Author: Momo Chan

1 At twelve, my mother found a fatal flaw in a jet’s hydraulics and refused takeoff clearance. Richard Blackwood, Vanguard Aviation’s billionaire owner, screamed in her face, accusing her of drama and threatening to replace her. She gripped the manifest, knuckles white, and stood her ground. By morning, she was framed for stealing aviation parts and blacklisted before noon. Disgraced and broke, she jumped from our apartment roof. Years later, fueled by spite and student loans, I fought my way into the National Aviation Academy. Graduating as the FAA’s most ruthless airworthiness inspector, I now held Vanguard’s ten-billion-dollar fleet expansion on my desk. Test data was perfect, the board ready to sign. Only my pen was missing. I opened the dossier. Under software supplier, the parent company was Vanguard Tech. CEO: Richard Blackwood. I closed the file, picked up my pen, and wrote my verdict: Approval denied. Fleet grounded indefinitely. The atmosphere in the conference room was suffocating. The entire inspection board was present. A row of Vanguard Aviation executives sat in the gallery, barely hiding the smug anticipation on their faces. This certificate meant their massive ten billion dollar investment was finally hitting the global market. All the preliminary data was perfect. Every single sub category had the bright red stamp of approval. It all came down to this final hurdle. The lead inspector’s signature. Every eye in the room was locked onto me. I flipped to the second to last page of the thick binder and let my eyes linger on the text. Vanguard Tech. Legal Representative: Richard Blackwood. My fingers tightened around the barrel of my pen. When I was twelve, my mother, Eleanor, was a senior quality control engineer at Vanguard Aviation. She was meticulous. She obsessed over every single valve and wire. One night, she noticed an abnormal pressure fluctuation in the hydraulic system. After running the math three times, she concluded it was a catastrophic risk. She locked the system and refused to sign the release manifest. She truly believed she was saving lives. But all Richard Blackwood saw was a delayed departure. He only saw the massive penalty fees for a missed schedule. He only saw a disposable quality control worker daring to stand in the way of his cash flow. “Stop using safety as an excuse to be dramatic! If you won’t fly it, pack your bags and get the hell out!” That was what he screamed at her. My mother held her ground. She kept the manifest and refused to back down. The next day, there was no safety investigation. Instead, a termination notice arrived, accusing her of embezzling high grade titanium parts. An eight year veteran of the industry, completely blacklisted overnight. I still remember that final evening. She washed my school uniform, hung it up to dry by the window, and stood there staring up at the sky for a very long time. “Sloane, I didn’t do anything wrong.” That was the last thing she ever said to me before she stepped off the roof. Over the years, Richard’s airline empire grew into a global powerhouse. And I took out crippling loans to get through the academy. Four years of undergrad. Three years of graduate school. Two years of brutal certification exams. I bled to climb into this exact chair. I had been waiting for this exact day. I closed the file. I pressed my pen to the paper and wrote my decision. “Approval denied. Fleet grounded indefinitely.” “Inspector Sloane! What is the meaning of this?” Arthur, the head of the review board, slammed his hands on the table and stood up. “The flight data is perfect. The entire board voted to approve. On what grounds are you vetoing this?” Marcus, the Vice President of Vanguard Aviation, shot up from the gallery. “Sloane, do you have any idea what you are doing? Do you know how much interest this company bleeds every single day this ten billion dollar project sits on the tarmac? Can you afford that kind of liability?” I calmly opened my folder and pulled out the inquiry sheet I had prepared hours ago. “The flight control software source code validation report is missing three critical parameter logs. Furthermore, Vanguard Tech’s vendor certification expired last month and has not been renewed.” I looked directly at Marcus. “According to Agency Regulation Part 21, incomplete documentation mandates an automatic denial. As the lead inspector, I have absolute veto power. This is entirely lawful and compliant.” Arthur’s face turned purple. “These are… these are clerical trivialities! It is just a matter of filing a late addendum! You are grounding the entire fleet over a paperwork delay?” “Incomplete is incomplete. There are no trivialities when it comes to aviation safety.” I pushed my chair back and stood up. “If you have an objection, file for an administrative review. Until that review concludes, the aircraft remains grounded.” I turned and walked out of the room without a single backward glance. Behind the heavy oak doors, I could hear the muffled sounds of men cursing my name. 2 The next morning, I received an urgent summons to the Agency’s VIP reception lounge. I pushed the door open. Richard Blackwood was sitting comfortably on the leather sofa. Director Mitchell, the head of our entire division, was sitting right next to him, playing the gracious host. Seeing me enter, Richard stood up and adjusted his expensive suit. “Inspector Sloane. I have heard incredible things about you.” He wore a practiced, media ready smile. But when he reached out to shake my hand, his fingers barely grazed mine before pulling away quickly. Like he was touching something filthy. “Mr. Blackwood,” I said, keeping my voice perfectly flat. “Inspector Sloane is young, brilliant, and the absolute backbone of this agency,” Mitchell chimed in, laughing nervously. Richard kept smiling, but his eyes were scanning me top to bottom, calculating my worth. He didn’t recognize me. How could he? When I was twelve, I threw myself onto the marble floor of the Vanguard Aviation lobby and wrapped my arms around his legs. I begged him to retract the firing. I begged him to clear my mother’s name. He didn’t even bother to look down at me. “Security. Drag this trash out into the street.” He was a god in his own mind. Why would he ever remember the face of an ant he crushed under his heel? Richard sat back down and pulled a thick, pristine envelope from his breast pocket. “Inspector Sloane, I understand you relied heavily on student loans to finance your impressive education. I also hear you are currently living in cramped public housing?” His tone was dripping with manufactured sympathy. “Vanguard Aviation recently established a young talent foundation. We specifically sponsor brilliant young professionals who come from… difficult backgrounds.” He slid the envelope across the glass table. I could clearly see the check inside. “Five million dollars. Consider it a private grant from Vanguard to support the future of aviation.” He leaned forward, dropping the corporate speak. “Look, we all know this inspection is just a formality. The missing files are basically typos. We will patch them up next week. There is no need to be so rigid. You sign that paper today, and this money goes straight into your personal account. No one will ever know.” He didn’t even care that the Director of the Agency was sitting two feet away. I reached out and pushed the envelope right back across the glass. “Mr. Blackwood. The documentation is incomplete. I cannot sign.” Richard’s smile twitched. “Sloane, listen to me. You are barely in your thirties, and you are already a lead inspector. The sky is the limit for you.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I have already spoken with the upper management. If you just play ball on this one project, Vanguard will personally endorse your promotion to department chief.” He tapped the envelope. “You had a rough start in life. You swallowed a lot of glass to get to this chair. Do not throw your entire future away over a minor bureaucratic technicality.” The corners of his mouth curled up just a fraction. It was a look of absolute, arrogant pity. He was silently telling me: People like you are incredibly lucky just to be allowed in the building. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. “Mr. Blackwood, I appreciate the generous offer. But until those files are submitted in full, my pen stays in my pocket.” Richard’s smile vanished. The polite, wealthy gentleman routine evaporated instantly. His eyes turned dead, cold, and full of raw contempt. It was the exact same look I saw when I was on my knees in his lobby twenty years ago. “Sloane. When I throw you a bone, you take it.” He stood up, towering over the coffee table. “You really think a low level paper pusher can hold my empire hostage?” “I have survived storms that would drown you in a second. If you refuse to sign that certificate today, I will personally guarantee you never work in this industry again.” He buttoned his suit jacket. “You just wait.” I looked right back into his dead eyes. No anger. No fear. Not a single flinch. I had been waiting for this day for nearly two decades. You want me to wait? Richard Blackwood, I am the one who has been waiting for you. 3 At three o’clock that afternoon, I was summoned to Director Mitchell’s private office. Marcus, Vanguard’s Vice President, was already sitting on the sofa. Twenty years ago, Marcus was the Director of Maintenance. He was the man who wrote “Reviewed, hold for now” on my mother’s critical safety warning. Mitchell stood by the window, staring out at the runway, completely silent. Marcus glared at me. “Inspector Sloane. Have you bothered to run the math on the daily interest for a ten billion dollar loan?” “You are not hurting Mr. Blackwood. You are holding a knife to the throats of twenty thousand Vanguard employees who need this launch to feed their families.” “If this company goes under, can you carry that kind of blood on your hands?” I didn’t blink. “Marcus, the paperwork is missing. When it is complete, I will sign. It is that simple.” “Sloane, you are young,” Marcus sneered, the threat bleeding through his teeth. “Think very carefully about your career trajectory. It would be a real tragedy if you were permanently stripped of your inspection credentials.” “I suggest you wise up. Mr. Blackwood’s patience is entirely gone.” He stood up, straightened his tie, and walked toward the door. As he passed me, he patted me hard on the shoulder. A physical reminder to know my place. Once the door clicked shut, it was just me and Mitchell. “Sloane.” He sighed, sounding like a disappointed father. “The agency recognizes your technical brilliance. Truly.” “But in this line of work, you cannot just look at the code. You have to look at the big picture.” “The mayor’s office is heavily invested in this Vanguard project.” He paused, letting the political weight sink in. “Can we not show a little flexibility on these minor procedural hiccups?” “Just draft a conditional approval letter. Let them promise to submit the code later. As long as the optics are fine, there is no need to enforce the letter of the law so brutally.” “You have a long career ahead of you. Being this stubborn… it does not end well for anyone.” Every word he spoke was legally safe. But every single syllable was an order to surrender. My voice was like ice. “If it is missing one single page, I will not sign.” “Tell them to submit the code.” Mitchell looked at me, his face hardening. “Think about this, Sloane.” I turned and walked out. The very next morning, a mass agency memo hit every inbox. “To optimize our review mechanisms and expedite critical airworthiness projects, the administration has restructured the oversight committee. Inspector Sloane is hereby removed from the position of Lead Inspector. All final approvals will be handled directly by the executive review board.” I was boxed up and banished to the basement archives. At ten in the morning, I carried a cardboard box into the dusty archive room. A few clerks watched me, whispering behind their hands. No one stepped up to defend me. Committing career suicide by crossing Vanguard Aviation was not contagious. Down the hallway, Mitchell walked toward me. As we passed each other, he didn’t even stop walking. He just muttered under his breath. “Think it through, Sloane.” I knew exactly what he meant. Grovel now, and you might get your desk back. I adjusted my grip on my cardboard box and kept walking. That afternoon, Brenda from Human Resources came down to the basement to “check” on me. “Sloane, what exactly is your endgame here?” “The entire board approved the Vanguard project. You were the only one playing hero.” “Now look at you. Stripped of your title, rotting down here with the mold.” “Do you regret it yet?” I looked up from the stack of old boxes. “It isn’t over yet.” Brenda froze. She walked to the door, turned around, and looked at me like I belonged in a psych ward. Once she was gone, I opened my laptop and pulled up the encrypted review logs. She was right. It wasn’t over. The trap was just beginning to close. That evening, an old college friend sent me a link. “Sloane, what the hell is going on?” I clicked the link. It was a massive investigative article by a prominent aviation blogger. Headline: “The Strictest Inspector or the Most Corrupt? A Deep Dive into Sloane’s Dictatorship at the Aviation Agency.” “The test flights were flawless. The entire board voted yes. Only Inspector Sloane vetoed the project. Are we looking at a blatant shakedown for bribes?” “According to anonymous insiders, Sloane frequently hints that airlines need to provide ‘supplemental materials.’ What exactly she wants them to supplement is anyone’s guess.” The comment section was an absolute bloodbath. “How is this corrupt witch still employed?” “Investigate her bank accounts immediately!” “Holding a ten billion dollar project hostage all by herself? If you think she isn’t fishing for a payout, you are delusional.” There were dozens of hit pieces multiplying by the hour. Another headline screamed: “Delaying the Billion Dollar Launch: Heroic Standards or Petty Revenge?” This one dug into my personal life. It listed my student loans, my single parent household, the fact that my mother died young and in disgrace. The implication was dripping from every paragraph. A desperate, poor girl climbs into a seat of massive power. Put ten billion dollars in front of her, and of course she is going to hold her hand out for a cut. I clenched my jaw and turned off my phone. 4 One week later. The heavy metal door of the archive room creaked open. A junior admin assistant stood there, looking incredibly uncomfortable. “Sloane, the airworthiness certificate was officially signed by the executive board.” “Vanguard rented out the entire Continental Hotel. They are doing a global live broadcast of the maiden flight at two o’clock. Mr. Blackwood is personally boarding the plane for the test run.” I turned the page of the dusty manifest in my hands. “Got it.” At one thirty in the afternoon, I drove to the tarmac. The Agency had mandated that all review personnel be present for the historic launch. The tarmac was a sea of people. Vanguard executives, city politicians, Wall Street investors, and dozens of media cameras were all aimed at the massive, gleaming silver jet. Richard Blackwood stood at the center of the press podium, soaking in the glory. “Today marks a historic turning point for Vanguard Aviation!” “This aircraft represents the absolute pinnacle of global aviation technology. It has passed the most rigorous safety inspections on earth. In a few moments, I will personally board this flight to prove that Vanguard stands behind its quality!” The crowd erupted into deafening applause. I stood at the very back of the crowd, my face entirely blank. Richard walked up the boarding stairs, turning at the top to give a victorious wave to the cameras. Then he stepped inside the cabin. The entire tarmac held its collective breath, waiting for the roar of the engines. One second. Two seconds. Five seconds. Through the cockpit glass, a row of green indicators blinked once. And then, every single warning light flashed a blinding, violent red. System Diagnostic: FAILED. Hydraulic Valves: SAFETY LOCK ENGAGED. Engine Ignition: DISABLED. The global live feed kept rolling. The ten billion dollar marvel of engineering sat dead on the runway, completely unresponsive. Panic rippled through the media pit. Through the window, Richard’s face came into view. The arrogant smile was gone, replaced by pure, unadulterated panic as he stared at the sea of red warning screens. The crowd broke into chaotic murmurs. Ten agonizing minutes later, Richard walked out of the cabin. His face was a mask of pure, murderous rage. He marched down the stairs, his eyes scanning the crowd like a predator. They locked right onto me. I knew that exact look. It was the look he gave my mother twenty years ago. The day he screamed in her face while she clung to that safety report. The very next day, she became a thief and a pariah. And now, he was aiming that exact same weapon at me. Right on cue, Richard stormed through the crowd, heading straight for me. The cameras pivoted instantly, tracking his every move. He stopped two feet away from me. “Sloane.” “Just because I refused to pay your extortion fee, you think you can sabotage a commercial airliner?” “You are destroying the livelihoods of thousands of innocent people!” In one breath, he crucified me. He told the entire world I had tampered with the plane because he wouldn’t pay my bribe. The journalists started whispering frantically. “Did she hack the plane?” “Can an inspector even lock down the flight systems?” “That is actual terrorism…” Director Mitchell materialized at my side, playing the devastated leader perfectly. “Sloane, if what Mr. Blackwood is saying is true, do you have any idea what you have done?” “Thousands of jobs. Ten billion dollars. Can you survive the consequences of this?” He sounded like a man pleading with a criminal to surrender. Every word was designed to pile the guilt squarely on my shoulders. The camera crews surged forward, shoving microphones in my face. “Inspector Sloane! Did you tamper with the flight control system?” “How do you justify holding a ten billion dollar project hostage?” I could only imagine the live chat on the broadcast feed. “This chick is psychotic! Lock her up!” “Even if she didn’t hack it, abusing her power like this is disgusting.” “Investigate her bank accounts! She is a menace!” “She ruined thousands of lives just to throw a tantrum!” Richard looked at me with deep, theatrical sorrow. “Inspector Sloane. What could you possibly say to defend yourself now?” He had dragged me into the town square to be executed. He wanted me to be the villain. The criminal. Just like he made my mother the thief. I looked at the blinding flashes of the cameras. I looked at the angry faces of the crowd. I looked at Richard’s towering, arrogant stance. And then, I smiled. The entire crowd went dead silent. I took one deliberate step forward. “Mr. Blackwood.” “Do you want to know exactly why I am doing this?” My voice wasn’t loud, but it cut through the silence like a scalpel. “Twenty years ago, a quality control engineer named Eleanor discovered a fatal anomaly in the hydraulic systems. She refused to sign the release manifest.” “The very next day, she was framed for stealing titanium parts and permanently blacklisted from the aviation industry.” “She was my mother.” “I was thirteen years old when the shame drove her off the roof of a building.” Richard’s pupils dilated in raw shock. I stared him down. “You used your power to frame my mother and push her to her death.” “And today, you thought you could use the exact same playbook to dump your toxic waste onto me.” “But this time, you won’t win.”

