Author: Momo Chan

1 My wife skipped our three-year-old son’s retinal detachment surgery so she could hold her former flame’s hand during a routine outpatient follow-up. That evening, while packing our son’s diaper bag in the quiet of the pediatric ward, I picked up his voice-recording teddy bear and pressed the stitched paw. Out came a tiny, raspy whisper. “Teddy… Mommy isn’t here anymore. Can you be my mommy instead?” At his community follow-up clinic a week later, the pediatrician casually asked why his mother hadn’t come. Toby reached up with his small, trembling fingers, lightly touching the gauze over his right eye. “Dr. Sarah, my mommy turned into an angel and flew far, far away,” he said in his small, innocent voice. “To a place called Mr. Derek’s house.” During his preschool’s Family Day presentation, Toby stood on the little stage holding up a construction-paper drawing of just the two of us. “My teacher told us that only people who die can’t take family photos,” he announced to the room. “So my mommy became a star in the sky.” Half the parents in the auditorium choked back tears. I sat alone in the last row, my eyes completely dry. Three months later, when Derek’s international fellowship papers were finally finalized, Natalie rushed home, carrying the heavy exhaustion of someone who believed she had carried the world on her shoulders. She stepped through the door, arms outstretched, eager to play the doting mother and hold her flesh and blood. She found Toby sitting on the living room rug, carefully balancing wooden building blocks into a crooked little pyramid. He looked up at her with large, unblinking eyes—eyes devoid of warmth or fear, filled only with the cold detachment reserved for a total stranger. “Excuse me, lady,” Toby whispered politely. “Please don’t step on my mommy’s grave.” “Sam, is this how you’re raising our son?” Natalie stood in the foyer, her white designer trench coat draped over her forearm. She had just returned from an out-of-town ophthalmology symposium. Her face still wore that polished, practiced look of compassionate fatigue that featured so prominently on the hospital’s promotional billboards. At thirty-two, Natalie was the youngest associate chief of pediatric ophthalmology at the city’s premier medical center. Patient with families, endlessly gentle with sick kids. The nurses always raved about Dr. Mercer’s steady hands and unshakeable bedside manner. Even when toddlers threw screaming fits during dilated fundus exams, she would drop to one knee on the linoleum, speaking in that soft, hypnotic cadence. “Don’t be scared, sweetie. Dr. Natalie is right here.” “All done in just a second.” Yet now, staring at the miniature block tomb her own son had built on the carpet, the only thing in her eyes was irritation. The wooden tower was precarious. At its peak sat a single yellow star-shaped block. Toby remained crouched beside it, his small hands cupped around the star like a fragile flame. A medical-grade protective patch covered his right eye. His uncovered left eye looked up at Natalie with a quiet, glassy clarity. It wasn’t a tantrum. It was complete emotional vacancy. Natalie took a step forward, forcing a maternal smile. “Toby, sweetheart. Mommy’s home.” Toby flinched, shrinking instantly behind my legs. “Lady, please don’t step there.” Natalie’s expression hardened. “What did you just call me? I’m your mother.” Toby lowered his head, carefully adjusting the tilted yellow star with his thumb. “Mommy lives inside there now.” Natalie’s breathing hitched, turning sharp and ragged. She whipped around to face me, her eyes flashing with indignant fury. “He’s three years old, Sam! What three-year-old talks about graves? What kind of poison have you been feeding him? Do you have any idea how twisted that is?” I didn’t flinch. I didn’t raise my voice. “I didn’t teach him that.” “Then who did?” I met her gaze, my voice completely flat. “You did.” A muscle in Natalie’s temple twitched. “Me?” Without a word, I walked over to the media console and picked up the brown plush bear. I pressed the play button on its paw. The speaker crackled slightly before Toby’s soft, fragile voice filled the room. “Teddy, Mommy didn’t come again today.” “The doctor lady said I have to be brave for the big lights.” “I’m not brave, Teddy.” “Can you please be my mommy?” The living room fell into an agonizing silence. The color drained from Natalie’s cheeks in slow, visible waves. Three months ago, Toby had undergone emergency retinal detachment repair. The night before the surgery, Natalie had stroked his hair and looked into his eyes with absolute conviction: “Mommy will be right outside the operating room. I won’t leave your side.” That morning, Toby had sat in his tiny hospital gown, clutching his bear, his eyes glued to the elevator doors at the end of the surgical hall. Every time the chime sounded, his little head snapped up. “Daddy, is that Mommy?” Natalie never showed up. Ten minutes before they wheeled Toby into the OR, my phone buzzed with a text from her: [Derek needs me to accompany him for his post-op micro-incision checkup today. You know his medical trauma—he panics in clinical settings. Toby has you. He’ll be fine for a couple of hours without me.] Her “couple of hours” turned into twelve. When Toby finally came out of anesthesia, his head wrapped in thick layers of surgical gauze, he didn’t cry from the throbbing pain. He reached his small, searching hand up toward my face and asked, “Daddy… is Mommy not able to see me anymore?” Natalie stepped toward the console, her fingers trembling as she clicked off the bear. Her throat moved as she swallowed hard. “Sam, that day… it wasn’t intentional,” she said, her voice dropping into that familiar defensive cadence. “Derek just had his procedure done. He was having a full panic attack; he literally couldn’t walk into the clinic alone. I personally vetted Toby’s surgical team. Dr. Hayes is the best surgeon in the department. I knew there wouldn’t be any complications.” I let out a quiet, humorless chuckle. “So in your mind, delegating your son’s surgery to a colleague counts as you being there for him?” Natalie’s brow furrowed, her defensiveness turning sharp. “Stop with the passive-aggressive sarcasm, Sam.” She turned away from me, kneeling down in front of Toby. She unzipped her leather carry-on and pulled out a sleek, gift-wrapped box. “Look what Mommy brought you, Toby,” she coaxed, her voice adopting that singsong tone she used on pediatric ward rounds. “Remember how much you love the night sky? Look.” She tore off the ribbon and opened the box to reveal a high-end galaxy projector. She clicked the power switch. Instantly, intense clusters of pulsing blue and violet laser stars began spinning rapidly across the ceiling and living room walls. In the past, Toby would have clapped his hands and squealed with delight. Now, the moment the flashing lights hit his vision, Toby let out a muffled shriek. He threw both hands over his patched right eye, his entire body convulsing as he scrambled backward into the corner. I lunged forward and slammed the power button off. “Natalie!” She froze, bewildered. “What? What’s wrong with you?” I stared at her, my jaw aching from how hard I was clenching my teeth. “Post-op pediatric retinas cannot be exposed to high-frequency flashing light sources for six months. It’s on the discharge protocol.” Natalie’s hands hovered awkwardly in mid-air. She was one of the top pediatric ophthalmologists in the state. Yet she had no clue about the basic postoperative restrictions for her own child. Toby buried his face into my thigh, his voice shaking. “Daddy… the stars hurt my eye.” Natalie’s face flushed crimson, mortification warring with guilt. She opened her mouth to speak, but before a single word could come out, her phone began to buzz loudly against the marble countertop. The screen lit up with a single name: Derek. Almost instantly, the tension drained from Natalie’s shoulders, replaced by an instinctive, tender attentiveness. She answered immediately. “Derek? What happened?” Derek’s voice came through the receiver, thin, raspy, and full of breathless vulnerability. “Natalie… I can’t find my visa medical clearance. The fellowship coordinator in Zurich says they need my ophthalmic evaluation filed by tomorrow morning or I lose my spot. My eyes are burning, and I’m completely overwhelmed. Can you please come over?” Natalie held the phone tightly, her eyes flicking toward Toby. Toby didn’t look back at her. He just stayed pressed against my leg, quiet and motionless. Natalie hesitated for exactly two seconds before standing up and smoothing her coat. “Sam, Derek’s international fellowship documents are time-sensitive. I’ll run over, sort through his paperwork, and be right back.” I didn’t move to stop her. Toby didn’t shed a single tear. The heavy front door clicked shut. In the quiet apartment, Toby walked over to the kitchen trash can, pushed down the pedal, and dropped the expensive galaxy projector inside. Then he picked up his teddy bear, pressed the paw, and whispered into the fabric: “Teddy, the stars Mommy gave me hurt. I don’t want stars anymore.” I dropped to my knees and pulled him tight against my chest. His three-year-old body felt impossibly light, like a fragile sheet of parchment that could tear in the wind. Later that night, after Toby fell asleep, I went into my study and unlocked the bottom desk drawer. Inside lay two documents: an official transfer referral from the Pediatric Ophthalmology Center in Seattle, and a fully drafted petition for divorce and sole legal custody. I picked up a red pen and circled a date fifteen days away on the desk calendar. That was the absolute deadline to register for the multi-disciplinary pediatric retinal panel in Seattle. I had given Natalie too many chances. I had believed her promises too many times. This time, I would not allow my son’s vision—or his life—to wither away waiting for her next empty promise. 2 Ten days before the deadline. I had just finished a grueling thirty-six-hour rotation at the hospital when my phone rang. The caller ID showed the Seattle Pediatric Eye Center. The intake coordinator’s voice was polite, professional, and entirely devastating. “Mr. Mercer, I’m calling to inform you that Toby’s multidisciplinary consultation slot for next week has been canceled.” The fatigue vanished from my veins, replaced by an icy dread. “Canceled? By whom?” “Our system logs show the cancellation was processed via the inter-hospital physician portal by Dr. Natalie Mercer, using her attending credentials.” I stood frozen in the drafty hospital corridor. The paper coffee cup in my hand slipped, spilling dark, scalding liquid over my scrubs and running down my sneakers. The coordinator continued on the other end: “Additionally, the reserved pediatric inpatient rehabilitation bed has been released back into the pool. If you wish to reapply, the current waitlist is approximately two to three months.” Two to three months. Every retinal specialist had stressed the same biological reality: the first ninety days post-op represented the critical neuro-visual window for Toby. If we missed intensive visual rehabilitation now, his visual acuity and binocular coordination would suffer permanent, irreversible degradation. I hung up the phone and drove straight home, my hands gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. Natalie was in the home office. Spread across the walnut desk were Toby’s surgical files, clinical assessment sheets, and a thick stack of international fellowship sponsorship documents. Wearing her gold-rimmed reading glasses, she was meticulously organizing Derek’s English credentials. I had seen that laser-focused expression countless times before. In hospital promotional campaigns. At major clinical conventions. And every single time Derek murmured her name with that practiced helplessness. The only place I had never seen that devotion was on our son. I walked up to the desk and snatched Toby’s medical folder off the table. “You canceled Toby’s specialist consult in Seattle?” Natalie looked up, her brow knitting in immediate annoyance. “Why do you always burst in like an aggressive maniac, Sam?” “Did you cancel his appointment? Yes or no?” She sighed heavily, taking off her glasses and pinching the bridge of her nose. “Derek has his pre-departure ophthalmic clearance tomorrow. The Seattle specialist happens to be the only accredited board member who can issue a fast-track international waiver for his fellowship. Toby’s recovery is stable right now. We can easily reschedule him next month.” I glared at her, my voice shaking with fury. “Natalie, you are a pediatric eye surgeon. You know better than anyone on this planet that his rehabilitation cannot wait!” Natalie threw her hands up, exasperation dripping from every word. “Of course I know the clinical timelines, Sam! But Toby is not in acute crisis. Derek’s fellowship opportunity is a once-in-a-lifetime career milestone. If he misses this deadline, years of work go down the drain!” A bitter, incredulous laugh escaped my chest. “So you gave your own son’s pediatric rehab bed to Derek Collins?” “I didn’t give it away,” she snapped, her tone dripping with self-righteous logic. “It’s a temporary reallocation of clinical resources. Stop framing everything in the worst possible light.” My gaze dropped to the desk. There, sitting beside Derek’s visa forms, was a printed bank transfer receipt. Thirty thousand dollars. Transferred directly from our joint family account. Memo: Derek Collins – Fellowship Guarantee Bond. That was the emergency medical fund I had painstakingly saved for Toby’s second-phase visual therapy. I picked up the receipt, the paper rustling in my trembling fingers. “Is this a ‘temporary resource allocation’ too?” Natalie paused, caught off guard for a split second. But her clinical detachment returned almost instantly. “Derek is moving overseas all by himself,” she said smoothly. “He has no family, no safety net. He needs liquid funds to secure his housing and lab deposit. I will replenish Toby’s treatment fund out of my next surgical bonus.” The sheer absurdity of it hit me like a physical blow. “Later? Natalie, how many ‘laters’ have you promised Toby while stripping away everything he needs?” Her eyes flashed with cold anger. “Sam, stop weaponizing our child to guilt-trip me! Derek has had a brutal life. His parents abandoned him, he’s fought through chronic anxiety, and he’s had to scrap for every single achievement. You have a stable job, a supportive family, a home, a healthy network—what does Derek have?” I looked straight into her eyes. “He has my wife.” The office went dead silent. Natalie averted her gaze, her jaw tight. “I am simply helping a vulnerable colleague.” I pulled out my phone, unlocked the screen, and aimed the camera directly at her face. “Then say it on camera.” “What?” “Look into the lens and state clearly that you personally canceled your three-year-old son’s specialist consultation. State that you transferred his medical rehabilitation funds to another man. Go on.” Natalie’s composure shattered. “Sam, have you lost your goddamn mind?” She lunged across the desk to grab my phone. I stepped back, keeping the camera raised. “If your conscience is so clean, Dr. Mercer, what are you afraid of?” Raw venom surged into her eyes. “You are becoming entirely unhinged! Toby is three years old, and you’ve turned him into a neurotic little freak who babbles about dead mothers and block graves! Do you honestly think this toxic behavior is good for him?” Smack. My hand moved before I could think. The slap echoed sharply through the room. Natalie’s head was knocked to the side. She slowly turned back, her hand pressed against her reddening cheek, her dark eyes blazing with shock and fury. “Sam Mercer.” My fingers were digging into the edges of my phone so hard the glass creaked. “That was for Toby, who sat by the operating room doors waiting for a mother who never came.” A soft shuffling sound broke the tension at the doorway. I turned around. Toby was standing in the doorframe, clutching his brown bear. He had heard everything. With his depth perception impaired, he kept one hand pressed against the hallway wall, guiding his small, hesitant steps forward. “Daddy…” I immediately dropped the phone, knelt down, and wrapped my arms around his trembling frame. Toby reached out his little hand, gently brushing his fingers across my cheek. “Daddy, don’t cry.” I wasn’t crying. Yet in his innocence, he was trying to comfort the only parent he had left. That night, Toby sat up in his bed, pressed the paw of the teddy bear, and whispered into the dark: “Teddy… Mommy gave my doctor to Mr. Derek.” “Does that mean I don’t ever have to see again?” Standing outside his half-open bedroom door, I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands until they broke the skin. My phone screen lit up with a notification from social media. Derek had just posted a new photo. In the image, Natalie stood beside him in his sunlit apartment, her hands gently helping him file documents into an accordion folder. His caption read: [Forever grateful to the one person who always puts me first.] Natalie had already liked the post. I stared at the screen for a long, cold moment. Then I dialed my attorney. “Add everything to the filing,” I said, my voice steady and devoid of emotion. “Diversion of marital medical assets, unauthorized cancellation of minor patient care, and abuse of clinical administrative privileges.” The attorney paused on the line. “Dr. Mercer… if we file this with the medical board and the family court simultaneously, there is no turning back. Are you sure you want to go this far?” I looked through the crack in the door at my son, curled up asleep around his teddy bear. “I’m sure,” I said. “I want to ensure she never has the legal right to sign a single medical chart for my son ever again.” 3 Three days before departure. Toby’s preschool organized an interactive parent-child workshop focused on pediatric eye health. The classroom teacher had called me the day before. “Mr. Mercer, Toby has been unusually quiet this past week. He keeps telling the other children that his mommy lives in the sky. If Dr. Mercer is available, it would mean the world to Toby if she could attend the workshop with him.” Surprisingly, Natalie agreed. She promised she had cleared her surgical schedule for the afternoon and would arrive on time. When Toby heard she was coming, he sat on the bench by the entryway an hour early. He wore his crisp little button-down shirt with his name tag pinned neatly to his chest. Over his right eye was the physician-mandated UV-blocking amber safety shield. He repeatedly adjusted the elastic strap with his small fingers, looking up at me anxiously. “Daddy… will Mommy think this looks ugly?” I swallowed the lump in my throat and smoothed his collar. “Not at all, buddy. You look like a superhero.” Yet in my heart, I felt a familiar, creeping dread. Ten minutes before the workshop started, the classroom door swung open. Natalie walked in. She was impeccably dressed in a light gray silk blouse with the cuffs rolled neatly to her forearms. The moment she entered, several parents recognized her immediately. “Dr. Mercer? Oh, wow! You treated my daughter’s strabismus last fall!” Natalie offered her trademark warm, gracious smile. “How is Sophie doing with her patching therapy?” “So much better! You were so patient with her—we tell everyone you’re the best doctor in town!” That was Natalie. In the eyes of the community, she was brilliant, empathetic, and utterly dependable. A moment later, the door opened again. Derek walked in, holding the hand of a five-year-old boy. The boy was Mason, Derek’s nephew. Derek wore a relaxed white linen shirt, looking frail and carrying that delicate, cultivated exhaustion that always seemed to summon Natalie’s maternal instincts. Seeing me, he offered a meek, apologetic smile. “Hey, Sam… sorry to crash. Mason has been complaining of eye strain lately, so Natalie suggested I bring him along to get some tips from the workshop.” The teacher looked flustered. “Oh… Mr. Collins, this specific session is reserved for enrolled students and their immediate parents.” Derek instantly lowered his head, looking wounded and embarrassed. “Right, of course. My mistake. Mason’s father is deployed overseas, and the poor kid just gets so envious seeing other children with their mothers…” Mason looked up at Natalie, tugging on her skirt. “Auntie Natalie… can I sit next to you?” A hush fell over the room. Several parents exchanged curious glances. Natalie didn’t correct the boy’s familiarity. Instead, she reached down, ruffled Mason’s hair affectionately, and pulled out a chair. “Of course you can, Mason. Sit right here.” Beside me, Toby’s small hand slowly gripped the fabric of my trousers. The presentation began. The teacher covered baseline visual hygiene before transitioning into an interactive game: parents were supposed to guide their children through an eye-patching shape-recognition exercise. When it was Toby’s turn, he walked up toward the presentation easel holding his flashcards. Just as Natalie stood up to join him, Mason pointed directly at Toby’s amber protective shield and laughed loudly. “Look at his face! Why is he wearing that weird glass? He looks like a one-eyed monster!” The entire classroom fell dead silent. Toby’s shoulders slumped. His little fingers reached up to cover the amber lens, his head hanging low. I opened my mouth to intervene, but Natalie spoke first. Her voice was calm, clear, and perfectly modulated for the room. “Mason, that is not a kind thing to say. Apologize.” I felt a brief flicker of relief. Then, Natalie turned toward Toby. “Toby, take the safety shield off for now.” I froze. “Natalie, what are you doing?” Natalie shot me an irritated glare. “The ambient lighting in this classroom is completely standard, Sam. There’s no need to make a dramatic scene. Wearing medical gear during a casual game will only make the other children think he has a freakish condition.” Toby’s hands hovered on the strap, his eyes wide and confused. The teacher stepped forward awkwardly. “Um, Dr. Mercer… Mr. Mercer provided the post-op medical file indicating Toby requires strict photoprotection…” Natalie cut her off with cool, unassailable authority. “I am an attending pediatric ophthalmologist at the University Medical Center. I am fully qualified to assess the clinical necessity of optical shielding.” Her title silenced the entire room. The parents nodded in agreement—after all, who would know better than a renowned eye specialist? Toby looked up at me. His vision was slightly hazy, his voice barely audible. “Daddy… do I have to take it off?” Before I could reach him, Natalie stepped forward and dropped to one knee in front of him. It was the exact posture she used when comforting crying children in her clinic. The exact gentle tilt of the head. Yet the words that left her lips were colder than ice. “Toby, be a brave boy. Stop demanding that everyone revolve around your drama.” With a swift, practiced motion, she pulled the amber shield off his face. The harsh, fluorescent strip lighting on the classroom ceiling poured directly into his dilated, healing right eye. Toby winced violently, his eye watering instantly as the delicate capillaries around his pupil flushed deep red. I stepped forward, shoved past Natalie, and snapped the safety shield back over his face. “Natalie, have you completely lost your mind?” Natalie’s face tightened with embarrassment and anger. “Sam Mercer, do not make a scene in front of the children!” Mason buried his face into Derek’s side, whining, “Auntie Natalie, he’s scary…” Derek gently patted his nephew’s back, whispering, “It’s okay, buddy. Auntie Natalie is right here.” Toby heard every word. He quietly walked over to the presentation table and placed his shape-recognition flashcards face down. Then he reached up, unpinned the name tag from his shirt, and slipped it into my pocket. “Daddy,” he whispered, his little voice shaking. “I don’t want to play anymore. Let’s go home.” Toby didn’t touch his dinner that evening. He sat in the corner of his bedroom, clutched his teddy bear to his chest, and recorded a single sentence: “Teddy… Mommy said I’m not really hurt. So next time my eye hurts, I won’t tell anyone.” I stood outside his door in the dark hallway, a cold, suffocating ache crushing my ribs. At that moment, the brutal truth finally crystallized in my mind. Natalie’s greatest cruelty to Toby wasn’t simply her absence. It was that she saw his pain with her own eyes—and forced him to publicly pretend he was whole just to protect her own vanity. Later that night, my phone buzzed with an urgent secure message from the retinal specialist in Seattle: [Post-op pediatric patients experiencing sudden photophobia, ocular pain, or lacrimation must be evaluated immediately. Any acute spike in intraocular pressure can cause irreversible optic nerve damage within hours.] I saved the clinical warning straight into my legal evidence folder. Then, I opened my airline app and rescheduled our flight to Seattle for the early hours of Thursday morning. 