Author: Momo Chan

Toby practiced his magic trick for two months just so he could perform on stage with his mother for the Kindergarten Spring Showcase. I, a grown man, spent three sleepless nights pricking my fingers with a needle, hand-sewing a matching set of velvet performance capes for them. In the pocket of the larger cape, Toby had secretly stuffed a cherry lollipop—a surprise reward for his mom. Two hours before showtime, Jackie told me that Devin’s daughter had a school pageant across town and had no one to go with her. Devin was her “one that got away.” I told her, “Your son has been waiting two months.” She was already grabbing her car keys, her heels clicking sharply against the hardwood. “I’ll just stop by and come right back. Tell him I had an emergency international client call.” “What if you don’t make it back?” I asked. She paused, her hand on the doorknob. “He still has you, doesn’t he?” When the red curtains parted, the velvet cape sat folded neatly on an empty chair next to our son. The lollipop was still tucked inside the pocket. Standing alone in the spotlight, Toby announced to the crowd, “For my next trick, I will make my mommy… disappear.” Nobody in the audience laughed. On the drive home, Toby quietly unwrapped and finished the lollipop. Then, he looked at me and asked, “Daddy, if I disappear too, will Mommy not have to choose anymore?” I squeezed his small hand, forcing a smile. “Daddy is going to help you perform a much bigger trick.” … The ride back from the school was dead silent. Toby didn’t shed a single tear, nor did he utter a word of complaint. He just kept twisting the empty white plastic stick of the lollipop in his fingers. As soon as we stepped inside our townhouse, the doorbell rang. It was Jackie’s personal driver, Frank, breathless and carrying a massive cardboard box. “Daniel,” Frank panted, wiping sweat from his forehead as he carefully set the heavy box down. “Ms. Lennox insisted I deliver this right away.” “She called me four times on my way over, rushing me to get this Collector’s Edition Millennium Falcon Lego set. She said she had to leave in a hurry and was worried the little guy would be upset. She wanted me to hand-deliver it to him.” Frank added, “She also told me to stop by that boutique downtown to buy that Italian leather tie you’ve been eyeing, but they were out of stock.” I looked down at Toby. He didn’t even blink. He just walked right past the massive box blocking the hallway, keeping his backpack on, and headed straight to his room. The soft click of his door closing echoed through the silent house. Frank rubbed his hands together awkwardly. “Sir, I…” “Just leave it. Thanks, Frank.” I closed the door quietly. My phone buzzed. A text from Jackie. Zoe was hyperventilating backstage. Devin was completely overwhelmed and couldn’t calm her down. I had to stay and help. You’re his father—explain it to Toby for me. Did Frank deliver the Lego? I didn’t reply. A notification popped up on Instagram. A new post from Devin. It was a photo of a woman’s sleek, elegant back as she knelt to hug a sobbing little girl. Beside her stood the partial silhouette of a man’s shoulder. They looked like a picture-perfect family of three. The caption read: Thank you for saving a single dad and his lonely little girl on her big day. You’re our hero. I had memorized the curve of that woman’s shoulders over a decade. Looking at the bright screen, all I felt was a crushing, hollow exhaustion. Ten years of my life, reduced to a bad punchline. I walked over to my desk, pulled open the bottom drawer, and took out the divorce papers I’d drafted weeks ago. I flipped to the last page. With a steady hand, I signed my name: Daniel Mercer. I walked over to the family calendar on the kitchen wall. Two days from now, in the square marked with a hand-drawn smiley face and the words Family Portrait Day, I took a thick black Sharpie and scratched it out until it was nothing but a solid, dark void. Honestly, I had checked out of this marriage long ago. She had just finally kicked away the ladder I was clinging to. Late that night, the living room was dark. I sat on the sofa with a pair of heavy shears, the matching performance capes draped over my lap—the ones I had spent nights sewing, pricking my thumbs until they bled. The cold metal blades sliced through the soft velvet. The golden tassels fell to the carpet in ruined halves. I cut and cut, my hands moving with mechanical precision, turning the garments that held months of my son’s hopes into a pile of worthless scraps. I swept them all into the trash can. At 2:00 AM, the electronic lock on the front door beeped. Jackie let herself in, smelling of expensive wine, her face etched with a fatigue she couldn’t quite mask. She tossed her coat onto the entryway bench and kicked off her heels, but suddenly froze. In the dim moonlight filtering through the window, she stared down at the trash can. The shredded remains of the capes lay there, ruined and exposed. “Daniel, seriously? What kind of childish tantrum is this?” Jackie pinched the bridge of her nose, stepping forward in her stockinged feet. She looked down at me, her voice a mix of patronizing irritation and fatigue. “I literally had Frank drive across town to get him the most expensive Lego set on the market. If you’re throwing a fit over some cheap capes, just tell me how many hours you spent sewing them and I’ll wire you double your rate. Do you really have to be this dramatic?” I sat in the dark, my eyes cold as I looked up at her. “Jackie, two years ago, when Toby was four, you canceled a multi-million-dollar merger meeting just to pick him up from preschool.” “You told me back then that our son’s childhood only happens once, and that no amount of money could buy back lost time.” “Now, he practices a magic trick for two months just to have you watch him for thirty minutes, and you think it’s a nuisance? You think you can just pay me off?” Jackie’s breath caught. She ran a hand through her dark waves, her irritation flaring. “That was an emergency! Zoe doesn’t have a mother, Daniel. She was crying in a corner, hyperventilating, and Devin was completely losing his mind. What was I supposed to do? Leave a child suffering? We’re both parents here—can’t you show a little empathy? Have a little grace?” She stepped closer, reaching out to take my hand, her voice softening into the gentle, persuasive tone she used to placate her board members. “Come on, don’t be like this. I’m home now, aren’t I?” The moment her fingers brushed my skin, a wave of intense nausea hit me. I felt physically sick. I jerked my hand back with violent distaste. Jackie’s hand hovered in the empty air. She scoffed, muttering something about me being impossible, and picked up her coat to head toward the bathroom. Clack. A small, velvet jewelry box slipped from her coat pocket, rolling across the hardwood floor to stop right at my feet. The lid popped open, revealing a pair of custom-engraved cufflinks. Inside, the letter D was etched in elegant script. D for Devin. Jackie froze. She immediately scrambled to snatch them up. “Devin bought these as a thank-you gift for today. He practically forced them on me. I wasn’t planning on keeping them.” “Does it feel good?” I let out a soft, mocking laugh. “Playing house with someone else? Raising another man’s kid?” The words struck a nerve. Her face flushed. She took a sharp step forward, grabbing my wrist with a tight, commanding grip. “Daniel, you sit in this house all day. Do you have any idea how hard it is out there in the real world? That little girl doesn’t have a stable home, and Devin is drowning trying to do this alone. I helped them once!” She let out a heavy, exhausted sigh. “You’re my husband. With you here, I don’t have to worry about our home. You handle Toby, I bring home the money. That was our agreement, wasn’t it?” I looked at her face. My wrist throbbed under her grip, but my heart felt entirely numb. I didn’t struggle. I just stared at her with a dead, hollow gaze—the look you give a complete stranger. Seeing my eyes, Jackie faltered. She slowly let go of my wrist. Then, right in front of me, she threw the cufflinks into the trash can. “I don’t even care about his stupid gifts!” she said, her voice rising with a rare trace of panic. “I work myself to the bone every single day, and I have to come home to this attitude? Believe whatever you want!” She turned and slammed the bathroom door behind her. The next morning, I held Toby’s hand as we walked into the portrait studio downtown. “Hi, I’d like to cancel our booking for this weekend’s family portrait session,” I said, handing the receipt to the receptionist. Toby pressed his face against the glass window, staring at a promotional poster of a happy family of three dressed as superheroes. He had saved his allowance for six months just to pay for this shoot. It was the only thing he wanted for his sixth birthday. He stared at it for a long time, but he didn’t say a word. As we stepped out of the studio, my phone rang. It was Jackie. Her voice sounded uncharacteristically hesitant. “Daniel… something urgent came up with the firm. An emergency acquisition. I… I have to fly out of town this weekend.” Holding the phone, listening to the guilt dripping from her voice, I found the whole thing almost comical. Rewind thirty minutes. I had just stepped out of the guest bathroom when I walked past her home office. Her phone was on speaker. Devin’s choked-up voice had echoed clearly through the quiet hallway. “Jackie, Zoe’s private school admissions interview is this weekend. They require both parents to be present, or they’ll reject her on the spot… I’m begging you, please. Just pretend to be my wife for half a day. Just half a day! I’ll get on my knees if I have to! Without you, Zoe’s future is ruined…” Jackie had stayed silent for a long time before murmuring, “Send me the details.” And this was the “emergency acquisition” she couldn’t get out of. “Daniel? Are you there?” Jackie asked when I didn’t respond. “I’m here,” I said, my voice eerily calm. She let out a quiet sigh of relief. A second later, my phone chimed with a notification. A bank transfer of $25,000. Take Toby to buy the most expensive birthday present he wants. Consider it my way of making it up to him. See you when I get back. She hung up. Looking at the digits on the screen, my lips curled into a cold smirk. Saturday was Toby’s sixth birthday. I took him to the mall, intending to buy him the premium kid’s smartwatch he’d been admiring for months. As we walked out of the shopping center, Toby suddenly froze, looking across the busy four-lane street. Right across from us was Pinecrest Prep, the prestigious private school. A black Maybach was parked by the curb. Jackie, elegant in a soft, cream-colored wrap dress, stepped out of the car. She reached down and took a little girl’s hand. On the other side of the girl stood Devin, a warm, grateful smile on his face. Devin reached out to drape an arm over Jackie’s shoulder, holding an umbrella to shield her from the light drizzle. Jackie subtly stepped half a foot away, murmuring something with a cold expression, likely warning him to keep his distance. But her performative boundaries felt utterly pathetic now. A few minutes later, my phone buzzed in my pocket. An Instagram post from Devin, tagged at Pinecrest Prep. Thank you for being our rock. We couldn’t do this without you. I turned to look at Toby. Through the passing traffic, my six-year-old son watched his mother—the mother who was supposed to be on a business trip—play mom to another man’s child. He didn’t cry. He didn’t scream. He simply walked over to the nearest trash can and dropped the expensive brand-new smartwatch inside. When we got home, Toby pulled his custom calendar from his backpack. He opened it to his birthday page. Originally, he had drawn a little smiley face and three stick figures holding hands. Toby picked up a black marker and began coloring over the drawing, pressing down so hard the paper tore, leaving nothing but a thick, ugly black smudge. “Toby…” My throat tightened. I knelt down, reaching out to pull him into a hug. He looked up at me, his usually bright eyes completely vacant and cold. “Daddy, I don’t want to have birthdays anymore.” I quietly stood up, pulled out my phone, and dialed the number of an international relocation agency I’d contacted earlier. This rotting marriage had reached its expiration date. At 8:00 PM that night, Jackie came home early. She pressed the door open to find the house pitch-black and the dining table completely bare. Her eyes lingered on the spot where a birthday cake should have been, a flicker of unease passing over her face. She flipped on the overhead lights, glaring at me as I sat silently on the couch. “Daniel, it’s Toby’s birthday. You didn’t even buy him a cake?” She marched over, tossing her luxury handbag onto the cushions, her eyes darting away guiltily before she hardened her gaze. “If you’re mad at me for working late, take it out on me. But using our son’s birthday to throw a passive-aggressive tantrum? Don’t you think that’s incredibly petty?” I didn’t stand up. I simply picked up the blackened, torn calendar from the coffee table and tossed it at her feet. “Your son decided he didn’t want to celebrate.” Jackie looked down at the dark, ruined page, her perfectly manicured brows furrowing. “Next month… once this merger closes, I’ll clear my schedule. I’ll personally take him to Disneyland.” Her voice softened as her eyes drifted toward the closed bedroom door. “I know I messed up this time. I’ll make it up to him.” From behind the closed door, Toby’s weak voice cut through the silence. “I don’t want to go, Ms. Lennox.” “Ms. Lennox?” Jackie stiffened, her eyes widening in utter disbelief. “What did you just call me?” The ticking of the wall clock seemed to amplify in the heavy silence. A sudden surge of defensive anger flared in her eyes. “Daniel, did you teach him to say that? I am out there killing myself to provide for this family, and you’re in here teaching our son to treat his own mother like a stranger?” She stormed toward the bedroom, grabbing the brass doorknob. “Don’t touch him!” I lunged forward, blocking the door. But as my back hit the wood, I heard it—the heavy, labored gasping coming from inside. I threw the door open and rushed to the bed. When I pressed my palm against Toby’s forehead, his skin felt like a furnace. I grabbed the thermometer. 103.6 degrees. “He has a massive fever!” I yelled, my voice cracking with panic. “Stop standing there! Go get the children’s ibuprofen from the medicine cabinet!” Jackie froze, but as she turned, her phone began to vibrate violently in her pocket. Devin’s name flashed on the screen. She answered it, and Devin’s hysterical, piercing cries instantly filled the room. “Jackie! Please, you have to help me! Zoe took the rejection from the school interview so hard—she’s having a panic attack, running around the house with a pair of scissors, screaming that she wants to end it! She won’t let me near her!” Devin was sobbing uncontrollably. “You told me before that the specific liquid prescription ibuprofen you have for Toby works instantly. Zoe is severely allergic to standard over-the-counter fever reducers—please, I beg you, bring the bottle over! Save my baby!” Jackie’s face went completely pale. “The medicine is on the bottom shelf of the organizer! Hurry!” Cold sweat poured down my face, my hands trembling. Jackie ran to the medicine cabinet and yanked open the drawer. But what she did next made my blood run cold. She grabbed our last bottle of Toby’s prescription fever reducer and shoved it straight into her pocket. “Jackie, are you out of your mind?!” I lunged at her, trying to tear her pocket open. “That is Toby’s medicine!” “Daniel, calm down and listen to me!” She grabbed my shoulders with terrifying strength, her words rushing out. “Zoe is allergic to regular meds, and she’s holding scissors! Toby just has a standard flu. He’s a strong kid, he can handle it. Go down to the 24-hour pharmacy and buy him some regular Tylenol!” “It’s pouring rain outside! Toby’s fever is almost 104!” I screamed, desperately clawing at her coat. A flash of pure, ugly impatience crossed her eyes, and she shoved me away with immense force. “Daniel, why do you have to be so incredibly selfish? This is a child’s life!” My foot caught on the edge of the rug. I lost my balance and went flying backward, my arm slamming hard against the sharp, wooden edge of the nightstand. Crack. I hit the floor. The sharp corner sliced deep into my forearm, and hot, crimson blood began to well up, dripping onto the hardwood. Jackie turned around, her eyes widening slightly as she saw the blood pooling on the floor. She hesitated for two long seconds. “Clean that up. The pharmacy is only a five-minute drive,” she said, her voice shaking slightly as she looked away. “Thirty minutes. I’ll calm them down and be back in thirty minutes.” She turned and ran out of the house. The heavy front door slammed shut. Outside, the frantic click-clack of her heels faded down the hallway. Inside, Toby let out a sudden, ragged gasp. His eyes rolled back, his small body began to convulse violently, and a terrifying, choking sound came from his throat. Febrile seizure. “Toby!” I screamed, a sound of pure agony. I scrambled across the floor, ignoring the blood pouring from my arm, scooped my burning, shaking son into my arms, and ran out into the torrential rain. The storm was deafening, lightning tearing through the pitch-black sky. Headlights blinded me as I ran onto the street, soaked to the bone, my arms cramping from holding my convulsing son. Toby’s vomit and the blood from my arm stained my shirt a deep, sickening rust color. “We have a pediatric emergency! The patient is suffering from a severe febrile seizure leading to respiratory distress! We need to intubate immediately!” The ER doctor rushed out, shoving a clipboard into my hands. “We need parental consent right now. Where is the mother? How is she not here for something this critical?!” My hand shook so violently that the rain and blood on my fingers smeared the ink across the paper. “She’s dead.” I signed my name with a heavy, jagged stroke: Daniel Mercer. During the agonizing hours outside the ICU, I used the nurse’s station phone to call Jackie. Thirty times. The first three went straight to voicemail. By the fourth, the automated operator told me the phone had been turned off. At 4:00 AM, the double doors of the ICU finally swung open. “He’s stable, but we’re keeping him in pediatric ICU for close observation,” the doctor said, pulling off his mask with a weary sigh. Through the glass window, I looked at Toby’s tiny body, swallowed by wires and tubes. He slowly blinked his eyes open. Recognizing me through the glass, he weakly lifted his hand—the one without the IV line—and tapped at his Gizmo watch. When the screen lit up, he scrolled to the contact labeled Supermom and firmly pressed delete. Watching him, I tilted my head back to force the tears back down. I knew, with absolute certainty, that neither of us would ever accept her crumbs again. By morning, Toby’s vitals had leveled out, and he was moved to a general recovery room. Sitting by his bedside, I pulled out my phone and dialed my lawyer and the relocation agent. “Yes. Cancel every secondary card under Jackie’s name immediately. I’m putting the two properties I owned before the marriage on the market at below-market value for a quick sale. Wire the proceeds, along with my personal trust funds, directly to my Swiss account.” Once the calls were done, I unzipped the inner compartment of my briefcase. The European visas I had quietly secured months ago as a birthday surprise for Toby were sitting there. Now, they were our escape hatch. I booked two one-way tickets to Zurich for this coming weekend. Looking out the hospital window at the gray Seattle sky, the suffocating weight that had crushed my chest for ten years finally began to lift. The following evening, I took Toby back to the townhouse to pack. The place was exactly as Jackie had left it—untouched, messy, with the dried stain of my blood still darkening the hardwood floor. I didn’t touch a single thing that belonged to her. Within thirty minutes, I had our suitcases packed with our clothes and essential documents. Before leaving, I walked over to the kitchen island. I placed the signed divorce papers right in the center. Beside the documents, I laid down the crumpled wrapper of the cherry lollipop from the school pageant. “Daddy, where are we going?” Toby asked, holding my hand and looking up. “We’re going to perform a magic trick of our own,” I said, stroking his hair. My voice felt lighter than it had in a decade.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “481603”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

My fiancé treated the condo my parents bought me as our joint property before we even signed our marriage license. Seven days before the wedding, behind my back, he moved his newly divorced first love into it. The woman stood at the door, leaning against the frame, wearing my silk robe. “Chad said you guys broke up ages ago,” she smirked, her eyes scanning me with lazy disdain. “Why are you still clinging on? Is it because you can’t bear to lose this place?” I stood in the hallway, looking past her at the sofa and dining table inside—the ones my mother had spent hours picking out for me. I didn’t argue. I pulled out my phone and dialed 911. “Yes, hello. I’d like to report an intruder. Someone has illegally entered my apartment and changed the locks. The address is Harbor Cove, Building 12, Unit 2701. Please send an officer as soon as possible.” … 1 The smirk on her face froze. She lunged forward, trying to grab my phone. “Are you out of your mind?” “Who’s an intruder?” “This is Chad’s place!” I took a step back, easily avoiding her grasp. Her expression darkened completely. “You’re Flora, aren’t you?” she sneered, crossing her arms. “I know all about you.” “You’re just the placeholder Chad used to pass the time these past few years. He’s always loved me.” I let out a cold laugh. “A placeholder?” I opened my photo gallery, pulled up the digital copy of my property deed, and held the screen right in front of her face. “Take a good look, Amber.” “The ‘placeholder’s’ name is the only one on the deed.” “Your beloved Chad didn’t contribute a single dime.” Amber’s face paled. She swiped at my phone again. I swerved to avoid her. The elevator doors chimed and slid open. Chad came rushing out. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his dress shirt was half-unbuttoned. When he saw me, and then saw Amber standing inside the doorway, he came to a dead halt. “Flora,” he breathed out, his voice thin and hollow. Instantly, Amber’s eyes welled with tears. She threw herself into his arms. “Chad, she called the police! She’s saying I broke in!” “She claims this whole place belongs to her!” Chad instinctively wrapped his arm around her, shielding her behind his back. It was a small, reflexive gesture. But it spoke louder than any explanation ever could. I looked at him. “Chad.” “Do you want to explain what’s going on here?” He avoided my gaze, looking down at his shoes. “Flora, don’t get hysterical.” “Amber just finalized her divorce. She had nowhere else to go.” “I just let her crash here for a few days.” “I was going to tell you.” I stared at the brand-new smart lock on the door. “You change the locks for a ‘temporary crash’?” He choked on his words, unable to answer. Amber whimpered softly behind him. “Maybe I should just leave, Chad.” “A divorced woman like me… I’m just an eyesore wherever I go anyway.” Chad panicked instantly. “Don’t say that.” He snapped his head toward me, his tone hardening. “Flora, do you have to be so aggressive?” “Your family is well-off. Do you really need to begrudge her a temporary place to sleep?” I nearly laughed out loud. “Begrudge her?” “Chad, this is my apartment.” “It is not a shelter for your ex-girlfriend.” He frowned, his frustration mounting. “What’s yours is mine, Flora.” “We are getting married next week.” “Once we sign those papers, we are one family. What difference does it make?” Heavy footsteps echoed down the hallway. Two police officers stepped off the elevator. “Who called for assistance?” I raised my hand. “I did.” The officers verified my ID and cross-referenced it with the digital property deed on my phone. Then, they turned to Amber, asking for proof of residency. Amber stammered, looking helplessly at Chad. Finally, she mumbled, “Chad told me I could stay here.” The officer turned his gaze to Chad. “Are you the owner of this property?” Chad went completely silent. The officer’s brow furrowed. “If you don’t own the place, what right do you have to let someone move in and change the locks?” Amber finally realized something was terribly wrong. She tugged hard on Chad’s sleeve. “Chad, you told me you bought this place!” “You said her name was only on the deed because her parents forced you to put it there!” I smiled bitterly. Chad shot me a sharp, warning glare. “Flora, let’s go inside and talk.” “Don’t make a scene out here in the hallway.” I stared back at him. “A scene?” “You brought your ex-girlfriend into my apartment, let her wear my slippers, sleep in my bed, and now you care about making a scene?” The officers looked disgusted. “The situation is clear.” “The property owner does not consent to your presence. You need to pack your things and vacate the premises immediately.” Amber panicked. “Why?” “All my stuff is inside!” I looked past them into the apartment. “Your stuff?” “Perfect.” “Officers, may I go inside to take inventory?” The officers nodded. I stepped across the threshold. The moment I walked in, a cloying, sugary perfume hit me. It felt like someone had smeared rotting candy all over the fresh, clean home my mother had prepared for me. On the living room coffee table stood two half-empty wine glasses. One of them had a prominent smudge of red lipstick on the rim. Several cardboard shipping boxes were piled up next to the TV console. The shipping label read: Amber Ward. The master bedroom door was ajar. I pushed it open. The bed was made with deep burgundy sheets—a color I had never bought. Tossed carelessly into the corner of the window seat were the monogrammed throw pillows my mother had hand-embroidered for our wedding. She had worn her reading glasses, sitting up for two full nights to stitch every intricate detail, pricking her fingers three times in the process. Now, they were crushed under Amber’s discarded cardboard shipping boxes. She hadn’t even spared them a glance. On the nightstand sat a Polaroid photo. Chad and Amber, wearing matching silk pajamas, leaning close together and smiling warmly at the camera. Written on the back of the photo in loopy handwriting was: “Full circle. It was always you.” I picked up the Polaroid. Chad hurried into the room behind me. When he saw what was in my hand, his face drained of color. “Flora, don’t go through other people’s things.” I turned to face him. “Other people’s things?” “In my master bedroom, on my nightstand?” He opened his mouth, but no words came out. I tossed the Polaroid against his chest. “Chad, the wedding invitations went out last week.” “My mom has been calling our relatives every day to confirm the guest count.” “And you?” “You’re taking cozy Polaroid photos with your ‘first love’ in my wedding suite.” He bent down to pick up the photo. His first instinct wasn’t to throw it away, but to carefully wipe the dust off it with his sleeve. Watching that small, protective gesture, the very last trace of warmth in my chest died. “Flora,” he said, holding the photo. “I admit I screwed up here.” “But you aren’t entirely blameless either.” I stared at him, stunned. He looked up at me, his eyes suddenly burning with a strange, self-righteous anger. “You always hang this apartment over my head.” “The deed is in your name, your parents paid the down payment, and they paid for the renovations.” “Do you have any idea how suffocating that is for a man?” “Every time your mother says this place is your ‘safety net,’ it feels like a slap in my face.” “I’m supposed to be marrying you, but I feel like a stray dog you’re letting sleep on your porch.” “Amber isn’t like that.” “She doesn’t hold things over my head.” I stared at him, my voice barely a whisper. “So you decided to act like a stray dog, and brought another stray in to claim the territory.” His face stiffened. From the living room, Amber called out, “Chad, please come help me pack!” Chad turned to leave, but I stopped him. “The keys,” I said, holding out my hand. “And the passcode to the smart lock.” Chad scowled. “Do you have to be this cold?” I didn’t answer. I just kept my hand extended, staring him down. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a heavy ring of keys, and slammed them onto the mattress. “Fine.” “Don’t regret this.” I picked up the keys, my fingers cold. “I won’t be the one regretting anything.” I didn’t go back to our rented apartment that night. Instead, I drove straight to my parents’ house. When my mother opened the door and saw my face, she didn’t even put down the spatula she was holding. “Norie, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” I opened my mouth, but my throat was so tight not a single word came out. My father walked over from the living room, his brow furrowed with immediate worry. “Did Chad do something to you?” I silently handed them my phone. On it were the photos I had taken in the apartment: the wine glasses, the matching pajamas, Amber’s shipping boxes, the Polaroid on the nightstand, and the hand-embroidered wedding pillows crushed under trash. As my mother scrolled through, her face went utterly pale. She had to lean against the dining table for support, unable to speak. My father swiped through each photo, his jaw clenching tighter with every image. When he finished, he set the phone down gently. After a long, heavy silence, he spoke in a quiet, unwavering voice: “The wedding is off.” My mother finally found her voice, her eyes swimming with tears. “How could he?” “How dare he do this in the home we bought for you?” A hot, sharp sting hit the back of my nose. That apartment wasn’t just a piece of real estate to us. My father had severely injured his back at the factory when he was young, and even now, he couldn’t stand straight on rainy days. To help raise the funds for my place, my mother had taken an early retirement package and immediately started working as a cashier at a local grocery store. She stood on her feet all day, her ankles so swollen by evening that she could barely slip her shoes off. On the day we bought the sofa, I had watched her secretly touch the price tag three times, hesitating. She thought I hadn’t noticed. But when she handed over her credit card, she told the salesperson, “We’ll take this one. My daughter loves it.” I hadn’t even said I liked it. She just wanted to fill my future with the very best she could afford. The day we signed the papers for the condo, my mother had wept quietly in the car. She had squeezed my hand and said, “Norie, your father and I aren’t wealthy. We can’t give you the world. But this apartment is your backup plan.” “If you ever hurt, or if life gets hard, you will always have a place to come home to.” Chad knew all of this. He knew every bit of it. And yet, he had brought Amber right into it. My mother sat on the sofa, her hands trembling violently. “Do his parents know about this?” I shook my head. “I don’t think so.” My father let out a cold, humorless laugh. “I wouldn’t be so sure.” I looked up at him. He pulled out his phone. “I’m calling our lawyer, Mr. Adler, right now.” “We need to make sure they can’t touch that property ever again.” “And that money you lent Chad over the years? We are getting every single cent back.” I blinked, startled. “Dad…” My father looked at me, his own eyes shining with unshed tears. “Norie.” “It’s not about the money.” “I care about you.” “He dared to treat you like garbage because he thinks you’re soft.” “We cannot let him think your kindness is cheap.” That night, I slept in my old bedroom. My high school study schedule was still taped to the headboard. I stared at the ceiling, watching the shadows shift as the hours crawled by. At four in the morning, my phone buzzed. It was a text from Chad. Flora, I was wrong today. But Amber literally has nowhere else to go. Stop overreacting. Once we’re married, I’ll make it up to you. I stared at the words “make it up to you” for a long time. Then, I typed back: The wedding is off. He replied instantly. You wouldn’t dare. A second later, another text popped up. Flora, don’t forget the invitations have already been sent out. If you cancel now, your family will be the laughingstock of the town. I looked at the screen, a bitter, hollow laugh escaping my lips. He wasn’t ignorant of my feelings. He knew exactly how humiliating this would be for me. He was just using my fear of embarrassment as leverage. I didn’t reply. When the sun rose, I called the wedding venue. “Hi, I’m the bride for the ceremony next Saturday. I need to cancel the booking.” The coordinator paused. “Are you sure? I’m afraid the deposit is entirely non-refundable.” “I’m sure.” After hanging up, I spent the morning texting our friends and family, one by one. My message was short, clear, and unembellished: The wedding is cancelled. Chad has been having an affair, and I found him moving his ex-girlfriend into my apartment. Some expressed shock. Some offered sympathy. A few tried to play peacekeeper. Men make mistakes before they settle down. If he’s willing to change, maybe you should give him another chance. I deleted the message immediately without replying. A mistake is forgetting to buy milk. Sneaking into someone’s home is the act of a thief. The next morning, I went to the building’s management office with Mr. Adler. The property manager looked incredibly uncomfortable when he saw me. “Miss Flora, we are deeply sorry for the oversight on our part. But Mr. Chad came in with a signed authorization letter and a copy of your ID. We assumed…” I cut him off. “Do you still have the authorization letter?” He pulled up the scanned document on his computer. One look at it, and a chill ran straight down my spine. The signature at the bottom wasn’t mine. But in the bottom right corner, there was a bright red thumbprint. My thumbprint. Last month, Chad had brought home a stack of paperwork, claiming we needed to sign some supplemental forms for our pre-marital physicals. He had told me to sign and press my thumbprint onto several pages. I had laughed at him at the time. “Since when do physicals require thumbprints?” “They’re cracking down on fraud,” he had said smoothly. “They want to make sure people aren’t sending surrogates.” I had trusted him completely. And now, that thumbprint was pasted onto a forged authorization form, giving him the power to change the locks on my apartment. Mr. Adler’s face hardened as he examined the screen. “This is no longer a simple domestic dispute, Flora.” “This is criminal forgery.” I kept my eyes glued to the monitor. “Can we see the security footage?” The manager nodded quickly and pulled up the feed from three days ago, at two in the afternoon. Chad and Amber walked into the elevator lobby. But they weren’t alone. My breath caught. It was Chad’s mother, Peggy. She was carrying a bag of apples, her face split into a wide, smug grin. As the locksmith worked on replacing the smart lock, she stood right beside him, gesturing and instructing. “Set the master code to my son’s birthday,” she said on the audio feed. “This is going to be their place anyway, and family needs to be able to drop by.” I watched the video, my entire body going numb. She knew. She hadn’t just known; she had actively helped them. Just then, Mr. Adler’s phone rang. He stepped out of the office to take it. When he walked back in a few minutes later, his expression was even grimmer. “Flora,” he said softly. “They didn’t just change your locks.” I looked up. “What do you mean?” He handed me his phone. On the screen was a listing page from a local real estate website. The photos displayed were undeniably of my condo at Harbor Cove. The listing headline read: Owner relocating. Urgent sale of fully renovated luxury condo. Brand-name appliances included. Priced $50,000 below market value. The contact person was listed as Peggy. The phone number matched Chad’s mother’s exactly. I scrolled down, my heart hammering against my ribs. The listing status read: Under contract. Earnest money deposit of $30,000 received. My fingers froze. “She’s selling my apartment?” Mr. Adler lowered his voice. “It gets worse.” He opened another document—an appointment confirmation for the preliminary deed registration, scheduled for tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. The address listed was Harbor Cove, Building 12, Unit 2701. My home. “The deed is physically in my safe at home,” I whispered, panic rising in my throat. “How can they register a transfer?” “The broker claims they have a notarized power of attorney from the owner,” Mr. Adler explained. “The registration tomorrow is just a preliminary filing to hold the spot while the system processes the paperwork. But if we don’t stop it now, untangling this legally will be a nightmare.” My head spun. “That’s impossible.” “I have never been to a notary.” Mr. Adler didn’t say anything. Instead, he opened a security screenshot from the notary’s office. In the photo, Peggy was walking in arm-in-arm with a woman. The woman was wearing a face mask, a white button-down shirt, and had her hair pulled back into a low ponytail. From the back, she looked almost identical to me. She was sitting at the desk, carefully signing my name on the document. For a brief, surreal second, I felt like I was looking at a ghost. As if there were another “me” walking around, unlocking my doors, signing away my life, and selling the safety net my parents had built for me with their sweat and tears. Mr. Adler’s voice was dead serious. “Someone is impersonating you, Flora.” “The registration is set for tomorrow at ten. If it goes through, we won’t just be fighting a civil suit over a relationship. We’ll be fighting a massive property fraud case.” I stared at the image. The blood in my veins turned to ice. Chad. Amber. Peggy. This wasn’t a sudden, desperate whim. They had planned this down to the letter. The backup plan my parents had spent half their lives saving for was nothing more than a cash cow to them—something to live in, to steal, to sell, and to turn into quick money. I snatched my phone and dialed Chad’s number. He picked up on the second ring, his tone instantly aggressive. “So you finally decided to call?” “Is the deed registration scheduled for tomorrow at ten?” I asked, keeping my voice incredibly flat. The line went dead silent. “Chad,” I said quietly. “You have exactly ten minutes to get down to the management office and explain this.” “Because in ten minutes, I am calling the police.”

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The night his empire crumbled, Liam told me to pack my things and get the hell out. I packed my bags without a word and walked toward the front door. But the moment I took a step, a soft, quiet voice echoed from deep inside my belly. “Don’t leave, Mom. He’s going to make it back.” I froze, then turned around to look at the man who was on the verge of a total breakdown. He was sitting in the middle of the living room, his designer suit wrinkled into a hopeless mess, his tie hanging loosely around his neck. In his hand, he clutched a bottle of sleeping pills. His eyes were completely hollow. I let go of my suitcase. “I’m pregnant,” I said, my voice steady. “Do you want this baby?” His pupils contracted violently. The pill bottle slipped from his fingers. When Liam had told me to get out, he hadn’t even looked up. … The coffee table was a disaster of paperwork, foreclosure notices, and asset-freezing orders stamped in harsh red ink. I stood at the bedroom doorway, holding the handle of my suitcase. “Did you hear me?” his voice was raw, scraped down to nothing. “The company is gone. The money is gone. Even this apartment won’t be mine by next month. What are you still standing there for?” I didn’t answer. It had been three years. I had been with Liam for three years, starting back when he was at the top of the world. People on the outside called me “Liam’s girl.” Some said it politely, calling me his muse or his companion; others were cruel, calling me his kept woman. I never argued with either label. But tonight, when he told me to leave, I accepted that too. I dragged my suitcase toward the foyer, the sharp click of my heels echoing off the hardwood floor. But just as my hand brushed the brass doorknob, that voice echoed in my mind. “Mom, don’t leave.” I stiffened, my hand freezing on the metal. The voice spoke again, soft and sweet like a toddler, yet carrying a weight no child should have. “He will build it all back. If you leave now, we lose everything.” I slowly looked down at my stomach. It was perfectly flat. Nothing showed. My period was late last month, but I had brushed it off as stress. “Mom, I’m serious.” I turned back around. Liam was still on the couch, but his posture had changed. He was staring at a white plastic bottle of sleeping pills in his hand. The cap was already off. He looked like a wire spun so tight it was about to snap. My heart hammered against my ribs. I let go of the suitcase handle, letting it clatter to the floor, and walked back over to him. One step at a time. He looked up, his focus blurred. “Why are you still here?” I knelt in front of him, bringing our eyes to the same level. “I’m pregnant.” Three words. Liam’s eyes widened in sheer shock. “What?” “I’m pregnant,” I repeated. “Do you want this child?” The bottle slipped from his hand, rolling under the coffee table. White pills scattered across the floor like spilled beads. He parted his lips, but no sound came out. I reached out, swept the chaotic mess of bankruptcy papers to one side of the table, and sat opposite him. “Liam, listen to me,” I said. “Right now, you feel like the sky is falling. You think it’s over.” He didn’t answer, but his eyes welled with a sudden, heavy moisture. “I don’t know anything about corporate finance,” I continued, “but I know this—if you die, it really is over. As long as you’re alive, there’s a chance.” He stared at me for a long time, so long that I thought he might order me out a second time. Then he spoke, his voice dry and fragile. “Why aren’t you running away?” “Because of the baby,” I said. He closed his eyes, letting his head fall back against the sofa cushions. After a long silence, he muttered, “I can’t afford to raise a child.” “I know.” “The bank is taking this place next month.” “I know.” “I don’t even have five thousand dollars to my name right now.” “I have savings,” I said. “It’s not a fortune, but it will keep us afloat for three months.” His eyes snapped open. “You saved money?” “I’m not stupid,” I said, looking him dead in the eye. “Every month you gave me an allowance, I spent half and saved the rest. It’s been three years. It adds up.” His face twisted into a complex knot of surprise, embarrassment, and something softer that he couldn’t quite hide. “You stayed with me for three years just to hoard cash?” “I stayed with you for three years because I wanted to. I saved the cash because I’m practical.” He went silent. The apartment was so quiet I could hear the rhythmic ticking of the wall clock. The voice in my stomach piped up again: “Mom did the right thing. He needs you now.” Shutup, I thought back. I need some peace. And the voice actually went quiet. I got up, went to the kitchen, and poured him a glass of water. I set it down in front of him. “Drink. Then clean up the pills on the floor.” I wiped my hands on my jeans. “Tomorrow, I’ll look for a cheaper place. We’ll move before the end of the month. If you still want to end your life after that, I won’t stop you. But at least wait until I give birth, okay?” Liam picked up the glass. He stared at the trembling surface of the water for a long time. Then, he took a sip. That was enough. Living people need water. The day we moved, it was pouring. Liam stood in the rain, soaked to the bone, lifting the last cardboard box into the back of a rented U-Haul. The apartment I found was on the South Side, in an old, weathered brick building. Sixth floor, no elevator. It was a modest two-bedroom that smelled faintly of old pine, renting for fifteen hundred a month. He stood at the threshold of our new home, staring at the peeling wallpaper and the rusted window frames, his face devoid of expression. I dragged our suitcases inside and grabbed a microfiber cloth to start wiping down the kitchen counter. “Don’t just stand there. Help me.” He stepped inside, looking entirely out of place in the cramped living room. In his past life, he owned a penthouse overlooking the river—over three thousand square feet of glass and steel. Here, he could practically touch both walls if he stretched out his arms. “Kitchen is on the left, bathroom is on the right,” I directed. “You take the back bedroom. I’ll take the front one near the hallway.” “Why do you get the front one?” “Because I have to use the bathroom three times a night.” He paused, a flicker of worry crossing his eyes. “The pregnancy symptoms are starting?” “Yeah. I threw up this morning.” A strange emotion passed over his face, his lips parting slightly, but he ultimately remained silent. For the first two weeks, our coexistence was clumsy. He didn’t initiate conversations, and I didn’t push him. He spent his days locked in his room, making hushed phone calls that grew shorter and more desperate, until they stopped altogether. I knew he was trying to secure a loan, but news of a bankruptcy travels faster than light. The people who used to flatter him were suddenly impossible to reach. One night, I got up to get a glass of water and saw him sitting on the tiny balcony, smoking. A small pile of ash lay at his feet. I placed a glass of warm water on the ledge near his hand and turned to leave. “Flora,” he said suddenly. I stopped. It was the first time in three years he had used my actual name. Before, he had called me his little bird, or simply didn’t use a name at all. “Do you regret it?” “Regret what?” “Not walking out that door.” I leaned against the balcony frame. “Do you regret not taking those pills?” He fell silent. “If you don’t, then don’t ask stupid questions.” I walked back to my room and closed the door. Lying in bed, staring at the dark ceiling, the voice in my stomach whispered, “Mom, Dad got a phone call today. Someone wants to buy his old commercial lot on the East End for dirt cheap.” I adjusted my pillow. “Is that land important?” “Very. The zoning permits are clean and fully approved. It’s going to be worth millions. Dad can’t sell it.” “How do you know this?” “I just do.” The child’s voice always felt surreal, like a dream I couldn’t quite wake up from. But the first two times, it had been right. It kept Liam alive, and it had stopped him from selling his car to a predatory dealer who tried to lowball him. So this time, I chose to believe it. The next morning, Liam was on the phone in the living room. I stood by the stove, stirring oatmeal, listening closely. “…Thomas, I know you’re trying to help, but let me think about the East End lot.” Whatever the person on the other end said made Liam frown. “I’m not being ungrateful. It’s just… that price is too low.” The voice on the line was loud enough that I could hear the agitated tone from the kitchen. Liam’s jaw clenched, his knuckles whitening around his phone. He was on the verge of breaking. I walked out with the bowl of oatmeal and set it on the table. “Eat first.” He covered the receiver with his hand, looking up at me. “The oatmeal will get cold,” I said calmly. “The phone call can wait.” He hesitated for a few seconds, then spoke into the receiver. “Let me think it over, Thomas. I’ll call you back.” He hung up. I sat down opposite him. “Don’t sell that land.” He blinked. “How do you know about that?” “I overheard,” I lied smoothly, picking up my spoon. “You mentioned it back when things were good. You said the zoning for the East End was a goldmine and that once the transit line expanded, the value would skyrocket. Selling it now is basically giving it away.” He looked at me, his gaze shifting. It wasn’t the look he used to give a beautiful ornament on his arm. He was looking at me as an equal. “You remember that?” “I remember everything you say.” He lowered his head and took a bite of the oatmeal. “Flora.” “Yeah?” “Thank you.” I didn’t reply, but the little voice in my stomach giggled. “Mom is the best.” I rolled my eyes mentally, but a tiny smile slipped onto my face. Just when I thought we were finding a rhythm, on the weekend of our third week, someone knocked on the door. I went to answer it. Standing on the landing was a woman. She had long, flowing hair, wore a pristine white linen dress, and held a bag of fresh peaches. She had a perfectly manicured, sympathetic smile. “Hi,” she said, her voice like honey. “Is Liam here?” In my belly, the baby whispered, “Mom, this woman is bad news.” Her name was Melanie. She was Liam’s ex-girlfriend. To be precise, she was the girl he loved before he made his fortune. They had dated in college and split right after graduation—rumor had it she left because he was broke back then. Liam had never told me these details; Melanie volunteered them herself. She sat on our mismatched, squeaky armchair, arranging the peaches on our scratched coffee table like she was performing a charitable act. “I heard about what happened,” she said softly, her eyes swimming with concern. “I’ve been wanting to visit, but I was worried I’d be intruding.” Liam sat across from her, his posture stiff. “How did you find this place?” “It took some asking around,” Melanie said, offering a sad little smile. “Your old friends… well, it’s heartbreaking how quickly people disappear when things get tough. No one wanted to give me your address.” As she spoke, her eyes flicked to me. Just a quick, assessing glance, but I caught it. She was sizing me up—from my messy bun down to my bare feet, and finally, my waistline. “And who is this?” she asked Liam. Liam opened his mouth, but he hesitated. That one-second pause spoke volumes. So, I answered for him. “I’m Flora. I live here.” Melanie nodded, her smile never wavering. “Nice to meet you, Flora.” She turned back to Liam, falling easily into the tone of an old, reliable friend. “I’m working as an administrator at an investment firm now. It’s not a massive salary, but it’s stable. If you’re short on cash, I can lend you some to get by.” “No,” Liam said, shaking his head. “I’ll manage.” “Don’t be stubborn,” Melanie urged, her brow furrowing in a display of pure, unselfish worry. “We’ve known each other for a decade. You don’t have to put up a front with me.” Liam didn’t know what to say. I set a glass of water down in front of her. “Thank you,” she said, taking a delicate sip. Then she looked back at me. “So, Flora, are you Liam’s…” She left the sentence hanging, waiting for me to fill in the blank. Any answer would be awkward. Girlfriend? We never had that talk. Roommate? Too clinical. Housekeeper? Obviously not. “I’m the mother of his child,” I said. Melanie’s hand froze on her glass. Liam snapped his head to look at me, surprised. “A baby?” Melanie blinked, her smile faltering for a fraction of a second. “You’re expecting?” “Just past the first trimester.” “Oh,” she said, her voice pitching slightly higher. “Congratulations. That’s… wonderful.” She said “congratulations,” but her eyes said something else entirely. There was no warmth, and there wasn’t even the awkwardness of an ex discovering new baggage. There was calculation. I made a mental note of it. Melanie stayed for about forty minutes. Before she left, she reached out and squeezed Liam’s hand. “Call me if you need anything. Don’t carry this all on your own.” Liam nodded. Once the door clicked shut, I started putting the peaches in the fridge. Liam stood by the window, watching her walk down to the street. “You guys go way back?” I asked. “A lifetime ago.” “Why did she come?” “Just checking in, I guess.” I didn’t press further. But the voice in my stomach said, “Mom, I don’t like her.” Doesn’t matter if we like her, I replied in my mind. Your dad seems to. “Her scent is wrong.” “What do you mean, her scent?” “I don’t know. Just… wrong.” I didn’t argue with a fetus. But my own gut agreed. An ex-girlfriend from years ago suddenly materializing at a man’s absolute lowest point, bearing organic fruit, a sweet smile, and perfect empathy? It was too clean. It felt rehearsed. The next day, Melanie returned. This time, she brought a homemade chicken pot pie. “I made extra,” she said, standing at the door still wearing her work clothes, looking like she had rushed over straight from the office. “You both need to eat well.” Liam took the dish, thanking her. She came in and stayed for over an hour, swapping stories with Liam about their college days—their old landlord, the cheap diner they used to frequent, their mutual friends. I watched Liam’s shoulders gradually lose their tension. He hadn’t talked like this in weeks. With me, our conversations were limited to “Can we pay the utility bill?” and “Should we sell the car?” With Melanie, he got to remember a time when he was young, poor, and happy. I sat in the corner, a ghost in my own apartment. When Melanie got up to leave, she passed by me and lowered her voice. “Make sure you rest, Flora. Let me know if I can help take some of the load off your shoulders.” She called me Flora, but her tone felt patronizingly maternal. I just smiled and said nothing. After she left, Liam was at the sink, washing the pie dish. I leaned against the kitchen doorframe. “Liam.” “Yeah?” “What do you make of Melanie showing up like this?” His hands paused in the soapy water. “She’s just an old friend, Flora. Don’t overthink it.” “I’m not overthinking. I’m asking you.” He turned around, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. “What are you trying to say?” “I’m saying that in your position, you shouldn’t be letting people know exactly where you live.” He sighed, his brow furrowing. “Are you jealous?” “Do you honestly think I have the luxury of jealousy right now?” He stared at me, then looked away. I turned and went to my room. The baby whispered, “Don’t be mad, Mom. Dad’s brain isn’t working right now.” “I’m not mad,” I whispered. “Your heart is beating fast.” “That’s because I walked up six flights of stairs today.” The baby didn’t argue, but I knew he didn’t believe me. By her third visit, Melanie brought flowers—white lilies in a simple glass vase. She said she bought them on a whim. Liam set them on the living room windowsill, right where my favorite coffee mug usually sat. I moved my mug to the kitchen counter and kept my mouth shut. That week, she came by four times. She brought something every time, stayed for hours, and always managed to whisper a few private words to Liam before leaving. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I saw the change in Liam. He was smiling again. Not the tense, forced smile he gave me, but a genuine, lighthearted laugh that reached his eyes. I’ll admit, seeing that made my chest tighten. But I had no right to complain. Liam and I had never been a love story. He paid the bills; I provided companionship. It had been a transaction for three years. Now that the transaction was broken, I was only here because of the baby. On Thursday night, I was cooking dinner when their voices drifted from the living room. “Liam,” Melanie was saying, “have you considered that Thomas might actually be your best option?” My hand stopped mid-chop. Thomas. I knew that name. He was Liam’s former business partner who had pulled his capital out of the firm right before the collapse, leaving Liam to take the fall. Liam hated him with a passion, but he couldn’t touch him legally; Thomas’s exit had been entirely compliant with the fine print of their contract. “Why the hell would I talk to Thomas?” Liam’s voice hardened. “I’m just saying, maybe you should hear him out,” Melanie said softly. “He has cash on hand right now. If you swallow your pride and make peace, he might be willing to reinvest in your projects.” “How do you know he has cash?” “I hear things.” “From whom?” Melanie laughed softly. “I work at an investment firm, Liam. People talk.” A heavy silence followed. “I’m not begging him,” Liam said. “I know, but given your situation… how much is pride really worth right now?” It was a sharp, direct blow. Almost crossing a line. I walked into the living room holding a plate of chicken. “Dinner’s ready.” Melanie looked at me and smiled warmly. “That smells amazing, Flora.” “You’re welcome to stay and eat,” I offered. “Oh, no, I should get going.” She stood up, grabbing her designer bag, but paused at the door. “Think about what I said, Liam. Don’t let pride get in the way of survival.” Once the door closed, I sat down to eat. Liam sat opposite me, poking at his rice with his fork. “What do you think about what she said?” he asked quietly. “About what?” “Reaching out to Thomas.” I took a bite of vegetables. “You don’t want to go to him. Why are you asking me?” “I want your perspective.” I put my fork down. “My perspective is that you should figure out how Melanie knows so much about Thomas’s financial situation.” He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “She claims she’s an administrative assistant. Since when do admins get access to high-level client liquidity details?” Liam paused, looking slightly taken-back. “You’re reading too much into it.” “Maybe,” I said, picking up my fork again. “Eat your dinner.” He didn’t say another word. That night, as I lay in the dark, the baby spoke. “Mom, she was lying today.” “I know.” “She didn’t ‘hear things’ from colleagues. She knows Thomas personally.” I rolled over. “How can you be sure?” “I can feel it. When she said his name, her heart rate didn’t spike or flutter. When someone mentions a stranger they only heard about, their body reacts differently than when they mention someone they are intimate with.”

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Eight years ago, my daughter was trapped in the Furnace. Her GPS went completely dead, her water ran dry, and she spent twelve agonizing hours screaming “Daddy” into a failing two-way radio. The only search-and-rescue chopper in the county was barely an hour’s flight from her coordinates when it was rerouted. I didn’t find out until much later that my wife, Rebecca, had paid the dispatch center a hundred thousand dollars to divert the flight path. All to save her younger brother. He was drunk, stumbling around just outside the perimeter of a luxury resort on the desert’s edge. When they finally found him, he was less than a mile from the hotel lobby. Meanwhile, my little girl waited in the scorching heat until she dehydrated, until she drew her last breath, waiting for a rescue that never came. I quit my job, packed my life into a worn-out duffel, and buried myself in this unforgiving wilderness. For eight years, I worked as a desert guide, pulling over a hundred lost souls back from the brink of death. Every shifting dune, every hidden sinkhole, every treacherous thermal current—it’s all mapped behind my eyelids. Today, my partner slapped a massive, seven-figure rescue contract onto my desk, urging me to gear up and move immediately. I looked down at the dossier photograph. The face staring back at me was painfully familiar. I switched off my radio, stood up, and walked toward the door. “I can’t save this one.” 1 “Chris, are you out of your mind?” Wayne caught up with me, grabbing my forearm in a tight grip. I shook him off and pushed past the canvas door of our outpost. Wayne ran after me, circling around to plant his hands flat against my chest, blocking my path. “Ten million dollars, Chris. Do you hear me? Ten. Million.” “I heard you.” “And you’re still walking away? Look me in the eye and tell me your life is worth more than that kind of cash.” “I told you. I can’t save him.” He stared at me for a long beat, his eyes wide with utter disbelief. “You’ve spent eight years choking down dry rations in this godforsaken dust bowl. We don’t even have enough in the bank to cover next month’s fuel. Ten million is staring you in the face, and you’re just… turning it down?” I looked past him, stepped around his shoulder, and kept walking. He was right on my heels again. “Chris! Forget what you owe me. Look at yourself!” “It’s fine that the guys and I live in tents that leak dust every time the wind blows. It’s fine that the transmission on your truck is held together by zip ties and prayers. But what about the crew? Last month, you had to ask me for fifty bucks to buy pain meds. Fifty bucks you had to put on credit! Now a ten-million-dollar lifeline is dropped right in front of you, and you’re telling me no?” “That’s enough, Wayne.” “It’s not enough!” Wayne’s voice dropped, thick with frustration. “Your wife left you. Your daughter is gone. You don’t talk to your parents, and you’ve cut off every single friend you ever had. You’ve buried yourself out here like a wild animal waiting to die. Ten million is a clean slate, Chris. It’s a second chance. Why won’t you take it?” I stopped. “You’re crossing lines you shouldn’t cross.” “Somebody has to!” He stepped closer, clapping a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Chris, you’re not a heartless bastard. I know you. Three years ago, when that category-five dust storm hit and visibility was less than six feet, a family of three got buried under their rolled Jeep. Everyone said they were already dead. But you went out alone. You dug through the sand with your bare hands for four straight hours until you pulled them out.” “When that little girl clung to your back and called you ‘Daddy’… you cried harder than she did.” I didn’t say a word. I remembered that day all too well. She had been severely dehydrated, drifting in and out of consciousness, shivering violently against my spine. When she whispered that single word—”Daddy”—my vision had instantly blurred. She had made me think of Grace. If I had been able to save my own daughter, maybe she would have held onto me just like that. “You don’t just leave people to die. What is it really? Just give me a straight answer.” I looked out toward the horizon of the deep desert. The distant dust line looked like a massive, rust-colored wall slowly rolling over the earth. “Did you look at the photo in the file?” I asked. “Yeah. Logan. Thirty-five. Went missing near the abandoned research station in the southern sector. His satellite ping went dark over twenty-four hours ago.” “Do you know who he is?” Wayne blinked. “The client’s younger brother. What about him?” I didn’t answer. The wind was picking up, sending loose grit clattering against our metal siding. It was a sound I had lived with for eight years. Every single night in this outpost, the same dream haunted me. A barren, cracked wasteland under a sun hot enough to split stone. Grace, kneeling in the dirt, her lips split and crusted with blood, her skin horribly blistered. She would look up at me, her eyes too dry for tears, using the very last of her breath to call out to me. “Daddy, I’m so thirsty.” “Where are you?” Every time I reached out to hold her, my fingers passed straight through her fading frame. And she would dissolve like loose sand, scattered by the wind. Wayne was still waiting for my answer. I turned to face him. “Find someone else for this job.” “There is no one else, Chris, and you know it. In this weather, you’re the only guide who can go into the deep sands and actually come back alive.” “Then he’ll have to figure it out himself.” “He’s been out there without a signal for a full day. Any longer and we’re just retrieving a corpse.” I held his gaze. “Wayne, how long have you been with me? Six years?” “Six years and four months.” “And in all that time, how many distress calls have I turned down?” He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. The answer was zero. I had braved blinding storms, crossed uncharted dunes, and marched through hundred-and-thirty-degree heat. I had never once turned my back on a soul in need. “So you should know that if I say I can’t save this one, I have a damn good reason.” Wayne stood frozen, the rising wind whipping his hair across his face. He didn’t press further. But I could tell he still didn’t understand. “Go inside and charge your sat phone,” I told him. “We have a storm rolling in tonight. Stay indoors.” He caught my arm one last time. “The client is still on the line. Are you really not going to take her call?” “Tell her to find someone else.” The phone rang in the middle of the night. I lay awake, listening to it buzz against the wooden table for what felt like an eternity before it finally cut out. Ten seconds later, it started up again. After several persistent rounds, I finally swiped the screen and brought the phone to my ear. “Mr. Chris?” It was a voice I would recognize anywhere. “This is Rebecca.” The moment she spoke her name, my grip on the phone tightened until my knuckles turned white. “Name your price,” she said, her tone sharp and transactional. “If ten million isn’t enough, I’ll double it. Twenty million. Cash. Wired to any offshore account you specify, within thirty minutes.” I remained silent. “Are you there? Are you listening to me?” “I’m here.” “Twenty million. Cold hard cash. If that doesn’t work, we can negotiate.” “It’s not about the money.” “Then what is it about?” Her voice rose an octave, tight with exasperation. “They say you’re the best navigator in the entire region. The emergency dispatch network practically begged me to call you. They said you’re the only one crazy enough to go deep into the southern sector in this weather. If you won’t take the job, what is my brother supposed to do?” “Find someone else.” “Find who? Dispatch said you are the only one who can navigate this window of time. The other guides won’t go past the county line. They say if they go any further north, they won’t make it back.” I knew that. I had spent eight years mapped in sweat and blood to learn every square inch of this desert. Every sinkhole, every sudden wind shear, every pocket of shifting sand—it was all logged in my head. The navigation data for that uncharted sector belonged to me, and me alone. “Don’t you have anyone you care about?” her voice softened, trying a different angle. “You of all people should understand what it feels like to wait out there, knowing you’re going to die.” I closed my eyes as a cold weight settled in my chest. Of all the people in the world, she was the last one who had any right to say those words. Grace’s last satellite transmission had come through at exactly three in the morning. It lasted eleven seconds, and then her signal vanished forever. Later, a guilty dispatcher let slip the truth: Rebecca had paid a massive bribe to turn the only active search-and-rescue team around. All to search for Logan. A thirty-five-year-old man who was so drunk he couldn’t find his way out of a resort parking lot. While my Gracie, hundreds of miles away in the burning heart of the desert, watched her water bottle run dry. Her body temperature spiked past a hundred and four degrees. Her final voice message to me was only a few seconds long. “Daddy… it’s so hot… and… I love you…” Those few seconds of audio had played on a loop in my head for eight years. “Mr. Chris? Are you listening to me?” Rebecca’s voice broke through the silence. “I’m listening.” “If twenty million isn’t enough, then fifty million.” She paused, letting out a cold, cynical laugh. “You’ve been scraping by in the dirt for eight years. Have you ever even seen that kind of money? Fifty million is enough for you to buy a mansion in the city, drive whatever you want, find yourself a beautiful wife. You can’t be stupid enough to turn this down.” “Rebecca,” I said quietly. “What?” “You’re right. I’ve never seen that much money.” “But I’ve also never met someone who treats human life like a discount rack. Your brother’s life is worth fifty million to you. But tell me… how much was my daughter’s life worth?” The line went dead silent. “What… what do you mean by that?” she whispered, her voice faltering. “Nothing. Find someone else.” I hung up, and the quiet of the outpost rushed back in. I closed my eyes, and the dream returned instantly. Grace was kneeling in the parched sand, the skin peeling from her shoulders, her knees scraped and bloody. She looked up at me, her dry eyes rimmed with red, her lips cracked open. “Daddy… why isn’t Mommy coming to save me?” I knelt down, my hands trembling as I reached for her. But how was I supposed to answer her? How could I tell her that her mother had diverted her rescue crew to save a useless, grown man who was lost in a hotel parking lot? Grace waited, staring at me. Then she offered a tiny, tragic smile, her dry lips splitting as a bead of dark blood welled up. “That’s okay. I’ll wait. Mommy will come. She has to.” I bolted upright in bed, drenched in a cold sweat. The outpost was pitch black, the wind rattling the corrugated metal walls of my room. “Chris? You okay?” Wayne’s voice drifted from the other side of the partition. “I’m fine.” I reached for the water bottle under my pillow, unscrewed the cap, and took a long, desperate swallow. “Go back to sleep,” I whispered into the darkness. I didn’t know if I was talking to Wayne or to myself. Around noon the next day, the thrum of a helicopter rattled the outpost. The whipping rotors kicked up a massive cloud of grit, nearly tearing the tarp off our shed. Wayne swore loudly and ran inside. “That Rebecca woman is here. She brought a whole damn circus with her.” I sat on my cot, my fingers tracing a worn red thread. It was the woven bracelet we had found tightly tied around Grace’s wrist when we recovered her body. “Chris, maybe you should slip out the back?” Wayne poked his head in, looking anxious. “No need.” I tucked the red thread carefully into my pocket and stood up. When the door flap was pulled back, she was already standing just outside. Oversized designer sunglasses covered half her face, but they couldn’t mask the heavy, immaculate makeup that looked absurdly out of place in this barren desert. She glanced toward me. Then she turned her head away, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “Is this him?” she asked her assistant. The assistant nodded. “Chris. Forty-three. Lead navigator. He’s the only one who knows the deep southern routes.” Rebecca peered at me over the rim of her sunglasses. My face was weathered by eight years of harsh desert wind, my skin baked to a dark leather, my clothes coated in a fine layer of dust. I was a completely different man from the husband she had divorced eight years ago. Back then, my name was Christian. Since losing our daughter, I went by Chris. She didn’t recognize me. “Name your terms,” she said, waving a hand dismissively at her assistant as she walked off to find some shade. The assistant stepped forward, polite but carrying an unmistakable edge of big-city arrogance. “Mr. Chris, Miss Rebecca is prepared to be incredibly generous. We can negotiate the financials—fifty million is just a starting point. We can also arrange a luxury townhouse in Boston, fast-track private school admissions for your kids, whatever you need…” “I don’t have kids.” The assistant faltered, checking his tablet. “Well, name something else then. Real estate, top-tier medical access, or…” Hank, our veteran mechanic, happened to walk past just then, with his son Toby carrying a heavy water jug behind him. Toby, who was always too quick to speak, nudged his dad and muttered under his breath, loud enough for others to hear. “Chris has had it rough. His wife left him, his only girl died out here, and now he just rots in this desert alone. He doesn’t even have family to talk to.” The words were quiet, but Rebecca’s sharp ears caught them. Her gaze whipped over from beneath her designer sunglasses. She let out a soft, mocking laugh. “A man like that… no wonder he couldn’t keep his family together.” Wayne’s fists clenched tight at his sides. I reached out, laying a steadying hand on his arm. Rebecca walked back over, wearing a look of patronizing pity. “I understand you have reservations. The desert is dangerous. But my brother’s life is more important than anything. State your price. You bring him back, and you can have whatever you want.” “I said no.” “Not enough money?” “It has nothing to do with money.” She frowned, looking at me like I was a stubborn, uneducated child. “Then what does it have to do with? That dead daughter of yours?” The air in the camp turned freezing. Wayne let out a sharp intake of breath. Rebecca shrugged, entirely indifferent to the wound she had just ripped open. “Let me guess—did you get her killed out here? Is that why you’re too scared to go back in?” My hands balled into tight fists, the veins on my neck bulging as my temples throbbed with a white-hot rage. “Shut up,” I rasped. The entire camp went dead quiet. Rebecca froze for a split second, and her bodyguards immediately stepped forward, positioning themselves in front of her. But she quickly recovered, a smug, superior smile returning to her lips. “Looks like I hit a nerve. A man who couldn’t even protect his own flesh and blood… I suppose a cheap desert guide is all you’re fit to be.” “My brother is different. His life actually matters. He is worth something.” I stared directly into her eyes. Eight years, and she was still just as beautiful. And just as cold. “You need to leave, Rebecca.” She didn’t leave. Within an hour, four black SUVs rolled into our camp. The number of hired muscle had doubled. The assistant sat at our wooden table, making calls on his satellite phone, his voice echoing across the yard. “Yes, notify all local agencies. Any guide who refuses this contract gets blacklisted immediately. We will use every corporate resource to shut them down. Yes, everyone. No exceptions.” Wayne walked over, holding a tin cup, his face pale. “She’s insane. She’s going to ruin every single one of us.” I didn’t say anything. Hank stepped out of his tent, walking toward me with hesitant steps. Toby followed closely behind, his face flushed red. “Chris…” Hank started, his voice strained and quiet. “I know you’ve got your reasons. But… Toby and I, this is all we have. We can’t survive a blacklist. His wife is due next month, and our family…” With a dull thud, Toby dropped to his knees. He sank into the loose sand, digging a small depression with his shins. “Chris, please. I beg you. Just do it for us.” Hank shivered, and then he, too, dropped to his knees beside his son. I bent down immediately to pull them up. “Get up,” I muttered. Before I could lift them, two large bodyguards appeared out of nowhere, grabbing my arms from behind. I struggled, but their hold was like iron. A third man stepped around and shoved my head down, forcing my face hard into the dirt. The hot, baking sand burned against my cheek, stinging my skin. Rebecca’s designer boots stepped into my field of vision. She knelt down, slipping off her sunglasses, looking down at me like I was a stray dog. “If you don’t agree, these people will never make a single dime in this country again. I’ll personally make sure of it,” she said calmly, her voice devoid of any real malice, which made it far more chilling. “I’ve been in business a long time, Chris. There is absolutely nothing I can’t buy.” I turned my head slightly, catching her eye. There was no worry in her expression. No panic for her missing brother. Only the cold, unyielding authority of a woman who was used to owning the room. She looked exactly as she had eight years ago. Back then, when I had begged her, she had worn that exact same expression: I don’t care about anything else. My brother is in trouble. Name your price. From a few yards away, I heard a violent scuffle. Two guards had dragged Wayne out into the blistering, direct sunlight. He was shouting, but a heavy hand clamped over his mouth, turning his curses into muffled groans. The sun was blinding. In this heat, a man left out in the open would suffer heatstroke in thirty minutes. In two hours, he’d be dead. “Stop!” I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat. “I’ll do it!” The bodyguards let go of my arms. I slowly pushed myself up from the sand, coughing up grit. Rebecca stood up, casually brushing a speck of dust from her designer trousers. “See? Was that so hard?” I looked up at her, my eyes cold and dead. “Do you want to know why I didn’t want to go?” She arched an eyebrow but remained silent. “If I go into that desert, your brother isn’t coming back alive.” Her expression didn’t change, but her lips twitched slightly. “What is that supposed to mean?” “It means I will personally bury him out there,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “My daughter took her last breath in the exact same sector where your brother is lost.” The wind suddenly died down, leaving an oppressive silence. The blood drained from Rebecca’s face, her perfect composure finally fracturing. The entire camp held its breath. Only the distant dunes hummed with a low, ominous vibration. “Now tell me,” I whispered. “Do you still want me to go?”

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When I listed the SUV we’d co-financed on a used car marketplace, the buyer messaged me, asking why I was dropping the price so aggressively just to get it off my hands. I stared at the screen, a dry, humorless smile touching my lips. “Because of a neck pillow.” Yesterday, I was running a 102-degree fever. A vicious flu had settled deep into my chest, making my head spin and my stomach churn as I sat trapped in the passenger seat. Desperate for a few minutes of relief, I reached down to recline the seat so I could rest my eyes. Dave’s hand shot out, catching my wrist. His brow furrowed in deep disapproval. “Don’t adjust that. That’s the exact angle Naomi needs. Last time you messed with it, her back flared up for days.” He reached over, lightly patting the blush-pink ergonomic memory foam pillow resting against the headrest, and lowered his voice to a coaxing whisper. “Just tough it out for a few more minutes, okay? We’re almost home. You know how bad Naomi’s cervical spine is. We have to be accommodating.” The gentle, protective way he touched that pillow sent a sharp, physical ache through my chest. Suddenly, the passenger seat of this car—the car that had supposedly been ours, the one he had driven me to and from work in for the last six years—felt so suffocatingly small I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t whine. I didn’t tell him how much my body ached, the way I normally would have. I just silently opened the door, stepped out into the damp chill, and climbed into the back seat. Dave glanced at me in the rearview mirror. I saw the exasperation in his eyes; he thought I was throwing a tantrum. He shook his head, let out a long sigh, and didn’t say another word. I looked down at my phone. A notification popped up: Your flight cancellation was successful. I locked the screen, closed my eyes, and let the fever pull me under. This ride with Dave had run its course. This was where I was getting off. … 1 The night my fever spiked to 102, Dave was the one who drove me home. It was pouring rain outside. I was huddled in the back seat, my coat pulled tight around my shivering shoulders, my burning forehead pressed against the cool glass of the window. Up front, sitting squarely in the passenger seat, was a beige lumbar pillow and a neatly folded lightweight throw blanket. They weren’t mine. They were Naomi’s. When I had first reached for the passenger door handle in the parking lot, Dave had physically blocked me. His voice was low, his expression tight with an unnatural awkwardness. “Jessica, you’re burning up. You’ll be able to lie down and stretch out in the back.” He paused. “Naomi’s back has been acting up again. The angle of that seat and the pillow… she needs it exactly how it is.” My fingers froze on the wet metal of the door handle. Of course I could sit in the back. But out of nowhere, a memory hit me. Six years ago, the day we drove this car off the lot, he had opened the passenger door for me with a bright, eager smile. “From now on, this is your throne. I’m going to be your personal chauffeur every day after work.” His eyes had been so full of promise then. And like a fool, I had believed him. Six years later, I was shivering in the back seat, while the passenger side was a shrine to another woman’s comfort. When we finally pulled up to our apartment building, Dave opened an umbrella for me. My legs were shaking from the fever. I leaned against the brick wall of the entryway, gasping for air, expecting him to guide me inside. Instead, he stopped abruptly. “Head on up,” he said. “I need to check on the car real quick.” I turned my head. Through the heavy sheet of rain, I watched him walk back to the SUV. I watched him open the passenger door, lean in, and meticulously adjust that beige pillow to make sure it hadn’t shifted. I watched him refold her thin blanket. Finally, I watched him reach up to the dashboard, carefully tilting the AC vents away from the seat. The rain was soaking right through the shoulders of his jacket, but he didn’t even seem to notice. I stood in the dim light of the stairwell, my throat tightening until it hurt to swallow. All this time, I had told myself he just wasn’t a detail-oriented guy. But he wasn’t incapable of paying attention. He was just paying attention to someone else. Once inside, I collapsed onto the sofa. My phone buzzed against my leg. Auto-Pay Successful: Auto Loan deduction of $485.00. The money came directly out of my checking account. I stared at the text message for a long time. The SUV was registered in my name. I had put down sixty percent of the down payment; he had put down forty. Because my credit score was higher and my income more stable, the financing was tied entirely to my bank account. In the beginning, he used to Venmo me his portion of the monthly payment like clockwork. The memos were always sweet. For our ride or Chauffeur fee. Over time, the cute memos stopped. Then the amounts became irregular. Sometimes he’d be short a hundred bucks and promise to get me on the next one. I never pressed him for it. I figured we were heading toward marriage anyway; there was no point in keeping a strict ledger between us. But now, the loan was bleeding out of my account every month, while the passenger seat had become Naomi’s exclusive property. I opened the car’s connected app on my phone. Registered Owner: Jessica. I clicked on the navigation history. The number one most frequented destination was Naomi’s office building. Number two was her physical therapy clinic. My own office was sitting at number three. I tapped into the Bluetooth logs. The device that had connected most frequently over the last thirty days wasn’t mine. It was Naomi’s iPhone. I suddenly thought about all the times lately that Dave had told me something was “on his way.” He was on his way to pick Naomi up from work. On his way to drop her at PT. On his way to get her prescriptions. Sometimes, he was even on his way to bring her back to our apartment to hang out while he finished some work. Meanwhile, when I worked late into the night, he would text me to just take an Uber home and he’d cover the fare. I realized then that “on the way” is a relative term. For some people, a man will cross three zip codes and call it a detour. For others, you only rate an Uber receipt. Dave walked into the living room, handing me a glass of warm water. He pressed his palm to my forehead. “Still burning up. Take your meds and get straight to bed.” His voice was as warm and steady as ever. Our friends always said Dave was one of the good ones—a caretaker, mild-mannered, deeply empathetic. I used to think so, too. It took me a long time to understand the truth. When a man’s gentleness is always reserved for someone else first, it isn’t love. It’s just charity. I took the glass from him without a word. Dave sighed, his shoulders dropping. “Are you still upset about the car thing? You know how fragile Naomi’s health is. She isn’t trying to steal your spot.” I stared at the surface of the water in the glass. “Did I say she was?” He blinked, clearly thrown by my flat tone. He was expecting a fight, expecting me to be shrill. “That’s not what I meant.” He sat down next to me, reaching out to pull me into his side. “I know it’s frustrating. Tell you what, when you kick this fever, I’ll take you out for omakase. Just the two of us. How does that sound?” If this had been the old me, I would have taken the out. I would have let him smooth it over. But tonight, sitting in the quiet of our living room, the desire to make excuses for him was completely, utterly dead. His phone lit up on the coffee table. The caller ID flashed: Naomi. Dave glanced at it, and by pure reflex, he stood up and walked out onto the balcony to answer. The sliding glass door didn’t latch all the way. Over the sound of the rain, I heard him lower his voice. “It’s fine, I’m already home. Yes, I put the pillow right back where it was. It didn’t move.” A pause. “I adjusted the vents, too. You won’t get any cold air on your neck when we drive tomorrow.” I gripped the glass of water, my knuckles turning white. When we drive tomorrow. She was going to be in my car again tomorrow. I sat there in the dim light, opened the Kelley Blue Book app, and entered the car’s VIN number to get an instant cash offer. Then, I logged into my banking app to check the exact payoff amount left on the auto loan, and the process for early settlement. It wasn’t a small amount of money. But if I added the refund I’d just gotten from canceling our upcoming vacation, plus my personal savings, it would be exactly enough. That vacation was supposed to be our last big trip before we started planning the wedding. I had spent weeks researching boutique hotels, booking flights, and mapping out itineraries. But just that morning, he had told me we couldn’t go. “We can take a trip anytime,” he had said. “But Naomi has a critical window for her physical therapy right now, and she needs me to drive her.” So I had quietly canceled everything, swallowing the disappointment, just like I was quietly looking up the car’s appraisal value now. When Dave came back inside, he pulled a blanket up over my shoulders and kissed the top of my head, whispering, “Don’t overthink things, okay?” I closed my eyes. I waited until I heard the shower running in the bathroom, then opened my eyes, took a screenshot of the car’s appraisal, and saved it to my photos. The passenger seat of that car hadn’t been mine for a long time. There was no reason for me to keep the car, either. By the next morning, my fever had broken, leaving me weak but clear-headed. When I walked into the entryway, I noticed a pair of pale pink, memory-foam house slippers sitting perfectly parallel on the rug. I didn’t own pink slippers. I opened the shoe cabinet. My own backup slippers had been shoved all the way to the back, collecting a fine layer of dust. The pink ones had been sitting front and center. Dave walked out of the kitchen holding a mug of coffee. Seeing me staring at the shoes, he explained, his tone casual and entirely unbothered. “Naomi hangs out here waiting for me sometimes. With her back issues, walking barefoot on the hardwood hurts her. I just grabbed those so she’d be comfortable. Don’t read into it, it’s just practical.” I nodded. I didn’t ask him why she felt entitled to wait for him in our home. I didn’t ask him why her things were taking priority over mine in my own shoe cabinet. I walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge to grab my milk. There was a yellow Post-it note stuck to the inside of the door, written in Dave’s handwriting. Naomi’s Dietary Restrictions: No ice-cold drinks. No spicy food. Dairy-free only. I remembered last night, when he handed me my medicine. He had just tossed the blister pack on the coffee table and told me to take them. I reached for my usual carton of whole milk. It was gone. In its place was a carton of unsweetened almond milk. Dave walked up behind me. “Her stomach has been really sensitive lately. I figured you drink anything anyway, so I just swapped it out for the house.” I figured you drink anything anyway. I figured you’re healthy. I figured you’re the reasonable one. I poured myself a glass of the almond milk. It tasted thin and watery. I hated it. Seeing me drink it, Dave smiled and reached out to ruffle my hair affectionately. “Good girl. Let’s not keep score with someone who’s sick, right?” Holding the cold glass, a laugh suddenly bubbled up in my throat. I had been burning up with a 102-degree fever twelve hours ago. But the only thing taking up space in his brain was the fact that Naomi shouldn’t sit in a draft. I opened the medicine cabinet to look for DayQuil. All I found was a box of cold meds that had expired a year ago. He had no idea when my medicine expired. But Naomi’s specific prescriptions were always fully stocked in the glovebox of my car. My phone lit up. It was a message in his family’s group chat. Dave’s mother had texted: [How is Naomi’s neck today? Dave, make sure you don’t let the AC blow on her.] A minute later, Dave replied: [Don’t worry, Mom. I angled all the vents away from her seat last night.] An aunt chimed in: [Dave is always so thoughtful.] A cousin added: [Poor Naomi’s health is so fragile. You really do have to watch over her.] Not a single person asked why I hadn’t said anything in the chat last night. Not a single person knew I had been sick. I gripped my phone tightly. In his family’s ecosystem, she had stopped being an outsider a long time ago. And I—the girlfriend he was supposedly about to marry—felt like a spectator staring through the glass. Mid-morning, after Dave left for the office, I went into the study and pulled out our file cabinet. At the very bottom were the folders I kept for the car. The original bank statements from the down payment were still there. Sixty percent from me. Forty percent from him. I remembered the day we signed the paperwork. He had bumped his shoulder against mine and joked, You just sit pretty in the passenger seat. I’m your driver for life. Looking at those papers now just made my stomach turn. I booted up my laptop and started a new Excel spreadsheet. I meticulously logged every single transaction. The down payment, the monthly installments, the insurance premiums, the maintenance, the parking garage fees, even the random speeding tickets. I also created a column for the money he had transferred me over the years, logging every single Venmo and Zelle payment. I had never tracked our finances like this before. I always thought that in a real partnership, it didn’t matter who paid a little more or a little less. But it’s only when you’re truly preparing to walk away that you realize: money can be calculated down to the cent. The emotional toll, however, is a debt that can never be settled. Around noon, Dave came back to the apartment to grab a file he’d forgotten. I quickly Alt-Tabbed to a work presentation. He didn’t notice. He just walked up behind my desk, wrapped his arms around my shoulders, and rested his chin on my head. “Still feeling under the weather? Let me take you somewhere nice for dinner tonight.” If it weren’t for the memory of him obsessively checking that passenger seat last night, I might have let myself soften. “No thanks,” I said, my voice flat. “I have work to finish.” He let out a soft, patronizing sigh. “You always do this, Jessica. You push yourself too hard.” I stared at the blank PowerPoint slide on my screen. I didn’t turn around. He was right. I did push myself too hard. I pushed myself to understand him, to rationalize his behavior, to accept being placed last in his life, over and over again. But starting today, I was done. After Dave left, I reopened my banking tab. I clicked the button to initiate an early payoff for the auto loan. The system popped up a confirmation. I checked my email, but I deliberately did not click Sync to Shared Google Calendar. For years, our shared calendar had been the map of our lives together. Today was the first time I intentionally hid something massive from his view. Dave had originally promised to go with me today to try on wedding dresses. I had booked the appointment two weeks in advance. I had specifically cross-referenced his calendar to make sure it didn’t conflict with Naomi’s physical therapy days. I had asked him three separate times to confirm he had no conflicts. He promised he was clear.

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“An abortion is incredibly hard on your body,” the doctor said, her voice soft but heavy with professional concern as we stood outside the surgical suite. “If there’s any way you can keep the pregnancy, you should consider it. Are you sure you don’t want to talk this over with your husband first?” I pulled out my phone and stared at the screen, my fingers trembling slightly. I pulled up my thread with Greg and typed out a single sentence. I’m at the hospital. I’m planning to terminate the pregnancy. Within seconds, the reply came back: K. A single, cold letter. I turned the screen toward the doctor. She looked at the brief exchange, sighed quietly, and didn’t push any further. She simply nodded and went back inside to prepare for the procedure. I stared down at that single-letter reply. A bitter, hollow laugh bubbled up in my chest. It was pathetic, really. For the longest time, I had convinced myself that Greg was just a man of few words. Quiet. Reserved. But five years into our marriage, the truth had finally settled in my bones like a cold draft. He wasn’t naturally detached. He was just empty. He had spent every ounce of his warmth, his passion, and his energy on Sasha, his childhood best friend. By the time he came home to me, there was nothing left but dry embers. I had tried to voice my hurt before. I had fought for his attention, cried, and demanded better. But Greg would only look at me with that calm, faintly exhausted expression. “Sasha and I grew up together, Mona. We’re partners at work. Anything between us is strictly professional. Besides, this is what marriage is. It’s quiet. It’s stable. Can’t we just live a normal, peaceful life?” I hadn’t known how to argue against that. So, like a fool, I learned to live with the silence. Until three months ago. I was crossing the street when a distracted driver clipped me. The impact threw me onto the asphalt. As I lay there, the world spinning in and out of focus, my vision blurring, I managed to slip my phone out of my pocket with trembling fingers. I sent Greg a desperate text. His response was instantaneous: K. I waited. I waited as kind strangers gathered around me, as someone called 911, as the paramedics loaded me into the back of an ambulance. I waited through the blinding pain in the ER, through the stitches, and through the long, quiet hours in the recovery room. Greg never showed up. Panic had finally overridden my pride. Nursing the throbbing ache in my side, I dialed Sasha’s number, terrified that Greg had been in an accident on his way to see me. Sasha answered. When I finished explaining what had happened, she let out a soft, airy giggle. “Oh, Mona. Greg’s actually right here with me. I’ve been managing his personal accounts and texts for a while now. Did he seriously never tell you?” The world seemed to grind to a halt. “He’s just so incredibly busy with work,” Sasha continued, her tone dripping with casual intimacy. “He gets overwhelmed with notifications, so he logged his personal accounts onto my phone ages ago. I handle the clutter, filter through the noise, and only pass on the urgent stuff. I saw your messages, of course. But since it didn’t look like an absolute emergency, I just shot back a quick reply to clear the notification.” My phone slipped slightly in my sweaty palm. My entire body began to shake. Every single text. Every late-night confession. Every small, vulnerable update I had sent my husband over the last few years… he had never even seen them. The person reading them, the person sending back those dismissive, one-word replies, had been Sasha. Greg had no idea what I had been saying to him. “Mona? You’re not mad, are you?” Sasha’s voice was sweet, tinged with a delicate, childish pout. “I mean, if you really need him, I can totally tell him to head home to you.” I couldn’t breathe. I hung up without saying a word. I had spent years making excuses for his absence, chalking it up to a high-pressure career and an emotionally reserved personality. But the truth was far simpler, and far more brutal: he didn’t care enough to even look. He had handed my life, and my feelings, over to another woman to manage. … 1 I lay on the narrow hospital bed, staring blankly at the sterile ceiling tiles. The surgery had gone horribly wrong. Halfway through, I suffered a severe hemorrhage. My blood pressure plummeted, and the heart monitor began to emit a frantic, high-pitched wail. Through the haze of anesthesia, I heard nurses shouting, rushing out of the room to try and contact my emergency contact. They called Greg. Again and again. But the calls went straight to voicemail. Ultimately, the lead surgeon had to sign an emergency waiver to proceed with a life-saving intervention. They spent over two hours dragging me back from the edge of death. When my eyes finally fluttered open, the recovery room was silent and empty. No husband. No family. Not even a single missed call or text from him. But Greg had posted an update on social media just ten minutes prior. It was a photo of a cozy beach camping setup. A bonfire crackled in the center, casting a warm, golden glow over the two of them. Sasha was leaning against his shoulder, her eyes crinkled with genuine, radiant happiness. On the small blanket in front of them sat a tiny, rustic cake with the number 10,000 piped clumsily in white frosting. The caption was simple: Life is only thirty thousand days. You are my ten thousand. My thumb hovered over the screen, frozen. I stared at their smiling faces, and for the first time, the grief in my chest was replaced by a profound, deadening exhaustion. What on earth was I fighting for? Our marriage had become a joke. A pathetic, one-sided performance where I was the only actor on stage, and the audience was laughing at my desperation. I closed the social media app and opened our text thread—knowing full well who would likely read it first. I’m exhausted, Greg. I want a divorce. If you don’t reply by midnight, I’m taking your silence as your consent to end this. I won’t cause a scene, but the choice is yours. I kept my eyes on the clock. 11:57 PM. 11:58 PM. At exactly 11:59 PM, the status bar at the top of the chat finally flickered: Greg is typing… I let out a soft, humorless laugh. My fingers moved swiftly, blocking his number before the message could even come through. Did you really think I was giving you a second chance, Greg? We’re done. Once his contact was blocked, I dialed a different number. One I had kept memorized but had never dared to call. The line rang only once before a deep voice answered. He didn’t sound surprised to hear from me. “You won,” I said, getting straight to the point. “I know when I’ve lost. I agree to your terms.” There was a brief, heavy silence on the other end, followed by a low, quiet chuckle. “A man who fails you once will fail you forever, Mona,” Jude said, his voice smooth and steady. “If there’s no love left, you discard him. You can treat me the exact same way if I ever disappoint you.” He paused, then added, “My current project wraps up in three days. I’ll come collect you then.” After my vitals stabilized, the doctors discharged me. When I returned to our penthouse, the living room lights were surprisingly on. I pushed the door open and found Greg sitting on the leather sofa, flipping through some work documents. His tailored suit jacket was draped carelessly over the armrest. He looked like he had just gotten in. At the sound of the door, he looked up, setting the papers aside. “Sasha said you went to the clinic,” he said, his voice flat. “What was that about?” “I had an abortion.” Halfway through my sentence, Greg’s phone began to ring. Sasha’s name flashed across the screen, accompanied by a bright, cheerful ringtone that completely drowned out my voice. Greg glanced at the caller ID, and a soft smile instantly broke across his face—a genuine, warm expression I hadn’t seen directed at me in years. He answered, spoke softly for a minute, and hung up. Turning his attention back to me, he asked casually, “Sorry, what were you saying?” I looked at his calm, unaffected face, and a profound emptiness washed over me. Sasha had obviously passed on some version of the truth to him, but how she framed it was her choice, and his lack of curiosity was his. I let out a soft sigh. “Nothing.” I turned to walk toward the guest bedroom, but Greg stood up and followed me. He wrapped his arms loosely around my waist from behind, resting his chin on my shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked. I froze under his touch. “What do you mean?” “Are you throwing a fit because I didn’t go to the clinic with you?” His tone was breezy, patronizing, like he was pacifying a petulant child. “Today was a big deal, Mona. It marked exactly ten thousand days since Sasha and I met. She’s sentimental about those kinds of milestones. It had to be celebrated today, not tomorrow. I couldn’t just walk away from that.” It took me a second to realize he was referring to the text I had sent before blocking him. He genuinely believed I had just gone for a routine checkup, and that my threat of divorce was nothing more than a childish tantrum because he was spending the day with Sasha. “I’m not throwing a tantrum, Greg. I’ve already drafted the separation agreement—” “I’ve got a lot on my plate at work right now, Mona. Don’t start acting like a dramatic teenager,” Greg interrupted, his voice instantly turning cold. He walked back to the sofa, gathered his papers, and spoke without looking at me. “There’s still stuff I need to handle at the office tonight. I went out of my way to come home and check on you. You’re a grown woman. I don’t mind indulging you once in a while, but don’t push it.” He snapped his car keys off the entryway table. The heavy front door clicked open and shut, and he was gone. I stood in the quiet hallway and laughed softly to myself. To him, every ounce of my pain, my loneliness, and my desperation was reduced to “throwing a fit.” He hadn’t taken the divorce threat seriously. He never took anything I said seriously. My needs were just background noise to his life. I went to the bedroom and opened my laptop. My attorney was incredibly efficient; after I laid out my terms, she didn’t take long to draft a fair, standard divorce agreement. I reviewed the document carefully, signed my portion, and emailed the digital file directly to Greg’s personal account. Not even a minute after sending it, a text popped up on my phone from Greg’s number. It was Sasha. Mona, if you’re trying to get Greg’s attention, this isn’t the way to do it. He absolutely despises these kinds of loyalty tests! A while back, I lost a bet and had a guy friend pretend to be my boyfriend just to see how Greg would react. Greg was furious. Once he found out it was just a joke, I had to apologize for days before he’d even speak to me. Trust me, you don’t want to play this card. I didn’t bother replying. A few minutes later, an email notification chimed. I opened the attachment. Greg’s signature was scrawled elegantly across the bottom of the divorce papers. Then came a voice note from Sasha, her tone light and deceptively innocent. “Hey Mona, Greg trusts me with his paperwork, so he signed it without really looking. Do you want me to explain to him what he just signed, or should we keep it between us?” I stared at his signature for a long time. I had guessed correctly. Sasha could pretend to play the peacemaker all she wanted, but her actions were thoroughly efficient at clearing her path. A bitter smile touched my lips as I forwarded the fully executed document back to my lawyer. Just then, a sharp, cramping pain bloomed in my lower abdomen, radiating through my body. The physical toll of the hemorrhage and the abortion was catching up to me. Exhausted, I curled into a tight ball on the bed, closed my eyes, and drifted into a heavy, dreamless sleep. In the middle of the night, a sharp ringing woke me. The moment I answered, a panicked voice cried out, “Mona! You need to get down here right now! Something bad happened!” My instincts kicked in before my brain could process the pain in my stomach. I threw an oversized coat over my pajamas and drove to the shared location. It was a high-end private lounge downtown. I walked down the dimly lit hallway to find the VIP suite door slightly ajar. Inside, glasses clinked, and laughter filled the air. As I pushed the door open, a loud cheer erupted from the group. “Your turn, Sasha! Tell us a secret no one in this room knows!” Sasha’s cheeks were flushed pink, her eyes glazed with alcohol. She tilted her head, looked directly at Greg, and let out a coy laugh. “Oh, I have a good one. Greg and I have slept together.” The room froze. Every eye in the suite turned to look at the doorway—at me, standing there in my slippers, a faded coat thrown over my pajamas, my face completely devoid of color. In that split second, the pieces fell into place. The late-night phone call hadn’t been an emergency. It had been Sasha’s carefully staged show, timed perfectly so I would walk in on that exact sentence. Sasha’s eyes lit up when she saw me. She stood up, swaying slightly, and stumbled over to grab my hands. “Mona! You’re here! You seriously need to reign Greg in. He’s absolutely relentless. Every time we’re in bed, he completely wears me out and still wants more. How do you handle him at home? Come on, share your secrets!” A suffocating silence descended on the room. The looks on their colleagues’ faces shifted from awkward shock to pity, all of them staring at me to see how Greg’s discarded wife would react. A loud buzzing filled my ears, drowning out the ambient noise of the lounge. Before I could consciously register my anger, my hand flew out and struck Sasha across the face. The force of the slap sent her stumbling back, crashing onto the carpet. I took a step forward, grabbed a handful of her blonde hair, forced her face up, and delivered another sharp blow to her cheek. “Mona!” Greg surged to his feet. He crossed the room in two strides, grabbing my wrists and dragging me back with enough force to throw me off balance. He pinned my arms to my sides, his grip like iron. His eyes burned with an icy, suppressed fury. “Sasha is drunk and talking nonsense! Do you really have to be this dramatic and get violent?!” I struggled against his grip, but he didn’t budge. “Is she talking nonsense, Greg, or is she finally telling the truth because she’s drunk? How many times have the two of you slept behind my back? It’s disgusting!” “If you hate me so much, why didn’t you just sign the papers and let me go?” My voice cracked, tears finally spilling over my burning cheeks. “Why do you both get to humiliate me like this?!” A couple of people rushed over to help Sasha up. She clutched her cheek, sobbing hysterically. “My face… it hurts…” That was when we noticed a thin, jagged cut on her right cheekbone, likely from the sharp edge of the glass table she had tumbled against. A mixture of blood and tears began to trickle down her jawline. Seeing the blood, Greg’s self-control shattered. “Mona. Apologize. Now.” A white-hot rage flared in my chest. I had spent years avoiding conflict, swallowing my pride, and keeping the peace, but I was done being the victim. With a sudden burst of adrenaline, I ripped my wrists from his grip, grabbed a half-empty bottle of Cabernet from the table, and threw the dark red liquid directly into Sasha’s face. The alcohol stung her raw cut. She screamed, recoiling in agony. Greg went rigid. “You are completely out of your mind! Someone cool her down!” Before I could even blink, a bucket of ice water—meant for chilling champagne—was dumped over my head. The shock of the freezing water hit me like a physical blow. My thin pajamas clung to my skin, and the biting cold seized my lungs, making it impossible to breathe. Before I could gasp for air, two of the venue’s security guards stepped forward and pinned my shoulders. A second bucket of ice water was poured directly over me. My body, already fragile and recovering from a major hemorrhage, shut down under the freezing assault. A sharp, blinding pain tore through my abdomen, and my vision swam with dark spots. Greg stood before me, looking down at my shivering form with complete detachment. “Are you clear-headed now? You can leave as soon as you apologize.” I stared up at him, unable to comprehend the cruelty of the man I had loved. Sasha was the one who had dragged my dignity through the mud in front of his colleagues. Yet my own husband stood there, defending her, demanding that I bow my head. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words were drowned out by a third cascade of ice water. I couldn’t even scream this time. The agony in my uterus was so intense that my legs gave out. I collapsed onto my knees, my head hanging low. Through the puddle of melting ice on the floor, I saw a faint pink swirl beginning to spread. Blood. It was trickling down my inner thigh, mixing with the frigid water. As a guard lifted a fourth bucket, my survival instinct finally overrode my pride. I couldn’t take any more. “I’m sorry…” I whispered, my teeth chattering violently. “I’m sorry. I was wrong.” The guard paused and set the bucket down. The hands holding my shoulders released me. Greg didn’t even look at me. He turned around, peeled off his jacket, wrapped it securely around Sasha’s shivering shoulders, and guided her out of the room. Only after his footsteps faded down the hall did anyone in the room dare to move. A few panicked hands reached down to pull me up from the wet floor. Someone looked down at the dark red stain spreading across the carpet and gasped. “Oh my god, there’s so much blood! Call an ambulance!” My vision blurred into a gray haze. The voices around me became muffled, echoing as if underwater, before the darkness finally swallowed me whole. When I woke up, I was back in a sterile hospital room, the rhythmic beep of a heart monitor echoing in the quiet space. My OB-GYN walked in, holding a clipboard. Her expression was grim as she scanned my chart. “You were supposed to be resting, Mona,” she said, her voice heavy. “How could you let your body be subjected to freezing temperatures in your condition? The internal shock and trauma to your reproductive system are severe. I’m so sorry, but the damage is likely permanent. It’s highly improbable you’ll be able to carry a child in the future.” I stared at the wall. A single tear rolled slowly down my temple, dampening my hair. The door clicked open, and Greg walked in, looking slightly rumpled but composed. “What’s going on?” he asked, looking between us. The doctor turned to him, her eyes narrowing behind her glasses. “Are you her husband? How could you let this happen? She just had a miscarriage and a severe hem—” “Doctor,” I interrupted, my voice flat and hollow. “I understand the situation. Thank you for your help.” The doctor looked at me, then at Greg, sensing the suffocating tension in the room. She sighed, gave a few standard recovery instructions, and slipped out, closing the door behind her. It wasn’t that I wanted to protect Greg. It was just that I had already told him. I had texted him when I was pregnant. I had texted him when I decided to terminate it. He had never read those words because he had handed his life over to Sasha. And even if I spelled it out for him now, he would just see it as another drama, another “fit.” I didn’t have the energy to beg for his basic humanity anymore. I kept my face turned away from him. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be comforting Sasha?” Greg frowned, clearly irritated by my tone, but he chose not to argue. “My mother’s chronic condition flared up again. Once you’re discharged, I need you to go over and look after her. Honestly, Mona, as my wife, you’ve spent less time visiting her lately than Sasha has. Take this opportunity to make up for it.” I stared at him, momentarily speechless. His mother had been in and out of hospitals for years, and I was always the one who spent sleepless nights by her bedside, managing her medications and dealing with her difficult temperament. Yet in Greg’s eyes, Sasha was the attentive one. I remembered how his mother’s face would fall every time I walked into her hospital room, her first words always being, “Where’s Sasha?” I remembered how Sasha would send a single flower arrangement, and his mother would sigh, praising her thoughtfulness. Meanwhile, I had once stayed awake for three consecutive nights in the ICU, only for his mother to wake up, see Sasha standing there for five minutes, and thank her for taking such good care of her. To his family, Sasha was the beloved daughter-in-law they actually wanted. To them, I was barely status-equivalent to a hired nurse. But it didn’t matter anymore. The divorce papers were already signed. The duties, the expectations, the thankless title of being Greg’s wife—Sasha could have it all. Once I felt physically strong enough to stand without my knees buckling, I drove over to the Mercer estate. Jude was scheduled to pick me up tonight. I wanted to use this final visit to let Greg’s mother know about the divorce. Despite everything, I had spent five years as her daughter-in-law, and my upbringing wouldn’t allow me to just slip away without a proper goodbye. When I arrived, Mrs. Mercer was sitting on a wicker lounger on the patio, holding her phone up for a video call. “Mrs. Mercer,” I called out softly as I walked over. She gave me a cool, dismissive nod, barely glancing up before returning her attention to her screen. Her face instantly softened into a warm, doting smile. “Auntie! Greg told me you weren’t feeling well. I’m almost there!” Sasha’s voice chimed from the speaker, sweet and sugary. Mrs. Mercer beamed. “Oh, wonderful sweetie! I know how much you love those almond shortbread cookies. I’ll have the housekeeper put a batch in the oven right now so they’re warm when you get here.” Sasha squealed with delight, and the two of them chatted with an easy warmth that made them look like actual mother and daughter. The moment she hung up, Mrs. Mercer’s smile vanished. “Black tea, as usual?” Before I could answer, she gestured to the maid standing nearby. Within minutes, a cup of hot black tea was placed in front of me. I hated black tea. I had mentioned it gently during every single visit over the past five years, but Mrs. Mercer always served it to me anyway. I had once complained to Greg about it, trying to laugh it off, but he had dismissed me immediately. “My mother’s memory is failing, Mona. Besides, you’re there to take care of her, not to be pampered.” Her memory was failing, yet she remembered Sasha’s favorite cookies and ordered them prepared in advance. I visited three to four times a week, taking care of her through major health crises, and she couldn’t remember that I didn’t drink black tea. “Mona, let’s be honest with each other,” Mrs. Mercer said, adjusting her shawl. I looked up at her. “Sasha and Greg grew up right in front of my eyes. They’ve always been close, and they understand each other perfectly. You’ve been a dutiful caregiver these past few years, and you’re a decent woman, but you’re just so… rigid.” She took a sip of her own drink. “I’ve never really understood what Greg saw in you, but a marriage takes effort. Sasha has such a bright, lively personality. Greg always smiles more when she’s around. You really ought to learn from her. Maybe ask her for some advice on how to keep your husband happy.” My fingertips grew cold against the warm porcelain cup. My mother-in-law was telling me—with absolute sincerity—to ask another woman how to please my own husband. It was beyond absurd. It was insulting. I left the teacup untouched. “You don’t need to worry about that anymore, Mrs. Mercer. Greg and I are getting a divorce.” “Auntie!” A high-pitched, sweet voice echoed from the foyer, completely cutting off my words. Sasha came jogging out onto the patio, carrying a designer shopping bag, and immediately leaned down to hug Mrs. Mercer. “I just got here! Look what I found for you!” Mrs. Mercer’s face lit up instantly. “Oh, you sweet girl, you didn’t have to buy me anything!” After a few minutes of pampering, Sasha suddenly tapped her forehead. “Oh, I totally forgot! The firm we’re partnering with is hosting a major networking gala tonight, and Greg needs a plus-one. I have to run and get ready. I’ll make it up to you next time, Auntie!” Mrs. Mercer waved her off warmly. “Go, go. Business always comes first.” Sasha turned around, finally pretending to notice me sitting there. “Mona! I didn’t see you.” She stepped forward and slipped her arm through mine, her expression melting into a look of deep regret. “Mona, I feel absolutely terrible about what happened the other night. I was so drunk, and I said some really stupid things. Please don’t hold it against me. Let me make it up to you. Come to the gala with us, and I’ll clear the air with everyone. Please?” Before I could even voice a refusal, she practically dragged me toward her waiting car. When we arrived at the corporate headquarters downtown, Greg was standing near the entrance of the lobby. His eyes scanned me, and his brow instantly furrowed. “Aren’t you supposed to be looking after my mother today?” he asked, his tone demanding. Sasha playfully tapped his shoulder. “You said you needed a date, didn’t you? Since Mona was already there, I brought her along!” Greg didn’t say a word. He gave me a cold, critical sweep from head to toe, then turned on his heel and walked inside. He didn’t slow his pace, nor did he look back to see if I was keeping up. Sasha offered a sympathetic smile. “He’s just stressed. Don’t take it personally, Mona.” She practically pulled me through the glass doors. It wasn’t until we entered the venue that I fully understood the meaning behind Greg’s dismissive look. The gala was held in the penthouse ballroom. The city’s business elite moved through the crowd, dressed in tailored tuxedos and elegant evening gowns, their makeup flawless under the crystal chandeliers. I, on the other hand, was wearing a faded cotton t-shirt and jeans—the clothes I had thrown on hastily after leaving the hospital. My hair was tied up in a messy bun, and my face was entirely bare. Sasha had disappeared for a moment, only to return in a stunning, form-fitting cocktail dress and designer heels. She glided past me, offering a remorseful look. “Oh, Mona, I am so incredibly scatterbrained. I completely forgot to have a dress sent over for you. You don’t mind, do you?” I looked her dead in the eye, refusing to play along. “You brought me here on purpose just to humiliate me, didn’t you?” Sasha froze. She clearly hadn’t expected me to call her out so bluntly. Her practiced smile faltered, and her eyes instantly welled with tears. “Mona, that’s enough.” Greg stepped between us, having overheard my remark. He instinctively shielded Sasha behind his broad shoulders. “You didn’t give us any warning that you were coming. How was Sasha supposed to prepare a dress for you? Stop assuming the worst of her, and there’s absolutely no need to make a scene here.” My chest tightened. I didn’t want to come. Sasha had literally forced me into her car. Greg let out an irritated sigh. “You’re still holding a grudge over what she said when she was drunk. If you came here tonight just to show off and stake your claim in front of my associates, fine. Let’s get it over with.” Before I could protest, he grabbed my wrist and dragged me toward the center of the ballroom. Out of polite professionalism, a few associates walked over to greet us despite my wildly inappropriate attire. Since my body was still healing and I couldn’t touch alcohol, I politely raised a glass of water instead. After a few minutes of superficial small talk, I slipped away and hid in a quiet corner of the terrace. I was scanning the room, looking for a way to leave quietly, when a sudden commotion broke out near the bar. I turned to see Greg fiercely gripping a middle-aged man’s wrist. With a sickeningly calm twist of his arm, he forced the man’s shoulder out of its socket. The dull pop of the joint dislocating was lost beneath the man’s agonizing scream. Sasha stood beside him, clutching her arm, her eyes wide and tearful. “Greg, please stop… he just… he touched me a little, but I’m fine. Really. You should go back to Mona…” But Greg didn’t let go. His jaw was clenched so tightly the muscles in his neck strained, his eyes burning with a primal, protective rage. I stood a few yards away, watching him, feeling a strange sense of detachment. The last time I had seen Greg this angry was when we were first dating. Some drunk guys had cornered me outside a diner, shouting crude things. When Greg arrived, he had merely stepped between us, his face cold, and delivered a calm, measured warning. He was a Mercer. His upbringing demanded absolute restraint, decorum, and poise. He prided himself on never losing his temper in public. Yet tonight, he had completely abandoned his precious decorum. In front of his most important business partners, he had physically mutilated a man for touching Sasha. Security quickly rushed in to handle the screaming man and quiet the crowd. Greg kept a protective hand on Sasha’s back as he led her away. As they passed my corner, he stopped. The residual anger was still visible in his eyes, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “Did you do this on purpose?” I blinked, genuinely lost. “What?” “You knew exactly what would happen if you left her alone in a room like this. A young woman standing by herself is an easy target for predators.” He glared at me, his disappointment palpable. “Sasha is naive. She doesn’t know how to handle aggressive men. Because I had to stay by your side to keep you happy, I couldn’t watch over her. You should have known better, Mona. This was incredibly selfish of you.” I stared at him, really stared at him. The sharp jawline, the dark eyes that had once held my entire world—he looked exactly the same as the man I had fallen in love with years ago. But as I looked at him now, I felt absolutely nothing. The love hadn’t just faded; it had been completely hollowed out. “I never asked you to stay by my side, Greg.” My voice was quiet, steady, and entirely devoid of emotion. “In fact, I didn’t want to come here at all. Sasha practically forced me into her car. She brought me to a black-tie gala without even offering to let me change. I should be asking her what her intentions were. Was she trying to make me a laughingstock?” A few nearby guests began to whisper, their eyes darting between us. Sasha let out a soft sob, her shoulders shaking as she buried her face in Greg’s chest. “Mona… how can you lie like that? You were the one who insisted on coming along. I told you I didn’t have an extra gown on hand, and I asked if you mind. You literally told me it was fine…” My chest tightened. I couldn’t believe the ease with which she twisted the truth. She had physically pulled me into her vehicle, leaving me no room to refuse. I had never said it was fine. Before I could open my mouth to defend myself, Sasha raised her voice, ensuring everyone around us could hear. “I didn’t want to say anything! I didn’t want to cause a scene! But I don’t understand what I did to make you hate me so much, Mona. Did you seriously pay that man to come over and harass me?!” A collective gasp rippled through the nearby crowd. Greg’s face darkened, turning almost predatory. “Mona,” he growled. “How could you do something so malicious?” I looked at him. The words I didn’t do it caught in my throat, refusing to surface. Did it even matter if I denied it? The truth didn’t exist in Greg’s world. Only Sasha’s tears did. I could have presented a mountain of evidence, and he still would have found a way to dismiss it in favor of Sasha. A single tear from her carried more weight than my entire existence. The difference between being loved and being tolerated was stark. I lowered my gaze, letting my eyelashes shield the exhaustion in my eyes. After a long, quiet pause, I spoke. My voice was incredibly calm. “What do you want from me, Greg? An apology?” Greg didn’t say a word. He just stared at me with cold, unyielding judgment. I turned slowly to face Sasha. Under the watchful eyes of dozens of wealthy strangers, I bent my waist and bowed deeply to her. “I’m sorry. Is that enough?” The room went dead silent. No one had expected me to capitulate so easily—no tears, no screaming, just a clean, immediate submission. Sasha froze, a tear still wet on her cheek, completely caught off guard by my

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I had spent years grinding like a dog, and finally, it paid off. I was being promoted to head the new regional branch. And on that very same day, my lottery ticket hit a million-dollar jackpot. Just as I was preparing to share the incredible news with my wife, HR pulled me aside. They told me there was a red flag in my background check. That’s when I found out I had been “divorced” for months. When I got home and confronted her, my wife acted like it was the most natural thing in the world. Just so her high school sweetheart could secure a spot for his kid in an elite school district, she had filed for a quiet dissolution, forged my signature, and married him. “Don’t be so dramatic,” she said. “It’s just a piece of paper. We can get remarried next year.” I stared at her, ice water running through my veins. Wait. You’re telling me I’m already divorced? A massive promotion, a million-dollar jackpot, and I’m single? Dear God. It’s like you didn’t just throw me a bone—you handed me the keys to the kingdom. 1 The VP clapped me on the shoulder, his tone warmer than it had ever been. “Dan, the official transfer will be finalized in a few days. You’re going to be the director of the new facility in Ohio.” “Do a good job out there. That plant is our core project for the next five years. Your future is limitless.” I swallowed the surge of pure ecstasy, offering a polite, measured thank you. The moment I stepped out of his office, my first instinct was to call my wife, Gillian. I wanted to tell her that our long, exhausting grind was finally over. I could finally buy her that spacious suburban home she’d been obsessing over. I’d never have to listen to her parents complain about my lack of ambition ever again. But before I could even pull out my phone, Frank from HR intercepted me. “Dan, step into my office for a second. We have something we need to verify.” Frank’s expression was bizarre—a mix of awkwardness and a pity he was trying desperately to hide. I followed him into the records room. “For this promotion, we had to run a standard background and family background check.” Frank pointed to the marital status column on his screen, his brow furrowed. “Is everything okay at home? The system is flagging your marital status as ‘Divorced.’” I froze. I stared at the bold, red word—Divorced—completely blank. What? Divorced without my knowledge? Frank sighed. “Look, you need to get this sorted out quickly. If it’s a system glitch or a clerical error, we need proof. Otherwise, this background check won’t clear, and the promotion could be held up.” I walked out of the building in a daze. My mind was a chaotic static. We’d been married for three years, and I had poured my entire soul into Gillian. When her brother got into trouble, I was the one waking up at 2:00 AM to bail him out of jail. When her parents fell ill, I took unpaid leave to pull overnight shifts at the hospital. And now? I was divorced? I didn’t have a single memory of it. How could a divorce even happen without me being present, let alone signing a single document? Driving home, Frank’s pitying look burned in my mind. At a red light, I idly reached into the center console. Among the receipts was a Powerball scratch-off I’d bought on a whim at a gas station the day before. Mechanically, I pulled out my phone and checked the winning numbers. What the… A million dollars? Me—a guy whose greatest stroke of luck in thirty years was winning a free soda under a bottle cap—had suddenly hit the jackpot? A massive promotion, and now a million-dollar windfall? But the rush of joy was instantly chased by a bitter laugh. Yesterday, I would have sprinted home to celebrate with Gillian. Now, it just felt like a cruel joke. Upward mobility, wealth, and a burning house. I unlocked the front door. The house was cold and silent. A few minutes later, the lock clicked. Gillian walked in. When she saw me sitting on the couch in the dark, she startled slightly. “Home so early?” She tossed her designer bag onto the entryway table, kick-starting her shoes off. I looked at her face—still beautiful, still familiar—but a deep, icy chill settled in my chest. “Gillian, HR called me in today.” Her movements paused, though her voice remained breezy. “Oh? Is the promotion official?” I held her gaze, speaking deliberately. “They said my file shows I’m divorced.” “Gillian. Explain this to me.” She slipped into her house slippers and walked over. There wasn’t a shred of panic on her face—just a flicker of annoyance. “Your company seriously needs to mind its own business. Why are they digging into our personal lives?” I stood up, my voice cutting through the quiet room. “I’m asking you a question, Gillian! Don’t dodge it!” “When did we get divorced? How does the husband not know he’s divorced?” Gillian frowned, hanging up her coat. Her tone was as casual as if she were commenting on the weather forecast. “Well, since you found out, there’s no point in hiding it.” “I filed for an uncontested dissolution. I started the process six months ago, and the judge signed off on it recently.” My brain felt like it was detonating. I physically swayed. “Uncontested dissolution? Are you out of your mind?” “We’ve been married for three years! What did I ever do to deserve you secretly suing me for divorce?” Gillian sighed, stepping closer to me. “Dan, be reasonable. I didn’t have a choice.” “Damian was in a terrible bind. His daughter, Maisie, needs to get into that elite public school in Cherry Hills, but they strictly enforce residency. You have to own property in the district.” “But the deed has to be in a married couple’s name for the school board’s quick verification. He had no one else he could trust to help him.” My hands began to shake. The world felt entirely surreal. “So… to help his kid get into a better school, you divorced your husband and married him?” Gillian nodded, as if her logic was flawless. “Yes. Damian said it was the only way.” “I thought about talking to you first, but you’re so stubborn, and you’ve always had this irrational bias against Damian. You would have said no.” “I couldn’t let a child’s future be ruined just because of your insecurity. Filing the paperwork quietly was the fastest way.” I sank back onto the couch, a physical ache blooming in my chest. “And what about our assets?” Gillian pursed her lips, her tone light. “I told the court we had been living apart and our marriage was irretrievably broken. To speed up the process, I checked the box for an equal division of assets. I didn’t take a dime of your pre-marital savings or touch your name on this house. That’s why the judge signed off so quickly.” I let out a hollow laugh, tears stinging my eyes. For three years, I had worked eighty-hour weeks, skipping meals to save money for our future. I paid the mortgage. I did the chores. And she went behind my back, using the legal system to discard me like trash, all to play savior to another man’s child. “So, you two are officially married now?” Gillian nodded, a faint sigh of relief escaping her. “We signed the papers at the courthouse about a month ago. It’s almost fully processed.” “But Dan, don’t worry. Damian promised that as soon as Maisie’s school registration is fully locked in next year, he’ll divorce me. I’ll come right back, we’ll get remarried, and things will go right back to how they were.” She reached out, attempting to wrap her arms around my neck, just like she used to do whenever she wanted something. I flinched away, leaving her hands hanging in the air. Gillian’s face darkened instantly. “Dan, what is with this attitude?” “I already told you, it’s a paper marriage. It’s just administrative. Do you have to be this petty?” “Damian helped me so much back in college. Helping him out now is just being a decent human being. Don’t be so selfish.” I stared at her. It was like looking at a stranger. She had packaged her betrayal, her profound disrespect of our marriage, as an act of saintly charity. And I, the victim, was the “selfish” one. “Whatever. Stop throwing a tantrum.” Gillian stood up straight, smoothing down her shirt. “Get your head straight. Don’t let this ruin your work tomorrow.” Without another word, she headed to the bathroom to take a shower. Leaving me alone in the living room. I leaned my head back against the sofa, staring at the ceiling. From the bathroom, the sound of running water echoed. Sitting in the dim light, my mind began to run the numbers. I had thought this was the worst day of my life. But as I really looked at it… this was the day I hit the trifecta. First: I was being promoted. Regional Director. Absolute authority, limitless budget, and a career-defining trajectory. Second: I was rich. A million dollars after taxes isn’t “retire tomorrow” money, but it was an incredible safety net. And the most beautiful part? I bought that lottery ticket after the legal date of our divorce. Under the law, that money was entirely, indisputably mine. Gillian had zero claim to it. Third: the house. In her rush to get a quick default divorce, she had waived all rights to the property. This meant I kept the house, kept my money, and effectively cut loose the entire parasitic Reynolds family. I started to laugh. What on earth was I crying for? Promotion. Fortune. Single. Men spend decades and millions trying to buy this kind of freedom. And it had dropped into my lap in a single afternoon. I stood up, rolling my shoulders. The heavy, suffocating weight in my chest evaporated. When I pushed the bathroom door open, Gillian was standing in front of the mirror, wrapping a towel around her wet hair. She startled, her brow furrowing. “I’m in the shower. What are you doing?” I didn’t apologize like I usually did. Instead, I walked up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her close. I buried my face in the crook of her neck, letting my voice sound thick and heavy. “Babe… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.” “I calmed down and thought about it. You’ve always been so kind-hearted.” “Damian was in a tough spot, and you were just helping. I shouldn’t have let my jealousy get the better of me.” Feeling me yield, her posture relaxed completely. She let out a soft huff, her tone returning to its familiar, superior height. “I’m glad you finally understand. Damian really had no other options.” “It’s only for a year. Just be good this year and don’t make a scene.” I smiled into her shoulder, my grip tightening slightly. “Of course. You’re so good to me, I’ll do whatever you want.” “But you did keep me in the dark. Tonight… you owe me.” Gillian gave me a playful shove, a coquettish smirk playing on her lips. “Stop it. We aren’t legally married right now, you know. Watch yourself.” I ignored her weak resistance, lifting her up easily. “You said it yourself—our relationship isn’t broken. It’s just paperwork.” “Besides, you wouldn’t want me going to Damian’s place to make a scene and ruin Maisie’s school registration, right?” Gillian wrapped her arms around my neck, her eyes fluttering shut. “Fine, fine. You’re impossible.” That night, I didn’t hold back. I pulled out every stop, enjoying myself with an intensity I hadn’t felt in years. It was incredibly freeing. The next morning, the sun broke through the blinds. I woke up feeling lighter than air. I looked at Gillian, still fast asleep beside me. She was beautiful, sure. But incredibly, catastrophically foolish. I dressed quietly, feeling the stiff edge of the lottery ticket in my pocket. It was as if the universe had looked down at the three years of misery I’d endured with her family and decided it was time to balance the scales. I sat at the kitchen island, slowly sipping my coffee. My mind drifted back to the year we met. College seniors. We’d been in the same department for four years but barely spoke. Then we ended up at the same internship, and things naturally developed. Back then, Gillian didn’t have these calculating eyes. Her laugh was bright and genuine. I remembered the night our internship ended. We’d shared a cheap pitcher of beer at a college bar. She’d looked at me and said, “Dan, you’re so steady. Whoever marries you is going to feel so safe.” And I, riding a wave of liquid courage, had replied, “Why don’t you find out?” It was a natural progression from there. Graduation, the proposal, the wedding. Everything had followed a neat, uncomplicated script. I thought it was the kind of deep, quiet love people spent lifetimes searching for. Until Damian Ward re-entered the picture two years ago. Her high school sweetheart. They’d only dated for a few months back then, but those are the worst kind of men—like a stubborn burr stuck to your coat, impossible to shake off, constantly irritating. Damian had shown up with a little girl, playing the tragic role of the struggling single father. And the kid, Maisie, knew exactly how to play her part. She’d look at Gillian with wide eyes and whisper, “Miss Gillian, I miss my mommy.” And just like that, Gillian’s maternal instincts went into overdrive. I had tried to warn her early on. “Gillian, helping is one thing, but you’re crossing boundaries.” But she always dismissed me, claiming I was being overly sensitive. She was just visiting a lonely child. “Her mother abandoned her, Dan. How can you be so heartless?” Thinking back, I could only smile at my own stupidity. Once you let a boundary be crossed, it ceases to exist. I had been blinded by what I thought was love, believing that if I just took one step back, our home would remain intact. I hadn’t just taken a step back. I had backed myself right off a cliff. “Why didn’t you make me breakfast?” Gillian’s voice drifted from the bedroom door. She was leaning against the frame in her silk robe, her hair messy, rubbing her eyes. I looked at the empty coffee pot and the clean pans. “I figured you’d want to sleep in.” Gillian pulled out a stool and sat down, frowning when she saw only my dirty mug on the counter. She rolled her eyes, murmuring under her breath. “Well, whose fault is that after last night?” She looked at me expectantly. “I’m starving. Go fry me some eggs and heat up some milk.” A day ago, I would have already been at the stove, asking her exactly how she wanted her yolks. Instead, I sat perfectly still, swirling the last drop of coffee in my mug. “If you’re hungry, make it yourself. I have to get to the office.” Gillian blinked, clearly caught off guard by the refusal. I looked at her lovely face. I felt absolutely nothing. In fact, I wanted to laugh. Gillian, you really don’t get it, do you? You aren’t my wife anymore. Why on earth would I keep serving you? “I’ve got a busy day. Order some takeout and get some rest,” I said, my tone perfectly pleasant. I didn’t need to start a war. There was no point. But the days of me putting her on a pedestal were officially over. I sat in my car and shot a quick text to my VP, requesting a half-day for some personal errands. He replied instantly, telling me to take all the time I needed. He just wanted me ready for the transition. I drove straight to the state lottery headquarters downtown. I kept a low profile. The last thing I needed was the Reynolds family finding out. If they got wind of this money, they would drag me through every court in the state trying to claim a piece of it. The redemption process was surprisingly clinical. Paperwork, ID verification, tax forms. The clerks had seen it all; their faces didn’t even register a flicker of envy. Then, my phone buzzed in my hand. A direct deposit notification. Staring at the string of zeros in my bank account, I finally let out the breath I felt I’d been holding for three years.

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The “Sweet Peach” persona my agency spent three long years building for me died. It took exactly seven minutes into a live-streamed wilderness survival show. Cause of death: a six-foot black rat snake. Method of execution: me, grabbing it by the neck with one hand, whipping it through the air in a perfect arc, slamming it onto the dirt, and yelling in my thickest, most unfiltered Appalachian drawl: “Lord almighty! Get your scaly ass down! Who the hell do you think you’re messing with?!” Thirty million people were watching live. My manager went into near-cardiac arrest on the spot. And there I was, wearing a three-hundred-dollar white sundress, my flat pinning the snake’s head to the ground, slowly realizing under the collective gaze of the entire internet: I was done. This persona hadn’t just cracked; it had collapsed harder than a poorly built deck in a hurricane. 1 My name is Cassidy Gentry. I’ve been in the industry for three years. My assigned brand? The “Fragile Princess”—or, as the studio executives lovingly called it, the “Sweet Peach.” What did that entail? Talking in a breathy, high-pitched octave, walking like I was floating on a cloud of cotton candy, shrieking at the sight of a ladybug, and pretending I didn’t have the forearm strength to open a bottle of water. I was supposed to struggle until my cheeks flushed, then look up at whatever male guest was nearby with wide, teary eyes and whisper, “Could you help me, please? It’s too hard…” Sickening? Absolutely. But it worked. For three years, that pathetic act dragged me from a nobody-extra to a B-list celebrity. I landed seven major endorsement deals—everything from pastel floral perfumes and strawberry milkshakes to plush teddy bears. My manager, Vicky, loved to remind me: “You are this agency’s cash cow, Cassidy. Don’t you dare break character.” My response? A quiet sigh. But what choice did I have? What was the most ridiculous thing I did to maintain the illusion? Once, during an outdoor event in five-degree weather, I had to wear a paper-thin chiffon dress. I was shivering so hard my teeth clicked, but I had to look directly into the camera, smile, and coo, “Oh, look at the beautiful snow! It makes me so happy!” Happy, my foot. I almost became a frozen specimen. But there was no way out. The agency had mapped out my entire trajectory, and my contract stated in black and white: “The talent, Cassidy Gentry, must maintain a sweet, delicate, and docile image at all times. Any public behavior inconsistent with this persona—including but not limited to swearing, loud laughter, carrying heavy objects, or displaying athletic capability—shall constitute a breach of contract.” The penalty? Five million dollars. So for three years, I never ate a normal-sized meal in public, never ran in front of a camera, and never let anyone hear my real accent. And what is my real accent? Deep, thick Appalachian country. Raw, unfiltered West Virginia hill country. I was born and raised in a tiny, rugged hollow in West Virginia. By age seven, I was chasing escaped chickens across muddy yards. At ten, I was carrying fifty-pound sacks of feed up to the barn loft. By twelve, I was helping our neighbor haul a stray pig out of a muddy ravine. My dad was an Army veteran, and my mom ran a gritty local barbecue joint. My life motto since childhood was simple: Don’t talk about it, handle it. And then the agency looked at me and said: Your persona is a helpless, fragile princess. Talk about cognitive dissonance. The gap between my real self and my persona was about the size of trying to pass off a mountain lion as a teacup Persian cat. But to pay off our family debts and keep my mom’s barbecue joint from going under, I swallowed my pride. For three years, I held it in. Until today. Today was the live premiere of Wilderness Showdown, Season Three. It’s a high-profile outdoor survival reality show, and the cast was stacked: Christian Shaw, the ultimate A-list heartthrob. Tall, dangerously handsome, with a strictly cultivated “aloof, brooding billionaire” vibe. Taryn Kelly, the athletic darling of reality TV, known for her “fearless, outdoorsy queen” image. And then there was me, Cassidy “the fragile princess” Gentry. The producers’ expectations were clear: I was there to be the decorative damsel. My job was to shriek, look pretty, and get rescued by the male lead to create a romantic narrative. Vicky had drilled it into my head a thousand times before we set off: “Remember, you can’t open water bottles. You stumble when you walk. You shriek at bugs and grimace at mud. Do not show an ounce of physical capability, and for the love of God, suppress that hillbilly drawl. You are a delicate hothouse flower who will wither without a man’s help. Got it?” I had nodded. “Got it.” “If any creepy-crawlies show up,” Vicky added, “you hide behind Christian, grab his sleeve, let your eyes fill with tears, and whisper that you’re terrified.” My response: “…Sure.” She patted my shoulder. “Just get through this season, and those new endorsement contracts are ours. Grin and bear it.” I took a deep breath. I could do this. I was a woman who had spent three years pretending I couldn’t cut my own steak without tilting my head and looking utterly confused. A little nature wouldn’t break me. At two in the afternoon, the live broadcast began. I was dressed in a knee-length white floral sundress and a pair of delicate flats entirely unsuitable for hiking. A production assistant literally had to steady me as we approached the edge of the woods. The moment the cameras went live, I flipped the switch. I blinked rapidly, tilted my head, and pitched my voice to a sugary sweet register. “Hi, everyone! Cassidy is here! Wow, this forest is so big… I’m a little scared already…” The live chat exploded instantly. Here we go again. I am physically cringing at this fake voice. Can she stop pretending? The fake innocence is exhausting. Lmao, why do they keep casting her? Taryn is the only real woman here. Cassidy needs to go home. I caught a glimpse of the rolling chat on the monitor. Well, I was used to it. I had more anti-fans than supporters, a fact I’d accepted long ago. The “helpless darling” trope was a magnet for hate, but my agency’s philosophy was clear: Negative publicity is still publicity. Outrage drives traffic. So, unfazed, I kept up the act. After a few wobbly steps, I pretended to trip over a small pebble, letting out a soft gasp as I tilted toward Christian. He reacted instantly, catching me by the elbow. “Careful,” he muttered. I looked up, letting my eyes shimmer with unshed tears. “Thank you, Christian…” Christian’s expression remained perfectly controlled, though he offered a polite, practiced smile. The chat kept throwing stones: I’m gagging. She fell on purpose. Christian, step away from the green tea princess! Classic gold-digger move. Beside us, Taryn spared me a brief, condescending glance before smoothing her expression into a confident, athletic smile for the cameras. Excellent. Everything was going according to plan. All I had to do was maintain this charade for seven days, and the show would be over. And then… the seventh minute happened. We were walking down a narrow dirt trail into the denser brush. The crew had set up a few staged jumpscares—a fake spider dangling from a branch, a plastic bat. Each time, I delivered my cue right on time, shrieking dramatically. “Oh my gosh! It’s so scary!” The chat: Her acting is so bad it’s giving me second-hand embarrassment. My thoughts: It is pretty bad, but what are you going to do about it? And then… the actual snake appeared. It wasn’t a prop. It wasn’t a producer-staged prank. It was a very real, very thick, six-foot black rat snake. It whipped out of the tall grass beside the trail, moving with terrifying speed, heading straight for Christian, who was leading the pack. And Christian’s reaction? He let out a shriek that was easily an octave higher than any of mine, his voice cracking completely. “Ahhhhhhh!” His face drained of color as he leaped backward, his knees buckling so hard he nearly collapsed into the dirt. The entire production froze. The camera crew froze. The director froze. Taryn froze. Even the live chat seemed to stall. But my body didn’t. How do I explain it? It was pure, unadulterated muscle memory. The kind drilled into you from a childhood spent in the wilderness. While my brain was desperately screaming, “You are a fragile princess, don’t move!” my body had already taken charge. Three years of careful acting were shattered in a single second, obliterated by the Appalachian survival instinct wired into my DNA. I lunged forward. With a single, fluid motion, my bare hand clamped down right behind the snake’s head. The snake thrashed wildly, whipping against my forearm like a thick rope. Without missing a beat, I swung my arm in a wide, powerful arc, slamming the creature hard against the hard-packed earth. Crack. The snake lay dazed and twitching. I calmly stepped forward and pinned its head under the sole of my flat. And then, my mouth moved faster than my brain. The words tore from my throat in a booming, resonant drawl: “Lord almighty! Get your scaly ass down! Who the hell do you think you’re messing with?!” It was pure, unfiltered country. Bold, loud, and entirely unbothered. The moment the echo died down, a heavy, surreal silence fell over the forest. The wind rustled through the canopy. The snake lay perfectly still beneath my foot. Everyone was staring. Every lens was trained on me. Thirty million live viewers were watching. There I stood, in my dainty white floral dress and flimsy flats, my hair a bit wild, one hand still hovering in a perfect snake-wrangling posture. I looked less like a pop idol and more like a seasoned farmhand ready to clean a chicken. Then my brain finally caught up. It delivered a single, devastating realization: Cass, you’re dead. I slowly looked down at the snake. Then I looked up at the camera. The little red light on the lens was glowing. Still live. Thirty million people. Me: “…” The live chat erupted like a volcano: ????????? Are my eyes playing tricks on me??? Wait, wait, wait. Did she just do that??? Delicate princess??? That was a straight-up wrangler! LMAO I AM DECEASED. ‘Get your scaly ass down!’ I can’t breathe. Where did the persona go??? Did it just disintegrate??? She’s not a princess, she’s an action hero! I stood frozen, a high-pitched ringing in my ears. I was ruined. Five million dollars in breach of contract fees. My mom’s barbecue restaurant. Our dreams. Gone. All of it. The stream was still rolling. My foot was still pinning the dazed reptile, and the expression on my face was a masterpiece of desperation: a tight, frozen smile paired with eyes that screamed I am already dead inside. Behind the camera, the director was gesturing wildly, mouthing: Say something! Save it! Say what? What could I possibly say? “Oh goodness, Cassidy just bumped into a sweet little snakey-wakey!”? The half-dead predator under my shoe would probably raise an objection to that. I parted my lips, my brain making one final, pathetic attempt at damage control. “Um…” I squeaked, trying to force my voice back into that high, breathy register. “Just now… Cassidy…” The chat was having none of it: Give it up, girl. We all heard that mountain drawl. ‘Get your scaly ass down’ is going on my headstone. New persona suggestion: Drop the ‘clueless,’ keep the ‘cutie,’ add ‘certified badass.’ I stared at the feedback on the monitors, realizing it was a lost cause. The sweet, airy voice remained stuck in my throat, utterly unsalvageable. Then Christian spoke. Having barely recovered from his near-death experience, he was still standing ten feet away, pale as a sheet, his voice trembling. “C-Cassidy?” I turned to him. His pupils were still dilated, his lips slightly blue, staring at me as if I were some undiscovered apex predator. “Did you just…” He swallowed hard. “Did you grab that with one hand?” Me: “…” Beside him, Taryn finally found her voice, her jaw practically on the forest floor. She looked at me with pure disbelief. “Cassidy… aren’t you the girl who can’t even open a bottle of water?” Me: “…” The chat was already conducting a full digital excavation: Wait, I’m digging up her old clips. Found it! In her last show, it took her three full minutes to open a small water bottle! She was acting the entire time?! With that grip strength, she could probably wring a steel pipe like a towel! I’m starting to think Christian is the one who needs protection here, lmao. The live viewer count surged from thirty million to forty-five million in minutes. The trending topics list was immediately dominated by tags like #CassidyGentrySnakeWrangler, #FragilePrincessRuined, and #GetYourScalyAssDown. Behind the monitors, the director was practically vibrating with joy. He didn’t care about my ruined career; he cared about the historic ratings. Meanwhile, my phone was buzzing violently in my pocket. I knew it was Vicky. I didn’t dare answer. The broadcast ran for another forty grueling minutes before hitting the first commercial break. The moment the feed cut, I pulled out my phone to find forty-seven missed calls. All from Vicky. Taking a deep breath, I pressed accept. “Hello…” “Cassidy Gentry, you explain yourself this instant!” Vicky’s voice was so shrill I had to hold the phone a foot away from my ear. “What the hell were you thinking?! Do you have any idea that the entire internet is sharing clips of you body-slamming a reptile? Thirty million people just heard you speak like a backwoods coal miner! Do you even care about your career?!” I offered a weak defense. “Vicky, that was a real snake…” “I don’t care if it was a dragon! Why didn’t you run?! Why didn’t you scream and let Christian handle it?!” Me: “…Christian looked like he was about to wet his pants.” Vicky: “Then you should have wet yours too!” Me: “…” Vicky panted heavily on the other end of the line, her voice dropping into a low, terrifyingly calm register.

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The blood clot in my brain was pressing against a nerve. The doctors called it a severe cognitive distortion. A glitch in my reality. Which is how I ended up mistaking the most ruthless, cold-blooded billionaire in New York for my sweet, long-dead first love. And why I kept him chained to a wall in my basement. For ninety days. 1 The basement lightbulb had been dead for three days. I crouched in the damp corner, using the pale glow of my phone screen to stir the pot of warm porridge. The heavy clink of iron chains echoed from the shadows behind me. I picked up the bowl, turned around, and let a soft, warm smile spread across my face. “Danny, I put dates and honey in the porridge today. Try some.” The man leaned against the concrete wall. His white button-down shirt was so filthy the original color was entirely gone, the collar torn, a thin line of dried blood tracing his collarbone. He lifted his head. Even in this state of ruin, his features possessed a terrifying, sharp-edged beauty. High cheekbones, a harsh brow, thin lips pressed into a tight, humorless line. I held the spoon to his lips. He jerked his head away. “Isla Maxwell.” His voice was incredibly raspy, the sound of a throat that hadn’t seen water in days. “Do you have any earthly idea what you are doing?” I tilted my head, genuinely confused. “I’m feeding you, Danny.” His Adam’s apple bobbed heavily. He gripped the solid gold chain around his wrist, making the links groan. “I am not your fucking Danny.” “I’m Beckett.” “Beckett West.” I set the bowl down, reaching out to stroke his tangled dark hair. When my fingertips brushed the dried blood near his temple, my chest tightened with ache. “Danny, you hurt yourself again,” I whispered. “How many times have I told you? Don’t fight the chains. You’ll only hurt yourself.” He suddenly grabbed my wrist. His grip was so tight my bones practically clicked. “Isla, are you deaf?” he snarled, his eyes burning. “I said, I am not that dead man of yours!” The pain in my wrist flared, but I didn’t pull away. Instead, I leaned closer, gently cupping his jaw with my free hand. “Danny, do you have a fever? You’re talking nonsense again.” His pupils contracted violently. In that split second, I watched his expression morph from pure rage into something far more complex—something dark and unreadable. He slowly let go of my wrist. He leaned his head back against the cold, damp concrete, letting out a low, humorless laugh. “Fine.” His voice was a gravelly whisper. “Fine, Isla. Pray I never get out of here. Because when I do, I will show you what living hell feels like.” I didn’t understand the venom in his words. I only thought he was having another one of his bad days. I picked the bowl back up, blew on the steaming porridge, and held it to his lips again. “If you won’t eat, at least have some water. Your voice is so hoarse.” He closed his eyes. His chest rose and fell in ragged, heavy breaths. Finally, he opened his mouth. A rush of joy flooded me as I slipped the spoon in. I watched his throat move as he swallowed, a strange warmth blooming in my chest. “Danny,” I whispered. “It’s so good to have you back.” He stopped chewing. He opened his eyes, those pitch-black depths reflecting my smiling face. I had no idea. No idea that the “Danny” I was clinging to had been buried in a cemetery for two years. And I had no idea that the man I had chained to my basement floor was the most feared figure in the city. Beckett West. The sole heir to the West empire. He had taken over his family’s multinational conglomerate at twenty-four, quickly gaining a reputation for being ruthless and calculating. Three years ago, a rival had crossed him; by the next morning, all seven of the man’s companies were bankrupt, his family ruined and forced into exile. In our social circles, there was only one golden rule: Never, under any circumstances, cross Beckett West. But my broken mind knew none of this. My world held only a ghost. And this man who looked just like him. I set the empty bowl aside, pulled a clean, damp towel from my bag, and gently began to wipe the grime from his face. He didn’t move. He just stared at me, his gaze so heavy and loaded with shifting emotions that I couldn’t begin to untangle them. “Danny, I’ll bring you a thicker blanket tomorrow. This one is too thin.” I brushed a stray lock of hair from his forehead. “Are you cold? Do you want me to hold you tonight?” A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Isla Maxwell,” he muttered, his voice dangerously soft. “You better pray I stay in these chains forever.” 2 Day thirty-seven. I noticed Beckett had stopped screaming at me. Before, he would spit out “I’m going to kill you” at least ten times a day. Now, he simply watched me enter in silence, ate the porridge I fed him in silence, and let me rest my head against his shoulder in silence. I thought he was finally adjusting. Giddy with relief, I brewed him a warm pot of pear and honey tea. “You’re so good today, Danny.” I crouched before him, my fingers lightly tracing the sharp line of his brow. He didn’t flinch away. “Are you still mad at me?” He looked down at me. His lips were chapped, but they curved into a slight, mocking tilt. The smile sent a brief, icy shiver down my spine. But a second later, the warped wiring in my brain smoothed it over. The uneasiness faded, replaced by a rush of affection. He smiled. He finally smiled at me. “Isla.” It was the first time he had ever spoken my name. I froze. My heart hammered against my ribs, erratic and wild. “What did you call me?” “Isla,” he repeated. His voice was low, the final syllable lingering in the air like a caress. Tears spilled over my lashes instantly. I threw myself into his arms, burying my face in the crook of his neck. “Danny… you finally said it. You have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you call my name.” His body went rigid for a heartbeat. Then, slowly, his hand rose and settled on the back of my head. He stroked my hair, his touch surprisingly gentle, rhythmic. I cried harder, completely blind to the fact that his other hand, draped at his side, was stealthily feeling for the phone in my coat pocket. That night, I fell asleep wrapped in his arms. I pressed my cheek against his chest, listening to the steady, powerful rhythm of his heartbeat. “Danny, I’m so scared you’ll leave me again.” He didn’t answer. He only tightened his grip around me. He held me so tightly it was almost hard to breathe, but to my fractured mind, it felt like absolute safety. Day forty-two. I was washing his hair when he suddenly spoke. “Isla, these chains are too tight. Can you loosen them?” I hesitated. I looked down at his wrists, raw and bruised where the gold cuffs had rubbed against his skin, and my heart squeezed with pity. “Okay. I’ll get you a longer chain.” I turned to rumble through my toolbox. For those few seconds, my back turned to him, the basement was suffocatingly quiet. When I turned back, he was in the exact same position, leaning against the wall, eyes half-closed, that faint, unsettling smile playing on his lips. “You’re so good to me, Isla.” I smiled back and swapped the chains. The new one gave him an extra two feet of movement. He stood up, stretching his stiff joints. His bones popped in the quiet room. Standing at his full height, he towered over me by a head. His shoulders were broad, his waist lean. Even though he had lost weight during his captivity, his frame still carried an imposing, dangerous weight. He looked down at me. “Isla, come here.” I stepped forward obediently. He reached out, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. His thumb lingered on my temple, applying a fraction of pressure. “Does it still hurt here?” I shook my head. “Not anymore. As long as you’re here, nothing hurts.” His thumb kept pressing gently against my temple. “Isla,” he whispered. “When you’re better, we’ll go outside. Together. Okay?” I nodded eagerly. I had no idea that his version of “better” meant something entirely different. 3 Day fifty-eight. The headaches began. It wasn’t a dull ache; it was a blinding, drilling agony that seemed to claw its way out from the deepest recesses of my skull. It hit me so hard I collapsed onto the floor, curling into a ball, my fingernails digging into my palms. “Isla?” His voice drifted down from above. The gold chains rattled violently as he moved to the absolute limit of his leash. He was still two paces away from me. “Isla, what’s wrong?” The pain was too intense for words. I could only shake my head as my vision fractured. The warm, blurry memories in my mind were beginning to splinter. I saw a face. A gentle face. Round wire-rimmed glasses, a soft, permanent smile. That was Danny. I reached my hand out, trying to grab the person in front of me. But my eyes were playing tricks. The face before me kept shifting—one moment soft and kind, the next cold and razor-sharp. Two entirely different men, overlapping, tearing apart, and fusing back together. “Isla!” His voice turned sharp, urgent. The metal chain groaned as he strained against it. I felt a strong hand clamp onto my shoulder, dragging me toward him. I tumbled into his lap. The solid thud of his heartbeat vibrated through his thin shirt. “Don’t fear,” he murmured, his voice incredibly low. I clutched at his shirt, my entire body trembling from the pain. “Danny, my head… it hurts so bad…” “I know.” His palm cupped the back of my head. His skin was cool, but it offered a strange, grounding relief. “It’ll pass soon.” There was a strange tone in his voice when he said those words. It didn’t sound like comfort. It sounded like a promise. After that day, the headaches grew more frequent. And with each episode, the fog in my mind cleared a little more. Real memories began to piece themselves back together. My first love was Daniel. He wore round glasses. He had a gentle laugh. And he had died instantly in a car crash two years ago. I had been so consumed by grief, compounded by a head injury from the same accident, that my mind had fractured. I had spent two years looking at strangers and seeing his ghost. But… I stared at the man sitting in front of me. Sharp brow, deep-set dark eyes, thin, cruel lips. There wasn’t a single soft line on his face. He looked absolutely nothing like Daniel. How on earth had I confused the two? Day sixty-three. Another headache tore through me. When the pain finally subsided, I looked at his face and felt a cold wash of unfamiliarity. “Danny?” He looked up. “Yeah?” I stared at him for a long time. A voice in my head whispered: No, he isn’t. He isn’t Daniel. But another, louder voice… Yes, he is. He has to be. I shook my head, trying to quiet the noise, and stepped forward to feed him his porridge. He ate quietly. When the bowl was empty, he suddenly grabbed my hand, still holding the spoon. “Isla.” He locked eyes with me. “Are you starting to remember?” I froze. “No.” He kept staring, his dark eyes drilling into mine with an intensity that made the hairs on my arms stand up. “Remember this, Isla,” he said, his lips curving into a slow, deliberate smile. “No matter what you remember, don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.” His smile was beautiful. But it didn’t feel comforting. It felt like a predator watching his prey wander straight into the trap. 4 Day eighty-nine. 3:00 AM. I woke up shivering, drenched in cold sweat from a nightmare. The fog in my head was gone. The puzzle was complete. My memories came rushing back like a broken dam. Daniel’s funeral. The pouring rain as I collapsed against his gravestone, screaming until my throat bled. The hospital room, where the doctor explained that the old trauma to my temporal lobe, triggered by severe emotional shock, had caused a profound delusion. And then… I remembered three months ago. I had spotted a man on the street. Tall, dark hair, an imposing silhouette. My broken brain had misfired, screaming: It’s him. Danny didn’t die. He’s back. I had used my family’s resources to drug him and drag him down into my basement. I had chained him. And for ninety days, I had treated the most dangerous billionaire in the country like a captured pet. I sat up abruptly. I turned my head. The pale moonlight filtered through the single high window of the basement. He was sleeping right beside me on the mattress. His eyes were closed, his breathing slow and even. The gold chain around his wrist gleamed coldly in the dim light. I looked at his face. Really looked at it. There was no resemblance to Daniel. None. High cheekbones, shadowed eyes, a faint, thin scar cutting through the tail of his left brow. This was Beckett West. Beckett West. The man rumored to make his enemies vanish overnight. The blood in my veins turned to ice. My hands and feet went completely numb, and my teeth began to chatter. For three months, I had fed this man. I had washed his hair. I had wiped down his skin. I had slept in his arms. I had called him Danny. And when he had threatened to tear my life apart, I had simply leaned down and kissed his forehead.

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I was born with total colorblindness—achromatopsia. To me, the world has always been a monochrome film, a landscape of blacks, whites, and shades of gray. Yet, growing up, I never once wore a clashing outfit or picked the wrong colors. Because James, my childhood best friend, was my eyes. Every single morning, he would look over my clothes, sorting the pieces and telling me what shade I was wearing. Others at school used to tease me. “She’s practically blind. How does she have the nerve to order our resident golden boy around?” But James always shut them down. “I like looking out for her,” he’d snap, looping an arm over my shoulder. “I’m going to be her eyes for the rest of our lives.” Until our senior prom. The theme was “Deep Blue Ocean,” but I showed up in bright, searing red. People whispered and snickered in the hallways, calling me the “Stoplight Girl.” James was standing just a few feet away, looking completely unbothered as my phone buzzed with a text from him. Lost a bet. I promised her she could be the prettiest one tonight. Sorry to put you through this, but you understand, right? I stared at the screen for what felt like an eternity. Then, quietly, I typed back: Yeah. The next day was the final interview for Columbia’s prestigious early honors program. I asked him to help me choose my outfit. “The advisor said we need to keep it professional. Nothing flashy.” Watching the sudden hesitation flicker in his eyes, I said, each word deliberate: “This is the last time I’ll ever ask you.” 1 James laughed, shaking his head. “Still mad?” “It was just one dress, Nicole. Is it really that big of a deal?” He reached out to ruffle my hair. “I lost a stupid bet. It’s not like I did it on purpose.” I pressed my lips together and tilted my head away, avoiding his hand. “You know I don’t wear red, James.” When I was ten, my mother was killed at a quiet intersection by a speeding semi-truck. During the investigation, the driver insisted she had run a red light, shifting all the blame onto her. Because of her congenital colorblindness, the driver’s lawyer argued she shouldn’t have even been crossing streets alone if she couldn’t tell red from green. Her death was written off as her own negligence. Ever since that day, I loathed red. James just chuckled. “Do you even know what red looks like, Nicole?” “You can’t even tell the difference. Stop letting a silly thing like this make you bitter toward Phoebe.” Phoebe. Always Phoebe. Ever since she transferred to our school this semester, her name had become James’s favorite word. On rainy days, he’d give her the umbrella he brought for me because “Phoebe didn’t wear a jacket, she’ll catch a cold.” I walked home in the pouring rain that afternoon, spiking a hundred-and-four-degree fever by midnight. When we queued up for the limited-edition pastries, he handed her the box we’d waited an hour for because “Phoebe’s never had them, and she’s too delicate to stand in line this long.” And so, on my eighteenth birthday, after standing on my feet for eight hours, my only gift was a crushed, lukewarm egg tart James bought at a convenience store as an afterthought. Now, I just looked at him. “Choose,” I said. On the rack hung two outfits I had prepared for tomorrow’s Columbia interview. As he reached out and casually pointed to one, I couldn’t help but speak up. “Don’t pick anything too flashy. They’ll dock points if it doesn’t look professional.” He smiled, his expression easy. “Nicole, I’ve been your eyes since we were kids. Don’t you trust me?” Could I? I didn’t know anymore. I remembered being three years old in preschool when he grabbed my hand. “Nicole Harrison,” he had declared loudly to the playground, “I’m going to protect you forever.” When we were thirteen, he tackled a bully who teased me for being “blind like my mother.” With his eye swollen shut from the fight, he had still managed a bruised smile to comfort me. “Don’t cry. With me around, you’ll never be blind.” At seventeen, he had awkwardly interrogated me about a boy in our class. “Who wrote you that note? I’m telling you, dating in high school ruins your chances of getting into a good college.” And at eighteen, we made a pact to stay in the city together, to attend Columbia. He was a straight-A student, destined for a perfect score on his finals. I, on the other hand, excelled only in specific subjects; securing the early admissions spot through the academic competition was my only shot. But now, James pulled a shirt off the hanger with complete indifference. “This one. It’s a soft, pale blue.” The heavy stone suspended in my chest finally dropped, fracturing something deep inside me. He was lying. Before he arrived, I had run the camera under an AI color-identifier app. It was a loud, neon orange. For this final, crucial moment, he had chosen to deceive me. I stared at him, seeing only the gray scale of his face. Clenching my cold fists, my voice trembled. “Are you sure?” “James… if only one of us could get into Columbia, would you choose Phoebe over me?” His expression instantly hardened. “Nicole, you are you, and she is she. Stop dragging her into everything.” “If you don’t get in, that’s on you. Don’t blame her for your own shortcomings.” Without giving me a chance to speak, he turned and walked out. I watched him go. The slam of the door vibrated through the room, making me flinch. This time, even the monochrome world faded, dissolved by the tears pooling in my eyes. The next morning, outside the Columbia interview hall. Students walked past, casting snide glances and whispering to one another. Maybe it was the obnoxious neon orange shirt, or maybe it was my swollen, bloodshot eyes. A boy whose advances I’d rejected sophomore year whistled at me. “Hey, Stoplight Girl! Quite a statement piece you’ve got on today!” He turned to his friends, laughing. “Looks like a walking traffic cone. What a clown.” “They say she’s colorblind, but honestly, she’s basically just blind.” James was sitting on a bench not far away, leaning close to Phoebe, going over interview tips with her. He acted as though he heard nothing. Or maybe he did hear, and simply didn’t care. Our academic advisor hurried over. “Nicole, what are you wearing? Didn’t I explicitly tell you to wear something understated?” She looked over at James. “James, didn’t you help her check? Today of all days…” Before she could finish, Phoebe interrupted. “Ms. Jennings, you can’t blame James. Nicole is a grown girl. What she decides to wear is entirely her own choice.” Phoebe’s friend chimed in. “Exactly. James’s time is valuable. He shouldn’t have to waste it playing color coordinator.” “They’re just classmates. He doesn’t owe her that.” Ms. Jennings looked back and forth between me and James, her brow furrowed in confusion. I felt a similar confusion. Before Phoebe showed up, everyone took for granted that James and I would share a future just like our past. We had planned our majors, discussed our careers. We’d even argued playfully over how we would decorate our college apartment. Once, the words had slipped right out of his mouth: “As soon as we graduate, Nicole, let’s get married.” But today, he chose to make me a joke. The “lifetime” he promised me apparently expired the moment we turned eighteen. “Nicole,” Phoebe called out softly. A gentle, pitying smile played on her lips. “You did choose to wear that yourself, didn’t you?” James looked up, his gaze entirely fixed on her face. He still didn’t say a word to defend me. He didn’t even offer a simple explanation. Pulling myself back from the memories, I forced a self-deprecating smile. “Ms. Jennings, it was my choice.” James had chosen a future without me. And it was time for me to make mine. I didn’t reach into my bag to change into the spare white shirt I’d packed. Keeping the loud, neon orange top on, I walked straight into the interview room. The admissions panel paused, taking in my garish appearance, before looking down at their rubrics and beginning to write. After the interview, James caught me in the stairwell. “Look, I made a mistake picking the outfit. The interviewers didn’t say anything, did they?” “What could they say?” I asked quietly. He let out a dry laugh. “Are you still mad?” “We still have the SATs and finals. I’ll tutor you. I’ll make sure you get into Columbia anyway, okay?” “Just don’t act like this in front of Phoebe. She prepared for weeks for this interview. Don’t ruin her mood.” What about my mood? The words lodged like glass in my throat. To ensure we went to the same university, I had spent the last three years studying myself ragged. Through all of high school, I had rarely slept more than five hours a night. How pathetic. I pulled my lips into a tight line. “I get it. I won’t fight her for the early admission spot.” Besides, I had already promised my father. I was going to Stanford. A week later, the early admission decisions were released. Phoebe and I were separated by a mere tenth of a point. I stared at the acceptance list on the bulletin board for a few seconds, then turned and walked away. “Nicole.” James ran to catch up with me. He reached out for my wrist, but I stepped aside, avoiding his touch. My eyes inadvertently fell on his wrist. He was wearing a braided crimson bracelet. It matched the one on Phoebe’s wrist perfectly. Meanwhile, the watch I had saved a year’s worth of allowance to buy him—which he’d worn for exactly three days—was nowhere to be seen. He let out a frustrated sigh. “Why are you being so difficult lately?” “We’ve been doing this silent treatment thing for days. Aren’t you tired of it?” I shook my head. “I’m not giving you the silent treatment.” I just had nothing left to say to him. He shoved a thick stack of study guides into my arms. “So you didn’t get the early spot. Why the long face?” “Tomorrow’s Saturday. We’re going to the library, and I’m going to help you patch up your weak subjects.” He was trying to make peace. Yet, the irritation pinching his brow made it look as though tutoring me was a chore he was forcing himself to endure. The moment he spotted Phoebe coming around the corner in his peripheral vision, he turned and went to her. My soft sigh was swallowed by the wind, entirely ignored. That evening, as soon as I got home, my phone vibrated. Postponing our study session till next week. Celebrating Phoebe’s admission tomorrow. She’s really excited, and I can’t bail on her. You understand, right? I locked my screen, completely unsurprised. What I didn’t expect was the class president dragging me straight into Phoebe’s celebration dinner the next afternoon, claiming we were just going to buy textbooks first. We walked in right as James was slicing a cake for Phoebe. His brow furrowed when he saw me. “What are you doing here? You should have told me you were coming—there might not be enough cake to go around.” I turned to leave, but a few classmates grabbed my arms and pulled me over to a corner table. Phoebe patted James’s arm with a sweet smile. “I asked Hannah to bring Nicole along. We’re all classmates, after all.” James’s face softened instantly. He pushed a plate of cake toward Phoebe. “Your favorite flavor. You can have mine, too.” With finals looming, everyone was desperate to unwind. The atmosphere grew loud, and someone suggested a game of Truth or Dare. James was the first to lose a round. One of his friends grinned. “Spill it. Is the girl you like in this room right now?” A warm smile spread across James’s face. “Yeah,” he said honestly. “She is.” Amid the chorus of cheers and whistles, Phoebe buried her face in her hands, her ears turning bright pink. I watched silently, thinking only that the watermelon on my plate tasted incredibly bland. A few rounds later, James lost again. Phoebe blinked her doll-like eyes and teased, “Do you have any unspoken words for Nicole?” James paused, his gaze landing squarely on me. The room went quiet. “Truth only,” Phoebe chimed in, giggling. Another heavy silence stretched between us. Then, James spoke. “To be honest… taking care of you all the time gets really exhausting.” “Always asking me what color the sky is, what color the roses are, over and over again. It’s annoying.” “The watermelon you’re holding is red—just like a traffic light. You can’t even see it, can you? Honestly, acting like you hate a color you can’t even see is just so dramatic.” The cold wedge of watermelon in my hand suddenly felt searing hot. I remembered him telling me once that blood was red, too. Back then, I had nodded and said, I know what red is. The day my mom died, the doctor said she was covered in it. Red tastes like copper. In this exact second, that metallic taste flooded my mouth. The room began to spin. The watermelon slipped from my fingers, splattering onto the floor in a sticky mess. My stomach violently convulsed, and I had to turn away, dry-heaving into my napkin. The girl sitting next to me jumped back, shrieking, “Nicole! What is wrong with you? That is disgusting!” With trembling hands, I gripped the edge of the table to force myself upright. But before I could move, someone shouted, “The bottle landed on you next!” “It’s a dare!” Instinctively, my eyes sought out James. Even now, I hadn’t broken the toxic habit of looking to him for rescue. He was looking down, carefully wiping a drop of stray watermelon juice off Phoebe’s fingers. I closed my eyes. “I’m not playing.” I turned to leave, but Phoebe’s voice stopped me. “Oh, come on, why not?” “It’s just a game, Nicole. Don’t be a party pooper. Or do you just think you’re above the rest of us?” “If this is about me getting the early spot at Columbia instead of you, I can apologize, okay? Is that what you want?” One of her friends sneered. “She’s basically half-blind. You’re the only one nice enough to invite her, Phoebe, and she behaves like this.” “Ungrateful.” “Nicole.” James’s eyes flickered with annoyance. “Is it really that hard to just participate?” I froze. “James,” I whispered, “do you honestly think I’m having fun?” His face stiffened for a fraction of a second before his mouth set into a hard line. “If you’re going to be this sensitive, it’s no wonder you don’t have other friends.” “Sensitive?” My voice turned ice-cold. “Fine. What’s the dare?” “You want a truth? A dare?” Phoebe offered a sweet, small laugh. “Nothing crazy. I just want to see if you can cross the street outside by yourself.” I raised an eyebrow. “What? Curious to see how a colorblind girl handles a traffic light?” Just then, my phone buzzed on the table. A classmate sitting nearby caught a glimpse of the notification. “Stanford University admissions portal… Nicole, are you moving to California?” The tension in the room instantly froze solid. James’s friend quickly cut in, “Okay, okay, game over.” He nudged James’s shoulder. “Look what you did, man. Nicole’s looking at West Coast schools now.” James took a second to register this, then shrugged indifferently. “Let her look. She won’t actually go. She hates California.” I slid my phone back into my pocket, offering no defense. After my mother passed away, my father—who had supposedly loved her deeply—remarried within a year. He had even packed up and relocated to California for his new wife. As a child, I couldn’t comprehend it. I only felt that he had betrayed my mother, and I had screamed and cried, refusing to move with them. Helpless, my father had spent years flying back and forth between the two coasts to keep an eye on me. But I understood now. Human hearts are fragile, shifting things. I was the fool for holding onto expectations I never should have had. I looked at James for two long seconds. “The dare,” I said calmly. “I’ll do it.” One last time. But the moment we arrived at the intersection Phoebe had chosen, my feet glued themselves to the pavement. This was the exact intersection where my mother had died. “James,” my voice fractured. “Did you tell her about this place?” He looked at me, seemingly confused. “It’s just an old story, Nicole. Why are you acting so shocked?” Phoebe rolled her eyes. “A street is a street. A light is a light. Stop trying to make excuses.” It wasn’t the same. Standing here, my mind was flooded with the memory of my mother’s closed eyes in the sterile white light of the ER. Maybe the cold sweat on my forehead was too obvious, because one of the boys hesitated. “Hey, maybe we should call it off. Nicole looks really freaked out.” “She’s acting,” Phoebe countered sweetly. “I read that colorblind people can easily tell lights apart by their brightness anyway. Ask James if you don’t believe me.” At Phoebe’s soft prompting, James looked away from me. “You literally trained for this, Nicole,” he said, his voice flat. “Can you stop making a scene?” After my mother died, he was the one who had stood with me at every street corner, teaching me how to gauge the glowing lights. It had taken two painful years to conquer my terror of crossing the street alone. His face hadn’t changed, but looking at him now, he felt like a complete stranger. I stopped looking at him. Biting my lower lip, I turned and took a step onto the asphalt. As long as I could get away from him, I didn’t care where I ended up. My heartbeat drummed violently in my ears. I forced my trembling legs forward, one heavy step after another. Suddenly, a sharp gasp cut through the air behind me. “Nicole!” The screech of locking brakes on a massive truck was followed by a sickening, heavy thud. And then, my colorless world shattered completely. Before darkness claimed me, I caught that iron taste again. The taste of red. A month later, on the morning of the SAT exams. James stood outside the testing center, pacing back and forth, looking anxious. The proctor rushed over. “The gates are closing, James. What are you waiting for?” “Nicole isn’t here yet. Is she stuck in traffic on her way from the clinic?” “Nicole? She’s not taking the exams. She already accepted an early admission offer.” “Early admission?!” “Yes. She submitted her application to Stanford weeks ago, and they accepted her.” “Did she not tell you?”

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