Author: Momo Chan

To meet my online boyfriend in person, I lost eighty pounds, transforming from a hundred and eighty pound chubby girl into an absolute stunner. But the day before our grand meeting, I stumbled across a post on a forum. “Transferring my online girlfriend.” “Dating for over a year. Great voice, sweet, gentle, amazing emotional value. PM me if interested.” Someone asked in the comments why he was giving up such a great girl. He replied: “Dug up her real-life info online. She’s super fat. I’m a total eye-candy guy.” The comment section flooded with jokes: “Was interested until I read ‘fat.’ Totally turned off now.” “Who wants a human tank? Keep her for yourself, man, haha.” Only one person replied: “Check PMs.” I looked at the poster’s profile picture. It was identical to my online boyfriend’s. And the date of that post was three months ago. 1 I froze. It suddenly hit me that three months ago, Brad had indeed changed drastically. Back then, he had grown distant out of nowhere, even initiating a breakup, claiming he was tired of us. I thought he was just going through a phase, so I pleaded with him for a long time until he grudgingly agreed to stay together. Shortly after, he claimed he needed to switch to a new phone number and chat account because his old one was too cluttered, wanting a fresh start for college. So I added his new account. Even after that, he remained cold for a while, his personality shifting noticeably before he eventually warmed back up to me. I had assumed he just had a change of heart after getting bored, but… I stared down at my phone. A message popped up from my online boyfriend, whose avatar was Shin-chan: [Babe, I checked the calendar and noticed your period is coming up soon. I ordered some warm bird’s nest and peach gum soup for you. Make sure to drink it while it’s hot.] [I can’t wait to meet you next month, babe. I’m a little nervous. Are you excited?] I stared at the screen, my thumb hovering over the glass. So… who exactly was the person planning to meet me? 2 When my best friend Jess found me, she beat around the bush, looking hesitant. “Did you and Brad break up?” “Why do you ask?” I replied. Instead of answering, she handed me her phone. “See for yourself.” Back when we played online games together, Jess was close with one of Brad’s gaming buddies. The guy had sent her a screenshot of Brad’s private group chat. In the group, someone asked Brad: [Hey Brad, how come you haven’t brought your girlfriend to play games with us lately?] Brad replied: [Broke up with her.] Everyone was shocked. [Wait, weren’t you guys doing great? Why the sudden breakup?] [Her voice was sweet, so I always assumed she was hot. But one time she sent a picture where a delivery receipt was visible. I saw her real name, remembered her high school, and had someone look her up.] [Turns out she’s a two hundred pound land whale! I was completely horrified. You guys know I’m a looks guy. I almost threw up on the spot, so I dumped her right away.] Someone chimed in: [Haha! Her voice sounded good because the body fat was compressing her vocal cords! The sweeter the voice, the fatter the girl!] [I remember that girl was crazy about you though. She backed you up every time we played. Did she actually agree to let you go?] Brad: [She refused, so I transferred her account to someone else. It’s not like she knows my real name anyway.] He then shared a screenshot of the forum post where he put his online girlfriend up for trade. The group blew up: [Holy crap, that’s insane! You can actually transfer a girlfriend?] [Brad’s legendary. Now she won’t bother you anymore. She definitely hid her looks on purpose. If it weren’t for an online relationship, a guy like you would never date someone like her for a year. Serves her right.] [Getting suffocated by a wild hog for over a year, Brad must be traumatized. Heart completely sealed off now?] Brad: [Got a new target recently. There’s a really pretty girl in the freshman group chat. Total angel.] Brad came from a wealthy family and frequently dropped digital gift cards in the chat, so everyone loved sucking up to him. Replies flooded in: [As expected of Brad! Already found a top-tier beauty.] [Only a goddess is worthy of our Brad.] [Got any photos, Brad? Let us see!] Brad dropped a photo into the chat. The girl in the picture wore a delicate white sundress. Her light hazel hair was tied in a loose side ponytail draped over her shoulder. She was slender, fair-skinned, with soft, smiling eyes. She was undeniably gorgeous. I recognized her immediately. It was Haley, the girl everyone in the freshman group chat had been swooning over. The moment she dropped a picture earlier, the guys had declared her the official campus queen. Jess was fuming. “Brad dated you for over a year! The moment he flipped, he tossed you out like trash and put you up for trade! What a complete scumbag!” “Besides, this Haley girl isn’t even prettier than you! She looks like a bean pole. Just a bit pale and skinny!” “Gwen, post your photo in the group! Make him regret every choice he’s ever made!” I looked down at the screen. Among the sea of praise, only one guy had spoken up for me: [To be fair, that girl really liked you, Brad. I remember whenever you got ambushed in games, she was always the first to rush in to save you, dying for you every time. Isn’t this a little cruel?] A moment later, Brad replied casually: [I’m a visual person, what can I do? Just thinking about being with a human tank for a year makes me want to puke.] [If she wants to blame someone, she can blame her own ugly face.] 3 Walking home that evening, another guy stopped me on the sidewalk to ask for my phone number. After politely declining, I strolled along the street alone. The overcast summer dusk brought a chill, signaling an impending thunderstorm. I glanced at my reflection in a storefront window. A delicate, heart-shaped face framed by dark eyes, a sculpted nose, and full, striking features. I remembered my friend looking at me with envious eyes last week: “I spent six figures on my nose job in Seoul, and it still doesn’t look half as natural as yours! Every time we go out, everyone’s staring at you!” “I get complimented when I’m alone, but standing next to you makes me feel like a background character. Is this the difference between pretty and drop-dead gorgeous? Unfair!” I knew I was beautiful now. When I went out, strangers offered to pay for my drinks, people asked for my contact info constantly, and talent scouts had even approached me about modeling. But before Brad, my life was the exact opposite. I had been chubby since childhood. By high school, I weighed nearly two hundred pounds. My cheeks were so round my eyes vanished into folds of skin whenever I smiled. Lard bucket. Human tank. Pig monster. I had heard every insult in the book. It fed a deep, crippling insecurity. The heavier I got, the less I dared to dress up, and the less I dressed up, the worse I looked. I had crushes on boys like any teenage girl, but whenever they found out, they reacted as if they had been deeply insulted, hurling vile slurs at my face. Whenever I tried to diet, my parents would stop me, insisting I was cute just the way I was. They were overweight themselves and saw nothing wrong with it. My adolescence was defined by the relentless mockery of my peers. Until I met Brad in an online game. He was drawn to my voice and insisted on adding me as a friend. After a few gaming sessions, we grew close. Not long after, Brad confessed his feelings to me. I tossed and turned all night. I knew Brad came from a good family. During our time gaming together, he had gifted me countless in-game skins and offered expensive presents, all of which I declined. Though he never posted clear facial photos on his profile, his feed was filled with luxury vacation snaps showing his back. He was tall, broad-shouldered, clearly athletic, staying at high-end resorts. I knew he fell for my voice, but I was terrified that if he saw the real me, he would be disgusted. Yet I couldn’t help falling for him. Brad was charismatic and funny. Whenever I had a rough day, he would comfort me, even dropping digital gift cards in public chat rooms to get strangers to cheer me up. In the end, I said yes. I hid my weight, my location, and every detail of my personal life, terrified he would look me up. I even tested the waters once, asking softly, “What if I’m not pretty in real life?” He replied instantly: [With a voice as sweet as yours? Impossible. Stop teasing me, babe.] [Babe, when can we finally meet? I miss you so much.] [Babe, let me know which university you’re applying to. Let’s go to the same school so we can see each other every day.] After a long silence, I made up my mind. I was going to lose the weight. What followed was a year of absolute madness. I went to sleep starving every night, ignoring the sharp pangs of acid reflux and the exhaustion that left my limbs trembling after hours of cardio. No matter how my parents begged me to eat more, I stood firm. I wanted to be skinny. For nearly a year, I didn’t touch a drop of oil or heavy seasoning. Countless times, I cried myself to sleep from sheer hunger, holding onto the thought of him to pull through. And finally, the weight melted away. From one hundred and eighty pounds to one hundred and sixty, then one hundred and twenty, and finally settling at a lean one hundred pounds. I learned skincare, makeup, hairstyling, and how to dress for my body. During that year, Brad suggested meeting up several times, but I always found excuses to stall. I constantly felt I wasn’t pretty enough yet. Until the boys in my class started looking at me differently. Until love letters began piling up in my locker. Until strangers on the street began blushing when they asked for my number, calling me breathtaking. That was when it hit me: I had actually become beautiful. I finally gathered the courage to meet Brad in person. I applied to the exact same university he chose, agreeing to meet on orientation day. And yet… It turned out I was just a game to him. I had believed every sweet word he ever said. Looking back, he hadn’t even given me his real name. The name “Brad” was something I only learned through my friend’s acquaintance. From start to finish, he had never truly cared about me. 4 In the freshman group chat, Haley posted another set of photos. She was at Disneyland, wearing a cute Minnie Mouse headband and a pleated skirt, radiating youthful charm. The guy standing next to her had his face blurred out. But I recognized the luxury watch on his wrist immediately. It was the exact same watch Brad wore in his vacation posts. The chat burst into excitement: “The campus queen delivers!” “A goddess is a goddess! Who’s the lucky guy next to her?” “Looks like Brad! Brad’s a legend!” Jess had told me earlier that Brad started pursuing Haley the moment she dropped her photo in the group chat. He had flown straight to her city, showered her with gifts, and rented a private fireworks display for her. Now, they were officially together. Brad dropped a wave of digital cash into the chat room. “Say hi to my girl, boys.” Replies flooded in: “Brad’s huge flex! A match made in heaven!” “A total power couple. I believe in love again!” “Only our campus queen deserves a guy like Brad.” Someone brought me up: “You guys don’t know, but Brad was catfished by a human tank for over a year. Nearly ruined his appetite for life. Glad he finally found a true beauty!” Haley asked innocently: “What tank?” The guy retold the story, exaggerating every detail. The chat erupted into cruel laughter. “Holy crap, a tank actually dared to target Brad? Survived a whole year of that, Brad’s an absolute warrior.” “That kind of monster probably couldn’t get a guy in real life, so she used a fake voice to trick people online.” “I heard the tank applied to the same university as Brad! She might be a freshman here. Can’t wait to see how hideous she is in person.” Haley replied with a soft giggle: “She’s probably insecure. Being ugly isn’t her fault, but tricking people is definitely wrong.” Brad chimed in: “Don’t bring up the past. Makes me sick just thinking about it. At least I found you now.” Brad had no idea that I had joined the freshman chat using a burner account weeks ago. I had watched his entire romance unfold from start to finish. Someone asked Brad: “What’s the tank’s real name, Brad? Might run into her during orientation.” Brad typed: “Gwen.” “Sounds basic as hell. No wonder she’s ugly.” The very next second, I switched to my main account in the chat. I changed my nickname directly to: Gwen The group chat fell dead silent. I knew every single person behind those screens was holding their breath, waiting for the drama to explode. A few minutes later, Haley sent two messages. “Welcome to the group, Gwen!” “By the way, we’re having a freshman meetup at the restaurant near campus on the third. Are you coming?” I knew she wanted to turn me into a laughingstock. A faint, cold smirk touched my lips as I typed a single word. “Sure.” 5 Just as I was getting ready for bed, my online boyfriend, username NotAShellfish, sent a string of messages. [Babe, look at this bag! I bought it in Italy. The moment I saw it, I knew it would look amazing on you. I’ll give it to you when we meet!] [Babe, why aren’t you replying? Did you fall asleep?] [Babe! Babe! Babe!] I frowned at the screen. This guy had bought Brad’s account and was really committing to the bit. He was surprisingly generous, though. Last month, he sent me a designer necklace and a high-end skincare set. He transferred money on Valentine’s Day and randomly dropped cash into our chat whenever he felt like it. He knew I was supposedly overweight. What was he getting out of this? Did he have some weird fetish? Without hesitation, I dug up a photo of myself from a year ago and hit send. One hundred and eighty pounds. Broad shoulders, round face, eyes squeezed into thin slits by folds of soft cheek. [This is what I look like. If you can’t accept it, let’s break up. I don’t want to waste your time.] I refused to believe he could stick around after looking at that. A second later, his reply popped up: [Babe, you look so cute!] Me: ??? Was he out of his mind?! Frustrated, I typed back: [Look closely! I’m one hundred and eighty pounds! I’m fat!] [I see it! I think you’re adorable. Just make sure to stay healthy, babe.] My brows knit together tight. Was this guy also overweight, or did he genuinely have a feeder fetish? [What do you look like?] I asked. [I’ve never seen a picture of you.] NotAShellfish sent three images in rapid succession. Full body shots, candid angles, even a close-up of sculpted six-pack abs. I let out a cold laugh. The guy in the photos had broad shoulders, a narrow waist, defined obliques, and looked easily over six-two. Even crazier was the face, striking enough to debut as a male model, complete with warm hazel eyes that sparkled like sunlight on water and messy black hair pushed back to reveal a smooth, pale forehead. Full of youthful, effortless charm. Catfishing with stolen internet photos, huh? [Babe, these were just quick, unstyled snaps. Hope you’re not disappointed!] I smirked at my screen, typing back smoothly: [Not at all, babe! You look incredible. Is this really you? Can’t wait to meet!] [That’s awesome! By the way, there’s something I need to tell you when we meet.] I smiled knowingly. What else could it be besides admitting he used fake photos? [Sure,] I replied. 6 The moment my flight landed, my phone vibrated relentlessly. [Babe, where are you? I’m waiting at arrivals holding a huge bouquet of roses!] [Image] [Babe, I’m so nervous! What if you don’t like me when you see me!] The photo showed a massive bouquet of red roses, completely hiding the person behind it. This catfishing scammer certainly knew how to play the romantic card. My heart softened slightly. Forget it, I thought. When we meet, I’ll just lay everything out, clear the air, and we can start fresh as friends. After all, he had been genuinely sweet to me over the past three months. He stayed on the phone with me every single night, comforting me when I couldn’t sleep even when he was slurring his words from exhaustion. He bought me gifts for every minor holiday and remembered every detail of my routine, including my cycle dates. He was a genuinely good guy. So what if he was average-looking or a bit overweight in real life? It wasn’t a dealbreaker. A guy walking past me bumped my shoulder accidentally. I turned around, and he blushed furiously, rubbing his neck. “I’m so sorry! Actually, I noticed you on the plane. Could I get your number?” I waved my hand politely. “Sorry, I’m taken.” He flushed bright red. “Ah, sorry to bother you then!” I dragged my suitcase toward the arrivals gate. From a distance, I spotted the giant bouquet of roses standing out in the crowd. Behind the flowers was a tall, commanding silhouette, broad shoulders, narrow waist, effortlessly lean. Wait. Was he one of those guys who had a killer body but an average face? I refused to believe NotAShellfish actually looked like the model in those photos. What would be the point of catfishing if he already had a body like that? The guy holding the roses seemed impatient, peering over the petals as his eyes searched the crowd anxiously. My jaw dropped. Holy crap. He looked identical to the photos, in fact, in person, he was even more jaw-droppingly handsome! NotAShellfish wasn’t a catfish at all?! A few teenage girls nearby were already giggling, pointing at him shyly. I walked over, my mind a jumble of confusion. “Are you…” I expected him to look surprised when he saw my face, but he just frowned at me. “Can I help you?” he asked stiffly. I tilted my head, pulling out my phone. “Who are you waiting for? Want to trade numbers?” His expression darkened instantly. “I’m waiting for my girlfriend. Not interested.” I was stunned. Ever since I lost weight, no man had ever treated me with such cold indifference. NotAShellfish… did he actually have a thing for heavy girls?! Seeing that I hadn’t moved, he grew impatient. “Could you please step aside? My girlfriend’s coming out any minute.” I let out a helpless sigh. “Scallop, it’s me. Pumpkin.” “What scallop, what pump…” He froze mid-sentence, his eyes sweeping over me from head to toe. His eyes nearly popped out of his head. “You?! Pumpkin?!” “Impossible! No way! Don’t you look like… weren’t you…” “Weren’t I super fat and ugly?” I finished his sentence, explaining calmly, “I lost the weight.” “Or do you actually have a feeder fetish and only like heavy girls?” The guy who had been ice-cold a second ago flushed a furious, brilliant shade of red from his cheeks all the way to his ears! “No! That’s not… I mean, you were super cute before too, you weren’t ugly at all, I just…” “So am I cute now?” I found his sudden panic hilarious. “Yes! I mean, you’re cute now too, you’re gorgeous, I just didn’t expect…” In his panic, he shoved the massive bouquet directly into my arms. The heavy bundle caught me off guard, making me stumble backward. He panicked even more, reaching out awkwardly to catch my arms. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” I couldn’t help bursting into laughter. “Didn’t you promise to take me out for good food when we met?” I smiled. “Let’s go.” 7 Jasper, his real name, as I soon learned, was just like his online persona. Despite his unreal good looks, he didn’t have a single drop of arrogance. He was gentle, attentive, and incredibly sweet throughout the afternoon. Turns out he was a freshman too, enrolled at the same campus, though in a different department. He took me to an upscale steakhouse, pulling out my chair, cutting my steak, and blushing whenever I caught him stealing glances at me. After showing me around town, he dropped me off outside the private dining hall where the freshman meetup was being held. Standing by his car, he looked at me reluctantly. “Text me when you’re done. I’ll come pick you up.” The restaurant was packed. As I approached the private dining room, voices drifted out through the cracked door. “Is everyone here yet?” “Not yet, Gwen hasn’t showed up.” “Gwen? The tank who catfished Brad? Haha, she’s probably terrified to show her face!” “Seriously. Standing next to our campus queen would destroy whatever self-esteem she has left. People like her only dare to flirt behind a screen. Who wants a slab of lard in real life? Haha!” Haley giggled softly, leaning her head on Brad’s shoulder. “Don’t be so mean, guys. Being ugly isn’t her fault.” I raised my hand, reaching for the door handle.