4 The day before we were scheduled to leave. When Toby woke up, his skin was paper-white. He sat on the edge of his bed, both small hands clamped tightly over his right eye. “Daddy… my eye feels really tight. Like a balloon.” His voice was barely a squeak. I didn’t waste a second. I scooped him into my arms, wrapped him in a blanket, and sped toward the University Medical Center emergency room where Natalie was on duty. The pediatric ophthalmic ER was packed. The triage nurse took one look at Toby’s initial tonometry readings and her face drained of color. “His intraocular pressure is spiking past 38 mmHg. When was the primary surgery?” “Three months ago. Retinal re-attachment.” The nurse jumped out of her chair immediately. “Dr. Natalie Mercer is on floor rotation right now. I’ll page her to Trauma Bay 2 immediately.” I sat in the hallway clutching Toby against my chest. He was trembling violently, cold sweat drenching his hair. “Daddy… will Mommy come?” he whimpered against my neck. I stroked his damp hair. “The doctor is coming, baby. The doctor is coming.” I couldn’t bring myself to say Mommy. A few minutes later, the double doors swung open and Natalie walked out in her white lab coat. Her eyes landed on us. “Sam? What are you doing here?” I thrust the triage sheet into her hands. “Toby’s IOP is dangerously elevated. The triage nurse said he needs emergency paracentesis or IV osmotic diuretics right now.” Natalie grabbed the chart. The moment her eyes scanned the numbers, her clinical instincts kicked in—her pupils dilated, and her face went completely rigid. She understood the data. She knew exactly what a reading of 38 mmHg meant for a healing pediatric optic nerve. But before she could speak, the adjacent consultation door opened. Derek stepped out. He was wearing oversized dark sunglasses, holding an official medical clearance document in his hand. “Natalie… my pupils are fully dilated and the burning is awful,” Derek said, his voice dripping with helpless distress. “The intake clerk says my peri-orbital recovery notes require an attending countersignature and a formal clinical stamp, otherwise the embassy won’t process my visa clearance today.” I stared at Derek, my eyes narrowing. “Peri-orbital recovery notes?” Derek’s expression flickered with panic. Natalie instinctively looked away, avoiding my eyes. In that sickening flash of clarity, the entire puzzle locked into place. There had never been any medical emergency. His “micro-incision follow-up” wasn’t a vital health crisis. It was an elective cosmetic blepharoplasty—an eye-lift procedure he had undergone before his international fellowship. And Natalie had abandoned her son’s major retinal reconstruction to hold his hand through cosmetic recovery. I tightened my grip on Toby, my voice vibrating with controlled rage. “Natalie. Toby cannot wait.” Natalie froze for two agonizing seconds. “Sam… take him into Consultation Room 3. Let me just stamp Derek’s fellowship clearance. It will take thirty seconds, and then I will take full charge of Toby’s treatment.” I stared at her in sheer disbelief. “You know what these pressure numbers mean. Every minute he waits, his nerve fibers are dying.” Natalie lowered her voice, her tone turning cold and defensive. “I know the pathology, Sam! But this is a hospital, not your personal stage. If Derek’s clearance isn’t stamped within the hour, his flight tomorrow is canceled and his fellowship is revoked! I will treat Toby. He is not going to go blind in ten minutes!” In my arms, Toby gave a violent shudder. He had heard her. He understood the word blind. Derek reached out, his delicate fingers lightly catching the sleeve of Natalie’s lab coat. “Natalie… please, let her treat Toby first. I can wait…” His voice was soft, but his gaze drifted over to me. For a split second beneath those dark lenses, the corner of his mouth curved into a faint, triumphant smirk. That performative martyrdom worked on Natalie like a charm. “Stop it, Derek,” she said softly, turning back to him with immense tenderness. “Go back inside and sit down. Don’t worry, I’m right here.” Don’t worry, I’m right here. The exact words she had failed to say to her own child on the morning of his surgery. I didn’t say another word. I turned on my heel, carried Toby through the crowd, and slammed my hand down on the charge nurse’s desk. “Get me another attending,” I said, my voice shaking with fury. “Right now. Anyone other than Dr. Mercer.” Recognizing the acute crisis, the charge nurse bypassed standard protocol and sprinted to fetch the department chief on call, Dr. Harrison. Inside the dark examination room, halfway through the slit-lamp evaluation, Toby suddenly let out a sharp, piercing shriek. Then, his entire little body went rigid. His hands clawed at his eyes. His mouth opened wide, gasping for air, but no sound came out. “Toby?” I grabbed his trembling shoulders, terror seizing my throat. “Toby, talk to Daddy! Toby!” He turned his head toward my voice. Or rather, he tried to. His pupils were completely unfocused, staring into blank space. His lips moved frantically, but his vocal cords produced nothing but hollow, suffocating air. Ten minutes later, Dr. Harrison walked out of the darkroom with the retinal scans. His expression was heavier than lead. “Mr. Mercer… I need you to brace yourself.” I leaned against the cold hospital wall to keep my knees from buckling. “Tell me.” “The sustained intraocular pressure caused acute ischemia to the central retinal artery and compressed the optic nerve head,” Dr. Harrison said quietly. “We’ve administered emergency medication to bring the pressure down, but… there is permanent, irreversible visual field loss in his right eye. His peripheral vision on that side is gone.” A violent ringing erupted in my ears. The world seemed to tilt on its axis. Dr. Harrison placed a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Furthermore, the acute panic and pain triggered a severe psychogenic shock. The boy is experiencing psychogenic aphonia. Selective mutism. He has lost his ability to speak. Language recovery will require long-term psychiatric and neuro-rehabilitative therapy.” Down at the end of the bright corridor, the door to the consultation office clicked open. Natalie emerged, handing the stamped, signed fellowship folder back to Derek. Her voice was warm and soothing. “All set. Your paperwork is completely cleared for departure.” I stood by the wall, holding my three-year-old son—a child who could no longer see the world clearly, a child who could no longer make a sound—and watched that woman wear the glowing mask of an angel. I took out my phone and sent a final message to my attorney: [File the emergency petition immediately. Request a temporary restraining order. Request the complete termination of the mother’s medical decision-making authority. Submit all evidentiary exhibits now.] Natalie saw us standing by the wall and hurried over, a look of professional concern returning to her face. “Sam, how is Toby? Did you run the tonometry?” I looked up at her. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I looked directly into her eyes and spoke with absolute, terrifying calm: “Natalie… it wasn’t that you couldn’t see your son.” “You pushed him into the dark with your own hands.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “562084”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

After he rejected my confession, I began avoiding Chase Cole like a reflex. If he was going to a party, I stayed home. If we were assigned to the same project group, I quietly swapped out before the professor even finalized the roster. We became complete strangers existing in the exact same rooms. Until his best friend posted a photo of me on the campus crush board, declaring to the entire university that he was going to take me out. And tagged Chase right beneath it. [Hey Chase, you know literally every gorgeous girl on campus. You seen her around?] 1 My roommate, Sadie, was the one who forwarded me the link. She practically threw open our dorm door, breathless with secondhand adrenaline. “Harper, look! Someone’s literally putting out an APB for you on the campus board!” I unlocked my phone. The headline stared back at me in bold letters: [Three o’clock this afternoon, outside Butler Library. Does anyone know this absolute knockout? I’m going to ask her out.] Attached was a candid shot of my profile, catching the afternoon light while I looked down at my notes. “The post had zero traction when he first dropped it,” Sadie chattered, leaning over my shoulder. “Then he tagged Chase Cole. And boom—it blew up within ten minutes.” At our university, there wasn’t a single soul who didn’t know who Chase Cole was. Old-money background, near-perfect GPA, and the kind of sharp, effortless face that belonged on a billboard. But more than that, he had a reputation that preceded him everywhere he went. In the two and a half years since freshman orientation, he had cycled through over a dozen girlfriends. Every single one of them was breathtaking. He was as brilliant as he was uncatchable. People in our department even ran private betting pools on which major’s most coveted girl would end up on his arm next. I scrolled down to the comments. Several people had already recognized me, dropping my name and our shared major into the thread. One reply read: [Pretty sure this girl is in Chase’s economics seminar. He definitely knows her. OP, just beg your boy to wingman for you.] Opinions flooded the thread from every angle. Yet through it all, from the moment it was posted until now, Chase never replied. Sadie gave me a curious, lingering look. “Speaking of which… you and Chase were hanging out a ton last month. I honestly thought something was brewing between you two. Then, completely out of nowhere, he went public with Sienna.” A hollow ache tightened in my chest. My mind involuntarily snapped back to that quiet, dim stairwell just a few weeks ago. The way he casually took the letter from my trembling fingers, lifting his dark eyes to look at me, his voice carrying that familiar, lazy drawl. “Sorry, Harper.” “Did being around each other so much give you the wrong idea?” “I don’t feel that way about you.” It was entirely my own fault. I had deluded myself into believing that him helping me through complex problem sets and picking up iced coffee for me meant something more than casual convenience. Yet a quiet, humiliating question had lingered in the back of my mind ever since: Why? Am I really that lacking? You’ve dated so many girls, yet when it came to me, you couldn’t spare even the slightest glimmer of hope. I never got the chance to ask. Because the very next afternoon, a picture of him and his new girlfriend was pinned to the top of his feed. I dug my fingernails into my palm, forcing my breathing to steady. “No,” I told Sadie, keeping my voice flat. “We’re not close at all.” 2 By midnight, the post had vanished from the board. A new notification lit up my phone screen—a friend request. The message attached read: [The guy looking for you outside the library today.] I stared at it for a long beat, then swiped it away without accepting. Ever since the stairwell, Chase and I hadn’t exchanged a single word in two weeks. I had already made up my mind to keep my distance; the last thing I needed was to get entangled with his inner circle. I tossed and turned until well past two in the morning. When my alarm went off, I was running late. By the time I rushed into the lecture hall, only a few empty seats remained in the very front row. I slipped into a desk and pulled my textbook from my bag. Seconds later, someone sat down directly beside me. Almost instantly, a faint trace of perfume reached me—subtle, expensive, and undeniably lovely. The girl turned her head, offering me an effortless, warm smile. “Hi! I’m just sitting in on the lecture with my boyfriend,” she said pleasantly. “He went to grab us some water. Do you mind if I borrow a pen? I totally forgot my pencil case.” My body froze. She didn’t know who I was, but I knew her. Sienna Bailey. An English major, stunning in a classical, radiant way, and Chase Cole’s current girlfriend. Over the past two weeks, I had seen them eating together in the campus dining hall. She ate slowly, and he would wait patiently across from her, occasionally lifting his phone to take a photo of her laughing. Before her, Chase had never once set foot in the dining hall. I had seen them crossing the boutique district downtown. If she paused to look at something in a window display, he would buy it without a second thought. They looked like a scene from a magazine. Afraid she would sense the tension radiating off me, I quickly dug a pen out of my bag and handed it over. “Here.” “Thanks so much,” she smiled, lowering her head to write on the corner of her notebook. Two minutes later, Chase walked through the side door. His gaze swept across the front row, his dark brows drawing together in a faint, barely perceptible furrow when he caught sight of me. He slid into the seat next to Sienna and asked casually, “Why did you pick the front?” “It was the only spot left when I got here,” Sienna murmured sweetly, sliding her notebook toward him. “I got bored waiting, so I wrote down a line from a poem for you. Want to see?” I couldn’t help the slight turn of my eyes, catching the elegant script written across the margin. It was an old romantic verse about spending countless sunrises and sunsets side by side, cleverly weaving both of their names into the lines. A sweet, innocent gesture on an ordinary morning, meant entirely to make the boy she loved smile. It was the kind of effortless romantic ease that made something twist painfully in my stomach. Sure enough, I heard Chase let out a low, quiet chuckle. “Look at that,” he murmured softly. “We really are made for each other, Sienna.” For the rest of the ninety-minute lecture, I sat on pins and needles. Fortunately, Chase stayed focused on the lecture slides, and the two of them didn’t engage in any further whispers. When the professor dismissed class, they gathered their things and walked out together. I lingered behind until the lecture hall had completely emptied. The lack of sleep from the night before was catching up with me, making my temples throb with a dull ache. Instead of getting up, I folded my arms over the desk, rested my forehead against them, and closed my eyes. In the haze between waking and sleeping, the sound of knuckles rapping lightly against the wooden desk jolted me. A voice cut through the quiet, cool and distinct. “Harper.” “What’s wrong with you?” 3 I lifted my head. Chase was standing right in front of me, looking down with a shadowed expression. In his hand, he was holding Sienna’s shoulder bag—a delicate pastel designer piece I had seen online with a four-figure price tag. I pulled my gaze away, schooling my features into complete neutrality. “Nothing. Just didn’t sleep well last night.” He looked at me for several seconds, his eyes dark and unreadable. “Oh? Is that so?” A beat of silence hung between us. “Did you see that post?” He meant the campus crush board. He was asking if I had lost sleep over it. I didn’t give him an answer. Instead, I looked up and said calmly, “I don’t think that’s any of your business.” Without waiting for his reaction, I shoved my notebook into my bag, stood up, and brushed past him toward the exit. Right as I reached the door, Sienna came bustling back in, nearly bumping into my shoulder. I heard her ask him from behind me, “What took you so long to grab my bag?” Then her voice softened with recognition. “Wait, were you just talking to that girl? Do you know her? She was super sweet—she lent me a pen earlier.” Chase’s reply was clipped, stripped of all inflection. “Her? …No. We’re not close.” I pushed through the heavy double doors of the building and stepped into the brisk midday air. Back at the dorm, the room was empty; Sadie and the others were out grabbing lunch. I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, turning the faucet on to splash cold water against my face. Outside, the spring sun was bright and clear. But looking at my dripping reflection in the glass, my eyes welled up, and the tears finally spilled over. 4 I had known who Chase Cole was long before he ever realized I existed. Our high schools had been separated by only a single crosswalk. Every afternoon after the final bell, my walk home took me right past his campus gate. During freshman year, I had been cornered on a desolate street corner by a group of neighborhood troublemakers. In the middle of my rising panic, Chase had stepped out of nowhere and intervened, effortlessly getting me out of the situation. It was a cliché. The kind of generic hero-saves-the-girl scenario I had always scoffed at in movies and books. Yet despite myself, that was the exact moment I fell for him. For three years of high school, I memorized his schedule, looked for him in crowds, and quietly listened to every piece of news about him. I knew how brilliantly he shone, how easily everything came to him. I studied until late into the night, earning top marks, all so I could walk into the same university and sit in the exact same economics lecture hall as him. For the first two years of college, I kept my distance. I stayed an invisible bystander, watching him move seamlessly from one relationship to the next. Until a month ago. During a casual basketball game on the outdoor courts, an errant pass struck my arm. We exchanged numbers so he could check in on the bruise. To make it up to me, he brought me breakfast and iced lattes a few times. I gathered the courage to ask him for help with class material. Sometimes, as we leaned over a table, our fingers would brush against one another, electric and lingering. He would look at me in silence, let out a soft, lazy laugh, and say my name. “Harper.” “Stop staring at me. Look at the problem set.” During those weeks, he didn’t date anyone. A few guys in our major started teasing him, asking outright if he was finally making a move on me. He never confirmed it, but he never denied it either. He would just kick back the chair of whoever was talking and scoff, “Don’t you have better things to do?” Looking back now, it was nothing more than my own wishful thinking. His temporary pause in dating wasn’t because of me; he simply hadn’t run into someone who caught his eye yet. Whatever it was, that fragile illusion was gone. We had crossed back into being strangers, and there was no going back. 5 Pulling myself out of the memory, I patted my cheeks dry with a towel, grabbed my tote bag, and prepared to head to the library. Just as my hand touched the doorknob, Sadie walked back in. The moment she saw me, her eyes lit up as if remembering something crucial. She bounded over, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Harper! Do you know who the guy from the crush board actually is?” I shook my head. “No idea.” I hadn’t accepted his request, after all. I didn’t even know his first name. Sadie tapped my arm excitedly. “I did some digging through friends. Apparently, he’s Chase Cole’s childhood best friend. They’re super tight. He goes to NYU, not here.” She added, “Total golden-boy type, crazy wealthy, and ridiculously hot.” I stood still, feeling entirely indifferent. “I’m not really looking to date right now.” Sadie looked at me in disbelief. “Why on earth not?” “I just want to focus on internships until graduation,” I deflected casually. Later that evening, my phone buzzed with two consecutive notifications from the same pending friend request. [Still not accepting?] [I’m in Chicago this week for an intercollegiate finance case competition. How about I come find you when I’m back in town? Let’s get coffee face-to-face before you decide whether to block me.] I stared down at the screen, my thumbs hovering to decline it once and for all. Before I could tap the screen, another message popped up. [You don’t even have to reply to this. We’ll talk when I see you. Goodnight, Harper.] I stared at the letters glowing in the dark for a long time. In the end, I locked the phone and set it facedown on the nightstand. 6 Over the next two weeks, Sienna appeared in our lecture hall frequently. Whenever she did, I made sure to take a seat on the opposite side of the room, as far away from them as possible. Whispers floated through the aisles around me. “Is this the longest Chase has ever dated one girl?” “Honestly, yeah. Do you think the serial bachelor is actually settling down?” “Ugh, my friend is going to be devastated. She’s been crushing on him forever, just waiting for them to break up.” I kept my eyes glued to the whiteboard, copying notes, but my focus drifted with every sentence. Toward the end of the month, our department organized an interactive outdoor workshop for extra seminar credits. Attendance was mandatory, and students were paired up randomly by the teaching assistant. By some cruel twist of fate, my assigned partner was Chase. In the past, whenever we had paired assignments, I had spent hours secretly hoping our names would end up next to each other. It had never happened. Now that I was doing everything in my power to avoid him, our names had collided twice in a row. The first time had been a large study group of seven people, making it easy for me to switch out without drawing attention or raising suspicion. This time, it was strictly pairs. I looked up at the tall figure standing before me and spoke slowly, keeping my tone carefully polite. “I’ll ask Sadie if she’s willing to swap partners with me.” His expression darkened slightly, a cold, humorless smile touching the corner of his lips. “Oh?” I caught myself. Given how inseparable he and Sienna were, he probably didn’t want to be paired with another girl either. But since I wasn’t particularly close with any of the other guys in our cohort, I added, “Or I can just trade with one of your friends if that’s easier.” 7 The midday sun beat down warmly over the athletic quad. A crowd of students surged past us, and someone jostled my shoulder from behind, throwing me off balance. My foot caught, and I stumbled. Before I could hit the turf, Chase reached out, his fingers wrapping firmly around my wrist to steady me. Skin against skin. A shock of heat traveled up my arm. I pulled my arm back immediately, taking a deliberate step backward. “Let’s just figure out who to swap with. The activity is starting in five minutes.” Chase’s empty hand curled slowly into a loose fist at his side. After a tense silence, he answered, his voice dropping several degrees. “Whatever you want.” I scanned the field, quickly spotted one of his fraternity brothers, walked over, explained that we needed to rebalance the groups, and finalized the trade on the spot. When I headed back to the dorm late that afternoon, I ran into Sienna on the landing of our floor. She was wearing a cream knit dress, her skin glowing under the hallway lights. She was on the phone, holding a brown paper bag full of imported snacks. When she spotted me, her face brightened. “Hey! It’s you!” She hadn’t hung up the call yet. Through the speaker, I could clearly hear Chase’s voice—low, relaxed, and gentle. “Who’d you run into?” Sienna replied into the mic, “Your classmate… the girl Mason was looking for all over the crush board.” She laughed lightly. “I only connected the dots a couple of days ago that it was her. Seriously, you should’ve told me earlier.” I paused. Mason. So that was his name. Mason Price. On the other end of the line, Chase’s tone instantly flattened into ice. “I forgot.” Sienna ignored his sudden chill, turning to me with genuine warmth as she pulled two artisan chocolate bars from her bag and offered them to me. “These are amazing, try them!” I looked down at the dark, gold-foil packaging. It was a boutique Swiss brand that Chase loved. Back when things between us had been at their closest, he had casually tossed an unopened box of the exact same chocolates onto my desk. I had kept them carefully tucked in my drawer, never bearing to open them. Seeing them now felt like looking at an artifact from a past life. I shook my head gently. “Thanks, but I’m watching what I eat lately. I appreciate it, though.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “562083”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

In my previous life, I gave Genevieve Sutton everything I had. My inheritance, my connections, my entire future—I laid them all down like a plush velvet carpet beneath her designer heels. In the final seconds before I stopped breathing, she stood over my hospital bed, clinging to Garrett Ward’s arm, and smiled down at me with genuine amusement. “Carson, did you honestly believe I married you for love?” her voice was a velvet purr. “If your father hadn’t backed Garrett’s venture, why would I have ever spared you a single glance?” “Garrett is the only man I’ve ever loved. From day one.” I died with my eyes wide open, choked by betrayal. When I opened them again, I was sitting across from my mother on a quiet, sunlit afternoon, right in the middle of her attempt to arrange my engagement. This time, I set my porcelain teacup down on the saucer without a tremor, looked my mother dead in the eye, and gave her two words: “I won’t.” My mother froze. She had no idea what was running through my mind—that in this lifetime, I wouldn’t be the one left begging on my knees. 1 I woke to pain. It wasn’t physical; it was a deep, searing ache right behind my sternum, like someone dragging a dull blade back and forth across my ribs. My vision was washed in sterile white, and for a fleeting, terrifying moment, I thought I was still tethered to that hospital mattress. The memory of my previous life was too sharp, etched into my mind with acid. I could still see Genevieve framed by the doorway of my private room, the cruel upward curve of her painted lips. “You really are pathetic, Carson.” “Did you actually think all those years of devotion were real?” “Your father guaranteed Garrett’s credit line, and that was the only reason I walked down the aisle with you.” “To put it plainly: you were nothing more than a stepping stone.” By then, my lungs had been too fluid-logged to speak. The fourth round of chemo had ravaged my body, shutting down my organs one by one. She had stood there in an immaculate tailored suit, perfectly styled, with my best friend standing right behind her. Garrett hadn’t even looked me in the eye. He had merely slipped an arm around Genevieve’s waist and rested his chin against her shoulder, marking his territory over the dying. The last thing I saw was the two of them turning on their heels. The soft click of her heels against the linoleum. The heavy door swinging shut in the draft. And then, darkness. “Carson? Honey, are you listening to me?” The voice broke through the fog. I blinked hard, my breath catching in my throat. Before me was a polished dark-wood tea table. A pot of steaming green tea sat on a slate coaster, fragrant steam curling into the warm air. Sitting across from me was my mother, Eleanor Cole. She was wearing the deep forest-green silk dress I remembered from years ago, slowly turning a strand of jade prayer beads between her manicured fingers, watching me with an affectionate, expectant smile. “Where did your mind wander off to? I’m trying to talk to you about something important.” My entire body seized. I looked down at my hands resting on the armrests. No IV lines. No purple hematomas from blown veins. No jaundiced, paper-thin skin. My fingers were long, tanned, and healthy—the hands of a twenty-six-year-old man. My heart thudded against my ribs with violent, glorious vitality. I was alive. I was back. “What… what did you just say, Mom?” My voice came out lower, rougher than I intended. My mother set down her beads and slid a glossy photograph across the table toward me. The woman in the photo was burned into my marrow: Genevieve Sutton. An elegant oval face, almond-shaped eyes shimmering with practiced warmth, and a delicate jawline that made her look like the epitome of high-society grace. If I hadn’t witnessed her mask slip in that hospital room, I would still have thought she was the most breathtaking woman in the world. “The Suttons finally agreed,” my mother said, lifting her cup to take a dainty sip. “You’ll meet Genevieve for dinner next week to settle the details. You’ve had your heart set on that girl since you were a boy, Carson. Consider this my gift to you.” Since I was a boy. She wasn’t wrong. In my last life, I had fallen for Genevieve when I was fifteen years old. I spent twelve years worshipping the ground she walked on, chasing her from private prep school to an empty, performative marriage. I gave her my life. And in return, she called me a stepping stone. I reached out, took the photograph, and turned it face-down on the mahogany table with a quiet snap. “Mom. Call it off. I’m not marrying her.” The sunroom fell dead silent for three long seconds. My mother’s hand hovered above her beads. “What did you say?” “Genevieve Sutton,” I repeated, meeting her gaze steadily. “I don’t want her. Please tell Walter Sutton the arrangement is off.” She was entirely unprepared for this. Her sculpted brows knitted together in sheer disbelief. “Carson, have you lost your mind? You pursued that girl for over a decade! Now that Walter has finally opened the door, you’re telling me you’re walking away?” I didn’t offer an explanation. How could I? I couldn’t look my mother in the eye and say: Mom, in another life, I married her, and as I lay dying of cancer, she confessed she’d been sleeping with my best friend the whole time while they drained our family assets. I simply stood up, drained the lukewarm tea from my cup in a single swallow, and set it down. “Trust me on this, Mom. Genevieve Sutton is out of my league—or maybe I’m just out of hers. Either way, it’s done.” My mother parted her lips to protest, but words failed her. I turned and walked out of the sunroom, stepping out through the French doors into the early autumn afternoon. The sunlight hit my face, bright and gold. It wasn’t scorching; it carried the crisp, invigorating chill of October. What had I been doing at this exact moment in my past life? I had been trembling with ecstasy. I had been pacing my apartment, calling high-end boutiques to order an Hermès bag just so I could bring a gift to our first formal dinner. I had been an absolute, unforgivable fool. I curled my fingers into fists, feeling the steady pulse of warm blood under my skin. In this life, time was on my side. Opportunity was on my side. The things that were taken from me, I would claim back piece by piece. And as for the moment when Genevieve Sutton would finally be forced to her knees—I had all the patience in the world. 2 After I shut down the engagement, my mother gave me the cold shoulder for three straight days. I didn’t care. My greatest advantage in this life wasn’t my family’s old-money status or a handsome face. It was the fact that I possessed twelve years of clear, unadulterated foresight. I remembered every major market shift, every real estate bubble, every corporate acquisition that reshaped the city’s elite. I sat at the oak desk in my private loft, pulled out a clean sheet of paper, and began writing: 1. Kingstone Properties — Next March, the municipal zoning council will pass the North Riverfront urban renewal initiative. Land values will quadruple overnight. 