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1 My own daughter locked me outside on our seventeenth floor balcony ledge. We had been trying to cut down on household expenses. That was why I was out there in the freezing cold, risking my neck to clean the exterior windows myself. I was almost finished when I asked my daughter to hand me a dry rag. She stomped over, her face twisted in annoyance. “Why do you always need so much help? Who cleans windows without bringing a rag in the first place?” I swallowed my frustration and spoke to her gently. “Dad just forgot it inside. It is right there on the coffee table. Just pass it through the gap, please.” But her next move nearly stopped my heart. She grabbed the window handle and slammed it shut, locking it from the inside. Panic flooded my chest instantly. I yelled through the glass, begging her to open it, but she just looked at me with pure disgust. “You can just stay out there. Uncle Tyler is coming over soon, and you always just get in the way when he is here!” Tyler was supposed to be my best friend. My brother from another mother. Why would I be getting in the way in my own home? Before my brain could even process the thought, a vicious gust of icy wind slammed into my back. My body swayed violently. My center of gravity vanished. Pure survival instinct took over. I threw my arms out, plastering my palms flat against the freezing metal window frame. I didn’t even dare to exhale. Half of my boots were hanging off the edge of the concrete ledge. Seventeen stories up. If my fingers slipped even a fraction of an inch, I would be nothing but a splatter on the pavement below. “Lily! Sweetheart!” My voice was shaking so hard I barely recognized it. “Open the window! Daddy is begging you! This isn’t a joke, I could fall and die!” Lily acted like she could not even hear me. She just looked down, tapped her screen, and loaded up her mobile game. “Nobody is joking with you. All you do is nag me about my screen time anyway. You are so annoying! Uncle Tyler never yells at me about my games. You can just chill out there for a while!” Without another word, she spun on her heel, walked back into the living room, and yanked the heavy curtains shut. A second later, I heard the heavy thud of the sliding glass balcony door locking into place. All sound from the inside was completely cut off. I was spreadeagled against the window frame, completely paralyzed by gravity. The winter wind howled against my spine, sinking its teeth into my jacket. My teeth began to chatter uncontrollably. The curtains were not pulled completely tight. Through a narrow gap, I could see Lily curled up comfortably on the plush sofa. Her thumbs were flying across her phone screen, a giddy little smile playing on her lips. Looking at her, a sickening wave of grief washed over me. This was the daughter I had busted my back to raise. Just because I restricted her video games, she locked me on a freezing ledge seventeen stories in the air. She didn’t care if I lived or died. She even compared me to Tyler. Of course Tyler didn’t discipline her. He wasn’t her father. He got to be the fun uncle with zero responsibilities. While my mind spun, the front door swung open. Judging by the time, it had to be my mother in law, Helen. I was just about to risk freeing one hand to bang on the glass when I saw two more figures walk in behind her. My wife, Rachel, and my best friend, Tyler. The moment Rachel walked in, she looked at Lily. “Did your dad go out for groceries?” Lily didn’t even look up from her game. Her tone was completely casual, laced with an easy lie. “Yeah, he left. He said he was going to the big market and wouldn’t be back for an hour.” Rachel nodded, supporting her swollen belly as she sank onto the edge of the sofa. “When Tyler gets settled, let him heat up some of that rich bone broth for you. You need your strength,” Helen fussed, taking Rachel’s coat. Tyler sat down right next to Rachel, his eyes locked on her pregnant belly with a look of absolute adoration. “It might be her second pregnancy, but we still have to treat her like a queen.” When Rachel first got pregnant this time, I had practically begged her not to keep it. Her health was incredibly fragile. Having Lily had nearly killed her. Going through another high risk pregnancy was like playing Russian roulette with her life. I didn’t want to lose my wife over a second child. But Rachel was adamant. She claimed it was a miracle and insisted on going through with it. Eventually, Tyler stepped in. He said he was worried I would not be able to handle the stress of caring for a high risk pregnant woman alone. He started coming over every single day. He cooked, he cleaned, he catered to her every whim. I never had an issue with it. He was my best friend. I trusted him with my life. But staring through that narrow gap in the curtains, the blindfold was finally ripped off my eyes. The way my wife and my mother in law looked at him. The gentle touches. The soft smiles. They treated him with far more intimacy than they ever showed me. 2 But I didn’t have the luxury of dwelling on their twisted dynamic. My fingers were going numb. I slammed my fist against the glass. The muffled thud echoed into the apartment. Helen frowned, standing up and looking toward the balcony. “What was that noise?” A surge of wild hope flared in my chest. I hit the glass three more times. But Lily suddenly jumped up from the sofa and grabbed her grandmother’s arm. “Nana, don’t go look! It’s almost Christmas. It is definitely just those bad kids downstairs setting off loud fireworks again. They have been doing it all morning.” Helen nodded immediately, her suspicion evaporating. “Kids these days have no manners. Just making a racket and giving people migraines.” The blood in my veins turned to absolute ice. My own flesh and blood. My daughter. She actively covered for my absence and lied to keep them from finding me. Staring at her through the glass, I felt completely sick to my stomach. Tyler reached out and rested his hand gently on Rachel’s swollen abdomen. It was a deeply intimate gesture. “This kid is kicking hard. Gonna be a real fighter.” Rachel nudged him playfully, a dark blush creeping up her neck. “Yeah. Honestly, we are so lucky to have you around taking care of us. When the baby is born, I am definitely making you the godfather.” Tyler reached up and pinched Rachel’s cheek. His voice was thick with implication. “Why settle for godfather? It is only a matter of time anyway.” “Besides, Cole is completely useless in that department. You need someone strong. Someone who actually knows how to make a woman happy.” “When the time is right, we will make our move.” Those words plunged into my chest like a jagged knife. When Rachel and I were first married, I was young, reckless, and completely uneducated about her medical history. I accidentally caused a severe internal hemorrhage during intimacy. It was the greatest regret of my life. Ever since then, no matter how desperate I was, I would take freezing cold showers and suppress every urge just to ensure I never hurt her again. I treated her like glass. I never in a million years thought my restraint would become the reason she found me disgusting. Fat, wet flakes of snow began to fall from the gray sky, landing on my shoulders. But the snow was nothing compared to the absolute winter inside my heart. Lily finished her round of gaming. She tossed her phone aside, ran over to Tyler, and grabbed his hand. “Uncle Tyler, you are the best. You are a million times better than my dad. When are you going to be my real dad?” Tyler’s face flushed with fake modesty. He put on a show of looking embarrassed. “Lily, don’t say things like that. Your mom and I aren’t… we aren’t like that.” Rachel stroked her belly, her eyes darting over to Tyler with a look of pure, hungry longing. Helen sat in the armchair, watching the three of them with a warm, approving smile. Looking at them, you would think they were the perfect, happy family. Witnessing this sickening domestic bliss, the tears finally spilled over my freezing eyelashes. I tried to tell myself Lily was just a kid. She didn’t understand the gravity of what she was doing. I ground my teeth together and began hammering on the glass with both fists. Helen finally snapped. The relentless noise was grating on her nerves. She stood up, her face flushed with anger, and marched toward the balcony. “Who do these little brats think they are?! Setting off fireworks right against our windows! I am going to give them a piece of my mind!” Lily’s face went pale. She tried to grab her grandmother, but she was too late. Helen yanked the sliding door open and tore the curtains back. Our eyes locked. Time completely froze. Helen’s jaw dropped open in absolute shock. Rachel and Tyler snapped their heads toward the balcony. When they saw me plastered against the exterior wall, shivering violently, their faces went blank. “What the hell are you doing out there?” Helen shrieked, finding her voice. “Lily said you went to the market!” Lily’s eyes darted nervously. Then, a manipulative little spark lit up her face. It was the exact expression she made right before she spun a massive lie. “I locked him out there! And he deserves it for talking trash about Uncle Tyler!” Lily pointed a dramatic finger at me, doubling down on her sick fantasy. 3 “Mom, he was acting totally crazy! He said he hated that you guys were nice to Uncle Tyler. He called him a cheap gigolo who only comes around for free food!” “I was so mad I locked him out to teach him a lesson!” My eyes went wide. The blood rushed so hard to my frozen ears I thought they would explode. When had I ever said a single word like that? Tyler immediately clutched his chest, taking a theatrical step backward like he had been physically struck. “Cole… how could you say those things about me? I thought we were brothers. I have broken my back helping your family, and this is how you insult me?” Rachel’s face darkened into a scowl. The look she gave me was filled with pure venom. “Cole! I cannot believe I ever married someone so pathetic!” “If Tyler hadn’t stepped up during this pregnancy, I would be entirely miserable right now!” “You don’t have an ounce of gratitude in your body. How dare you insult him like that?” “Lily did the right thing! You need to stay out there and seriously reflect on your toxic behavior!” Helen immediately moved to stand next to Tyler, glaring at me like I was a convicted criminal trespassing on her property. “I never said that!” I screamed over the howling wind, my voice cracking with desperation. “Lily is lying! I swear to God I never said a word against him! Please, just open the window! My hands are going numb, I am going to fall!” Rachel looked at my trembling body. A flicker of genuine hesitation crossed her face. She reached for the handle. But then, her face suddenly contorted. She clutched her stomach and let out a piercing wail. “Oh God! My stomach. It hurts so bad. The baby…” The entire room went into an instant panic. Tyler and Helen rushed to her sides, holding her up. “Rachel, honey, look at me! Don’t panic! We are taking you to the ER right now!” Tyler shouted, playing the hero flawlessly. Helen and Lily hovered around her in tears. The three of them guided Rachel frantically toward the front door. Not a single one of them looked back at the balcony. Right as Tyler reached the threshold, he paused. He turned his head and shot me a look of pure, absolute malice. “Enjoy the weather, Cole.” The front door slammed shut. I was left clinging to the exterior wall, the last of my adrenaline draining away. I was completely abandoned. Left to die on a ledge seventeen stories in the air. But I refused to die here. I hadn’t lived enough yet to let them win. The primal instinct to survive sparked a fire in my freezing blood. I looked over at the neighbor’s balcony. It was a completely insane idea. The concrete ledge connecting our apartments was barely the width of a human hand. It was slick with fresh snow. One wrong shift in weight, one slip of a frozen boot, and I would plummet to the concrete below. But staying here was a guaranteed death sentence. Wait for Rachel and Tyler to come back? They only cared about each other. They probably hoped I would fall so they wouldn’t have to deal with me anymore. It was climb or die. I sucked in a lungful of freezing air. I peeled one hand off the window frame and pressed it flat against the icy brick wall. I began to shuffle. Inch by terrifying inch. My boots sliding dangerously on the snowy concrete. I kept my eyes locked onto the neighbor’s balcony rail. I refused to look down. I have no idea how long it took. Time lost all meaning. Finally, my frozen fingers wrapped around the metal railing of the neighbor’s balcony. I dragged myself over the rail and collapsed onto their deck. I used the last ounce of my strength to bang weakly on their sliding glass door. The living room lights flicked on. A second later, the curtains were thrown back. The elderly couple inside jumped in terror when they saw a half frozen man sprawled on their balcony. They scrambled to unlock the door and hauled me inside. The moment I hit their carpet, my body gave out completely. I lay there gasping for air, unable to form a single word. The neighbor rushed to get me a mug of boiling water. I forced it down my raw throat. The heat spreading through my chest was the only proof I was still alive. It took me twenty minutes to stop shaking enough to speak. I gave them a heavily edited version of the truth. I left Lily out of it entirely. I just said the wind had blown the window shut while I was cleaning, locking me out by accident. I thanked them profusely, borrowed a jacket, and walked back to my own apartment. Right as I unlocked my front door, I heard the elevator ding down the hall. 4 They were back. Tyler was practically carrying Rachel down the hall. Lily was trailing right behind them, holding Tyler’s coat. Rachel’s color had returned. She was leaning heavily against Tyler’s shoulder, whispering something that made him chuckle. They stepped into the apartment and froze. Rachel frowned. She didn’t even bother to ask how I survived or how I got back inside. She just waved her hand dismissively. Tyler was the one who broke the silence. “Oh, you got back in? Perfect. Go start dinner. Rachel just got back from the hospital and she is exhausted. She needs that bone broth.” His tone was completely flat. He was speaking to me like I was the hired help. Lily peeked around Tyler’s leg. I saw the flash of guilt in her eyes before she muttered under her breath. “How did he even get back in? Why didn’t he just fall and die.” That was it. The final thread holding my sanity together snapped. I closed the distance between us in three strides, raised my hand, and slapped Lily hard across the face. The crack echoed through the apartment. Lily grabbed her cheek, staring at me in absolute shock. “You locked your own father outside on a freezing ledge, and then you lied to cover it up! Today is the day I finally teach you some basic human decency!” Before I could say another word, Tyler shoved his way between us, spreading his arms wide to shield Lily. “Cole! What the hell is wrong with you?! Even if a kid makes a mistake, you do not put your hands on her!” “She is just a little girl! How can you be so violently abusive?” “Yeah! He is a monster!” Lily shrieked, hiding behind Tyler’s back and glaring at me with pure hatred. “You are a terrible man! I don’t want you to be my dad anymore! Get out of my house! Get out!” Rachel rushed forward, standing shoulder to shoulder with Tyler, forming a human barricade to protect the child. Looking at them, they looked exactly like a family. “Cole, have you completely lost your mind?!” Rachel screamed. “You are abusing a child now? You are entirely unfit to be a father!” She paused, taking a deep breath, and looked over at Tyler. “Starting tomorrow, Tyler is moving in with us.” “That way, he can keep an eye on my health, and he can be here to protect Lily from your violent outbursts.” I stood perfectly still, my brain struggling to process the absolute audacity of her statement. “We only have three bedrooms. If Tyler moves in, where exactly is he going to sleep?” Rachel didn’t even hesitate. “He needs to monitor my pregnancy. He will sleep on a floor mattress in the master bedroom with me.” “You can take the couch in the living room.” Tyler waved his hands, putting on a sickening display of fake humility. His eyes, however, were dancing with arrogant triumph. “Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly. I am just a guest. I cannot kick a husband out of his own bedroom.” “You are not a guest, Uncle Tyler!” Lily grabbed his sleeve, dragging him toward the hallway. “You have to stay! Stay tonight! I want you to read me my bedtime stories!” Tyler looked down at Lily, then shot me a long, mocking look. “Alright, sweetie. Uncle Tyler will stay. I will read you stories all night long.” He turned back to me, looking the picture of polite distress. “Cole, you see how much the kid needs me. I really can’t say no.” “Then stay.” I forced the words past the massive lump in my throat, cutting off his pathetic performance. The moment I agreed, all three of them broke into matching smiles of relief. Those smiles were blindingly painful. I let out a dark, silent laugh in my head. I kept the second half of my thought to myself. If he is moving in, then I am moving out. Helen immediately hurried into the master bedroom to set up fresh sheets for Tyler. Lily clung to him like a barnacle, dragging him into her room for her stories. I didn’t spare them a second glance. I turned around, walked into the guest room that I was now supposed to vacate, and quietly packed a duffel bag. My plan was simple. Wait until the house was dead silent, and vanish into the night. If they loved Tyler so much, I would let them have him. I would disappear. Let Lily see what life was really like without me paying the bills. Around midnight, I slung the bag over my shoulder and headed for the front door. I checked my wallet and realized my marriage certificate was still in the nightstand in the master bedroom. I hesitated, but decided I needed to take it. I assumed they would both be fast asleep by now. I crept down the hallway. I reached out to turn the brass handle of the master bedroom door. But the muffled conversation leaking through the wooden panel made my blood run entirely cold.

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1 After Echo’s husband died, she came crawling back to Thomas. “Toby’s fever won’t go down,” she sobbed, clutching at his sleeve. “He keeps crying out for his daddy. Can you please just pretend to be his father for a few more days? You and Travis are identical twins. No one else can do this!” Thomas instinctively looked at me, his eyes searching mine for a reaction. I merely gave him a cool, detached look. “Go,” I said, my voice empty of emotion. “Don’t let the boy’s fever get any worse.” He froze for a fraction of a second, surprised by my indifference, before grabbing his coat and rushing out the door. He had no idea. He was actually supposed to become a real father. But only days ago, Echo’s son had pushed me into the swimming pool. Thomas hadn’t even glanced at my medical report. He had been too busy defending the boy, his voice dripping with excuses. “Toby thought I was Travis. He actually believed you were the home-wrecker trying to tear his mommy and daddy apart.” So he never found out. I had miscarried. The moment the words left Echo’s mouth, Thomas’s tone turned freezing cold. “If he has a fever, why didn’t you take him straight to the emergency room?” Echo froze at our front door. Loose strands of hair clung messily to her damp cheeks, giving her a look of fragile, pathetic helplessness. “I called a private doctor,” she whimpered, “but Toby won’t let anyone near him. He just cries for his daddy. Ever since Travis died in that car crash, you’ve been the one playing his father. Now that you’re not there, he’s miserable.” She tapped her phone screen, bringing up a video. A little boy, flushed and semi-conscious with fever, was sobbing weakly. “Daddy, I want my daddy…” With every whimpering cry from the screen, Thomas’s brow furrowed deeper. Echo tugged at the corner of his jacket, her eyes red and pleading. “I know you’re married now, but please, just this once, help me again. You and Travis are identical twins. There is literally no one else who can play the part!” Thomas glanced at his watch and instinctively turned to me. “Laurie, I…” “I’m tired. I’m going to bed,” I interrupted, my voice unnaturally calm. “They need you right now. Go on, don’t delay and make the boy’s illness worse.” For a rare moment, Thomas’s face went entirely blank. He stared at me, his gaze heavy with an unreadable mix of emotions. After a long silence, he offered a quiet, raspy explanation. “I’ve come to see Toby as practically my own son. I can’t just ignore him.” He wrapped his arms around me in a brief, soothing embrace. “Get some rest, Laurie. I’ll be back soon.” With that, he grabbed his coat and hurried out into the night with Echo. Once the door clicked shut, I picked up the envelope that had arrived earlier that evening. Inside was a draft of the divorce papers, sent by my lawyer friend. I stared down at the crisp white sheets. My hand slowly drifted to my flat stomach, and a bitter warmth flooded my eyes. Thomas didn’t know. He had a child. A real one. Except, before the baby could even see the light of day, it had been killed. Killed by his deceased brother’s son, the boy he loved like a son, in a tragic, deliberate accident. Thomas didn’t return that night. I was used to it, so I fell asleep early. When I woke up the next morning, my phone buzzed with a message from him. Laurie, Toby’s fever broke. There’s a family activity at his preschool this afternoon, and they require both parents to be there… I didn’t bother reading the rest of his lengthy paragraphs. After showering, I walked downstairs to find a lavish, nutritious breakfast spread across the dining table. Our housekeeper, Martha, beamed at me. “Mr. Thomas said you’ve been feeling weak ever since you fell into the pool. He personally instructed me to make sure you get enough nutrients to recover.” I gave a faint nod. While sipping my warm porridge, I opened social media. Echo’s feed had just updated. My sweet boy. Even though your biological daddy is gone, Mommy is still so blessed. You have another, even better, handsomer daddy to watch you grow up year after year. The attached video showed a family basketball game at the preschool. Thomas was wearing a jersey printed with “Toby’s Dad.” Tall and athletic, he wove through the opposing players like a gust of wind. And on his ring finger, he wore a wedding band that perfectly matched the one on Echo’s hand. I stared at the screen, a dry, bitter laugh escaping my throat. How incredibly thoughtful of him. He really covered every detail. Thomas sank a gorgeous three-point shot to seal the win. “You’re amazing, honey!” Echo’s voice squealed behind the camera, the lens shaking with her excitement as she waved at him. Thomas bent down, scooped Toby up, and hoisted him high onto his shoulders, his eyes crinkling with genuine warmth. “Was Daddy good?” The little boy clung to his neck, his eyes filled with pure adoration. “The best! You’re the best, Daddy!” For a split second, I was dragged back to a sunny afternoon during our senior year of college. A handsome boy had leaped into the air, releasing a perfect shot right into the net. Amidst the roaring cheers of the crowd, he had looked across the court, straight at me. His lips had moved without making a sound, secretly mouthing the words: Was I good? Staring at the glowing screen of my phone, the memory was so vivid that the word slipped past my lips in a fragile whisper. “Yes, you were…” Then a hot tear splashed onto my bare arm. I snapped back to reality, quickly wiping the moisture from my eyes. And then, I took another spoonful of the warm porridge, swallowing it along with my own salty tears. Echo’s family was whole again. Mine, however, had shattered into dust. Thomas and Travis had been twins, but they were so distant they might as well have been strangers. Because of this, I knew next to nothing about my brother-in-law’s private life. The day of Travis’s funeral was the very first time I met Echo and her five-year-old son, Toby. The face etched onto the cold tombstone was identical to my husband’s. My eyes burned with a sudden, overwhelming grief. Amid the soft, mourning whimpers of the crowd, Toby suddenly broke free from Echo’s grip. He toddled over on his little legs and wrapped his small arms tightly around Thomas’s leg, asking in a sweet, innocent voice, “Daddy, why is everyone crying?” Thomas closed his eyes in agony, his hand trembling slightly as he stroked Toby’s hair. Thomas wasn’t the boy’s father. But everyone standing around the grave remained dead silent. No one had the heart to shatter the child’s illusion. Neither did I. Looking at the tiny, fatherless boy, my heart swelled with nothing but pity. I had no idea back then that a single moment of sympathy, a silent agreement to let this gentle lie play out, would completely ruin my life. After the funeral, Thomas and Echo started seeing each other constantly. Echo had lied to Toby, claiming his daddy was away on a long business trip overseas. But as the months dragged on, the lie became impossible to sustain. So, she turned to Thomas. She begged him to step in as Travis, to accompany the boy just for a little while. “You and Travis are identical twins,” she had pleaded. “No one else can be Toby’s father.” I had a delicate constitution and had struggled to conceive. After three years of marriage, Thomas and I still didn’t have any children. Faced with his grieving nephew, Thomas had hesitated for only a brief moment before agreeing to this inappropriate arrangement. From that point on, our quiet nights were shattered. Every single night, Toby’s voice calls would ring through the phone like clockwork. His tiny, high-pitched voice would drift out of the receiver. “Daddy, I miss you so much. I can’t sleep.” “Daddy, when are you coming home?” One night, after we were woken up yet again, Thomas rubbed his tired eyes and leaned over to kiss my forehead. “I’ll go quiet him down. Go back to sleep, honey.” As soon as the bedroom door clicked shut, I slipped out of bed. I stood by the door, pressing my ear against the wood, listening in silence. “Yeah, Daddy loves you too,” Thomas muttered. “Daddy, you can’t just say you love me! You have to say it to Mommy too!” The hallway outside suddenly fell into a dead silence. It was only a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity. Just when I thought the call was about to end, a deep, quiet voice drifted through the gap. “Echo, I love you.” My mind went completely blank. Those words felt like a physical blow, striking my chest and shattering my heart to pieces. I didn’t know when their call finally ended. All I knew was the physical sensation of the mattress dipping behind me as a cold body slid back under the covers, wrapping his arms around me out of pure habit. I pulled away, my voice trembling uncontrollably. “Do you love her?” Thomas froze, then let out a helpless, soft chuckle. “I was just playing along for the kid. I couldn’t blow my cover in the middle of a call.” He pulled me closer. “Are you jealous?” That night, he showered me with sweet, apologetic kisses, whispering promises in my ear. “Laurie, I love you. Only you.” But the heavy, suffocating knot in my chest refused to dissolve. In a moment of petty retaliation, I secretly put Thomas’s phone on silent. That was the night Toby went missing. Echo showed up at our house, furious. She slapped Thomas across the face with a resounding crack. “Why didn’t you answer his calls! He thought you abandoned him and ran out to look for you!” Thomas’s eyes darkened as he cast a subtle, quiet glance in my direction. The red mark blooming on his cheek made his expression look incredibly cold. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I’ll find him.” Thankfully, Toby was found sleeping soundly on a park bench, completely unharmed. When we got back to the house, Thomas shed his jacket and rubbed the bridge of his nose, exhaustion dripping from his voice. “Did you touch my phone?” I kept my composure and nodded. He quietly lit a cigarette, his eyes cold and distant. “If something had actually happened to Toby tonight, could you have lived with the guilt?” I threw the question right back at him. “And what about you? Are you really just trying to be a good uncle to your brother’s son?” Or was he planning to take care of the widow as well, keeping her warm in his bed? The cigarette caught between Thomas’s fingers paused in mid-air. “I’m Toby’s father right now, Laurie. That’s my responsibility.” My vision began to blur. I forced a smile and let the tears roll down my cheeks. “Right. Of course.” A cold war settled over our marriage. Thomas noticed my withdrawal and tried everything to win me back. Despite his packed schedule, he would find time to cook for me. Expensive jewelry began arriving at the house in various velvet boxes. But the knot in my heart remained. The delicious meals tasted like ash, and the diamonds sat untouched in their boxes. Thomas never truly understood the root of my silence. He continued to meet with Echo and Toby, treating their calls as perfectly normal obligations. I simply chose to ignore it all. One evening, Thomas was working late in his home office. His assistant had sent over some urgent documents, asking me to get them signed. When I pushed the door open, I found him on a video call with Toby. I masked my expression, laid the folder on his desk, and turned to leave. Suddenly, Toby’s voice piped up from the phone. “Daddy, the lady next to you looks really familiar. Who is she?” Thomas’s brow twitched, and his fingers froze against the mahogany desk. The room plunged into a suffocating silence. I was the one who broke the tension. “I’m his assistant,” I said, leaning slightly toward the screen with a polite smile. “I work for your daddy.” The moment the words left my mouth, the fountain pen in Thomas’s hand slipped, clattering loudly against the floor. I bent down to pick it up, placing it neatly beside the document. My voice remained perfectly flat. “Please sign here, Mr. Thomas.” His face was a mask of cold fury, but he signed the papers with hasty, messy strokes. I took the folder and turned to walk out. Behind me, the sweet, childish voice continued over the speaker. “Daddy, your assistant is really pretty. But Mommy loves you so much, you can’t cheat on her, okay? Otherwise, Toby won’t love you anymore.” This time, I waited, but there was no response from the man behind me. On Toby’s birthday, Echo brought him to our house for the very first time. Excited to see his “daddy,” Toby clutched Thomas’s arm, his eyes wide and bright. “Daddy, I love this house! Can Mommy and I move in here to live with you?” Echo stood nearby, her eyes gleaming with quiet anticipation, though she pretended to scold him. “Be good, Toby. We’d only get in the way of your daddy’s work.” Thomas instinctively looked at me. I was sitting on the sofa, working on my laptop, and didn’t even bother to look up. After a long pause, his cold voice cut through the room. “No. I prefer peace and quiet.” Toby’s face fell, and he let out a disappointed murmur. Then, his little finger pointed directly at me. “But today is supposed to be Mommy and Daddy celebrating my birthday. Why is the assistant lady here? She’s an outsider!” I froze for a second, then calmly closed my laptop and stood up. “Then I won’t disrupt your family reunion.” As I reached the entryway, a hand clamped tightly around my wrist. Thomas stared at me, his eyes dark and heavy, but his words were directed at the two people standing behind him. “You both have crossed the line.” Echo turned pale. She quickly knelt down and scooped Toby into her arms. “Sweetie, the assistant lady has to work here. She can’t leave.” Toby puckered his lips, huge tears rolling down his cheeks. “But Mommy, you said she’s a home-wrecker who wants to tear us apart! I don’t want her to steal my daddy away!” He threw a tantrum, crying at the top of his lungs, and Echo’s eyes welled with tears too. It was a pathetic, dramatic scene, making me look like the villain who was breaking up a happy home. “Enough!” Thomas’s voice was like ice as he glared at them. “Take him to the guest room. Don’t come out until he stops crying.” Once the guest room door slammed shut, blocking out the noise, Thomas pulled me into a fierce embrace. He held me so tightly it felt as though he wanted to fuse my bones with his. “Laurie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t handle this well,” he whispered, his lips brushing against my temple in a desperate, pleading gesture. “Please, don’t freeze me out anymore. If you’re unhappy, I’ll send them away tomorrow morning.” I let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Make them leave now.” “What?” “I want them out of my house right now.” Thomas’s arms loosened around me. After a brief silence, he whispered, “Okay.” Echo bit her lip so hard it nearly bled, her red-rimmed eyes filled with humiliation as she hastily packed her bags. Even though she tried to hide it, I saw what was inside her suitcase. Tucked into the mesh compartment were several sets of revealing lace lingerie. They had never intended to leave. Did Thomas know? Probably. But he had silently allowed it. A wave of suffocation washed over me, and I walked out of the villa alone. The cool night breeze swept across my face, but it couldn’t clear the heavy knot in my chest. “Hey, assistant lady, do you like my daddy?” The childish voice snapped me out of my thoughts. I spun around. Toby had slipped out of the house unnoticed and was standing a few feet away. After a moment of silence, I answered quietly, “No, I don’t.” “Liar!” Toby’s bright, glassy eyes filled with angry tears. I looked at him, noticing for the first time how much his eyes resembled Thomas’s, while his jawline and mouth were a carbon copy of Echo’s. To any outsider, they looked like a perfect family. “Daddy yelled at me because of you, and now he’s kicking us out!” he sobbed. “Mommy said being a home-wrecker is bad. Give my daddy back to us!” I had no desire to argue with a five-year-old, so I turned to walk back inside. “You can’t leave! You haven’t promised me!” Toby lunged forward, grabbing my sweater with surprising force. Caught off balance, I stumbled backward, pulling him down with me into the empty swimming pool beside the path. Because Toby was visiting, Thomas had ordered the pool to be mostly drained two days ago to prevent accidents. Without the water to cushion the fall, I slammed hard against the cold, concrete floor of the pool. A blinding wave of pain turned my vision pitch black. A pool of dark crimson began to bloom against the shallow puddle of water at the bottom. Toby, coughing from a mouthful of water, began to scream in sheer terror. “Mommy! Daddy! Help me! I’m bleeding!” “Toby!” A loud splash echoed through the night. Two figures leapt into the pool without a single second of hesitation. I stared up at them, my eyes stinging. I couldn’t tell if it was the chlorinated water or my own tears blinding me. Toby was Echo’s son, so of course she jumped in for him. But I was Thomas’s wife. Why had he run to Toby first too? When I finally opened my eyes, everything was a blinding, sterile white. “You’re awake,” a nurse murmured, gently removing the IV drip from my arm. Her voice was full of pity. “I’m so sorry about the baby. Some things just aren’t meant to be. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Just focus on recovering. You’ll have another chance in the future.” Baby? The memory hit me like a physical blow. The blooming red water, the sharp, tearing pain in my abdomen. A deafening ring filled my ears. I clutched the cold metal of the bed rails, my voice shaking. “Where… where is my husband?” The nurse blinked, a flicker of disgust passing over her face. “No one has been here since that couple dropped you off last night,” she sighed, shaking her head. “I don’t understand people sometimes. You just suffered a miscarriage, yet your husband is nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, that other couple’s son only got a minor scratch on his arm, and they’ve been hovering over him all night…” The rest of her words faded into static. Because the man she thought was part of “that other couple” was my husband. Once the nurse left, I forced myself out of bed. Clinging to the cold hospital walls, I dragged my weak, aching body down the corridor until I reached Toby’s room. Peering through the narrow glass pane of the door, I saw a scene so grotesque it felt like a sick joke. Thomas was sitting by the bedside, holding a picture book, reading to Toby in a soft, soothing voice. Echo rested her chin on her hand, a look of serene happiness on her face. “Toby really looks like Travis,” she murmured softly. Then, her eyes shifted to Thomas. “Thomas, you and Travis were identical. If you hadn’t broken up with me back then, if you had been the one sleeping next to me that night… our child would have looked exactly like Toby.” The words hit me like a physical blow. A wave of dizziness washed over me, and the world began to tilt. They had broken up? Thomas and Echo used to be together? “Thomas,” Echo whispered, her eyes suddenly glistening with tears. “You’ve been mad at me for so long. Haven’t you punished me enough?”

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1 I was born with a curse, a twisted form of pain empathy. Any injury my identical twin sister suffered would register in my own body, magnified ten times over. Growing up, my sister Giselle became a notorious street punk. Street fights and brawls were a daily routine for her. She ran wild because she knew a fundamental truth: I was the one who felt the pain, not her. Our parents turned a blind eye to her behavior. Instead, they blamed me for being weak, claiming my fragility dragged her down and kept her from living her life to the fullest. To force me to hand over my early admission scholarship to her, she stood right in front of me and dragged a blade across her own arm, over and over. As I thrashed on the floor, convulsing and foaming at the mouth from the agonizing pain, my family watched with cold indifference. My father didn’t even flinch. He simply lit a cigarette and muttered, “Stop faking it. Sign the waiver and hand the scholarship over to your sister.” Later, in a desperate bid to scam a wealthy driver, Giselle threw herself in front of a speeding sports car. The devastating impact registered in my chest, and my heart stopped instantly. But at the exact moment my breath left my body, my sister, the girl who had never felt pain in her life, screamed in absolute agony. Her name was Giselle, my identical twin sister. My name was Julia. From the moment we were born, fate had played a cruel joke on us. Any physical damage Giselle sustained would ripple into my body, multiplied by ten, while she remained blissfully numb, unable to feel a single ounce of pain. Right now, I was curled up on the hardwood floor like a dying shrimp, my entire body convulsing violently. The sheer intensity of the agony reduced my voice to a ragged, wheezing rattle. Through my blurred vision, I could see Giselle lounging on the sofa, casually twirling a sharp utility knife between her fingers. A careless smirk played on her lips as the cold steel bit into her pale forearm once again. A soft slicing sound filled the quiet room as her flesh parted. “Aaaagh!” The scream didn’t come from her. It came from me. In that instant, it felt as if a power drill were boring directly into my bone marrow, tearing my very soul to shreds. I began to foam at the mouth, my limbs jerking uncontrollably as my fingernails scraped bloody gouges into the wooden floor. “Julia, that’s enough out of you.” My father, Belmont, sat in the adjacent armchair, tapping the ash from his cigarette with a look of pure annoyance. A stray flake of glowing ash drifted downward, landing squarely on the back of my hand. Sizzle. Another red blister bloomed on my skin. The pain was so sharp my eyes felt as if they would pop out of their sockets. I forced my mouth open, trying to beg for help. Dad, please. Save me. But no words came. Only a pathetic stream of tears and saliva smeared across my face. My mother, Amy, was busy peeling an apple for Giselle. She didn’t even bother to glance in my direction. “Giselle, sweetheart, you shouldn’t hurt yourself over something so minor.” Giselle pouted, looking up like a spoiled child. “But she won’t hand over her scholarship spot! Mom, I don’t want to take the college entrance exams. It’s too exhausting.” “Since she’s the younger sister, isn’t it her duty to bear my pain and help with my academic stress?” A cruel glint flashed in her eyes. She pressed the blade deeper, dragging it down until it nearly scraped her bone. “Aaaagh!” My heart contracted violently, as if a giant hand had reached into my chest and squeezed it to a pulp. The pain went far beyond the limits of human endurance. My body stiffened into a straight line before crashing back down onto the floor. My vision went dark. The sounds in the room began to fade, sounding distant and hollow. Amy nudged my head with the toe of her slipper, her expression dripping with disgust. “Stop acting. You’ve been pulling this stunt since you were a kid. Aren’t you tired of it yet?” “Look at you, looking like a dead dog. You don’t have a single ounce of your sister’s courage.” “Giselle is bleeding all over the place and hasn’t made a sound. You don’t even have a scratch on you, yet you’re squealing like a pig at slaughter.” Yes, that was my life. Because I was always the one screaming in agony, they saw me as a dramatic, fragile weakling. Meanwhile, Giselle, who couldn’t feel a thing, was praised for being brave, tough, and a survivor whenever she got into street fights. They forgot that I was the one carrying the scars on my soul. My father exhaled a thick cloud of smoke, his cold face hidden behind the grey haze. “Stop playing dead. Sign the waiver.” “Once you sign, your sister can go get bandaged up, and you can stop your little screaming show.” I tried to lift my hand, tried to show them that I was slipping away. My heart was fluttering wildly, completely out of rhythm. Then, one final, massive wave of pain surged through my nervous system. Snap. The final thread holding me together broke. My eyes remained wide open, staring blankly at the chandelier on the ceiling as my pupils slowly dilated. My body remained frozen in a twisted shape, completely still. Seeing that I had stopped moving, Giselle walked over with an annoyed sigh. She wiped her bloody arm against my cheek, trying to force a pen into my stiff fingers. “Hey, stop faking it. Sign the paper so I can go to the clinic. It’ll save you some pain too.” The pen slipped from my fingers, clattering onto the floor. My arm fell limp, like a puppet with its strings cut. I was gone. My spirit hovered in the air, watching this absurd theater play out below. I was dead. Dead in the middle of my eighteenth summer, while my family watched with cold, uncaring eyes. 2 Giselle, frustrated that I wouldn’t hold the pen, kicked me hard in the ribs. “Mom! Look at Julia! She’s still throwing a tantrum!” Amy walked over and looked down at me. My glassy, unblinking eyes stared right back at her. She frowned, showing no panic, only irritation. “This girl has such a nasty temper. To think she’d try to threaten us by faking a fainting spell.” “Just ignore her. Starve her for a couple of meals, and she’ll crawl back.” My father, Belmont, was even more direct. He hauled my limp body off the floor and tossed me onto my bed. Then, he picked up the pen from the floor, forged my signature on the waiver, and handed the document to Giselle. “There. The spot is yours.” “Thank you, Dad! I knew you loved me best!” Giselle squealed, jumping up and down, completely ignoring the blood dripping from her arm. She lazily slapped a small bandage over the deep cut. The blood quickly soaked through the adhesive, but she didn’t care. It didn’t hurt. “To celebrate our sweetheart getting into university, let’s order a feast tonight!” Amy declared, ordering the most expensive seafood delivery available. Half an hour later, the food arrived, featuring a massive spread of caviar, king crab legs, and expensive oysters. The dining table sat right in the living room, less than ten feet away from my body. I hovered above the table, watching them gorge themselves. The briny smell of the seafood filled the air, slowly mixing with the subtle, sweet scent of decay starting to drift from my bedroom. Giselle ate greedily, grease coating her lips. She peeled a sharp crab leg and carelessly tossed the shell backward. Clack. The sharp shell landed right on my face, catching on my eyelashes. It was a grotesque, mocking sight. “Hey, Julia, stop faking,” Giselle called out. “Get up and clean this mess. Don’t think you can skip chores just by hiding in bed.” I didn’t move. I couldn’t. Amy fed Giselle a piece of crab meat. “Don’t waste your breath on that miserable girl. Just looking at her ruins my appetite.” “My Giselle is the one with real drive. You know how to be ruthless to get what you want. You’ll go far in life once you start college.” Belmont, his face red from the beer, pointed his glass at my room. “We spoiled her too much. All that pain empathy nonsense is just a mental illness to get attention.” “Look at Giselle. She bleeds without a single whimper. That’s the mark of someone destined for greatness.” They laughed and joked, painting a beautiful picture of Giselle’s bright future. Not once did any of them walk over to check if I was still breathing. If they had simply bent down, they might have realized my heart had stopped. But they didn’t. They truly believed I was playing a game of silent protest. By the end of the meal, Giselle let out a loud burp. She glanced toward my room, suddenly feeling annoyed. “Mom, her lying there is creeping me out. She’s just staring into space. It’s bad luck.” Amy stood up, grabbed an old tablecloth from a drawer, and walked over to my bed. She tossed it over my head like she was covering a pile of trash. “Out of sight, out of mind. Let her sleep on the floor tonight. No blankets for her. Let’s see how long she can keep up this act.” A single piece of fabric covered my dead face. And with it, the last shred of what this family called love was smothered. My soul trembled in the air. Not from the chill of the room, but from the utter, bone-deep coldness of their hearts. 3 The night grew deep. The air conditioning was set to a freezing sixty degrees, which only accelerated my rigor mortis. Before heading to bed, Giselle walked past me. On a whim, she stomped hard on my stomach through the tablecloth. “Make sure you scrub the floor tomorrow. It’s covered in my blood, and it’s disgusting.” It was a heavy blow, but I felt nothing. Instead, my stiff, frozen body bruised her foot. She muttered under her breath, “Hard as a rock. Even her attitude is stubborn.” The next morning, sunlight filtered through the blinds, casting a warm glow over the draped figure on the floor. Giselle woke up refreshed. Seeing me still lying in the exact same spot, she strode over and yanked the tablecloth off my face. My skin had turned a sickly purple, and the white foam around my mouth had dried into a crust. Giselle blinked, then burst into a loud laugh. “Julia, you really went all out to scare me.” “Who did you put on this dead girl makeup for? You should have gone to drama school instead.” She genuinely believed it was cosmetics. She nudged my stiff arm with the toe of her shoe. “Alright, get up. I’m heading to school. Don’t forget to wash my sneakers.” She tossed the cloth back over my face and hummed a tune as she walked out the door. I floated right behind her. At school, Giselle was on top of the world. She strutted around the classroom, waving the forged scholarship documents in everyone’s faces. “Some people can study all they want, but the prize still goes to me.” A few classmates who couldn’t stand her sneered. “Stealing from your own twin sister. How pathetic.” Giselle’s face darkened, and she lunged forward, slapping the girl across the face. A sharp crack echoed through the room. The girl was stunned for a second, then fought back, digging her nails deep into Giselle’s arm. In the past, I would have been rolling on the classroom floor in agony. The pain would have transferred to me instantly. But today, I was dead. Giselle looked down at the nails sinking into her flesh, a strange, ecstatic thrill washing over her face. She felt absolutely nothing. “Is that the best you can do?” she laughed, grabbing the girl by the hair and slamming her head hard against a desk. The sheer brutality of her attack terrified the classroom. Because she was immune to pain, she had no fear. “I am invincible!” she laughed maniacally, beating the girl black and blue. The teacher rushed in, and the parents were called. Amy arrived at the principal’s office. Instead of apologizing, she pointed a finger at the bruised girl. “Your daughter started it! My girl was only defending herself!” “My daughter is gifted. She’s strong. She doesn’t cry like some weak little princess over a tiny scratch.” The teacher pointed at the security footage. “Ma’am, your daughter’s attack was incredibly vicious.” “That’s called bravery! Strength!” Amy boasted, her chest swelling. “Unlike her useless sister, who has the backbone of a jellyfish.” Mentioning me reminded Amy that she still needed my signature to finalize some school paperwork. She pulled out her phone and dialed my number. The call went through, but the phone was vibrating on our living room coffee table. Nobody answered. “That miserable brat is still throwing a fit,” Amy muttered, hanging up with a curse. “Just wait till I get home. I’ll teach her a lesson.” Watching from the side, I found the entire scene laughable. They defended the abuser while dragging down the dead victim. They even mistook the silence of a corpse for rebellion. 4 That evening, Giselle and Amy returned home, with my spirit trailing behind them. My body still lay in the corner of the living room, draped under the old tablecloth. It had been over twenty-four hours. A faint, sweet odor was beginning to escape from the fabric, but the heavy smell of the pungent cabbage stew they cooked for dinner masked it completely. Giselle sent a picture of a limited edition designer handbag to the family group chat. “Dad, Mom, I want this bag as a reward for getting into university.” Belmont looked at the price tag, which was nearly four thousand dollars. He frowned. “We just paid the administrative fees for your admission. Money is a bit tight right now.” Giselle immediately threw a tantrum, stomping her feet and slamming doors. “I don’t care! I want it! All the other scholarship students have nice things!” Amy tried to soothe her. “Sweetheart, can we wait a few weeks?” Giselle’s eyes darted around before a wicked idea popped into her head. “Mom, I heard those rich street racers have been tearing up the boulevard lately.” “Since I don’t feel pain anyway, why don’t I stage an accident?” She gestured excitedly. “We find a spot with no traffic cameras, and I’ll throw myself in front of one of their luxury cars.” “Those rich kids are terrified of getting in trouble. They’ll pay anything to settle it quietly. A few thousand dollars would be pocket change to them!” My soul shuddered. Were these human beings, or were they monsters? She spoke of a dangerous, illegal scam as casually as ordering takeout. Even worse was our parents’ reaction. Belmont stroked his chin, considering the idea. “It’s not impossible. But you have to pick the right spot. We don’t want you getting permanently crippled.” Amy looked worried. “What if you get a nasty scar? A girl shouldn’t have ugly scars on her body.” Giselle cast a careless glance toward the covered lump in the corner. “Who cares?” “If my skin gets ruined, we’ll just make Julia give me a skin graft.” “She’s a useless waste of space anyway. Her skin is perfectly fine. It would be a waste not to use it.” “And if my kidneys get damaged, we’ll just take hers.” “I’m the older sister. It’s her duty to sacrifice for me.” Belmont nodded slowly, blowing a ring of smoke. “True. We’ve kept her fed all these years. It’s about time she made herself useful.” Amy smiled, her worries vanishing. “Alright, it’s a plan then. Just make sure to protect your face.” They huddled together, eagerly discussing the details of the scam. They had completely forgotten that the “living organ donor” they were talking about was currently a rotting corpse. Once the plan was finalized, Giselle was in high spirits. She walked over to the corner and kicked the covered figure on the floor. “Hey, did you hear that?” “Get ready to donate your skin when the time comes.” “Don’t go playing dead on me, you hear?” Naturally, there was no reply. The body made a dull, heavy thud as her shoe struck the stiff flesh. Giselle scoffed. “Lazy pig. She’s sleeping like a log.” She turned on her heel and walked out the door to execute her scheme. Watching her leave, my soul felt a strange, intoxicating sense of anticipation. Giselle chose a secluded intersection. There were no street cameras here, and it was a popular strip for the local wealthy drag racers. She hid behind the bushes, waiting like a hungry predator. I floated above her in the night air, quietly waiting for the climax. The distant, roaring scream of a high-performance engine pierced the night. A crimson sports car sped down the asphalt like a bolt of lightning. Giselle’s eyes gleamed with greed. She took a deep breath, calculating the distance and speed. All she needed was a light graze, a dramatic roll onto the asphalt, and a massive payout would be hers. After all, Julia would be the one feeling the pain. Even if her bones snapped, Julia would bear the agony. She was used to it. For eighteen years, she had exploited this connection. From childhood vaccinations to broken bones, she had never shed a single tear, because every ounce of agony was instantly transferred to her fragile little sister. The headlights blinded her. Giselle lunged directly into the street! Screeech! The desperate scream of burning rubber tore through the night as the driver slammed on the brakes, leaving thick black streaks on the road. But the car was moving too fast. Smash! A horrific thud echoed. Giselle was thrown into the air like a ragdoll, spinning twice before slamming hard onto the unforgiving asphalt.

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1 I sat at the long mahogany dining table, the rhythmic thud of a headboard and muffled moans drifting down from the second floor. It was my husband, Garrett, breaking in his eighteenth secretary. Today was our fourth wedding anniversary. It was also the fourth year since the True Love System bound itself to us. Four years ago, the moment we signed our marriage papers, the System descended. Every act of genuine love between us was rewarded. That was, until the day I found out I was pregnant. The System handed out its ultimate gift, a technological breakthrough that skyrocketed Garrett into the ranks of the world’s most elite billionaires overnight. But even a man certified by a magical entity could have a change of heart. Garrett took the seat next to me, his collar slightly wrinkled, a faint smattering of red marks on his neck. He ladled a bowl of steaming chicken soup and set it before me. “Sorry for the wait, honey. I specifically asked the housekeeper to simmer this for you today.” I nodded, my face an unreadable mask, and picked up the silver spoon. The next second, a long forgotten, cold mechanical voice echoed in my mind. [Ding. Congratulations to the Host. The Severance Protocol has been triggered.] I froze, the spoon hovering in midair. I glanced at Garrett. He was casually checking his phone, completely oblivious. It was certain. He had not heard the prompt. Footsteps padded down the grand staircase. The eighteenth secretary was a familiar face. Garrett immediately stood up, pulling out a chair for her with practiced, intimate grace. “Sylvia, this is Laura. She was the recipient of our university’s scholarship program last year.” His voice actually carried a hint of pleasant surprise. “When she brought it up during the interview, I couldn’t help but marvel at how small the world is.” “Garrett,” I interrupted his order for another place setting, my fingernails digging into my palms. “You promised. They are never allowed at our dining table.” The very first reward we ever got from the System was a lavish anniversary dinner. Garrett waved his hand dismissively. “Laura is different. I plan to mentor her personally.” “Mentor her how? Between the sheets?” The young girl’s face drained of color. She shrank back, her trembling fingers gripping the hem of Garrett’s expensive blazer. “There is no need to be so vulgar,” Garrett said, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders. “I initiated it. She is young. You cannot blame her.” He patted her arm to soothe her. Suddenly, Laura looked up. Her voice was thin, but her words were crystal clear. “Sylvia, I am truly grateful for the financial aid you provided me back in college. But Garrett and I are truly in love. Doesn’t it exhaust you, clinging to a title when the heart is gone?” She had changed. The timid college girl I met a year ago had grown bold, her eyes gleaming with naked ambition. Garrett’s face darkened instantly. “Laura, know your place. She will always be my wife.” But his tone softened just as quickly as he looked down at her. “That doesn’t stop us from being in love. Just be a good girl and do as you are told.” A dry, bitter laugh escaped my throat. “Laura, he said the exact same lines to the seventeen women before you. Tell me, which number of true love do you think you are?” The pregnancy reward the System gave us back then was a technological blueprint decades ahead of its time, along with massive startup capital. When I was eight months pregnant, Garrett was overseas attending his company’s IPO gala. His aunt and uncle suddenly barged into our home, demanding fifty million dollars in alimony. They claimed that without them taking in an orphaned Garrett years ago, he would be nothing. During the heated argument, his cousin shoved me down the stairs. The whole family blocked the front door, demanding the money before they would call an ambulance. As a pool of crimson soaked the hardwood floor, I dialed Garrett’s number over and over. I got nothing but endless voicemail. Three hours later, the celebratory fireworks of his IPO lit up the foreign sky. And the fully formed baby boy inside me stopped breathing forever. When Garrett finally rushed back to the country, he handled his relatives, but began avoiding me. While I was confined to my bed in mourning, I smelled a foreign, sweet perfume on his dress shirt for the first time. I found a glaring, chestnut blonde strand of hair on his collar. I smashed every vase and mirror in the room. He simply stood amidst the shattered glass, his voice devoid of emotion. “It was just a one night stand. Don’t work yourself up. You will always be my wife.” I prayed countless times for the True Love System to appear again, to strip away everything it had given us. If we went back to being poor but in love, maybe Garrett would come back to me. But nothing happened. The mechanical voice I once viewed as a divine miracle remained dead. From then on, whoever caught his eye became his new personal assistant. When he got bored, he swapped them out. The entire corporate empire knew, but no one dared breathe a word. I drafted divorce papers. He tore them to shreds right in front of my face. The very next day, armed guards patrolled the estate, and housekeepers were stationed in my room, impossible to shake off. Propelled by the System, he sat comfortably at the absolute pinnacle of the business world. There was nothing he could not control. Garrett put down his fork and wiped his mouth with a linen napkin. “Stop throwing a tantrum. There is an auction next month featuring that vintage emerald set you have been eyeing. Consider it… compensation for number eighteen.” I ate my cold rice in silence. Those so called gifts were already gathering dust in the storage room. They made my skin crawl. He stood up, taking Laura’s hand to leave. He paused at the door, as if suddenly remembering something. “I am taking Laura to see the Northern Lights next week. The kid has been begging me for ages. Be good and stay home. I will bring you a souvenir.” Next week was the anniversary of my mother’s death. “Next Wednesday is my mother’s memorial. You…” “What does a memorial matter?” he cut me off, irritation lacing his voice. “We go every single year. Is her ghost going to haunt me if I miss one?” He pulled Laura closer, his tone turning frigid. “Mope all you want on your own, just don’t ruin our mood.” During our senior year of high school, my mother fell terminally ill. He knelt by her hospital bed, swearing on his life that he would cherish me forever. When she passed, he drained his entire savings from six years of part time jobs to give her a proper funeral. Every year since, he would kneel at her gravestone, recounting how well he was taking care of me, telling her to rest in peace. Now, he could not remember our anniversary. He did not care about my mother’s memorial. But he remembered his little secretary wanted to see the Northern Lights. The heavy oak doors slammed shut. At that exact moment, the icy mechanical voice rang out again. [Ding. Congratulations to the Host. You have received 99,999,999 dollars in highest denomination currency.] [The funds have been transferred to your encrypted offshore account. The Severance Protocol will be with you every step of the way.] The System had descended once more, pulling me from the wreckage. 2 After sweeping the fallen autumn leaves from my mother’s grave, I arranged the fresh white chrysanthemums. My fingertips brushed against the carved letters of her name. That stone was once the only warmth in my isolated world. I never knew my father or any other relatives. It was just me and her. That was, until I met Garrett in high school. He was like a wild, untamed fire, forcefully illuminating the bitter, barren landscape of my youth. We used to huddle together in a freezing rental apartment during winter nights, promising to be each other’s irreplaceable source of warmth. But Mom, he changed. That fire now burned me until I bled. “Ma’am, it is a call from Mr. Garrett.” The bodyguard’s stiff voice pulled me back to reality. I took the phone. On the other end, Garrett’s voice sounded unusually panicked. “Sylvia, the puppy Laura adopted is doing really badly. You need to come take a look.” A wave of pure absurdity pierced my heart like a needle. Years ago, when he rushed back and saw me hollowed out, having just lost our child, he had not sounded this frantic. He was only anxious about whether the System would revoke his wealth. I should have known. I should have realized it long ago. “Go to hell,” I heard my own dry, raspy voice say. Minutes later, I was essentially escorted by force into the black SUV. The car pulled up to the tiny starter home we had rented right after college. Back then, after receiving a massive cash reward from the System, we bought this place full of memories. We renovated it together, turning it into our dream nest. I pushed the door open. The interior was violently different from my memory, like a beautiful dream heavily vandalized. The spot on the mantelpiece that once held our framed couple photos was replaced by Laura’s graduation portrait. The velvet sofa I had spent weeks picking out was draped with a sickeningly sweet pink blanket. The air was suffocating, thick with a cheap, sugary perfume that completely eradicated the clean scent of sunlight and laundry detergent that used to live here. Laura initiated a video call from Garrett’s phone. “Sylvia, how is Peanut doing?” She lowered her eyes, putting on a masterful display of distress. “When Garrett and I found him last week, he was so weak. He refuses to eat. Could you please take him back to the main estate and nurse him?” I walked further in. The room we had painstakingly designated as the nursery had been gutted and turned into a dog’s playroom. In the corner, a frail puppy curled up in a designer dog bed. Tied around its neck was a glaring red string. Dangling from the red string was a tiny, blessed gold locket. It was the very same locket Garrett had walked miles up a treacherous mountain path to pray for, back when I was pregnant. We used to press our hands to my barely showing stomach, calling the baby Noah, praying for him to have a lifetime of peace and safety. “Where did you get that red string?” My voice trembled, freezing the air in the room. My heart hammered heavily against my ribs, every beat radiating a dull, sickening ache. “You mean the one on Peanut’s neck?” Laura blinked innocently through the screen. “Garrett put it on him. He said it brings good luck and protection.” He forgot. He did not just forget the locket. He forgot Noah. He forgot how we knelt side by side on the temple floor, heads bowed in absolute devotion. He forgot the tears and laughter embedded in the name Noah. He forgot how awkwardly, yet blissfully, we debated the paint colors for the nursery. Even the very last memento of my dead child had been casually tossed to his mistress’s pet. “I know this used to be your house, Sylvia.” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, dripping with hidden triumph. “All the junk you two used to own is locked in the master bedroom. We even did it on that old bed of yours…” “But just the once. Garrett said it felt a bit gross being in there.” I walked over and pushed open the master bedroom door. Every single photo album, every souvenir, every piece of our shared history was piled haphazardly in the corner. Like trash waiting for the dumpster. I dragged them all out into the center of the backyard. Box after box, memory after memory, along with that red string and the tiny gold locket. My lighter sparked, spitting out a blue flame. The fire eagerly licked at the edges of our polaroids, consuming our awkward teenage smiles, swallowing the gold locket into the inferno. It was time to end this. Along with the unborn child, and all the years of pathetic, self deceiving fantasies. As the flames roared higher, Garrett’s furious roar erupted from the phone’s speaker. “Sylvia! What the hell are you doing? Are you insane? Put it out!” His voice cracked, shrill and laced with absolute terror. “How could you… how could you burn it all!” I stared into the dancing, crackling flames, feeling like a spectator watching a play that had nothing to do with me. “It is trash nobody wants. Better to burn it clean.” “Laura!” 3 He immediately turned his crosshairs on her, his voice warped with panic. “What the hell did you say to her?!” “I… I didn’t! She just asked about the red string… and about me moving in…” The bonfire crackled and popped in front of me, perfectly masking Garrett’s out of control screaming and Laura’s pathetic sobbing. I stood right beside the blistering heat, yet a terrifying, ice cold silence soaked through my bones. The space where my heart used to be had been hollowed out long ago, scooped away by his endless betrayals. Now, even the leftover ashes were being swept away by this fire. [Ding. Congratulations to the Host. You have received a fleet of five legally registered top tier luxury vehicles across the continent.] I was not alone. I had the System. With every ounce of shattered hope and every act of rebellion, I received massive rewards tied to an overseas haven. From unlimited funds to supercars, the System was meticulously paving a flawless escape route for me. … When the two of them walked through the villa doors later that evening, looking utterly drained, my mind was composed of nothing but icy calculations. “Sylvia, I picked this out for you.” Laura had morphed back into her timid persona, keeping her eyes glued to the floor. “I misspoke earlier. I made you angry enough to burn your own things.” Garrett stepped forward, reaching out to embrace me. I sidestepped, leaving his arms hanging awkwardly in the air. “Noah is… gone. You can’t drown in the past forever,” Garrett said softly. “If that locket could bring some peace to the puppy, isn’t it worth it?” “Worth it?” I raised my hand and slapped him across the face with everything I had. “You do not get to say Noah’s name. It makes me sick coming from your mouth.” [Ding. You have received a sprawling vineyard estate in Tuscany.] Garrett rubbed his cheek. A terrifying smile stretched across his face, followed by words even more ruthless than his betrayal. “Fine. The playground and nursery you designed for Noah in the backyard? Tear them down. Staring at dead memories is bad for your health. Laura studied design in college. Let her use the space for practice.” Seeing the corner of Laura’s mouth twitch upwards behind him, an idea flashed in my mind. I snatched a sharp paring knife from the fruit bowl and pressed the steel firmly against my own collarbone, forcing tears to well up in my eyes. “You want to erase the very last trace of Noah to make room for your new baby? Are you trying to make room for a new Mrs. Garrett, too?” I saw the sudden, hungry spark in Laura’s eyes. She understood exactly what I was doing. The final jackpot, my ultimate ticket out of this hellhole, relied on one thing: a child. “Tear it down,” I pressed the blade harder, “and I will bleed out right here!” “Sylvia! Don’t do anything stupid!” Garrett panicked, lunging forward to wrestle the knife away, wrapping his arms tightly around my trembling body. “We won’t touch it! We won’t! You are the only woman who will ever bear my children!” [Ding. You have received full estate resources, including a historical castle, a full butler and maid staff, and private chauffeurs.] “I’m sending you on a vacation to clear your head. Too much has happened,” he murmured, cupping my face, his eyes swimming in a sickening mix of terror and fake devotion. “Go overseas. Go to Europe… see the places we talked about when you were carrying Noah.” The very next day, I boarded a first class flight across the Atlantic. For half a month, under the guise of grieving, I inspected the vineyard estate the System had gifted me. It was a breathtaking property bathed in Mediterranean sunlight, overflowing with blooming roses. It was perfect. In the past, every single reward from the True Love System went straight to Garrett. Cash, real estate, cars, they all bore his name. I used to complain, asking why a system based on our love only rewarded him. It turned out, my gifts were just severely delayed. When I finally returned to the city, Laura opened the front door. Just as I predicted, the backyard was unrecognizable. The sandbox and jungle gym I sketched out for Noah were gone, replaced by a tacky infinity pool and an outdoor bar. Laura wore a secretive, arrogant smirk. “See that, Sylvia? The memories you threatened to die for? I wiped them out with a few whispers.” She stepped closer. “Once I get pregnant, you are going to hand over the title of Mrs. Garrett quietly.” Hearing heavy footsteps approaching from the hallway behind her, I didn’t hesitate. I raised my hand and struck her hard across the cheek. The girl stumbled back with a gasp, collapsing onto the marble floor. 4 “Sylvia! What the hell is wrong with you?” Garrett rushed over, shielding her on the floor, roaring at me. “I authorized the demolition! If you are pissed, take it out on me!” I scoffed coldly, turning on my heel and walking upstairs. [Ding. You have received an elite architectural design studio overseas, complete with a full executive team.] “You are staying in this house! You are not going anywhere!” he screamed from the bottom of the stairs. Everything I needed was almost in place. My movements were completely restricted to the villa. I spent my days researching the design studio the System had given me. Their portfolio aligned perfectly with my own creative vision. When Garrett walked into the bedroom and saw the architectural drafts spread across my desk, a deep frown etched into his face. “Are you short on cash? Why are you playing around with blueprints again?” I casually covered the name of my new overseas studio with a notebook, not bothering to look up. “You grounded me. I needed a hobby.” “You are coming with me to the charity gala tomorrow.” He slammed the door shut on his way out. On the surface, I was still the trophy wife required for his public theater. But when the chauffeur opened my car door the next evening, I saw Laura standing there, draped in an evening gown that rivaled my own. She instinctively reached to link her arm through Garrett’s, but he hissed in a low voice, “In public, you are just my assistant!” Yet, his tone immediately softened back into a caress. “Be a good girl. I will buy you whatever you want tonight.” Laura’s face fell into a pout, and she trailed behind us obediently. I observed the entire charade with dead eyes, like a theater critic watching a terrible play. Given Garrett’s current billionaire status, our seats were dead center in the front row. Laura and I flanked him on either side. When the vintage emerald set he had promised me was rolled onto the stage, Laura leaned in, tugging gently on his sleeve. “Garrett, that would look so cute on Peanut.” Garrett turned, offering her a disgustingly tender smile, and nodded. He forgot again. Half the socialites in this room knew I had been coveting that exact emerald set for years. When the white gloved usher brought the velvet box over, he bypassed me completely, handing it directly to Laura. A ripple of thinly veiled gasps and murmurs spread through the surrounding elite crowd. Since he had decided to strip away my last shred of dignity in public, I was done playing along. I stood up, violently flipping the low glass table in front of us. The deafening crash of shattered crystal and porcelain echoed through the dead silent ballroom. Without a single glance backward, I walked through the shocked crowd, heading straight for the terrace. [Ding. You have received a forged, legally ironclad identity in your new country.] The gala was being held at a historic mansion perched on the cliffs of the Riviera. I walked toward the stone balustrade, letting the salty sea breeze whip through my hair. A few moments later, the clack of heels announced Laura’s arrival. “Sylvia, why make a scene and humiliate Garrett like that?” “You ruined the mood for the entire room. Garrett had to cover the entire night’s auction tabs just to save face.” “Being this hysterical is only going to make him hate you more.” She closed the distance between us, pulling a folded piece of paper from her clutch. Her ambition was fully bared now. “Besides, I am carrying his child. Your days sitting on that throne are over.” I took the medical report from her hands. I scanned the lines. It was a confirmed positive pregnancy test. [Ding. Please prepare yourself, Host.] The final reward was about to drop. In the distance, Garrett burst through the terrace doors, his eyes wildly searching the darkness. The second his gaze locked onto me, I gave him the brightest, most radiant smile I could muster. Then, clutching that pregnancy report to my chest, I leaned backward and let gravity pull me off the cliff. The wind screamed in my ears as I plummeted. The very last thing I saw was Garrett’s face warping into a mask of pure, unadulterated horror. I saw him sprint toward the edge, diving forward, his hands grasping at empty air. He watched me vanish. Not fall into the crashing waves, but literally vanish. Like a digital image being deleted, I faded out of existence inch by inch right before his eyes. He even saw the lingering, victorious curve of my smile before I dissolved completely. But all anyone else heard was Laura’s piercing shriek. “Help! Call the Coast Guard! She fell into the ocean!” The security footage showed a clear, uninterrupted fall straight into the raging black water, followed by a massive splash. Everyone told him it was a hallucination. A trick of the mind brought on by extreme trauma.

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1 In my third year as a divorce attorney, Oliver forced his way into my office. On the CCTV screen overhead, the news was broadcasting his latest scandal: the city’s newest billionaire had just fled his own high-society wedding. Across the black mahogany desk, he sat with his head in his hands, looking utterly miserable. The wedding band on his left ring finger caught the light, gleaming mockingly. Oliver tapped the wood. His voice, deep and gravelly, broke the silence. “I need a divorce settlement. And a deed of gift.” “The divorce is for my fiancée, the woman I was supposed to marry today. Her name is Gemma.” “The deed of gift… I want to transfer every single asset I own to a woman named Abigail.” Abigail is me. But he didn’t recognize me. We had been broken up for three years, and for three years, he had turned the city upside down looking for me. Subconsciously, I adjusted my face mask and pulled the brim of my cap lower. I reached out and flipped the little sign on my desk to face him: No Consultations Without Appointment. Oliver froze. He looked up, his eyes locking onto mine. In that single second, a visible tremor ran through his entire body. “Abby?” he gasped, rising from his chair. This was a man who prided himself on absolute restraint, yet now he was completely unraveling. Before I could even breathe a word, the spark in his eyes died. He sank back into his seat, his shoulders slumping as he muttered to himself, “No. No, it’s not her. I’m sorry… I lost my head. I mistook you for someone else.” “You couldn’t be her.” “She was with me since we were teenagers. If she were still in this city, she wouldn’t have hidden from me for three whole years…” I remained silent. My hand, resting on the computer mouse, was shaking so violently I had to grip it tight. Oliver. That name defined my youth. He was the author of every romantic memory I possessed. Once, I truly believed he would be the man I’d grow old with. Even after our split, I used to panic, thinking that if we ever crossed paths again, I would be the one to break down. Yet here I was, surprisingly calm, while he was the one falling apart. I tapped the sign on my desk again, then pointed to the notice on the door: Private Practice. No walk-ins. Without a word, he pulled a gold-embossed checkbook from his breast pocket. He signed a blank check and slid it across the desk toward me. “Name your price. Just do this for me.” “You saw the news. I walked out on my own wedding. My fiancée is looking for me, and I need this marriage dissolved immediately.” Glancing at the chaotic live broadcast playing on the silent screen above, I kept my voice low and raspy, asking, “Why did you run?” Oliver stared into space, lost in some distant memory. It took him a long time to speak. “Because I’m willing to give up everything to win back someone I lost. Someone I might never get back.” His expression softened into a profound, aching sorrow. But whatever warmth was left in my chest froze over. Instead, my mind flashed back to a year before I left. It was his birthday. I had lovingly baked a cake, bought a gift, and rushed home to surprise him. When I opened the bedroom door, I found him pinning Gemma to our bed, the young college student we had been financially sponsoring. When he saw the devastating hurt in my eyes, he didn’t even flinch. He just let out a soft, mocking laugh. “To be honest, Abby, after seven years, you’re pretty boring in bed.” “Gemma knows what she’s doing. You should take notes. Learn how to please a man.” “Don’t look at me like that. If you can’t handle it, you’re free to leave.” “But I give you three days. You’ll be back begging for my forgiveness within three days.” What Oliver never understood was that once I make up my mind to walk away, I never, ever look back. So, I didn’t just stay away for three days. I vanished for three years. I shook my head and slid the blank check back across the polished wood. “Take a right when you walk out. The firm next door handles standard divorces. They’re much better suited for you.” Oliver’s brow furrowed. “I did my research. You have the highest success rate in the city, and you get things done quietly.” “I’m offering you a fortune. Why are you turning me down?” Offering you a fortune. How incredibly familiar. Years ago, before he was a billionaire, he was just a boy from a poor working-class family near the docks. I remembered him kneeling before me in a faded, threadbare shirt, holding a cheap ring. “Abby, I love you. Please say yes.” “I promise I’ll marry you twice in this lifetime.” “Once as the broke boy standing here, and a second time when I make my fortune and can give you the world.” I hadn’t been swayed by his promises of wealth. Back then, I wasn’t the city’s most formidable lawyer. I was just a girl visiting my family’s old hometown. But I had never seen a man with eyes so bright, or with a love that burned so fiercely just for me. So I nodded, and we built a life together. But in the second year after he struck gold and became a billionaire, he slept with the student we took in. The next morning, he casually told me, “That grand wedding I promised you? I’m going to have it with Gemma instead.” “She’s throwing a tantrum, and it’s just easier this way.” “Of course, we won’t sign any legal papers. It’s just a show. You’re still my legal wife.” He spoke of throwing a wedding for his mistress as if he were simply planning a casual dinner with a friend. He didn’t care about my tear-stained face or my shattered heart. “Don’t give me that look,” he had said, sighing. “A wedding is just a display of wealth, right? I’ve already given you more money than you could ever spend!” But Oliver never understood. I never cared about his money. Pushing the memories aside, I didn’t say a word. Instead, I pulled a notepad and wrote: For the past three years, you have planned a wedding with Miss Gemma every single year, and every single year you have abandoned her at the altar. You are too much drama. It’s bad for my firm’s reputation. Please leave. Oliver’s eyes narrowed as he read the note. He stared at me intently, as if trying to pierce through my disguise. I didn’t blink. I met his gaze dead-on. Before he could say another word, a frantic voice cried out from the doorway. “Oliver!” A woman in a wrinkled, expensive wedding gown burst in. It was Gemma. She had shed the shy, awkward look of the broke student we had once sponsored. Now, she carried herself with a sharp, calculated glamour. Seeing Oliver, she burst into tears of frustration. “You promised me we’d finish the ceremony this time! Why did you run away again?” Oliver sat there, pinching the bridge of his nose, his voice dripping with exhaustion. “Gemma, how many times do I have to tell you?” “These weddings were only meant to draw Abby out. I wanted her to see them and come back.” Gemma looked like she was about to lose her mind. “You’re still obsessed with her? You told me you loved me!” “We’ve had three weddings now, and she never showed up!” “She doesn’t care who you marry anymore! Why can’t you just let her go and build a life with me?” Oliver fell silent, murmuring almost to himself, “She cares. She’s just stubborn. She’s trying to punish me.” I felt a cold wave of amusement. Back when he was convinced I’d come crawling back in three days, he wasn’t this melancholic. He had been smug, self-assured, waiting to see how long I could last without his money. He was certain that because I had loved him since I was eighteen, I would never truly leave. Even when Gemma deliberately smashed my late grandmother’s heirloom bracelet and accused me of framing her, all to force me to come to his office, he didn’t bother asking for my side of the story. Like a judge handing down a sentence, he had simply looked down at me and said, “Abby, if you’re going to stay, you need to learn to get along with Gemma. I won’t have drama in my home. Both of you are important to me.” I swallowed the bitter taste of the memory. Gemma’s eyes darted to the plaque on my desk, her face twisting in horror when she realized what kind of lawyer I was. “What are you doing here, Oliver?” Oliver glanced at her, his voice devoid of emotion. “I’m divorcing you.” “And I’m transferring all my assets to Abby.” “Are you insane?!” Gemma shrieked. She grabbed his lapels, shaking him. “What about me, Oliver? I’ve been with you since I was eighteen!” Oliver said softly, “So was she.” There was no warmth in my chest, only the memory of the night I had practically begged him on my knees, crying, pleading with him to remember our seven years together and just come back to me. He had seemed moved then, promising to cut ties with Gemma. Yet the very next day, I walked in on them again. I had screamed at him, asking how he could be so cheap, so utterly shameless. He had simply leaned back against our headboard, with Gemma smirking beside him, lit a cigarette, and said, “You want to talk about cheap? You were in my bed when you were eighteen, Abby. Let’s not pretend you’re a saint.” That was the moment my heart truly died. I had thought giving myself to him in our youth was a sacred act of love. To him, it just made me cheap. I cleared my throat, keeping my voice low and raspy. “If you two want to scream at each other, do it outside. My office is closing.” Gemma looked up, her eyes finally locking onto my face. Suddenly, she froze. Her face turned pale, and she pointed a trembling finger at me. “Abby?!” “No… no, that’s impossible. You just have similar eyes. It can’t be you.” “She would never stay in this city. She wouldn’t dare face him!” I kept my gaze cool and detached. She was right about one thing. I would never, ever go back to him. The day I caught them together for the second time was supposed to be the day of our “second wedding.” He had plastered it across every paper in the city. He was going to remarry his wife in a lavish ceremony to thank her for her years of devotion. The venue was the rooftop of the city’s most exclusive skyscraper. Helicopters buzzed overhead, and reporters lined the red carpet, waiting for the billionaire to sweep his wife off her feet. I stood there in the custom gown he had personally designed and hand-stitched for me, enduring the envious stares of the crowd, waiting for my husband. But Oliver didn’t show. An hour passed. Then two. The envious looks turned to whispers, and then to mockery. “What do you think the billionaire is doing? Did he realize she’s getting too old for him?” “I heard he’s got a gorgeous young thing at home. Why buy the old model when the new one’s so much fun?” “Look at her standing there all by herself. How embarrassing.” The grander the setup had been, the deeper the humiliation. I remembered standing there, my knuckles white as I gripped the silk of my dress, listening to the cruel laughter. Even my father had called me, furious, demanding I leave before I embarrassed the family any further. I fled back to our apartment. When I pushed the door open, he was in bed with Gemma. He didn’t even look up as he said, “Oh, right. The wedding. I forgot. We’ll do it another time.” Later, Gemma had whispered to me with a smug smile, “All I had to do was take off my clothes, and he forgot all about his suit. You can’t really blame me, sister.” “Could you… please take off your mask?” Oliver’s hesitant voice pulled me back to the present. I looked at him coldly, making no move to comply. Gemma stepped between us, crying hysterically. “Oliver, Abby is gone! She abandoned you! Why won’t you look at me?” “Do you think throwing me aside at the altar every year will make her forgive you for leaving her stranded? You’re dreaming!” Her words seemed to strike a nerve. A deep, ugly shadow crossed Oliver’s face. Without a word, he stood up and struck Gemma hard across the face. She fell to the floor, clutching her cheek in utter disbelief, but he didn’t even look at her. He turned back to me, his voice eerily calm. “Now, as I was saying. I want to hire you to draw up a deed of gift for a woman named Abigail.” I sighed, adjusting my papers. “A deed of gift requires the recipient’s signature to be legally binding. If you can’t even find her, this document is useless.” “Please leave, Mr. Oliver.” Gemma scrambled up from the floor, grabbing his leg. “Oliver, please! Beat me if you want, but don’t give her everything!” “I’m pregnant with your child! Our baby needs that money!” “She doesn’t want you anyway! She’s probably married to someone else by now!” Her words made me pause, and my hand instinctively drifted to the diamond band on my left ring finger. A soft warmth bloomed in my chest as I thought of the man waiting for me at home, the man whose smile always made me feel safe. She was right. I had married someone else, and he was a thousand times the man Oliver could ever hope to be. But Oliver couldn’t accept that. He slammed his hand on my desk, his face contorted with rage. “Shut up! I’ll leave enough for the kid.” “But Abby spent ten years of her life with me. Everyone in this city knows she was my woman. No one else would dare touch her!” “I have to take care of her. I need to give her a reason to come back to me.” “Once she sees that I’m willing to hand over every single dime I own, she’ll come home. I know she will.” He spoke with such absolute certainty. Yet he had no idea that the woman he was talking about was sitting right in front of him, listening to his grand delusions without a single flicker of emotion. Gemma stared at him, her expression shifting from fear to a dark, unstable rage. Suddenly, she snapped. “Her, her, her! That’s all you care about!” “I told you she’s never coming back! You’re losing your mind looking for her, seeing her face in every stranger!” “Open your eyes, Oliver! Look at who’s sitting right in front of you!” Before I could react, Gemma lunged across the desk, her manicured fingers clawing at my face, ripping the mask away.

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1 My husband, Gary, managed our marriage with a “KPI Evaluation Sheet.” He claimed that a healthy relationship required rational maintenance. My best friend was incredibly envious. She said a man who actually planned things out was a hundred times better than those who only talked. Whenever he brushed a stray lock of hair behind my ear, he would say with deep solemnity, “Ava, my strictness is only because I take our marriage seriously.” That was until my car plunged into the freezing river. My phone screen shattered and went dark, but my smartwatch triggered an SOS call, automatically dialing his number. The freezing water rushed into the cabin. I was covered in blood, fading fast. Yet all I heard was his disappointed voice through the speaker, “You’re forty minutes late for our anniversary dinner. You have absolutely no sense of time. Stay put and reflect on your behavior.” Before I could make a sound, the line went dead. I drowned to death in the silent, icy depths. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of our quarterly review. Gary tapped the evaluation sheet on the table, a slight frown creasing his brow. “You forgot to wear your wedding ring to the family dinner last night. Your marital presentation score was sub-standard. I’m grading you a C.” “Ava, if you keep being this negligent, we will have to separate for a trial period so you can reflect.” In my past life, I would have panicked and apologized immediately. But this time, I just looked at him and spoke quietly. “Fine. Let’s separate then.” The words hung in the air. Gary’s hand froze mid-motion. For a brief second, a flash of genuine shock broke through his usually stoic face. He had expected me to do what I always did: grab his sleeve in a panic, beg for forgiveness, and promise to play the role of the perfect Mrs. Kingsley next time. But he quickly composed himself, letting out a soft, patronizing sigh. It was the sigh of an adult dealing with a petulant child. “Ava, don’t use divorce as a bargaining chip.” “I admit my tone was harsh.” “But as I’ve told you before, my strictness is out of responsibility for our marriage.” He stood up and walked over to me, reaching out to brush a stray lock of hair from my forehead. I tilted my head, dodging his hand. I looked at him calmly. The desperate love that once filled my eyes was completely gone. I let out a soft laugh. “Gary, I want to be myself now.” Gary’s hand froze in mid-air, a flicker of irritation crossing his face. Before he could speak, the sound of the front door unlocking echoed through the foyer. It was Gary’s mother, followed by a young woman in a pale silk dress. Pamela. The wealthy socialite who had just returned from abroad, and Gary’s lifelong childhood friend. The two of them walked into the living room. Pamela’s eyes immediately landed on the Marriage KPI Sheet splayed out on the coffee table. A flash of surprise crossed her face, followed by a fleeting, smug satisfaction. Yet, her voice remained sweet and gentle. “Gary, you’re still the same. You always resort to rules the moment you get upset.” She turned to me, offering a polite smile. “Ava, don’t take it to heart. When we were living abroad, he used to control the exact hour I drank water and how I color-coded my wardrobe.” “That’s just how he is. The closer he is to someone, the more possessive he gets.” “If you can’t handle him, let me know. I’ll whip him into shape for you.” It sounded like she was trying to help, but her words neatly highlighted their years of intimacy, while making me look like an outsider in my own home. Gary’s mother sat on the sofa, gracefully sipping the tea a maid had just poured. “Pamela is right,” his mother chimed in. “Gary almost gave up his inheritance to marry you, Ava. You’re a smart girl. You should know how to be grateful.” “Don’t throw these childish tantrums. It ruins the family’s dignity.” Gary frowned, cutting them off. “Mother, Pamela, Ava is still adjusting. I will guide her.” In my past life, I would have been touched by his defense, thinking he had sacrificed so much for me. I would have swallowed my tears and worked even harder to learn their ridiculous etiquette. But now, it just felt pathetic. I looked at Pamela’s elegant, well-behaved posture, and then at Gary. “Since Pamela understands your rules so well,” I said, my voice entirely flat, “why don’t you give her the position of Mrs. Kingsley instead?” 2 I walked back to our bedroom. Looking around at the cold, modern furniture Gary had chosen according to his taste, I took a deep breath. Gary didn’t think he was wrong. He genuinely believed that molding me with these rules was his way of protecting our love and keeping his family from looking down on me. He even controlled my weight. I wasn’t allowed to fluctuate by more than two pounds, claiming it was necessary to maintain mutual attraction. Before we married, my favorite thing in the world was eating extra-spicy street noodles at midnight and driving my jeep into the mountains on weekends. But after we wed, he banned those spicy, pungent foods, saying the smell ruined our social standing. He forced me to swap my jeep for a heavy, bulletproof sedan, claiming the wife of a Kingsley shouldn’t take safety risks. He even structured our sex life with clinical precision: the 5th and 20th of every month, with a set number of times. The moment it was over, he would get up to wash, stating that restraint preserved the romance. There was never a moment of post-coital warmth. It wasn’t a marriage. It was a corporate job with worse benefits. I thought of our third anniversary. That night happened to coincide with the Kingsley family’s grand gathering. Gary had promised that if I performed flawlessly, his mother would present me with the family’s heirloom emerald bracelet, cementing my status and silencing the relatives who looked down on me. To surprise him, I had gone out in a torrential storm to pick up a rare vintage watch he had been eyeing. That was when the multi-car pileup happened. My car spun out of control, plunging into the dark, roaring river. As the icy water rushed in, I sat there covered in blood, desperately groping for my shattered phone. My watch triggered the emergency SOS, dialing his number. The moment the call connected, I tried to scream for help. But all that came through the speaker was his low, tightly controlled voice, dripping with anger. “The entire family is waiting for you, Ava. What are you playing at?” “I spent months convincing my mother to hand over the bracelet tonight, and you can’t even manage basic punctuality.” “Since these rules mean so little to you, don’t bother coming. Stay out there and reflect on your actions.” The line went dead. I drowned in the freezing dark, listening to the dial tone. This time, I was done being his perfect doll. I wanted my life back. 3 I left behind the designer gowns, the diamond necklaces, and the expensive handbags he had bought me. I packed only a few basic clothes, grabbed my passport, and carried my small suitcase downstairs. Gary’s mother and Pamela had already left. Gary was sitting on the living room sofa, his tie loosened slightly, looking uncharacteristically restless. When he saw me carrying a suitcase, he stood up abruptly. A flicker of panic crossed his eyes. “Where do you think you’re going?” He strode over, his hand clamping down on the handle of my suitcase. “Ava, I admit my words earlier were too harsh.” “But everything I do is for us. For our future.” “If you’re feeling overwhelmed, I can lower the evaluation standards for this quarter…” “There’s no need,” I said calmly. There was no anger in my voice, only the peaceful weight of letting go. “Gary, your love is too expensive. And too heavy.” “I’m letting you go. Please do the same for me.” I let go of the suitcase handle. I walked past him and out the front door without looking back. Breathing in the cool, crisp evening air, I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I hadn’t called in years. “Lucas? You once told me you specialize in divorce law. Are you still taking clients?” The line was silent for a second. Then, a warm, deep voice replied, “I am. For you, I’m always available.” “Where are you? Send me your location. I’ll come get you.” Lucas had been our college classmate, and he was once Gary’s roommate. Now, he was one of the most sought-after partners at the city’s top law firm. Back in college, when Gary was pursuing me with grand gestures and fighting his family to be with me, everyone swooned over Gary’s passion. Almost no one noticed the quiet, intense way Lucas used to look at me. During my three years of marriage, whenever I bruised myself trying to fit into Gary’s rigid mold, Lucas was always there, quietly keeping me from falling. At a charity gala last year, Pamela’s friend had maliciously handed me an incredibly complex vintage wine, demanding I critique it on the spot. I choked on the dry liquid, spilling it down the front of my dress. Gary had been standing just a few feet away, talking to investors. He saw it happen. But he didn’t come over. He simply flagged down a waiter with a cold look, instructing them to escort me to the lounge. I had “lost my composure,” and that meant I was embarrassing him. It was Lucas, attending as the gala’s legal counsel, who had quietly stepped in. He took off his grey suit jacket and draped it over my stained dress, shielding me from the whispers. With a few smooth, polite words, he deflected the woman’s trap and shifted the conversation, preserving my dignity. 4 Lucas and I met at an outdoor café. The sun was warm, and a gentle breeze swept through the patio. Lucas wore a perfectly tailored light grey suit, his eyes behind his gold-rimmed glasses looking soft and deep. He hadn’t ordered any of the pretentious coffees Gary loved; instead, he had the waiter bring over a hot, sweet salted-caramel milk tea. “I remember you used to love sweet things,” Lucas said, sliding the cup toward me. “You said sugar was the best way to get a quick dopamine hit.” “I reviewed the draft for the divorce agreement. You’re asking for a clean break, leaving with nothing just to dissolve the marriage as quickly as possible.” “As your attorney, I respect your decision.” “But as an old friend… I’m glad you’re finally stepping out of that house.” I wrapped my hands around the warm mug, the sweet scent of caramel filling my nose. My throat tightened, and my eyes grew hot. Gary had banned high-sugar drinks from my diet. I had forgotten what sweetness tasted like. “Thank you, Lucas,” I said, offering a genuine smile. “Leaving him is the only way I can finally be Ava again.” As I spoke, my hand brushed against the cup, tilting it. A few hot drops of milk tea splashed onto the back of my hand. “Careful, it’s hot.” Lucas moved quickly, pulling a couple of tissues from the dispenser. He gently took my wrist, leaning in close as he carefully dabbing the liquid from my skin. A loud crash echoed from the entrance of the patio, like a chair being violently kicked aside. I looked up. Gary was standing there. He must have just walked out of a meeting in the high-rise next door, a few terrified executives hovering behind him. Right now, his eyes were locked onto my hand, resting in Lucas’s grip. The legendary composure he prided himself on shattered instantly. He stormed over, his face pale with a mix of disbelief and raw, suffocating jealousy. In his mind, once I left his protection, I was supposed to struggle, to realize how cold the world was, and come crawling back to him. Instead, he found me sitting in a cheap café, wearing an ordinary dress, drinking a sweet beverage he despised, and smiling at his former best friend. “What do you think you’re doing?!” Gary’s voice cracked with uncharacteristic rage. He grabbed Lucas’s arm, trying to yank him away like a beast defending its territory. I ignored his outburst, quietly sliding the divorce agreement across the table toward him. “Since you’re here, sign it.” Gary’s breath caught. He slowly turned his head to look at me, his eyes bloodshot. His hand hovered over the paper, trembling slightly as his voice came out hoarse. “You’re leaving me… for him?”

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My husband was an associate professor in the university’s mathematics department. He despised video games with a burning passion. Just last month, he physically cut our home’s internet cable because he caught our son playing a round of a mobile battle arena. Yet, while waiting for the clock to strike midnight on New Year’s Eve, I picked up the iPad he used for lesson planning. Sitting right there on the home screen was the max level icon for Sweet Crush, a colorful match three puzzle game. The account, operating under the username The Absolute Variable, had not only cleared every single stage with a perfect three star rating. At three in the morning, it had also gifted ninety nine energy refills to the top player on the leaderboard, a girl going by the name SweetStrawberry. I clicked on SweetStrawberry’s profile. She was a graduate student my husband was mentoring. Her latest status update read: “Professor says when you can’t solve a problem, just play Sweet Crush. He is my permanent max level cheat code.” I stared at that shiny max level badge and smiled. I took screenshots of her status, the game’s gifting leaderboard, and a very serious, professional headshot of my husband. I printed them all out. The next morning, a colorful photo report titled “On Associate Professor Arthur’s Extracurricular Tutoring” quietly appeared in the dead center of the math department’s main faculty bulletin board. 1 I was methodically spreading strawberry jam on a piece of toast when the department chair called. Arthur picked up his phone. His usually ruddy complexion instantly drained to a sickening pale gray. He mumbled a few frantic agreements, dropped the phone, and sprinted out the front door in his house slippers, completely forgetting his winter coat. I took a bite of my toast. The strawberry jam was cloyingly sweet. Right about now, that crisp sheet of printer paper displaying his max level gaming account and his inappropriate midnight flirting was likely the center of attention in the faculty lounge. At noon, the front door violently crashed open. Arthur stormed inside, hyperventilating with rage. His fist was clenched tight around a crumpled, torn piece of printer paper. “Evelyn! Have you completely lost your mind?!” He slammed the balled up paper onto the dining table so hard the soup bowls rattled. I calmly ladled a bowl of chicken broth for him, keeping my voice perfectly level. “What is wrong? Why are you throwing a tantrum?” “You have the nerve to ask me what is wrong?” Arthur pointed a trembling finger right at my nose. “Did you post this? Are you going through early menopause? Has your brain finally rotted? You cannot just plaster this garbage on campus!” I put down the ladle and met his bloodshot eyes. “The username and the profile picture on that paper. Are they not yours?” Arthur choked on his words. His eyes darted away for a fraction of a second before he overcompensated, cranking his volume even higher. “I was hacked! It is photoshopped! Someone is jealous that I am up for full tenure this semester, so they are trying to destroy my reputation!” He ripped his tie off, pacing the living room like a caged animal. “Do you have any idea how many people are laughing at me right now? The Dean called me into his office! My entire academic career was almost ruined because of you!” I let out a cold, sharp laugh. “Where there is smoke, there is fire.” “Shut your mouth!” Arthur exploded, kicking a metal trash can across the room. “I break my back doing serious academic research to provide for this family, and you drag me down? Evelyn, you are a massive disappointment.” The commotion drew our son, Tom, out of his bedroom. He stood in the hallway, looking small and terrified. “Dad?” Arthur snapped his head toward the boy, finding an easy target. He lunged forward and grabbed Tom by the arm. “Was it you? Did you steal my iPad to play your stupid games and accidentally post this garbage?” Tom burst into tears, shrinking away. “I didn’t! Dad, I swear I didn’t!” “Don’t lie to me! Who else in this house plays these brain dead games?” Arthur raised his hand, ready to strike. I shoved my chair back, darting forward to shield my son. I pushed Arthur away with a heavy shove to his chest. “Arthur, stop acting like a lunatic and taking it out on a child! Those records were logged at three in the morning. Tom was fast asleep!” Arthur stumbled back, smoothed down his wrinkled collar, and glared at me with absolute ice. “If it wasn’t Tom, then it was a targeted cyber attack.” He walked over and sank into the leather sofa, instantly resuming his arrogant, professorial posture. “Evelyn, you used to be a Chief Data Officer in the tech industry. This level of technical troubleshooting should be easy for you.” I stared at him, genuinely stunned by the sheer thickness of his skin. “What exactly do you want me to do?” “I need you to write a comprehensive forensic data report proving my account was maliciously compromised. Make sure the IP address traces back to an overseas server.” He issued the command as if ordering a coffee. “Draft a public statement too. Use as much complex technical jargon as possible to confuse the old dinosaurs on the tenure committee.” I looked at the man I had shared a bed with for seven years. A wave of pure nausea washed over me. He wasn’t just cheating. He was trying to use the wife he betrayed as a shield to scrub his reputation clean. 2 “And what if I refuse?” I asked. Arthur narrowed his eyes, a heavy threat lacing his words. “Evelyn, we are a financial unit. If I don’t get tenure, my salary stagnates. How exactly do you plan on paying for Tom’s private prep school and his math tutors?” He stood up, walking over to place a heavy hand on my shoulder, forcing his voice into a softer, sickeningly sweet register. “Honey, I know being a stay at home mom is stressful and makes you overthink things. But this really is a massive misunderstanding. Just help me get through this disciplinary hearing, and I promise I will hand my entire paycheck over to you from now on.” I looked at his hypocritical face, swallowing the bile rising in my throat. I took a deep breath and lowered my head, playing the part. “Fine. I will write it. But this is the last time. And from now on, I get open access to all your electronics.” A gleam of triumph flashed in Arthur’s eyes. He instantly switched to a beaming smile. “Not a problem at all. A clear conscience fears no accusations. You are the best wife a man could ask for.” He hummed a cheerful little tune as he walked into the master bathroom. The moment I heard the shower running, I grabbed the iPad he had left on the coffee table. My fingers flew across the screen, inputting a string of bypass commands. Within seconds, a hidden, encrypted photo vault materialized. The folder was innocently named “Supplementary Coursework.” When I tapped it open, the blood in my veins turned to ice. The gallery was flooded with pictures of Allie, his graduate student, wearing an array of highly revealing cosplay outfits. Every single photo was captioned with a game level milestone. “Level 100 Clear Reward: Black lace.” “Level 300 Clear Reward: Call me Daddy.” “Level 500 Clear Reward: All night private tutoring at the Marriott.” The most recent photo was taken yesterday at dawn. Allie was wearing a string bikini that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Around her neck hung a blue lanyard. It was Arthur’s university faculty ID. The caption read: “Professor, this level is too hard. I want to solve it with my body.” My hands turned freezing cold. I stared dead eyed at the glowing screen. The shower water turned off. I rapidly exited the vault, wiped the access logs, and placed the iPad exactly where I found it. Arthur walked out drying his hair with a towel. He saw me sitting at my laptop typing lines of code and nodded approvingly. “That is the spirit. Husband and wife tackling problems together.” I stared at the “Forged IP Routing Map” generating on my screen, a razor sharp smirk curving my lips. The next day, Arthur took the fabricated forensic report I wrote to the university. It worked like a charm. Armed with pages of dense, impenetrable cybersecurity jargon, he successfully completely bewildered the disciplinary committee. He even managed to subtly point the finger at a rival professor. That evening, he walked through the front door with a girl trailing behind him. She wore a pure white sundress, her long hair falling perfectly over her shoulders. It was Allie. The SweetStrawberry. “Good evening, Mrs. Shen!” Allie’s voice dripped with artificial sweetness. She bowed deeply the moment she stepped inside, making sure the plunging neckline of her dress was on full display. I stood holding a silicone spatula, watching the performance with dead eyes. Arthur kicked off his shoes and offered a smooth explanation. “Allie’s thesis is bottlenecked on the final data model. I brought her over to use the high performance desktop in the study to run the numbers.” “You could have given me a heads up. I didn’t prep enough dinner for guests.” Allie immediately put on the face of a kicked puppy, biting her lower lip as she looked up at Arthur. “Professor, maybe I should just go back to the dorms. I don’t want to inconvenience your wife.” Arthur instantly scowled. “Don’t be ridiculous. Academic research waits for no one. Evelyn, go cut up some fruit and cook two more dishes with heavy protein. Allie is still a growing girl.” I gripped the handle of the spatula so hard my knuckles turned white. “Alright. You two get to work.” I turned my back and walked into the kitchen. I could hear their muffled, conspiratorial giggles trailing behind me. They went into the study, leaving the door cracked open. I sliced a watermelon, the sharp steel slicing through the red flesh, juice bleeding onto the cutting board. Holding the fruit platter, I walked to the study. Just as I reached out to push the door open, my hand froze in midair. “Unbelievable!” The signature combo sound effect from Sweet Crush blared from the room. It was immediately followed by Allie’s sickeningly sweet whine. “Professor, this stage is just too hard. My fingers are so sore from swiping.” Arthur’s voice was dripping with a nauseatingly tender affection I hadn’t heard in a decade. “Fingers sore? Come here, let your professor massage them. You can’t just brute force this game. It is like solving a complex equation. You have to find the most sensitive variables.” “Oh stop it, Professor, you are so bad. Where are you touching me…” “Just helping you relax your tense muscles. How else are you going to clear the level?” The unmistakable sound of rustling fabric drifted through the crack in the door. I stood in the hallway, my stomach violently churning. 3 I took a deep breath, kicked the door wide open, and walked in. “Fruit is ready.” The two people inside sprang apart like they had been electrocuted. Allie’s face was flushed crimson as she frantically adjusted the collar of her dress. Arthur pretended to aggressively inspect the computer monitor, though his hand was gripping the mouse completely backward. “Have you never heard of knocking?!” Arthur snapped, throwing the mouse onto the desk in a pathetic show of outrage. “Can’t you see we are in the middle of calculating a critical variable? You just ruined my entire train of thought!” I slammed the heavy ceramic fruit platter down onto the desk with a loud crack, making a stack of textbooks jump. “Does calculating critical variables require hand massages? Professor Arthur, your pedagogical methods are truly unique.” Allie’s eyes darted nervously around the room, refusing to look at me. In her panic, her elbow clipped her designer handbag resting on the edge of the leather sofa. It hit the hardwood floor with a heavy thud, spilling its contents everywhere. Lipstick, a compact mirror, and a very oddly shaped gaming controller tumbled out. It was a limited edition pink haptic feedback controller, heavily bedazzled with rhinestones. I recognized it immediately. Last month, Arthur claimed his research lab desperately needed to procure specialized equipment for a project, draining ten thousand dollars from our joint savings account. He told me it was a highly advanced “haptic interface device” for simulating complex mathematical variables. So this was his haptic interface. Allie slowly crouched down to gather her things. “Oh no, this was an academic achievement reward the Professor bought for me. If it is broken, my heart will shatter.” She looked up, a glint of naked provocation in her eyes, her gaze sweeping over my faded, slightly oversized loungewear. “You probably don’t play video games, do you, Mrs. Shen? The Professor always says you are far too rigid. You just don’t understand the romance inherent in mathematics.” Arthur cleared his throat loudly, desperate to diffuse the tension. “Alright, Allie. Pack up your things. We will stop the modeling for today.” Allie nodded obediently, slinging her designer bag over her shoulder. As she reached the door, she paused and turned back, flashing me a brilliant, saccharine smile. “Thank you for the fruit, Mrs. Shen. The slices were a bit clunky and unrefined, but it quenched my thirst.” Arthur walked her down the stairs. I stood on the balcony, watching them leave the building. They walked dangerously close together, Arthur’s hand hovering just an inch above the curve of her waist. At three in the morning, the entire city was dead asleep. The only sound in the study was the rapid, rhythmic clacking of my mechanical keyboard. As the final line of code executed, the monitor flooded with dense spreadsheets. It was a complete extraction of every single bank account, credit card, and digital payment platform under Arthur’s name. Fifty thousand dollars. Over the past two years, Arthur’s expenditure on “virtual services” and “electronic hardware” totaled a staggering fifty thousand dollars. Just last week, Tom begged to enroll in a prestigious summer STEM academy. The tuition was two thousand dollars. What did Arthur say that day? He scowled, staring down at his son with absolute disgust. “With your mediocre brain, paying for camp is throwing money into a fire! We don’t have cash to burn on your failures. Sit at your desk and run drills instead!” Tom had stood there, head bowed, fighting back tears he was too terrified to shed. I had actually believed his lies back then, thinking the mortgage was squeezing our finances tight. But right now, staring at the glowing ledgers, it felt like someone had driven a hunting knife straight through my ribs. On the exact same afternoon he called our son a failure, he wired seven thousand dollars to Allie. The transaction note read: “Fund for my baby’s premium cosmetics.” Seven thousand dollars. Enough to pay for Tom’s STEM academy three times over. Enough to feed our family for an entire year. My vision blurred. I aggressively wiped the tears away and kept scrolling. A specific three thousand dollar charge caught my eye. It happened six months ago. Cross referencing the timestamp, I hacked into Allie’s restricted social media timeline and found the answer. Six months ago, Allie posted a selfie. She was sitting in a Michelin starred restaurant, a glittering diamond pendant resting against her collarbone. The caption read: “Thank you to the man who truly understands me. On this special day, you gave me the ultimate sense of security.” Special day? I glanced at the calendar. It wasn’t a holiday. But it was the exact day Tom was hospitalized with a dangerous fever. I had spent the entire night sitting awake in a plastic hospital chair. Arthur told me he was locked in the lab, racing a grant deadline. Rage was no longer an adequate word for what I felt. I felt a terrifying, absolute zero coldness settling deep into my bones.

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1 At the concert, Miles suddenly signaled the band to stop. The music cut out, and he began to tell a story: a heartwarming tale of a young couple who had been together for seven years, starting from scratch in the city and building their dreams together. “They went from being wide-eyed graduates to finding their own success, always supporting each other along the way.” “And tonight, this brave girl has asked me to help her pull off the ultimate surprise.” The crowd went wild. Cheers, screams, and whistles rattled the rafters of the arena. I stood backstage, clutching the velvet ring box, a nervous but happy smile on my lips. Miles pointed to Section 3, Row A. He spoke into the mic, his voice booming over the sound system, “Are you ready to be the happiest man in this arena and say yes?” “Preston?” The spotlight swept over the crowd, landing on him. Suddenly, a bizarre, suffocating silence fell over the venue. Preston’s tense face appeared on the giant screens. And right next to him, clinging tightly to his arm, was a bewildered, beautiful young woman. I sat backstage for a long time, staring at my silent phone. Preston never called. Instead, Miles walked into the dressing room, still radiating the heat and adrenaline of the stage. He handed me a cold drink, his eyes filled with quiet apology. “Nora, I’m so sorry.” I looked up, startled by the guilt in his eyes. He rubbed the back of his neck, looking genuinely sheepish. “It’s your birthday today, right? I’m sorry I gave you such a terrible birthday present.” My eyes burned instantly. So, someone actually remembered. I swallowed the lump in my throat, forcing a smile, and told him it was fine. Miles hesitated, then invited me to join his after-party. I shook my head, declining gently. When I finally got back to our apartment, the living room was dark. But there was a soft, flickering glow on the dining table. A beautifully decorated cake sat in the center, the candle flame casting a warm, cozy light. Next to it lay a fresh bouquet of red roses. My heart skipped a beat. Preston had never remembered my birthday. For seven years, I was the one who ordered the cake, booked the restaurant, and invited our friends. He would simply show up after everything was arranged, offering a casual “Happy birthday.” So, what was this? An apology? “Happy birthday.” Preston walked out of the kitchen, carrying a plate. Before I could decide how to react, a girl wearing a paper birthday hat stepped out behind him. It was the girl from the concert. When they saw me standing in the doorway, they both froze. The girl tugged at Preston’s sleeve. “Preston… who is she? Why is she in our apartment?” Our apartment? I stared at him, utterly bewildered. Preston remains perfectly calm. He sets the plate down, gently pats her head, and says, “This is my cousin, Nora. She’s staying with us for a bit. Go ahead and sit down, sweetheart.” Then, he took my arm and pulled me out onto the balcony, closing the glass door behind us. He kept his voice low, his tone carrying that familiar, gentle warmth. “Her name is Isla. She’s the daughter of my late college professor. Before he passed, he asked me to look after her.” “She went through some severe trauma and was receiving treatment abroad. She just got back.” “She has no family left in the country, and I’m one of the only people she trusts.” “Nora, you’ve always been the understanding one. Can we let her stay here for a while? Just until her treatment is finished?” Preston’s hand was warm and heavy as he rubbed the back of my hand, his voice laced with a desperate plea. “Since when am I your cousin?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. “The doctor said she’s highly unstable right now. She… she wouldn’t be able to handle the news that I have a fiancée.” The spring breeze on the balcony felt suddenly freezing. “For how long?” Seeing me relenting, he let out a sigh of relief and pulled me into his arms. He rested his chin on the top of my head, his voice deep and soothing. “It depends on her recovery. We’re getting married soon anyway, and we have the rest of our lives together. Don’t be bitter with a sick girl, okay?” Back at the table, Preston smiled at Isla. “What did you wish for?” Isla clung to his arm, offering a sweet, hopeful smile. “To never be apart from you again, of course.” Preston cut a slice of cake and slid it to her. “Then, happy birthday, Isla. May all your wishes come true.” Her eyes sparkled. “Thank you, Preston.” I stood there frozen for a few seconds before forcing a polite smile. Quietly, I whispered to myself, Happy birthday. 2 After the cake, Preston brought out three bowls of noodles. Each bowl had a perfectly fried egg on top, crispy and golden around the edges, just the way I liked them. But as I picked up my fork, Preston’s next action made me freeze. He reached into his bowl, carefully separated the yolk from the white, and dropped the yolk into his own bowl. Then, he placed the perfect, untouched egg white into Isla’s bowl. “Here.” Isla stared at the egg white, a faraway look in her eyes. “Preston, you’re still the same.” “Back in college, I loved egg whites but hated the yolks, but I hated wasting them too.” “Every time we ate, you’d always eat the yolks for me.” My grip on my fork tightened. Preston hates egg yolks. For seven years, whether it was boiled eggs for breakfast or fried eggs on our burgers, I was always the one who ate his yolks. Yet, he ate them for Isla without a second thought. It was an instinct, a deeply ingrained habit that seven years of separation couldn’t erase. The food tasted like ash. Before I even take a bite, I am completely full. That night, Preston tucked Isla into the guest room first. I sat in our bedroom, listening to their soft, whispered conversation through the thin wall, occasionally punctuated by Isla’s light laughter. It was late when he finally slipped into our room. Seeing me sitting up in bed, he blinked in surprise. “Why aren’t you asleep yet?” I forced my voice to remain steady. “Preston, we need to talk.” He walked over, giving me an apologetic hug before lying down beside me, rubbing his temples. “Nora, I’ve had such a long, exhausting week. Let’s talk about this some other time.” “Oh, and one more thing.” “In the future, please let me know before you plan something like that concert. Luckily, Isla thought it was just a misunderstanding and didn’t think much of it, otherwise, she might have had an episode.” I opened my mouth to speak, but he had already closed his eyes. Within minutes, his breathing evens out. He was fast asleep. At two in the morning, I got up to use the restroom. The moment I opened the door, I nearly jumped out of my skin. A dark figure was standing right in front of me. A sharp gasp caught in my throat. In the dim moonlight filtering through the window, I recognized Isla. She was standing there in her thin nightgown, her face stained with tears, staring at me with a chilling intensity. The sound of my gasp woke Preston. He rushed out of the bedroom, bare-footed. He shoved me aside, pulling Isla into his arms. “What’s wrong? What happened?” Isla buried her face in his chest, her entire body shaking as she let out broken, pathetic sobs. Preston held her tight, looking up at me. His brow was furrowed, his voice low but sharp with accusation. “You terrified her.” I stood there, dumbfounded. Isla suddenly looked up, her eyes wild and bloodshot as she screamed at me, “Get out! This is my home! Get out of here!” Her voice was shrill, and her body shook violently as if she was slipping into a manic episode. Preston held her tighter, murmuring soothing words before looking back at me. “Nora, maybe you should… take a walk. Step out for a bit.” Step out. If I can’t even stay in my own home, where am I supposed to go? I didn’t say a word. I turned around, walked into our bedroom, and pulled my suitcase from the closet. Ten minutes later, I am dragging my suitcase down the silent, empty streets in the dead of night. 3 I went back to my parents’ house. Three days pass, and Preston doesn’t call once. My mother looks at me with concern. “Nora, did you and Preston have a fight?” “No, Mom. He’s just away on a business trip, so I thought I’d come spend some time with you.” I try to reassure her while keeping my eyes glued to my phone, my heart sinking further with every post I read. The failed proposal at the concert has gone viral. The hashtag #ConcertProposalFail is trending at number one. What started as a piece of internet gossip has turned into a massive scandal as people begin to recognize Preston and Isla. “Calling all class of 2020! Isn’t that our old campus sweetheart?” “It’s her! Definitely her! She won the campus beauty poll by a landslide back then. Her mother was a famous professor, too.” “And the guy next to her… isn’t that the legendary law school genius, Preston?” “All the guys in our department had a bet going on who could get her out on a date. Nobody succeeded.” “She only had eyes for Preston. I remember she practically broke the campus forum when she tagged him with: ‘I like you, deal with it.’” Within hours, the story explodes. And as I morbidly scroll through the comments, the puzzle of Preston’s past, the past he never wanted to share with me, falls into place. During Isla’s junior year, her parents died in a car accident. She had a mental breakdown, and her aunt took her abroad for treatment. Preston had looked for her like a madman. But she had vanished overnight, cutting all ties, leaving him with no way to find her. “Oh my god, he probably thought she abandoned him without a word.” “So he tried to move on, and then his first love suddenly reappears? This is some tragic movie-level drama.” “The fiancée is basically an interloper. This is a true reunion of soulmates.” “I feel bad for the fiancée, but she just showed up at the wrong time.” My mother walks in with a glass of warm milk, sitting down beside me as I stare blankly at my phone. “Nora, my surgery is next month.” “You know the doctors said the success rate isn’t high… I’m old, and I’m not afraid of dying.” I look up sharply, my eyes burning. “Mom, don’t say that. The surgery will be a success.” She takes my hand, her eyes filled with hope. “I’m just worried about you.” “My biggest wish in this life is to see you settled down. If something happens to me, I want to know you have a family of your own to keep you safe.” I force a bright smile. “Don’t worry, Mom. The wedding is set for the end of this month. Nothing has changed.” A look of relief finally washes over her face. I look down, taking a slow sip of the milk, my vision blurring. 4 The internet is far more ruthless than I ever imagined. As Isla’s tragic past goes viral, an army of romantic fans starts rooting for her and Preston to get back together. They write endless threads about their tragic love story, while I am painted as the scheming homewrecker who stole her man. Before long, my family’s personal information is leaked online. A picture of my mother, her back bent as she holds a few empty plastic bottles, is posted on a gossip forum. “These old people are so annoying, digging through the recycling bins. Disgusting!” “Agreed. No wonder she raised such a shameless daughter.” “A family of homewreckers deserves to be exposed.” My heart constricts. My mother is a clean freak; she would never rummage through trash. She only did that because she felt sorry for the elderly, mute woman down the street, secretly collecting bottles to give to her so the poor woman could buy medicine. But the internet doesn’t care about the truth. My hands shake as I call Preston. “Preston, people online are calling me a homewrecker. Now they’re targeting my mother…” Silence on the other end. “Nora, I know you’re hurting. But Isla is just starting to show signs of recovery. The doctor said she can’t handle any stress.” “She gets anxious even knowing I have friends. If she finds out I have a fiancée…” “What about me?” I interrupt, my voice cracking. “My mother is being harassed, I’m being cyberbullied, and none of that matters to you?” “I never said it didn’t matter,” he says, his voice soft but utterly exhausted. “But you’ve always been the strong one, Nora. Just hold on a little longer. Once she’s better, I’ll take care of everything.” I hang up. The next day, I walk into my office to find a cardboard box on my desk. I open it, and a dead rat stares back at me with bloody, lifeless eyes. I let out a terrified scream. My colleagues turn to look, covering their noses and backing away in disgust. Before I can even clean it up, the HR director calls me into her office. “Nora, given the current public controversy, the company has decided to terminate your contract. Here is your severance package. Please sign.” I walk out of the office building carrying my things in a cardboard box, a light rain falling around me. A black sedan speeds past, its side mirror clipping my arm. I lose my footing, dropping the box. My personal belongings scatter into the wet street. Laughter echoes from the open car window. “That’s what you get for stealing someone’s man!” I kneel in the rain, picking up my wet things one by one. I call Preston again. He must be with Isla. He hangs up three times, but I stubbornly redial. On the fourth try, he finally answers. “Preston, you need to come over to my parents’ house today.” “Nora, I know you’re anxious about the wedding,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “But the timing is just wrong.” “Preston, my mother’s surgery is next month. The success rate is only thirty percent. Her biggest wish is to see me walk down the aisle, and you know that… We agreed on this. The wedding is set for the end of the month!” A long pause. Then, a heavy sigh. “Nora, I’ve pulled some strings and contacted the top surgeon in the country to perform your mother’s surgery. The success rate will be over seventy percent.” “But… I have a favor to ask.” “The doctor says Isla’s recovery has hit a plateau. The only thing she wants right now is… to have a wedding.” My fingers tighten around the phone. “And?” “Could you let her have the wedding? It’s just a ceremony, a performance to help her heal. I promise I’ll throw you an even grander wedding later.” The rain pours heavier now. The cardboard box is soaked through, and our framed photo lies face down in a puddle, the ink running, Preston’s smiling face blurring into nothing. I slowly stand up, brushing the wet dirt from my knees. A hollow, broken smile touches my lips. “Sure. I agree.” I hang up, open my messaging app, and find Miles’s contact. My finger hovers over the screen for a long time before I type out a single line: Are you willing to be my groom on the 30th of this month?

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1 I am an invisible woman. As long as there is a man in my vicinity, I physically cease to exist. When I went to buy a car, I stood there tightly gripping a black card loaded with eighty thousand dollars. Yet, the salesman looked right past my shoulder, bowing and scraping toward my boyfriend—a man with zero savings and not even a driver’s license. “Sir, this vehicle perfectly matches a successful gentleman like yourself.” I screamed myself hoarse right next to them. “It is my card! I am buying the car!” It was completely useless. The air was filled with nothing but the sound of their mutual masculine appreciation and laughter. During our quarterly company review, the five million dollar contract I personally closed was somehow entirely credited to the male intern who couldn’t even read the financial metrics correctly. The CEO, Mr. Brooks, loudly praised the intern for his “masculine ambition,” then turned around and openly mocked the female employees for being “short sighted and emotional.” I stood directly in front of the projection screen, screaming out corrections to the data, but their line of sight effortlessly phased right through me as they continued to stroke each other’s egos. “Since you all choose to be selectively blind, I might as well commit to being invisible.” “Oh wow, Mr. Lee, this Mercedes G-Wagon is absolutely tailor made for a tough guy like you. Look at these lines! This is what you call a man’s romance!” The salesman reached right over my shoulder and firmly grasped my boyfriend’s hand. Jason puffed out his chest, sliding one hand casually into his pocket while the other traced the leather steering wheel. “It is definitely nice, but the price tag…” He paused, pretending to be deep in thought, though his eyes darted guiltily toward me. I slammed my black card down onto the hood of the car. “Swipe it. Paid in full.” The salesman didn’t even flinch. He kept his beaming, sycophantic smile entirely focused on Jason. “Mr. Lee, you are such a decisive man! I knew a successful guy like you wouldn’t bother with financing and interest rates.” Jason coughed awkwardly, accepting the expensive cigarette the salesman handed him and expertly tucking it behind his ear. “Exactly. When a real man wants something, he gets it done quick. Go ahead and swipe.” He waved his hand vaguely at the air, completely ignoring the fact that the money was coming out of my account. The salesman pulled out the POS terminal, and without granting me a single glance, shoved the keypad directly into Jason’s face. “Right here, Mr. Lee. Just type in your PIN.” Jason’s eyes began frantically signaling me to hand over the card. I stood firmly in place, waving the black plastic right in front of the salesman’s face. “The card is right here. The PIN is my birthday.” The salesman remained utterly deaf and blind. He kept holding the terminal out to Jason. Jason snatched the card out of my hand and tapped it against the machine. “Alright, alright, do I really need to spell it out for you? You have zero situational awareness,” he hissed at me under his breath. Then he turned to the salesman, “My woman doesn’t know how to act in public. Sorry you had to see that.” The salesman gave him a knowing nod and slapped the freshly printed purchase agreement on the desk. “Mr. Lee, please sign right here. I already typed your name into the system so you wouldn’t have to tire your hand out.” I leaned over to look. The registered owner field proudly displayed Jason’s name in bold black ink. I reached out to snatch the pen. “I paid for it! The title goes in my name!” The salesman’s elbow “accidentally” jerked out, knocking me off balance. The expensive pen fell smoothly into Jason’s waiting hand. “Mr. Lee, your girlfriend is quite the prankster, joking around at a time like this. Let’s wrap this up, there are other clients waiting.” Jason gripped the pen and dramatically signed his name across the document. In that exact second, he acted as if he had actually earned eighty thousand dollars. “Sylvia, stop throwing a tantrum. What does it matter whose name is on it? We are getting married soon anyway, it will be joint property.” I stood dead center in the middle of a bustling luxury car showroom, and not a single soul looked at me twice. That afternoon, I returned to the office and pushed open the heavy glass doors of the conference room. Mr. Brooks was standing at the head of the long oak table, his face flushed, raising a glass of champagne. “Securing this five million dollar contract is all thanks to our boy Mark! Look at this ambition! This is the wolf blood we need in the sales department!” Mark, the male intern, was surrounded by a mob of backslapping executives. “Oh, it was nothing. It is all thanks to your mentorship, Mr. Brooks. I just worked a little bit of overtime, that’s all.” 2 Displayed on the massive projector screen was the pitch deck I had spent three sleepless nights designing. Mark was even holding the laser pointer backward, a red dot bouncing erratically around the ceiling, and absolutely no one cared. I shoved my way through the crowd of men and pointed directly at the data on the screen. “The conversion rate on this slide is miscalculated. The decimal point is in the wrong place. That will cause a ten times undervaluation in the final quote.” I didn’t speak softly, but my voice was completely drowned out by the booming laughter of my male colleagues. Mr. Brooks narrowed his eyes, his gaze phasing right through my physical body to stare at the blank white wall behind me. “Is this projector slightly out of focus? Mark, go adjust it. Is the lens dirty?” I was standing directly in the projector’s beam. The bright light was shining directly onto my face. Mark walked over and waved a hand vaguely in front of me. “Mr. Brooks, it is probably just some dust. I’ll wipe it down.” He took a microfiber cloth, polished the glass lens, and aggressively shoved me aside. Mr. Brooks nodded in deep satisfaction, then turned his attention to the cluster of female employees huddled in the corner. “You ladies should be taking notes from Mark! Stop spending your days ordering lattes and gossiping! Look at his execution!” “I always said hiring women is a headache. Long hair, short sight. You lack the natural capacity for logical thinking.” “When the pressure is on, all you do is cry or complain about wanting to go home to your kids. Where is that big picture, aggressive mindset that men have?” “The company only keeps you around out of charity. Don’t think putting on lipstick is going to drive our revenue up!” The female coworkers kept their heads bowed, silent, gripping their unfinished reports tightly in their hands. Suddenly, a message pinged from the client’s legal department. Mr. Brooks looked at his phone. The color instantly drained from his face. “Who is responsible for the penalty clauses?! Why is there an extra zero in the breach of contract percentage?!” That was the exact section Mark had secretly altered right before the meeting. He had claimed it would make us “look more committed.” The conference room plunged into a dead silence. And suddenly, every single pair of eyes snapped onto me. When it was time to take credit, I was invisible air. When it was time to take the blame, I suddenly became a highly visible, physical target. Mr. Brooks slammed his phone onto the table and pointed a furious finger right at my nose. “Sylvia! What the hell is wrong with you?! How could you let a catastrophic error like this slip through?! Are you trying to bankrupt this company?!” In that precise moment, I materialized. When there were medals to be handed out, I was a ghost. When the ship was sinking, I was the anchor they tied around their necks. Mark shrank back into the crowd, whispering loudly. “Sylvia wouldn’t even let me touch the core clauses. She said she was the senior employee…” Mr. Brooks erupted, spit flying across the table. “Your entire bonus for the year is gone! If the client sues, you pack your things and get out!” I looked at Mr. Brooks’s face, twisted with irrational rage, and suddenly felt zero desire to explain myself. If they were completely blind to my achievements but possessed 20/20 vision for my supposed failures, then I might as well vanish completely. I pulled the corner of my mouth into a cold smile. I didn’t yell. “Okay, Mr. Brooks. Since I hold total liability, I suppose I shouldn’t send the automated security patch for the contract either.” Mr. Brooks was too lost in his own power trip to hear the underlying threat. “You are damn right! Go fix it right now! Nobody goes home until it is corrected!” “And stop trying to figure out how to scam the company out of maternity leave the second you hit thirty.” “This company isn’t a charity. We can’t afford to carry dead weight who just want to stay home and hold babies.” “When it comes to charging the front lines of business, it requires men. You ladies are only fit for doing spreadsheets and fetching coffee in the rear.” “If I actually handed a multi million dollar deal over to you, your weak mental fortitude would shatter.” I turned on my heel and walked out of the conference room. The exact second the heavy door clicked shut, I tossed the flash drive containing the contract patch straight into the trash can. 3 I pushed open the door to my apartment. The air was so thick with cigarette smoke I immediately started coughing. My younger brother, Toby, was sprawled across my imported Italian leather sofa, his bare feet propped up on the glass coffee table, aggressively tapping on his phone. “Sis, you’re back? I am starving. Where is the food?” He didn’t even look up from his mobile game. My mother poked her head out from the kitchen. “Sylvia, hurry up and cut some fruit for your brother!” “He is playing video games, that is high level mental work! It is not like you sitting in an air conditioned office doing nothing! Hurry up and serve the hero of our family!” I set my purse down and slapped a printed invoice onto the dining table. It was for a three thousand dollar massage chair. “Dad, did the massage chair get delivered? It was three grand. Did you try it out?” My father sat at the table, squinting through a cloud of cigarette smoke. He didn’t even glance at the invoice. Toby blindly reached into his pocket, pulled out a crushed pack of cheap, three dollar cigarettes, and tossed them to my father. “Here, Dad. Smoke these. They hit harder.” My father caught the cheap pack, his eyes instantly welling up with emotion. “Now this is a filial son. Always thinking of his old man. He really cares about me!” My three thousand dollar massage chair was completely eclipsed by a crumpled box of cheap tobacco. At the dinner table, the spread was overflowing with expensive seafood I had just bought on the way home. My mother cracked open the largest crab, meticulously picking out all the rich crab roe and dumping it into Toby’s bowl. She handed the massive crab claws to Jason. “Men who fight for a living out in the world burn a lot of brain cells! They are the pillars of the family!” “These high protein luxury meats can only be converted into real money making energy if they go into a man’s stomach!” I reached out my chopsticks to grab a single shrimp. My mother aggressively swatted my hand away. “Have you no shame? Look at your waistline, and you still want to eat seafood?” “A girl eating luxury food like this is a pure waste of resources! You are just going to get fat and your future in laws will despise you!” “You just stick to the boiled vegetables to clean out your system. Don’t you dare compete for food with the men holding this family up!” I stared at her, my voice turning icy. “I am out there fighting too. I bought every single piece of seafood on this table. My salary is triple Jason’s.” My father frowned heavily. “What does it matter if a girl makes a high salary? You are going to get married eventually. That money belongs to your husband’s family. You can’t keep it.” Jason’s mouth was stuffed full of crab meat. He mumbled unintelligibly as he slammed his new car keys onto the table. “Mr. Shen, you should have seen it! I picked up a G-Wagon today. Eighty grand. Driving it back here, the amount of people staring at me was insane!” My father’s eyes instantly lit up. He picked up the heavy car key, rubbing it like it was a holy relic. “Eighty thousand?! Wow, Jason, you are incredible! I always said Sylvia was blessed to land a man like you!” Toby finally put his phone down, looking at Jason with pure hero worship. “Jason, you are the man! Let me borrow it tomorrow. I am picking up my girl, and that car will give me so much respect!” Jason raised a smug eyebrow. “No problem at all! We are basically family, right? Drive it whenever you want!” I slowly put my chopsticks down, locking eyes with Jason. “The money came out of my account. The title is in your name, but the financial footprint is entirely mine.” The entire family suddenly went collectively deaf. My father waved his hand impatiently. “A woman’s money is meant to pave the way for her man! If a respectable guy like Jason doesn’t drive it, your money was completely wasted!” My mother filled Jason’s shot glass to the brim, her voice dripping with fawning praise. “Exactly! Jason, don’t lower yourself to argue with her. Come on, let me toast you! A car like that is only intimidating when a real man is behind the wheel. What do women know about cars? They belong in the passenger seat!” A memory from elementary school suddenly flashed in my mind. I had run home clutching a perfect score math exam. I found my grandfather handing a thick red envelope of cash to my cousin, who had barely passed with a D. “A grandson is still a man with the family seed even if he scores a zero! He is the sky above the Shen family!” “A girl is just a money losing investment being raised for another family! The more books she reads, the wilder her heart gets, and the harder it will be for her to serve her future in laws!” So, I had been an invisible person since childhood. Standing in the corner, watching them celebrate a mediocre man. Now, I was twenty eight years old. I made a hundred thousand a year. And I was still completely invisible. I went to the kitchen to wash the dishes. The running water couldn’t drown out the vicious calculations happening in the living room. “A dowry? We would have to beg someone to take her! Sylvia is almost thirty, she is expired goods. Even if she makes good money, she is the end of the bloodline. Jason taking her off our hands is practically charity work!” Jason ate up the praise like a starved dog. “It really is just me being a good guy. Any other man seeing her acting this arrogant just because she makes a few bucks would have slapped her across the face to teach her some rules!” Toby, chewing loudly on the expensive cherries I bought, chimed in with a mouth full of juice. “Dad, shouldn’t Sylvia’s apartment be transferred to my name so I can use it as my starter home when I get married? She is going to live in Jason’s big house anyway. Keeping this place empty is a waste.” My father agreed as if stating a law of physics. “Women have no right to own real estate. That property is the foundation of the Shen family. It was always meant to be yours.” They casually debated stripping me of my home, exactly the way one discusses throwing away unclaimed garbage. No one even bothered to ask the actual homeowner if she agreed. My hand jerked violently. A porcelain plate shattered on the tile floor. My mother instantly rushed in, pointing a furious finger at my face. “You stupid girl! You are so clumsy you can’t even wash a plate?! Don’t scare your brother! That plate cost ten dollars!” She squatted down to pick up the shards. She didn’t look at my face. She didn’t ask why I dropped it. “Sweep this up right now! If a piece of glass cuts your brother’s precious feet, selling your organs wouldn’t cover the damage!” I stared at this nest of leeches, staring at the shattered ceramic on the floor. I was genuinely perplexed. Why is it that even other women become completely blind to the sacrifices of a woman? 4 Bright and early the next morning, Jason aggressively yanked me out of bed. “Hurry up, hurry up! My college reunion is today. I need to drive the new car there to flex on everyone.” We walked into the private dining room. The air was choked with cigar smoke, the booming voices of men echoing off the walls. They were all red faced, loosening their silk ties, loudly bragging about their entrepreneurial empires. “I’m telling you, during the launch of my last startup, I didn’t sleep for three straight days! I survived purely on cases of Red Bull!” In reality, everyone in the room knew his “startup” only survived because his wife sold her heirloom jewelry to cover his massive debts. The moment Jason walked in, he was dragged to the head of the table. The men practically fought each other to pour him drinks. “Jason is the king now! He rolled up in a G-Wagon, I saw it with my own eyes!” Jason waved his hands, feigning deep humility. “Oh, it’s nothing, guys. My latest AI neural network project is just doing pretty well, making a bit of pocket change.” I sat in the darkest corner of the room, sneering. I wrote every single line of code for that project. He didn’t even know how to spell Python. A former classmate who actually worked in tech leaned in and asked a detailed question. “Jason, what algorithmic architecture are you guys deploying on the backend?” Jason froze. He stammered and choked on his words for a solid minute, unable to produce a coherent sentence. I couldn’t handle the secondhand embarrassment anymore, so I spoke up. “To resolve the latency issues with long form text processing…” Before I could even finish the sentence, the tech guy aggressively cut me off. “Hey, don’t interrupt if you don’t understand the industry. Let Jason speak. Women shouldn’t meddle in highly technical conversations.” Jason immediately seized the lifeline and raised his scotch glass. “Exactly, exactly! It is highly proprietary and way too complex to explain over dinner. Let’s just drink!” The men started ruthlessly pressuring Jason to take shots. Terrified of losing face, he chugged everything handed to him. After a few rounds, his face was beet red, his neck veins popping, his speech heavily slurred. “Jason is a tank! Pour him another!” Jason weakly pointed a trembling finger at me. “I’m done… make her drink for me! She just does useless backend admin work anyway. She has nothing important to do tomorrow, not like me! I make thousands of dollars every minute!” The male classmates immediately started jeering. “Come on, be a good sport! Jason’s business is on the line!” I stared coldly at the shot glass overflowing with cheap liquor. I didn’t move a muscle. Feeling humiliated, Jason’s face darkened. “Can you act like you have some class for once? Stop embarrassing me in front of my brothers!” I still didn’t move, effectively acting exactly like the ghost they treated me as. Cursing under his breath, Jason downed the shot himself. He eventually drank himself into a coma, passing out face down in a plate of leftover ribs. When it was time to settle the bill, the waitress walked into the room holding the leather checkbook. Suddenly, every man at the table was either pretending to be asleep, intensely staring at their phones, or urgently needing to use the restroom. The waitress scanned the room, then walked directly over to me, holding the bill right in my face. “Miss, the total is twelve thousand dollars. How would you like to pay?” When it came time to cough up money, the woman in the room magically became visible. I didn’t take the checkbook. I pointed at the drooling mess that was Jason. “He is the big CEO who drives the G-Wagon. Ask him.” The waitress looked highly uncomfortable. “But miss, this gentleman is completely unconscious…” “Then you wait for him to wake up, or you call the cops.” I grabbed my purse, stood up, and walked straight out the door. Behind me, I heard the waitress aggressively shaking Jason awake, followed by the highly awkward, nervous coughing of his “brothers.” The second I stepped out of the hotel lobby, my phone started vibrating like a jackhammer. The company group chat had exploded. Because I never sent the automated security patch, the client’s legal team discovered the massive vulnerability in the contract and instantly issued a cease and desist order. Mr. Brooks was repeatedly tagging my name, sending sixty second voice memos one after the other. I tapped on one. It was pure, unadulterated screaming. “Where the hell are you?! Why aren’t you answering your messages?! Are you trying to destroy my company?!” Mark, the intern, posted a highly pathetic, crying emoji sticker in the chat. “Sylvia hasn’t replied to any of my DMs. Did I offend her somehow? I really don’t know how to code this patch…” Mr. Brooks fired off eighteen consecutive messages, cursing my mother, my ancestors, and my gender. “She is doing this on purpose! This is why women have zero professional responsibility! The company wasted money hiring you! You are paying the entire penalty fee out of pocket! Two million dollars, not a penny less!” There were dozens of executives in that group chat. Not a single one asked why Mark, the supposed project lead, didn’t bother to check the contract before approving it. Not a single one asked why a low level female employee was the only person in the entire building capable of writing the core security patch. I closed the chat app and didn’t reply. I dragged Jason’s unconscious, vomit covered body into the passenger seat of the G-Wagon. A wave of acidic stench hit my face. Barely two miles down the road, Jason violently threw up again, ruining the leather interior. He mumbled incoherently, his hands grasping wildly at the air. “Sylvia… I’m a real man… I deserve a luxury car…” I slammed on the brakes. The massive SUV violently jerked to a halt on the shoulder of the highway. I stared into the rearview mirror at the pathetic, filthy excuse for a man in the passenger seat. I looked down at my phone screen, where the abusive messages were still pouring in. I suddenly realized that if I didn’t physically manifest their twisted logic into reality, I would be doing a massive disservice to my own invisibility cloak.

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