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1 I was his secret mistress for five years and even bore him two kids. He slammed a black credit card into my hand with a scowl. “A hundred million. Is that enough?” Me: “More than enough! Thank you, boss!” I assumed it was my severance package. Holding my babies, I walked away without looking back, even taking his Golden Retriever on the way out. Later, my best friend told me that on the day I left, he smashed three priceless antique vases in his office and screamed at his secretary: “I told her to buy an engagement ring! An engagement ring! Why the hell did she take the money and run?!” Holding my toddler, I blinked in utter confusion. “…Wait, what?” … Jordan’s corner office. The AC was blasting cold air, making my skin prickle. He sat behind his massive black ebony desk, his face darker than the wood. Slam. A sleek black card dropped onto the polished surface, sliding right in front of me. “Take it.” His voice lacked warmth, dropping like a block of ice onto concrete. I reached out, picking up the card. My fingertips brushed against the cold, metallic surface. He glared at me, his sharp gaze practically burning holes through my clothes. “Five years,” he spoke, his tone heavy with suppressed fury. “Is this enough?” I looked at him, then down at the card. I ran the numbers quickly in my head. Five years. Two kids. The prime of my youth. In exchange for an unlimited black card. Was it worth it? I didn’t know. But I knew it was time to end things. With an attitude like his, what else could this be? Maybe he found someone new. Maybe his family arranged a high-society marriage. Or maybe he was simply tired of me. None of it mattered. What mattered was that he was giving me a dignified way out. I took a deep breath and offered him my signature smile, a submissive, obedient smile I had practiced thousands of times over the past five years. “More than enough,” I nodded repeatedly. “Thank you, boss. Paid in full, I understand completely.” I clutched the card tightly in my palm. This was my security, my financial safety net for the rest of my life, and the future of my two children. Jordan’s face froze. He clearly hadn’t anticipated this reaction. The fiery rage in his eyes instantly crystallized into complete bewilderment. I didn’t linger to analyze his expression. Delaying only invited trouble. If I didn’t leave now, what if he changed his mind? “Well then, Mr. Irwin…” I stood up, offering a polite bow. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll be taking my leave?” His lips moved, but no sound came out. “The kids…” he finally managed to squeeze out two words. “Don’t you worry,” I cut in immediately, speaking at breakneck speed. “I will take great care of the children. I’ll make sure they never disturb your new life.” “No need for child support either. The money on this card is more than enough. I promise they will vanish from your world completely.” Finishing my speech, I offered another flawless bow. Then I turned and walked toward the exit. My high heels clicked sharply against the polished marble floor. Every step felt like climbing a staircase toward total freedom. I could feel his gaze burning into my back like a spotlight, intense and suffocating. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t look back. The moment my hand touched the door handle, a low, strained sound echoed from behind me, squeezed straight from the depth of his throat. “Lynda!” My body stiffened. I didn’t turn around. I opened the door and walked out. Outside, his executive secretary, Brenda, stood trembling, looking at me in sheer panic before peeking past me into the office. I ignored her, heading straight for the executive elevator. Once inside, the doors slid shut. The mirrored walls reflected my face: calm, expressionless, composure fully intact. Only I knew that my heart was pounding wildly against my ribs. I pulled out my phone and dialed a number. “Hi, movers? I need the fastest service you have.” “Thirty minutes? Great. I’ll send the address.” “Also, help me book three tickets to Silver Sands. The earliest flight available.” The elevator reached the ground floor. I stepped outside into the summer heat and exhaust fumes. It was stifling, but to me, it smelled like pure freedom. I glanced up at Jordan’s skyscraper towering into the clouds. Goodbye, Jordan. Goodbye to five years of being a bird in a golden cage. From today on, I, Lynda, am a free woman. With your hundred million dollars. Back at the luxury mansion Jordan provided, I burst through the front door. Nanny Mrs. Flora was sitting in the living room playing building blocks with my kids. “Miss Lynda, you’re back?” Mrs. Flora stood up. “Mrs. Flora,” I panted, trying to keep my voice steady. “An emergency came up at work. They’re sending me out of state for an extended business trip.” “Please help me pack the kids’ clothes. Just their daily essentials, and hurry.” Mrs. Flora blinked in surprise. “So sudden?” “Yes, extremely urgent,” I nodded, putting on a serious expression. “Company business.” Not daring to pry further, Mrs. Flora hurried upstairs to pack. I squatted down to look at my two angels. My oldest, Toby, four years old, looked just like Jordan, wearing a tiny serious frown on his face. My youngest, Penny, two years old, took after me, her eyes curling into cute crescents when she giggled. “Toby, Penny,” I stroked their soft hair. “Mommy is taking you both on a fun long trip. Are you excited?” Penny clapped her tiny hands, babbling merrily, “Yay! Trip!” Toby knitted his small brows, staring at me. “Mommy, did Daddy tell you to go?” My heart sank slightly. “No,” I shook my head. “Mommy wants to go.” “Daddy… Daddy is very busy. We shouldn’t bother him.” Toby nodded thoughtfully, asking no further questions. Relieved, I sprinted into my master bedroom and opened the safe. Inside were the cash and jewelry I had saved over the years, along with our passports, birth certificates, and official documents. I had already stored encrypted scans of everything on a flash drive. I swept everything into a pre-packed backpack, then opened the walk-in closet. I skipped the designer clothes he bought me, taking only a few comfortable cotton outfits I had bought myself. By the time I finished, Mrs. Flora came down with the kids’ luggage. “Miss Lynda, all packed.” “Thank you.” I pulled out a stack of cash from my purse, around three thousand dollars, and shoved it into her hands. “Mrs. Flora, thank you for taking care of us these past five years. This is your bonus.” “I might… not come back for a long time. Take the money and head back to your hometown today.” Mrs. Flora gasped, waving her hands nervously. “Miss Lynda, I can’t accept this! Mr. Irwin will fire me!” “He won’t. Take it. You earned it.” “Leave right now, and don’t look back.” Intimidated by my resolute tone, Mrs. Flora stood dazed, holding the cash. Ignoring her, I grabbed the suitcases and led my children out the front door. At the porch, a massive golden head poked out from the doghouse. It was Buster, Jordan’s Golden Retriever. Though technically his dog, I was the one who fed, walked, and bathed him most of the time. Buster looked at me, his tail spinning like a helicopter rotor as he let out a soft whine. He seemed to know we were leaving. Looking into his big, wet eyes, my heart melted. Given Jordan’s terrible temper, who knew how he would treat Buster when he got mad? Screw it. I’m taking the dog too. “Buster, come here,” I whistled softly. Buster darted over joyfully, nuzzling my leg. I unclipped his leash. “Come on, buddy. You’re coming with us.” And so, there I was: Lynda, a woman supposedly dumped by her billionaire sugar daddy. Leading two toddlers and a hundred-pound Golden Retriever, standing outside the gates waiting for the moving truck. The truck arrived. I loaded the kids and the dog into the back. The driver asked, “Where to, ma’am?” I gave him the address of a temporary storage facility on the outskirts of town. As the engine turned over, I cast one last glance at the golden cage I had lived in for five years. I had left the house keys on the entryway console. My SIM card had been snapped in half and tossed into a storm drain. Even if Jordan realized what happened, he would never find me. The moving truck rolled forward, the city lights melting into blurry streaks behind us. Toby and Penny were exhausted, leaning against my arms as they drifted off to sleep. Buster rested his heavy head on my lap, snoring softly. Looking out the window, I felt no sadness, no lingering regret. Only a massive, soaring sense of peace and anticipation for my new life. I pulled out the black card. It gleamed with a cold metallic sheen under the dim overhead light. I had no idea how much money Jordan had put in it. His claim of “a hundred million” was obviously exaggeration in anger. But a couple million, or ten million, had to be in there. It was more than enough. Enough for me to raise my kids and dog in a quiet corner of the world where nobody knew us. I let out a long breath. Jordan, this time, I’m truly gone. Taking your kids and your dog with me. One month later. In a quiet coastal town called Silver Sands, I rented a two-story storefront on a cozy street. The ground floor was converted into a bakery, which I redecorated simply. The top floor was a spacious two-bedroom apartment for me and the kids. Life became wonderfully peaceful. I didn’t touch Jordan’s black card. Not a single cent. I relied entirely on my personal savings, about three hundred thousand dollars. Spent frugally, it was enough to keep us afloat until the bakery turned a profit. I wanted zero financial ties to that man. The black card was buried at the very bottom of a biscuit tin, wiped from my mind. Every morning, I walked Toby and Penny to a nearby private preschool, then returned to manage my shop, baking cakes, making pastries, and brewing fresh coffee. Small-town life moved at a gentle pace, and the neighbors were warm and friendly. They only knew me as a single mother working hard to raise two kids. Nobody knew my past. It was bliss. Toby and Penny adapted quickly. They gained a sun-kissed glow and laughed constantly. Especially Toby, who used to frown like a miniature adult, now smiled every day. Buster became a local celebrity. He spent his afternoons napping by the bakery door, wagging his tail whenever regulars passed by. Kids from the neighborhood loved stopping to pet him after school. I assumed life would continue smoothly like this forever. Until one afternoon. I was in the back kitchen testing a new mango mousse recipe when my phone rang. It was a local, unknown number. “Hello?” “Lynda! It’s me! Jess!” my best friend’s frantic voice exploded through the speaker. I froze. “Jess? How… how did you get this number?” “Are you kidding me? You think I couldn’t track you down?” Jess hollered. “I paid a private investigator to check your newly registered ID records! You crazy woman, running away without telling me a word! Do you know how worried I was?!” A warm wave washed over my chest. “I didn’t want to get you involved in my mess.” “Forget that!” Jess’s tone turned eerily serious. “Lynda, answer me truthfully. What the hell happened between you and Jordan?” “Did you really run off with his money?” My heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean ‘ran off with his money’? He gave me that card as a severance package!” “Severance package?!” Jess’s voice spiked an octave higher, piercing my eardrum so hard I jerked the phone away. “Who told you it was a severance package?!” Her yell left me completely baffled. “What else could it be? You should’ve seen his face that day, he looked ready to eat me alive! He slammed the card down and barked ‘Is this enough?’ If that wasn’t a breakup, what was it?” Silence fell over the line. A heavy, agonizing silence that lasted for ten full seconds. I could hear Jess’s deep, disbelieving breathing. “Jess? Are you still there?” “Lynda…” Jess’s voice drifted through the speaker, carrying an eerie tone of utter disbelief. “My cousin’s boyfriend works as a senior director at Jordan’s company.” “He said that on the afternoon you left, Jordan’s office looked like an earthquake hit it.” My chest tightened. “What… what did he do?” “He smashed his fifteen million dollar historical antique vase into pieces!” “Do you have any idea how expensive that was?! A fortune!” “He smashed two priceless porcelain vases right after!” “The entire executive floor was so terrified nobody dared to breathe!” “And he roared at his chief secretary, Brenda, for an hour straight!” I swallowed hard. “What… what was he screaming?” Jess took a deep breath, then recited in a slow, dramatic cadence: “‘I told her to take the card and pick an engagement ring!’ ‘Cartier! Tiffany! Harry Winston! Whichever she damn well pleases!’ ‘I told her to pick a ring! A ring!’” “‘Why the hell did she take the money and run?!’” “‘And where is my dog?! Brenda! Where the hell is my dog?!’” My brain exploded like a grenade detonated directly above my head. My grip failed, and my phone dropped to the floor with a loud clatter. I stood paralyzed in the kitchen. Sunlight streamed through the back window, bright and warm. Out in the yard, Toby and Penny were chasing Buster around the grass, their bright, bell-like laughter echoing through the air as Buster barked playfully, his tail wagging furiously. Everything was so peaceful, yet so utterly absurd. Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, I bent down and picked up my phone. Inside my head, Jess’s voice echoed on an endless, screaming loop: I told her to pick a ring… pick an engagement ring… I stared at the goofy Golden Retriever in the yard. Then at my two toddlers rolling on the grass. Finally, my eyes landed on the biscuit tin buried in the pantry that held the black card. So… he wasn’t breaking up with me. He was… proposing? And I… I mistook his proposal for a breakup? Then I not only took his money and his kids, but also stole his dog on my way out? Wait… What?!

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1 When I saw the intern Topher leave a stack of crucial expense reports unattended on the copy room printer, I didn’t gather them up. Instead, I pulled out my phone and tagged both the CEO and the Director of Finance in the company Slack channel: [“Topher left his stack of expense receipts on the main printer. Could Finance please come count them in person? I want to make sure nothing goes missing and causes a misunderstanding.”] In my previous life, I had done the nice thing and handed the papers back to him. Half an hour later, our boss screamed because the ledgers didn’t match. Topher panicked, eyes wide and innocent: [“That sequential twenty thousand dollar receipt was definitely in that stack… Artie was the only one who handled my papers…”] [“Artie, I know you don’t like me, but you can’t play a joke like this!”] The boss didn’t listen. He fired me on the spot and called the cops, accusing me of embezzlement. I lost my permanent contract, my five thousand dollar commission, and was blacklisted industry-wide. I died young, working triple shifts for DoorDash to pay debts. Only after death did the truth surface. Topher had secretly sold that twenty thousand dollar receipt for a corporate tax write-off and needed a scapegoat. Framing me also let him steal the only permanent position. This time, I would make Finance audit every single sheet in front of the whole office. If even one page is missing, Topher, you can rot in a cell. … “Artie, what the hell is this?” Topher stormed over to my cubicle, shoving his phone screen in my face. It displayed the message I had just dropped in the general channel. His eyes were already welling up, rimmed with a pathetic red. “I just accidentally left my papers on the tray. Did you really need to put me on blast in front of the whole company?” “Are you purposely trying to humiliate me?” I didn’t even look up from my keyboard. I just gave him a quiet, flat response. “Those are high value corporate receipts. I’m just following protocol.” He sucked in a sharp breath, spun on his heel, and marched straight toward Donovan’s office. I watched him walk away. My chest felt completely hollow, calm as a stagnant pool of water. Three minutes later, Donovan’s office door swung open. “Artie. Get in here.” I pushed the door open and stepped inside. Topher was curled up in the corner of the leather sofa, clutching that stack of expense reports. Tears were already spilling down his cheeks. Donovan sat behind his massive mahogany desk, a printed ledger spread out in front of him. He tapped his pen against the wood, completely out of patience. “Topher says someone tampered with his paperwork. A twenty thousand dollar receipt is missing.” “I never touched his papers.” Topher looked up, biting his lower lip. “But Artie… I left those papers on the printer at exactly eight thirty. You went into the copy room at eight thirty three…” “The security badge logs show it…” He handed his phone to Donovan, displaying a screenshot from the building’s access system. Black and white proof. I absolutely had gone in there. I went in to grab my own performance review forms. I was in and out in under two minutes. But right now, that digital log was the only piece of evidence pointing straight at me. Donovan’s gaze pierced through me like a physical blade. “Care to explain that?” “I went in to grab my own printouts. I did not touch his belongings.” Topher’s voice dropped to a fragile whisper. “Artie, my stack was resting right on top of the output tray. There’s no way you could have missed it…” He let the sentence hang in the air, dropping his head to wipe at his eyes. He didn’t make a direct accusation. He didn’t yell. He just stated the setup. Every single word he spoke sounded like I really don’t want to suspect you. But the subtext was screaming It couldn’t have been anyone else. Donovan slammed his hand against the desk. “Twenty grand is not pocket change. Artie, open your bag.” “Absolutely not. You have no right to search my personal belongings.” “Refusing means you are guilty.” Topher stood up quickly, gently tugging at Donovan’s sleeve. “Donovan, please don’t do this. Maybe I just miscounted…” The way he begged for mercy on my behalf was far more lethal than any accusation. Donovan shook off the intern’s hand. “You don’t need to cover for him, Topher. We are getting to the bottom of this.” He picked up his desk phone and punched in an extension. “Marcus, get to my office right now.” Marcus, our HR Director, walked in sixty seconds later. Donovan gave him a quick rundown of the situation. Marcus glanced at the security logs, then looked at me. “Artie, are you willing to cooperate with a bag search?” “No.” The entire office outside seemed to hold its breath. The door wasn’t shut tight. Everyone in the bullpen had heard every single word. Faint whispers started floating through the gaps in the blinds. “He won’t let them search his bag. Do you think he actually stole it?” “Twenty grand, man. That is a felony right there…” “No wonder he caused a scene in the Slack channel this morning. He was trying to divert attention.” Topher started crying again. I just stood perfectly still, letting the weight of everyone’s stares wash over me. I wasn’t panicking. Because I had already prepared for exactly this. The gossip spread through the corporate grapevine faster than I could have ever imagined. When lunchtime rolled around, nobody asked me to join them. The guys I normally grabbed burgers with, Greg and Ben, completely ghosted me. The two girls from administration didn’t even look in my direction. The four of them walked to the food court together. I could see them whispering as they waited for the elevator. I sat alone at my desk. Down the hall, I could hear voices carrying from the breakroom. “Artie always looked like such a straight shooter. You really never know with people.” “I heard his dad is in the hospital. Medical bills are piling up. He’s desperate.” “Desperate doesn’t mean you steal company property! You can flip a twenty thousand dollar receipt on the gray market for thousands in cash.” “Ugh, I feel so bad for Topher. He’s just an intern. If the company makes him cover that loss, his life is ruined.” I walked up to the breakroom entrance, holding my empty coffee mug. The moment they saw me, the room went dead silent. They grabbed their drinks and shuffled out, avoiding eye contact. Nobody apologized. Nobody thought there was anything wrong with what they were doing. At two in the afternoon, Topher put on his second crying performance of the day. This time, it was right at his desk, in full view of the entire floor. He took a phone call, hung up, and buried his face in his arms. His shoulders shook violently. Greg rolled his chair over and asked what was wrong. Topher shook his head, his voice muffled by his sleeves. “Finance just told me… if we can’t recover that receipt, I might have to cover the tax discrepancy out of my own pocket…” “I barely make two thousand a month as an intern. How am I supposed to pay that back?” Greg immediately shot a dirty look across the room, glaring right at me. Topher sniffled and added another line. “It’s my own fault for being careless and leaving it on the printer…” “I don’t blame Artie… he probably has his own struggles right now…” I don’t blame him. He has struggles. Every single word was another nail in my coffin. At three o’clock, Donovan called an all hands meeting. Standing at the front of the conference room, his eyes swept over the crowd, lingering on me for a heavy second. “The company is treating this missing document as a severe breach of trust.” “Until the internal investigation is concluded, the parties involved will have all operational permissions suspended.” Parties involved. It was just me and Topher. And in their eyes, Topher was the bleeding heart victim. Which meant the real target of that suspension was me. After the meeting, I returned to my desk to find my network access gutted. I couldn’t log into the project backend. The client tracking spreadsheets were locked out. When I checked the approval portal for my five thousand dollar commission, the status read in bold red letters: EMPLOYEE REMOVED FROM PROJECT. Eleven months of grinding, all down the drain. I stared at the grayed out screen. It was exactly like my past life. With a single phantom piece of paper, he had manipulated an entire office into taking his side. I didn’t shed a tear. I had cried all my tears in my last life. Crying didn’t fix anything. Part of me wanted to stand up right then, scream at the top of my lungs, and swear to them that I was innocent. But not yet. The timing wasn’t right. When I swiped my badge the next morning, my desk was gone. My monitors, my keyboard, my family photos. They had all been relocated from the premium window spot down to a dark corner right next to the men’s restroom. A junior admin approached me, looking like a deer in headlights. “Marcus gave the order. He said you are being temporarily reassigned.” I hadn’t signed a single piece of paperwork agreeing to a transfer, but they had already executed the punishment. At nine sharp, Marcus walked over with a clipboard. “Artie, here is your reassignment notice.” “While the investigation is ongoing, you are being moved from Sales to Administrative Support. Your pay will reflect the standard rate for the new role.” I skimmed the paper. My base salary was being slashed from four thousand a month to minimum wage. “The investigation isn’t even over, and you are already demoting me and cutting my pay?” Marcus kept his face completely neutral, offering a subtle roll of his eyes. “This is to protect you just as much as it protects the company.” I refused to take the pen. Marcus frowned. “I need an answer by end of day tomorrow.” “If you refuse to sign, HR will process this as a voluntary abandonment of your job.” After he walked away, I noticed the entire atmosphere on the floor had turned toxic. People took wide detours just to avoid walking past my new desk. If I walked into the kitchenette to get water, whoever was inside would immediately grab their cup and bolt. When I went into the restroom, the guys talking in the stalls instantly went dead silent, waiting until they heard the door click shut behind me to resume their gossip. At ten thirty, Donovan summoned me to his office again. Topher wasn’t there this time. Instead, there was a fresh document waiting on the leather blotter. A mutual separation agreement. “Artie, I will make this quick.” Donovan leaned back in his plush chair, taking a slow sip of his black coffee. “This missing document is causing a massive disruption. The company cannot afford to let this drag out.” He set his mug down and slid the paper toward me. “We part ways mutually.” “You get a severance package. Four thousand two hundred dollars. You sign it, you pack your box, and you leave today.” “Let’s keep this professional. It’s the best option for everyone.” I had bled for this company for eleven months. I had pulled countless all nighters. I built three major client pipelines from scratch. Tomorrow was the absolute final day of my probationary period. Next month, my five thousand dollar commission was scheduled to hit my bank account. And he thought he could buy my silence for a measly four grand. “I’m not signing that.” Donovan’s face darkened like a thundercloud. “You better think this through. If you don’t take the mutual exit, I will terminate you with cause.” “That termination goes on your permanent employment record. And the stated cause will be theft.” Theft. He had already played judge, jury, and executioner. No actual investigation. No conclusive findings. No physical proof. Just a digital door log and an intern’s fake tears. That was all it took. I looked at the dollar amount printed on that piece of paper, and I suddenly found it incredibly funny. In my past life, I had stood in this exact office, crying, begging him to just review the evidence one more time. In this life, I wasn’t begging for a damn thing. After lunch, I submitted a request for two hours of personal time off. Nobody asked where I was going. Nobody cared. By the time I swiped back into the building, it was almost five. Topher was leaning against the breakroom doorframe, chatting and laughing with a few coworkers. The moment he saw me, his smile hitched. “Hey Artie. Where did you run off to this afternoon?” “Personal errands.” He nodded, not pushing the subject. But his eyes followed me down the hall, tracking my every move. He was trying to figure out if I was still a threat. He probably concluded that I wasn’t. Because in his mind, I was already a dead man walking. My network access was gone. My desk was by the toilets. The entire office was treating him like a martyr, and the boss wanted me gone by sundown. Tomorrow was the final deadline for the full time contract approvals. As long as I took the severance today, or got fired tomorrow, that permanent spot was his. He had won. That was exactly what he was thinking. Just like the last time. I sat down at my desk and unlocked my phone. The stage was set. The final day. The deadline for contract conversions. When I walked into the bullpen at eight in the morning, Topher was already at his desk. He was wearing a brand new button down shirt. His hair was perfectly styled. A faint, arrogant smirk played on his lips. It was the smile of a victor. At nine, Donovan sent out an office wide alert, calling everyone to the main conference room. The agenda was listed as a quarterly wrap up and a personnel announcement. Every single person in that room knew exactly what was about to happen. They knew who was getting the permanent contract. The room was packed tight. Donovan stood in front of the projector screen, spending five minutes running through boring sales metrics. Then he cleared his throat and picked up a manila folder. “Now, for our personnel update.” “After a comprehensive evaluation, the company has decided to offer a permanent, full time position to Topher. He will be stepping into the role of Account Supervisor.” Supervisor. Not a junior associate. A Supervisor. He skipped two whole rungs on the corporate ladder in one day. The room erupted into applause. Topher stood up, offering a practiced, humble bow. “Thank you, Donovan. Thank you, everyone.” “I truly appreciate the trust this company has placed in me, and I promise to exceed your expectations.” Donovan raised his hands, gesturing for the room to quiet down. His expression shifted into something grim. “Additionally, due to the severe mishandling of company documents recently, we have decided to terminate our employment contract with Artie.” He didn’t even bother looking in my direction. His voice was laced with disgust. “Effective immediately. Human Resources will assist in escorting him off the premises.” “This company has zero tolerance for employees with compromised morals. We don’t need scum like that here.” The room fell dead silent for a split second. Then, someone actually clapped. Just a couple of people, clapping like they had finally purged a cancer from the office. Justice served. Topher turned his head to look right at me. Deep in his eyes, I saw the exact same malicious glint from my previous life. “Artie, you really shouldn’t have done it.” He walked over to me, his tone dripping with condescension. “I know things have been really tough for you lately, and you did put some good work in while you were here.” “If you ever need a reference or a little help landing on your feet, you just let me know.” Everyone was watching. His performance was Oscar worthy. The gracious victim extending forgiveness to his attacker. The newly minted Supervisor offering a helping hand to the disgraced, fired colleague. So kind. So professional. I stared right through him, not saying a word. And then, I smiled. Topher’s face twitched. He couldn’t comprehend why I was smiling. Why would a guy who just got fired in front of thirty people, while the whole room clapped for his departure, be smiling? I pushed my chair back and stood up. “Donovan, before I pack my things, can I have exactly two minutes of your time?” Donovan scowled, his voice thick with annoyance. “Take whatever complaints you have to Marcus. I am done dealing with you.” “Two minutes. That’s it.” I looked him dead in the eye, my voice unnervingly calm. “If you won’t let me speak here, I will gladly take my evidence straight to the Department of Labor.” The conference room felt like a vacuum. Donovan glared at me for five long seconds, then glanced nervously around at the crowd. “Fine. Speak. You have exactly one hundred and twenty seconds.” He aggressively tapped the crystal face of his wristwatch. I walked to the front of the room. Thirty pairs of eyes tracked my every movement. Some looked disgusted. Some looked pitying. Some just wanted a show. Most were just impatient for me to leave. I knew exactly what they were thinking. What could a desperate thief possibly have left to say? I turned to face the crowd, then locked my eyes onto Topher. “You told everyone I stole that twenty thousand dollar receipt, correct?” He frowned, his voice dropping into a warning tone. “Artie, the company has already made its decision…” “And you said the badge logs proved I was the only person who entered the copy room, correct?” He clamped his mouth shut. I let out a soft, mocking chuckle. “Well then, let’s watch the tape together.” The projector screen behind Donovan flickered, the background suddenly shifting. As the image sharpened into focus, a collective gasp ripped through the room.

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1 On our honeymoon’s first day, I dragged three massive suitcases alone through the crowded terminal. Josh walked ahead, arm wrapped around Brooke’s shoulders, shielding her from the rush. “Hurry up, Linda. You know Brooke is fragile. I can’t let her stay in this crowd.” Before I could reply, a heavyset man slammed into me. I hit the floor, luggage crashing down. Sharp pain flared across my knees and shins. Looking up, neither of them had bothered to look back. We’d grown up together. Brooke’s severe medical condition meant she was treated like spun glass, everything revolving around her. As kids, Josh always stepped between us. As we got older, even after we started dating, he’d drop everything and sprint to her the second she called. Now, on our honeymoon, he’d insisted on bringing her along because he worried about her health. For years, I compromised. I swallowed my pride. I took a step back. But I was human too. I bled when I fell. And there would always be a day when I was just too hurt to take another step forward. … The freezing temperature of the airport tiles seeped through my clothes, chilling my chest. Just as I pushed myself up, Josh finally appeared in front of me. “If you fell, why didn’t you say something?” He pulled me to my feet, then immediately grabbed two of the suitcases, marching forward at a brisk pace. “Let’s go. We are going to miss the flight.” I glanced up at the giant departure board. “Don’t we still have three hours?” Josh’s shoulders went visibly rigid. “Linda, we aren’t going to the beach anymore.” I froze in my tracks. Panic seized my chest as I scrambled to unlock my phone. I pulled up the itinerary. Our original destination, the pristine beaches of Maui, had been completely altered. We were booked for a snowy mountain resort in Aspen. “Josh…” I held my phone up. My hands were trembling violently. I couldn’t tell if it was from hauling the heavy bags or from the absolute shock of his words. “Brooke hasn’t been feeling well. She really wanted to see the snow…” Because of Brooke. Again. “Josh, this is our honeymoon.” A trip I had spent three months agonizing over. I had meticulously planned out every single outfit, matching my dresses, shoes, and jewelry. I had mapped out two completely different itineraries for us to enjoy by the ocean. When I sent him the plans, he didn’t utter a single word of complaint. I even swallowed the bitter pill of letting him drag her along on our romantic getaway. And now he was telling me that our honeymoon had been hijacked. Relocated to the freezing mountains, all because Brooke wanted to see the snow. Behind my back. Without a single word. “Honestly, a vacation is a vacation no matter where we go.” Josh reached out to grab my wrist, trying to pull me forward. I ripped my hand away. “You two go. I am not going.” My heart plummeted into a bottomless abyss. I grabbed the handle of my remaining suitcase and turned around. But Josh grabbed my arm in a vice grip. “What is your problem, Linda?” “Are you seriously throwing a tantrum just because we aren’t going to an island?” I didn’t answer. One of the wheels on my suitcase had snapped off during the fall. Dragging it felt impossibly heavy. Josh stood blocking my path, a deep scowl carving into his forehead. He looked incredibly annoyed. “Linda, can you please show an ounce of empathy? You know exactly how sick Brooke gets.” I raised my eyes, looking past him to the glowing flight boards. I forced back the sharp burn of tears threatening to spill. Right. Brooke was sick. Because she was sick, she had to crash the honeymoon I had dreamed about for months. The sunny beaches I longed for had to be swapped out for the freezing altitude of Aspen. Because she was sick, Josh spent the entire morning shielding her from the crowds, while I was left dragging three oversized bags alone, getting knocked to the ground until my legs were black and blue. I desperately wanted to ask him, what about me? Even now, he hadn’t bothered to ask if I was hurt. How many times had this happened? I had lost count. After a long, suffocating silence, I meticulously peeled his fingers off my arm, swallowing the heavy lump of grief wedged in my throat. “You better hurry. Don’t let Brooke wait too long.” Hearing this, Josh glanced down at his expensive watch. He shot me one last disappointed glare. “Linda, you seriously need to work on this toxic attitude of yours. Acting like the world is ending over a slight change of plans is just pathetic.” I kept my mouth shut, dragging my broken suitcase toward the exit. A slight change of plans? I didn’t think so. When we were planning our wedding, I wanted a massive, joyful celebration. Josh told me we had to consider Brooke’s sensory issues. She couldn’t handle loud noises or large crowds. So the vibrant, beautiful wedding of my dreams was downgraded to a cramped, dimly lit chapel with exactly four people in attendance, including the priest. After we got married, I just wanted a normal life with my husband. Josh told me Brooke’s parents were too old to provide the care she needed, and he wanted to move her into our spare bedroom. So my private marital sanctuary became a crowded house of three. Before all of this, I had sat him down multiple times. I asked him to establish some healthy boundaries. I reminded him that he was a married man now. But he just brushed it off. He told me Brooke was our childhood best friend, and taking extra care of her was simply the right thing to do. So it happened again. And again. And again. I was supposed to be his wife, his partner in life, yet I was always the one being pushed to the back of the line. And now, as I dragged a broken suitcase through the chaotic airport traffic, Josh was already boarding a plane with Brooke. Our honeymoon had officially become their romantic getaway to Aspen. By the time I finally managed to hail a cab, my phone buzzed with a text from Josh. [Make sure you text Brooke and explain why you left. I don’t want her stressing out and thinking this is her fault.] I didn’t reply. The phone vibrated again. It was a text from Brooke. [Linda, did you back out of the trip because of me? I feel so awful. This was supposed to be your honeymoon…] I didn’t reply to that either. I simply flipped the phone to silent and tossed it into my purse. Watching the city blur past the taxi window, I felt nothing but a bone deep exhaustion. All those tiny, neglected details had finally crushed me. I was so incredibly tired. I just wanted to escape. I wanted to be as far away from them as physically possible. I had the driver take me straight to my office building. I left the broken suitcase in the lobby and rode the elevator up to the sixth floor. I handed in my formal resignation, then walked over to my cubicle to pack my things. Sarah, my team lead, stood by my desk with a look of genuine regret. “Are you seriously leaving us, Linda? Upper management was just talking about putting you up for a massive promotion.” I gave her a quiet nod, carefully placing the small potted plant Josh had given me years ago into the cardboard box. Sarah wasn’t lying. I was on the fast track to a director role. But the only reason I had taken this job, the only reason I stayed in this city, was because Josh wanted to settle down here. And looking back, it was painfully obvious that he only wanted to stay here so he could keep a close eye on Brooke. At least Josh and I hadn’t filed our official marriage certificate yet. Walking away was going to be remarkably simple. By the time I wrestled my massive suitcase through the front door of the apartment, Josh and Brooke had just landed in Colorado. My phone lit up with his incoming call. “Brooke has been having a panic attack the entire flight because of your little stunt.” “Text her back right now.” I lay flat on the mattress, listening to his icy, demanding tone. My eyes slowly wandered around the master bedroom. The modern chandelier, the silk bedsheets, the vanity desk, the custom wardrobe. Every single piece of furniture in this room was chosen to fit Brooke’s aesthetic. When we were decorating, Josh insisted that everything had to be approved by Brooke. He claimed that if she didn’t like the environment, it would trigger her anxiety and worsen her physical health. I hadn’t fought him on it. I figured it was just furniture. It served the same purpose no matter what it looked like. But laying here now, the entire room felt suffocating. I didn’t care if she was supposed to be my friend too. “Josh, I am so completely exhausted. I…” Before I could even get the explanation out, Brooke’s delicate voice filtered through the receiver. “Noley, what woman are you talking to on the phone?” “Come here and help me with the zipper on my dress.” I froze on the bed. Noley. What woman. The zipper on my dress. It was an overwhelming amount of information packed into three sentences. It would be impossible for any normal person to ignore. While I was stunned silent, Brooke’s voice shifted. “Oh, it’s Linda!” “Linda, you aren’t mad at me, are you? I saw you didn’t reply to my text.” “Please don’t overthink this. I practically begged Josh to bring me to Aspen. You know how much I love the snow.” “And you know how weak my joints are. I didn’t want to pull a muscle reaching for my zipper, so I just asked Josh for a tiny favor.” She had an air tight explanation for absolutely everything. I let the silence hang, refusing to give her the validation she wanted. I was entirely done fighting over these twisted little details. Because the truth was, neither of them cared about how I felt. “Linda, we are heading out to grab dinner! Talk to you later!” Click. The line went dead. I didn’t sleep a single minute that night. I lay perfectly still in the dark, replaying years of neglected boundaries and broken promises. I watched my own shadow stretch across the wall. I felt completely numb. Paralyzed. Until eventually, I couldn’t feel anything at all. Around five in the morning, right as my eyes were finally starting to close, I heard the heavy click of the front door unlocking. I pushed the bedroom door open. Josh was walking into the living room, supporting Brooke by her waist. Brooke looked completely drained, but the moment she saw me, she forced a sweet, innocent smile. “Linda, we came back!” She walked over and wrapped her arms around me. I stiffened, awkwardly patting her back. “Why are you guys back so soon?” The moment the words left my mouth, Josh shot me a look of pure disgust. “Because of you, obviously!” “How can you be so incredibly selfish, Linda?” “It is a massive effort for Brooke to travel, and you had to ruin the entire trip by throwing a tantrum!” I pushed Brooke away, locking eyes with him. My patience had officially evaporated. “I am the selfish one?” “Josh, when you decided to drag her along on our honeymoon, did you consider my feelings for even a second?” “When the two of you hijacked our itinerary and changed the destination without telling me, did you consider my feelings?” “And the wedding…” “Shut up! Just shut up, Linda! Brooke is standing right here!” “You always bring up the exact same things. Brooke has a severe medical condition. Why do you constantly insist on competing with a sick woman?” “Competing?” The tears I had been fighting back finally broke, spilling hot and fast down my cheeks. “Please stop fighting, Linda.” “It’s my fault. It is all my fault.” “My body is just a burden. I ruined your special trip.” She started crying hysterically, stepping forward to grab my hands. I instinctively stepped back, brushing her hands away. She dramatically stumbled backward, landing flat on her behind. Before my brain could even process what was happening, Josh lunged forward and shoved me hard in the chest. I flew backward, crashing violently onto the hardwood floor. “Why the hell did you push her?” “Are you actually a psychopath, Linda?” Without another word, Josh scooped Brooke up into his arms and sprinted out the door toward his car. Panic finally set in. I didn’t even have time to process the betrayal. I grabbed my keys and followed them to the emergency room. Brooke was rushed into a private examination room. I sat on the cold plastic chairs in the hallway, watching Josh press his face against the glass window of the door, his eyes wide with frantic worry. A passing nurse stopped and gently tapped my shoulder. “Miss, do you need me to wrap that up for you?” I blinked in confusion. The nurse pointed down at my arm. I finally realized that when Josh shoved me, I had scraped my arm against the sharp edge of the coffee table. Thick drops of blood were slowly pooling on the linoleum floor. I panicked and tried to cover the gash with my bare hand, but the nurse gently pulled my wrist away. “Don’t do that. You’ll introduce bacteria into the wound.” “Come with me to the trauma bay.” I followed her down the hall in a daze. She carefully cleaned the wound with antiseptic, glancing back out toward the hallway. “That guy out there, his wife is the one in the room, right?” I froze for a second, realizing she was talking about Brooke. I gave a slow nod, saying nothing. “Your brother sure is dedicated to his wife. He’s been staring through that glass since they got here. He didn’t even notice his own sister was bleeding everywhere.” The gauze tightened around my arm, bringing a sharp, burning sting. When I walked back out to the hallway, Josh was still pacing in front of the window. He didn’t spare me a single glance. An hour later, the doctor finally walked out. He assured us that Brooke was perfectly fine. Her daily maintenance routine had protected her joints. She just needed some rest. I stood by the wall. Just as I instinctively moved forward to help Brooke walk, Josh finally noticed the thick white bandages wrapping my forearm. “What happened to your arm?” I paused, then smoothly stepped out of his reach. Josh froze, his hand hanging awkwardly in the air. He stared at me, his jaw tight, but he didn’t say a word. That night, I lay frozen on the edge of the mattress. I heard the rustle of the sheets behind me. Josh slid his arm around my waist, pulling me against his chest. In the pitch black room, his voice was low, carrying a hint of genuine warmth. “Linda, about what happened this morning… I was out of line.” “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that.” “Can we just drop the attitude now?” “Let me see your arm.” I kept my mouth completely shut. Hot tears streamed down my face, soaking silently into the cotton pillowcase. He reached down, trying to touch my bandaged arm. I smacked his hand away. His tone instantly hardened. “Linda, what exactly is your problem?” “We are practically married. We have our whole lives ahead of us.” “Are you seriously going to hold a grudge over one little mistake forever?” I took a shaky breath, forcing the violent sob back down my throat. “Josh, it’s not one little mistake. It’s a thousand of them.” I sat up, turning on the lamp, wanting to finally lay everything out on the table. Click. Josh reached over and plunged the room back into darkness. I nudged his shoulder. He rolled over, giving me his back. “Linda, I just don’t get you. We all grew up together. Why are you so completely incapable of making room for Brooke?” Staring at the back of his head, I suddenly let out a laugh. The sound was hoarse, ugly, and broken in the quiet bedroom. Why couldn’t I make room? Because love is inherently territorial. It demands to be chosen first. In that exact moment, a chilling realization washed over me. Josh had probably never loved me at all. So it made perfect sense that he couldn’t comprehend why I refused to tolerate his obsession with another woman. The next morning, I changed my flight ticket. Before the sun was fully up, I hauled my suitcase out the front door. Josh and Brooke had already left the apartment. I had no idea where they went. But I did know that today was my birthday. And for my first gift of this new year, I was giving myself a completely new life.

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In my past life, I didn’t realize Vincent Sinclair loved the wrong person until our wedding day. When my twin sister returned from abroad and appeared at the venue, the ruthless heir to the Sinclair empire froze. His eyes turned bloodshot as he stared dead at her. That was the moment I finally understood. He had spent the last two years showering me with money, resources, and a borderline obsessive pursuit, all because I shared a face with her. Given a second chance, I stood by my second-floor window and looked down at the man who had been standing in the snow all night waiting for me to cave. Without a shred of hesitation, I texted him my sister’s flight details. 1 Since his true love was back, this stand-in was officially retiring. The text had barely gone through when the man downstairs reacted. I hid in the dark bedroom, watching him pull his phone from his overcoat. He glanced at the screen. Then his head snapped up. His piercing gaze locked straight onto my window. Even with the thick blackout curtains drawn, I instinctively shrank back against the wall. My screen lit up. Vincent’s text arrived instantly. “Where did you go? When are you leaving?” I could feel his suffocating presence bleeding through the screen. I tossed the phone onto the mattress and ignored him. 2 Ever since he cornered me at the hospital two years ago, this man had forced his way into my life. Armed with the brutal lessons of my past life, I knew exactly what his so-called devotion really was. It all belonged to my sister. I had suffered enough. Since I couldn’t expose my sister’s existence, my only option in this life was to avoid him like the plague. But arrogant elites like Vincent never understood the concept of backing down. His method of courting was aggressive and raw. Designer bags, limited edition sports cars, showing up to chauffeur me everywhere. He wanted the whole world to know I belonged to him. My friends told me to accept my good fortune before I drained the patience of this untouchable billionaire. After all, this was Vincent Sinclair. He had the wealth, the looks, and the power to make anyone lose their mind. My phone buzzed twice. Him again. “Playing dead?” Snowflakes began to drift outside the window. Vincent cast one final, lingering look at my apartment before pulling open the door of his black SUV and sliding in. He didn’t start the engine right away. The car sat idling in the winter cold for over ten minutes before finally creeping away into the night. I rubbed my aching temples. When Vincent placed someone on a pedestal, he was the perfect lover. That was exactly how I fell so hard for him in my previous life. But when he turned ruthless, he knew exactly how to drive a knife straight into your heart. I refused to relive a single day of that hollow, suffocating marriage. 3 For the past few days, my sister had been packing her bags for her return to the States, and I had been quietly arranging my visa. Stella and I were identical twins. Apart from our personalities, we shared every physical trait down to a strand of hair. Swapping identities was basically second nature to us. Years ago, our mother was the secret mistress of a wealthy man. When the scandal threatened to ruin him, she hid in a rural town to give birth to us in secret. Nobody knew she had twins. Eventually, that wealthy man found his conscience and brought our mother back to his mansion. But his strict condition was that she could only bring one child. So I was taken into the Hastings estate, and Stella was shipped off to Europe. For twenty years, to keep the secret buried, we operated like shift workers, constantly rotating between domestic life in New York and our hidden life abroad. To maintain the illusion, we even majored in the same subject at university and seamlessly shared the same social circles. So naturally, Stella knew a guy named Vincent was relentlessly pursuing “me.” 4 In my past life, I was in too deep. I couldn’t bear to share Vincent with anyone. Even knowing my twin existed, I selfishly kept her a secret from him. It wasn’t until I stood at the altar in my white gown that I became the ultimate punchline. But this time around, the second Vincent showed up, I snapped a photo and sent it straight to Stella. “A romantic debt you left behind five years ago?” Stella, always the optimist, instantly replied with a string of laughing emojis. “I barely just turned eighteen five years ago! Be serious.” She had absolutely no memory of this gorgeous billionaire. Even after I sent a zoomed in, candid shot of Vincent’s face, she swore she had never seen him in her life. I could only reply in helpless frustration. “But five years ago I was living in London. The girl he knew couldn’t possibly have been me.” 5 My visa paperwork was almost finalized. I thought I could shake Vincent off completely before leaving the country, but fate had other plans. Two in the morning, inpatient ward. I had just finished assisting my attending physician with a grueling marathon surgery. I collapsed onto the concrete steps of the stairwell, dozing off from pure exhaustion. In my hazy state, a heavy cashmere overcoat carrying a faint scent of cedar was draped over my shoulders. I snapped my eyes open and met Vincent’s dark, piercing gaze. This billionaire heir, a man notorious for his clinical germaphobia, was sitting casually next to me on the filthy stairwell floor. “If it exhausts you this much, why did you insist on clinical surgery?” he asked, turning his head to look at me. I stayed quiet. When our mother gave birth to us, she suffered a massive hemorrhage. It was a surgeon who dragged the three of us back from the brink of death. That was the reason we both chose medicine, but I had no intention of sharing my trauma with him. I turned my face away. “What are you doing here? I thought we agreed to meet directly at the airport this weekend.” The stairwell was dead quiet, making his voice sound impossibly clear. “You are a terrible liar.” “I asked your department head. He said you are following him to a medical symposium in Chicago on Wednesday.” He paused, his tone absolute. “So the other night, you never left your apartment. You were hiding upstairs from me.” Before I could react, he leaned in. His chin rested naturally against my shoulder. “Rina,” he whispered my name into the dim light, his voice laced with a heavy, helpless sigh. “What exactly do I have to do to make you say yes?” His presence completely enveloped me. My eyes burned with unshed tears. It wasn’t that I was playing hard to get. I had simply been broken so thoroughly by his coldness in our past life. This time, I just wanted to stay as far away from him as possible. I forced myself to give him a vague brush off. “Just give me a few more days.” Wait for Stella to return. Wait for the real destined lovers to reunite. This was always their love story. I was just going to step aside and let my sister make her own choice. 6 Friday night, JFK Airport. Stella and I stood in the second-floor restrooms, both wearing identical khaki trench coats and gripping matching silver suitcases. She pulled me into a bone crushing hug. “See you in five years! We’ll swap back then.” I gave her a quiet smile, ignoring the promise. If she met someone she loved here and built a stable family, I would be perfectly happy staying in Europe forever. After a hurried exchange, we went our separate ways. She rolled her suitcase toward Dr. Harrison’s academic team, and I turned my back, heading straight for International Departures. Sitting in the departure lounge, watching the planes idle on the tarmac, my phone vibrated. A text from Stella. “Your billionaire prince actually came to the airport to pick me up.” Just as I reached to power off my phone, a second message popped up. “But he stared at me for a solid minute, and his very first question was demanding to know who I really was.” 7 Staring at that line of text, a cold shiver crawled up my spine. Vincent went to pick her up? Not only did he go, but he instantly recognized that she wasn’t me? That was impossible. Stella and I even had a matching birthmark behind our left ears. For twenty years, even our own mother mixed us up occasionally. Vincent and I had only been entangled for two years. We had barely even held hands properly. How could he possibly see through the perfect illusion? Before I could process the panic, the airport intercom chimed. Boarding for the flight to London was beginning. I shot up from my seat, shoved my powered down phone into my coat pocket, grabbed my boarding pass, and marched toward the final security checkpoint. It didn’t matter if he recognized Stella. As long as I got on this plane and crossed the border, the tragic mess of my past life could never catch up to me. The line was agonizingly long. I kept my head down, shuffling forward inch by inch. Finally, it was my turn. I handed my passport and ticket to the TSA agent. The agent flipped it open to verify my details. Suddenly, a large hand reached over from the side, crossing the security tape, and slammed down flat over my passport. The veins on the back of his hand bulged. With an undeniable, terrifying force, he ripped my passport right out of the agent’s grip. My stomach dropped to the floor. I whipped my head around. Vincent stood there in a long, charcoal wool coat, the freezing winter air still clinging to his shoulders. He stood right outside the security barrier, glaring down at me with lethal intensity. People around us began to stare. The agent frowned, clearly annoyed. “Sir, please do not interfere with the screening process. What are you doing with her passport?” Vincent completely ignored the agent. His gaze was nailed to my face. “Rina Hastings.” He said my full name. His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a crushing, absolute authority. “You think you’re clever? Trying to pull a disappearing act?” 8 I swallowed hard, forcing my racing heart to steady, and plastered a look of absolute confusion onto my face. “Sir, you have the wrong person.” I deliberately mimicked Stella’s lighter, slightly innocent tone. “My name isn’t Rina. I think you are looking for someone else.” Vincent let out a dark, furious laugh. He flipped the passport open to my photo page and shoved it right in front of my eyes. “Is that right? Then please, Miss Stella, explain to me why this passport has your sister’s name printed on it?” I stared at the bold letters spelling out ‘Rina Hastings’ and choked on my own words. To escape him, I had told Stella to use her real identity in New York to take over my life, while I took my own passport to flee the country. The handoff had been flawless, yet he had caught me right at the finish line. “This… this is my sister’s passport. I grabbed the wrong one by mistake.” I forced myself to keep spinning the lie. “Please give it back. I am going to miss my flight.” Vincent wasn’t buying a single word of it. Without another word, his hand shot out, wrapping like an iron shackle around my wrist. He physically yanked me out of the security line. His strength was terrifying. I stumbled a few steps before catching my balance. “Vincent! Have you lost your mind? Let me go!” I couldn’t keep the act up anymore, dropping my voice into an angry, desperate hiss. Hearing me use my actual tone to say his name, he stopped in his tracks and threw a freezing glare over his shoulder. “Done pretending to be your sister?” He dragged me toward the terminal exit, his strides massive and relentless. I thrashed against his grip, yelling, “Since you already know she’s my twin, you should know the real girl you want is back! Go find her! Why are you dragging me away?” Vincent stopped dead. He spun around, his fingers gripping my chin, forcing me to look up into eyes burning with the rage of a man who had been played for a fool. “Who the hell told you she was the one I was looking for?” 9 He shoved me into the passenger seat of a black SUV parked at the curb. The doors locked with a heavy, metallic click. Vincent stalked around the hood, slid into the driver’s seat, and slammed on the gas. The massive vehicle tore out of the airport loading zone. The heat blasted through the cabin, but my hands and feet were like ice. “Where are you taking me?” I shrank back against the door, watching him like a trapped animal. Vincent stared at the road ahead, his jaw locked tight, refusing to say a single word. This cold, merciless demeanor was a perfect mirror of our broken marriage in my past life. Back then, he used to look at me with this exact same ice, cutting off all my escape routes with a single sentence. Fear and a deep, aching injustice twisted together in my chest. I gritted my teeth and decided to burn it all down. “Vincent, what exactly do you want from me? The girl you met five years ago wasn’t me! You spent the last two years hovering over me, buying me things, playing the devoted suitor, all because I share a face with her!” I unleashed two lifetimes worth of suffocating secrets in one breath. “Now she is back. She’s single, she’s beautiful, and she is right there ready to pick up where you two left off. Why are you so obsessed with holding onto the cheap stand-in?” The deafening shriek of burning rubber filled the air. Vincent violently jerked the steering wheel, slamming the SUV onto the highway shoulder. He turned his head, looking at me as if I had completely lost my mind. “Rina, what exactly is rattling around inside that head of yours?” He unbuckled his seatbelt, leaning heavily into my space, his words slipping through clenched teeth. “Who told you I met her here five years ago?” 10 I froze. “Didn’t you?” I fired back instinctively. “Five years ago I was in Boston, and she was here in New York. You couldn’t possibly have met me in Boston.” Vincent stared a hole through me. Suddenly, he reached up and tore at the collar of his expensive dress shirt. He popped the top three buttons, yanking the fabric aside to expose the skin just below his left collarbone. There was a deep, jagged scar there. It looked like an ugly centipede fused to his flesh. “Five years ago. Boston. A back alley in the South End.” He spoke slowly, enunciating every single syllable. With every word, my heart violently stuttered in my chest. “I was ambushed. They slashed my artery. I was bleeding out against a dumpster, waiting to die.” “A Chinese girl walked by wearing a gray beanie and a thick winter scarf. She didn’t call the cops, because I told her if she called them, my enemies would find me and I would be dead.” Vincent watched my eyes widen in absolute horror, a dark, mocking smirk curling his lips. “She used a pocket suturing kit to stitch my artery closed with her bare hands. And when she finished, she tied off the thread using a highly unusual modified double loop surgeon’s knot.” He let go of his shirt and leaned back into his seat. “Three years later, I was standing in the surgical observation deck at Manhattan General. I watched a young intern close up a patient, tying that exact same modified double loop knot.” The silence in the car was deafening. I felt a violent ringing in my ears. Something massive inside my reality just shattered into dust. That modified knot was a technique my mother invented when she was working as a rural barefoot doctor. She only ever taught it to me. Stella hated the sight of blood and refused to even hold a needle. The person who saved him in Boston five years ago… was me. 11 “You…” I opened my mouth, but my throat was so dry I couldn’t make a sound. If the girl from five years ago was me. Then his relentless pursuit over the past two years, all the resources he poured into my career, the nights he spent standing in the snow waiting for me… all of it was meant for me? I was never a stand-in? Then what the hell was my past life all about?! In my previous life, at our wedding ceremony, Vincent’s eyes had turned bloodshot as he stared dead at Stella. The moment that turned me into the laughingstock of high society… was that all a misunderstanding too? I felt like a rat trapped in a maze, finally seeing a sliver of light, only to smash headfirst into a solid brick wall. “If you recognized me, why didn’t you ever mention Boston?” I clenched my jaw, desperately hunting for a flaw in his story. Vincent let out a bitter scoff. “How the hell was I supposed to bring it up?” He shifted the car back into drive, his tone dripping with self-deprecating irony. “I tested the waters countless times. I asked if you had ever lived in Boston. I asked if you had ever saved anyone on the streets.” “And what did you tell me? You looked me dead in the eye and said you were so squeamish you couldn’t even swat a fly, that blood made you faint, and that your only trip to Boston was a quick vacation.” Vincent shot me a complicated sideways glance. “You guarded yourself against me like I was a serial killer. If I had walked up and confessed that I was the bleeding mob heir you patched up in an alley, you would have bought a one-way ticket to Antarctica that very afternoon.” I was completely speechless. Because he was absolutely right. I had spent every waking moment hiding from him. In my past life out of crippling inferiority, and in this life out of pure terror. The SUV merged seamlessly back into the speeding traffic. I pressed my forehead against the cold glass of the window, watching the city lights blur together, my mind in absolute chaos. If the person he loved was truly me, then what exactly caused the tragedy in my previous life? I had to figure this out, or I would never find peace. Just as I opened my mouth to probe into the events of our past life, the phone in my pocket began vibrating violently.

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1 The welcome-home banquet was halfway through cutting the second tier of the cake when the fake heir suddenly grabbed my hand, his eyes brimming with tears. “Brent, could you… please move out first?” The grand ballroom fell dead silent. Whispers rippled through the guests. He looked like he was about to crumble right there, his voice trembling. “I know you’re the true Smith heir. But I’ve lived here for eighteen years. Ever since you came back, I live in constant terror that I’ll be thrown out.” “Please, Brent, I’m begging you. Just move out for a little while. Give me time to adapt, please?” My father, Richard, instinctively pulled Tristan into his arms, his eyes red with heartache. My fiancée, Audrey, stepped up beside him, throwing a cold, disgusted glare in my direction. In the next second, luminous floating text flashed across my vision. [Don’t you dare agree! You’re the legitimate heir! Why should you leave?] [Call him out right now! He’s intentionally backing you into a corner!] [Cry! Throw a tantrum! Make your parents feel guilty!] In my past life, I fell for those floating comments. I smashed a glass at the gala, forced my parents to pick between us, and created a massive scene. The result? The entire elite circle branded me a ruthless, ungrateful monster. My adoptive parents ended up dead and crippled because of Tristan’s schemes, and I burned to death in a rigged fire. This time, I just let out a quiet, amused chuckle. … “Sure. If you’re that terrified, I’ll pack my bags.” Tristan’s sniffling hitched. He stared at me, dumbfounded. Audrey frowned, the harsh lecture she had ready completely catching in her throat. Some guests pitied me, others laughed silently, and a few already had their phones out, waiting for the wild child from the countryside to go insane. I reached over and casually straightened Tristan’s crooked silk tie. “You’re used to the main estate. Don’t stress yourself out. I’ll move into a hotel.” Richard let out an immediate sigh of relief. But realizing how bad it looked, he hastily reached for my arm. “Brent, that’s not what I meant. You just got back. How could we make you stay in a hotel?” Tristan burrowed deeper into his shoulder, tears spilling over. “Dad, I didn’t mean to drive Brent away. I’m just… I’m so scared.” Audrey immediately cooed softly, comforting him. “No one blames you, sweetie.” I smiled. “Let’s just do as he says.” The floating text went wild. [Are you out of your mind? He told you to get lost and you’re actually doing it?] [This is high-society power play, not a charity show!] [Give him an inch and he’ll crush you into dust later!] I lowered my eyes, ignoring the glowing glyphs. In my past life, I thought the same way. I felt robbed of eighteen years. I thought I deserved a bedroom, a hug, a little favoritism. So I fought. I forced Tristan out of the master suite, forced my parents to admit he was just adopted, forced Audrey to honor her engagement with the real Smith heir. And what did I get? He faked a high fever, and Richard nearly fainted from grief. Audrey publicly sneered, “Bloodline isn’t a pass for cruelty, Brent. You’re heartless.” By playing the delicate, fragile victim, Tristan turned everyone against me. In the end, my adoptive father was run down by a truck on a rainy night while trying to deliver evidence that proved my innocence. My adoptive mother died of illness under the stigma of blackmailing a wealthy family, asking me with her final breath, “Brent… are you eating well at the Smiths’?” I never had the heart to answer her. In this life, I won’t fight for a room. A bedroom isn’t a life. Audrey stared at me coldly. “Brent, don’t play hard to get.” I met her gaze with a soft laugh. “Don’t worry, Audrey. I won’t fight you for him either.” Her expression turned rigid. Tristan clutched Richard’s sleeve tightly. “The arrangement between our families was always meant for the two of you over all these years,” I said, raising my glass just loud enough for the surrounding crowd to hear clearly. “Since you only recognize him, keep it that way. I wish you two a long and happy life together.” Muffled gasps broke out among the guests. Tristan’s face drained of color. He wanted me to lose my temper, not to publicly bless them. Once the blessing was spoken aloud in front of high society, he and Audrey were bound together in the public eye. The romance was theirs, but so was the shared liability. After the banquet ended, the butler asked if I wanted to rest in the main house first. I shook my head. “Book me a hotel room. I’m leaving tonight.” Richard panicked. “Brent, please don’t do this. You’re breaking my heart.” I looked him dead in the eye. “Dad, Tristan said he’s afraid.” He choked on his words. Up on the landing, Tristan stood wrapped in a cashmere blanket, a glint of quiet triumph buried deep in his eyes. The hotel suite was silent. I unzipped my suitcase. I didn’t have many clothes. Stuffed at the very bottom was a battered leather folder left by my adoptive mother, Hannah. She and my adoptive father, Thomas, ran a small pharmacy in a quiet upstate town. Growing up, I learned to sort pillboxes, check lot numbers, and verify invoices alongside them. When the Smith family finally tracked me down, everyone scoffed at the faint smell of antiseptic on my clothes. Only Thomas had neatly folded every single piece of my clothing before I left. “Brent, rich or poor doesn’t matter. Just don’t let anyone step on you.” I pulled out the folder. Inside was a faded copy of an old ledger and a heavily worn security badge. The badge read: Aegis Pharma – Sector 7. The serial number ended in 07. It was the logistics pass from the old plant the year I was snatched away. Before I died in my past life, I finally learned that my disappearance had been no accident. I whipped out my phone and texted my adoptive sister, Zoe. Put the original badge into a bank vault. Dad and Mom shouldn’t go out alone recently, and record every single unknown caller. Zoe replied in seconds. Are the Smiths picking on you again? My throat tightened as I stared at the screen. The ones who truly gave a damn about me were never my blood relatives. No. I moved out on my own terms. A string of exclamation marks flooded the screen. Bro, did they kick you out?! I chuckled softly and typed back: I walked out voluntarily. Standing outside the mansion is the only way to see what’s really rotting inside. Early the next morning, the executive secretary arrived at my hotel to take me to Old Man Smith’s estate. Grandfather was the sole surviving founder of Aegis Pharmaceuticals, holding the master keys to the family trust. In my past life, I wept and ranted in his study about how unfair life was. He had looked at me with cold disgust and asked, “Besides crying, what else can you actually do?” After that, he gave up on me entirely. This time, I walked into his sunlit study and placed three formal documents directly on his mahogany desk. “Re-verification of DNA Ancestry Records.” “Archive Access Request for Aegis Sector 7.” “Agreement on Smith Family Asset Boundary Division.” The old man lifted his sharp eyes. “You just got back, and you’re already dividing up the estate?” “Clarifying it,” I corrected calmly. “Tristan can keep living in the main house, keep being the precious Smith son, and keep using family resources. That’s fine by me. But every authorization needs to be spelled out in black and white.” Grandfather narrowed his eyes. “Why?” “Because emotions can be messy, but accounts must be spotless.” Silence stretched across the study. Suddenly, the old man let out a short, dry laugh. “You don’t look like the pushover everyone saw at the party last night.” “Too many eyes last night,” I replied coolly. “Bad for business.” He flipped through the pages. The luxury real estate, sports cars, personal drivers, PR team, and jewelry access Tristan enjoyed were all categorized as Smith Family Authorizations, not natural inheritance. His role as Executive Chairman of the Aegis Foundation would remain, but every grant approval, facial authentication log, digital signature, and public statement had to be archived and traceable. Grandfather set down his fountain pen. “You’re giving him a graceful way out?” “I’m buying insurance for the family.” He studied me for a long moment before signing his name with a heavy flourish. “Take this to your father.” That afternoon, in the Smith living room. Tristan’s face paled when he saw the document. Richard didn’t understand the legalities; he just felt I was stirring up unnecessary trouble. “Brent, Tristan already let you move back… Why are you pushing this legal junk?” “Precisely because I moved out,” I said smoothly. “It stops the press from claiming the Smiths mistreat their adopted son, and stops anyone from saying I came back to purge him.” Audrey picked up the paper and scanned it. “This just ensures Tristan stays protected under the Smith name?” “Exactly.” Her tense posture relaxed slightly. Evelyn, my biological mother, thought it over. “Sign it. It looks good to the public.” Tristan had no valid ground to refuse. He signed his name with trembling fingers, tears welling in his eyes. As his pen pressed into the paper, I caught the white hue of his knuckles. Perfect. He had just personally turned the first key to his own ruin. I stayed at the hotel for two weeks, yet the family contacted me far more than they ever did in my past life. Evelyn sent clothes via the driver. Richard sent homemade soup, always looking like he wanted to say more. “Brent, don’t hold a grudge against Tristan. His heart is frail; he can’t handle stress.” I took the thermos. “I understand.” “Then when are you moving home?” “When he stops being terrified.” Richard stood speechless. I didn’t move back, but I started spending my days in the Aegis Archives. Grandfather had granted me temporary clearance. The flagship project of Aegis was called The Beacon Initiative. Twenty years ago, the company made its fortune off a rare-disease drug, later folding its entire neuro-pharma pipeline into Beacon. Rumor had it that after Tristan was adopted, Aegis miraculously secured key regulatory approvals. From then on, he was dubbed the family’s blessing. He played the part brilliantly, gala dinners, hospital visits, children’s foundation campaigns. He was always the face of gentle virtue. In the deep archives, however, I found an archived email. The sender was my adoptive mother, Hannah. Years ago, she had documented severe adverse reactions from that drug in local community pharmacies and urged Aegis to update its warning labels and clinical filings. Aegis had quietly adopted her recommendations back then. Only then did the regulatory approval pass. Staring at the printed email, my fingertips went icy cold. His so-called blessing was built on the quiet brilliance of my adoptive mother. The door opened. Tristan walked in holding a cup of coffee, a dutiful, innocent smile on his face. “Brent! I heard you’ve been grinding away in the archives. I brought you a hot latte.” I didn’t reach for it. His eyes instantly welled up. Outside the open doorway, several employees walked past, slowing their steps to peek inside. I reached out, took the coffee, and set it on the desk. “Thanks.” Tristan glanced at the old files beside my hand. “The Beacon Initiative is really complex. It must be tough for you since you just got back. Grandmother used to say that in pharma, trust and consistency are everything.” I looked up at him. “So you think it should be handed over to you?” He flinched, waving his hands in exaggerated panic. “That’s not what I meant at all!” “Good.” I handed him the draft schedule for the upcoming Anniversary Gala. “Aegis’s anniversary is next month. You’ll continue representing the foundation as the keynote speaker. The public loves your story. You can talk about Beacon while you’re up there.” A flash of greed lit up his eyes before he quickly suppressed it. “Is that… okay? You just came back…” “Your public image is solid, and the media knows you. You’re the best fit.” The floating text flared back up. [Are you insane?! He’s going to use this to lock in his position as the true heir!] [Don’t give him the spotlight!] [Take the microphone back!] I didn’t even give the floating glyphs a second glance. Without a stage, how could he suffer a grand downfall? That night, Zoe sent me a photo. Bro, the manager of Sector 7 back then was Victoria Smith. She’s currently the Executive Vice President. Aunt Victoria. Tristan’s biggest ally. In my past life, when I was framed for leaking trade secrets, she was the first to hand over the evidence to the police. I texted back: Don’t dig any deeper. Stay safe. Duh, I value my life. I smiled faintly at the screen. This time, we’d play it smart. A week before the anniversary, Tristan dominated the trending topics. #SmithFamilyBlessing #EighteenYearsOfLove #TheGentleFaceOfAegis Media outlets painted a tear-jerking narrative. How Aegis was on the brink of collapse until Tristan was brought home, how he started doing charity at thirteen, how the late matriarch called him the light of the Smith family. The comments were full of applause: [The real son moved to a hotel immediately. Guess the family knows who really matters.] [Tristan is the real gentleman here.] [Who cares about bloodlines? Contribution is what counts.] Evelyn frowned over the PR report. “Tristan, these articles are laying it on too thick.” Tristan hung his head, looking pitiful. “Mom, I had no idea my team wrote it like that. If Brent is unhappy, I’ll have them take it down immediately.” Audrey immediately jumped to his defense. “Taking it down will only make us look guilty! Tristan has done charity work for years. It’s normal for the press to praise him.” Richard nodded along. “Exactly. Brent isn’t that narrow-minded.” Everyone turned to look at me. I casually flicked through the foundation’s back-end authorization system. “The traction is great. The anniversary needs publicity.” Evelyn blinked. “You don’t mind?” “Would it matter if I did?” She went quiet. I slid the tablet across the table to Tristan. “Since the press will ask about charity projects, you should personally sign off on these three major patient support partnerships tonight.” Tristan’s fingers stiffened. “Doesn’t the foundation’s secretariat usually process these?” “You’re the Executive Chairman,” I reminded him coolly. “You always tell the media you’re hands-on. You can’t have other people signing your name forever.” Audrey frowned. “Brent, there’s no need to hassle him over paperwork.” “When you take over your family firm, Audrey, do you let your secretary sign legal contracts for you?” Her face turned red with frustration. Tristan had no choice but to pick up the tablet. Facial recognition. Digital signature. Project confirmation. One after another. By the time he finished, his face was pale as chalk. I felt fantastic. On the night of the Aegis Gala, the grand ballroom lights were blinding. Partner hospitals, regulatory consultants, board members, press outlets, and financial influencers, everyone was present. Tristan stood under the spotlight in a bespoke tuxedo, looking like a delicate flower cultivated in a glass house. Audrey stood by his side. Noticing me, she leaned in and whispered coldly, “Brent, don’t make a scene tonight. Tristan prepared for months.” I smiled softly. “Relax. Nobody wants to see his full performance more than I do.” She scowled. The event began, and Tristan stepped up to deliver the opening address for the foundation. His tone was soft, his cadence practiced. “I may not bear the Smith blood, but this family gave me my name, and taught me to honor every human life.” Thunderous applause erupted. The main screen displayed photos of him visiting sick children, sterile hospital rooms, smiles, flowers, warm hugs. Picture-perfect PR. Then, the host transitioned into The Beacon Initiative. Tristan’s eyes glistened with tears. “My grandmother handed this legacy to me with her blessing. I have never let her down.” Just as his voice trailed off, the giant screen abruptly went black. An archived video cut in. In the footage, the late Mrs. Smith lay in a hospital bed, her voice frail but unmistakable: “Beacon… must never, under any circumstances… be given to Tristan…” The entire hall erupted into chaos. Evelyn bolted upright from her seat.

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1 At the high school reunion, someone introduced me to my secret boyfriend of five years. “Director Coop, Beth is an associate researcher in your department. Why don’t you two give it a shot?” I stepped toward him, wanting to use this moment to finally come clean. But Coop took a step back and gestured toward his childhood sweetheart, who had just returned from abroad. “No need. I already have someone I love.” To avoid suspicion, his face was cold and distant. “If you’re eager to get married, I can introduce you to someone. He’d suit you quite well.” Looking at the three-foot gap he put between us, I let out a dry, hollow laugh. Five years in the dark. Five years where Coop was perpetually single to the world, perpetually keeping his distance from me. I waited five years for him to go public. I wasn’t waiting anymore. “Sure. Send his contact over.” … The air went dead silent. Coop looked stunned, clearly not expecting me to actually agree. He frowned, about to ask something, but under the expectant gazes of his friends, he pulled out his phone and pushed a contact card over. He called the guy right then and there. “Didn’t you say your family is pressing you to settle down?” “I found a blind date for you. Beth, a Ph.D. graduate, senior researcher in our lab. You guys should chat.” After listening to the guy’s profuse thanks, Coop hung up. If a mutual friend hadn’t called him over, he would have treated me like a ghost, just as he always did, maintaining that strict three-foot perimeter. The bitter burn of bourbon exploded in my mouth. I dug my fingernails deep into my palm just to keep my face composed. Another friend, seeing my willingness to date, pushed a second contact card to my phone. “He’s been asking me about you for ages, but you always refused. His background is solid, Beth. Give him a chance.” Instinctively, I glanced toward Coop. He was standing beside Sienna, a soft smile on his lips, not sparing me a single look. Coop’s buddy chuckled, teasing him. “Coop, everyone knows Beth clings to you because she’s crazy about you. Giving her a matchmaker setup is brutal.” “Yeah, she bought thousands of dollars worth of boba and coffees just to butter us up over the years, and you never gave her an inch.” Sienna swirled her wine glass, raising an eyebrow at him. “Were you waiting for me to come back from overseas all this time? If so, why haven’t you confessed yet?” Coop looked at her dotingly. “Because the ceremony isn’t ready yet. My Sienna deserves the best.” Sienna was beaming. My throat tightened at his words. When we got together, there was no grand gesture, no ceremony. Coop had simply asked me, “Beth, do you like me?” I had harbored a crush on him for three years. When I nodded, he said, “We can be together, but we stay secret. If a single person finds out, we’re done.” Back then, blinded by the pure joy of being with him, I thought he recognized my sincerity. I believed our hidden love would one day see the light. I squeezed my way into his social circle, enduring cold shoulders, holding out hope that he would one day introduce me as his girl. Instead, he pushed me off to another man just to draw a line between us. I smiled, a bitter sting behind my eyes. Seeing me add the second guy, my friend sighed in relief. “You used to reject me saying you had someone you loved, but that guy kept you on a leash without making it official. It’s high time you moved on! Trust me, this guy won’t disappoint!” I kept my head down. He was right. I should have moved on long ago. The friend lowered his voice and glanced at Coop. “By the way, the guy Coop pushed to you is Garrett from the corporate side. Skip that one. He’s a notorious player, sleeps around with models. Everyone knows his family is desperate for him to marry. He’ll take anyone willing.” Before leaving, my friend muttered under his breath, “How could Coop say you two are a good match?” The smile froze on my face. So Coop’s idea of a good match was simply two people desperate to tie the knot. A while back, when my parents pressured me about marriage, I texted Coop. I thought he’d finally agree to meet my parents and go public. Instead, he ignored my message and didn’t come home for a month. If Coop had no interest in entering my world, I was done forcing my way into his. I turned and left, submitting an official request for a transfer out of Boston. Just then, a text popped up from the second blind date: [Are you free to meet tomorrow?] After replying with a time and place, I saw Coop’s latest post on social media: My best friends around me, and the love of my life right across the table. The photo showed him surrounded by friends, with Sienna occupying the center spot. In the group chat, messages flooded in: [Nice, Coop! Sienna’s finally back! Congrats to the old flames going official!] [What do you mean going official? Coop loving Sienna has been common knowledge forever.] [What about Beth? Didn’t she chase Coop for five years?] [Chase? That was pure desperate clinging. Now that the true queen is back, why would Coop waste time on her?] [Even before Sienna landed, Coop had a proposal ceremony and a diamond ring prepped. Is it that hard to see who he really loves?] [Wait… did we post this in the group chat where Beth is in?] A second later, I was removed from the group chat. A dull, suffocating ache swelled in my chest. To fit into his world, I had begged him to add me to that group. I sent countless digital gift cards to liven up the atmosphere, but Coop had only frowned. “Don’t bother sending money, they don’t care about a few bucks.” After that, the group went quiet. Coop told me, “Everyone’s busy with work, nobody has time to chat.” Turns out they weren’t busy; they just had a separate group without me. And the grand public reveal and ceremony I had yearned for? Sienna merely had to exist, and Coop handed it to her on a silver platter. I sat by the river, replying to messages before finally heading home. Exiting the elevator, I ran right into Coop and Sienna following close behind him. Seeing me, his brows furrowed in immediate guarded hostility. “Beth, what are you doing here?” I opened my mouth to say I was just coming home, but remembered his strict rule: never reveal we lived together. To avoid suspicion, he had set rigid schedules for when I could enter and leave. Even living under the same roof, we had never walked through the front door together. Afraid Sienna might suspect something, Coop cut in sharply before I could speak. “Can you stop following me around? I don’t want people getting the wrong idea.” I stood frozen in place. My phone buzzed with a message he had just sent: [Don’t come back for a while.] [Sienna just got back and has nowhere to stay, so I’m letting her stay here.] [I had your stuff packed and sent to the outer suburbs. Move there for now.] I stepped aside toward the elevator. Sienna asked him who I was. Coop’s tone was dismissive and flat. “Just a persistent admirer. Can’t believe she followed me all the way to my front door. Go ahead inside. I’ll have security tighten up the floor.” Before the elevator doors slid shut, Sienna’s cute laugh echoed out. “Coop, you haven’t changed the door code in five years! It’s still the exact day I went abroad!” “I told you to wait five years for me, and you really counted down every single day?” My hand froze on the elevator button. When I first moved in and learned the door code, I had been secretly thrilled. Coop refused to make our relationship public, but the door code was the exact date we got together. I thought it was his silent way of showing love, that he was just bad at grand gestures. Turns out even that tiny bit of joy belonged to someone else. Heavy-hearted, I went to the outer suburb apartment and unpacked my things. Late at night, seeing that I hadn’t replied, Coop sent another text: [Don’t overthink it. Sienna just returned, and I’m just helping an old friend as best I can.] [As for going public, give me a little more time.] I didn’t reply. I just removed him from my pinned contacts. The next morning, I went to work as usual. My assistant mentioned a new addition to the department. When I walked in, I saw Sienna. Coop introduced her to everyone without an ounce of hesitation. “Sienna is a close friend of mine. Her research abroad aligns with our lab’s focus, so she’s here to observe and collaborate. Please take good care of her on my account.” Although Coop was the Director of the research institute, he was notoriously strict about nepotism. When his own mentor’s son wanted to tour his research lab, Coop had bluntly shut him down. Wealthy donors trying to buy research spots were turned away without exception. Hearing him personally ask the team to favor Sienna, whispers rippled through the room. “Director Coop is usually strictly by the book! For him to say that, their relationship must be crazy deep!” “Sienna, are you two an item?” “Come on, tell us! We promise not to spill!” Sienna glanced sideways at Coop, a knowing smile at the edge of her lips. “Us? Well, we grew up together. Childhood sweethearts, you could say.” At her words, Coop’s ears flushed red. Someone cheered with a chuckle, “Childhood sweethearts! Match made in heaven!” Coop’s smile widened. He cleared his throat lightly. “To welcome our newcomer, lunch today is on me. Pick the most expensive place.” The rest of the staff started loudly teasing Sienna, calling her “Mrs. Director” and “the boss’s lady.” I stood still, quietly watching Sienna. The spot right beside Coop, three years of crushing, five years of dating. I had dreamed of this exact moment, dreaming of the day Coop would proudly introduce me as his girlfriend. I was done waiting. Ignoring the noise, I turned and walked away. After work, Coop invited the team out for dinner. Noticing I wasn’t there, he asked, “Where’s Beth?” My assistant gave a vague answer. “She left right after her shift. Heard she had a blind date to catch?” Hearing that I went on a blind date, Coop’s tense shoulders visibly relaxed. He knew the guy’s reputation in their circle. He was certain I wouldn’t waste time with someone like that. At ten that night, right after I got home, the department group chat blew up with several videos. Coop stood holding a bouquet of flowers in his left hand and a diamond ring in his right, framed by a massive backdrop of champagne roses and a heart formed by glowing candles surrounding Sienna. The camera angles were perfect, capturing every bit of emotion on their faces. Coop knelt on one knee, eyes overflowing with passion. “Sienna, the day you left, you told me to wait for you. I waited five full years. Now that you’re back, I finally have the chance to tell you how I feel.” Sienna nodded through tears. Passersby marveled at the lavish setup, and congratulations flooded the chat. I stared fixedly at the video, my fingers trembling uncontrollably. Because the entire setup, the roses, the candles, the diamond ring, the kneeling, was identical to the proposal ceremony Coop had promised me a month ago. A month ago, he had asked me what kind of proposal I wanted. Thinking he was finally going to go public, I enthusiastically described my dream setup: classic roses, candles, a diamond ring, and him kneeling before me. Coop had noted down every single detail. I thought he was preparing to reveal our relationship, so I spent an extra hour every morning doing my makeup, waiting for the day. Turns out he only asked so he could use my dream on Sienna. Tears spilled uncontrollably onto my phone screen. In that precise moment, I cut myself completely free from this hidden, humiliating nightmare. The next day, I started organizing my work handovers, passing experimental data to my assistant. Since the new lab in Seattle was short-staffed, my transfer approval came through almost immediately. Sienna walked up to my desk out of nowhere. “Beth, right? Why didn’t you come to Coop’s dinner party yesterday?” I replied with professional detachment. “I had personal business.” She let out a sudden, mocking laugh. “Personal business? Or did you stay away because you knew Coop was proposing to me?” I frowned, catching the blatant hostility in her eyes. She curled her red lips into a venomous smile. “After all, while I was away, you were basically Coop’s little side piece, weren’t you?” The moment the words left her mouth, nearby colleagues turned to look, their eyes filled with curiosity, confusion, and disgust. “I wasn’t,” I denied instinctively. Sienna pulled out her phone and played a voice recording from one of Coop’s friends: “Beth? Yeah, she’s been taking care of Coop’s physical needs for the last five years. Knowing Sienna went abroad, she practically crawled into his bed that very night. Everyone in our circle knows Coop and Sienna are childhood sweethearts. Only Beth was thick-skinned enough to force herself into his life.” The recording stopped. The cruel words sliced through my nerves like blades. Sienna smirked at me. “Still want to deny it, Beth?” The looks from my colleagues shifted to pure contempt and disgust. Whispers broke out. “Unbelievable. Professional researcher by day, side piece by night.” “Who knows how many times she’s done this? Maybe she slept her way through her Ph.D. too.” “No wonder Director Coop always kept his distance from her. He probably found her disgusting.” I clenched my hands tightly, striving to stay composed. “I was never a side piece. We were…” A few colleagues who had always disliked me rolled their eyes. “Were what? The recording spelled it out clearly! The moment Sienna left, you crawled into his bed. Are you really trying to pretend you’re innocent?” “Someone like her belongs in a lab? Don’t even bother transferring her, just fire her!” I dug my nails into my palms, trying to defend myself. “Coop and I were in a legitimate relationship!” Before the words fully faded, Coop walked over in a hurry, anxiety clearly written across his face. I pinned my last shred of hope on him. “Coop, you came at the right time. Tell them, haven’t we been together for five years?” He walked right past me, stepping straight to Sienna’s side. “Are you okay, Sienna?” Seeing this, the mocking laughter around us grew even louder. “Beth, this is the relationship you’re talking about?” “Legitimate? Or delusional? It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” A colleague pointed back and forth between Sienna and me, her tone laced with mockery. “Did Director Coop even spare you a single glance?” Refusing to accept it, I kept my eyes locked on Coop. He looked uncomfortable. After a brief pause, he finally opened his mouth. “What could there possibly be between us?” “Sienna and I grew up together. How could I ever be with you?” The surrounding sneers crashed over me like a wave. “Hear that, Beth? The relationship you imagined was just your own one-sided obsession after sneaking into his bed. The Director didn’t even know what you were talking about.” I bit my lip to hold back tears, a metallic taste of blood spreading in my mouth. Meeting my gaze, Coop looked as if he had been burned, quickly averting his eyes. In a cold voice, he revoked my transfer request on the spot. “Beth, suspend your work and go home for now.” I curled my lips into a bitter, sarcastic smile. “Coop, we are never seeing each other again.” The snickering from colleagues continued: “Listen to her, ‘never seeing each other again’!” “Director Coop was cursed to have someone like her spreading filthy rumors about him.” I didn’t reply. I silently packed my belongings and walked out. After I left, Coop pulled Sienna back into his office, his voice unusually cold. “Sienna, you said you wanted the proposal announcement so you could fit in with the team as my girlfriend. Why did you go out of your way to harass Beth?” Sienna pouted. “Coop, I was just trying to test her for you! If she really cared, wouldn’t she come back and fight for you?” Hearing her excuse, Coop sighed and dropped the subject. A week passed. Then two weeks. He received no calls, no messages from me. Unable to hold back any longer, Coop finally dialed my number. When the call connected, all he heard was a chaotic, noisy background. Through the loud crackle of firecrackers and festive music, a voice boomed clearly: “Beth, sweetie, how could you leave your phone behind when stepping into the bridal car?”

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1 After another cold war, I opened Channel’s chat box, intending to swallow my pride and make peace as usual. Then I saw her story post from thirty minutes ago, coaxing Landon, her junior at work. The caption read: Even my boyfriend isn’t this hard to smooth over… Landon had left a comment: [Liar. Didn’t you say you’ve never coaxed a boyfriend in your life?] Staring at his comment, it hit me that Channel really had never once tried to make things right with me. Every single time, she just waited for me to come crawling back. A mutual friend sent me a video clip. In the clip, someone asked Channel if she wasn’t afraid I’d actually walk away this time. Channel raised her eyebrows, her face full of disdain: “Please. Gabriel is such a pathetic fool. If I ignore him for more than two days, he panics worse than anyone.” “Last time we fought, he sent me a whole novel of an apology. My eyes practically crossed reading it. Half a month ago, he even bought rings, talking about how he wanted to marry me.” She let out a dry laugh. “If I don’t coax Landon, he’ll stay mad at me for a full two weeks. Gabriel is different. He’s so attached you couldn’t kick him out if you tried.” I watched the clip and let out a faint, bitter laugh. Fair enough. In that case, this clingy fool wasn’t going to coax her anymore. … At the end of the video, Channel smiled playfully. “If you don’t believe me, let’s make a bet. Gabriel will text me to make up by tonight at the latest.” Her tone was brimming with confidence. “When it comes to Gabriel, I never lose.” The video cut off there. I closed the video and returned to my chat with Channel. My eyes landed on the last two messages we exchanged. It was me asking her what was really going on between her and Landon. That was where our silent treatment had started. Channel hadn’t replied. She was always like that, ignoring any message she didn’t feel like answering. I knew her. I was used to it. Still, hearing her reduce me to a pathetic joke in front of her friends brought a dull, hollow ache to my chest. What I thought was taking the high road to fix us was, in her eyes, just the desperate flailing of someone who couldn’t leave. She had never coaxed me, yet she went out of her way for Landon. My phone buzzed. A voice note from Landon popped up. “Hey Gabe, did you forget something?” “Channel is still waiting for your long apology essay!” Before his voice faded, a round of snickers echoed in the background. Two more notifications flashed before I could respond. “Channel made a bet that you’d come crawling back tonight. You better hurry up and write it, or you’re gonna lose the clock for her~” “We’re all waiting for Channel to share it in the group chat again!” Landon broke into a smug laugh. Only then did I realize that all those heartfelt long messages I used to write to Channel were routinely forwarded into her group chat for her friends and Landon to mock. I replayed the voice note once more. In the background, I could hear Channel’s soft, amused chuckle. I didn’t even have the energy to type a reply. That night, Landon brought a drunk Channel back to our place. I happened to be downstairs grabbing a glass of water. Seeing me walk into the kitchen, Landon offered an innocent smile. “Hey Gabe, Channel and the group had a bit too much to drink, so I brought her home. Don’t overthink it, okay?” As if remembering something, he added with a smirk: “She only posted that story to make me feel better. Don’t take it to heart.” “She lost the bet tonight because she got drunk. She actually lost.” “Gabe, didn’t you get my message?” I ignored him, poured myself a glass of water, drank most of it, and then looked up. “I got it. So?” My tone was flat, laced with undeniable sarcasm. “What do you want me to reply?” Landon paused, his voice dropping slightly. “Gabe, I was just saying. I hope you don’t mind me bringing her home.” It wasn’t the first time he had brought her home. Nor was it the first time Channel gave me the cold shoulder because of him. “I don’t mind,” I said. My gaze drifted past him to Channel, who was slumped on the sofa, then back to his stunned face. “If it’s convenient, why don’t you carry her to the bedroom?” Channel lifted her head from the couch, frowning at me as if she couldn’t comprehend what I had just said. After all, every other time she came home drunk, I was the one who took care of her. Channel told Landon to leave. He agreed quickly. “Alright, I’ll leave you two alone. See you tomorrow, Channel.” Once he was gone, Channel looked at me, her tone taking my presence for granted. “Why didn’t you text me?” I looked at her calmly. “Why should I?” Channel froze, struck silent for a moment. Why should I? Because she was used to me playing the devoted fool, always offering her an easy way out during our cold wars. She was used to it. Now that I wasn’t falling into place, she felt off-balance. She looked at me, her tone softening slightly, a rare concession. “It was just a joke. Don’t take it so seriously.” Just a joke? Posting about Landon, betting with her friends, letting him mock me, sharing my private texts in her group chat… to her, all of that was just a joke? “Which joke are you referring to?” I asked. Channel frowned, a flicker of confusion in her eyes. Usually, if she gave me an inch, I would let out a breath of relief and sweep the original argument under the rug. When I didn’t react, I pressed on. “The story post? The bet? The group chat leaks? Or the part where you called me a pathetic fool who can’t be kicked out?” “Which one did you mean?” Her face darkened when I laid it all out so blatantly. Still, she forced down her impatience. “It was just trash talk at a party. Don’t make a huge drama out of it.” Right. Trash talk. To her, everything about us was just casual entertainment for her friends. If I cared, I was being unreasonable. “What about Landon then?” My voice remained level. “He kissed you. Was that a joke too?” I had seen it in her group chat before she deleted it. She had leaned against the couch, completely still, letting Landon kiss her. Realizing it was the wrong group, she had quickly revoked the image. Channel’s expression shifted. “We lost a party game. It was just a penalty.” Her tone softened into a defensive comfort. “Don’t overthink it. You know what Landon and I are like.” “He’s just real affectionate and casual. He didn’t mean anything by it.” “The photo was just taken for fun. I didn’t show you because I knew you’d overreact.” “Besides, he’s close to me. I couldn’t exactly make him kiss a stranger, could I?” She sounded so convincing, she almost believed her own excuse. “Why couldn’t you?” I asked. “Why did it have to be you?” “Is it because you knew that even if I found out, it wouldn’t matter?” Channel went dead silent. I had laid her exact thoughts bare. Perhaps sensing she had pushed it too far this time, Channel stepped closer. The scent of alcohol mixed with men’s cologne hit my nose, churning a wave of nausea in my stomach. Her voice was soft, offering a rare word of coaxing: “Babe, stop making a scene. That’s enough for tonight.” “I have to meet Landon tomorrow. We can talk about this another time.” Landon. She said his name so naturally, so affectionately. Except there wasn’t going to be another time. Before going to sleep, my phone screen lit up. It was a text from Landon. [Hey Gabe, my bad. I accidentally bit Channel’s lip during the game tonight. Make sure she puts some ointment on it~] I stared at the screen for a long time. Channel opened the bedroom door and walked in. Seeing me staring at my phone, she asked, “Why aren’t you asleep yet?” I didn’t say a word. I just turned the screen toward her. When she read the text, her expression flickered. After a moment of silence, she looked away. “Accidentally got bitten during the game.” As she spoke, she unconsciously bit her lower lip. The small cut wasn’t glaringly obvious, but under the bedroom light, I could see it clearly. How careless did someone have to be to bite a lip open during a simple game? I didn’t ask. I locked the phone. “Right. Just be more careful next time.” Hearing my calm reply, Channel glanced at me, her tone carrying a trace of lingering irritation. “Look, I told you it was an accident.” I gave a quiet “mm” and lay down, turning my back to her. When I woke up the next morning, Channel was already gone. She had left a sticky note on the nightstand. [Landon needs me. Won’t be back for dinner tonight. Don’t wait up.] I crumpled the note without expression and tossed it into the trash can. Opening my phone, I saw her group chat was already at 99+ notifications. They seemed to have completely forgotten I was still in the chat. Everyone was teasing Channel and Landon. I scrolled up with numb fingers and found a photo Landon had posted in the group. A selfie of him and Channel at an amusement park. [Channel is the absolute best. She brought me out to play right away!] So this was what she meant by “Landon needs me.” Whenever I asked her to go out, she always said she was too busy. I wanted to take a trip to relax, she said she had no time. I wanted to see a movie or get dinner, she said her schedule was packed, maybe next time. Her “next time” never came for me. But she had all the time in the world for Landon. The chat was flooded with comments: [Channel is so bold. Aren’t you scared your guy will find out?] [What’s there to be scared of? Even if he finds out, he’ll just sulk for two days and come crawling back to her like he always does. When has it ever been different?] [True. Gabriel has insane tolerance.] Message after message popped up. Channel posted a series of photos she took of Landon, followed by a voice message. “Nothing to be scared of. Landon and I aren’t doing anything shameful.” Then Landon chimed in with a laugh: [I told Gabe last night that Channel’s lip got bitten, and he didn’t even get mad.] I exited the chat and left the group. I looked down at the engagement ring on my finger. I had bought a matching pair, one for me, one for her. She rarely wore hers, claiming it was inconvenient for work, so it usually sat in her jewelry drawer. Now, there was no point in wearing mine either. I slipped it off and threw it into the drawer. Channel seemed to have finally noticed I left the group. She sent me a text: [You left the chat?] Just four words. No explanation, no apology. I didn’t reply. An hour later, her call came through. “Landon’s been under a lot of stress lately. He didn’t want you overthinking things, so he didn’t say we were going to the park.” I stayed silent, waiting for her to continue. “The group wasn’t paying attention to you being in there. They were just talking trash. Don’t be mad.” I gave a faint “mm”. “I’m not mad.” Hearing my answer, Channel let out a relieved sigh. “Good. I’ll swing by the apartment and pick you up for dinner.” Now that I knew, she didn’t feel the need to hide it anymore. She returned quickly. Landon was sitting in the passenger seat. As I stepped outside, Landon rolled down his window and offered an innocent smile. “Hey Gabe, I get severe motion sickness, so do you mind taking the back seat?” My eyes bypassed him and landed on Channel. She nodded. “Landon gets motion sickness easily. Just sit in the back. It’s all the same.” Channel forgot. I suffered from motion sickness too. I didn’t move. Channel’s brows furrowed. “Don’t start throwing a tantrum now. A seat is a seat.” Right. A seat is a seat. Except I wasn’t backing down anymore. I looked into Channel’s eyes, feeling an overwhelming fatigue. “I’m not going. You two go ahead.” “Gabriel, that’s enough,” Channel said, impatience leaking into her tone. “He gets sick in cars. If you’re going to be jealous, at least pick your moments.” Landon suddenly chimed in, “Channel, forget it. You and Gabe go. I don’t want to get between you guys.” Channel snapped without hesitation, “How can I forget it? You’ve been dying to eat at that restaurant for weeks. It took forever to get a reservation.” So the restaurant was his idea all along. Landon gave me an awkward look. “Then what about Gabe?” Channel glanced at me, restarting the engine. “If he doesn’t want to go, leave him be.” “Suit yourself.” The window rolled up slowly. Landon gave me a polite wave. “Gabe, I’ll go have dinner with Channel then!” I stood there until her car disappeared around the corner. I told myself: Forget it, Gabriel. Channel only treated me like this over and over because she knew I loved her unconditionally. Bit by bit, that love had been completely drained. The last tiny flicker of hope evaporated right there on the sidewalk. I went upstairs, grabbed the luggage I had already packed days ago, and walked toward the door. We had lived in this place for five years. Before this, we spent two years in a cramped, drafty rental. In the summer, we only had a tiny weak fan; in the winter, cold wind seeped through the window cracks, so we sealed them with duct tape. Back then, Channel always promised she’d work hard to give me a good life. She said once she made money, we’d get married. She did make money. She built her business, bought a spacious condo. Except we never got married. Even the proposal was something I had to initiate. She had forgotten everything she once said. There was no longer any room for me by her side. At the front door, I stopped. I turned around, letting my eyes sweep across the home one last time. Then I turned, pulled my suitcase, and walked away. She would never have to read those long, eye-straining essays ever again.

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1 I was booking a table for our seventh anniversary when glowing text appeared: [Would you like to join a Loyalty Game? We’ll awaken a System for your wife. If she tells you, you win one million dollars.] Married seven years, I had no doubt. That million was mine. Curious, I thought: [What if I lose?] [Then we grant you a mysterious grand prize to reboot your life. Cost: you’ll be broadcast to another dimension.] I didn’t care about the prize. I was already picturing the luxury apartment I’d buy my wife. I hit accept and rushed home. Walking through the door, Kathy looked panicked. She brushed me off and sprinted into the study. Through the oak door, I heard her on the phone with her childhood best friend Noah. “Noah, I just awakened a Doomsday System. The apocalypse is coming! I’m building a safe house. I promise I’ll keep you safe. I am absolutely not telling Henry. The person I want to survive with is you.” I froze. Her Doomsday System was fake. But the countdown for my mysterious grand prize had definitely just started. … Right at that moment, the glowing chat feed popped up in front of my eyes again. [Look at Henry standing there all shocked. His wife and Noah have been hooking up for years. They’ve worn out the mattress by now.] [Bro was literally booking an anniversary dinner, not knowing his wife and Noah are celebrating their four year cheating anniversary tomorrow.] [I just hope this guy wakes up and gets a divorce. The last few guys who lost the game walked away with at least five million in cash. The prizes keep getting better. I can’t even imagine what his grand prize is going to be.] The chat was going wild, guessing if I was about to become insanely rich overnight. I couldn’t focus on any of that. My knuckles turned bone-white as I gripped my phone. My chest tightened so hard I could barely pull air into my lungs. Ever since our third anniversary, when I got stuck at work and missed midnight, Kathy had thrown a fit every single year. She flat out refused to celebrate with me anymore. I thought I had deeply hurt her, so I worked myself to the bone, grinding for bonuses just to make it up to her. Only today did the ugly truth finally hit me. Every time she stormed out on our anniversary, she was just making an excuse to go celebrate with him. I gritted my teeth, tasting copper in my mouth. Inside the study, Kathy was already plotting her post-apocalyptic life with Noah. “We can just buy one of those abandoned warehouses out by the rust belt. It won’t cost much, but retrofitting it and stocking up on supplies will be expensive. How much cash do you have on hand?” “I’m broke.” Kathy sounded frantic. “What do you mean? I just transferred thirty thousand to you last month!” “I bought a new truck and went on a road trip. That thirty grand is long gone.” Their words felt like a serrated blade twisting directly into my heart. After we got married, Kathy insisted we needed to save for a bigger house. She took control of our finances. I was making twelve thousand a month, but she only let me keep two hundred bucks for pocket money. Everything else went straight to her. Seven years. I had been scraping by, denying myself everything for seven damn years, only to find out my hard earned money was funding Noah’s luxury lifestyle. Just last month, my mom was rushed to the ER for acute appendicitis. The surgery cost over thirty thousand dollars. I begged Kathy for the money. She looked me dead in the eye and said it was locked in a fixed term mutual fund. She told me to figure it out myself. It was a sweltering heatwave that day. I was so stressed about the medical bills that I walked all the way home from the office to save on gas. When I passed the convenience store by our neighborhood, I was sweating through my shirt. The cheap slushies in the freezer were exactly one dollar. I stood in front of that glass door for a full minute before walking away. I told myself that every dollar saved was a dollar closer to paying for my mom’s surgery. I was starving myself to save my mother’s life. And she was using my blood, sweat, and tears to bankroll her lover for four years. The suffocating agony of betrayal instantly hardened into pure, unadulterated hatred. Noah was already brainstorming new ways for Kathy to get cash. “Just max out a bunch of payday loans. The world is ending anyway. Once society collapses, who cares about a credit score? Any money we can borrow right now is basically free cash.” “We’ll each take out five hundred grand first. Then make your husband borrow a couple million.” A dark, bitter laugh escaped my lips. Even now, they were still trying to bleed me dry. Kathy went silent for a few seconds. “Henry might not agree to that.” “Plus, we’re legally married. He’s going to find out about the massive debt. What do we do then?” A long pause stretched through the door before Noah finally spoke. “There’s only one way. We scorch the earth.” Before Kathy could ask what he meant, Noah hung up. Kathy stayed locked in the study. Fifteen minutes later, the front doorbell rang. It was Noah. He stood on my porch, looking down his nose at me with a sickening smirk. “Henry. We need to talk.” Without waiting for an invitation, he pushed past me into the living room. He stood right in the center, looking around the place like he was inspecting his future property. Hearing the commotion, Kathy rushed out of the study. She looked at him in total panic. “What are you doing here so late?” She kept shooting him desperate looks, but Noah ignored her completely. He turned to me. “Henry, I’ll give it to you straight. Kathy and I have been together for four years.” “Noah, are you insane?” Kathy screamed at him, then frantically grabbed my arm. “Honey, please don’t listen to his bullshit.” “I’m not bullshitting!” Noah roared back. “Kathy, look at the time! We don’t need to hide this anymore.” “Henry, the only reason Kathy even married you was because I was going abroad for college, and her mom was stuck in the hospital. You were the pathetic idiot running around fetching things for them.” “Her mom thought you were safe. That’s why she pushed Kathy to marry you.” “If it wasn’t for keeping her sick mother happy, she never would have looked twice at you. You were just Option B while I was gone. Do you get it now?” Seven years ago, Kathy’s mom had a severe tumor that required major surgery. I worked all day and spent every night sleeping on a plastic chair in her hospital room for twelve days straight. The day her mom was discharged, she held my hands with tears in her eyes. “Henry, you are a good man. I feel completely safe leaving my daughter in your hands.” Kathy had stood next to us, her head bowed in silence. I thought she was just shy. Turns out, she was disgusted by the idea of marrying me. A hollow smile crept onto my face. I thought I couldn’t feel any more pain after hearing they had been sleeping together. But hearing that I was never loved to begin with, that my entire marriage was a setup, felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water directly over my soul. I looked at Kathy one last time. “Is he telling the truth?” Her lips trembled. Her eyes darted frantically between me and Noah, weighing her options for the end of the world. “Then let’s get a divorce.” My face was completely completely blank, but my mind was doing the math. She was going to start applying for payday loans tomorrow. Three or four platforms at once, probably pulling in a few hundred thousand dollars minimum. If I filed the papers before she signed those loans, that mountain of debt wouldn’t have a damn thing to do with me. “No!” Tears spilled down Kathy’s cheeks. I was stunned. Noah looked equally shocked. Kathy sobbed, clutching her chest. “I won’t divorce you!” “Henry, I know how good you’ve been to me all these years. You warm my milk every night. You rub my shoulders. You always have dinner waiting no matter how late I get home. I just cannot lose you.” “How about this. You keep the title of my husband, but my heart belongs to him.” “We can keep living exactly like we used to. I’ll just go out and see him sometimes.” “Shut up.” I cut her off. Bile was rising in my throat. Swallowing down the absolute disgust, I turned to glare at Noah. “She clearly has no shame, but surely you have some?” “She is still my legal wife. Who the hell are you to come into my house?” “A neighbor? A buddy? The side piece?” “You act so tough, but you can’t even get her to commit to you publicly. You really think she loves you?” Noah’s face contorted into something ugly. He whipped around to glare at Kathy. “What the hell does this mean?” “Did you forget what happens in a month? If you don’t divorce him, he’ll freeze your assets and you won’t be able to pull out the cash! What are you going to do then?” Seeing Kathy still hesitating, I seized the opening. “What happens in a month? Why do you need so much cash?” Kathy turned pale as a ghost and shot Noah a lethal glare. She turned to me, words tumbling out in a rush. “It has nothing to do with you!” “Kathy, we are legally married. How does massive financial movement have nothing to do with me?” “Fine! We’ll divorce!” The exact second the words left her mouth, a line of text floated across my vision. [Hidden Reward Triggered: Successfully divorce within thirty-five days to double the prize pool.] The prize pool doubled, but I couldn’t find it in myself to smile. Even now, she was lying to my face to protect her fake Doomsday System. I walked straight into the study and grabbed a pen and paper. “If we’re doing this, we do it right now. We write down exactly how the assets are split in black and white.” “You’ve been hoarding both our paychecks for years. There has to be at least half a million in there. I won’t even ask you to leave with nothing. Just give me my half.” Kathy panicked and looked at Noah for help. Noah pulled her aside and hissed in a harsh whisper. “Don’t fight him on this. I’ll take out a million dollar loan right now. Give him three hundred grand so he shuts up and gets out of our way. We have bigger things to prepare for.” “Besides, a month from now, even if we owe ten million dollars, the banks won’t exist to collect it.” Reassured by Noah’s delusional logic, Kathy signed the makeshift agreement without another word. The very next morning, Noah wired three hundred thousand dollars into my account. When he showed me the transfer screen, he purposely let me see his balance. It wasn’t one million. It was two million. He smirked and told me he had cash to burn, as long as I got lost. I just smiled back. I sincerely hoped he would keep that same energy in a month when the debt collectors came knocking. After finalizing the paperwork, I took a few days off work. It was the most peaceful stretch of time I had experienced in seven years. I didn’t have to wait on Kathy hand and foot. I slept until noon. I ate whatever I wanted. And I had a live feed of their impending disaster via the dimensional chat. They bought an abandoned industrial warehouse on the outskirts of the city and blew a fortune turning it into a fortress. Then came the panic buying. Pallets of rice, oil, and flour. Mountains of medical supplies. They even spent eighty thousand dollars on military surplus MREs, which the chat gleefully informed me were three years expired. Their initial two million dried up fast. Working together, they took out another two million in high interest loans. Four million dollars of toxic debt hanging over their heads, and they were completely oblivious, working day and night with bright smiles on their faces. I was genuinely counting down the days to see their faces when the sky didn’t fall. I thought I wouldn’t have to deal with them until then. Then my phone rang. It was my mother. “Henry, there are men at the door! They’re saying our house has been put up for collateral and they want me out. What is going on?” My vision went white. The chat scrolled rapidly, putting the pieces together for me. Kathy and Noah had run out of cash. The lenders wouldn’t give them another dime, so Kathy secretly forged documents to mortgage my mother’s house! My entire body shook with rage. “Mom, do not open that door. I am on my way!” When I pulled up, four massive guys in leather jackets were blocking the porch. One of them was raising a crowbar to the lock. “Back off!” I roared, sprinting across the lawn. “This is my property. What the hell are you doing?” The lead guy, a bald brute with a neck tattoo, looked me up and down. He shoved a crumpled contract against my chest. “Who the hell are you?” “Open your eyes and read. Kathy put this house up as collateral for a three hundred thousand dollar bridge loan. We’re here to do the pre-loan inspection.” I looked down at the signature. It was Kathy’s handwriting. “You mortgaged my mother’s house?” I spun around, finding Kathy standing near a rented truck with Noah. She didn’t even flinch. “I just need the liquidity right now. The divorce isn’t totally finalized in the system yet. What’s the big deal if I use it for a bit?” “I’m going to pay it back before the due date anyway. It’s not like I’m actually kicking your mom out.” “You can’t touch this house even if we were still married!” I screamed. “Legally, this property belongs to my mother. You have zero claim to it. Using forged documents to get a loan is felony fraud!” Hearing the word fraud, the loan sharks immediately stepped back, their expressions hardening. Noah saw his money slipping away and lunged forward. “Shut your mouth, Henry! The paperwork is real!” He grabbed me by the collar and dropped his voice to a venomous whisper. “Listen to me, you pathetic loser. In one month, society is going to burn. Nobody is going to care about this dusty old house.” “But if you ruin my cash flow today, I swear to God I will beat you to death right here.” “Try it.” I stared dead into his eyes. Hearing the screaming outside, my mom got terrified that I was getting hurt. She unbolted the door. She reached out to pull me inside, but one of the thugs used the opening to shove his way in. The heavy wooden door slammed backward. It caught my mom right in the chest, sending her flying backward. The back of her head cracked sickeningly against the sharp edge of the doorframe. “Mom!” I shoved Noah back and dove to catch her. Blood was instantly pooling on the floorboards. The loan sharks realized things had escalated way out of control and bolted for their cars. Noah, terrified of getting arrested right before his precious apocalypse, grabbed Kathy and fled the scene. I pressed my trembling hands against the gash on my mother’s head and dialed 911. The ambulance arrived in minutes. After a frantic hour in the ER, the doctor confirmed the bleeding was stopped and there was no severe brain damage. But when she woke up, my mother just cried, gripping my shirt, begging me not to let Kathy take her home. I held her fragile hands tightly. “Mom, I promise you. Nobody is taking your house. And the people who did this to you are going to pay. Every single one of them.” While she slept, I got on the phone with the most ruthless litigation lawyer in the city. The forged contract was a slam dunk. Getting the deed cleared was just a matter of time. I was planning to let them enjoy their delusion for a few more days before dropping the hammer. But the very people who put my mother in the hospital decided to come for me first. The day before my mom was scheduled for discharge, I walked out of the hospital lobby. A beaten up cargo van suddenly slid to a halt next to me. The side door flew open. Before I could even register the threat, something heavy and metal slammed into the back of my skull. Everything went black. When I finally opened my eyes, the smell of diesel and stale air hit me first. I was tied tightly to a metal chair. I recognized the space immediately. It was the warehouse Kathy and Noah had bought for the end of the world. Noah was standing in front of me, decked out in full tactical gear like he was cosplaying a warlord from a bad movie. Behind him stood Kathy and about eight massive, mean looking guys who looked like hired muscle. I yanked at the zip ties, screaming at him. “Are you out of your mind, Noah? This is kidnapping! You’re going to rot in a cell!” Noah just threw his head back and laughed. He glanced back at Kathy. Kathy looked at me with cold, dead eyes. “Half an hour left.” “Half an hour until what?” I spat blood onto the concrete. Noah took a slow, theatrical step toward me. “Henry, did you notice the weather today? Pretty strange, right?” “It’s a localized storm front, you idiot! The clouds will clear in an hour.” “Wrong!” Noah screamed, his face twisting with manic joy. “It’s not a storm. It’s the apocalypse. The world ends in exactly thirty minutes.” “Kathy and I got the intel a month ago. Since you used to be her husband, and you practically funded our lives for years, I’m feeling generous. I’ll let you stay in our safe house.” “But only if you get on your knees right now and slam your forehead into the concrete one hundred times.” “You need psychiatric help! What apocalypse? You’ve completely lost your mind!” Before I could finish, Noah’s tactical glove cracked across my jaw. I thrashed against the chair, trying to kick him, but two of the hired goons slammed me down against the floor. Noah knelt over me, digging his fingers brutally into my jaw. “Say one more word, and I’ll shatter every bone in your face!” “Do it!” I snarled through the pain. “I have a dead man’s switch on my phone app. The cops already have my location. If you touch me again, you’re going to spend the rest of your life in federal prison!” The goons holding my arms flinched, their grips loosening slightly. Noah just scoffed. “Call the cops! Call the military! The world is ending! The cops are going to be too busy eating each other to care about you!” “What are you idiots standing around for?” he yelled at his muscle. “Did he actually scare you?” “The rules are gone! Even if you kill him right now, no judge will ever see you! But if you go easy on him, I’ll lock you all outside when the fallout hits!” That was all it took. The hired muscle swarmed me. Heavy steel toed boots rained down on my ribs, my back, my legs. I curled into a tight ball, trying to protect my head, but there were too many of them. Just as the agonizing pain pushed me right to the edge of blacking out, Kathy let out a piercing shriek. “The timer! Ten seconds! The apocalypse is here!” Instantly, the warehouse went dead silent. The boots stopped. Everyone stared at Kathy, holding their breath. Three. Two. One! Outside the high frosted windows, nothing happened. A ray of golden sunlight actually broke through the clouds. But a second later, a massive, deafening crash echoed through the building. “It’s here! The end of the world is here!” Noah screamed in sheer ecstasy. Then came the voice. “FREEZE! POLICE! GET ON THE GROUND!”

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1 Finn forced my phone down on a busy sidewalk, face carved from ice. “Amy, delete the post. Stop being so desperate for attention.” Tears stinging, I deleted our anniversary photo in front of the weekend crowd. Only then did his tension thaw. He sighed and pulled me close. “Be a good girl. We don’t need to post online to prove anything.” For three years, his shadow vanished from my social media. Friends asked if I was even dating. I smiled and said he liked privacy. Even our digital wedding invitations next month used only a sunset photo. Until last night, when the algorithm pushed a pet influencer’s video. Finn held a girl by the waist, eyes crinkling with a genuine smile. Over ten thousand comments raved about how sweet Ollie and his wifey were. I scrolled through every video. The first post dated back eight months into our relationship. The pinned comment: the girl complaining, “He insists on filming every single day. So annoying lol.” He didn’t hate being recorded. He just hated being recorded with me. Face numb, I opened my chat with the wedding planner. “The wedding is off.” … After I sent that message, I sat at the desk in my home office, my hands and feet freezing cold. The glowing screen illuminated a meticulously documented timeline. One thousand and ninety-five days of updates. He was in every single one of them. Sometimes it was just his side profile. Sometimes a shot of his back. Sometimes he was holding a fluffy Ragdoll cat named Casper, flashing a gentle, melting smile at the camera. I locked my phone. The living room lights were still on. It was a habit I had kept for five years, always leaving a light on for his late nights. I heard the key turn in the front door. Finn walked in, shrugging off his jacket. He walked straight up to me, his brow furrowed in that familiar expression of mild annoyance. “Is the intro video for the reception not done yet?” He did not offer a single word about why he was home past midnight. He did not notice the total lack of emotion in my eyes. I looked at him calmly. “Yeah. Almost done.” He did not catch the coldness in my voice. He just kept talking. “I need it by tomorrow. Don’t forget.” He casually tossed his heavy camera bag onto the sofa. A small, black camera remote rolled out of the side pocket and dropped onto the rug. My heart felt like it hit the floor with it. It was the exact same remote. In countless videos, that girl named Sophie would hold it up, laughing as she yelled at the man off screen, “Ollie, we are rolling!” He was never passively caught on film. He was the one personally hitting the shutter. Finn bent down to pick up the remote. Catching my stare, he quickly shoved it back into the bag. “Why are you looking at that?” I swallowed the sharp lump in my throat. “Finn, what is that pet account all about?” Irritation instantly flooded his face. “I already told you, it is just work. It is a collaborative project for a pet brand.” “Does a work project require you to be on camera every day? For three years?” “What crazy narrative are you spinning in your head now?” He raised his voice, his patience totally gone. “Amy, can you act like an adult for once? Stop dragging my professional life into your emotional insecurities.” “I just wanted to…” “You don’t need to know,” he cut me off sharply. “Just do what you are supposed to do. Finish cutting the wedding video.” It was always like this. He always threw around words like mature, work, and desperate to completely invalidate my feelings. In the past, I would have immediately apologized and reflected on my behavior. But tonight, I just gave him a slow nod. “Okay.” He looked incredibly satisfied with my obedience and turned to walk into the bathroom. Listening to the sound of the shower running, I opened my messages. The curator had just sent a final confirmation. “Amy, regarding the two year film restoration residency at the Portland Vintage Film Archive, are you absolutely sure you want to take it? You previously turned it down because of your upcoming wedding.” To protect the home Finn always talked about, I had given up my absolute dream job. Tonight, I was taking it back. “I am sure. Thank you for keeping the spot open for me.” The next morning, Finn realized his camera batteries were not charged. His daily shooting scripts were not neatly laid out on the kitchen island like usual. He started rummaging through the living room, clearly annoyed. “Amy, where is my backup battery?” I was on the floor, carefully packing my delicate film restoration tools in bubble wrap. I did not even look up. “I don’t know. Find it yourself.” He froze, staring at me in complete disbelief. I ignored him. I opened my banking app and began transferring the returned vendor deposits to cover the cancellation penalties. He had always used work as an excuse to avoid the wedding planning. All the vendors only had my contact information. That made it incredibly convenient for me to sever everything cleanly. The venue, the officiant, the catering, the luxury car rentals. I chopped away every single connection with my own hands. Finally, I logged into the studio security portal and requested to revoke my own access badge. “Confirm termination of access?” I clicked yes. My phone buzzed with an incoming email from Portland. “Welcome aboard, Amy. Your residency check-in date is in seven days.” I opened the digital seating chart for the reception. I clicked on the bride’s designated chair and hit delete. The wedding was still perfectly intact inside Finn’s head. But his bride had already quietly left the stage. The next day, I drove over to the animal rescue base. Officially, I was there to return some lighting equipment the wedding studio had borrowed. All the volunteers at the base knew Finn. And they all knew the wifey from his videos. The second I set the heavy equipment cases down, a young college girl practically skipped over to me. “Oh, you must be Ollie’s friend! Is he coming by today?” I shook my head. “I am just here to drop this off.” “Aw, okay,” she said, looking a bit deflated before her smile returned. “That is fine, the missus is here anyway. Those two always show up together.” Another volunteer tossing treats to a tabby cat chimed in. “Seriously, Ollie and his lady are literally relationship goals. They are so cute together.” The missus. His lady. The words echoed in my head like television static. I turned around and finally saw her in person. Sophie. She was surrounded by a few volunteers, laughing brightly. “Oh stop teasing me, guys! We are strictly work partners.” She said the words, but there was not a single trace of awkwardness or denial on her face. Right on cue, Finn walked through the double doors. He was carrying a massive box of premium canned cat food. He walked straight past everyone and naturally took a spot right next to Sophie. The volunteers immediately started cheering. “Look who it is! Ollie taking his girl on another charity date!” Finn just chuckled. He did not clarify a thing. Not a single word. His eyes swept across the room and landed on me. He froze for a fraction of a second. The charity sponsor representative happened to walk by and looked at me curiously. “Hey Ollie, who is this?” For exactly one second, my pathetic heart held onto a sliver of hope. I foolishly hoped he would say, this is my fiancée. Instead, Finn kept his voice perfectly flat and casual. “Just a friend. She is handling the videography for our wedding.” A friend. Weeks before our supposed wedding, standing in a room full of people who assumed he was dating Sophie, he effortlessly reduced me to a random vendor. I vividly remembered an award ceremony three years ago. He had won a massive industry prize. The press was swarming him at the afterparty. I had instinctively taken a step forward to stand by his side. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me into a dark hallway. “There are too many people and too many cameras. Go wait in the car.” Back then, I thought he was just protecting me from the stress of public life. Now I understood. His obsession with hiding me was a strictly enforced rule. A rule that only applied to me. Across the room, they were prepping the set for a live broadcast. Sophie’s lapel microphone was sitting slightly crooked. Finn naturally stepped into her personal space, leaning down to carefully clip it to the perfect spot on her collar. His movements were incredibly fluid and intimate. He had clearly done this a thousand times. Sophie looked up at him with a pout. “That ring light almost blinded me earlier.” Finn immediately spun around to yell at the lighting tech. “Swap it out for a softbox! Her eyes are sensitive to harsh light.” Then he adjusted the main camera, telling Sophie to lean her head against his shoulder to test the framing. The utter devotion and tenderness in his eyes was the exact same look I had seen in a thousand different videos. The moment the stream went live, Sophie pulled a shiny piece of metal from her pocket and held it up to the lens. “Ta-da! Look at our new custom collar tags!” It was a silver tag shaped like a bone. Engraved on the metal were their initials. O & S. Finn laughed, took the tag from her fingers, and personally clipped it onto the thin silver chain around Sophie’s neck. The live chat exploded across the monitor. “OMG IS THIS THE HARD LAUNCH?!” “Locking this ship down! Throwing away the key!” I could not watch another second. I turned around and walked out the door. When I got back to our apartment, I booted up my laptop and logged into our shared cloud drive. Five years together. We had traveled the world. We had taken countless photos. I opened the master folder sorted by date. I scrolled back exactly three years, to the day their account was created. Folder after folder. Thousands of high resolution photos and video clips. It was all Sophie. Her laughing, her crying over a stray kitten, her sleeping peacefully against Finn’s shoulder on a train. He had meticulously organized and color-corrected every single piece of her existence. And me? I typed my own name into the archive search bar. Zero results. The only proof I even existed in this massive digital library was one corrupted file from three years ago. It was a blurry photo I took of his back as he walked away from me, right after he demanded I never point a lens at his face. I gave this man five years of my youth, and in his permanent memory, I was nothing but empty space. I shut the laptop and dragged a heavy plastic storage bin out of the closet. I had bought these bins planning to use them for moving into a bigger house after the wedding. Now, I was using them to pack up my corpse of a relationship. My film reels. My chemical kits. My grandmother’s brass camera. Every single item that belonged to me went into the plastic shell. I did not leave a note to explain what I was doing. I no longer needed a spot in his lens. I no longer needed his validation. When I clicked remove account on the shared cloud drive, the system gave me a warning pop-up. “You will permanently lose access to over 4,000 files.” I didn’t back anything up. I clicked confirm. The final family photoshoot was booked at Finn’s private studio. His mother, the woman who had always treated me with cold, polite distance, was practically glowing with warmth today. But that warmth was not meant for me. “Sophie, come here honey! Stand right next to Ollie.” His mother grabbed Sophie’s hand and pulled her directly into the center of the frame, pressing their shoulders together. Sophie looked a little embarrassed and glanced in my direction. “I don’t know, Mrs. Hayes… Amy is right there.” “Oh nonsense! You have been Ollie’s partner for years. You are practically family at this point. It is just a photo!” His mother waved her hand dismissively, then pointed at me. “Amy, you know cameras. Do us a favor and hold that heavy reflector board for the lighting guy.” With one sentence, I went from future daughter-in-law to unpaid intern. I stood in the shadows just outside the bright set lights, gripping the heavy metal frame of the reflector. Finn’s father, his mother, Finn, and Sophie. They stood shoulder to shoulder, laughing. The perfect, happy family. And I was the hired help standing outside the frame. My chest felt incredibly tight. A bitter, acidic ache crawled up my throat. His mother must have noticed the dead look in my eyes. She called out over the flash of the camera. “Amy, smile a little! Don’t ruin the happy mood with that face.” To her, my silent grief was just an inconvenience. I looked at Finn, desperately hoping he would defend me. Just once. Instead, his eyebrows pulled together. He looked right at me and mouthed three words. “Look at the big picture.” Always the same excuse. Using family duty and professional courtesy as weapons to force me back into my corner. The lighting tech adjusted a massive strobe, and a beam of harsh white light accidentally caught Sophie right in the face. She squeezed her eyes shut. Finn instantly broke his pose. “Turn that down! Swap it for a softer grid! I told you she hates bright lights!” He remembered she was sensitive to light. He remembered her tiniest, most insignificant quirks. But he completely forgot that my right wrist had permanent nerve damage, and I could not hold heavy objects for more than five minutes. The metal reflector felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. A sharp, familiar spike of agony shot up my forearm. I got that injury three years ago. Finn had almost dropped a rare, vintage Leica lens. I dove across concrete stairs to catch it, fracturing my wrist in the process. I still remembered the pure panic on his face back then. He sat outside the urgent care room all night. He spent a week modifying a heavy duty camera strap to take the weight off my arm. He used to insist on carrying all my gear cases. That same modified strap was currently wrapped around a microphone stand in Sophie’s broadcasting room. He said it looked cool on camera. The memories made my lungs burn. The stabbing pain in my wrist finally hit a breaking point. My fingers went numb, and the heavy metal reflector crashed onto the hardwood floor. The loud bang echoed through the studio. Everyone turned to stare at me. Finn practically stomped over. He didn’t even look at my trembling hand. He bent down to inspect the reflector frame. “What is your problem? Can we even finish this shoot?” I stared at his face, hot tears threatening to spill over my eyelashes. “My wrist hurts.” He finally noticed the angry red swelling around my joint. His scowl only deepened. “Why are you always so careless?” There was no sympathy. Just annoyance. “Is this going to delay the edit for the channel?” he demanded. In that exact second, whatever love I had left for this man flatlined. He gave his gentleness to another woman. His memory was entirely selective. I shook my head slowly and pushed myself up from the floor. “I’m done shooting.” I turned my back on him and walked straight toward the equipment staging area. I didn’t look back once. My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was the Portland project coordinator. “Hi Amy. Due to a massive storm front moving in, your scheduled train has been bumped up to tomorrow night. Please be ready.” Perfect timing. I stopped at the workbench and undid the velcro on the black wrist brace I had worn for three years. He had carefully strapped it onto my arm all those years ago. Now, I was giving it back to him. I left it sitting next to a pile of dead batteries. The lead photographer handed a digital tablet to Finn for final approval. In the picture, his family and Sophie were beaming. If you looked very closely at the glass window behind them, you could barely make out a distorted, blurry shadow standing in the dark. That was me. On my final day in the city, I calmly handled all the handover paperwork for the studio. The freight company had already loaded my storage bins onto a truck bound for Portland. The digital access code for my new studio apartment was saved on my brand new phone. I moved through the apartment like a hotel guest checking out, scrubbing away every single trace I had ever lived there. When Finn finally walked through the door, I was sitting at my desk, deleting the final files from my hard drive. It was the wedding reception video. I had scrubbed every single photo of us, replacing them with generic drone footage of mountains and oceans. He saw my swollen wrist, and muscle memory kicked in. He grabbed a tube of medical ointment from the bathroom cabinet and began rubbing it into my skin. For a brief, stupid second, his gentle touch almost made me hesitate. Maybe deep down, there was still a part of him that cared. Then he opened his mouth and shattered the illusion. “Does it feel better? If you are done pouting, go fix the color grading on the wedding video. The tones are way too cold.” He legitimately believed the wedding was still happening. I pulled my arm away from his grip and asked him one final question. “Finn. Have you ever considered what happens if I refuse to keep doing this?” He looked at me like I had just told a terrible joke. “Refuse? Amy, are you really not done throwing this tantrum?” He stood up, looking down at me with pure condescension. “You delete the photos from the reception hall. You walk out of the family shoot. What is this? Are you trying to hold a gun to my head so I announce our relationship online?” “Let me make this clear. I despise being threatened.” So that was it. All my heartbreak, all my endless sacrifices, all my silent suffering. To him, it was just a calculated tantrum to get attention. I actually laughed. I laughed so hard my ribs ached. Right as I did, his phone started ringing frantically. It was the manager at the pet rescue base. He was shouting so loud I could hear it from the chair. “Ollie! Get down here! A heavy lighting rig just collapsed during Sophie’s livestream. She dove to protect a cat and got hit!” All the color drained from Finn’s face. He grabbed his car keys and sprinted out the front door without even looking at me. He completely forgot that we were supposed to do the final venue walkthrough with the catering manager in twenty minutes. Once again, for Sophie, he simply abandoned me. I didn’t run after him. I opened my laptop and clicked on their livestream link. The camera was knocked sideways, showing a chaotic, dusty floor. People were shouting in the background. Then, I saw him. Finn sprinted into the frame. He grabbed Sophie from the floor and pulled her violently against his chest, wrapping his entire body around hers to shield her from any falling debris. He was running his hands through her hair, checking her for injuries. His voice was shaking with absolute raw terror. “Are you okay? Did it hit your head? Talk to me!” Even after the staff confirmed she was just bruised and scared, he refused to let her go. With over twenty thousand people watching live, he buried his face in her neck and held her in a desperate, clinging embrace. A tech rushed over, reaching for the camera. “Should I kill the feed?” “Leave it!” Finn barked, glaring at the guy. “Don’t ruin the engagement metrics!” Three years ago, he screamed at me in the middle of a public street and made me cry just to delete a photo. Today, he was broadcasting his desperate embrace of another woman to tens of thousands of strangers for internet points. He didn’t hate the camera. He just hated the idea of the world knowing I belonged to him. The live chat was going absolutely insane. “HOLY CRAP THE WARDOG ENERGY!” “They are so real for this! This isn’t scripted!” “Please get married right now!” I stared at those comments. I moved my mouse, clicked the little heart icon on the top comment, and closed the window. I popped the SIM card out of my old phone and dropped it into the trash can. I grabbed my coat, walked over to the front door, and placed my metal keycard neatly on the shoe rack. Goodbye, Finn. I pulled the door shut behind me, knowing I would never walk through it again. The night was pitch black. I stood alone on the train platform, the freezing wind whipping through my hair. The second I stepped into the train car, I used my new number to send a mass text message to every single guest on our list. The wedding is cancelled. The train lurched forward. The neon lights of the city blurred into colorful streaks, fading faster and faster into the distance. Miles away, Finn had just finished calming Sophie down. He was pulling his phone out, probably ready to call and yell at me for not caring about the accident. Instead, a notification popped up from the luxury wedding studio. “Dear Mr. Finn. As per the bride, Ms. Amy’s instructions from seven days ago, all wedding services have been permanently terminated. The cancellation notices to your guests have just been deployed. Have a nice evening.” Outside my window, the world was dark and peaceful. While he was burning with anxiety over another woman’s scratched knee, he had permanently lost his bride.

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