2. Kestrel Technologies — Six months from now, an energy conglomerate will initiate a buyout. Share price will surge over 700%. 3. Pacific Maritime Logistics — By late December, the new maritime trade corridor opens ahead of schedule. Shipping volume will hit historic highs. In my past life, nearly all of these jackpots were cashed in by Garrett Ward. Why? Because I handed him my father’s private rolodex. Because every time I caught wind of an insider whisper, I shared it with my “brother” Garrett over scotch. He built his empire on the back of my generosity, and once he was at the top, he took my wife into his bed. My pen hovered over the paper. I took a slow, measured breath. Don’t rush, I told myself. This time, he won’t get a single crumb. That afternoon, I drove out to the North Riverfront district. The municipal redevelopment notices hadn’t been posted yet; the entire neighborhood was still a sprawling patchwork of run-down warehouses and low-rent lots. Land prices were hovering near rock bottom. Using my personal accounts, I quietly executed option contracts on three adjacent industrial parcels. The capital requirement wasn’t massive—my liquid savings combined with my private line of credit covered the deposits with just enough room to breathe. The real estate broker handling the paperwork glanced at my youth and casual attire, her tone dripping with polite skepticism. “Mr. Cole, the city has no official infrastructure plans for this corridor. Are you certain you want to lock up this much capital here?” “I’m certain.” “Still, the carrying costs—” “Draw up the contracts.” She studied me for two beats, then quietly complied. Once the ink was dry, a deep sense of calm settled over me. Six months from now, when these dirt lots were worth a fortune, she’d spend sleepless nights wondering why she hadn’t bought in alongside me. That was only phase one. On the drive back into the city, my phone buzzed in the center console. The caller ID flashed: Genevieve Sutton. I stared at the glowing letters for five seconds. In my past life, seeing that name appear on my screen would have made my hands shake with eager anticipation. Now? I tapped the red button and cut the call. Three seconds later, the screen lit up with a text: Carson, your mother mentioned you cancelled our dinner? Is there some kind of misunderstanding between us? I’m free this Sunday—why don’t we get coffee and talk? Her tone was effortless: sweet, gentle, laced with just a hint of wounded vulnerability. It was the exact persona she had maintained in front of me for twelve years. The dutiful, high-society darling. Soft-spoken. Flawless. I tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and didn’t reply. Over the next three days, several more messages arrived. The tone shifted from sweet concern to mild confusion, and finally to a subtle, underlying urgency. Carson, have you been under a lot of stress lately? I spoke with your mother. She said you haven’t been home all week. Where are you staying? Do you want me to come by your loft? I left every single message on read. On the fourth evening, my mother finally came looking for me, carrying a porcelain bowl of slow-simmered herbal soup into my study. “Carson.” “Yeah, Mom.” “What on earth is going on between you and Genevieve? That poor girl has reached out to you multiple times, and you haven’t given her the courtesy of a single reply. If word gets around our social circle, people will think the Coles have no manners.” I looked up from my dual monitors, meeting her eyes. “Mom, do you trust my instincts?” She hesitated, her maternal instinct conflicting with her social conditioning. “Of course I do, but—” “Then handle the Suttons for me. Tell them my focus is elsewhere and the match is officially dead.” “Elsewhere? Where?” “Building my own capital.” She stared at me for a long moment, taking in the quiet, unyielding focus in my expression, before letting out a soft sigh. “Fine. I won’t force you into an arrangement you don’t want. But please… don’t be reckless, Carson.” She set the bowl down on the edge of the desk and walked out, shaking her head. I turned back to the glowing monitors. Kestrel Technologies was trading at $22.30 a share. In six months, it would cross $158. I had already begun quietly accumulating my position across multiple discreet brokerage accounts. 3 Ten days after I walked away from the match, Genevieve ambushed me. It wasn’t a coincidence. She was leaning against the driver’s side of my Porsche in the subterranean garage beneath my private office building, holding an iced Americano in a cardboard sleeve. No sugar, extra ice. In my past life, it was my signature order. Of course she knew. “Carson.” The moment I stepped out of the elevator bay, she straightened up, her expression morphing instantly into a picture of gentle, delicate worry. “You haven’t been answering my calls or texts. I was getting genuinely worried about you…” She stepped forward, extending the coffee cup toward me. In the past, a gesture like this from Genevieve Sutton would have made my chest ache with adoration. I didn’t reach for the cup. “Genevieve, I thought my mother made my stance entirely clear.” Her hand hung suspended in the chilled air of the garage. A flash of raw disbelief flickered across her eyes before she smoothed it over. “Carson… what happened to you? Did someone say something to you about me?” I looked at her. Under the fluorescent garage lights, she was undeniably striking. Her makeup was understated, her beige cashmere coat tailored to perfection, her posture radiating old-money refinement. Yet when I looked at that porcelain face, only one memory surfaced: her standing beside Garrett in my hospital room, smirking as she told me I was nothing but a tool. “Nobody said anything,” I said, reaching past her to unlock the car. “I just don’t see the point in wasting your time. You deserve someone more suited to your ambitions.” The words were impeccably polite, but the wall between us was absolute. Genevieve froze. She was entirely unaccustomed to being dismissed—especially by Carson Cole. In her worldview, I was supposed to orbit her existence indefinitely, grateful for whatever crumbs of attention she chose to drop. “You’ve changed,” she murmured, her manicured fingers tightening around the paper coffee cup until the cardboard creaked. I slipped into the driver’s seat and clicked my seatbelt into place. Looking out the open driver’s window, I met her gaze one last time. “People grow up, Genevieve.” I pressed the ignition, rolled up the window, and put the car in reverse. In the rearview mirror, she remained rooted to the concrete, the delicate vulnerability on her face hardening into something sharp and calculating. She was running the numbers in her head. Recalibrating. Trying to figure out what had gone wrong with her most reliable asset. In our previous life, she had worn that exact same look whenever I made a move she hadn’t anticipated. Her primary reaction was never Are you okay? It was always How does this affect my standing? I had just been too blinded by infatuation to see it. — That night, my phone rang. “Carson, my man!” Garrett Ward’s voice came through the speaker, brimming with his usual breezy charisma. “It’s been ages. We need to grab a drink. Listen, I’ve got this incredible new venture I want to walk you through—” I leaned back on the leather sofa, a wave of cold disgust washing over me. The memories rushed back unbidden. Garrett wrapping his arm around my wife. Garrett taking the seed money my father arranged to build his empire. Garrett never once stepping foot in my oncology ward until the day I drew my last breath. “I’m busy,” I said flatly. “Wait, what? Carson, what are you working on? Seriously, this project is massive. There’s this land parcel near the North Riverfront—” I nearly let out a dark laugh. The North Riverfront parcels. I had already locked down the options three days ago. “Garrett,” I interrupted, my tone icy. “If it’s business, have your analyst email my office.” I hung up before he could reply. A string of voice notes lit up my screen immediately afterward. I didn’t listen to a single one. I simply swiped left and muted the thread indefinitely. In this life, Garrett Ward was erased from my circle. I wouldn’t even grant him the dignity of my hatred. 4 Time moved with relentless momentum. Three months in, the first harvest came through. Pacific Maritime Logistics. The new maritime corridor opened two weeks earlier than it had in my past timeline—a minor butterfly effect, but entirely inconsequential to the outcome. I had built my position at the absolute floor. When the news hit the financial wires, shipping futures spiked, and I liquidated my holdings for a clean 300% return. I kept the windfall entirely quiet. I immediately rolled seventy percent of the liquid profit straight into Kestrel Technologies stock and exercised the remaining options on the North Riverfront industrial land. Snowballing capital. In my past life, my father’s business empire was slowly hollowed out because the Cole family kept all its eggs in one basket: traditional, low-margin heavy manufacturing. Garrett, armed with my tips and my father’s backing, had ridden every emerging tech and real estate wave instead. This time, I was the one riding the wave. Four months in. The city council officially greenlit the North Riverfront urban renewal blueprint. The three parcels under my control were independently appraised at four-and-a-half times my purchase price. Private wealth managers from Chase and Morgan Stanley began calling my office daily, competing to offer expanded commercial credit lines. That Sunday, my father looked at me across the dinner table with an expression I had never seen on his face before: genuine bewilderment. “Carson,” Arthur Cole said, setting his scotch down. “Where did this capital come from?” “Private investments.” “In what?” “Commercial real estate options and secondary market equities.” His graying brows drew together. “What was your initial collateral?” “My personal liquid assets and private credit.” He opened his mouth to deliver his customary lecture on conservative asset management, but stopped himself. Finally, all he could muster was, “Be careful. Speculation burns fast, and nobody is bailing you out if you crash.” I offered a slight smile. “Dad, wait until you see the quarterly audit. You won’t be worried.” He let out a noncommittal grunt and stood up to leave the dining room, but I noticed his stride had slowed. He was deep in thought. He was an old-school industrialist, but he wasn’t stupid. He smelled the shift in the wind. — Meanwhile, Genevieve’s behavior began to shift in subtle, revealing ways. At first, her messages had trickled in with decreasing frequency—shifting from sweet concern to wounded pride, and finally to frosty silence. I assumed she had finally given up. Until I attended a private rooftop gala in the Financial District and spotted her across the terrace. She was wearing a backless midnight-blue evening gown, engaged in conversation with a silver-haired man holding a tumbler of bourbon. Even as she laughed at whatever he was saying, her eyes kept darting across the room, tracking my movements. I didn’t move from my spot by the bar, slowly sipping my drink. I recognized the man beside her: Marcus Davenport, a ruthless commercial real estate developer whose net worth hovered around three hundred million dollars. In my past life, he had briefly partnered with Garrett before a bitter legal fallout over contract breaches. Genevieve was already shopping for a replacement vehicle. I felt nothing. No anger, no jealousy, not even contempt. This was who she had always been: a pragmatic parasite, drawn instinctively to whoever held the most leverage in the room. In my youth, I had been blinded by romantic delusions. Now, I saw the mechanics of her mind with crystal clarity. It was almost boring. I finished my drink and turned toward the exit. “Carson.” Her voice called out behind me. I paused and turned around. Genevieve stood three paces away, holding a crystal flute of champagne, her smile polished and composed. “It’s been a while,” she said. “It has.” “I’ve been hearing rumors,” she said, taking a step closer, dropping her voice to an intimate register. “Word on the street is that you’ve made some very aggressive moves in the market recently.” News traveled fast in these circles. “Just minor portfolio adjustments,” I said. “I don’t believe that for a second.” Her eyes searched mine, sharp and probing. “You’ve never had a reckless bone in your body, Carson. To make plays this massive, something must have changed. What are you planning?” She was probing. Testing the waters. Calculating whether I still possessed utility for her. Looking into those striking eyes, a deep sense of irony washed over me. I had spent thirty-eight years in my past life searching for love in those eyes, and there had never been anything there except cold balance sheets. “Genevieve.” “Yes?” “Whatever I’m doing,” I said evenly, “it’s no longer any of your business.” Her polished smile froze. Her fingers tightened around the stem of her champagne flute until her knuckles blanched. I didn’t give her a second glance. I turned and walked straight out through the glass doors. I could feel her gaze burning into my back like a needle. But it had no power over me anymore. In this life, nothing she did could touch me. 5 The six-month mark arrived. The news broke across every financial network: Kestrel Technologies had entered a definitive merger agreement with a national energy titan at a massive premium. The stock skyrocketed from $22 to $163. I unwound my entire position in three tranches, achieving an average exit price of $148 per share. Combined with the gains on my real estate options, the liquid balance in my private entity’s accounts was now more than double the entire annual net profit of my father’s manufacturing conglomerate. I sat in my downtown office, watching the seven-figure wire confirmations clear across my screen, completely calm. This was just the groundwork. The real shift was occurring on another board entirely. — Garrett Ward was drowning. At this point in my previous life, Garrett had already secured his first major windfall through the North Riverfront redevelopment and used that momentum to buy pre-IPO shares in Kestrel Tech. In this life, I had snatched the North Riverfront land right out from under him. And as for Kestrel Tech? He had no way of obtaining that intelligence, because in the past timeline, that lead had come directly from one of my father’s old business associates. Without my introduction, Garrett was just another trust-fund entrepreneur with an inflated ego. His consumer-tech startup had burned through four million dollars in angel funding over the last six months without generating a dime in recurring revenue. The whispers in the private clubs were already circulating: Garrett Ward was overleveraged and desperate. He was knocking on every door in the city trying to keep the lights on—even approaching Genevieve’s father, Walter Sutton. How poetic. In the past life, he had used my resources to build his empire before stealing my wife. Without me acting as his launchpad, let’s see how high he could jump. — That Thursday afternoon, I met a prospective corporate tenant at a boutique café in Midtown. As I walked out of the revolving doors onto the sidewalk, I almost collided with someone. Paige Ellis—Genevieve’s closest confidante. In my previous life, Paige had been a constant fixture in our home after Genevieve and I married. On the surface, she was the bubbly, loyal best friend; in reality, she had functioned as the discreet courier passing messages between Genevieve and Garrett behind my back. They had assumed I was completely blind. In that life, I was. In this one, every move was laid bare. “Carson?” Paige stopped dead in her tracks, blinking before plastering on an exaggerated, breathless smile. “Oh my god, what a coincidence!” “Paige.” She looked me up and down, her eyes narrowing with calculating curiosity. “Nobody has seen you at the club lately. Genevieve talks about you all the time, you know.” “Does she?” “She says you’ve become a completely different person—like she barely recognizes you.” Paige tilted her head, affecting a concerned pout. “Carson, are you hiding something from her? She’s genuinely worried sick about you.” Worried? Genevieve was worried about whether she had let a golden goose slip out of her grasp. “Do me a favor and pass a message to her,” I said, tossing my empty espresso cup into the recycling bin. Paige’s eyes lit up with predatory interest. “Of course! What is it?” “Tell her she can stop worrying. We have nothing to do with each other anymore.” Paige’s smile turned to stone. I walked past her without breaking stride. — That evening, an unexpected call came through on my private line. Caller ID: Garrett Ward. I hesitated for two seconds, then tapped accept. “Carson,” Garrett’s voice sounded noticeably drained, stripped of its usual brash confidence. “Look, man, the startup hit a couple of unexpected roadblocks. I was hoping we could sit down over dinner.” I said nothing, letting the silence stretch. “You know my platform, right?” he pressed, his tone growing hurried. “We closed the seed round, but our runway is running tight before the Series A. I was thinking… do you think Uncle Arthur might be willing to introduce me to his syndicate partners?” Uncle Arthur. He used to call my father that with such effortless charm, like a devoted second son. In my past life, that routine had worked every single time. Whenever Garrett ran into liquidity issues, he ran to me, and I dragged my father into his mess. My father treated him like family, opening doors and writing checks. And Garrett had used those exact connections to corner me while I was on my deathbed. “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice deadpan. “My relationship with my father’s board is strictly professional. I can’t help you.” Dead silence on the other end of the line. “Carson… are you holding some kind of grudge against me?” “No.” “Then why—” “Garrett, let me be entirely honest with you.” “Yeah?” “We were never as close as you seem to think. If you need capital, find another door to knock on.” I hung up immediately. Before he could dial back, I permanently blacklisted his number. The screen dimmed. Outside my floor-to-ceiling windows, the skyline stretched out, ablaze with millions of electric lights. I rested my head against the leather chair and closed my eyes for a quiet moment. The ghost of my past death flitted through my thoughts, cold and suffocating. I didn’t let myself drown in it. I simply confirmed what I already knew: every single choice I had made since waking up in that sunroom was entirely, unquestionably right. 6 Two weeks after I cut Garrett off, the narrative escalated. Genevieve requested a face-to-face meeting. Not a casual run-in at a gala or a staged ambush in a parking deck. She formally booked a private dining room at an exclusive omakase restaurant in the Arts District and invited me directly. I accepted. Not out of lingering nostalgia. I simply wanted to see what cards she had left to play without the leverage of an arranged marriage hanging over my head. When the sliding screen opened, Genevieve was already seated on the tatami mat. Her makeup was bolder than usual—a deeper shade of plum on her lips, her silk blouse unbuttoned just an inch lower than her customary modest standard. She was broadcasting calculated availability. “Carson, thank you for coming,” she said softly, rising slightly to pour premium sake into a ceramic cup. I took the seat opposite her, leaving the cup untouched. “What is this about, Genevieve?” She didn’t show irritation at my coldness; instead, a faint, rueful smile touched her lips. “When did you become so distant? You used to—” “The past is irrelevant,” I cut in. “You didn’t book a private room to reminisce. What do you want?” She took a slow sip of sake, set her cup down, and dropped the coquettish pretense. “I heard about your recent liquidity events.” “And?” “Let’s speak plainly, Carson.” She leaned forward across the low table, her almond eyes locked onto mine. “Garrett’s venture is currently facing a temporary bridge-financing deficit. I know you have substantial liquid capital sitting idle. If you—” “Are you pitching me on Garrett Ward’s behalf?” She paused, caught off guard. “It’s not just financing; it’s an equity partnership,” she recovered quickly, her tone persuasive. “You two grew up together. With your capital and his platform—” “Genevieve.” My voice dropped an octave, cutting through her pitch like ice. She stopped talking. “Since when did you become Garrett Ward’s personal errand girl?” The air in the private room turned instantly brittle. Her manicured fingertips froze against the rim of her sake cup. Looking at her, the final pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. In my past timeline, Genevieve and Garrett hadn’t openly flaunted their relationship until my third year of marriage. But in truth, they had been entangled long before that. In that life, I was too infatuated to notice. In this life, because I had refused to marry her, she didn’t even have the patience to maintain her facade. She was already desperate enough to act as his broker. “Carson, don’t misunderstand me,” she said, sensing the sharp edge in my tone, scrambling to retreat. “I only suggested it because I thought you two were close friends—” “I have no connection to Garrett Ward.” “What?” “Whatever arrangement you have with him is your business,” I said, rising to my feet. “I have no interest in funding his sinking ship. The sake was fine. Goodnight.” “Carson!” She stood up abruptly, the polished, gentle mask finally cracking down the middle. “What is wrong with you?! For months you’ve acted like a total stranger! You ignore my calls, you cut off my family, and now you won’t even entertain a basic business proposal—” “Genevieve.” I turned back at the threshold and looked at her. She stopped mid-sentence, chest heaving slightly. “Did you ever stop to ask yourself why I stopped answering your calls?” Her lips parted, but no sound came out. “Because I simply don’t care anymore,” I said quietly. “From the very beginning, it was really that simple.” Her face went bone-white. It wasn’t heartbreak; it was the sheer, suffocating shock of losing absolute control over someone she thought she owned. Her entire game plan had unraveled, and she had no backup strategy. I slid the shoji screen open and stepped out into the hallway. As I reached the end of the corridor, the sharp, muffled crash of ceramic shattering against wood echoed from the private room behind me. She had hurled the sake carafe against the wall. I kept walking without looking back.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “562082”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 For five years, Hudson Montgomery and I were a disaster written in expensive ink. We were a cycle of breaking up and making up, a toxic dance fueled by old money and new wounds. He had his rotation of “interns” and aspiring models; I had my flings with younger, prettier men who didn’t come with his baggage. We lived by a single, unspoken rule: don’t bring the mess home. We stayed out of each other’s way until we didn’t. Then came the night he filled the sky with fireworks and promised me a real life. A quiet life. I fell for it. I cleared my slate, walked away from the distractions, and six months into our marriage, I was finally carrying the child I’d always wanted. But Hudson’s “quiet life” was a lie. To save the daughter of his CEO—his precious “golden girl”—he stood by as they performed a forced, barbaric procedure on me to harvest the umbilical cord blood. I died on that cold table, bleeding out while he looked at me with the same chilling indifference he’d shown for half a decade. “It was always a transaction, Gwen,” he’d said, his voice devoid of a soul. “You’re damaged goods. You didn’t actually think I loved you, did you?” Then, the world went black. When I opened my eyes, the air was thick with the scent of expensive cologne and gunpowder. I was back. I looked at the handwritten “commitment letter” in my hand—the one Hudson had written six months ago. I slowly tore it into pieces and turned toward the young man standing in the corner of the room. Hudson didn’t know that the CEO’s daughter he was so desperate to save was nothing but a secret, illegitimate mistake. And he certainly didn’t know that the “boy toy” I’d been seeing—the one currently watching me with a smirk—was Everett Prescott, the sole heir to the Prescott empire. The rooftop was a spectacle of vanity. Above us, five thousand drones shifted into a glowing script: I Love You, Sierra Prescott. As fireworks bloomed over the Manhattan skyline, my husband—no, the man who was supposed to be my husband—Hudson Montgomery, dropped to one knee. Not before me, but before his “Muse,” Sierra. “Sierra, I’ve loved you for six years,” he declared, his voice projected through the sound system. “Will you marry me?” Below us, the crowd on the street erupted in cheers. I could almost hear their envious whispers. Look at that. True love. A real-life fairytale. In my memory, I was still lying in that pool of blood, watching Hudson walk away. I could still feel the phantom pain in my abdomen, the sensation of being hollowed out. “It’s just business, Gwen.” “You’re used up. Did you really think you were the one?” “Sierra needs the cord blood. And besides, you shouldn’t be raising a child anyway.” I reached into my pocket and felt the crinkle of the letter he’d given me. The promise of a fresh start. “Gwen? Snap out of it. Let’s stop playing games and actually settle down.” The voice hit me like a physical blow. I blinked, and the rooftop blurred back into focus. I wasn’t dead. I was standing in the VIP lounge of the Pierre Hotel, and Hudson was looking at me, waiting for my cue. This was the night of the “reconciliation party” before his public stunt for Sierra. My friends nudged me, grinning. “Gwen, come on! The great Hudson Montgomery is actually making a commitment. Say yes!” “They’re the power couple of the year,” someone else whispered. “It’s destiny.” In my past life, I’d smiled. I’d played the part. I’d walked straight into the slaughterhouse. I looked at Hudson. Really looked at him. The expensive suit, the calculated charm, the darkness behind his eyes. I felt a wave of pure, unadulterated loathing. “No,” I said. The drones began their ascent behind the glass, the pre-programmed light show meant to celebrate our “engagement,” but the word hung in the air like a funeral bell. Hudson froze. He grabbed my shoulder, his grip a fraction too tight. “Gwen, we know each other better than anyone. We’re the only ones who fit. Are you really doing this right now?” He sounded so sincere. It was sickening. I brushed his hand off like it was a piece of filth. “You’re finished playing the field, Hudson,” I said, my voice cold and clear. “But I’m just getting started.” He opened his mouth to argue, but his eyes instinctively flickered toward the corner of the room. I followed his gaze. There she was. Sierra Prescott, watching us with a mask of concerned innocence. 2 My rejection was a slap in the face to his ego. Sierra, ever the martyr, stepped forward. She put a delicate hand on my arm, her eyes wide. “Gwen, listen,” she whispered, loud enough for others to hear. “Hudson hasn’t been perfect, but he’s trying to do right by you now. What more do you want? Don’t be difficult.” She was good. She framed his years of infidelity as a “mistake” and my self-respect as “being difficult.” Hudson stepped in front of her, shielding her from me. He looked at me with a sneer of pure annoyance. “Fine. If you want to be ungrateful, that’s on you. I spent a fortune on this night. You always were blind to what’s good for you. Don’t come crawling back when you realize what you threw away.” “He’s right, Gwen,” Sierra chimed in, her voice dripping with fake sympathy. “You’ve gone back and forth for so long. You did all that just to get him to love you, didn’t you? If you walk away now, you lose everything. Just take the win.” The room was silent, the guests looking at me with judgmental eyes. To them, I was the desperate socialite who had finally pushed her luck too far. “I don’t love him anymore, Sierra,” I said, leaning in. “And since you’re so worried about his happiness, why don’t you take him? You’ve been auditioning for the role for years. Go ahead. He’s yours.” Hudson’s face turned a violent shade of red. He lunged forward and his hand connected with my cheek. Crack. The sound echoed through the lounge. My head snapped to the side, my ear ringing. The room went deathly quiet. Hudson shook out his hand, his eyes dark with malice. “Don’t you dare talk about Sierra like that. You think every woman is a transactional mess like you? She has class. She has dignity.” I held my burning cheek, tears pricking my eyes—not from sadness, but from the sheer, vibrating force of my rage. “Sierra is a saint,” Hudson hissed. “If you ever disrespect her again, a slap will be the least of your problems.” I looked at him, and for the first time, I didn’t see the man I’d wasted my youth on. I saw a ghost. A dead man walking. I realized then that the universe had given me a gift—the chance to hit back. I didn’t hesitate. I swung my arm with everything I had and caught him square across the jaw. “Gwen! Have you lost your mind?” he roared. I wiped my mouth, mirroring his arrogant stance. “If one slap doesn’t solve it, I guess we’ll just have to keep going until it does.” 3 The room erupted in hushed gasps. No one hit Hudson Montgomery. Sierra rushed to his side, letting out a performative sob. “Gwen! Even if you’re hurt, you can’t just turn to violence! Hudson was only trying to help you!” Hudson unbuttoned his top collar, his chest heaving. “How long are you going to keep up this spoiled brat routine, Gwen? I give you an inch, and you try to take the whole damn city.” In my last life, I would have spent the next three hours apologizing. I would have begged for his forgiveness because I was terrified of losing the “family” I thought we were building. I would have endured any humiliation for the sake of the baby in my womb. But there was no baby this time. Just me. And I was light as air. “It seems to me,” I said, smoothing down my dress, “that someone just got his ego bruised after a rejected proposal. Are we really calling ‘having a spine’ a ‘tantrum’ now?” I looked around the room, making eye contact with the socialites who were already starting to whisper. “Or maybe you just can’t stand the fact that you can’t have your cake and eat it too? It’s a bit pathetic, Hudson. You look like a clown standing here in front of all these drones, begging for a woman who doesn’t want you.” “Gwen!” he shouted, stepping into my space to intimidate me. “Get on your knees and apologize to Sierra and me right now, or we are done. Permanently. I will never take you back. Not ever.” I shrugged. “Promise? Because honestly, Hudson, the idea of being tied to a man who’s constantly looking over his shoulder for his next fix sounds like a prison sentence. You’re embarrassing.” The tide in the room began to shift. People weren’t stupid; they saw the way he was hovering over Sierra. “Wait, is he actually with Sierra?” someone whispered. “I mean, he’s defending her more than his own girlfriend.” “The drones were for her all along, weren’t they? That’s cold.” Hudson’s face paled. He grabbed Sierra’s hand, trying to pull her away, but he couldn’t help throwing one last threat over his shoulder. “You’re dead in this town, Gwen! Sierra is a Prescott! You have no idea the kind of bridge you just burned!” I laughed. I didn’t even look at him. I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I’d memorized in another lifetime. “Hey, stranger,” a deep, smooth voice answered on the first ring. “Is that my favorite girl calling? Did you finally realize you missed me?” “I’m craving a drink, Everett,” I said, putting the phone on speaker. “Are you busy, or can you come pick me up?” “For you? I’m already in the car. Give me two minutes.” The flirtatious tone in Everett’s voice was unmistakable. Hudson’s head whipped around, his jaw tightening. He marched back and grabbed my wrist. “Gwen! You’re lecturing me about Sierra while you’re keeping a boy toy on speed dial? You’re a hypocrite!” I didn’t answer with words. I brought my heel down hard on his foot and followed up with a sharp knee to his groin. Hudson doubled over, gasping, as Sierra shrieked and tried to catch him. “I never asked for your proposal, Hudson,” I said, looking down at him. “You did this to yourself. Don’t expect me to pay for your mistakes.” I saw the headlights of a black Maybach pull up to the curb through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Without a backward glance, I walked out. 4 “Over here, Gwen!” In my previous life, Everett Prescott had told me he loved me a dozen times. Every single time, I’d turned him down, tethered to the sinking ship that was Hudson Montgomery. Now, looking at him—blonde, athletic, with a smile that actually reached his eyes—I wondered how I’d been so blind. I walked up and took his hand. “You look incredible, Everett. Even better than I remembered.” “Gwen! Stop!” Hudson’s voice cracked as he stumbled out of the hotel lobby. “What the hell is this? You’re going to run off with some… some trust-fund kid? You’re that desperate for money?” I turned around, leaning against the open door of the Maybach. “I’m not looking for money, Hudson. I’m looking for an upgrade. Maybe you should take notes on how to actually treat a woman.” The hatred I felt for him was a physical weight. Even if he hadn’t killed our child yet in this timeline, he was the man who would. Hudson’s expression softened into something pleading. He grabbed my hand again, his voice dropping. “Gwen, please. Let’s just go home and talk. Get away from this… this person.” I wrenched my hand away. It was the same way he’d wrenched his hand away from me three years ago, leaving me shivering with a fever in the Hamptons while he went to “check on” Sierra in the city. “You’re a joke, Hudson. You have no right to tell me who to stand next to.” “Why are you doing this?” he demanded, his voice rising in desperation. “You loved me! You forgave me for everything! I’m offering you the life you wanted!” The memory of the staircase—the blood, the cold, the screaming—flashed before my eyes. A shiver of pure terror raced down my spine. “The life I wanted died a long time ago, Hudson. I’m done waiting for you to grow up.” “I told you I’d change!” he yelled. He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket—the “contract” of his promises. He held it out like a shield. Just then, Sierra came running out of the lobby in her four-inch heels, calling his name. She was moving too fast, desperate to regain center stage. She tripped. It was a clumsy, pathetic stumble, but she let out a piercing wail as she hit the pavement. Hudson didn’t even blink. He dropped the hand he was using to plead with me and sprinted to her side, gathering her in his arms with a look of frantic agony. At that exact moment, a delivery cyclist swerved onto the sidewalk, hurtling toward me. Hudson didn’t even look up. He was too busy stroking Sierra’s hair. It was Everett who moved. He lunged forward, throwing his body between me and the bike. The metal handle scraped across his back, tearing through his expensive jacket and leaving a jagged, bloody gash. I gasped, reaching for him, but Hudson’s voice cut through the air, sharp and accusing. “Gwen! Don’t just stand there! Call 911! Sierra’s hurt! If anything happens to her, I swear to God, you’ll pay for it!” I looked at Hudson, then at the girl who had barely scraped her knee, and then at Everett, who was bleeding because of me. A bitter, jagged laugh escaped my throat. Everett reached up and gently wiped a stray tear from my cheek. “Hey,” he whispered, his voice steady. “It’s okay. Just a scratch. I’m not going anywhere.” “I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “Don’t be. I’ll always be behind you, Gwen. No matter what.” I turned back to Hudson. He was looking at us, eyes wide with a strange, dawning realization. I took the “commitment letter” from his hand, looked him dead in the eye, and ripped it into tiny, white flakes. “You think you’re saving a princess, Hudson,” I said, letting the paper drift into the gutter. “But you’re just holding onto a shadow. Good luck with the fallout.” I got into the car with Everett, and we drove away into the neon glow of the city.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “562081”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

A street interview had suddenly gone viral, setting the internet ablaze. In the clip, a Swiss doctor—someone I knew all too well—spoke a few candid sentences that sent Dominic West, the reigning king of the box office, straight to the top of the trending charts. The doctor spoke of a girl Dominic had loved while he was blind. A pregnancy. A devastating breakup. The rumors spread like a wildfire in a drought. By noon the next day, I was sitting on a folding chair on set, picking at a lukewarm salad from a plastic container. The whispers around me were relentless. “Someone tracked down her old Instagram,” a stylist whispered, leaning toward a makeup artist. “You can’t see her face, but she was definitely with Dominic when he was at that clinic in the Alps. The kid, the split—it’s all real.” “So, Dominic West got dumped? Along with his kid? That’s legendary,” the makeup artist replied, shaking her head. “He’s on set today, isn’t he? Imagine if…” Mid-sentence, a colleague turned to me, a sudden thought crossing her face. “Wait, Jocelyn, didn’t you mention you lived in Switzerland for a few years?” I froze, my fork hovering over a wilted piece of kale. I shook my head slowly. “I was in Australia,” I lied. The words felt like ash in my mouth. I tossed the salad into the trash and walked away from the catering tent, my heart hammering against my ribs. After standing alone in the shade of a soundstage for a long time, I pulled out my phone and logged into an account I hadn’t touched in half a decade. 1 The handle was @Joss_Writes. The moment the app opened, I was blinded by a sea of red notifications. Tens of thousands of new followers. DMs and comments numbering in the tens of thousands. I took a shaky breath, my thumb hovering over the screen. First, I locked the account to private. Then, I disabled the comments and the messaging feature. Only then did I dare to look at what they were saying. —Why did you leave him? Why did you keep the kid and then disappear? Do you have a soul? —Used him and ditched him. Cold-blooded. Respect, sis. —Looks like she was struggling abroad. How did a guy like Dominic even look at her? I closed my eyes. This account was a relic. During those years in Switzerland, I had used it to document the mundane details of my life: my graduate studies, my part-time shifts at the café, my anxieties, and my life with Dominic. After the breakup, I had buried this digital version of myself. I ignored the rest of the comments and clicked on the trending hashtags instead. Dominic’s name was plastered everywhere. #DominicWestUnwedFather was tagged as “Explosive.” I clicked the video that had started it all. The man being interviewed was Dr. Schneider, Dominic’s primary surgeon in Zurich. I’d seen him dozens of times. “They were supposed to be Venus and Adonis,” the doctor said in the video, his voice tinged with a thick German accent. “But just as the boy was about to regain his sight, the girl vanished. I never understood why.” He paused, a look of genuine regret crossing his face. “He never even got to see the face of the woman he loved.” The doctor hadn’t used names. But the internet is a bloodhound. Based on the timeline and a few key details about the surgery, they had found Dominic within hours. And by extension, they had found me. I remembered the day I had made Dominic follow me on his private account. A wave of regret washed over me. If I had known, I would have scrubbed every trace of us from the world. “Josie? You there?” A hand touched my shoulder, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I shoved the phone into my pocket. It was Ben, Dominic’s assistant. He looked winded. “Sorry, I’ve been calling your name for a minute.” I forced a professional smile. “Sorry, Ben. My mind was elsewhere. What’s up?” “Dom wants to go over some of the dialogue for the lead. He’s in the trailer.” 2 Dominic and I weren’t supposed to be on the same project. But two weeks before production started, the original lead had been caught in a scandal, and the studio had brought Dominic in to save the film. Ben led me to the massive silver trailer parked at the edge of the lot. It was August in Atlanta—the air was a thick, humid blanket. The door opened, and a blast of frigid air-conditioning hit me. Dominic was sprawled on the leather sofa, a script covering his face. He looked effortlessly disheveled in a white tank top and cargo pants—the “rugged” look for today’s scene. “Dom?” Ben called out softly. Dominic moved. The script slid off his face, revealing the sharp, punishingly handsome features that had made him a global icon. He turned his head, his dark eyes settling on me. “You’re here,” he said. This wasn’t our first meeting since the Alps. We’d had a formal table read a week ago. Back then, he had only given me a curt nod, treating me like a stranger. I had changed my name, moved across the country, and even trained myself to speak in a lower, more professional register. He had never seen my face back then. It was only natural he wouldn’t recognize me now. “Which scenes are we looking at?” I asked, sitting in the chair across from him, keeping my voice clipped. Ben stayed outside, closing the door. The heat was gone, replaced by a silence so cold it felt brittle. Dominic didn’t look at the script. “Nothing you want to ask me first?” I blinked, feigning confusion. “About the script?” “About the kid.” My palms began to sweat. I forced a polite, hollow laugh. “Why would I ask about that?” He didn’t speak for a moment, his gaze searching mine. Then, a slow, mocking smile spread across his lips. “The whole world is talking about it. I figured even a dedicated professional like you would be curious.” I looked away. “I’m not interested in the private lives of the talent.” “Is that so?” Dominic let out a soft, dry chuckle. “You’ve always been good at staying focused on yourself, haven’t you, Josie?” He left the sentence hanging in the air, a hidden barb that hit its mark. He turned his attention to the script, leaving me to listen to the sound of pages turning. My fingers felt numb. I had seen the baby only once, right after he was born. A beautiful, tiny boy. One look, and then I had handed him over to Dominic’s mother. I didn’t even know his name. 3 “The scene where the lead meets the girl who claims to be a time-traveler,” Dominic said suddenly. “I think his reaction should be colder.” I shook off my thoughts and leaned in to look at the page. “We discussed this. He needs to be skeptical, but not cruel.” “Cruel?” He arched a brow. “He has no memory of her. The only thing he knows is that she’s a ghost from a past he’d rather forget. Being cruel feels… honest.” I hesitated. “Audiences need to root for the protagonist. If he’s too aggressive, we lose the ‘save the cat’ moment—” “So, his anger is just supposed to evaporate?” The question cut me off. I looked up and collided with the storm in Dominic’s eyes. For a heartbeat, I thought he was shouting at me—not about the script, but about the way I had walked out on him five years ago. He had every right to hate me. In the silence, Dominic was the first to look away. The intensity vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Sorry. I’m getting too into the character. My apologies, Jocelyn.” I swallowed hard and shook my head. “It’s fine. You’re just looking out for the role.” The air in the trailer felt suffocating. I was searching for an excuse to leave when a cup of iced coffee appeared in my line of sight. “Take it,” he said. His hand was steady, his fingers long and pale. My stomach cramped—a familiar, dull ache. I didn’t take it. “No, thank you. I—” Before I could finish, there was a sharp knock on the door. Ben opened it halfway, looking apologetic. “Dom, Seraphina is here.” Seraphina Knight, the film’s second lead, poked her head inside. “Dom!” She flashed him a dazzling smile before turning her gaze to me. “Oh, Jocelyn. I heard you were in here. I actually had some questions about my dialogue.” Dominic’s hand, still holding the coffee, paused in mid-air. He shifted his gaze to Seraphina and offered the cup to her. “Want this?” Seraphina’s eyes lit up. She squeezed past Ben and took the coffee. “Oh my god, you’re a lifesaver, Dom. You’re too good to me.” Dominic smiled, a casual, easy expression. He tilted his head toward me. “I think I might have overstepped with Jocelyn. She seems a bit… overwhelmed.” 4 I didn’t know what to say. I moved to get up, but Dominic’s hand clamped around my wrist. His skin was ice-cold, sending a jolt through my system. He smirked. “It’s too hot outside. Stay in here and talk to Seraphina. I can be a gentleman sometimes.” “I’m going to hair and makeup,” he added, releasing me as if I were nothing. He walked out without looking back. Seraphina giggled, leaning against the counter. “He’s so sweet. He remembered I was on my period and got me this specific latte. He’s usually so private, but with me…” I didn’t respond. I had heard the rumors—that Seraphina only got this role because Dominic had hand-picked her. He rarely let anyone into his inner circle, let alone his trailer. Seraphina was the exception. Looking at her, I could see why. She had a certain look—something about the shape of her eyes—that was a haunting echo of the girl Dominic used to love. Seraphina sipped the drink, her eyes narrowing. “So… do you think it’s true? The kid? The mystery woman who dumped him?” I tried to pivot. “I thought you wanted to discuss the script?” She ignored me, leaning back. “I looked at that girl’s Instagram. Honestly? Nothing special.” She pulled out her phone and pulled up @Joss_Writes. 5 “Wait, it’s gone!” Seraphina gasped. “The posts are all hidden. She’s definitely guilty of something.” I felt a headache blooming behind my eyes. “If you’re so curious, why don’t you ask Dominic yourself?” She glared at me as if I’d suggested she jump off a cliff. “Ask him to his face? Are you insane? You do it.” “He’s nice to work with, but his private life is a fortress,” she continued. “Last year, an interviewer asked about his ‘mystery muse’ from Europe, and Dom shut him down so hard the guy almost lost his job. Nobody goes there.” I’d heard about that. Most actors play the game, giving vague answers to avoid trouble. Dominic was different. He had the clout of two Oscars; he didn’t have to play by anyone’s rules. “Whatever,” Seraphina said, tossing her phone onto the sofa. “It’s all in the past anyway. I doubt he even thinks about her anymore.” She flashed a self-assured grin. “Besides, there are better options for the mother of his child now.” Finally, she opened the script and pointed to several scenes. “As the female lead’s best friend, I think I need more lines here. And here. Actually, I think there should be a scene where Dominic’s character and mine have a moment alone. Maybe a dream sequence? Or maybe my character gets possessed by the lead girl’s spirit?” She was trying to turn a high-concept sci-fi romance into a soap opera just to get more screen time with Dominic. “No,” I said firmly. “That doesn’t make sense for the narrative.” “It’s not realistic,” I added, trying to be diplomatic. “The script is locked, and the studio won’t approve a major structural change this late in the game.” Seraphina’s face darkened. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Jocelyn, do you really think you’re that important on this set?” 6 Seraphina’s retaliation was swift. That afternoon, we were filming a dinner scene between the leads. The extra who was supposed to play the wandering violinist had fallen through, and the director was scrambling. I had no intention of volunteering. I did enough odd jobs on set as it was. Besides, keeping a low profile was my survival strategy. But Seraphina pointed at me with an exaggerated gasp. “Jocelyn plays! I saw her playing at a fundraiser a few months ago.” I had played the violin on another set before, back when Seraphina was just a bit player. I’d had a stomach flu that day and played terribly. She wasn’t trying to help; she was trying to humiliate me. Suddenly, every eye on set was on me. Including Dominic’s. He was leaning against a prop table, arms crossed, watching me with an unreadable expression. I was transported back to the day we met. It was a snowy afternoon in Zurich. Dominic was sitting on a park bench near the clinic, a light dusting of frost on his shoulders. He looked like a statue, beautiful and broken. I had walked up to him with a rented violin case slung over my shoulder. I unwrapped my scarf, my nose red from the cold. “Are you Mr. West?” He didn’t move. His eyes were open but vacant, staring at a point in space he couldn’t see. I took his silence as a “yes” and began to play a melancholic arrangement of The Parting Glass. He didn’t say a word until I finished and took a bow. “The ‘Final Farewell’ request is complete,” I said. “How would you like to pay?” The man on the bench finally stirred. He turned his head toward the sound of my voice. “Final farewell?” His voice was hoarse, as if it hadn’t been used in weeks. “If you’re trying to curse me, you could be less poetic about it.” I realized I’d found the wrong person. The client was a different man with a similar name. I started apologizing profusely. Dominic had pulled out his phone. “Well, since you’re here… can you play ‘You Are My Sunshine’?” It was a strange request. But I played it. It was a cheerful tune, but under my bow, it sounded like a mourning song. When I finished, I looked at him. “You have a nice face. And a nice voice.” He flinched slightly. “I’ll pay you. But I’m blind, so you’ll have to handle the transaction yourself.” “I just meant,” I whispered, “that it would be a waste for someone like you to give up.” I knew he was blind. I also knew he was at the end of his rope. 7 I couldn’t escape the director’s request. I was positioned in the background as an extra. I didn’t play a popular piece; instead, I played a melody I had composed myself years ago—something simple and forgettable. Or so I thought. When the scene ended, the crew broke into spontaneous applause. Except for Seraphina, who looked like she’d swallowed a lemon. I stepped off the “stage,” feeling a weight lift from my chest. A few PAs came over to compliment me. “That was amazing, Jocelyn. I didn’t know you had that in you.” “It was nothing,” I said, forced. “I almost messed up the bridge.” In my peripheral vision, I saw Dominic watching me from his chair. He looked away the moment I caught his eye. “Wait,” one of the PAs said, her brow furrowed. “That song sounds so familiar.” My heart stopped. “You must be mistaken.” “No, I’m sure of it!” she said, her eyes widening. “That account—@Joss_Writes. There’s a video of her playing that exact song from years ago. The one everyone’s been talking about!” The set went deathly silent. The PA realized what she’d said and covered her mouth. Every gaze moved from me to Dominic, then back again. Even Seraphina was staring at me with dawning suspicion. I tried to laugh it off. “I must have learned it from that video. It’s been floating around the internet for a while. I forgot who posted it.” It was just a song. It didn’t prove anything. “Oh… right. Yeah, that makes sense,” the PA mumbled, but she kept stealing glances at Dominic. Everyone waited for him to react. Dominic was famous for his low tolerance for drama. He tapped his fingers on the table, looking bored. “I’ve heard the original,” he said, his voice flat. “It was much better than that.” In other words: I played like an amateur.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “562080”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Five years into our relationship, Damian had less and less time for me. Every single date, without fail, would be cut short by a phone call from the single mother living next door. A burst pipe in her apartment, or her toddler waking up with a midnight fever—the moment her name flashed on his screen, Damian was out the door. “Jessica, you’re strong and independent,” he would tell me, his voice dripping with that gentle, reasonable tone he always used. “But Kendra is doing this all alone. If I don’t help her, she’ll completely break down.” I chose to believe in his kindness. To spare him the stress of feeling torn, I forced myself to become self-sufficient. I learned how to plunge my own clogged toilet and drove myself to the hospital when I got sick. Whenever he flaked on our plans, he would slip me a handwritten raincheck card: “I owe you one 24/7 lifeline. Once Kendra’s kid is a little older, you’ll have my undivided attention.” I built up a thick stack of those cards, holding out hope for a day that never came. Until the afternoon of the multi-car pileup. I had just stepped out of the clinic, holding my ten-week ultrasound report, when a runaway semi-truck crushed my sedan against the guardrail. The metal twisted around my legs like a vise, a violent, tearing agony ripped through my lower abdomen, and warm blood poured out between my thighs. Trapped in the wreckage, I used the last of my strength to dial his number. “Damian… please help me… our baby…” “Jessica, enough!” Damian’s voice cracked through the line, sharp and exasperated. “Kendra’s boy ran off at the fairground! She’s losing her damn mind right now. Can you please stop faking an illness just to compete for my attention?!” “Don’t cry, Kendra. I’m right here,” I heard him whisper softly into the background. Around me, there was only the smell of twisted iron and my own pooling blood. Before darkness claimed me, I looked down at my blood-soaked fingers. Clutched in my palm was the raincheck card I’d carried in my coat pocket. Written in his clean, familiar handwriting: “Damian to Jessica—Raincheck. On call, anytime, anywhere.” It hit me then with brutal clarity. He wasn’t just a soft-hearted, good man. He had simply reserved all his devotion, his loyalty, and his gentleness for another woman. … The hydraulic jaws of life tore through the car door with a deafening screech. Cold wind surged into the cabin, heavy with the metallic tang of blood. The paramedics pulled me out and strapped me onto a gurney. The warm fluid still gushing from me rapidly soaked through the white sheets. It was a tearing, bone-deep pain. An EMT ripped open my blood-stained sweater while frantically going through my bag. “Where is her next of kin? We need a family member right now!” She dialed Damian’s number three times in a row using my phone. Every call went straight to voicemail. They wheeled me into the trauma center. As the gurney banked around a sharp corner in the ER hallway, I tilted my head to the side. And there he was. In the crowded waiting area, Damian was holding Kendra’s toddler in his arms, rocking him back and forth with fierce, desperate tenderness. Kendra stood beside him, her eyes rimmed with red. “Damian, it’s all my fault,” she sobbed softly, resting a delicate hand on his arm. “I’m such a horrible mother. If you hadn’t been here, I don’t know what I would’ve done…” Damian sighed, pulling a folded silk handkerchief from his breast pocket. It was the handkerchief he used to keep in his glove compartment to dab the sweat from my forehead when I worked late. Now, he was using it to gently wipe away Kendra’s tears. “Don’t talk like that,” his voice was lower, infinitely patient. “I promised I’d look after you two.” I turned my head away, unable to breathe. “Out of the way! Massive hemorrhaging—we need a family signature for emergency surgery!” The triage nurse ran over holding the consent form and froze when she recognized Damian. “Sir! Your fiancée is in critical condition. The fetus isn’t viable—we need you to sign this right now!” Damian went rigid. In his arms, Kendra’s child suddenly squirmed and wailed, clutching Damian’s neck in terror. Damian glanced over at my gurney, his brow furrowing into a tight knot. He took half a step back, pulling the child closer to his chest. “The boy is traumatized,” Damian said, his tone defensive. “He can’t let go of me right now. Can’t you just perform the procedure first?” He wouldn’t even free a hand to sign the paper. I lay on the gurney, feeling the coldness spreading through my veins as the blood kept flowing. Suppressing the agonizing, visceral cramps in my belly, I bit hard onto my index finger. “I’ll… sign it myself…” With a violently trembling hand, I pressed a smeared, bloody thumbprint directly onto the consent form. In that singular, agonizing moment, he threw me and our unborn child away for good. … When the surgery ended, the nurse wheeled me out into recovery and shook her head sadly. “I’m so sorry. We couldn’t save the baby.” Not far away, Damian’s face went chalky white. But his immediate, instinctual reaction was to cover the toddler’s ears. He slid off his designer blazer and wrapped it securely around the child. “The air is damp in here, Kendra. Let’s get him up to the pediatric ward before he catches cold.” He turned and strode down the hall, never once looking back at me. By the time the anesthesia wore off, I was alone in a quiet room. I picked up my phone. The screen lit up with a notification—a fresh social media post from Kendra. In the photo, Damian was sitting by the pediatric bed, patiently helping her son build a Lego castle. Her caption read: “So grateful for the light in our lives, chasing away every shadow.” I let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. For five years, I had strived to be the ultimate cool, independent partner to support his “noble, helpful nature.” I became a woman who could fix her own plumbing, plunge her own drain, and drive herself to prenatal checkups alone. I thought not burdening him was the ultimate form of love. Only now did I realize that his patience and tenderness were exclusive privileges—and I was never on the guest list. I reached under my pillow and pulled out a stiff, dried piece of paper. It was the raincheck card the paramedic had salvaged from my ruined purse. Damian’s handwriting was still legible underneath the thick, mahogany-colored stains: “To Jessica. On call, anytime, anywhere.” Now, it was completely soaked through with my dried blood. I didn’t shed a single tear. Expressionless, I ripped it into tiny, jagged shreds and tossed them into the biohazard bin. … I spent three days in that hospital bed. The moment I could put my feet on the floor, ignoring the nurse’s stern warnings, I discharged myself. I pulled the IV line out of the back of my hand, pressed a cotton ball against the bleeding vein, and threw off the thin hospital blanket. I was going back to our house. The nursery items I had spent a year curated and collecting were still there. I had to get them out. Dragging my exhausted, aching body, I pushed open the front door. The living room was a disaster. The first thing I saw was Kendra’s son sitting on my plush sofa, clutching a temperature-controlled baby bottle. It was a specialized, expensive brand I had spent weeks researching and buying for my own baby just last month. My fingers tightened around the brass doorknob until my knuckles turned white. The kitchen door swung open. Damian walked out carrying a small bowl of warm baby puree. When his eyes met mine, his forehead creased instantly into a scowl. He gestured at me with his free hand. “Stay right there, Jessica. You’re covered in hospital disinfectant. Go wait in the guest bedroom—don’t bring that chill around the kid.” His tone was calm, offhanded, as if he were instructing a stray dog to stay off the rug. The master bedroom door opened next. Kendra stepped out, wearing a brand-new cashmere maternity loungewear set I had bought for myself and hadn’t even unpacked yet. “Jessica… please don’t get the wrong idea…” Kendra wrung her hands awkwardly, her eyes wide and innocent. “The heating unit in my rental apartment blew out completely. It was freezing. Damian was worried Toby would catch pneumonia, so he brought us here.” What a tragic, struggling single mother. Using the shield of her poverty to occupy another woman’s home without a shred of shame. I ignored her completely. I walked straight past her, my eyes locked on the baby bottle and the sweater she was wearing. Damian stepped in front of me, draping a throw blanket over the boy on the couch. “Alright, Jessica, it’s just a sweater,” he said dismissively. “So she wore it. I’ll buy you ten more tomorrow if you’re that worked up about it. A single mother with a child can’t handle being shuffled around. You’re about to be a mother yourself—can’t you show a little grace and maturity?” “About to be a mother.” He actually remembered that I was supposed to be a mother. A bitter, cold laugh burst from my chest. I reached into my bag, pulled out the blood-stained discharge papers and the pathology report from my miscarriage, and slammed them down onto the marble coffee table. “Grace? You want me to be graceful while my baby lies in a hospital incinerator?!” I looked him dead in the eye. “I called you three times during that crash.” “Why did you accuse me of faking an emergency to compete with her? Why did you hang up on me?!” Damian’s eyes flicked down to the harsh, bright red ink on the hospital form. For a fraction of a second, his posture wavered, panic flashing across his features. But almost instantly, his defensiveness surged back, louder and more self-righteous than before. “Things were chaotic! You’ve always been capable, Jessica. You handle everything yourself! But Kendra had nowhere else to turn—her kid was lost in a crowd, and she was literally on her knees begging me for help! How could I just turn my back on her?!” It was the same twisted logic he had used for five years. Because I was strong and sensible, I deserved to be sacrificed. Because she was frail and theatrical, she was entitled to drain every last drop of his resources. My gaze drifted down, landing on Kendra’s wrist. A sleek, hand-carved jade protection charm hung from a silver chain around her arm. “And that charm?” I pointed a trembling finger at her wrist. “Did she beg on her knees for that, too?” Damian had driven four hours to a monastery and waited in line overnight just to get that blessed protection charm for my pregnancy. Damian’s expression hardened. Kendra’s eyes instantly filled with tears, and she darted toward the entryway, grabbing her canvas bag. “I’m so sorry, Damian. My miserable life is just a curse… I shouldn’t be ruining Jessica’s home,” she sobbed, her voice trembling dramatically. “I’ll take my son and sleep under the overpass tonight. Even if we freeze, we won’t trouble you anymore!” She made a show of rushing toward the front door. Damian snatched her bag away and shielded her behind his back. He spun around, slamming his palm down heavily on my shoulder. “Jessica, are you out of your mind?!” he roared. “I know losing the baby is hard on you! But you can’t turn into this vicious, bitter monster just because you’re grieving! You’re not even leaving an unfortunate woman a path to survive!” “Vicious. Bitter.” My gut-wrenching agony was nothing more than “bitterness” to him. A wave of intense, physical nausea washed over me. I shoved his hand off my shoulder and took a step back. Kendra clutched her child, weeping softly behind him, while Damian stood in front of her like a noble knight protecting his realm from an intruder. The three of them looked like a picture-perfect, harmonious family. And I—the woman who had just lost her baby, the actual owner of this house—looked like a hostile trespasser. There was no room left for me here. Not a single inch. My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out with numb fingers and tapped on a voice message from my partner at the boutique craft studio we co-owned. “Jessica! Tomorrow morning is the municipal artisan grant review! Did you finish the hand-embroidered sample set?” “This grant gets us the rent-free studio space for the entire year! If we don’t win this, our business is going under!” It was a tiny studio. We earned every penny through restless nights and blood, sweat, and tears. It was my passion, my sanctuary, and my only financial lifeline. I walked past Damian into my home studio, pulling open the drawers of my work table. I needed to pack up the set of vintage-style embroidered baby booties and bonnet I had pulled all-nighter after all-nighter to complete. But when my hand reached into the bottom compartment of my sewing box, my body froze. The small carved wooden box holding my late grandmother’s heirlooms was empty. The pair of antique, sterling silver chime charms—the ones my grandmother had left me, which I planned to sew onto the baby bonnet for the competition—were gone. The entire sample set was missing. The door swung open behind me. Damian stepped into the room, his expression entirely unbothered. “Looking for that baby bonnet set?” he asked casually. “I took it. Along with those old silver bells. I handed them over to Kendra so she could complete her application.” He didn’t even bother to invent a lie. “Kendra is applying for the city’s ‘Single Mother Entrepreneurial Grant.’ She needed a high-caliber handmade submission to qualify.” “You’re an expert artisan, Jessica. You can just sew another set in a few days. But if Kendra doesn’t get this grant and the three-thousand-dollar stipend, she won’t even be able to afford groceries next month.” I stared at the man standing before me—a man so intoxicated by his own moral superiority—and held out my open palm. “Damian. Those silver charms belonged to my grandmother. They are the only things I have left of her. Give them back. Right now.” I glared at him, refusing to yield an inch. Kendra walked into the room holding a spool of thread. As she brushed past my shoulder, she lowered her voice so only I could hear, a cruel, mocking smirk touching her lips. “Give it up, Jessica.” “Damian cares about us. No matter how hard you throw a tantrum, you’re just wasting your breath.” I ignored her provocation, but my gaze caught on something through the open doorway. Out in the hall, Kendra’s toddler was dragging a hand-embroidered silk baby bib across the floor, using it to wipe dark, greasy mud off the soles of his boots. It was the bib I had spent an entire week stitching, line by line, stitch by stitch, when I first found out I was pregnant. Now, it was being used as a dirty rag. “Snap.” The final string holding my sanity together snapped clean in half. I lost my mind. I lunged forward like a madwoman, grabbing the edge of the silk bib. “Give that back! Don’t touch it!” The child was terrified by my sudden burst, letting out an ear-splitting shriek. “Jessica! Have you lost your mind?!” Damian thundered out of the room. He grabbed my arm with brutal force and shoved me backward. My lower back smashed hard against the sharp corner of the glass coffee table. A blinding burst of pain shot up my spine, making me break out in a cold sweat. He scooped the screaming child into his arms, glaring down at me with pure disgust. “Do you have a shred of humanity left in you?!” he snarled. “It’s a piece of cloth! You’re assaulting a toddler over a piece of cloth?!” “You are cold-blooded to the core!” I lay collapsed on the hardwood floor, every breath searing through my ribs like fire. Through my blurred, tear-filled vision, I saw Kendra rushing over in a panic to check on her son. As she bent down, the embroidered tiger bonnet slipped from her coat pocket. “Crunch.” Her heavy heel stepped squarely onto the sterling silver chime charms that had rolled onto the floor. The thin, antique silver crushed beneath her weight. The heirlooms my grandmother had cherished her whole life were flattened into a twisted piece of scrap metal. I stared at the ruined silver, and the tears finally spilled over, scalding my cheeks. Five years of devotion. An unborn child. My grandmother’s final memory. In the face of this man’s performative “nobility,” every boundary, every memory, and every piece of my soul was tossed into the mud to be stomped on. I crawled across the floor, my fingers trembling violently as I dug the flattened silver out from under her shoe. The delicate silver beads inside were shattered to dust. They would never make another chime again. The last piece of my grandmother was gone. “Oh! Ow!” A sharp gasp came from above me. As Kendra pulled her child back, she accidentally knocked against a pair of fabric shears resting on the edge of the table. The blade grazed the back of her hand, leaving a tiny, superficial red scratch. She immediately clutched her wrist, tears overflowing like a broken dam. “Damian, I’m so sorry! It’s all my fault… I’m so clumsy… please don’t blame Jessica…” Damian immediately pulled out a fresh tissue, pressing it gently against her scratch, his face filled with anguish. When he turned back to look at me, his eyes were as cold as ice. “Have you had enough?” he commanded, looking down at me like a judge passing sentence. “You’ve driven a helpless mother and her child to this point. Do you really need someone to die before you’re satisfied? Apologize to her. Right now!” I clutched the crushed silver charm in my fist and slowly, agonizingly forced myself to stand. I stared straight into the eyes of the man and woman standing before me. I held up the mangled piece of silver, shoving the deep, crescent-shaped heel impression on it right in front of his face. “If it just fell on the floor, would it have a heel mark this deep?!” “Damian, she did it on purpose!” Damian let out a bitter laugh. “A heel mark means it was on purpose? Jessica, you’re not just narrow-minded anymore—you’re completely paranoid!” “You didn’t keep your valuables put away, and now you’re blaming everyone else?” Even now, he could spin reality to make everything my fault. I didn’t cry. The despair in my chest had settled into a still, lifeless swamp. I turned around and pointed to the small, subtle security camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling—a camera I had installed months ago to protect my expensive silk inventories. “Fine. If it wasn’t on purpose, let’s look at the footage.” “I’m taking the recording straight to the municipal board to ask them if submitting stolen work constitutes grant fraud!” The moment the word “fraud” left my mouth, Kendra’s face turned deathly pale. With a loud “thud”, she dropped straight to her knees at Damian’s feet. “Damian! Don’t look at the camera! Please, I’m begging you!” She wailed, her voice shrill with panic. “If that video gets out, I won’t just lose the grant—I’ll be arrested for fraud! If I go to prison, my boy will be an orphan! Damian, save me!” Damian looked down at the weeping woman kneeling at his feet, a flicker of deep pity softening his features. He turned back to me, his eyes filled with profound disappointment. “She’s willing to throw away her dignity and kneel for her child,” he said, his voice cold. “And you’re willing to ruin a person’s entire life over a few pieces of fabric?” In this man’s worldview, whoever cried loudest held the truth. He didn’t give me another chance to speak. He dragged an accent chair over, stepped up, reached out, and yanked the power cable out of the camera. Then, he unscrewed the housing, popped out the micro SD card, and with a sharp “snap”, snapped the memory card cleanly in two right in front of my face. He casually tossed the broken pieces into the trash can. My final path to proving my innocence was destroyed by his own hands. Damian pulled a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills from his leather wallet and slapped them onto my work table. “Take the cash. Go buy some new silver and fabric. Take a few days to calm down, and stop making a fool of yourself.” Without another word, he gently helped Kendra up from the floor and walked out, holding her arm. The heavy oak door slammed shut with a deafening “thud”. The house fell dead silent. I stood there, staring at the wrecked room and the green bills scattered across the table. My eyes were completely hollow. I walked over to my desk, opened the drawer, and pulled out the partnership dissolution agreement for my craft studio. Without a moment’s hesitation, I signed my name at the bottom. I pulled out my phone, transferred every penny of my personal savings to my business partner to cover the contract breach fee, and left every local artisan group chat. I burned every bridge behind me. I walked over to the coffee table. I slipped off the platinum diamond engagement ring Damian had given me three years ago. Underneath the ring, I carefully stacked the crushed silver chime charm, the mud-stained baby bib, and my bloodied hospital consent form. It was the final burial for five years of my life. … Two hours later. I was sitting on an intercity bus heading out of state. My phone vibrated relentlessly in my lap—a barrage of missed calls from Damian. Over a dozen of them. I knew why he was calling. He had probably gone downstairs to fetch something, forgotten his keycard, and instinctively called me to come down and open the gate for him like I always did. Watching his name flash across the glowing screen, my thumb hovered over the keyboard. I typed out a short text message: “Mr. Thorne, you two are made for each other. I’m out.” I hit send. Then, I popped out the SIM card and threw it out the open bus window.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “561662”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

To celebrate my boyfriend and best friend landing job offers at top-tier corporate firms in New York City, I treated them to a fancy hot pot dinner in town. Midway through the meal, I pulled out a fresh copy of my resume, one I had laboriously revised over a dozen times, my chest humming with nervous excitement. “I’ve decided to go to New York too!” I said, my voice trembling slightly with anticipation. “Even if I have to start at the absolute bottom in entry-level sales, I just want us to conquer the big city together!” The laughter that had filled the table only seconds ago evaporated instantly. Brooke set down her chopsticks, her brow knitting into a sharp, judgment-filled line as she stared at me. “Mallory, New York will chew you up and spit you out. With your skill set, going there is just a waste of time.” Tyler, my boyfriend of four years, didn’t even look up as he carefully poached a piece of shrimp and dropped it into Brooke’s bowl. His tone was casual, almost indifferent. “Brooke is just thinking about what’s best for you. Stop chasing pipe dreams. Just head back to your hometown, find a stable office job, and settle down. There’s no point trying to force yourself into a world where you don’t fit.” “Force yourself.” Those two words struck me with the force of an open-handed slap. I sat back in my seat, paralyzed and silent. I watched Tyler gently peel another shrimp and place it in Brooke’s bowl. I watched them lean toward each other, trading intimate, familiar banter about West Village brownstones, high-rise rooftops, and the dazzling skyline over the East River. And in that quiet, agonizing moment, the truth finally crystallized. In this trio we had built, I had never even been invited to the journey. … When the meal ended, I excused myself to pay at the front desk. I gave the cashier the last four digits of my phone number. She looked at her screen, then looked up at me with a polite smile. “Oh, the student discount and your rewards points have already been redeemed for this table.” I blinked, thrown off. “Redeemed?” “Yes, the young lady who was with you scanned it on her phone earlier. The loyalty points were added to her account.” I stood there, the ambient noise of the crowded restaurant fading into a dull, echoing hum. During dinner, Brooke had been glued to her phone the entire time. I had assumed she was replying to work emails or celebrating her offer. Instead, she had used the expensive meal I paid for to rack up rewards points for herself. And Tyler had been sitting right beside her. There was no way he hadn’t noticed. Yet he hadn’t said a single word. I pulled out my card, paid the full balance without another word, and took the receipt. My fingers were trembling so hard the paper crumpled in my grip. Outside, a gray evening rain had begun to fall. Brooke, who had gotten her hair professionally styled earlier that day, immediately winced at the sight of the downpour. “Ugh, I can’t get my hair wet.” Without a second’s hesitation, Tyler shed his leather jacket and draped it securely over her head, shielding her completely. “Run,” he murmured. He held her close, shielding her as they dashed toward the subway entrance. From beginning to end, he never once turned around to see if I was behind them. I trailed behind, lugging the heavy shopping bags filled with leftover takeout and snacks. The plastic straps bit painfully into my fingers. My thin canvas sneakers sank into a deep puddle, soaking through to my skin in seconds. By the time I made it down into the subway station, Brooke was leaning against Tyler, complaining that her heels were killing her. Tyler took her iced boba tea, holding it in one hand while using his free arm to support her. “Just hang on until we get on the train,” he coaxed gently. I stood a few feet away, holding their bags like an underpaid assistant. Suddenly, Tyler’s phone rang. It was his mother. He didn’t step away to take it; he just answered on speaker. “Yeah, Mom, we looked at the apartments online,” he said. “Close to the financial district, super convenient.” My chest tightened. “Apartments?” He had never mentioned apartment hunting to me. I couldn’t hear what his mother said on the other end, but Tyler glanced at me sideways, his tone flat and dismissive. “She’s not coming to New York. It’s not a good fit for her. Going back home is much safer.” My hand clenched into a tight fist around the plastic bags. Then, his mother mentioned Brooke. The tone on the line shifted instantly, warming into relief and delight. “Well, as long as you and Brooke are taking care of each other, I can sleep easy.” Brooke ducked her head, a small, triumphant smile touching her lips. Tyler didn’t correct his mother. He didn’t explain anything. A train screeched into the station, sending a gust of cold, metallic wind blowing past us. The air bit into my eyes, making them sting with unshed tears. When we finally got back to campus, I realized I had left my portable power bank—along with my ID and credit card—at the hot pot restaurant. I had no choice but to call a rideshare and hurry back. The mall was closing by the time I sprinted back up to the restaurant. Before I could push open the private dining room door, I heard two bussers inside clearing the table. “That couple earlier was so cute,” one staff member remarked. “The guy paid attention to every little thing she needed.” “Right? The girl with the styled hair was definitely his girlfriend,” the other replied. “The other girl following them around must’ve just been a third wheel.” I stood frozen in the hallway, my feet glued to the floor. “A third wheel.” To total strangers, Tyler and Brooke were the obvious couple. And I was just the background noise dragging along behind them. My phone vibrated violently in my coat pocket. It was an automated notification from a job portal. [Congratulations! Your application for the Entry-Level Account Executive position has passed initial screening. You are invited to a virtual first-round interview tomorrow afternoon.] I stared at the glowing screen, my heart thumping wildly against my ribs. A second later, a text popped up from Tyler. “Don’t do anything impulsive about those New York applications. You really aren’t built for that kind of grind.” Looking at his words, a cold, bitter laughter bubbled up in my throat. He was always like this. He never asked what I actually wanted. He just hammered home, over and over again, that I wasn’t good enough. I retrieved my forgotten belongings from the manager and walked slowly back to my dorm room. The rain hadn’t stopped, and the wind bit at my face, but I barely felt it. I stood under the dull streetlamp outside my dorm, staring at the interview invitation for a very long time. Finally, I tapped the screen and typed my response. “I confirm my attendance.” This time, I was done listening to him. I barely slept that night. After the dorm lights went out and my roommates fell asleep, I huddled under my blanket, refreshing my resume and rehearsing my self-introduction under my breath. To be honest, I didn’t have much to showcase. My state university wasn’t prestigious, my past internships were modest, and my credentials were ordinary. I didn’t have glitzy awards or high-powered references. All I had were a few retail side gigs, some club recruitment drives, and hours of tedious administrative work for my professors. But that modest list was everything I had worked for. At three in the morning, I tiptoed out onto the balcony with my phone, whispering my pitch into the cold night air until my throat went dry. “Hi, my name is Mallory…” The next afternoon, I locked myself in a quiet study room for the virtual interview. , The interviewer asked why I wanted to work in New York, why sales, and whether I was prepared for the overwhelming pressure of a cutthroat city. My palms were soaked with nervous sweat. Halfway through, my Wi-Fi lagged, freezing my screen mid-sentence. Panicking, I nearly burst into tears as the connection restored. “I am so, so sorry!” I stammered, my voice cracking. “May I please repeat my answer?” The woman on the screen looked at me through her camera, her expression surprisingly gentle. “It’s alright, Mallory. Take a breath. Take your time.” A sudden wave of emotion welled up in my chest. It had been so long since anyone had spoken to me like that. No dissuasion, no condescension, no heavy judgments about what I was “built” for. Just a soft, human reassurance: “Take your time.” My nerves settled. For the remainder of the interview, I spoke with quiet clarity. I laid out everything I had done—unpolished, perhaps, but entirely honest. Before ending the call, the senior male manager sitting beside her reviewed my file one last time. “Your background isn’t typical for our firm,” he noted, “but your sincerity and drive are clear. We’d like to move you forward to the second round.” I sat frozen in my chair. “I… I made it to the next round?” He smiled. “You did. Watch your email for the schedule.” After the call disconnected, I sat in the dim study room for a long time, staring at the dark reflection on my laptop screen. I hadn’t realized how deeply I craved a simple vote of confidence—or how much it would hurt when it finally came from strangers. When I stepped out of the building, the sky was already turning a bruised shade of twilight. Tyler and Brooke were standing right by the steps, as if they had been waiting for me. My footsteps hitched. Tyler’s face was dark. His opening line dropped like an accusation. “You went to a job interview?” Before I could answer, Brooke stepped forward, her brow furrowed in disapproval. “Mallory, why would you keep something like this from us?” I gripped my phone tightly, my voice quiet. “Why do I need to clear my job interviews with you?” Tyler’s eyebrows shot up in annoyance. “Mallory, do you really have to be like this? I made it crystal clear to you—New York isn’t for you. Why are you sneaking around applying behind my back?” A heavy tightness choked my chest. “Since when do I need your permission to build my own career?” Brooke reached out to grab my arm, her voice dripping with her usual sweet concern. “Mallory, we’re just looking out for you. Rent in New York is astronomical, the cost of living is insane, and you’re going to burn out. There’s no reason to put yourself through that kind of torture just to prove a point.” She sounded so persuasive. So utterly convincing, as if she were genuinely prioritizing my well-being. But listening to her, I felt nothing but a deep, hollow sadness. “I’m not trying to prove a point,” I said softly. “I just want to try.” Tyler cut in instantly, his tone sharp with disdain. “Try what? You’ve been coddled your whole life. You go to New York, and in the end, you’re just going to end up dragging everyone else down.” “Dragging everyone else down.” I stood under the dim streetlights, the color draining completely from my face. Memories from the past four years surged up like a toxic tide. Throughout college, Tyler constantly reminded me to scrimp and save, lecturing me about my middle-class background and telling me to be “frugal.” If I bought a slightly higher-end lipstick, he’d scoff and call it unnecessary. If I ordered an extra dish at dinner, he’d chide me for being wasteful. I used to believe he said those things because he cared about my future. Only later did I realize the cruel truth. When Brooke wanted limited-edition artisanal desserts, Tyler would happily wait in line for hours to buy them for her. When she wanted tickets to an overpriced arena concert, he stayed up all night refreshing ticket sites, laughing as he told her that “youth should be enjoyed without regrets.” It wasn’t that he hated spending money. He just hated spending it on me. My throat felt constricted, every breath heavy. “If the person who wanted to go to New York today were Brooke,” I asked slowly, “would you be standing here stopping her?” Brooke froze. Tyler went silent for two long seconds, his jaw tightening as he glared at me. “Can you stop comparing yourself to her for once?” Hearing those words, the knot in my stomach suddenly loosened. Because the answer was glaringly obvious. If it were Brooke who wanted to go to New York, Tyler wouldn’t tell her she was unfit. He would map out her transit routes, help her hunt for charming apartments, worry about her comfort, and do everything in his power to protect her from the slightest inconvenience. But when it came to me, all he had was a cold, absolute verdict: “You don’t belong.” I looked down at the pavement, slowly balling my hands into fists. “I’m not comparing myself to her,” I whispered. “You’re the one who always puts me second.” That night, Tyler came down to my dorm building. He brought a bag of my favorite late-night snacks and a warm tapioca milk tea, clearly trying to smooth things over. “You didn’t eat much at dinner,” he said, handing the bag toward me. “I brought you something.” I looked down at the paper cup, making no move to take it. His voice softened, adopting a gentle, placating cadence. “I was harsh earlier today. I’m just terrified of seeing you take a wrong turn.” In the past, that soft tone would have melted my resolve in an instant. Then he added casually, “Brooke feels terrible about how things went down today. She’s been crying in her room ever since we got back. Come get lunch with her tomorrow, okay? Let’s talk it out so she doesn’t keep feeling so guilty.” I stared up at him, a bitter laugh nearly breaking through my lips. He hadn’t come down here because he was worried about my pain. He had come because he couldn’t stand seeing Brooke upset. They had shoved me down together, and now I was expected to be the “mature one” and forgive them both. For the first time in four years, I refused to offer him a way out. I looked him dead in the eye and repeated my question word for word: “If it were Brooke who wanted to go to New York, would you still stop her?” His scowl deepened, his patience wearing thin. “Can you stop comparing yourself to her?” Standing under the harsh, flickering fluorescent light of the dorm entrance, staring at the man I had loved for four years, I felt the last embers of my warmth go cold. From that day on, I stopped arguing with them. I stopped fighting altogether. He chose her safety in the rain, chose her preferences at dinner, dropped everything the moment her name popped up on his phone screen. And I was always the afterthought lingering at the edge of his sight. Once I truly accepted that, the choices became simple. My first step was visiting the phone store to remove myself from the shared mobile plan Tyler and I had set up together. The representative looked up from his screen, confused. “Are you sure? You’re giving up a great bundled discount.” I nodded firmly. “I’m sure.” Next, I tapped into our shared group chat and hit “Leave Group”. Brooke had named the group “The Unstoppable Trio”. The avatar was a candid photo of the three of us from our sophomore year spring break trip. Back then, I had genuinely believed we would be inseparable forever. Looking at it now, it was just a pathetic monument to my own self-delusion. After I left the group, neither of them texted to ask why. They were so accustomed to my compliance that it didn’t even register as a departure. They assumed I was just sulking, bound to return eventually. On graduation day, the humiliation reached its peak. The night before, Tyler had promised that after the formal class photograph, he and I would take our own private portraits in front of the university library. In four years of dating, we barely had any nice photos together. So I woke up at dawn, washed my hair, put on full makeup, and even borrowed a set of pearl earrings from my roommate. I stood in front of the iconic library steps in the blistering midday heat for forty minutes. My cap felt heavy, and the polyester graduation gown turned into a portable sauna. I sent him a text. His reply was curt: “Taking Brooke’s photos first. Wait a bit longer.” I looked across the quad. On the lawn a short distance away, Brooke stood holding a massive bouquet of peonies. Tyler was crouched in front of her, carefully adjusting his camera angles, stepping forward to adjust her collar, directing her poses with meticulous, devoted intensity. They shot on the grass, moved to the grand stone steps, and then strolled down toward the campus lake. I waited. By the time Tyler finally strolled over to me, the student photographers hired by the department were already packing away their tripods. “Hurry it up, please,” one photographer sighed. “We have to go take group shots for the faculty.” I stood against the stone pillar and posed hastily for a single shot. In the preview, my smile was stiff, my hair was sticking to my forehead with sweat, and random passersby blurred the background. Brooke glanced over Tyler’s shoulder at the camera screen and gave me an encouraging smile. “Ah, don’t worry about it, Mallory! Graduation photos are just about keeping a quick memory anyway.” “Yeah,” I murmured quietly. That evening, the department held a farewell dinner at a private banquet hall. The room vibrated with clinking glasses, tearful hugs, and promises to stay in touch. Tyler and Brooke, recognized as outstanding graduates heading to prestigious corporate roles, were invited up to the podium to speak. They stood together under the spotlights, radiant as they discussed their corporate placements, their long-term career roadmaps, and how thrilled they were to take on New York together. The applause in the room was deafening. I sat at a far corner table. Beside me, two girls whispered softly. “They really look like a power couple, don’t they?” “Right? Moving to Manhattan together right after graduation… it’s like a scene straight out of a TV show.” I lowered my head and picked at my food, the click of my fork against the porcelain plate lost in the noise. Inevitably, someone turned the conversation toward me. “Mallory, why aren’t you heading to New York with them?” Before I could form an answer, Brooke chimed in smoothly from across the table. “Oh, Mallory prefers a more predictable, quiet life,” she said with a bright, patronizing air. “She’s not really built for the high-stakes grind like Tyler and me.” A polite ripple of laughter passed around the table. It was delivered like a harmless joke. But sitting there under the bright chandeliers, my face burned with shame. To them, I was, and had always been, the girl who just didn’t measure up. Right then, Tyler reached over and casually picked the cilantro off the rim of my plate—a habit he’d maintained for years. A classmate across from us gushed, “Aw, Tyler is so thoughtful with Mallory. He remembers every tiny detail!” I stared at his hand, a cold wave of nausea washing over me. Because just five minutes ago, those exact same fingers had held a napkin to gently wipe a drop of sauce from the corner of Brooke’s mouth. I pushed my chair back abruptly. “Excuse me, I need to use the restroom.” As the heavy door of the restroom swung shut behind me, I heard two female classmates talking near the vanity mirrors, their voices lowered. “Honestly, Mallory has insane patience.” “If it were me, I would’ve blown up weeks ago.” “Right? Her boyfriend and her best friend are practically attached at the hip. Who could tolerate that?” I leaned against the cold wooden door frame of a stall, closing my eyes tightly. They were right. I “had” tolerated it. Because I had been terrified of letting go. I had been holding onto four years of history, holding onto the ghost of who we used to be. I remembered freshman year when I caught a horrific flu and Tyler literally carried me on his back to the urgent care clinic in a snowstorm. I remembered sophomore year when a bad work shift left me crying, and he sat with me on the curb outside campus until midnight, holding my hand. Those moments of genuine care had been real. And so, every time he hurt me later, I manufactured excuses for him. I lied to myself that he was just oblivious, that he just lacked boundaries, not that he didn’t care. Standing in that bathroom stall, the illusion finally shattered. He wasn’t oblivious. He just didn’t love me enough. When I emerged from the restroom, my eyes were rimmed with red. My phone screen chimed in my hand. It was an email from the firm in New York. [Dear Mallory, We are pleased to inform you that you have passed the final interview round…] I stood before the mirror, staring at the formal offer letter for a long, quiet minute. Then, I wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes, tapped the screen, and clicked “Accept Offer”. When I returned to the banquet table, the group was still laughing. Tyler looked up at me, his brow furrowed slightly. “What took you so long? Everyone’s waiting on you.” I pulled out my chair, sat down, and rested my phone face-up on the tablecloth. I looked directly across at Tyler and Brooke. For the first time in my life, I stopped backing down. “You both seem so convinced that I’m incapable of surviving in New York,” I said, my voice quiet, flat, and remarkably steady. The chatter around the table slowly died down. I looked Tyler dead in the eye, pronouncing every word with deliberate precision. “So I think I’ll go and prove you wrong.” The second-round interview had actually taken place two days prior. The hiring director had been blunt: “The base salary is modest, you’ll be covering your own relocation and housing, and the probation metrics are demanding. Why do you still want this?” I had looked straight into the camera lens and replied, “Because I owe it to myself to try. If I give up before I even step onto the field just because someone told me I couldn’t make it, I’ll spend the rest of my life living in regret.” Three days later, the formal contract arrived in my inbox. The pay was modest, and the title carried no glitz. Compared to the lucrative corporate offers Tyler and Brooke bragged about, my offer belonged to a completely different world. But as I stared at that digital document, my hand didn’t shake when I signed my name. Because for the first time, this success belonged entirely to me. During the final week before move-out, Tyler and Brooke were consumed with onboarding paperwork, purchasing matching high-end luggage sets, and researching luxury apartments near their financial district offices. They were constantly huddled together, whispering about transit lines, trendy rooftop bars, and where they would go to celebrate their very first paychecks. I sat a few feet away, invisible, an absolute outsider. I had my own reality to manage. I lugged my heavy college textbooks down to a local secondhand shop. The store owner sniffed at the older editions, slashing the quote lower and lower. I stood at the counter haggling for twenty minutes, finally walking away with a paltry extra twenty dollars in cash. I hauled my bedding and winter coats to the post office to ship them ahead. Watching the scale register the weight, my heart sank at the shipping fee, but I bit my lip and swiped my card anyway. At night, while my room went dark, I scrolled endlessly through sketchy, low-cost rental listings in New York. The deeper I looked, the more suffocated I felt. The affordable places were hours away from the office in industrial zones; the manageable locations were financially crippling. Phrases like “First, Last, and Security Deposit Required” felt like an iron weight crushing my chest. Moving to a massive city completely alone meant every single detail had to be painstakingly calculated out of my own pocket. Yet, I didn’t utter a single word of complaint to Tyler. On move-out day, the quad outside the dorms was pure chaos. Brooke’s luggage was by far the largest—three oversized designer suitcases and two stuffed wardrobe bags. Tyler moved her gear tirelessly, running up and down the stairs half a dozen times, even renting a heavy-duty hand truck to make sure her things weren’t scuffed. Brooke stood in the shade of a oak tree, holding an iced matcha latte, cooing, “Oh Tyler, you’re working so hard, thank you!” Tyler wiped sweat from his forehead, giving her a bright smile. “Don’t lift a finger. I’ve got it.” I stood at the top of the sixth-floor stairwell, looking down at my two heavy bags resting against my knees. There was no point waiting. I gripped the handles and dragged them down myself. Step by step, the wheels thuffed loudly against the concrete stairs. Halfway down, a zipper caught on the handrail. I bent over to yank it free, the rough strap slicing into my palm until skin rubbed raw. On the fourth floor, a younger sorority girl walking up stopped to hold the heavy fire door open for me. She looked at my flushed face, then looked around carefully. “Hey… where’s your boyfriend?” she asked hesitantly. I paused, breathing heavily, before offering a faint, hollow response. “He’s busy.” She followed my gaze down toward the courtyard, saw Tyler carefully loading Brooke’s bags into a sleek SUV, and quietly looked away without asking another question. By the time I dragged my last trunk out into the driveway, the skin on my right palm was torn and stinging. Only then did Tyler finally notice me. He trotted over, his forehead furrowed in deep irritation. “Mallory, seriously, haven’t you dragged this dramatic tantrum out long enough?” He gestured vaguely at my bags. “If you’re really going to foolishly follow us to New York, don’t expect me to babysit you every step of the way like I used to.” Brooke walked over, holding her cold drink, her tone dripping with mock sympathy. “Yeah, Mallory, our apartment lease is already finalized. It’s strictly a two-bedroom layout, so there’s literally no room to squeeze an extra person in.” “A two-bedroom layout.” One room for him. One room for her. From the very beginning, there had never been a space carved out for me. My heart felt entirely hollowed out, as if a cold wind were blowing through my chest. But I refused to give them the satisfaction of a breakdown. I straightened my posture, adjusted the handles of my bags, and walked toward the train station ahead of them. While waiting on the platform, Tyler and Brooke sat side by side on a wooden bench, double-checking their train tickets and discussing what outfits to wear for their orientation day. I sat alone on a cold metal chair twenty yards away, chewing silently on a dry bagel I’d bought from a vending machine. The overhead speaker crackled to life, announcing the arrival of the train. Tyler finally tossed a glance over his shoulder at me. “Alright, let’s go. Keep up and don’t get lost—you don’t know the city.” I dragged my bags toward the turnstiles. The scanner read my ticket, the indicator flashed green, and I walked straight through the gate. Tyler stepped up behind me, scanned his pass, and frowned as he noticed the boarding zone listed on my ticket. “Wait, why isn’t your seat in our car?” Brooke stopped behind him, perplexed. I came to a halt, turned around slowly, and flipped my physical ticket over so the printed destination faced them. The destination was crystal clear: “New York Penn Station.” But the train line and departure time were entirely different from theirs. Tyler stared at the bold ink on the paper, the color draining rapidly from his face. “What is this supposed to mean?” Looking at his dumbfounded expression, the suffocating knot that had been strangling my lungs for weeks finally began to unwind. I looked him dead in the eye, speaking every word with absolute clarity. “Who said I was taking the same journey as you?”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “561661”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

My fiancé, Damon, worshipped efficiency above all else. To him, anything that couldn’t be measured in optimized minutes was a waste of life. When it came time to practice our wedding procession, he skipped it, calling rehearsal a useless exercise. When we went to City Hall to get our marriage license and saw a line stretching out the door, he turned on his heel and walked away. So on Valentine’s Day, I made sure to reserve a table at an exclusive private dining club in the West Village—one that required no waiting—and went straight to his office building after work to pick him up. As I stepped into the polished marble lobby, I overheard two junior employees whispering near the security turnstiles: “Mr. Meredith has been queuing up at the employee elevator every single evening just so he can walk out with Calla.” I froze. Just beyond the turnstiles, Damon—a man who usually treated queues like a personal insult—was standing at the very back of a crowded line, talking casually with my best friend, Calla, who had been working as his executive assistant for the past year. When the elevator reached the main floor, I walked up to them. The moment Damon caught sight of me, his face hardened into an unmistakable frown. “Juliette,” he said, his voice clipped and cold. “We haven’t even signed the papers or thrown the reception yet. Are you really that desperate to mark your territory as the CEO’s wife?” I stood there, speechless. To avoid company rumors, Damon had strictly forbidden me from ever visiting his office. The only reason I had rushed over today—enduring a painful twenty-minute sprint in three-inch heels—was because I was terrified he would cancel our dinner date if he thought it was taking too long. Before I could explain, Calla gasped, looking flustered. “Oh no, I left my laptop upstairs! I have to run back up. Don’t wait for me, guys.” Damon immediately reached out, placing a steady, gentle hand on her shoulder. His tone softened in a way I hadn’t heard in months. “I’ll get it for you. You take Juliette outside first.” Without another word, he turned back and rejoined the long line for the elevator. In that quiet, crystalline second, something inside me broke. I finally understood: this relationship, which he deemed unbefitting of his precious time, had reached its end. … Damon was gone for thirty minutes. During those thirty minutes, Calla called his phone five times. He answered every single call, staying on the line until Calla decided to hang up first. I sat in the back of his sleek black sedan, feeling strangely detached. Damon had a strict rule with me: no phone call could ever exceed two minutes. If we hit the two-minute mark, he would cut me off mid-sentence. Just last night, I had called him to ask for the code to our new smart lock. After I punched in the wrong numbers twice, the two-minute limit expired. He hung up without hesitation. I had been left squatting outside our apartment door for two hours until he finally came home. When I asked why he hadn’t at least replied to my text, he offered a piece of blunt logic that left me speechless: “Juliette, just because you have nothing better to do doesn’t mean I’m not busy.” The car engine purred to life. Calla slipped effortlessly into the front passenger seat. Outside the window, the lingering staff members didn’t bother hiding their quiet chatter. “Mr. Meredith is so good to Calla. Rain or shine, he drives her home every day.” “Whenever Calla’s in the room, his meetings always run ten minutes longer than usual.” “The ultimate efficiency-obsessed CEO turns into a soft-hearted puppy for love? I am so shipping this.” Calla put on an embarrassed smile, though the corners of her lips curled up in clear satisfaction. “Juliette, don’t pay any attention to them. They’re just joking. They even photoshopped our headshots onto a fake marriage certificate the other day.” She opened her phone, pulling up a curated photo album to show me the joke. Sitting in the backseat, I couldn’t bring myself to smile. “Anyone who didn’t know better would think you two were the ones actually getting married.” Damon’s tone instantly dropped several degrees into icy territory. “It’s one thing for strangers to gossip, Juliette. But Calla is your best friend. Are you really picking a fight with her?” Calla quickly played the peacemaker. “It’s a special night, Damon. As long as Juliette’s happy, I really don’t mind.” Damon’s jaw remained tight. “She only cares about her own mood. Showing up unannounced without a second thought for how it affects anyone else. Juliette, I’ve told you repeatedly that I won’t have our marriage news jeopardizing the company’s IPO timeline. Don’t ever come to the office again.” My eyes drifted to the center console, where a delicate silver earring sat—one that belonged to Calla. “If rumors are such a threat,” I asked softly, “then why doesn’t your fake marriage certificate with Calla require any discretion?” Damon knit his brows in profound irritation. “Because an innocent conscience needs no defense!” I let out a bitter, silent laugh. Their fake marriage certificate was innocent and harmless. My quiet, invisible presence was a nuisance that threatened his corporate valuation. Calla pulled lightly on Damon’s sleeve. “Juliette made a reservation at a private dining spot. I’m starving—can we all go together?” Damon paused for a moment, meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror. “If you booked a table, you should have mentioned it sooner instead of letting Calla wander around the streets hungry with you.” What was meant to be an intimate romantic dinner for two became an awkward table for three. When the appetizers arrived, I quietly passed my portion over to Calla. Midway through the meal, my mother called to ask about the guest list for the wedding. She asked if she could speak to Damon for a second. He took the phone from my hand. My mother, her voice sweet and hopeful, asked if we had picked an auspicious date yet. “Any day is fine, Mrs. Meredith,” Damon said, his tone brisk and clinical. “Let’s not waste time stressing over these trivial customs. We’re in the middle of something right now. Goodbye.” He cut her off cleanly, ending the call before handing the phone back to me as if he had just signed off on a routine email. “Juliette, I know you’re obsessed with details, but I want this wedding kept as bare-bones as possible.” A heavy, suffocating pressure slammed into my chest. Seconds later, my phone buzzed with a series of frantic text messages from my mother: “Honey, I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize you two were busy.” “Please apologize to Damon for me. I’ll make sure to schedule a time with him before calling next time.” “About the wedding… there’s no rush. Really, no rush at all.” I lost every ounce of my appetite. Mumbling an excuse, I slipped out toward the restroom. I leaned against the brick wall of the restaurant’s private inner courtyard. Through the glass window, I could hear Calla’s bright, dramatic laughter. She was gossiping about office politics, and Damon was listening in absolute quiet, chuckling softly whenever she hit a punchline. I remembered the time I had tried to tell Damon about a toxic conflict I was facing at my own job. Before I could even finish my first sentence, he had cut me off: “Juliette, do you honestly believe I have the bandwidth for your petty drama?” He didn’t hate inefficiency. He just didn’t think I was worth his time. Standing in the cold night air, I pulled out my phone and texted my mother: “Mom, the wedding is canceled.” I went straight to the front desk, paid the bill, and took an Uber home alone. … Damon didn’t return to the apartment until four in the morning. Seeing me curled up on the living room sofa, he flicked a brief glance in my direction before returning his gaze to his phone screen. “You looked pale at dinner. Stomach spasms acting up again?” My heart gave an unexpected, painful flutter as a memory rushed back. When I first moved to the city to be with him, the intense stress gave me severe, debilitating stomach cramps. During the worst flare-up, Damon had literally dragged his laptop into my hospital room, working by my side while watching over my IV drip. Later, terrified of occupying his valuable time, I learned to keep quiet and slip away whenever the pain struck. Remembering that old warmth, the cold anger in my chest softened slightly. I looked up at him and spoke calmly. “Damon, about getting our marriage license—” “Juliette, put a cap on your endless jealousy,” he interrupted, his forehead creasing with familiar impatience. “If you’re only dragging me to City Hall because you’re throwing a fit over Calla’s fake certificate, it just proves you’re trapped in a cycle of meaningless emotional drain.” Before I could speak, his phone rang. He picked it up immediately and walked into the bedroom. Through the cracked door, Calla’s anxious voice leaked out. “Boss, tomorrow’s promotion presentation is in front of the entire executive board. I’m so nervous I can barely breathe.” Damon’s voice was instantly steady, grounding, and patient. “Don’t be scared. I’ll go through the deck with you again right now.” The sentence I had been about to say—”Let’s just forget about the marriage license altogether”—was swallowed by the heavy click of the bedroom door closing. The last remaining ember in my heart went completely cold. … The next day after work, my phone rang. It was Calla. “Juliette! I passed my promotion review today! I even managed to extort a gorgeous new designer dress out of Damon!” she squealed. “He said while we’re out shopping, we might as well get your stuff taken care of, too.” I frowned. “What stuff?” Damon’s voice came through the speaker, carrying a short, dry chuckle. “Aren’t you the one in such a hurry to get married? We need to order a wedding gown, don’t we?” My throat tightened. “So you’re accompanying Calla to buy a dress, and “incidentally” taking me to order a gown?” “Batch processing similar errands maximizes efficiency,” he replied naturally, as if stating a mathematical fact. A bitter taste bloomed on the back of my tongue. “In your mind, getting married and taking another woman dress shopping are the exact same category of task?” “Juliette, stop obsessing over useless details,” he snapped, clearly exasperated. Twenty minutes later, he pulled up outside my office building to pick me up. After waiting for Calla to pick out her designer outfit, we walked into an high-end bridal boutique. Stepping across the plush carpet, an overwhelming sense of exhaustion washed over me. “Never mind,” I said quietly, turning toward the exit. “Let’s just go.” Calla immediately grabbed my arm, dragging me back inside. “Oh, don’t be like that! I actually want to try some on, too!” She excitedly grabbed three elaborate gowns and disappeared into the fitting suite. I stood there numbly, eventually putting on a simple lace gown, holding onto a foolish, tiny shred of hope—a hope that Damon might look at me and remember the night he graduated from college, when he had fallen to his knees on the track field, his eyes shining as he begged me to spend the rest of my life with him. But when I pulled back the fitting room curtain, Damon wasn’t looking for me. He was holding up his smartphone, patiently following Calla’s playful instructions as he took photos of her. Three gowns, two hours, over three hundred photos. He had thrown his entire church of efficiency out the window, showing not a single trace of annoyance. When he finally noticed me, he looked genuinely bewildered. “Why haven’t you changed into your dress yet?” I forced a faint, hollow smile. “I won’t be needing it anyway.” His brows pulled together, his face wearing that familiar, tired expression of a man dealing with an unreasonable child. “Juliette, I don’t have time to book another appointment and do this all over again.” Calla twirled in her gown, holding onto the train with a pleading look. “Juliette, can I wear a full wedding dress as your maid of honor? Please?” Damon walked toward the register to pay. I shrugged lightly. “Whatever you want.” … On the drive back, my phone rang again. It was my mother. She had boarded a long-distance bus all by herself from her small town over a thousand miles away, coming to the city just to see me. I knew why she was here—she had heard me say the wedding was off, and she wanted to talk to Damon in person to smooth things over. “Damon, my mom just arrived at Penn Station,” I said, turning to him. “Can we swing by and pick her up?” My mother couldn’t navigate digital maps, and taxi drivers in the city frequently took advantage of out-of-towners. Instead of responding, Damon slammed his hands on the steering wheel, jerking the car sharply to the curb. “Juliette, we had a strict agreement: keep our parents out of our personal life,” he said coldly. “Family relationships are far too complex, and eighty percent of parental interactions are nothing more than a meaningless drain on energy.” I stared at him, unable to speak. He clicked the unlock button on the door panel. “Go get her yourself.” Even if my mother was lost and helpless in a terrifyingly massive city, to him, she was nothing more than an inefficient burden. The heavy, humid summer heat slapped me in the face the moment I stepped out of the car. My entire body felt ice-cold. The sedan roared off down the avenue. Through the crack of the passenger window, Calla’s soothing voice drifted back to me: “Damon, Juliette’s always been a little high-maintenance. You have to be more patient with her… Hey, I heard late-night street food cures all bad moods. Want to go?” Damon’s heavy mood instantly vanished, his voice light and fond. “If you want food, just say so.” … I picked up my mother, brought her to a hotel near the station, and went back to our apartment to pack a small bag so I could stay with her. Lying beside her on the twin bed that night, tears I had held back for days finally burst through the dam. My mother stayed awake, her rough hand gently patting my chest over and over, asking softly, “Juliette… do you want to come home?” The home she meant wasn’t the small Midwestern town where she lived with my stepfather. It was the quiet, misty coastal village in New England where my grandmother had raised me. The next morning, after seeing my mother off on her train, I returned to the apartment to pack the rest of my belongings. When I unlocked the front door, I was met with a scene I never expected. Calla was sitting in our living room, playing cards with a group of our mutual coworkers from the company. When the door opened, sharp, hostile eyes darted between Calla and me. One of the junior analysts frowned. “Calla, who is this?” Calla lowered her head, biting her lip and sending me an exaggerated, helpless look. I walked straight past the living room, my voice flat. “I’m Damon’s girlfriend.” Calla’s face drained of color for a second before she forced a laugh. “Wait, really? I’ve never heard Damon mention he had a girlfriend.” The room immediately erupted into snickers. “Yeah, Mr. Meredith’s only official girlfriend is Calla.” “Wait, I remember her! She was the crazy woman lurking suspiciously by the elevators the other day! Are you some kind of stalker?” They treated Calla like the undisputed mistress of the house. “Calla, this woman is clearly unhinged. What should we do?” I ignored them entirely, stepping into the master bedroom to pull my suitcase out of the closet. Suddenly, Calla’s sharp voice barked from the doorway: “Hey! Stop digging through other people’s private belongings! Get out right now, or I’m calling security!” I turned to look at her, a profound sense of absurdity washing over me. This was my best friend—the woman who had witnessed every single day of my ten-year journey with Damon. And now, she was throwing me out of my own home. Damon stepped out of the home office. Seeing me swarmed by his employees, dragged and shoved around until my top was ripped at the shoulder, a fleeting flash of hesitation crossed his eyes. But when the team surrounding him shouted that I was a stalker and demanded security be called, he cleared his throat, his face hardening into an unreadable mask. “I don’t know her,” he said clearly. In the end, building security dragged me forcibly out of the complex and dumped me on the sidewalk. … I crouched on the pavement outside the main gates for six hours. The deep red scratches on my arms stung painfully under the scorching summer sun, the sweat biting into the raw skin. But the sharper the physical pain, the clearer my mind became. It wasn’t until Damon and Calla finally walked his coworkers out that they came over to where I was sitting. Calla began sobbing instantly. “Juliette, I’m so, so sorry! I ruined everything… please don’t blame Damon!” She choked out an explanation through her tears, claiming she had accidentally posted a picture of her bridal fitting on her public social media page. “I didn’t realize the fitting room mirror captured Damon standing in the background,” she sniffled. “Everyone started spamming the comments asking when our wedding date was… I panicked, so I just said ‘soon’…” Watching her performance, a wave of nausea hit me. “Calla, whether you posted that picture by accident or on purpose, you know the truth in your heart.” Calla choked on her breath. “Juliette… you don’t trust me?” Damon stepped forward, tossing a tube of antiseptic ointment onto the ground in front of me. Whatever guilt he had felt earlier was entirely gone, replaced by pure irritation. “Juliette, how much longer are you going to draw out this scene?” He gestured dismissively toward the street. “So what if they misunderstand? At the end of the day, the person I actually sign the marriage license with will be you. Letting them believe Calla is my fiancée saves us from having to waste time crafting a redundant corporate statement. I don’t see any issue with it.” A laugh escaped my throat—a raw, ragged sound. I mourned for the ten years of my youth I had poured into him. I mourned for every single day I had forced myself to live in the shadows just so he could ‘avoid rumors.’ “Damon! What am I to you? A hidden mistress holding a private piece of paper with no public existence? How long do you plan to keep me buried?” “So you finally admit it!” Damon looked at me with profound disappointment. “All this drama is just a cheap trick to force me into going public!” He shook his head, disgusted. “You always have this terrible habit of complicating simple things just to satisfy your own insecurity. You really need to take a page out of Calla’s book. She’s endured company rumors for years, and she always laughs it off gracefully.” He reached out, placing a firm, protective arm around Calla’s shoulders as he turned toward the gates. “Her emotional instability is her own problem, Calla. We don’t need to waste any more time standing here with her.” Calla kept glancing back over her shoulder, looking fake-concerned. “Maybe… maybe I should move back to my old apartment and let Juliette come inside?” Damon’s posture grew even more unyielding. “No. Staying together is the most efficient, direct proof of our partnership. Next month, our marriage press release will be published right alongside the IPO announcement.” … I blocked every single contact detail for both Damon and Calla. I went straight to my office, handed in my immediate resignation, and packed up my desk. I gave up everything I had built in the city and bought a one-way train ticket back to my grandmother’s coastal town. But as I walked through the security gates at the station, two transit officers stepped into my path. “Excuse me, ma’am,” one of them said grimly. “You are currently listed as the prime suspect in an active residential burglary case. You’ll need to come with us.” I stared at her, stunned. “What? That’s impossible. There’s been a mistake!” “You can explain that at the precinct,” the officer replied coldly. Within minutes, metal handcuffs clicked around my wrists, and I was escorted into a police cruiser. At the precinct station, Damon and Calla were already waiting in the lobby, holding a signed liability waiver. And just like that, through a twisted loop of legal coercion, I was led back to Damon’s apartment. Damon forced me down into a chair at the dining table before turning on the stove to make me a bowl of soup. Calla sat directly across from me. The moment the loud hum of the kitchen range hood kicked in, the timid look on Calla’s face vanished. A triumphant smile spread across her features. “Juliette, why don’t you just break up with him?” In the past, I had always thought Calla was too deeply scarred by her cheating ex-boyfriend to ever pursue romance again. It took a series of calculated betrayals for me to finally see the truth: she had set her sights on Damon a long time ago. “Calla, from the moment I recommended you for the assistant position at his company, you were already hunting him, weren’t you?” “Juliette, you had ten years of good fortune with him,” she said softly, leaning closer. “It’s my turn to marry a wealthy, powerful man.” She reached across the table as if to take my hand, but then suddenly jerked her arm back with a blood-curdling scream, violently knocking her chair over backward. Damon rushed out of the kitchen with a steaming bowl of tomato noodles. Seeing Calla cowering on the floor with tear-filled eyes, his gaze locked onto me like a weapon. I sat there quietly, holding my hand open to reveal a simple silver ring resting in my palm. Damon grabbed Calla’s hand, carefully inspecting her skin. “It’s fine, just a tiny scrape.” When he turned back to me, his eyes were filled with pure revulsion. “Juliette, stealing her ring won’t magically make you the bride,” he spat. “The only reason I brought you back here was so you could pay for your mistakes, not so you could compete with Calla over a wedding.” He still honestly believed I was doing all of this out of petty jealousy. Calla choked back her tears, pulling on his sleeve. “Forget it, Damon… if Juliette wants the ring so badly, just let her have it.” I casually dropped the ring into the bowl of hot soup. It whirled briefly against the rim before sinking to the bottom. A bowl of homemade tomato noodles and a silver engagement ring—that was once the entire scope of the home I had dreamed of building with him. “You can keep it,” I said calmly. “I wish you two a lifetime of happiness.” Something in my tone hit Damon like a physical strike. A flicker of deep, instinctual anguish flashed across his face. But he was a man ruled entirely by cold logic, accustomed to suppressing human emotion. “There are rumors circulating at the office that I’m caught in a love triangle between you and Calla,” he said, his voice hardening again. “The most efficient way to squash those rumors is for you to attend our wedding as a guest.” A burst of laughter spilled from my lips. I laughed so hard my chest hurt, my whole body trembling with the absurdity of it all. “And what if I refuse?” “Then today’s ring incident remains a criminal theft,” he said, his voice dropping into a dangerous register. He pressed the liability waiver down over the bowl. “A second offense means no bail. You can spend the next few years in prison.” Ten years of beautiful memories were crushed under the weight of his threat. “Fine,” I said, looking him dead in the eye. “After the wedding, we owe each other nothing.” An unexplained wave of panic washed over Damon, but he quickly forced a confident smile. “The day after the wedding, I’ll take you to City Hall to sign our marriage license.” … On the day of the wedding, Calla sat in her private bridal suite, dressed in an exquisite white gown. She pulled out her phone and sent me a video of my arrest at the train station. “Juliette, you’re famous now!” she texted alongside the video. “With a criminal record on your file, you’ll never be able to survive in this city again.” I stared at the screen, my face emotionless as I scrolled down the long feed of comments. “Does destroying me make you feel secure in your position as Mrs. Meredith?” I replied. Calla adjusted her lace veil in the mirror, her smile resembling that of a thief who had successfully gotten away with a vault. “My sweetest best friend,” she texted back, “make sure you’re ready to catch my bouquet later!” … Standing on the grand stage under the dazzling chandeliers, I stepped forward to present the wedding rings to Damon. For a fraction of a second, his mind seemed to go completely blank as he stared at me. Yet, following the script, he slowly slid the ring onto Calla’s finger. I turned around and walked out of the venue, stepping out of his world without a single backward glance. Damon woke up the next morning with a blinding, hungover headache. Calla brought a bowl of hot oatmeal to his bedside, softly encouraging him to eat before leaving the house. “I don’t have time,” Damon said, pushing the tray aside as he threw on his jacket. “Juliette is waiting for me at City Hall.” Calla sat on the edge of the bed, slowly stirring her spoon against the porcelain bowl. “Don’t bother going, Damon. Juliette’s gone.” Damon’s hand froze on the doorknob. “Gone where? Her mother’s town? She certainly knows how to create unnecessary trouble for me… I’m going to pick her up.” Ignoring Calla’s shouting behind him, he walked straight out the door. When he arrived at the run-down apartment building where my mother used to live and knocked on the door, a stranger opened it. “Who are you looking for?” the tenant asked, leaning against the doorframe. “There’s no Miss Juliette here.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “561660”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The chemical blast in the organic chemistry lab blew out the back windows and lit up the room in a flash of blinding white heat. Fire instantly choked off the main exit. In the panicked frenzy, the crowd shoved Chloe and me straight toward Callum, my secret girlfriend of three years. Instinct took over. I reached out for her hand. Callum flinched. To maintain her precious “”professional boundaries,”” she grabbed my wrist and shoved me into the arms of a female student passing by. Then, without missing a beat, she scooped Chloe up from the corner where she’d collapsed, cradling her close to her chest, and charged through the flames. She didn’t look back once. Not even as the dark, heavy smoke filled my lungs and I crumpled to the floor. When I finally woke up, it was to the agonizing sting of a nurse scraping charred skin and debris off my back at the campus clinic. In the hallway outside, my classmates were gathered in a noisy queue, their hushed, animated gossip drifting through the thin curtain. “”The department head is still trying to figure out who messed up the chemical ratio,”” one guy said. “”Nobody’s allowed to leave yet. Whoever caused this mess is definitely getting an F for the semester.”” “”An F is getting off easy,”” another piped up. “”Look how many of us got burned! We’re all sitting here bleeding, while Callum took Chloe straight to the university medical center! Did you see how she shielded her when the flask detonated?”” “”She’s usually so cold to everyone, but she treats Chloe like she’s made of glass. I swear, those two have to be dating.”” The curtain pulled back, and one of them glanced in. “”Oh—hey. Are you okay? Why are you crying?”” She offered a flimsy paper napkin, her voice softening with superficial pity. “”It’s alright. Short-term pain is better than long-term suffering. You’ll feel better in a bit.”” I took the napkin, wiped my wet cheeks, and nodded. “”You’re right,”” I whispered. “”Short-term pain is better.”” This relationship needed to end. Today. … “”We’re done. Let’s break up.”” I sent the text. It vanished into the void, unanswered. I was used to it. Callum kept dozens of contacts pinned at the top of his messages, but I was never one of them. Loud laughter erupted from the far end of the hallway. I looked out just in time to see Callum pushing Chloe through the double doors in a wheelchair, heading toward the private VIP suites. A few of our lab mates trotted behind them, exchanging knowing glances. “”Those VIP suites are impossible to book,”” Wayne swooned. “”Callum really cares about you, Chloe!”” “”I know, right?”” another chimed in. “”That stoic, protective energy? They are so cute together.”” I held onto the doorframe so tightly my knuckles turned white. Six months ago, my mother suffered a brain hemorrhage. I had run into Callum’s office, tears streaming down my face, begging her to use her faculty connections to help secure a private room for her. She had rejected me in front of the entire department. “”I’m sorry,”” she’d said, her voice stiff and formal. “”I won’t abuse my position for a student.”” Later that night, she sent me a brief text: “”I had to maintain boundaries in front of the team. Don’t overthink it. Besides, the VIP floor was full anyway. Your mom will be fine in the general ward for now.”” Always that line. “”Maintain boundaries.”” For three years in her research lab, whenever grant opportunities or author credits came up, Callum was always the first to scratch my name off the list—even when I was the most qualified person in the room. “”You’re talented,”” she would tell me in private. “”But because of that, we have to be even more careful. If people find out about us, they’ll think you earned your grades in my bed.”” Because of her icy attitude toward me, our classmates assumed I had somehow offended her. No one talked to me. No one sat next to me in seminars. None of them had any idea that Callum and I had grown up on the same street, or that we had been sleeping together for three years. I forced a bitter smile. “”Family for Bed One, please come to the desk for billing,”” a nurse called out. Callum immediately stepped forward. “”I’ve got it.”” The moment she walked off, the guys in the hallway let out a collective whistle and jeer. “”She just claimed the ‘family’ spot!”” “”Chloe, stop playing coy! Is she courting you or what?”” Chloe gave a shy, delicate smile, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “”Callum is just being nice.”” “”Oh, please! Why isn’t she nice to anyone else?”” Wayne countered. “”Remember last semester when Nathan begged her for help and she shut him down completely?”” I couldn’t stand to listen to another word. I turned around—and ran right into Callum. She had clearly heard the noise, too. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, looking exasperated. “”Chloe comes from a tough background,”” she murmured, leaning down so only I could hear. “”Besides, she knows about us. I have to treat everyone with equal care so no one suspects anything between you and me.”” She genuinely expected me to understand. I almost laughed out loud. Equal care? Is that why she skipped our third anniversary dinner to help her edit her basic literature review? Is that why, when Chloe casually mentioned she was sensitive to the cold, she took the scarf I had spent a month hand-knitting for her and wrapped it around her neck? “”She was shivering, Nathan,”” she’d rationalized afterward. “”I couldn’t just stand there and give you attention while ignoring her.”” And her idea of “”caring for everyone”” usually amounted to buying a single round of cheap coffee for the whole lab—while giving her her undivided attention. For years, I had lied to myself, pretending they were just a dedicated mentor and an earnest student. But today, the illusion was shattered. “”Hi, delivery for Bed One?”” A courier stepped up, holding two bags. One of them contained the specific chicken and ginger porridge Callum always ordered for me when I was sick. Callum took it from the courier, stepped right past me, and set it on Chloe’s bedside table. “”Chloe, eat something first.”” Chloe looked up at me with a sweet, innocent smile. “”Nathan, why don’t you join us? This place is amazing—I actually recommended it to Callum a few weeks ago.”” My head throbbed with a dull, sickening ache. Callum shoved the second bag—a greasy bowl of takeout rice—into my hands. “”You can eat this one.”” She helped Chloe back into her room and pulled the door shut. The moment the latch clicked, Wayne spun around and glared at me. “”Nathan, do you have zero situational awareness? Everyone knows that’s Chloe’s special order from Callum. Are you seriously trying to leech off her food? You’re always hovering around him—are you trying to be a homewrecker?”” “”Yeah,”” another guy muttered. “”Have some self-respect.”” My hands trembled around the plastic bag. “”I’m not… I’m actually—”” The door opened again. Callum stood in the entryway, looking at me with cold disappointment. “”Nathan, that’s enough,”” she warned. “”Stop causing a scene. Chloe needs rest.”” The door clicked shut again. I stood alone in the sterile corridor, my fingernails digging into my palms until they bled. My phone vibrated in my pocket. “”Your graduate application for Oakridge University has passed initial review. Please log in to confirm your final program selection.”” I wiped the tears from my face, logged into the portal, deleted my application for Oakridge, and selected a university a thousand miles away, out West. … Back in my dorm room that evening, my phone buzzed with an incoming call from Callum. “”Nathan, don’t be mad about earlier,”” she said the second I picked up. “”I couldn’t acknowledge you in public. Saving Chloe first was about keeping up appearances. The department chair was standing right outside. If I’d prioritized you, people would have questioned our relationship.”” Chloe’s timid voice bled into the background. “”Nathan, please don’t be upset with her. I really just view Callum as an older brother figure…”” Callum immediately cut back in. “”See? You hear that? Get some sleep. I’ll come check on you tomorrow.”” Before she could hang up, Chloe let out a soft, breathy sob. “”Callum… my head hurts so much. Can you stay a little longer? Just talk to me until I fall asleep?”” Callum’s voice softened instantly into a tone I hadn’t heard in years. “”Shh, go to sleep. I’m right here.”” “”Won’t Nathan be angry?”” “”Don’t worry,”” Callum replied gently. “”He wouldn’t dare.”” I hung up, my hands shaking uncontrollably. Last month, I had cramps so severe I couldn’t stand up straight in the lab. I texted her asking if she could drop off a box of painkillers from the campus pharmacy downstairs. She had texted back: “”There are too many people around. It doesn’t look good for me to run errands for you. Order door dash instead.”” Two minutes later, she had added: “”Drink some warm water.”” I squeezed my eyes shut against the dark. … The next afternoon, after the nurse changed my bandages, Callum finally dropped by. She frowned when she saw me sitting in a cramped, noisy four-bed ward. “”Why didn’t you tell me you were stuck in a general ward?”” she asked, grabbing my hand. “”Come on, I’ll transfer you to a private room.”” I pulled my hand out of her grip. “”No thanks. Wouldn’t that violate your precious boundaries?”” Her brow furrowed sharply. “”Stop being cynical. I already apologized for yesterday.”” Ignoring my protest, she pulled strings to move me into a private room—right next door to Chloe’s. An hour later, Chloe popped in to “”visit.”” As she reached up to adjust her hair, a worn amber bead bracelet slid down her wrist, catching the fluorescent light. I froze. My breath hitched in my throat. When Callum was in a car accident last year, I spent three days traveling to a mountain sanctuary, climbing nearly a thousand stone steps on my knees to pray for that blessed charm to keep her safe. My knees had been swollen and bruised for weeks after. Callum had held me in her arms, tears in her eyes, swearing she would spend the rest of her life making it up to me. My voice was barely a whisper. “”That bracelet…”” “”Oh, this?”” Chloe touched the beads gently. “”Callum gave it to me. He said after the lab accident, he wanted me to have something for protection. It’s so pretty, and honestly, it makes me feel so safe. Do you know where he got it?”” A cold, hollow ache spread through my chest. Callum stepped into the room behind her and caught my hand, squeezing it warningly. “”Nathan, I did it for the lab’s sake. We can’t afford another disaster.”” “”Right.”” I pulled my hand away and offered a faint smile. “”It’s your bracelet. You can give it to whoever you want.”” She stunned into silence. She had clearly expected me to throw a fit, to demand why she had given away something I suffered so much to get for her. She didn’t realize that I simply didn’t care anymore. Footsteps echoed outside, and two university officials pushed open the door, accompanied by a campus safety investigator. “”We’re here to take statements regarding the cause of the explosion,”” the investigator announced. I knew exactly what had happened. I had seen it with my own eyes—Chloe had bypassed the safety ventilation protocol while handling concentrated nitric acid. I opened my mouth to speak. Before I could utter a word, Callum stepped forward and pointed straight at me. “”It was Nathan,”” she said smoothly. “”He committed a procedural error, which triggered the reaction.”” I stared at her, my mind going blank. “”What? Callum, it wasn’t me! It was Chloe—I was standing right next to her—”” “”I can testify to that!”” Wayne and a few other lab members pushed into the room. Wayne pointed an accusing finger at my face. “”Don’t lie your way out of this, Nathan! We all saw you mess up! How dare you try to pin this on Chloe?”” “”Exactly,”” another student added. “”Chloe was clear across the table. How could it be her?”” Chloe’s eyes welled with tears. “”Nathan, I know you didn’t mean to do it. If you just apologize, I’m sure everyone will forgive you…”” I looked at Callum, waiting for her to say something. Anything. She avoided my eyes, turning to the officials instead. “”As you can see, Nathan was at fault. However, as the teaching assistant, I failed to supervise him properly. I will personally cover all financial damages to the lab equipment.”” Wayne let out a dramatic sigh. “”Callum, you are way too nice to him. Someone who causes a disaster like this deserves real punishment!”” “”Seriously! He almost got us killed!”” Callum put on her usual noble, forgiving facade. “”It’s fine. Nathan is my student. I’ll take responsibility for the cost.”” The university official nodded grimly. “”We appreciate your accountability, Callum. But Nathan will still face formal academic discipline.”” … Once the room cleared out, Callum caught my arm and dragged me into the quiet stairwell. “”Nathan, I’m sorry,”” she whispered, her voice tight. “”I had to do it. It’s all about maintaining boundaries. Besides, Chloe is up for early master’s program recommendation right now. Her record can’t have a single stain on it. You just have to swallow this for now.”” I stared at her, my eyes burning. “”Swallow it?”” Three years ago, I had the highest GPA in the department and was guaranteed a master’s recommendation spot. Callum persuaded me to give it up, claiming that taking the top spot as a junior would make my peers resent me. The second year, she told me I needed more field experience and pushed me to wait for my senior year. “”You’re my boyfriend,”” she had reasoned back then. “”We have to keep our distance. If people think I gave you the nomination out of favoritism, it will ruin both our reputations.”” So this year, I didn’t rely on a recommendation. I studied night and day to take the entrance exams for Oakridge on my own merit. And now, before I could even take the exam, she had framed me for an explosion to protect another woman. “”Callum,”” I said, my voice eerily calm. “”Are you in love with Chloe?”” “”What?”” Callum let out a dry, incredulous laugh. “”Are you out of your mind? I’ve only ever loved one person in my life, and that’s you. I just… when I see how hard she works, it reminds me of how you used to be.”” I watched her fingers. She was rubbing her thumb against her index finger—a nervous subconscious tick she always had whenever she lied. Seeing my silence, she reached out and pulled me into an embrace. “”Nathan, listen to me. Once you pass your grad exams and officially join the program, we won’t have to hide anymore. I’ll announce our relationship to everyone. We won’t ever have to maintain boundaries again, okay?”” She petted my hair gently. Her phone chimed. She glanced at the screen. “”Callum, my arm hurts so much…”” She swiped the screen off and rubbed her nose awkwardly. “”I need to check on Chloe. Go back to your room and rest.”” The stairwell door shut behind her with a quiet click. I reached back and touched the bandage on my shoulder. From yesterday until today, Callum hadn’t asked me a single time if I was in pain. … That evening, the campus news broadcast aired a special segment on the accident. “”Callum,”” the student reporter asked, holding up a microphone, “”can you tell us what happened during the explosion?”” Callum gave a smooth, confident smile to the camera. “”It was a dangerous situation, but my student, Chloe, remained completely calm under pressure. She helped me evacuate the room safely. She showed incredible courage.”” By midnight, the story was trending on the university forum. “”The TA is so gorgeous, and Chloe is stunning! They look so good together!”” “”True love shines in moments of crisis!”” “”Wait, shouldn’t the person who actually caused the explosion be expelled?”” Under that last comment, thousands of students posted angry replies demanding my name and calling for my expulsion. … When I was discharged two days later, Callum called a mandatory lab meeting. She slid a formal document across the table toward me. “”Due to ongoing public scrutiny,”” Callum announced smoothly, “”I have decided to suspend Nathan from all current research projects. His workload will be reassigned to Chloe.”” “”Finally!”” Wayne snickered. “”Nathan was always dragging his feet anyway.”” “”See? Callum always does what’s right for the lab.”” Chloe gave me a polite, triumphant smile. “”Nathan, I’ll do my best to take over seamlessly.”” I looked down at the paper. My name had been crossed out in black ink, replaced by Chloe’s in Callum’s precise handwriting. Without saying a word, I picked up a pen and signed my name at the bottom. It didn’t matter anymore. I wasn’t staying anyway. As the meeting wrapped up, Wayne called out in a sing-song voice, “”Callum! Today is Valentine’s Day. Are you spending tonight alone, or do you have plans?”” Everyone turned to smirk at Chloe, whose cheeks turned a deep crimson. Callum glanced toward me briefly, clearing her throat. “”I have a date tonight.”” The moment she stepped out of the room, the lab erupted into giggles. “”Chloe! You’re going on a Valentine’s date with Callum and you didn’t tell us?”” “”When are you guys making it official? The suspense is killing us!”” Chloe smoothed her sweater nervously. “”Oh, stop it, guys. He didn’t say it was with me…”” “”Who else could it possibly be?”” Wayne rolled her eyes, then cut her gaze over to me. “”Some people should really just pack up and leave. Why are you still standing there? Trying to play the third wheel?”” I let out a soft, cold laugh. “”Third wheel?”” I turned directly to Chloe. “”Tell me, Chloe—who exactly is Callum’s boyfriend?”” Chloe’s face drained of color. Wayne jumped up, pointing right in my face. “”It’s Chloe, obviously! What, are you going to claim he’s “”yours””?”” I unlocked my phone, pulled up a high-resolution photo of Callum and me kissing on a beach during a vacation two summers ago, and shoved the screen inches from Wayne’s nose. “”Look closely,”” I said softly. “”I”” am Callum’s boyfriend.”” The room plunged into dead silence. Chloe’s lip trembled. “”Nathan… I know you’ve always had a crush on Callum, but generating fake AI photos like this… it’s really beneath you.”” Wayne snapped back to reality, her eyes widening. “”Are you insane? You’re literally psychotic!”” “”What is going on in here?”” Callum had walked back in to retrieve her forgotten laptop. Wayne grabbed her arm like a lifeline. “”Callum! Nathan has lost her mind! She’s showing everyone fake pictures and claiming she’s your boyfriend!”” I locked eyes with Callum. “”Callum,”” I said, my voice steady and quiet. “”Tell them. Am I your boyfriend or not?”” She stared at me, her eyes wide with surprise and panic. She looked at the surrounding students, at Chloe’s teary face, and finally—she looked away. “”Stop fighting,”” she said gruffly, grabbing her laptop. “”We have a seminar in ten minutes. Everyone get ready.”” Wayne spat on the floor near my shoes. “”Pathological liar.”” I stood there in the quiet room. The very last thread of hope inside me snapped clean in two. “”Fine,”” I whispered. “”I understand.”” I stepped up to Chloe, reached out, and ripped the amber prayer bracelet off her wrist with one sharp jerk. The string snapped, and wooden beads scattered across the floor, bouncing under the desks. Chloe shrieked, stumbling backward. “”What are you doing?!”” I tossed the remaining broken thread into the trash can. “”Nothing,”” I said calmly. “”Just returning what belongs to me.”” I grabbed my laptop, turned around, and walked out without looking back. … Three days later, the graduate application deadline closed. I received a phone call from the head of the Materials Science department at the University of Wyoming. “”Nathan, I’ve reviewed your published papers and research proposals. You are an exceptional candidate. Welcome to our program.”” The next morning, I boarded a train heading west into the mountains. Callum hadn’t heard from me in three days. She told herself I was just being dramatic. Sure, she had gone a bit too far in the lab, but wasn’t I the one forcing the issue? She had explained a thousand times why they needed to keep their distance. Once I passed my grad exams and joined her department, they could announce everything. Why couldn’t I just wait? She opened her faculty portal to organize the new master’s applicant files. “”Nathan… Nathan…”” She searched her roster, but my name wasn’t there. “”That’s impossible.”” Callum’s stomach dropped. She threw on her coat and hurried down to the registrar’s office. “”Dr. Lewis, where is Nathan’s application file? Why isn’t he assigned under my department?”” The administrator typed on his keyboard and pulled up the system log. “”Nathan? His file is right here. He submitted it days ago.”” “”His first choice…”” “”University of Wyoming.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “561659”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

My boyfriend Brandon’s lucky number was 3. Everything in his life revolved around three. Whenever I was indecisive, he would give me an answer in exactly three minutes. My best friend, Jessa, used to complain about it: “If he really loves you, why doesn’t he reply instantly? Why does he make you wait three minutes every single time?” I’d smile and defend him. “He’s busy at work. Taking three minutes is just him sneaking away from his desk for me.” Until the day I logged into his work account and spotted a strange pinned chat—a contact saved under a little crescent moon icon. Every single daily option I sent him had been forwarded to her within a second. Accompanied by Brandon’s message: “Which one do you like today? Still option number three?” The Crescent Moon girl’s voice notes were always bright and cheerful: “You know three is my lucky number! Option three, of course!” Her voice was crisp and sweet—a young girl I didn’t even recognize. For three years, that identical exchange had never missed a single day, silently wedged inside the three-minute gap between me and Brandon. My fingers trembled on the keyboard. It was only then, with a dull, excruciating delay, that I realized Brandon had chosen option three every single time. The third dress. The third dinner menu. The third car… Countless “option threes” had built the woman standing in my shoes today. It turned out Brandon wasn’t making those decisions for me at all. And it wasn’t that he couldn’t reply in seconds—he was just saving all his devotion for someone else. The three minutes I waited for every day had never meant a thing. … I hung the slate-blue coat back in the closet and pulled out the off-white trench coat buried in the very back. I had fallen in love with it at first sight while shopping last year. Brandon had told me white made me look washed out, insisting that the third option—the charcoal gray one—suited me much better. In the end, I bought the charcoal coat. The off-white one stayed in my closet, its price tag still attached. The woman in the mirror had a pale, drawn face, yet she looked more like herself than she had in years. I dragged out a small carry-on and packed just one change of clothes. I told myself I was only staying at Jessa’s for a single night. When Brandon got back, we still needed to talk. Four years together—he deserved at least one chance to explain. Yet thirty minutes had passed since I sent him “Let’s talk when you get home,” and he still hadn’t replied. On his work account, however, he had asked Serena what she wanted for lunch just one minute ago. I dragged my suitcase to the entryway and looked at the three keys sitting in the wooden tray. The first key was to my sedan, the second was to Brandon’s SUV, and the third belonged to an old beat-up scooter with faulty brakes. Four years of habit acted faster than reason. Before I snapped back to reality, I had already taken a picture of the keys and sent it to Brandon. A second later, it appeared in Serena’s chat box. “Cami’s heading out. Which one should she take?” Serena only noticed the Pikachu keychain attached to the third key. “Option three, obviously! That keychain matches mine!” Three minutes later, Brandon texted me back: “It’s raining today, traffic will be awful. Take the scooter. It’s slick out there, drive safe.” I reminded him: “The brakes are broken. I told you last week.” He didn’t reply. On the other side, Serena suddenly remembered: “Brandon, wait, isn’t that scooter broken? Will your girlfriend be okay riding it?” “She’s fine. She won’t actually ride it.” “She’s too timid. She’ll end up taking her car anyway.” So he remembered. He knew full well that option three could put me in danger, yet he sent it to me anyway—just so he wouldn’t spoil Serena’s mood. I picked up the first key. For the first time in four years, I didn’t follow his choice. By the time I reached the restaurant, Jessa had been waiting for a long time. She looked at the suitcase by my feet and frowned. “Did you get into a fight with Brandon?” “No. Just wanted to stay at your place for a night.” “Your eyes are swollen. Who are you trying to fool?” I looked down, stirring my warm water for a long moment before asking, “If you realized that everything you loved over the past few years wasn’t actually what you loved at all… what would you do?” Before Jessa could answer, my phone rang. It was Brandon. “Did you leave the apartment?” His tone was gentle as always. “It’s raining outside. Why didn’t you bring an umbrella?” “How do you know?” “The smart lock sent a notification.” He chuckled softly. “Don’t eat seafood, and don’t drink anything iced. If your stomach starts hurting while I’m not there, nobody’s going to take care of you.” A sudden sting hit the back of my nose. He remembered my allergies, remembered my sensitive stomach, remembered that I always forgot my umbrella. Maybe these four years weren’t entirely a lie. “Brandon…” “By the way, are you wearing that off-white coat?” “Yeah.” “Didn’t I say that one makes you look heavy? Next time, stick to the charcoal gray I picked.” The tiny spark of warmth that had just flared up turned ice-cold in an instant. As soon as I hung up, a new message popped up on his work account. Serena: “Brandon, the courier is at your place, but your girlfriend isn’t home. How do I get the dress?” Brandon: “I’ll tell her to go back.” My heart constricted. There was only one dress at home worth sending a courier to pick up. That white custom dress—he had given it to me on our first anniversary. There had been no three choices back then, no three-minute wait. He told me he had designed it specifically for me, one-of-a-kind in the world. It was the only proof I had in a sea of lies that Brandon had once loved me. Ignoring Jessa’s frantic questions, I rushed back home. The courier had already taken out the white dress. I stopped him and took the shipping receipt. In the recipient column, it read: “Serena.” At the same time, a girl’s clear voice sounded from my open laptop: “Brandon, my senior design thesis dress… she’s been wearing it for years. Isn’t it time to give it back to me?” I made an excuse about needing to dry-clean the dress first to send the courier away. In less than a minute, Brandon called. “Did someone just stop by to pick up the dress?” “Yeah.” “The company is holding a temporary exhibition and needs to collect past works,” he said, his tone entirely natural. “I’m borrowing it for a few days. I’ll bring it right back to you.” I clutched the hem of the dress tight. “But you said… you designed it specifically for me.” There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. “Of course I did. It’s precisely because it’s my proudest piece that I want to showcase it.” If I hadn’t seen his work chat, I probably would have believed him again. After hanging up, I searched “white dress” in his chat log with her. Serena had taken dozens of photos wearing it. She had complained that the waist was too boxy and the skirt lacked movement, casually messaging: “My thesis is already graded anyway. If you can’t bring yourself to throw it out, just give it to someone else.” Half a month later, Brandon took in the waistline and handed it to me. I had been so deeply moved that he stayed up late altering it for me, completely unaware that from its very inception, the dress was never meant for me. And now that Serena wanted it for an exhibition, he was taking it right back from my closet. The single item I had cherished for three years was nothing more than her discarded draft that she could reclaim whenever she pleased. I wanted to throw the dress straight into a trash bag, but my hand froze halfway there. I had worn it when I met Brandon’s parents. I had worn it in our engagement photos. The gift was fake, but the happiness back then had felt so real. At least back then, I truly believed we were going to grow old together. I sat on the floor, clutching the dress, until my arm accidentally knocked over a perfume bottle on the nightstand. Glass shattered, and a cloying, sweet scent filled the air instantly. I reached out instinctively to pick up the pieces, and a jagged shard slashed straight across my palm. Blood welled up, dripping onto the pristine white fabric of the dress. In a state of panic, my body acted on pure instinct—I snapped a picture and sent it to Brandon. A second later, my phone rang. There was no three-minute wait. “Don’t move!” His voice was laced with a panic I had never heard from him before. “Is there glass in the cut? Raise your hand high, I’m calling a doctor right now.” Tears blurred my vision instantly. So he “could” reply in seconds. When he saw me hurt, he didn’t even have time to ask Serena first. “Brandon, it hurts…” “Don’t be scared, I’m right here with you.” He softened his voice, comforting me over and over. “The doctor will be there soon. I’m staying on the line.” A pathetic, shameful sense of relief bloomed in my chest. Maybe when it really mattered, I was still the one he cared about. Then, in the very next second, he asked, “Did any blood get on the dress?” My crying stopped dead in its tracks. “Yes.” Silence fell over the line for two seconds before he spoke. “It’s okay. It can be washed out. Just… don’t touch the dress anymore.” At the same exact time, a new message popped up on his work account. Brandon: “The dress got blood on it.” Serena sent a crying emoji: “That dress is still around? I thought you threw it out ages ago.” Brandon: “I couldn’t bear to.” Four short words crushed the last spark of hope I had just reignited. The thing he couldn’t bear to throw away wasn’t the gift I had worn for three years. It was the very first piece Serena had ever created for him. A doctor arrived at the apartment and put two stitches in my palm. Throughout the process, Brandon kept the video call active, constantly reminding the doctor about my drug allergies. Looking at his familiar features on the screen, I still couldn’t stop myself from wavering. He remembered every single detail about me. How could he have never loved me? Right then, Serena sent a text. “Brandon, I’m feeling a little dizzy. I think my blood sugar dropped.” Brandon immediately turned to the camera and said to me, “Something urgent came up at the office. I’ll come home to keep you company later.” The video call disconnected abruptly. A second later, he placed a voice call to Serena. “Why didn’t you eat lunch again? Just lie down, I’ll order some warm sweet porridge for you.” I had just gotten two stitches in my hand. She had simply skipped lunch. Yet he abandoned me without a single moment of hesitation. I folded the white dress neatly, placed it inside an empty cardboard box, and wrote Brandon’s name on the top. Then, I put my passport, ID, and bank cards into my suitcase. My phone rang again. It was a confirmation call from a high-end restaurant. “Miss Camille, Mr. Brandon has reserved a table for your fourth anniversary dinner tomorrow evening.” I froze. So he still remembered. Then, the receptionist asked politely, “Mr. Brandon reserved a table for three. Will the third guest, Miss Serena, be joining you as well?” The next day, I showed up at the restaurant right on time. I wanted to see the girl who had occupied four years of my life using countless “option threes” with my own eyes. Three sets of silverware were laid out on the table. A card sat in the middle: “Cami, happy fourth anniversary. Even though I can’t be by your side, my heart is always with you.” Footsteps approached. “Cami!” I looked up. Serena was wearing a white knit sweater, a red hairpin, and a crescent moon pendant around her neck. Every single item was an “option three” Brandon had chosen for me in the past. “Brandon was worried you’d be sad spending the anniversary alone, so he asked me to keep you company.” Her smile was bright and innocent. “You don’t mind, do you?” “Not at all.” I looked at her necklace. “It’s very pretty.” She touched the pendant, her eyes curving into sweet crescents. “It was a welcome gift from Brandon when I joined the firm. He said I’m like the moon—not blindingly bright, but glowing with my own soft light.” My fingernails dug violently into my palm. The exact same necklace. The exact same words. Brandon had told me I was his sun, and he was the moon that orbited me. But the moon he had kept safely treasured in his heart was never me. When the waiter served the food, Serena routinely moved the ice water away from my plate and asked the waiter to send back the soup because it contained cilantro. “You have a sensitive stomach, and you don’t eat cilantro, right?” I stared at her. “You know a lot about me.” “Brandon brings you up all the time.” She rested her chin on her hands and laughed. “He says you’re great at everything, except you have zero opinions of your own. You even have to ask him what to wear every morning.” It felt as though a hand had slammed into my chest, squeezing my heart dry. The reliance I had thought was intimacy was nothing more than a joke shared between them over coffee. Halfway through the meal, Serena pulled out three gift boxes. “These are the anniversary gifts Brandon prepared for you. He wanted you to pick one yourself.” The first was a pearl bracelet, the second was a pair of earrings, and the third was a crescent moon brooch. Without missing a beat, I picked up the first box. “I like this one.” Her smile stiffened for a second. “The first one?” “Yeah.” “But… Brandon said you’d definitely pick the third one.” She picked up the brooch, reaching out to pin it to my collar. I blocked her hand. “I said, I don’t want it.” The air went dead silent. Serena’s eyes welled up with tears in an instant. “Cami, I just wanted to help Brandon make you happy. If you don’t like it, I won’t do this anymore.” She lowered her head and sent a text. In less than three minutes, my phone rang. The moment I picked up, Brandon demanded, “You didn’t like the gift?” “What if I say I didn’t?” He let out a heavy sigh. “If you don’t like it, just tell me directly. Don’t make things difficult for Serena.” “She canceled her date tonight just to keep you company for me. She ran to three different boutiques to find that brooch.” “Even if it’s just out of respect for me, you shouldn’t give her an attitude.” I looked over at Serena. Her head was bowed, but a tiny, triumphant smile curled at the edge of her lips. “So I “have” to pick the third one?” “It’s not that you have to,” he softened his tone. “I just think the third one suits you best. Cami, don’t be unreasonable.” Yesterday, when my hand was stitched up, he gave me barely ten minutes of his time. Today, Serena’s eyes got a little red, and he couldn’t wait to demand justice for her. It turned out that the person who was truly loved never had to wait. And she never had to be sensible. “Fine.” I took the third gift box. “I’ll take it.” Brandon visibly breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s my girl.” The moment I hung up, Serena’s bright smile returned instantly. “I knew you were the most understanding person, Cami.” Before leaving, she suddenly turned and asked, “Oh, by the way, for the third draft of the light fixtures in the studio at your new condo… did you ever decide on changing them?” My footsteps stopped cold. “What studio?” Serena’s expression froze slightly, but she quickly covered it up with a laugh. “Oh, I must have gotten my projects mixed up!” She hurried away. I sat there in silence for a moment before dropping the crescent moon brooch straight into the trash can. Back at the apartment, I pulled out the design files for our future home. On the final sign-off sheet, right next to Brandon’s signature, were three written letters: “S.Y.E.” — Serena’s initials. And the small room next to the balcony—the one Brandon had always referred to as the “nursery”—had only two words listed in the notes since the very first blueprint: “Art Studio.” The next day, the interior designer asked me to do the final walkthrough for the condo’s furnishings. Before heading out, I packed all my legal documents, bank cards, and the jewelry my late mother had left me into my suitcase and handed it over to Jessa. Jessa looked at the heavy bandage on my palm. “Do you want me to come with you?” “No need.” I pushed the suitcase to her. “Just hold onto these for me first.” Before I officially laid all my cards on the table, I couldn’t let Brandon suspect a thing. When we bought the condo, the realtor had shown us three floor plans. The first was close to my office, the second was spacious, and the third featured a massive open-air balcony. I hated the third one. Balconies were a pain to maintain, and I was terrified of heights. But three minutes later, Brandon had told me: “You love plants. Let’s take the third one. I’ll turn the balcony into a garden for you.” Because I believed he was holding my happiness in his hands, I happily put down half of the down payment. After the renovations, I spent two years filling that balcony with greenery. I had spent two years believing he had built that future for me. The designer pushed open the balcony door and smiled warmly. “Mr. Brandon cared most about this space. He specifically requested that the easel be placed right where the lighting is best.” My step faltered. “An easel?” “Yes, the height was even customized according to Miss Serena’s measurements.” The designer realized her slip of the tongue a second too late and awkwardly bit her lip. I pushed open the door to the small room next to the balcony. There was no crib, no children’s furniture. Just an entire wall fitted with custom art frame storage and an easel. The height of the desk had been signed off by Serena. The wall color was the third shade of soft sage green she had selected. The light fixtures, curtains, and area rug were all from option three. She had long since carved out her own sanctuary inside our future home. My phone rang right on cue. Brandon called on video, asking with a smile, “Are you doing the walkthrough? Do you like it?” “I like it.” “Once I get back, we can finally move in.” He spoke tenderly about our future—placing a lounge chair on the balcony to soak up the sun together on weekends, leaving the small room empty for now until we had a baby. If I hadn’t opened that door, I might have actually believed he was sincerely planning the rest of his life with me. The designer brought over three mock-up photos for the ceiling lights. In the past, I would have sent them to Brandon without a second thought. This time, I pointed straight to the first image. “I want this one.” Brandon blinked on the video screen, slightly caught off guard. “Are you sure you don’t want to look around more?” “No need. I like the first one.” He smiled warmly. “Great. Look at you finally making up your own mind. The first one it is.” Three seconds after the video call ended, his work account popped up with a notification. All three lighting mock-ups had been forwarded to Serena. “Which ceiling light for the last room?” Serena replied within seconds: “Option three, obviously! It matches the studio best!” Brandon: “Got it.” Three minutes later, a new text from Brandon landed in my personal chat. “Cami, I took another close look. The light from the first one is a bit too harsh. Option three actually fits our home much better.” I stared at the screen for a long, quiet moment, leaving it unanswered. Even when I clearly stated what I wanted, he would still overrule me for Serena. It wasn’t because I was indecisive, nor was it because I lacked opinions. It was simply because what I liked had never mattered as much as her lucky number. I didn’t argue about the lighting, nor did I cause a scene. I simply photographed every single design document and slid the proof of my financial contributions into my tote bag. When I got back to the apartment, my most important possessions had already been taken away by Jessa. I packed the white dress, the crescent moon necklace, the yellow Pikachu keychain, and all those “option three” gifts into three large cardboard boxes. Some things were too big to fit inside a box. Like our future home. Like four years of my youth. Like the love I had once believed would last a lifetime. Just because I couldn’t carry them away didn’t mean I had to leave them behind. Jessa sent a text: “I’m downstairs.” I put on my off-white coat and grabbed the first set of keys off the tray. Just before I walked out the door, Serena’s chat flashed with a new message on Brandon’s work account. “Brandon, once the studio is all set up, can I be the very first person to use it?” Brandon replied instantly: “Of course. It was designed to your taste anyway.” The very last shred of lingering regret in my chest vanished into thin air. For three years, Brandon had made countless choices on my behalf. The third coat, the third dinner option, the third gift, the third floor plan. This time, I decided to give him three options of his own. I opened our personal chat box and typed out every single word carefully: “I’m giving you three choices, too.” “1. Break up now.” “2. Break up when you get back.” “3. Let Serena pick how we break up.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “561658”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel