin it for me.” What a joke. Why would I listen to her? I climbed out my second-story window and ran all the way to the church. Just as the groom was about to put the ring on her finger, I sprinted down the aisle, grabbed onto her leg, and started wailing. “Mommy, are you going to leave me? After you get married, are you going to have new babies and forget about me? What will I do?” I screamed, “You can’t leave me! If you have other kids, I’ll just die!” Her dream wedding turned into a complete disaster. The groom slapped her across the face and stormed out. She collapsed onto the floor in her white wedding dress, shrieking my name. “Ivy! I-V-Y!” She cried like a madwoman for hours. Later that day, she took scissors to her wedding dress and then to her own hair, hacking it all off. She never dated again. She hated me more than ever. And I had never been happier. She was my mother. That’s all she would ever be. I didn’t want any brothers or sisters to suffer the way I did. Because being her child didn’t mean getting love. It only meant getting hate. Now, clutching the flimsy birth certificate, I turned and threw myself into my nana’s arms, sobbing. “Nana, Mom’s kicking me out! I’m only 18, I just got into college! What am I supposed to do? Does she want me to end up like her, getting knocked up by some guy before I even have a life?” *SMACK!* A sharp sting exploded across my cheek. Melanie’s face was contorted with rage, her hand raised to hit me again, but Nana grabbed her by the hair. “You hit her again, I swear to God,” Nana snarled. “She’s 18 years old. Don’t you think she has any pride? Melanie, I have never seen a worse mother than you.” Melanie glared back at her. “And I’ve never seen one like you, either!” Nana’s face faltered for a second. She shoved Melanie aside and took my hand. “Come on, Ivy. We’re going inside. This is my house, my name on the deed. Nobody has the right to kick you out.” I followed Nana into the house, shooting a triumphant smirk at my mother over my shoulder. 3 It’s always been like this. She hates me, but Nana loves me. Every time Melanie lost her temper with me, Nana would make her pay. The time she tried to smother me, Nana slammed her head into the toilet and held it there until she nearly drowned. The time she left me for the coyotes, Nana locked her in the shed with a stray dog for three hours. And the day she tried to sell me, Nana broke her leg. So, no. I’m not afraid of her. Whatever I do, Nana has my back. I’m just like her in that way. She was bold enough to have me at fourteen. I’m bold enough to do anything. As evening fell, I saw her alone in the kitchen, cooking. A whole Thanksgiving feast was on the table. Nana cut me a slice of pumpkin pie. “Ivy, now that you’re in college, make sure you still come home to visit. If you need money, you ask your mother. It’s her responsibility to support you through school.” I smiled and held my hand out to Melanie. “Mom, the two thousand a month for my allowance isn’t enough. All my friends get three. I need another grand.” She smacked my hand away with a serving spoon. “You push your luck and see if you get a penny. When I was in college, I lived on a thousand a month, and I managed just fine.” I took a bite of pie. “Yeah, but you were different, Mom. You had guys paying for your stuff. I don’t.” Her face darkened. “That’s a lie. I worked part-time and I was frugal. I never took money from a man.” Oh, please. I went right for the kill. “You had me when you were fourteen. Don’t you dare say you didn’t rely on a guy. You were smarter than me. You knew how to take shortcuts from the very beginning.” She looked like she was about to flip the table. I could see her chest heaving with rage. Mad? Good. She deserved it. She’s the one who had me so young. She’s the reason I got pointed at and whispered about my whole life, the reason kids bullied me at school. This was all on her. Seeing her angry was better than winning the lottery. I was so wound up I couldn’t sleep that night. I got up for a glass of water and heard arguing from her room. It was Nana, yelling at her. “It’s been 18 years, Melanie. Why can’t you let it go? What good does it do you to hurt Ivy like this? She will always be your daughter. You can’t change that. You need to try to be a good mother.” I peeked through the crack in the door and saw tears streaming down Melanie’s face. She slowly looked up at Nana. “And you? Were you a good mother?” she asked, her voice dripping with acid. “Were you? Mom, what I’ve done to her is nothing, *nothing* compared to what you did to me. How dare you lecture me?” She stared Nana straight in the eye. “You know, I could go tell Ivy the truth right now. I wonder if she’ll hate you as much as she hates me.” “Don’t you dare!” Nana shrieked, grabbing Melanie’s shoulders. “You will not tell her! Not ever! If you say one word, I will kill myself right here in front of you!” 4 In the end, Melanie didn’t tell me anything. She even did something she’d never done before: she drove me to my college dorm. I cheerfully introduced her to my new roommates. “This is my mom! She looks young, right? Hahaha, she’s only thirty-two!” “Whoa,” one of them said, their jaw dropping. “So, like… ma’am, you had her when you were fourteen?” “Damn, that’s wild,” said another. “I barely had my period at fourteen.” Then they turned to me. “Ivy, what about your dad? How old was he? Was he a teenager, too?” I shrugged. “No idea. Never met him. Could be some punk with a bad dye job, could be some old married guy.” With every word I said, Melanie’s face got paler. Finally, she snapped and slapped me. I clutched my cheek and collapsed onto the floor, wailing. “She hit me! Everyone, come see! My own mother is abusing me!” After that scene, Melanie became infamous on my campus. She never had the nerve to show her face there again. Which was her whole plan, anyway. She wasn’t visiting me; Nana was sending her to supervise me. She was convinced I’d end up just like her, getting into trouble with boys at a young age. “Keep your eyes open, Ivy,” she’d say over and over. “Don’t be fooled by a handsome face. You need to find someone who is your equal, or you will regret it for the rest of your life.” Hilarious. “No thanks,” I’d shot back. “I think I’ll go hook up with some burnout tomorrow. Make you a grandma at thirty-three.” She stormed out, throwing one last threat over her shoulder. “I’m done with you! I am never helping you again! Go to your precious nana for everything! Don’t you ever call me again!” And she didn’t. She never called, never visited. The only proof she still existed was the $2,500 that appeared in my bank account on the first of every month. Life without fighting her was boring. So I got a boyfriend. Actually, he pursued me. He said he saw me on the first day of school and felt an instant connection. He even said we looked like we were made for each other. He was just like the man Melanie was supposed to marry: handsome, athletic, from a wealthy family. He checked every box. I was so excited to bring him home. Unfortunately, Melanie was ready for another fight. 5 She stood in the doorway, blocking my boyfriend, Leo, from coming in. “Get out,” she said, hands on her hips. “You are not welcome in this house.” She was unbelievable. I pushed past her. “This is Nana’s house. Her name is on the deed, and she’s leaving it to me when she’s gone. What right do you have to tell my boyfriend he can’t come in?” She gritted her teeth. “I have every right. Because I’m your mother. You love telling everyone that, don’t you, Ivy? Well, today I’m using my authority as your mother to tell you: I do not approve of this man.” That was it. I snapped. “What right do you have to not approve? You’re just jealous that I found a great guy. You’re the one who got knocked up by some deadbeat because you were reckless. I’m 20 years old. You don’t control me!” I’d hit a nerve. She raised her hand to slap me again. But before her hand could connect, another hand shot out and slapped her first. It was Nana. “You worthless thing,” Nana hissed. “How many times have I told you? Don’t you ever hit her! Do you understand me? You do it again and you can get out of my house. You hear me?” My hero had arrived. I ran to Nana and buried my face in her shoulder. “Nana, she doesn’t have a man, so she’s trying to stop me from having a boyfriend! It’s not fair!” Nana stroked my back soothingly. “It’s okay, sweetie. Nana will handle it. Our Ivy is all grown up. It’s time she had a nice boyfriend.” A grin spread across my face. I shot a look at Melanie, who was standing there, fuming. But then, she did something strange. She started to laugh. She was sick. Who laughs after getting slapped? Nana glared at her. “What are you laughing at? You’ve lost your mind.” Melanie pointed at Leo, then looked at Nana. “I’m laughing,” she said, her voice chillingly calm, “because your karma has finally arrived.” “Mom. Take a good, long look at him. And then tell me if you still approve of them being together. Open your eyes and look. *Really* look.” Nana followed her finger and stared at Leo. In an instant, her pupils shrank. I saw her lips tremble, her face drain of all color. “What,” she whispered, her voice shaking, “are you doing here?”

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So, I hired someone to sit in my lecture for me. Minor problem: I accidentally hired a guy. When the professor called my name, “Chloe Reed?” a dude’s voice boomed from the back, “Here!” The professor squinted. “Chloe Reed… grew a beard?” The guy froze for a second, then his brain kicked into high gear. “Actually,” he said smoothly, “I’m her boyfriend. She’s sick, so she asked me to record the lecture for her. She’s super dedicated, didn’t want to fall behind.” The whole lecture hall buzzed. Then, from the front row, Dylan Sterling stood up. He gave the guy a polite, tight-lipped smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Sorry, but *I’m* Chloe Reed’s boyfriend,” he said, his voice dripping with ice. “Who are you?” Here’s the thing about Dylan: he’s the golden boy of the Computer Science department. A campus legend. And me? I’m the ghost hovering on the edge of failing. We hadn’t seen each other in a month. His first words to me weren’t “I miss you.” They were: “Chloe, if you don’t get serious, you’re just going to end up as a burnout, stuck in the mud.” He checked his watch three times while saying it. Like every second spent with me was a waste of his precious, billable hours. I just nodded, my voice surprisingly calm. “You’re right. I’m a burnout. I don’t deserve you. Let’s break up.” To finally get away from him, I’d asked the class-sitter to pretend to be my new boyfriend. After Dylan stormed off and the breakup was official, my fake boyfriend’s eyes lit up. “Awesome! So… does this mean the boyfriend position is officially open?” * 1 My phone buzzed while I was in the art studio, where I’d been parked for a solid ten hours, lost in a painting. It was my roommate, Sarah. “Chloe, you have to check the campus gossip blog! You’re famous!” she shrieked. “And maybe you should, like, call Dylan and explain?” I flexed my stiff, paint-splattered fingers and pulled up the site. The top post was a video. There it was: the professor calling my name, the random guy answering, the professor’s confusion, and his “brilliant” ad-lib about being my devoted boyfriend. Followed, of course, by my *actual* boyfriend doing a live fact-check. The comments were a dumpster fire of hilarity. > *【Did the CS golden boy just get played? LMAO】* > *【Dude was 100% a hired gun from ClassPal. Epic fail.】* > *【A for effort, F for execution. Didn’t count on the real BF being in the same class. Ouch.】* I buried my face in my hands and pulled up the chat with the guy I’d hired. Me: You might have mentioned you were a GUY. The plan was simple. I’d hire a girl from the app, she’d wear a mask, sit in the back, and the professor, who knew our faces but not our souls, would be none the wiser. The profile on the app said female, so I didn’t think twice. He replied instantly. Him: Omg I am SO sorry! It was my first time doing this, I totally messed up the process. 😿 Him: I just panicked! I had no idea your boyfriend was in there! 😭😭 Him: I explained it to him after, I don’t think he’s mad anymore? No drama caused, I promise! 🙏 Him: Seriously, I feel terrible. Let me buy you dinner or something to make up for it? 😥 I clicked off the screen and sighed. This was bad. Now Dylan was going to be furious about me skipping class again. It’s what started the massive fight a month ago that led to us giving each other the silent treatment. 2 Dylan and I grew up across the street from each other. He was always the intense, self-disciplined kid, while I was… not. When other kids were playing tag, he was dragging me inside to do my homework. He’d stand over me, his face dead serious. “You got this wrong. Write it out ten times.” It was torture. In high school, he engineered it so we were lab partners and sat together in every class, constantly pushing me. “You have to work hard, Chloe. We’ll go to Blackwood University *together*.” He’d always say that, his ears turning a little red on the “together” part, this tiny crack in his usual cool, calm facade. For that one word, “together,” I studied like my life depended on it. And we did it. We both got into Blackwood’s top-ranked Computer Science program. My parents practically cried with joy. They said Dylan was a godsend, the only reason I hadn’t “veered off track and ruined my future.” The day I got my acceptance letter, everyone was celebrating. But on that sunny July afternoon, I felt like I’d been plunged into an icy lake. I was shaking uncontrollably. Because in the list of majors I had painstakingly submitted on my application, Computer Science was nowhere to be found. And my scores were way too high to have been auto-assigned. Someone had changed my application. 3 Day one of college, I knew I hated coding. The rigid logic, the endless rules—it felt like a cage. So I started skipping. A lot. I found the campus art studio and secretly started teaching myself how to paint. I couldn’t let Dylan know. But you can’t hide something like that forever. When he found out I was ditching Data Structures for charcoal sketches, he just frowned, his voice clipped. “That’s a waste of time.” He sounded exactly like my parents. The big blow-up last month happened because I’d officially filed the paperwork to transfer my major to Fine Arts. Dylan was livid. He said I was being impulsive, throwing my future away. In that moment, I just felt exhausted. I didn’t have the energy to try to make him understand anymore. 4 I stared at Dylan’s name in my contact list. Our last texts were from a month ago. I took a deep breath and started typing. Me: Hey Dyl, guess what today is! ✨ No response. Me: If you don’t guess right, the penalty is one kiss. 😘 An hour passed. Me: Okay, okay, I know you’re just pretending not to know so you can get that kiss. 😉 Me: It’s World Oceans Day! We should get dinner to celebrate! Me: Where are you? I can come find youuuu. I felt a familiar frustration bubbling up. I was practically waving a white flag, and he couldn’t even be bothered to text back. I sat in the dining hall, eating with one hand and refreshing my phone with the other, just in case the bad campus Wi-Fi was delaying his reply. I dragged out my meal for over an hour. Crickets. 5 I ended up texting one of Dylan’s roommates, who told me he was at the lab. When I got there, he was hunched over a monitor, debugging code, completely in his element. “Dylan!” I waved, trying to sound cheerful. His head snapped up. He glanced at me, then quickly looked away, trying to act casual. “What are you doing here?” I wrapped my arms around his from behind and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Hey, you. Let’s not be mad anymore, okay? I’m sorry.” The tips of his ears turned that faint shade of pink I knew so well. The icy wall he’d built up started to melt. “Okay,” he mumbled. “Sorry for what?” “…Let’s go get dinner,” I said, dodging the question. “You have dark circles under your eyes. You pulled another all-nighter, didn’t you? You probably haven’t even eaten.” Just as I was about to steer him out the door, his expression hardened again. “Excuse me, you two,” a voice cut in. “He can’t really leave for dinner yet.” I turned. It was Mia, Dylan’s go-to partner for every hackathon and competition. She gave me a smile that felt more like a baring of teeth. “There’s a major competition deadline coming up. Dylan and I really have to grind this out. Sorry, but he can’t go with you.” She gestured to some takeout containers on a desk. “I already ordered food. It’ll be here any minute. You’re welcome to stay, if you want.” There was an undercurrent of smugness in her tone that rubbed me the wrong way. But Dylan had told me how important this competition was. “Oh. Okay, then I won’t bother you guys.” I turned back to Dylan. “Well, text me when you’re not so busy. We can get dinner then.” All I got was a faint “Mm-hmm.” Mia smiled. “Okay, see you around!” The last thing I saw before the lab door clicked shut was Dylan and Mia leaning in close together, pointing at the same screen, completely in sync. A sour knot formed in my stomach. 6 It turns out “not so busy” was a time that never came. Another month went by after that day at the lab. Not a single text from him. I heard from his roommate that he was basically living in the lab. Ever since we got to college, he was always *busy*. Too busy to text back. Way too busy to text first. This past month, I’d thrown myself into my painting and hadn’t reached out to him either. The result? A month of absolute silence. It was hard to believe we were even in the same major, let alone the same city. We were living in two different universes. His was a world of GPAs, research, and competitions. Mine was a world of skipping class to mess with oil paints. He was collecting awards and becoming the CS department’s golden boy. I was collecting warnings from my academic advisor and trying not to flunk out. When had we drifted so far apart? 7 I finally broke down and called him. While the phone was ringing, a notification popped up in my dorm’s group chat. I tapped on it. It was a link to the university’s newsletter. The headline was about Dylan and Mia winning first place in that big competition. The photo showed the two of them on stage, holding a trophy, beaming. They looked good together. Powerful. My roommate had tagged me: *【@Chloe Your BF is a freaking genius!】* Before I could even type a reply, another notification appeared—a recommended article from a news app. *【Power Couple of STEM: Blackwood’s Finest Secure Early Admission to Prestigious Grad Program…】* I slammed the “dislike” button on the article, but a wave of sadness washed over me anyway. Suddenly, the call connected. Dylan’s tired voice came through the line. “What’s up?” My mind was still stuck on that headline. The words tumbled out, sounding more hurt than I intended. “Dylan, why haven’t you talked to me? I just saw that you and—” “Busy,” he cut me off. “…Okay. Well, can you make time for dinner with me?” “Where.” “Just the dining hall. It’ll be quick, I won’t take up too much of your time. Five o’clock?” “Fine.” “See you there?” “Yep.” He hung up. 8 I stood outside the dining hall for an hour and twenty-one minutes. Dylan finally showed up as the sun was setting, casting long shadows across the quad. “Sorry,” he said, not breaking his stride. “Something came up.” I opened my mouth to ask, *Couldn’t you have sent a text?* but I clamped it shut. I didn’t want to start a fight. We were finally together. I got in line for the build-your-own noodle bowl station while he went to the grab-and-go section for a pre-packaged salad. It was his usual. No line, fast to eat. For a genius like him, even eating was a waste of time. By the time I sat down with my steaming bowl, he was already halfway done. He glanced at my food and frowned slightly but said nothing. My noodles were piping hot, so I carefully picked out the cilantro I hated. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dylan lift his wrist and check his watch. *One.* I started a silent count. It was a habit of his, something he started in high school—timing how long a meal took. When he finished his salad, he glanced at his watch again. *Two.* I pretended not to notice the impatient tapping of his foot. I tried to fill the silence, to connect with him. “Hey, so the school is having a student art show,” I said, trying to sound excited. “And even though I’m not an art major or anything, one of my paintings got accepted! I was so—” He lifted his wrist. A third, pointed look at his watch. It was like every single second he had to spend with me, listening to my stupid little life, was an agony he had to endure. 9 “Chloe, if you don’t get serious, you’re just going to end up as a burnout, stuck in the mud.” After a month of silence, that was the first real sentence he’d said to me. I slowly swallowed the noodles in my mouth. I looked up, meeting his cold, impatient gaze. “You’re right,” I said, my voice perfectly level. “I’m a burnout. And I don’t deserve you.” “Let’s break up.”

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At two in the morning, my brother called me in a panic, asking me to cover for him with his wife. “I’m on a business trip, there was a huge pile-up on the highway,” he said, his voice rushed. “The whole road’s blocked. I told Jessica I’m crashing at your place so she doesn’t worry. Just don’t blow my cover.” The location he sent me was, in fact, in my city, right near the downtown bus station. I was about to agree when a series of comments popped up in my vision, scrolling like a live feed. > 【LOL, he’s with a hooker. Using his sis for an alibi. What a scumbag.】 > > 【Yeah, and his wife is 6 months pregnant with their second kid.】 > > 【This is the night he gets HIV. Infects the baby and everything.】 > > 【His wife, Jessica, ends up hating Lily’s guts for this. She was already on her way to check on him but Lily convinces her to go back.】 > > 【No wonder she gets stabbed to death.】 1 I blinked, my blood running cold. *Stabbed to death? Me?* On the other end of the line, my brother, Mike, was getting impatient. “Lily, did you hear me?” he snapped. “If Jessica calls, you just play along.” Maybe it was the pop-ups, but I could have sworn I heard a woman’s muffled voice in the background, asking him if he was done. Mike’s voice became urgent. “Look, just handle it. Jessica’s six months along. If she gets stressed out and something happens, you’ll be the villain of the family! You think Mom will ever forgive you?” He was about to hang up. On instinct, I nudged the cat sleeping next to my pillow. Mochi let out a loud “Mrrow!” Mike paused. “Lily?” he asked, a flicker of uncertainty in his voice. “Lily! Say something!” I poked Mochi again. He meowed, louder this time. My brother exploded. “Damn it! That stupid cat! Useless piece of crap that just gets in the way!” 2 The line went dead. I sat there, hugging Mochi, my head spinning but my heart pounding like a drum. I’d been half asleep when I answered, so I hadn’t said a single word. I’d brought Mochi home for Christmas once; Mike knew he had a habit of messing with my phone. He must have thought the cat answered the call, which is why he felt free to curse like that. I looked around the dark room. The pop-up comments were gone, as if they’d never been there. It felt like a bizarre dream. Real or not, I had one rule: I don’t get involved in my brother’s drama. Ever. I fell back onto the bed, clutching Mochi, and forced myself to breathe. I had less than five hours before my alarm went off. I needed to sleep. *THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!* *BANG-BANG-BANG!* The sound of someone hammering on my front door jolted me awake. I grabbed my phone, my thumb already hovering over the 911 button. “Lily! I know you’re in there! Open this door! Open up!” It was my sister-in-law, Jessica. What the hell was she doing here? I crept to the door and peered through the peephole. Jessica, her belly swollen under her coat, was slamming her fist against the door over and over. The clock on my phone read 3:00 AM. 3 We were separated by a thin sheet of wood, but seeing her face, twisted with rage, terrified me. My phone buzzed with notifications from my building’s group chat—neighbors were already complaining about the noise. Suddenly, Jessica clutched her chest, gasping for air. Pregnant women can get short of breath easily. Worried she was having a medical emergency, I quickly unlocked and opened the door. The second it was open, she stood up straight, her breathing perfectly normal. She shot me a nasty look. “So, you *were* home,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Just gonna let a pregnant woman stand out here and knock until she collapses, huh?” She faked it. Just to get me to open the door. Her face was a hard mask as she shoved past me, slammed the door shut, and locked it from the inside. Then she started storming through my apartment. The kitchen. The bathroom. The bedroom. She threw open each door, letting them bang against the walls. “Jessica, what are you doing? My neighbors are going to file a complaint.” She completely ignored me. Holding her belly with one hand, she ripped open my closet, threw open cabinets, and tore back the shower curtain. Then it hit me. She was looking for someone. I blurted out, “Mike’s not here! Stop looking!” She froze. Her head snapped around, and her eyes locked onto mine. “How did you know I was looking for your brother?” 4 I stumbled for a second, then recovered. “Jessica, we’re not exactly besties. You show up at my door at 3 AM—you think you’re here to check on my social life?” She let out a short, bitter laugh. Maybe she was done searching, or maybe she was just tired. She sank onto my couch. “Your brother told me he was staying here tonight. So why isn’t he here?” That liar. He couldn’t even get ahold of me and he was still using me as an alibi? I was done with their marital problems. I decided to just tell her the truth. “Look, Mike called me around two. He said he was stuck in a pile-up after a car crash and told me to lie for him if you called, because he didn’t want you to worry. I was half asleep and never actually agreed to anything. You can check my call log.” I pulled out my phone, but I realized it proved nothing. The call was only thirty seconds long. I hadn’t thought to record it. And the location screenshot he’d sent me? He’d already unsent it. All I could prove was that we’d been in contact. Jessica looked at me with a smirk that was anything but amused. She pulled out her own phone. “Funny,” she said. “Because your brother sent me a live location share twenty minutes ago. It pinned him right here. In your apartment complex.” 5 What? There was no way Mike had a change of heart and decided to come to my place, only to then decide not to wake me up. But the idea that he drove all the way to my complex just to send a fake location pin seemed insane, too. The bus station he’d screenshotted for me was a good thirty-minute drive away, meaning an hour round trip. Mike couldn’t predict the future. In his mind, his six-months-pregnant wife should have been a hundred miles away, asleep in their bed. And the pop-ups said this “check-up” was a spur-of-the-moment decision. While my brain was trying to process this, there was a loud *CRACK* on the coffee table. I jumped. Jessica had slammed her phone down. Her face was a terrifying mask of fury. “You know what, Lily? I’m starting to think you and your brother are the same kind of trash!” she spat. “This isn’t the first time he’s been out all night. Every single week, he tells me he’s coming here to ‘drop something off for you’ and stays over. I never suspected a thing! I just thought you two were close.” Her eyes filled with tears, her voice cracking. “But last week, he came home with a scratch down his back. A nail mark. That’s when I knew something was wrong. So when he said he was coming to see you again tonight, I decided to check. And what do I find? You’re both in on it, lying to my face.” She was sobbing now, a raw, desperate sound. “He sent me a location from here, but he’s not in your apartment! That means *you* logged into his account and sent it for him!” Holy crap. I never would have made that leap in logic. So she didn’t come here to confirm he *was* here. She came to prove he *wasn’t*. 6 Jessica was staring at me like I was the enemy. As if *I* was the one who had cheated on her, not my brother. And the idea of Mike bringing me things every week was laughable. The only thing I’d gotten from him in the last six months was two bags of protein powder he was trying to get rid of. The gas to drive it over cost more than the powder itself. How could she possibly believe that? > 【This poor girl has no idea, does she? Her brother rented an apartment in her name. In this very complex.】 > > 【Every time he wants to see a hooker, he brings her there. He sends the location to his wife and says he’s dropping stuff off for Lily. The perfect cover.】 > > 【The mom set it all up. She stole Lily’s ID and co-signed the lease. That way, Jessica can’t trace the payments back to Mike.】 > > 【Yeah, she swiped the ID when they were all home for Christmas.】 I froze. Even with the pop-ups, I couldn’t remember when my mom might have taken my ID. You never think about it until you need it. At home, I just toss it in a drawer. And with modern security, it’s hard for someone to use your ID to take your money. But to *give* money away? That’s a different story. All my mom would need is my ID and a copy of my birth certificate to prove our relationship. She could easily walk into a leasing office and say she was helping her daughter rent a place. Who would ever suspect a mother of using her daughter’s identity to create a secret love nest for her son? 7 A chilling cold spread through my chest. The pop-up comments were still scrolling, full of pity. > 【That mom is something else. Golden child son wants to cheat, so she helps him and throws her own daughter under the bus.】 > > 【Lily is the real victim here. She’s been set up from the start. After she convinces Jessica to go home, Jessica eventually finds out about the apartment in Lily’s name. She hates Lily even more than Mike and just snaps. Stabs her.】 > > 【The worst part is, Lily dies without ever knowing why.】 > > 【From her perspective, she just told a small white lie to keep her pregnant sister-in-law from worrying.】 > > 【But Lily didn’t agree to lie this time, did she?】 > > 【Doesn’t matter. Jessica’s already here. Mike has used Lily as an excuse so many times that Jessica sees them as a team. She won’t believe a word Lily says now.】 > > 【This was Mike’s plan all along. Keep his sister and wife from talking, create misunderstandings, and shift all the blame.】 > > 【Look at it now. To Jessica, Lily is the accomplice. To Lily, Jessica is a psycho who showed up in the middle of the night.】 The comments hit me like a splash of cold water. They were right. From the moment she walked in, I’d seen Jessica as an unhinged lunatic. We had no personal issues, yet we were screaming at each other, and I was seconds away from slapping her. > 【Meanwhile, Mike is off having a good time, completely invisible. And when he gets sick, his sister will be the one to pay for it with her life. The nerve of this family is off the charts.】 I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Why would my brother go to such lengths to drag me into his mess? Why would he risk getting a disease that could kill him and his own child? HIV is a death sentence. What was he possibly gaining from this? Someone in the pop-up feed asked the same question. > 【Let’s look at the timeline.】 > > 【The mom and Mike set this plan in motion over six months ago. Him getting HIV is an accident that happens tonight. The affair itself was the plan.】 > > 【So, in the original plan, why does all the hatred get directed at the sister? Why does the sister-in-law, who barely knows her, come straight to her apartment?】 Goosebumps broke out on my arms. The answer was sickeningly clear. > 【Because from the very beginning, her family wanted her dead.】 8 My mother and brother wanting me dead… it had to be about the condo. I’d just bought this place. Over Christmas, my mom kept dropping hints about how hard life was for Mike and Jessica, how my niece was about to start elementary school, and how my new condo just happened to be in a fantastic school district. She kept talking about them needing to have another baby, how they’d never be able to afford a bigger house. At the time, I didn’t know they were already expecting again. I just told her they should focus on their finances before having more kids, that in today’s economy, children were a luxury. Was that enough to make them hate me so much they wanted me gone? And what about Jessica? Even if she killed me, she’d go to prison. Would Mike really gamble with the future of his own child’s mother? Jessica slammed her hand on the table again. “Where is your brother?” she screamed. “Is he leaving us? Is he with someone else?” A single thought cut through my panic. I seized on it. “The baby,” I asked, my voice steady. “It’s another girl, isn’t it?”

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My dad was a cheat and a monster. My cousin led the charge to make my life a living hell at school, forcing me to drop out. The day my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer, we held hands and walked to the roof of the tallest building in our dead-end town. The wind was howling. Mom’s voice trembled. “Maya, honey, I can’t be a burden to you…” Tears streamed down my face as I nodded and took a half-step toward the edge. But then, words scrolled across my vision, bright and impossible against the gray sky: [Don’t jump, Maya! Your mom is Clara Vance, the long-lost daughter of the billionaire Vance family!] [If you jump, it’s all over. Your mom will die, and you’ll end up in a coma. You’ll spend the rest of your life in a vegetable state in one of your uncle’s mansions…] I had to be hallucinating. A side effect of total despair. My mom and I spread our arms, ready. [Your dad took out a million-dollar life insurance policy on you both. Your deaths will make him a rich man!] I lunged, grabbing my mom’s arm and yanking her back from the ledge. “Mom!” I stared into her confused, hopeless eyes. “This roof… let’s find a different one. Another day.” 1 I couldn’t let my worthless father get a cent. I dragged my mom to the public library, the last two dollars in my pocket clutched in my fist. “Maya, what are we doing here?” she whispered, her hand gently stroking my hair. “You want to look up my… my sickness, don’t you? Honey, there’s no cure…” A lump formed in my throat, but I had no time to explain. I got on a computer, opened a browser, and typed. The first result that popped up was a news article: “Chicago billionaire family still offering $1 million reward for information on daughter, missing for forty years.” My heart hammered against my ribs. I scribbled down the phone number and logged off. I ran to the pay phone in the lobby, begging a stranger for a quarter. “Hello, my name is Maya, I’m at the downtown public library. I have information about the Vance family’s missing daughter!” I practically shouted into the receiver the moment a man answered. It was late. His voice was tired, skeptical. “Information? Kid, I’ve gotten thousands of calls from people claiming they have information.” “You’d better be sure about this…” “This time it’s real,” I insisted, my voice cracking. “If you hang up, you’ll never find her.” *And I’ll never be able to afford another phone call.* There was a pause on the other end, then a shift in his tone. “Okay. Stay right where you are. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.” For that half hour, we huddled on the library steps. The wind was cold. Mom, exhausted, fell asleep with her head on my shoulder. It was the tenth day since we’d escaped from the suffocating backwoods of Appalachia. We’d been washing dishes in greasy spoons just to eat. Mom finally collapsed from exhaustion and was rushed to the local clinic. The doctor looked at her chart, pushed his glasses up his nose, and said bluntly, “Your mother has cancer. Late stage.” My world fell apart. After paying the clinic, all I had left was two dollars. I was seventeen. How could I ever afford the treatment she needed? So I lied. I told her she was a burden. She said she wouldn’t drag me down. She said she’d jump. She didn’t know I planned to go with her. My mom grew up in those mountains, raised by my grandma to be my dad’s wife. She was never allowed to go to school. After she had me, she could never have another child. My dad, Dale, was the big man in our tiny town, but he was a joke to men from outside, the guy with “no son.” He took every ounce of that humiliation and beat it into my mother. When I tried to step in, my grandma would yank me away. “If it wasn’t for you, your mother wouldn’t be getting this beating.” When I cried, she’d scream, “Stop your blubbering and go wash your cousin Billy’s underwear!” If I didn’t, I’d get hit, too. I was always the best student in my class. My teacher said knowledge was the only way out of the mountains. But after a decade of straight A’s, I learned that good grades couldn’t save you from a punch. My uncle started the rumor: “A girl getting too smart takes the sense right out of the boys.” From then on, my cousin Billy made my life hell. He’d corner me after school. “It’s your fault I’m so dumb! You stole my brains!” The bullying got so bad I stopped going to school altogether. My dad used my tuition money to buy that million-dollar life insurance policy. I begged my mom to run away. “Mom, please,” I’d whisper at night. “Living here is worse than being dead.” She’d just shake her head, saying she was born in the mountains and would die there, that she didn’t know how to survive anywhere else. Until the day my dad brought another woman home. She was pregnant. She looked at us like we were dirt. “You expect me to marry you when you’re this broke? You’ve still got these two taking up space.” My mom swallowed her pride and served the woman, cleaned up after her. Then my dad said the words that finally broke her. “If you could’ve given me a son, I wouldn’t need a new wife. I need money. I’m marrying Maya off to old man Hemlock for a piece of his land.” My mom begged, but my dad wouldn’t budge. For the first time, she fought back, grabbing a kitchen knife. He beat her until she was bloody and unconscious. The night before he planned to take us on a “hike,” she shook me awake. “Maya… let’s run.” 2 Half an hour later, a sleek black SUV pulled up to the curb, silent and imposing. The pop-ups were back: [It’s a Rolls-Royce Cullinan! Your uncle has arrived in style, Maya!] I didn’t know the name, but the car was so polished and black it seemed to swallow the light. It made our torn, dirty clothes look even more pathetic. The door opened and a tall man in a tailored suit stepped out. His brow furrowed as his eyes swept over us, taking in our miserable state. I looked closely at his face—he had my mother’s eyes. He seemed to glow, surrounded by an invisible aura of power. It wasn’t a hallucination. It was the light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel. [It’s your youngest uncle, Julian! He’s finally seeing you alive and well, not the girl in a coma he’ll visit for the rest of his life…] So this was my uncle. “You’re the ones who called?” he asked, his voice crisp. I shook my mom awake, pushing her forward. “It’s her! This is the Vance family’s long-lost daughter you’ve been searching for!” His gaze was sharp, analytical, as he studied my mother’s weathered, frightened face. “You have no proof. What makes you so certain?” Mom was terrified. “Maya, what’s going on?” she whispered, looking from me to him. I suppressed a wave of nausea and said the only thing I could think of that would cut through his skepticism. “Proof? A DNA test will give you all the proof you need. Science doesn’t lie.” He gestured for us to get in the car. The inside was unbelievably luxurious. My mom shrank behind me, barely breathing. The man—my uncle—never stopped studying us. I could tell he didn’t want to believe that these two ragged figures were his family. At the hospital, the blood draw was quick. We waited in a conference room. What if it wasn’t her? I couldn’t even bear the thought. A doctor practically ran into the room, handing a file to my uncle. My mom instinctively took my hand, her warm palms enveloping my icy fingers. “Maya, your hands are like stones. Let me warm them up…” My uncle’s eyes flew across the page, finally landing on the bottom line: “The probability of a full sibling relationship is greater than 99.99%.” The world seemed to stop. The doctor, sensing our confusion, explained, “That means we can say with one hundred percent certainty that they are brother and sister.” A roar filled my ears. My voice shook. “Mom, did you hear that? You have a brother! You have a family! You’re going to be okay!” Mom was stiff in my arms, her face a blank mask of disbelief. Hot tears fell onto my hand. “A brother?” she whispered. My uncle covered his face, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs. He hadn’t been cold; he’d been terrified. Terrified of having his hopes dashed again after forty years of searching. He dropped his hands, his face wet with tears. “Clara,” he choked out, stepping forward. “It’s me. It’s your brother, Julian. I finally found you.” He hugged his long-lost sister, laughing and crying at the same time. My mother could be loved like this. She was *supposed* to be loved like this. I had gambled everything, and I had won. We had money now. She could be saved. We didn’t have to die. Julian pulled out his phone. “I found her! It’s really her! Mom, Dad, get to the hospital. Now!” Within the hour, the room was filled with well-dressed men and elegant women, all surrounding us. 3 My whole life, my dad and grandma just called my mom “Girl.” As if she were a slave, not a person. Now, a room full of people looked at her with pure adoration. “I have a name,” Mom murmured, as if waking from a dream. “I’m not ‘Girl’ anymore?” She looked at me, her eyes shining. “Clara Vance. Isn’t that a beautiful name, Maya?” Suddenly, she grabbed my arm and pushed me in front of everyone, her voice trembling with urgency. “This is my daughter! She’s smart, a real bookworm! Can you please send her to school? She’ll be good, I promise! She won’t cause any trouble!” As soon as the words were out, she shrank back into a corner, as if she’d asked for the impossible. She was always like that, putting everyone else first. An elderly woman with silver hair and a string of pearls was helped to the front. She threw her arms around my mother, her sobs tearing through the room. “Clara! My Clara! I’ve been looking for you for so long.” This was my grandmother. It turned out my mom had three older brothers. My eldest uncle was a powerful senator. The second was the chief of surgery at a renowned hospital. And Julian, the youngest, was the CEO of the massive Vance Corporation. I took a step forward. “My mom is sick,” I said quietly. “It’s terminal. We need a lot of money for treatment.” The joyful chatter stopped. Were they already regretting finding us? “I can quit school,” I added quickly. “All the money can go to her. I’ll take care of her. I won’t be any trouble!” Mom gasped. “No, Maya! If you quit school for me, I won’t get any treatment.” My grandmother’s face, a mixture of joy and sorrow, hardened with determination. She squeezed my mother’s hand. “Don’t be silly, child! The one thing the Vance family doesn’t lack is money! We’ll get you the best doctors, the best medicine. Everything.” She took my hand. “And Maya is absolutely going to school! Now that you’re home, everything you’ve ever lost, everything you’ve ever suffered—we will make it right.” Just then, a woman in sharp high heels strode into the room, a girl my age trailing behind her. “Mother, I’m so sorry I’m late,” she said, her eyes flicking dismissively over my mom. “I heard you found my aunt?” Julian quickly made the introduction. “Pearl, this is Clara.” Pearl’s face soured. The girl next to her made no effort to hide her contempt, looking me up and down like I was something she’d scraped off her shoe. “Don’t my uncles love me anymore?” the girl wailed, bursting into loud, theatrical tears. “Now that *she’s* here, are you just going to forget about me?” Her mother, Pearl, immediately joined in, tears rolling down her perfectly made-up face. “Mother, brothers, it’s our fault. Mia and I have been in the way for too long. It’s time for us to leave and not be an eyesore.” Mia? Her name was Mia. My mom, oblivious to the drama, smiled and reached for Pearl’s hand. “Don’t say that! It must be fate. My daughter’s name is Maya!” Pearl snatched her hand back as if she’d been burned. “What?” she shrieked. “Are you suggesting my daughter should change her name for this… this trash?” “Pearl, that is enough!” my eldest uncle, the senator, boomed, his voice echoing in the silent room.

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Liam Sterling was in love with my roommate. He brought her to the tense family dinner, ready to confront our parents and publicly detonate the pact they’d made for us when we were kids. He pointed at me, his voice ringing with disdain as he addressed both sets of parents. “I have never, not for one second, loved her. The thought of marrying Chloe makes me sick.” That was the last day I ever loved Liam Sterling. Later, when another guy finally asked me out, Liam did everything in his power to stop it. He stood there, holding the crayon-scribbled “marriage contract” he’d written for me when we were seven. “You promised,” he said, his voice cracking. “You pinky-promised you would only ever marry me.” * 1 I arrived just as the shouting started. Stomping the snow from my boots on the welcome mat, I reached for the door. “I already told you,” a cold voice snapped from inside, “I never agreed to that ridiculous arrangement.” Liam. The sound of his voice stopped my hand in mid-air. “It was an agreement between our families, made when you were children! Are you trying to humiliate Chloe’s parents by bringing this girl here?” Through the crack in the door, I saw Liam squaring off with his father. My own parents sat silently on the couch, their faces tight with tension. “This is my girlfriend,” Liam announced, grabbing my roommate Tessa’s hand and pulling her forward. Liam’s dad turned beet red. “You are marrying Chloe, and that is final! You don’t have a choice!” My hand trembled, and I accidentally pushed the door open. Every head in the room swiveled towards me. Liam’s eyes, cold as ice, locked onto mine. He pointed at me, but his words were for his parents. They were loud and clear, a declaration of war. “I have never, not for one second, loved her. The thought of marrying Chloe makes me sick.” Without waiting for a response, he grabbed Tessa’s hand and stormed out. His gaze swept over me as if I were a piece of furniture. Behind me, Liam’s parents were stumbling over apologies while my own dad looked like he was about to chase Liam down and punch him. But I just stared at their retreating backs. Liam and I had grown up in each other’s pockets. For all those years, he’d never denied our “arrangement.” When people teased us about it, he’d just smile. I thought he loved me back. 2 That night, after two hours of my parents’ gentle consoling, they finally let me go to bed. Mom called the school and told them I was sick. I couldn’t face going back to my dorm room. Just as I was drifting off, my phone lit up on the nightstand. A text from Liam. Liam: I’m outside your house. Come down. We need to talk. His words from earlier echoed in my head. My childhood best friend, the boy I’d built my world around, had just publicly gutted me for another girl. I didn’t go down that night. But I didn’t sleep, either. I drifted in and out of a dream. A little boy with Liam’s face sat at a desk, carefully writing something with a crayon. He finished, hopped off the chair, and ran over to a little girl with my face who was crying. “Don’t cry, CeeCee,” he said, using my childhood nickname. “You have to marry me when we grow up.” He pressed a waxy piece of paper into my hand, his own version of a marriage contract, his eyes bright and serious. “I’ll always protect you, CeeCee. Pinky promise.” The moon slipped out from behind a cloud, and the sudden light woke me. I wiped the dampness from the corner of my eye. 3 The next morning, Liam cornered me on my way to school. “You’re leaving this late? You skipped breakfast again, didn’t you?” The casual, familiar tone of his voice made me flinch. He held out a paper bag from our favorite bakery. “Chloe,” he said, his voice softer now. “What I said yesterday… I didn’t mean it to be about you. I was just angry at my parents.” I took a step back, away from the bag. “No thanks. The thought of eating anything from you makes me sick.” His hand dropped. He just stared at me, his jaw tight. “Okay. You got your shot in. Are we good now?” He took a breath. “Look, I just want to ask you not to give Tessa a hard time. She didn’t do anything wrong. I went after her.” As it turned out, I didn’t have to give her a hard time. She brought it to me. I had just gotten to class and sat down when Tessa walked over, holding a carton of milk. Her voice was just loud enough to cut through the quiet morning chatter. “CeeCee,” she said, her voice dripping with fake sweetness. “Can you forgive me? I brought you this as a peace offering.” Every eye in the room was on us. I looked from the milk to her face. “Forgive you for what?” She placed the carton on my desk, her eyes welling up. “I never should have accepted Liam’s friend request. I didn’t know he was… yours.” She reached out and tugged on my sleeve, her voice catching. “Please don’t be mad at me, CeeCee. If you want him back, I’ll… I’ll give him back.” Before I could respond, Tessa’s best friend, Maya, cut in. “Seriously, Tessa? Why are you apologizing?” she said loudly. “Chloe and Liam are just friends. You didn’t steal her boyfriend. And Chloe,” she said, turning to me, “maybe you could drop the ice princess act for five seconds?” It was a perfectly executed performance. “You two are good,” I said flatly. “Good cop, bad cop, right?” I pulled my arm away from Tessa’s grasp. I didn’t use much force, but she let out a theatrical gasp and stumbled backward, crashing right into my desk. “Ah!” The carton of milk went flying, splashing all over her shirt. And that’s when Liam walked in. “Tessa, are you okay?” he rushed to her side, shrugging off his jacket and wrapping it around her shoulders, his eyes filled with concern. “I’m fine, Liam,” she sniffled. The other students were all looking at me like I was a monster. “What are you all looking at me for?” I said, a bitter laugh escaping my lips. “She tripped.” Liam heard me. I know he did. But all his attention was on Tessa. “I’m taking you to the nurse’s office. Just hang on.” He scooped her up into his arms and carried her out of the classroom without a single glance in my direction. It was like I was invisible. That afternoon, Maya got her revenge. As I was coming back from the water fountain, she deliberately slammed into me, spilling her entire cup of bright red slushie down my front and knocking me to the floor. “Oops,” she said with a shrug. “My bad.” Then she walked away. I looked up and saw Liam standing down the hall. Our eyes met. He just stood there, watching me, his expression as cold and distant as if he were looking at a stranger. … Just before the final bell rang, I walked back into the classroom, soaked and shivering. In my hand, I held a thermos. Without a word, I walked over to Maya’s desk, unscrewed the cap, and poured the steaming, pale-yellow liquid over her head. “I did it on purpose,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “And I’m not sorry.” She shrieked, jumping up. “What is this! What did you pour on me?!” I just smiled. It wasn’t until the whole thing blew up and we were in the principal’s office that I clarified. “It was just hot water,” I said. “And two tea bags.” 4 After that, I became a pariah. Everyone avoided me like I had the plague. I started to wonder if I really was the bad guy. Meanwhile, Liam and Tessa became the school’s golden couple, the power-couple scholars. The day they made it official was the day I finally told the truth. “Hey, we’re all going out for a class party on Friday. You, uh, you wanna come?” The class president asked me hesitantly, after he’d already invited everyone else. I tried to look casual, but my hands were clenched into fists under my desk. “Sure,” I said. Maybe I wasn’t as hated as I thought. At the party, someone spun the bottle for Truth or Dare. It landed on Liam. A guy named Josh grinned. “Okay, Sterling. Your childhood sweetheart Chloe and your new girlfriend Tessa are both drowning. You can only save one. Who do you pick?” I never imagined the stupid question would feel like a prophecy. Liam and Tessa were sitting directly across from me. The air grew thick. I stared at the condensation on my glass of soda, not blinking. I could have left. I should have. But I was frozen. Liam let out a short, easy laugh. “What do you mean, *new girlfriend*? Tessa’s been my girlfriend for a while now. I thought you all knew.” In my peripheral vision, I saw him sling his arm around Tessa’s shoulders. “Tessa, honey, can you swim?” “Not a stroke,” she said, blushing. Liam sighed, his voice dripping with affection. “Well, I guess if you fell in the ocean, I’d have to hold onto you the whole way, wouldn’t I?” He never answered the question directly, but the answer was obvious. And fair. She was his girlfriend. It was only right that he’d save her first. I closed my eyes for a second, fighting back the sting. Everyone started teasing Liam about how sappy he was. I made myself as small as possible, breathing shallowly, hoping no one would look at me with pity or scorn. But Tessa wasn’t going to let me off that easily. When the bottle spun to me, she smiled, a picture of innocence. “CeeCee,” she asked sweetly. “Is there anyone here… that you have a crush on? *Or ever had a crush on?*” It was the most viciously kind question I’d ever heard. “And if you lie,” she added with a playful wink, “your whole family will have bad luck forever!” I was trapped. If I stormed out, I’d be the drama queen forever. If I stayed, I’d be the pathetic girl who couldn’t let go. I slowly lifted my head and met Tessa’s triumphant gaze. “Yes,” I said. As soon as the word was out, I felt Liam’s eyes snap to me. Tessa just smiled and tightened her grip on his arm. “I knew it.” A month ago, this would have been the most humiliating moment of my life. But saying it out loud… something shifted. The feeling was distant, like a memory. It was like a soft breeze had finally blown away the last lingering wisp of whatever I felt for him. And when the wind passed, the water was still. In my seventeenth year, the crush I’d been nursing for three years finally died. I was sure of it. I didn’t love Liam Sterling anymore. 5 “Chloe.” Liam caught me as I was leaving the party. He walked over, his expression unreadable. “Today, when you said you liked someone…” He hesitated. “Was it me?” Honestly, I couldn’t muster an ounce of feeling for the boy standing in front of me. “Yes,” I said simply. Then I added, “It *was* you. Past tense. The moment you stood in front of our families and said marrying me would make you sick, I decided to stop loving you. And besides, you have a girlfriend now. I’m over it.” Liam’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I never meant to hurt you,” he said, the words sounding hollow. “I’ve always just thought of you as a sister.” I didn’t want to hear his excuses. “Chloe, I’ll make it up to you,” he insisted. I refused, immediately and repeatedly. I showed him with every action that I wanted nothing to do with him or his girlfriend. But Liam, consumed by guilt, didn’t listen. He insisted on bringing me breakfast, even though I threw it back at him every single time. His misguided attempts at kindness didn’t go unnoticed by Tessa. She saw his attention, not my rejection, and decided I was trying to steal him back. And so, her games escalated. The day before our mock exam scores were posted, Tessa was called into the guidance counselor’s office. She came back to her desk and sobbed for the rest of the period. A rumor started to spread: she’d been caught cheating. No one, least of all Liam, believed it. She was second in our class, right behind him. “No way,” people whispered. “That cheat sheet they found couldn’t have been hers.” “Yeah, Tessa would never do that.” I didn’t pay much attention, other than knowing I’d done well on the exam. The next day, after the scores were posted, Liam blocked my path as I was leaving school. “Chloe,” he said, his voice hard. “Did you do it?” I was confused. “Do what?” “Framing Tessa for cheating. Did you plant that note?” he demanded, stepping closer. I scoffed. “You think I have time for that? You really think I care enough about her to go to that much trouble?” He narrowed his eyes. “Then why did your score go up by twenty-seven points?” “Maybe I just studied!” I snapped, my patience gone. “Liam, you’re being paranoid.” His face was a dark mask. He let out a bitter, mocking laugh. “Chloe, what happened to you? When did you become like this?” He shook his head, his eyes full of disappointment. “Framing people, lying about it… Is this how your parents raised you?” I was so angry I couldn’t speak. Before I could find the words, he held up his phone and played a security video. It showed the hallway outside the counselor’s office. Between the time the exams were collected and the end of the school day, I was the only person who had entered the office. This was Tessa’s plan all along. She’d planted the note herself, on a test she knew she could ace. The video was the final nail in my coffin. Liam looked down at me, his voice devoid of all emotion. “Everyone has to face the consequences of their actions, Chloe.” He turned and walked away. 6 My last hope was my guidance counselor. This whole case was subjective, with no real proof. But when I walked into her office, she just looked at me with weary disapproval. “Chloe, why would you do something like this? Are you that jealous of Tessa’s grades?” My throat went dry. I felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. I couldn’t say a word. Liam was there, comforting a teary-eyed Tessa. “Chloe! I thought we were friends!” Tessa cried, her voice thick with fake betrayal. “I trusted you! How could you do this to me?” She grabbed a heavy textbook from the counselor’s desk and hurled it at my face. The sharp corner caught me right on the bridge of my nose. “You almost ruined my life!” she screamed. Liam just looked away. The counselor offered a weak reprimand. “Tessa, we don’t resort to violence.” Then she looked at me, her eyes warning me not to retaliate. “Chloe, if you just apologize, we can drop the whole thing. No mark on your permanent record.” If my score was nullified, I’d be kicked out of the honors track for senior year. But I hadn’t done it. How could I admit to something I hadn’t done? “I’m only going to say this once,” I said, my voice shaking. “I did not frame Tessa.” As the words left my mouth, I felt something warm and wet trickle from my nose. The book had given me a nosebleed. I didn’t wait to see their reactions. I turned and walked out. “Stop.” Liam followed me out, blocking my path. He saw the blood and frowned. But his words were still laced with blame. “Chloe, you have to apologize to Tessa. She doesn’t deserve this.” I wiped my nose with the back of my hand and held it up for him to see, the blood stark against my skin. My voice was barely a whisper. “Liam, can I please just go clean up?” I was so tired. I felt like a person hanging off a cliff, my fingers slipping, with no strength left to hold on. I didn’t even have the energy to argue anymore. Liam’s brow furrowed. “I’ll take you.” He reached for my arm. I flinched away, my eyes on the floor. “Liam,” I said, my voice completely dead. “Please. Just… stay away from me.” 7 In the end, I never apologized. But it didn’t matter. Everyone had already decided I was guilty. Students who used to ignore me now muttered insults as I walked by. And my exam score, the one I had been so proud of, was officially invalidated. The last straw was the mandatory spring field trip. Another perfect opportunity for Tessa to set a trap. “Tessa and Chloe,” the teacher announced, reading from a list. “You two are on firewood duty.” The moment we were deep in the woods, Tessa showed her true colors. I quietly switched on the voice recorder in my pocket. “It must hurt, CeeCee,” she said, her tone light and conversational. “Having your childhood sweetheart stolen away.” I baited the hook. “So, that cheat sheet… you planted it so Liam would hate me for good? To make sure I wouldn’t try to get him back?” She glanced around, then smiled. “Of course. And everyone believed it. How did it feel? When that book hit your face? Did it hurt?” I had what I needed. With this recording, I could destroy her. But she wasn’t done. As I turned to walk away, she shoved me, hard. “Ah—” I tumbled down a steep, wooded slope. But in her moment of triumph, Tessa lost her footing and came tumbling down right after me. We both ended up snagged on the thick branches of a fallen tree overhanging a ravine, dangling precariously. 8 I tried to pull myself up, but the branches were too flimsy. “Liam! Help!” Tessa screamed. A moment later, he crashed through the undergrowth, his face pale with panic. “Liam, I’m so scared,” Tessa whimpered, reaching a hand out to him. He looked from her to me, his eyes filled with a pained apology. “I’m sorry, Chloe,” he said. He stretched his hand out—to Tessa. … “I’ll pull Tessa up, then I’ll get you,” he promised. Tessa’s expression flickered for a second. She took his hand and started to scramble up. I gritted my teeth. “Okay. Thank you.” I couldn’t blame him. She was his girlfriend. The fact that he was even willing to come back for me was more than I expected. But as Tessa was pulling herself onto solid ground, she suddenly shifted her weight. Her hiking boot came down, hard, on my hand, grinding it into the rough bark. With her other foot, she pushed off the branch, making it look like an accident. A shot of pure agony went through my hand. My fingers went numb, and my grip gave way. I was falling. “Chloe!” “CeeCee!”

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I was being brought back to the family home, and the girl who had taken my place was dying. My parents never left her side. My brother blamed me for coming back and upsetting her. My husband was her doctor, and even in the middle of our cold, mechanical lovemaking, he would leave at the sound of her voice. I had tolerated her, made excuses for her, given way to her every whim. But this time was different. She had pushed me down the stairs on our wedding anniversary, on purpose. As they loaded me into the ambulance, my husband was still defending her. “She’s just a kid, Nora. Don’t be mad at her. She’ll feel so guilty.” He wiped a tear from my cheek. “Don’t cry. I’ll save you. You’re going to be fine.” Then his voice hardened slightly. “But after this, you need to think about your own actions. You’re so healthy. You shouldn’t be flaunting it in front of her, upsetting her like that.” He was my surgeon. He put in a few sloppy stitches, then rushed off to comfort the crying imposter my family had called him to see. And in that moment, something inside me finally broke. “I’m in so much pain,” I told the System. “I don’t want to play this game anymore. I want to go home.” In seven days, I would die from a massive hemorrhage caused by his shoddy surgical work. And they would have to live with the regret for the rest of their lives. * 1 No one came to pick me up from the hospital. After waiting for hours, I finally sent a message to the family group chat, letting them know I was being discharged. A long time passed. Half a day. Finally, a notification. It was my brother, Leo. Leo: K. That was it. Silence. Ten agonizing minutes later, my phone buzzed again. It was my mother. Mom: Nora, sweetie… can you find your own way home? We’re a little tied up right now. Then, a message from *her*. From Ivy. Ivy: Oh, Nora, don’t bother them! They just got back from taking me on vacation. They’re exhausted from the flight, and we have to go to the hospital for my check-up. And then, a message from my husband, Dr. Julian Vance. Julian: Nora, I’m Ivy’s doctor. I’m responsible for her follow-up. I can’t take the day off. Just grab a cab. Call me if you need anything. I had typed out a message: *Can just one of you please come get me?* I stared at the words on the screen, then deleted them, one by one. I knew the truth. When it came to me versus Ivy, I would always be the second choice. For years, Ivy had treated her own life like a game, threatening to stop her medication one day, claiming she wanted to die the next. And Julian, my brilliant, dedicated husband, would chase after her, tirelessly pulling her back from the brink. It had become their routine. “Ivy,” he would tell her, his voice a low, intense murmur. “You’re not allowed to die on my watch. I don’t care how much you try to self-destruct. I have a thousand ways to keep you alive.” 2 That night, I was running a bath when Julian came home. I was undressing, my hand tracing the angry red line on my chest, when he wrapped his arms around me from behind, his lips on the back of my neck. “Darling,” he murmured. “Still not in the shower? Were you waiting for me to wash you?” He gently turned me to face him, his fingers already working at the buttons of my shirt. “Your stitches… you shouldn’t get them wet. Let me help.” His hands stopped when he saw it. The ugly, puckered scar on my chest. I shoved him away. “Don’t touch me!” He looked surprised, then chuckled, thinking I was misinterpreting his intentions. “You have a dirty mind, you know that?” he teased. “I’m not a complete animal. I’ll wait until you’re healed. Then I’ll collect my payment, with interest.” “I don’t want you to wash me,” I said, my voice flat. He raised an eyebrow. “Still mad at me? Fine. Take it out on me. But don’t blame Ivy. She’s just a kid, Nora. Don’t hold it against her. She’s so sick. She’s miserable.” I couldn’t help but laugh, a bitter, broken sound. “In case you’ve forgotten, Julian, your ‘kid’ is the exact same age as me. She’s miserable? What about me? Did it ever occur to you that when I fell down those stairs, I could have died?” He frowned. “Don’t be dramatic, darling. You’re fine. And your wound… I stitched it up myself, didn’t I?” He smiled, a flash of his old, confident charm. “You’re healthy. You’re not going to die. You just overthink things. Trust my work. I won’t let anything happen to you, okay?” I looked down at the jagged, uneven line of stitches and fought back tears. “You made me ugly, Julian. You know how much I hate being ugly.” He sighed, a long, weary sound. “Ivy called me right before your surgery. She was hysterical, threatening to kill herself. I had to go to her. You know that, right? I don’t regret it. If I had been one minute later, she would be dead.” He cupped my face in his hands. “And you… you need to stay away from her. Don’t provoke her. She’s already been through so much. She has a temper. She could hurt you again, and that would break my heart.” He stroked my cheek. “She’s not like you, Nora. She’s dying. She’s pitiful. Just… let her have this, okay? If you need to be angry, be angry with me. Tonight, in bed, you can punish me however you want.” He leaned in to kiss me, but I turned my head away. The way he was with her… it was different. And in that moment, I had nothing left to say. 3 The funny thing is, Julian and I met in college. And he was the one who fell for me first. His family was practically medical royalty. Generations of brilliant doctors, a prestigious private hospital bearing their name. And Julian was the crown prince. A child prodigy, a state scholar who went straight from his undergrad to a Ph.D. program at a top university. He was beautiful, in a cool, detached sort of way. A picture of him in his white coat went viral online. Everyone said that for a man who seemed so emotionless, he was hopelessly in love with me. They said marrying him was a once-in-a-lifetime stroke of luck. In college, when I dropped our promise ring in the campus lake, he dove in after it without a second thought. When I got a paper cut, he’d fuss over it for days. I used to stay up late, a bad habit that sometimes made my chest ache. He was terrified I was going to die young. At 11 PM on the dot, he’d confiscate my phone. If I protested, he’d pin me to the bed, his voice a low growl. “I heard about a method to help people sleep. It’s called… marital duties. We could try it. Or, you could be a good girl and go to sleep before I make you cry.” Once, I had to have a minor surgery. He was more nervous than I was. He held my hand before they wheeled me in, his voice soft and reassuring. “Don’t be scared. It’s just a little monster we have to fight. I’ll be right here. Always.” When we fought, he was always the first to apologize. “Nora, please talk to me. If you’re unhappy, I’m unhappy. I can’t stand it when you’re mad at me.” I thought he would always choose me. As long as he chose me, I could survive in this world. But then, he became Ivy’s doctor. He didn’t care what time I went to bed anymore. He was too busy. Busy reading bedtime stories to Ivy over the phone, his voice a low, soothing murmur until she fell asleep, no matter how late it was. I’d sit next to him, watching him smile at his phone, the familiar ache in my chest a dull, constant throb. “Julian,” I’d whisper, tugging on his sleeve. “It’s late. Let’s go to sleep.” He’d press a finger to his lips. “Shh. Ivy’s not asleep yet.” And now… now he would rather I hate him than hold a grudge against her. *I don’t want to play this game anymore,* I told the System. *I want to go home.* *Are you sure, Host?* the System replied. *In this world, you have a family. A husband. If you succeed, you can stay here forever.* *I’m sure,* I said. The mission was simple. All I needed was for one person, just once, to choose me over Ivy. I had been so hopeful, so confident. I had tried so hard to please them, remembering their birthdays, their favorite foods, their little quirks. I thought if I was just sincere enough, they would love me back. But in the end, no one came. My family, my husband… they always chose her. This time, next time, every time. I think it’s time for me to go home. Back to my real home. The System sighed. *Host, when Ivy pushed you down the stairs, you sustained severe internal injuries and massive soft tissue damage. In seven days, your stitches will rupture, and you will die from a massive hemorrhage.* Just as it said, a network of pain spread through my body. I wonder, I thought, a strange sense of calm washing over me. I wonder what his face will look like when he realizes that I died from a surgery performed by his own genius hands. 4 The next morning, we were all having breakfast together. My family and my husband, all gathered around Ivy. “Mom, you won’t believe how bad Leo’s photography skills are,” she was saying, giggling. “He took hundreds of pictures of me on our trip, and only a few are usable. It’s a good thing I’m so photogenic. Anyone else would have looked terrible.” “Hey, I tried my best,” Leo said, ruffling her hair. “You’re the one who kept demanding more pictures.” Ivy was glowing, her cheeks flushed with color. I, on the other hand, looked like a ghost. Even Leo, who usually ignored me, frowned when he saw me. “Nora, you’re so pale. Are you okay?” Before I could answer, Ivy snorted. “Oh, Leo, don’t pay any attention to her. She’s always faking sick to get attention. She’s probably just being dramatic.” Julian looked at me, a flicker of concern in his eyes, but Ivy immediately recaptured everyone’s attention. “Ugh, pasta again? I want a burger and fries tomorrow. Freshly made!” “You know you can’t have greasy food with your heart condition,” Leo chided. Ivy stuck her tongue out. “What’s the worst that could happen? I have my own personal doctor right here. He won’t let anything bad happen to me, right?” Julian looked at her with a fond, exasperated smile. “You can have a little taste. But that’s it.” “You’re no fun,” she pouted, but it sounded more like flirting than complaining. Julian had bought a house just down the street so he could be closer to her, to monitor her condition. He designed every one of her meals himself. He placed a piece of shrimp on her plate. “Ivy, you need to listen to me. What you did to Nora was wrong. You need to apologize.” Ivy’s face fell. She slammed her chopsticks on the table. “Why should I apologize to her? She was in my way! She deserved it!” Julian didn’t get angry. He just coaxed her, his voice gentle. “Be good. Just say you’re sorry. See that apple on the table? Just hand it to her and say ‘I’m sorry.’ And then you two can make up. Nora is very understanding. She’ll forgive you.” The next thing I knew, Ivy had snatched the largest apple from the bowl and hurled it at my face. It hit me squarely in my right eye. A sharp, blinding pain shot through my head. This was their pattern. Ivy would lash out, Julian would patch me up, and the whole family would tell me not to be so lively and healthy in front of her. My good health was an insult to her sickness. “Fine!” Ivy screamed, her eyes filling with tears. “I’ll apologize! I’m sorry! I’m the one who should be sorry for being sick, for dying! I’ll just stop my medication tonight, how about that?!” In an instant, they were all hovering over her. “Silly girl, we were just teasing you,” Leo said, rubbing her back. “Don’t say such things!” my mother cried. “I can’t lose you!” “Okay, okay, no apology,” Julian said, frantically wiping her tears. “Just don’t stop your medication. Please.” It was always like this. I clutched my throbbing eye, a silent observer in my own home. Finally, Julian remembered me. “Nora,” he said, his voice strained, “I’ll put some ice on that for you later. It’ll be fine.” For a second, a flicker of hope. We had been together for five years. Maybe, just maybe, he still cared. But then he added, “Can you stop being so selfish for a minute and help me calm her down? She’s threatening to stop her medication because of you.” And just like that, the hope died. I started to laugh, a hollow, self-mocking sound. How could I have been so stupid? I stood up, my voice dripping with an icy calm I didn’t know I possessed. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll calm her down.” I looked at Ivy, my one good eye burning with a cold fire. “This is what, the third time this week? You’re all talk, Ivy. You say you want to die? You say you’re going to stop your medication? Then do it.” I leaned forward, my voice rising to a shout. “If you really want to die, then just do it!”

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I was reborn on my fifth birthday. My older brother, Kevin, had snuck me out of the house to “play.” He set me down on a busy street corner and pulled a piece of candy from his pocket. “Audie, bro’s gotta use the restroom. You wait right here.” That’s when the pop-up comments appeared in my vision, scrolling like a live-stream chat right in front of his face. [As soon as the Male Lead ditches his bratty sister, he’ll find the Female Lead, our lucky little star! Then the family’s rags-to-riches story can finally start. Can’t wait!] [But the villainess is only five. It’s freezing out here. Is he really just going to leave her? He’s a teenager, he can’t be that cruel.] [Cruel? Please. That villainess is rotten to the core. She’s just a plot device to cause trouble later. So annoying.] [Exactly. It’d be better if she just froze to death. Then she wouldn’t be able to interrupt the Male and Female Leads every time things are about to get spicy. Let us have our fun!] [YEET THE VILLAINESS! I’m here for the adopted-sibling romance! Let’s goooo! lol] So, in my first life, my brother hadn’t *accidentally* lost me. He’d thrown me away on purpose. “Audie, you be a good girl and wait, okay?” Kevin cooed, holding out the candy. “Here, your favorite.” I snatched the candy and wrapped my arms around his leg, letting out a wicked grin. “Okay, I’ll be good. But I also want a can of peaches, cookies, a soda, chips, a hot pretzel, Fruit Roll-Ups, and a big slice of pizza…” When he tried to refuse, I started screaming my head off and refused to let go. I didn’t release him until he’d spent the entire hundred-dollar bill he’d swindled from our parents. Then, clutching my mountain of snacks, I sat down to wait for my new brother to come find me. 1 In my last life, I waited from dawn until dusk. My brother never came back. But someone else did: Leo. Leo was fifteen that year. His mom was dead, and his dad had skipped town. He ran a small crew of kids in similar situations, hustling to get by, flipping whatever they could find. The day he found me, he’d just lost everything on a bad deal. He was broke, so he wasn’t planning on picking up a stray. But he saw me just standing there like a little wooden doll, my face pale and blue from the cold. He rummaged through his pockets and all he found was a single, crumpled cigarette. He lit it and handed it to me. “To keep your hands warm,” he said. I thought he was a good person. And cute. I decided to follow him. He didn’t notice me until I was standing in the doorway of the abandoned warehouse he called home. He tried to shoo me away, but I wouldn’t budge. I started introducing myself to anyone who would listen. “I’m Leo’s sister,” I’d say proudly. “His real sister.” I even started calling myself Audrey, same as him. Leo never officially admitted we were related, but he stopped trying to get rid of me. And he was good to me. Whenever there was food, I got the bigger half. The place was drafty, but he built me a small bed and covered it with a soft blanket. He slept on a pile of newspapers. When he had a little extra cash, he bought me new clothes. He started sending me to school. A month before the Miller family found me, when I was fifteen, Leo died in a freak accident. 2 It wasn’t until I died, was reborn, and saw those pop-up comments that I understood. Leo and I were just side characters in a book. Our lives were pre-written, and we were both destined to be tragic footnotes. After the Millers found me, the fake heiress, Crystal, couldn’t stand me. I fought her at every turn, becoming the “evil stepsister” of the story. Once my family was thoroughly disgusted with me, my own brother—the male lead—pushed me down a flight of stairs and killed me. Leo’s fate was even worse. He didn’t even get a name in the book. He was just “the orphan who raised her.” His early death served only to make my backstory more tragic, my personality more “twisted.” As if his life was meaningless. I couldn’t understand it. Why did a selfish monster who’d abandon his five-year-old sister get to be the hero, destined for a lifetime of wealth and happiness? While Leo, who took me in when he couldn’t even feed himself, was destined to die an early death? Thankfully, fate had given me a second chance. If the story wanted me to be a greedy, evil brat, then fine. This time, I would be the most conniving, ruthless brat imaginable. And I would fight to carve out a long, happy future for me and for Leo. 3 “Hey, kid. It’s getting dark. You’d better get home before the big bad wolf gets you!” Finally. It was Leo. Seeing his familiar, fifteen-year-old face, alive and well, I burst into tears. Leo froze, completely bewildered. When he finally snapped out of it, he dropped to his knees in front of me, frantically trying to calm me down, promising there was no wolf, that he’d fight it off if there was. The tears just kept coming. Passersby started to stare. Leo looked like he was about to cry, too. “Please don’t cry, please don’t cry, I’ll buy you a treat.” As he said it, his own stomach let out a loud growl. I choked on a sob and started to laugh. In my last life, I’d watched him turn his pockets inside out and find nothing but that one cigarette. What was he going to buy me a treat with? I pushed my pile of snacks towards him. “You don’t have to buy me anything. I have food. Here, you can have it.” Leo, being fed by a five-year-old, blushed. “I don’t want your stuff, kid. I’m not a thief—” “Eat it,” I insisted. “If you don’t, I’m going to start crying again. Waaah—” “Okay! I’ll eat!” he yelped, grabbing a slice of pizza from the pile and stuffing it in his mouth. “See?” he mumbled around a mouthful. “I’m eating. Just please stop crying.” I beamed at him. “Okay, bro.” I looked up at him with my biggest, most pathetic eyes. “Bro, my whole family is dead. Nobody wants me. Can you be my family?” Before he could answer, I added, “If you say no, I’ll cry. Louder than before. WAAAAH—” “Stop! Don’t cry!” “So you’ll do it? You’ll be my brother? Great! Let’s go home.” I grabbed his hand, my small fingers wrapping around his. Leo just stood there, speechless. He didn’t say yes, but he didn’t pull his hand away. Feeling the warmth of his skin, the proof that he was real and alive, I almost started crying again, this time with happiness. It was just as easy as the first time. I had successfully tricked Leo into being my brother again. 4 That night, Leo built me a bed in his corner of the warehouse. He worked from sunrise to sunset, but just like in my first life, he never seemed to make any money. The story had him trapped. The harder he worked, the poorer he got. But this time, thanks to the snacks I’d conned out of my bio-brother, we ate well for the next few days. Five days later, I knew it was time. I grabbed Leo’s arm as he was about to head out for the day and convinced him to take me to the south side of town to “forage for edible plants.” On our way out, I made him grab a rusty shovel and a big empty sack. When we got to the south side, I led him straight towards a large, grim-looking building. An orphanage. Leo froze. “So,” he said, his voice low and rough, “you weren’t looking for plants. You want to go in there.” I looked up and saw his eyes were red. “It’s for the best,” he said, trying to sound tough. “Better than starving with me. Go on. I’ll be fine without you.” He was squeezing my hand so tight it hurt. “I told you, we’re foraging,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I already have a brother. I’m not an orphan. I’m not going in there.” That seemed to snap him out of it. I led him around to the woods behind the orphanage and pointed to a spot. “Dig here.” He looked at me, confused, but he trusted me. He started digging. I wasn’t here for plants. I was here for treasure. 5 When I’d stalled my brother Kevin with my list of demands, my real goal was to see more of the pop-up comments. A few of the users were obsessive spoiler-fiends, and I managed to memorize all the key plot points of the book. That’s how I knew that the Miller family’s fortune began right here, with a bag of gold buried in the woods behind this orphanage. I had timed our arrival perfectly, just two hours before Kevin was supposed to show up. I was a little worried that the gold wouldn’t be here yet, or that only the “male lead” could find it. But then, Leo’s shovel hit something. “Audie, look!” It was a rotting canvas duffel bag. When he touched it, it disintegrated, revealing what was inside: gold jewelry and several heavy gold bars. Tarnished and dirty, but unmistakably gold. 6 A few minutes later, I saw the pop-up comments reappear near the orphanage. Kevin had arrived. Leo was still staring at the gold in a daze. I grabbed his hand. “We have to go. Now. Don’t say anything, just grab the gold and follow me.” He snapped out of it and did as I said. I led him to a hidden spot where we could see the woods without being seen. It was time for the show. [He adopted the Female Lead! The way he looks at her is so sweet! I’m melting!] [Next up: the gold! I can’t wait for him to get rich and spoil her rotten! Let the shameless fluff begin!] It was just as my “mother” had described it in my last life. Kevin had brought our parents to the orphanage to adopt the fake heiress, Crystal. She was my age and looked enough like me to be a plausible replacement. Once they had her, my parents stopped looking for me. Crystal became their real daughter. I was just an outsider who didn’t belong. This time, I wasn’t going to be their tragic villainess. I was going to take everything from them. Kevin left Crystal with our parents and snuck into the woods. He pulled out a small knife and started digging. [He’s so thoughtful, digging a hole before he goes to the bathroom. No wonder he finds the gold!] [This is it! This is it! A little deeper and he’ll find it! I’m so excited!] Kevin’s knife hit something hard. His face flushed with excitement. He dug faster, and a moment later, he pulled it out. It wasn’t gold. It was a brick. I’d had Leo bury it there while he was digging for the real treasure. Kevin stared at it, confused, but he didn’t give up. He started digging frantically all around the area. All he found were more bricks.

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My childhood friend, Ethan, was home from Stanford for the holidays when I overheard his mom trying to set me up with someone. He walked into the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the fridge. “You that bored, Mom?” His mother looked surprised. “What’s gotten into you?” Everyone knew the score. He was Stanford, I was state school. We were in different universes. He wasn’t interested in me. But what nobody knew was that this was year three of us not speaking after our… situation ended. I can still picture him leaning against the bathroom doorframe, a towel slung low on his hips, a smirk on his face as he said it: “Probably for the best we stop this. It was getting old, anyway.” 1. “Who’s mad?” Ethan’s voice was cool, detached. “Don’t waste your time. She’ll say no.” His mom raised an eyebrow. “You sound pretty sure of yourself.” Ethan didn’t answer. He just took his mom’s phone. He swiped through a few photos of the guy she’d picked out, a lazy grin playing on his lips. His mom knew that look. It was the easy arrogance of a guy who’d been the smartest, best-looking person in every room since kindergarten. The kind of guy who was always the center of attention. “Okay, so he’s not you,” his mom conceded. “But maybe he’s Lena’s type.” “Go ahead. Try.” His tone was completely indifferent, like he couldn’t care less. But he stopped, his hand on the doorknob, and waited. He waited for the full ten minutes it took for my reply to come through. [No thank you, Mrs. Hayes, I’m okay!] A flicker of an “I-told-you-so” expression crossed his face. He turned and walked out the door, putting the whole thing out of his mind. Which is why he never saw the second text I sent right after. [Besides, I’m getting engaged next week!] 2. The summer I was most in love with Ethan was, without a doubt, the lowest point of my life. It was the winter break of my sophomore year. We had a high school reunion coming up. I was packing my suitcase in my dorm room, trying desperately not to check my phone to see if Ethan had texted me back. He hadn’t. Instead, a notification popped up. He’d added someone to our group chat. [Who’s this?] [Spill it, dude.] Our friends started joking around. Ethan’s reply was simple: [My girlfriend.] Those two words exploded in my head. I knew girls were always throwing themselves at Ethan, but he’d always acted so uninterested. Uninterested enough to give me a sliver of stupid hope. I tapped on his girlfriend’s profile picture. She was gorgeous. I sat in my dorm room, putting on a full face of makeup, then wiping it all off. No matter what I did, I looked wrong. By the time I got to the restaurant, everyone was already laughing and deep in conversation. The moment I walked in, the laughter died. Ethan happened to be standing up to pull out a chair for his girlfriend. He leaned in close as I passed, his brow furrowed. “Lena, what’s with the face?” he asked, his voice low. It was his normal, joking-with-a-friend tone. Exactly the same as always. The only thing different was me. My insecurity was a tidal wave, and I was drowning. The table erupted in laughter. I forced a smile, trying to play along. “What’s so funny?” His girlfriend pulled me out of the private room and into the restroom. She started gently wiping away my smudged foundation with a makeup wipe. “Ethan’s such a jerk sometimes. I’ll give him a piece of my mind for you later.” Her hands were soft and smelled like lotion. Her skin was perfect. She was so kind, even I couldn’t help but like her. How much more must he like her? That night, I trailed behind the group, watching Ethan hold her hand. They looked perfect together. Later, someone suggested going out for drinks. Ethan passed. His girlfriend slid into the driver’s seat of his BMW. I turned to go with the others, but Ethan grabbed the back of my jacket and nudged me into the back seat. “Don’t want you getting into trouble,” he said with a grin. “Your mom would kill me.” “Exactly,” his girlfriend added. “We’ll give you a ride back to campus.” Halfway there, she got a craving for late-night tacos. She turned to me. “Want to come?” Ethan caught my eye in the rearview mirror, his hand casually draped over the steering wheel. I read his expression perfectly. Don’t be a third wheel. “You guys go ahead,” I said. He dropped me off at my dorm first. Before I got out, I heard his girlfriend whisper, “Am I still coming over to your place tonight?” The cold LA night air swept into the car. Her voice was quiet, but the words scraped against my ears like sandpaper. His car sped off into the night. I just stood there on the curb, remembering a night back in high school when Ethan waited for me on his bike under the streetlight in front of my house. I’d thought to myself then, I wonder what it will feel like to ride in his car one day when he can drive. Now I knew. 3. I heard Ethan and that girlfriend broke up after a couple of weeks. I’d stopped talking to him by then. I was too busy studying, burying myself in the chem lab, writing papers—too busy trying to become someone other than that pathetic girl from the reunion. Years passed. The night before my grad school advisor defended her dissertation, she dragged me out to a bar in West Hollywood. “See that guy over there?” one of the girls at our table whispered. “The ridiculously hot one?” “I hear he’s some kind of tech mogul. His starting salary was like, seven figures.” I glanced over at the table next to ours. There was Ethan, surrounded by a crowd of beautiful people, looking bored and effortlessly cool. “I’m gonna go for it. Try to get his number,” a girl from our group announced, standing up and heading over. She came back ten minutes later, defeated. “No luck, huh?” “He’s famous for being impossible. It was the same way back in college.” I got up to use the restroom. When I came out, Ethan was waiting for me, blocking the doorway. He was wearing a black turtleneck that made his shoulders look even broader, his neck long and pale. He had my coat draped over his arm. “Did I do something to piss you off?” he asked. “No.” “Then why’d you block my number?” His dark eyes were locked on mine, and it was infuriatingly effective. “Give me my coat.” He shifted his body, blocking me again. “Nope.” We were standing in the alley behind the bar. A rare, cold drizzle started to fall. “Is that guy at your table your boyfriend?” he asked, his voice low. “This his idea of a good time? Bringing you to a dive bar?” I just stared at him. He let out a short, cold laugh. “Look, I don’t care. Just some friendly advice—be careful who you date. He doesn’t exactly look like a great guy.” I looked straight at his handsome, judgmental face. And in that moment, I understood. Some addictions you can’t just quit. You have to burn them out of your system. You have to get what you want, just once, to finally be free. “Are you angry?” I asked, my voice even. He scoffed. “Why would I be angry—” “Ethan, do you want to come home with me?” He froze. He looked at me like he couldn’t compute the words. “If not, that’s fine. I’m sure someone else here would.” I turned to leave. His fingers wrapped around my wrist. And on that cold, wet November night, our secret, nameless relationship began. I had just wanted to know one thing. What did that arrogant, untouchable face look like when it was lost in pleasure? It looked like that. Even in bed, he was a tease, always in control, always playing games. He’d whisper, his voice laced with mischief, “Would someone else really have been okay?” No. I’d turn my head away, trying not to let him see the tears in my eyes. One month bled into the next. It was an addiction for both of us. A sickness. There were moments when I was so far gone, I actually thought he might like me, too. So one night, as he stood behind me, his large hand running through my wet hair while he held the hairdryer, he asked, “Do you like me?” And I couldn’t stop myself. The words just came out. “I think we should stop this—” I was going to say, and be together for real. But before I could finish, he let go of my hair. The roar of the hairdryer stopped, and the only sound in the steamy bathroom was the dripping of the faucet. He stared at me in the mirror for a long time. Then he leaned against the doorframe, a small, cold smile on his face. “Probably for the best we stop this. It was getting old, anyway.” He paused. “You know this isn’t even a breakup, right? We were never really anything.” My damp hair clung to my back, a strange mix of hot and cold. That was the moment I truly decided to walk away. I’d spent so many years feeling small and ordinary next to him. I was done letting him make me feel that way. 4. [Besides, I’m getting engaged next week!] Ethan, who never saw that text, was at his best friend’s baby shower. He knew I was coming. We hadn’t seen each other in three years. He saw my name on the place card next to his and pulled out the chair without a second thought. Someone at the table was gossiping. “Did you guys hear Caleb Song is getting engaged?” “No way. The media was practically convinced he was gay because he’s been single for so long. How’d he pull that off so fast?” “Met her through a setup, apparently.” Ethan’s brow twitched. He was a little sensitive to that topic today. Someone else asked, “What’s his fiancée like?” “Kinda like Lena, actually.” Ethan’s gaze shifted from the doorway to the person who’d just spoken. “So that’s his type,” the friend mused, then turned to Ethan with a grin. “Hey, didn’t you try to set Lena up with him once?” Ethan maintained his air of indifference, but a cool breeze from the open window rustled his hair, revealing the hard glint in his eyes. “I did,” Ethan said. “She wasn’t interested.” Caleb Song was intense, brooding, the complete opposite of Ethan’s polished charm. “Freshman year of college. I had him give her a ride home, trying to be a good wingman.” Ethan’s voice was light, casual. “She complained to me later that he was too intimidating.” Just then, the host of the party, Ethan’s best friend and one of the few people who knew about our history, walked over. He gave Ethan a knowing look. “Ever hear the expression ‘can’t see the forest for the trees,’ man?” Ethan looked confused. His friend just grinned and turned to the gossiping group. “Yeah, they say it was a setup, but truth is, Caleb’s been crushing on her for years. The girl was just stuck on someone else. Guess he finally saw his opening.” The table buzzed with surprise. “You’re kidding. A guy like him had to steal someone’s girl?” “Whose girl did he steal?” The friend didn’t answer. He just clapped Ethan on the shoulder. “Hey, did Caleb invite you to the engagement party?” “No.” “That’s weird. You guys are tight.” His friend’s grin widened. “Wanna see a picture of his fiancée?” He pulled out his phone and shoved it in Ethan’s face. Just as Ethan was about to look, someone by the door called out, “Lena, you made it!” His head snapped up, his eyes instantly finding me. I was wearing a simple cream-colored knit dress. His friend slowly lowered the phone, a sly look on his face. “Pretty, right? I never realized back in school what a knockout body Lena has.” Ethan’s gaze lingered on me for a second before he looked away. He knew. The first time we were together, on that rainy November night, I was wearing a dress just like this one. When I like something, I stick with it for a long time. I’m loyal like that. But he didn’t know that people aren’t clothes. Once you hit a wall enough times, you learn to find a different path. I pulled out the empty chair next to him and sat down. The familiar scent of his cologne was in the air, but he didn’t speak to me. Our hands didn’t even brush. He was popular, and a steady stream of people came by to toast him. “So when are you two getting married?” a drunk classmate slurred, draping an arm over Ethan and pointing between us. “Dude, what are you talking about?” Someone pulled him away. “Oh, oh, that’s Lena,” he mumbled. “My bad. Thought she was your girlfriend. You guys are dressed in black and white… looks like your wedding or something.” Ethan just smiled, a charming, deflective smile that made him look unfairly handsome, and downed the glass of champagne the guy had offered. It was the first time I’d seen him genuinely smile all night. 5. The party wound down. The designated driver, Ethan’s best friend, offered me a ride home. I opened the back door of the car and froze. Ethan was sitting there. A drunk Ethan was a quiet Ethan. He just stared, his dark eyes intense and unsettling. “He’s totally wasted. Mind if we drop him off on the way?” his friend asked. I got in and sat down, leaving a careful space between us. The drive back to the city was long. I leaned my head against the window and closed my eyes, the slight bumps in the road making my head tap gently against the glass. I didn’t care. In the reflection, I could see Ethan’s face. He was staring at the empty space between us, his expression unreadable. When we got to my building, Ethan insisted on walking me up. “You don’t have to.” “If something happens to you, we’re both responsible,” he said, his tone clipped and cold. He didn’t sound drunk at all. In the elevator, he leaned against the wall, the alcohol supposedly hitting him. He loosened his tie. “That guy my mom found for you seemed decent. Why’d you say no?” He tilted his chin down, his eyes searching mine. “Not good enough for you?” He paused. “So what’s your type?” He was pushing, prodding, enjoying this. “My type?” I met his gaze in the polished steel of the elevator doors. “Not you. Not anymore.” “So the opposite of me? A guy like Caleb Song?” I saw a flicker in his eyes. He said, “Too late. He’s getting engaged.” Ethan seemed to be warming up to this game. “Hey, Lena. Since you’re in the market anyway… what do you say we give it a try?” He leaned down, trying to look directly into my eyes. “This is what you’ve been waiting for me to say all along, isn’t it?” “No.” I looked up at him, my voice steady and clear. “The day we stopped… whatever that was, I told you I was done. I’m not going to like you anymore.” “Is that so?” He straightened up, stuffing one hand in his pocket with a lazy smile. “Good.” His tone shifted, becoming mock-sincere. “Just don’t marry some random guy just to get over me.” He was such a bastard, always saying the most cutting things with a veneer of concern. “More than anyone, I want you to find someone you love and get married,” he said, his voice dripping with false sincerity. “I’ll be the first to congratulate you.”

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The day after my mom’s “I’m not getting any younger, you know” ultimatum, I dumped my boyfriend of five years and, resume in hand, crashed a local speed-dating event. My best friend, Maya, was baffled. “I don’t get it. You always said Ethan was your rock, the one person who kept you sane. Why wouldn’t you marry him?” I scanned the profile sheet of a potential match, not even looking up. “His ‘rock’ stability is a free trial that expired for me years ago. I’m a long-term subscriber, which apparently just makes me old news.” A second later, Ethan stormed into the noisy brewery, his jaw tight. “I told you I just think of her as a little sister,” he hissed. “You’re really going to break up with me over this?” 1 I ignored him, reaching for the profile sheet in his hand. It was the only promising one I’d found after two hours of painfully awkward five-minute conversations. Leo, 32, University Professor. Hobbies: hiking, classic films. Family: stable, loving. And the most important detail: an only child. No needy “little sister” in sight. Ethan lifted the paper just out of my reach. The silver cufflinks on his wrist glinted under the lights—the ones I’d given him for his birthday last year. “Anna, stop making a scene.” His voice was low, strained with barely controlled anger. I laughed, gesturing at the sign by the door. “Ethan, this is a speed-dating event. The whole point is first impressions and efficiency. You’re currently blocking my romantic prospects.” His knuckles turned white as he crumpled the thin sheet of paper. “You’d throw away five years for some guy you don’t even know?” “It’s not for some guy. It’s for me.” My smile faded. I looked at him calmly. “Ethan, I’m done getting calls from you at 3 AM because Chloe got creeped on at a bar and needs you to be her knight in shining armor.” “I’m done sitting alone in a restaurant on our anniversary because you had to rush off to comfort Chloe after her latest breakup.” “And I am so, so done hearing you say, ‘She’s just like a sister to me, Anna. She’s fragile. She only has me.’” The color drained from Ethan’s face. He opened his mouth, his throat working, but no words came out. A few of the older folks organizing the event were already starting to whisper, glancing at us over their clipboards. “He’s such a handsome young man. What more could she want?” “Girls these days, their standards are impossible.” Ethan’s hands clenched into fists. He hated losing face, hated looking anything less than perfectly in control. I wanted him to feel, just for a moment, what it was like to be publicly dismissed. “Anna, let’s talk about this at home.” He grabbed my wrist, his grip surprisingly strong. I didn’t fight him. I just looked past his shoulder. A girl in a white sundress was hurrying toward us, her eyes red and puffy, fresh tear tracks on her cheeks. “Ethan, don’t be mad at Anna-Marie,” she sobbed. “It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have called you again.” Chloe had arrived. Ethan’s “stability” switch flipped instantly. He dropped my wrist and turned to steady her. “What’s wrong? I told you to wait for me at home.” “I was worried you and Anna-Marie would fight.” Chloe looked down, her voice choked with tears. “It’s all because of me.” As she spoke, she shot a quick glance at me from under her eyelashes. There was no apology in it. Only triumph. I crossed my arms, a spectator at the five-star drama of sibling-like devotion. As expected, Ethan didn’t disappoint. He patted Chloe’s back gently, his voice softer than I’d heard it in five years. “It’s not your fault. This is between her and me.” He didn’t even look back at me. He just turned and led Chloe away. The profile sheet belonging to the “normal” man was now a crumpled ball, tossed into a nearby trash can. Just like our five years together. 2 Maya’s call came while I was supervising a locksmith. “You’re really changing them? Aren’t you afraid Ethan’s going to lose his mind when he gets back?” “He has a home. He has a sister who needs her emotional support human. Why would he come back here?” I told the locksmith, “The keypad, the deadbolt, everything. I don’t want a single fly getting in here that I don’t personally invite.” Maya was quiet for a moment. “Anna, are you sure about this? It’s been five years…” I watched the locksmith drill out the old cylinder, a sense of calm settling over me. Five years? What finally broke me wasn’t the length of our relationship. It was a single night two weeks ago, when my temperature hit 102. I’d gotten food poisoning from some bad takeout. I was a wreck, completely dehydrated and weak. The number on the thermometer kept climbing, and I felt like my brain was melting. Shivering, I called Ethan, my voice trembling. “Eth, I feel awful. I have a really high fever. Can you please take me to the ER?” He was quick to agree. “Of course. Don’t worry, I’m on my way. Leave the door unlocked for me.” I used my last bit of energy to drag myself to the sofa to wait. Just as I was about to pass out, my phone rang again. It was Ethan. Thinking he was downstairs, I answered, a wave of relief washing over me. But his voice on the other end was apologetic. “Anna, listen… something’s come up with Chloe. She was watching a horror movie by herself and freaked out. There’s a thunderstorm, and she called me sobbing, totally hysterical. You know how scared she gets.” In that instant, my heart plunged into a bucket of ice water. “And?” I heard myself ask, my voice eerily calm and foreign. “I have to go check on her first. I can’t leave her alone like this.” He paused, then said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “You’re strong, Anna. Just grab an Uber to the hospital and get checked in. I’ll comfort her and then I’ll head right over to meet you.” You’re strong. Those two words were a poisoned knife, and he twisted it right in my gut. I hung up without another word. That night, I took an Uber to the hospital by myself. I waited in the crowded ER alone. I sat in a cold, sterile room alone, watching the IV fluid drip, drip, drip into my arm. The room was full of other patients, all of them with family or friends by their side. There was just me. Ethan never showed up. The next morning, he sent me a text with a picture of Chloe sleeping peacefully. Hey babe, Chloe had a rough night, I stayed with her until she finally calmed down and fell asleep. How are you doing? Still at the hospital? Staring at that screen, I had a moment of blinding clarity. For five years, I was the one who was expected to be “strong.” And Chloe? She would always be the fragile, helpless one who deserved to be comforted and cared for, no matter the cost. My mom’s nagging was just the spark. The real bomb that destroyed every last bit of affection I had for him was that night—the six long, cold hours I spent all by myself in the hospital. “Anna? Are you there?” Maya’s voice pulled me back to the present. I snapped a picture of the old, discarded lock and posted it to my Instagram story. Caption: Out with the old, in with the new. “I’m sure,” I said into the phone. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.” I put the phone on speaker and set it aside, then started gathering Ethan’s things. His toothbrush, his towel, a few changes of clothes, and the cufflinks he so proudly wore. I stuffed it all into a black trash bag. Whether he was intentionally malicious or just clueless didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was that I was finally choosing myself. That was enough. Suddenly, the doorbell rang. I looked through the peephole. It was Ethan, with a tear-streaked Chloe standing beside him. I didn’t open the door. Ethan tried the keypad. The electronic lock beeped, ACCESS DENIED, over and over. His face grew darker with each failed attempt. Finally, he started pounding on the door. “Anna! Open this door! What the hell did you do to the lock?” I turned on my phone’s video camera and aimed it at the peephole. Chloe tried to pull him back. “Ethan, please don’t! She’s probably just angry. Let’s just go.” “Go? She threw all my stuff out in the hall! She’s trying to cut me off completely?” He kicked the door, the sound echoing in the hallway. I walked calmly to the door and spoke through it. “Mr. Hayes, you kick my door one more time, and I’ll be sending this video to your firm’s HR department. I’ve even got a title for the email: Promising Young Analyst Has Public Meltdown. What Gives?” The kicking stopped. It was silent outside. A few seconds later, Chloe’s tearful voice drifted through the door. “Anna-Marie, I’m so sorry. Please don’t be mad at Ethan. He’s just upset because he cares about you so much. I… I made you some homemade chicken pot pie. I’ll just leave it out here for you.” I heard their footsteps retreat down the hall. I opened the door. A thermal container sat on my doormat with a sticky note on top. Anna-Marie, five years is a long time. Don’t give up on it so easily. —Chloe The handwriting was delicate, pretty, and reeked of passive aggression. I picked up the container, walked to my living room window, opened it, and dropped the container into the dumpster below. Perfect shot. I dusted my hands off and went to take a shower. As the hot water washed over me, my phone buzzed incessantly on the counter. It was Ethan. I let it go to voicemail. When I got out, I had over twenty missed calls. The latest text was from Chloe. Anna-Marie, how could you throw out the pie? I spent three hours making that for you. I know you don’t like me, but you can’t just disrespect my feelings like that. Ethan saw you do it from the car, and he’s really hurt. I stared at the message and laughed. Of course he was hurt. I had just destroyed the prop he was going to use to prove his own innocence. I didn’t reply. I just blocked both their numbers. The world went blissfully silent. 3 The next day, with a freshly printed personal profile, I went back to the brewery. They were hosting another singles’ mixer. Ethan had destroyed the professor’s profile yesterday; I was determined to find someone even better today. A man with kind eyes and wire-rimmed glasses approached me. “Excuse me, are you Anna-Marie?” I nodded. “Hi, I’m Leo. I was the, uh… the professor whose profile got destroyed yesterday.” He gave a slightly embarrassed smile. “I got your number from the event organizer, but when I tried to call, it wouldn’t go through.” I remembered I had turned on a feature to block all unknown numbers to avoid Ethan. “I’m sorry about that.” “It’s okay.” Leo’s eyes fell to the new profile sheet in my hand. “Back at it again today?” I held it up. “Efficiently seeking a non-drama-filled relationship.” Leo actually laughed. “Me too.” He gestured to a quiet corner table. “Would you mind if we talked for a bit? Standing in the middle of all this makes me a little nervous.” I saw a faint blush creep up his neck and smiled. “Sure.” Leo was fascinating. He taught classical literature, and he spoke thoughtfully, but he had a dry sense of humor that kept catching me off guard. We talked about everything from Shakespeare to the terrible philosophy of reality TV, and it wasn’t awkward at all. “Honestly, I get it,” he said with a sigh when we talked about the mixer. “My family is constantly trying to set me up. Coming here and looking for myself is just more efficient.” He smiled wryly. “The last woman my mom set me up with insisted she was a sweet, traditional girl. When I showed up for our date, she’d brought her mom, two aunts, and a cousin to ‘interview’ me.” “We’d been talking for maybe five minutes when her aunt asked if I’d be willing to hand over my paycheck to her niece, and her cousin asked what school district I planned on buying a house in.” “It felt like an interrogation. And at the end, the ‘sweet girl’ told me I seemed nice, but my only flaw was that I looked too much like a pushover, and she was worried I wouldn’t be able to handle her brother who wanted to go into politics.” He mimicked their voices perfectly, and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Hearing his story made him feel less like a perfect resume and more like a real person. We were both just trying to navigate the bizarre landscape of modern dating, looking for someone on the same page. My phone vibrated. I glanced at the screen. It was a picture message from an unknown number. It was a photo of Ethan in a hospital bed, his left arm in a cast, his face pale. Chloe was sitting by his side, dutifully peeling an apple for him. They looked like a tragic painting. Beneath the picture was a single line of text. Anna-Marie, Ethan was distracted trying to find you and got into a car accident. He broke his arm. Can you please come see him? I put my phone face down on the table, my expression unreadable. Leo noticed the change in my mood. “Is everything alright?” “Yeah, just spam.” I took a sip of my beer, hiding the cold fury in my eyes. Ethan. You’ve really outdone yourself. Using a guilt trip of this magnitude just to drag me back in. “Anna-Marie,” Leo said suddenly. “This might be forward, but it feels like you’ve got a storm cloud following you around.” I looked up at him. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he said, his gaze sincere, “but I can tell you’re not happy. If there’s anything I can do to help, please don’t hesitate to ask.” A warmth spread through my chest. Unlike Ethan’s arrogant “I’ll fix this for you” attitude, Leo offered something different: respect and equality. “Thank you, Leo,” I said, and I meant it. “But don’t worry. The cloud is about to clear up.” I was going to rip it to shreds myself. We talked until the brewery was closing. Leo walked me to the entrance of my apartment complex. “I had a really great time talking to you today,” he said, his figure elongated by the streetlight. “Me too.” “So… could I maybe see you again tomorrow?” he asked, a hopeful hesitation in his voice. I nodded. “Definitely.” After saying goodbye to Leo, I turned and started walking toward my building. I’d just reached the front door when a figure lunged out of the shadows and grabbed my arm. It was Ethan. His right hand gripped me tightly. His left arm was, indeed, in a cast, held in a sling around his neck. “Well, look at you, Anna,” he snarled, his eyes bloodshot. “I get in a car wreck because of you, and you’re out on a date with another man?”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “385253”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel