Author: Momo Chan

After the SATs, I was drugged at a party. My childhood crush, Ethan, showed up just in time. Just as I was about to give myself to him, lines of my own handwriting appeared before my eyes. “I regret it so much. Why did I ever sleep with Ethan?” Regret? How could I? The next second, the diary scrolled further. “Ethan ruined me, all to stop Liam from confessing his feelings to me, just so Ethan and Chloe could be together.” “How ridiculous. For him, I gave up Harvard, stayed in our hometown to marry him and have a family, only to find out when I was almost dying that he’d always loved Chloe.” “After thirty years of marriage, I only saw him truly smile for the first time on the day Chloe and Liam got divorced.” “And then, because Chloe’s son needed an exorbitant amount for his wedding, with just a ‘sorry,’ he cut off all my medical and prescription funds.” “But what good is ‘sorry’ when I’m already dying?” I froze, my eyes suddenly burning. Because the last line of the diary read, “Audrey, if you ever go back thirty years, please, please push Ethan away.”

I tried to collect myself. When I opened my eyes again, the words were even clearer. “It’s chemotherapy day. My hair is almost all gone. The doctor asked Ethan to come sign the papers, but he didn’t show up.” “When I finally called him, his tone was full of blame. He complained that I’d interrupted him and Chloe’s son on their way to meet potential in-laws, and that I’d almost ruined Chloe’s son’s engagement.” “After he hung up, the three million in my account for treatment was transferred out, every last penny.” “Ethan rarely sent me a message. He said it was to apologize for me, to use the money for Chloe’s son’s wedding expenses.” “I was so numb, I couldn’t even feel angry anymore.” Seeing those words, my throat tightened, and I trembled uncontrollably. I couldn’t be mistaken. This was my handwriting, my usual diary format. This was written by me, thirty years in the future. Only then did I realize that my future self, the me who married Ethan, lived such a wretched life. And that Ethan, who had chased me for so long, had done it all for Chloe. “Audrey?” Ethan’s heavy breathing cut through my thoughts. “What’s wrong?” I snapped my eyes open and saw his face inches from mine. My heart instantly pounded like it would burst. He was handsome. I’d had a crush on him for over ten years, and I never imagined I’d be this close to him one day. Seeing me frozen, he gently put his hand on my waist. “Audrey, I know you intentionally seduced me, but it’s okay, I don’t mind.” “As long as you stay here with me, I’ll take responsibility for you.” Hearing his words, I instinctively looked up at the floating text. “Audrey, do you want to start over?” “If you start over, will your life be brilliant?” Tears streamed down my face. Then, using all my strength, I shoved Ethan away. “No!” Ethan stumbled to the side, his face aghast. “What?” I stared at him, my mind filled with those diary entries. “Thirty years.” “I wasted thirty years of my life, just for him to say ‘sorry’.” “Why me?” My stomach churned. I instinctively pushed past him and rushed into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. Yeah, why me? “Audrey!” Ethan snapped out of it and rushed after me. “What are you doing! Open the door!” “You’re the one who invited me up here! Are you playing games with me now?!”

I ignored him, turning on the shower and letting the cold water pour over me. My mind cleared up instantly. Outside the door, Ethan’s voice grew agitated. “Audrey, if you don’t open this door, I’ll kick it down!” “Do you think playing hard to get will make me want you more?!” “You—” Before he could finish, I wiped the water from my face and opened the door. When I opened it, Ethan still had his phone in his hand, clearly texting someone. I glanced at it — it was Chloe’s chat. Everything suddenly clicked. He panicked for a second, quickly dimming the screen. “Don’t misunderstand, I was just worried you’d do something crazy, so I was asking Chloe to help.” “Audrey, do you want this or not?” I didn’t look at him, walking straight for the door. “Move.” He paused, then grabbed my wrist. “What do you mean?!” “Audrey, why are you acting so innocent?” “You called me to ‘save’ you, and you’re dressed like this. Weren’t you trying to seduce me?!” “You’ve been my persistent shadow for years, always around. Now I’m being ‘generous’ and actually giving you a chance, and you’re throwing a fit?” He was right. I’d been his simp for so many years, and I was truly tired. I looked at him, taking a deep breath. “Ethan, from today on, I don’t like you anymore.” “What?” He stopped dead, his face filled with disbelief. Before he could react, I grabbed my things and walked out of the room without looking back. Then I pulled out my phone, opened my college application page, and deleted the local state university. Immediately after, I dialed Harvard University’s admissions office. “Hello, Professor, this is Audrey. I accept the early admission offer to Harvard.” Thinking back to how I’d rejected it for Ethan, I felt incredibly stupid. Just then, someone called out to me. “Audrey!” I looked up. It was Liam. Chloe was with him, a smug look on her face. Chloe saw me at once and immediately clutched Liam’s arm. “Liam, I didn’t lie to you, did I…!” “I told you I saw her check into a hotel myself!” “It’s only been what, a few days since the SATs?! She couldn’t wait! Now that you’ve seen it, you should give up on her!” But Liam just pulled his arm away and quickly walked up to me. “Audrey, are you okay?” I looked at him, my thoughts a little fuzzy. There wasn’t much about him in the diary. I only knew he was the heir to the Cooper Corporation. I only knew that Ethan had touched me to cut off Liam’s feelings for me, all to secure his own relationship with Chloe. Before I could think further, Chloe was already pointing at me, yelling, “Audrey, I know you like Ethan!” “But you can’t be that desperate! You finished your SATs and immediately ran off to have sex with him?” “You know Liam, he—” I took a deep breath, then turned and looked at her carefully. The me in another timeline, who endured so many years of agonizing, absurd life—wasn’t it all because of her? I smiled, then raised my hand and slapped her hard. “Chloe, I didn’t do anything tonight!” “If you dare to slander me again, I’ll tear your mouth apart!” Almost simultaneously, a figure crashed into me. “Audrey! Are you crazy?!” It was Ethan, who had rushed out after me. He stood in front of Chloe, then turned and yelled at me, “Audrey! What did Chloe say that was wrong?!” “You’re the one who’s shameless! You were willing to drug yourself just to get me to sleep with you!”

“Apologize to Chloe, right now!” The air instantly solidified. “What did you say?!” Liam was the first to react, shoving Ethan away. “Audrey said she didn’t do anything, so she didn’t!” “What do you want her to apologize for?” Seeing Liam protect me like that, Chloe bit her lower lip and started to cry. “Liam… you don’t believe me, do you?” “Look at her, she’s soaking wet. It’s obvious she just…!” “Liam! I would never lie to you…” Ethan’s tone instantly softened when he saw Chloe’s distress. He turned back and reached for me. “Audrey, stop making a scene. I’ll take responsibility for what happened tonight.” “As long as you stay and go to university here, we’ll get married right after graduation.” “I promise.” He spoke with such emotion. The old me would probably have felt her heart race wildly and nodded without hesitation. But now, all I saw were the words floating in the air. “I stayed in our hometown for him, had two difficult pregnancies, both times losing the baby. He comforted me, saying it didn’t matter, as long as I was okay.” “I believed him, until I was almost dying, and he confessed everything to me.” “I learned then that he deliberately caused me to lose the babies because he didn’t want any woman other than Chloe to have his children.” “He said he would feel guilty if any other woman bore his child.” “He said giving me the title of ‘Mrs. Ethan’ was the biggest compromise he could make.” “He said so much, but he forgot he’d promised to be good to me for a lifetime.” Between the lines of the diary, I saw the tears of my thirty-years-older self. The weight of them made me almost unable to stand. Liam quickly steadied me. “Audrey, it’s okay. I believe you.” Ethan instantly frowned, yanking me into his arms. “Are you crazy?!” “Audrey is mine now. What does our business have to do with you?” Then he pointed at Chloe. “Liam, Chloe likes you so much, can’t you just look at her?” I couldn’t help but sneer. It all came back to him being afraid I’d ruin things for Chloe. I took a deep breath and violently pulled away from his touch. “Ethan, we have nothing to do with each other.” “If you touch me again, I’m calling the police!” Ethan froze, as if confirming he hadn’t misheard. “Audrey, what did you say?!” “What’s wrong with you today! Didn’t you say you’d only marry me?!” “How could you—” “Didn’t you hear her?” Liam stepped forward, blocking Ethan. “Now, get lost.” Then he turned, took off his jacket, and draped it over my shoulders. “Come on, I’ll take you home.” I thought for a moment, then shook my head. “I can go home myself. I’ll give you back the jacket in a couple of days.” With that, I turned and walked away. Whether in the future or now, I didn’t want to be involved with them anymore. When I got home, Mom saw how I looked and immediately rushed over. “Audrey, what happened to you? You’re soaking wet!” Looking at her, I remembered the line from the diary, “For Ethan, I hadn’t contacted my parents in thirty years.” My nose suddenly stung. I forced a smile. “It’s nothing, just got splashed by a sprinkler truck on the road.” “Mom, I’m going to take a shower.” Mom handed me a towel, her eyes full of concern. “Go quickly, don’t catch a cold.” After my shower, my phone buzzed. It was a voice message from Liam. “Audrey, I applied to Harvard. First choice.”

“I hope we can be classmates again, really.” I was stunned. So Liam had also applied to Harvard. No wonder Ethan had tried every possible way to make me stay in our hometown with him. He must have been worried about me developing something with Liam at Harvard, worried that Chloe would be upset. I put my phone down without replying. The next morning, I returned to school for the graduation ceremony. As soon as I stepped through the gates, I saw everyone pointing and whispering. “Is that her? The one everyone’s talking about in the SnapChat group?” My heart sank. I opened my phone and saw a stranger had somehow joined the school group chat. The person had posted a video, and the thumbnail was me. I instantly recognized it—it was taken in the hotel room last night. In the video, I was lying on the hotel bed, clothes disheveled, reaching out to the man above me. “It hurts…” I quickly closed the video and looked around. Seeing my reaction, everyone started to sneer. “Isn’t that Audrey, the class president? She always seemed so innocent, but who knew she was so slutty in private!” “Seriously, her body is amazing. She really kept it hidden well!” “Who was she with, anyway?” “Who else? Ethan, obviously! Everyone knows she’s Ethan’s simp. Who else would she be like that for?” “So wild in bed, and now she’s embarrassed? Hilarious!” I was shaking with anger and immediately called the police. Just then, Chloe’s sickly sweet, mocking voice came from behind me. “Ethan, tell us, how’s Audrey’s body?” Before I could turn around, I heard Ethan give a cold laugh. “It’s decent.” “But honestly, if she hadn’t thrown herself at me like that, I wouldn’t have even touched her.” More laughter erupted. “Now that Audrey’s reputation is ruined like this, who else would she have besides you, haha!” “Finally, Liam, that lovesick fool, will see her true colors and be willing to be with Chloe!” “Gosh, I have to say, Ethan really is good to Chloe. He even agreed to sleep with Audrey for her!” I found it all absurd. Ethan had gone to such lengths for Chloe. Then Ethan’s voice suddenly grew serious. “Enough, a joke is a joke.” “I’m going to marry Audrey eventually, so when you see her later, remember to be nice to her.” “Only if I keep her close can I ensure Liam’s complete devotion to Chloe.” I was so enraged I laughed. I turned and looked at him. “Ethan, you’re disgusting.” He paused, then grabbed my wrist, his face full of panic. “You heard all that?” Seeing me remain silent, he frowned. “You don’t even like Liam, so can’t you just make Chloe happy?” “And stop pretending.” “I already saw your college application. You didn’t choose Harvard, which means you agreed to stay here with me, right?” “If you keep acting up like this, I might not even bother with you anymore.” Chloe, hearing this, looked at me with disdain. “Aren’t you Ethan’s simp? You finally got ‘promoted’ and you’re not happy?” “Ethan just talked to you like that, are you deaf?” “And wasn’t that video of you? If anyone’s disgusting, it’s you!” No sooner had she spoken than a dull thud echoed from the side. I turned to see Liam, who had just punched Ethan in the face. “You sent the video, didn’t you?!” Chloe hadn’t expected him to appear and quickly rushed to him. “Liam! You’ve misunderstood!”

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Douglas had just stepped into the bathroom when his iPad lit up on the bedside table. A SnapChat notification popped up. Aurora: What mushy message did she send you today? Forward it, I’m waiting for a laugh. I reached out and tapped SnapChat. The pinned chat wasn’t mine, it was Aurora’s. At the top of the chat window was a screenshot of the message I’d sent Douglas that afternoon. Me: A kid at the kindergarten told me I have a pretty smile today, and my first thought was to tell you. Below it was Douglas’s added comment when he forwarded it to Aurora. Douglas: She’s like this every day, has to report every little mundane thing. Aurora: Does she have no friends or something? Douglas: Pretty much. All kindergarten teachers are the same, simple-minded. I sat on the edge of the bed, my finger sliding further down the screen. There was a selfie I’d sent Douglas, wearing a pink apron, flour smudged on my face, taken while I was making him a birthday cake. I had asked him at the time: Douglas, don’t I look like the perfect wife? Douglas had sent the photo to Aurora. Douglas: It’s an absolute aesthetic disaster. Aurora: Then how do you manage to kiss her? Douglas: Doesn’t matter, it’s all the same with the lights off. My fingertips started to tingle. The sound of water in the bathroom stopped. I immediately turned off the iPad and placed it back on the bedside table. The door opened, and Douglas came out, drying his hair, a towel wrapped around his waist. He walked over, hugged me from behind, and rested his chin on my shoulder. “Alice, is it your ovulation period today?” His hand wrapped around my waist, wandering, and he kissed my earlobe. I instinctively recoiled. Douglas paused. “What’s wrong?” I leaned down to pick up his pajamas from the bed, then walked around him to the dressing table. “I’m tired, we had an event at the kindergarten today.” Douglas stared at me for two seconds, then didn’t ask again. He went straight to bed, turned off the lamp on his side, and started playing on his phone, his back to me. I also got into bed and lay on the other side, listening to his breathing gradually deepen. At 1 AM, I got up. I gently pulled the iPad from under his pillow, then carefully got out of bed and went to the living room. I sat on the sofa, opened that chat window, and scrolled from the very beginning. The timeline started a year and a half ago, when Douglas and I weren’t married yet. He had just switched to his current company, was under a lot of pressure, and worked overtime every day. I brought him meals daily, waited for him downstairs, and stayed up with him as he worked on projects. He had screenshotted my message, “Don’t work too hard, I made you some soup,” and sent it to Aurora. Douglas: She’s so boring, never says anything else. Aurora: Still pretty suitable for marriage, at least she’s low-maintenance. Douglas: Yeah, stable. So he married me for stability, not love. I kept scrolling. The first time I tried on my wedding dress, I asked him if it looked good. He replied: “Beautiful, Alice, you’re the prettiest.” Then he immediately forwarded it to Aurora. Douglas: The studio’s photo editing is brutal. Aurora: Even with the edits, Alice looks pretty ordinary. How did you settle for her? Douglas: I was at a low point back then, and she stuck by me. So I just settled. I stared at the word “settled,” my stomach cramping. I clicked on the photo attachment. Inside were private bedroom photos I’d sent him, not meant for anyone else to see. I had sent them to Douglas, out of complete trust. But he forwarded them to Aurora. Aurora: That’s quite a figure, you must be enjoying yourself. Douglas: Come on, it’s nowhere near yours. I screenshotted every single chat record, one by one, and sent them to my email. My hands were shaking, but I didn’t stop. At 4 AM, I returned to the bedroom and put the iPad back in its original place. Douglas rolled over and mumbled something. “Alice, why aren’t you sleeping yet?” I didn’t answer, just stood by the bed, looking at him coldly. He didn’t wake up. I lay back down, my eyes open until morning. The next morning, Douglas sat at the dining table eating breakfast as usual. I fried eggs and toasted bread. When I placed the plate in front of him, he looked up at me. “What’s wrong with you today? You seem like you’re in a bad mood.”

My hand paused as I poured milk. Before, every morning, I would smile and say to him, “Good morning, hope you have a happy day!” He would never say anything else, just a simple “Mhm.” But that would make my whole day happy. I pushed the milk mug toward him. “Nothing.” Douglas took a bite of toast. “It’s early in the morning, what’s got into you? Why are you sulking?” I sat opposite him and took a sip of milk. “I’m not sulking. I’m in a perfectly good mood.” He put down his mug. “Alice, you’ve been off since last night. Tell me, how did I offend you?” I looked up. “You’re the one who’s off, paying attention to my ‘little moods’ now?” Douglas frowned. “Don’t be so snarky. Just tell me what’s wrong.” I placed my phone on the table. It showed the first screenshot I’d taken last night. The message I sent him: “A kid complimented my smile today, and I wanted to tell you.” Below it, his reply to Aurora: “She’s like this every day, has to report every little mundane thing.” Douglas’s expression froze for a moment, then suddenly darkened. “You dared to go through my phone without permission?” I said, “How do you explain this?” “I’m asking you, how dare you snoop through my chat records on your own initiative?” I let out a cold laugh. “I was looking at your iPad. You didn’t set a password, so I was looking at it fair and square.” Douglas threw the toast back onto his plate. “Alice, do you know what privacy is? What invasion is? What boundaries are?” I couldn’t even bother to react anymore. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? My chat records, my photos, being forwarded by you to another woman for her to comment on—what do you call that kind of behavior?” Douglas stood up, his chair scraping back a few inches. “Don’t try to change the subject. It’s your own fault for being nosy. If you hadn’t secretly looked, you wouldn’t have known, and then none of this would be happening, would it?” Douglas reached for my phone. I took a step back and put my phone back in my bag. “Don’t touch it.” Douglas’s hand stopped mid-air. “Alice, you look really awful right now.” I looked at him. “However awful I look, it’s not as awful as what you did.” He tugged at his tie. “I just casually vented a bit. Do you have to make such a big deal out of it?” “Are my private photos ‘venting’ too?” Douglas was silent for a second. Then he said, “If you bring this up to argue, you’ll only be embarrassing yourself.” I didn’t say anything else. Because I realized, he wasn’t unaware that he was hurting me. He just thought I wasn’t even worthy of being angry. After that, we gave each other the silent treatment for three days. I never shared any more of my daily life with him. That evening, Douglas came home from work, carrying a paper bag. I was sitting on the sofa, preparing my lessons. He tossed the paper bag in front of me. “I bought this for you.” I opened it. Inside was a scarf, a discount item from the mall, with the tag still on. One hundred ninety-nine dollars. I had once admired a cashmere scarf, over eight hundred dollars, and he said it wasn’t necessary. “Why wear something so expensive to work at a kindergarten? The kids will just get it dirty.” But in his chat records with Aurora, I saw he’d bought her a perfume that cost over three thousand dollars. Aurora had asked: “Won’t Alice get angry if she finds out?” Douglas replied: “She wouldn’t understand these things.” I put the scarf back in the paper bag. “Return it.” Douglas’s action of unbuttoning his cuffs paused. “Alice, don’t be so dramatic. I buy you something and you give me attitude? Adults should know when to stop.” I closed my lesson planner. “So, what do you consider ‘stopping’?” He sat opposite me, his expression showing a hint of impatience. “You’re too clingy usually. What’s wrong with me complaining to a friend?” I looked at him. “Then how would you feel if I sent videos of you picking your nose, crying after failing a promotion, and kneeling in the bathroom throwing up and having diarrhea when drunk, to my male colleagues for their enjoyment?” Douglas’s face completely darkened. “You wouldn’t dare.” I said, “So, you know it’s not okay.” He picked up the glass of water on the table and took a sip. “Alice, whether you get over this or not, it is what it is. What you’re saying now is pointless. Are we just not going to live our lives anymore?” I was extremely calm. “Yes, we’re not.”

Douglas, however, scoffed coldly and turned to walk back into the bedroom. Before he forcefully slammed the door shut, a sentence leaked out from inside: “She’s completely crazy, utterly unreasonable.” The next afternoon, just after I’d finished giving the children their snacks, my phone vibrated in my apron pocket. It was a friend request notification: “Alice, it’s Aurora. I wanted to talk.” I hesitated for a few seconds, then accepted. She quickly sent her first message. Aurora: Alice, don’t misunderstand Douglas and me. We’re just chat buddies. I didn’t reply. She sent another. Aurora: I don’t know why he would send me your chats. Maybe he just sees me as a friend. Aurora: Men, you know, most of them just like to talk big. Aurora: Douglas told me he really likes your innocence, even if you’re a bit dull and unromantic. Aurora: Honestly, I’m quite envious of you. Your qualities are pretty average, but you still managed to marry such an excellent man. I stood by the classroom’s back door. The children were napping, and the air conditioner vent hummed softly. I typed. Me: Are you messaging me just to say all this? Aurora replied instantly. Aurora: No, not really. I just wanted to explain everything clearly. Please don’t argue with him because of me. His project is very crucial right now, and his emotions can’t be affected. Me: And what standing do you have to manage my husband’s emotions? Me: Also, if my qualities are average and I married an excellent man, why can’t you? Is it because you’re even worse than me? There was a half-minute pause from the other side. The chat window continuously showed “typing…” After a long time of typing, there was no message. I put my phone back in my pocket and continued covering the children with their blankets. At 6 PM, I went home. The door opened, and Douglas was sitting on the living room sofa, looking down at his phone. His first words when he looked up were: “Did you insult Aurora?” I placed my bag on the entryway cabinet. “She added me first.” Douglas stood up. “She was just kindly trying to explain things to you, worried about our relationship changing. And you took it out on her? How can you be so ungrateful?” I changed my shoes and closed the shoe cabinet door. “She came to show off to me.” Douglas walked up to me. “Alice, can you stop treating every woman like an enemy? Aurora isn’t the type of person you’re describing.” I looked up at him. “How do you know she isn’t? Have you slept with her? Are you that familiar with her?” He suddenly choked, then his face filled with anger. “Go look in a mirror at that face of yours. You’re truly spiteful and venomous.” My lips curved into a slight smile. “That’s right. After all, I have no friends, I’m unworldly, an aesthetic disaster, and simple-minded. Most importantly, I’m the woman you ‘settled for’ during your low point.” Douglas’s face changed. “How much did you actually go through?” “Enough to make me sick for the rest of my life.” He took a step forward. “Did you screenshot everything? Delete the screenshots.” I stepped back, my back hitting the door panel. My phone was in my bag, and my bag was on the entryway cabinet, within his reach. I picked up my bag first, hugging it to my chest. “What are you afraid of?” Douglas lowered his voice. “I don’t want things to get blown out of proportion.” “You weren’t afraid of things getting blown out of proportion when you forwarded them?” “I told you, it was just casual talk between friends.” To this point, he still used the same excuse. I didn’t want to say anything more to him. Opening my bag, I pulled out the divorce papers I’d printed at lunch. I handed them to him. “Sign them.” Douglas looked down. “Divorce papers?” “Yes.”

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My sister, Cruz, wasn’t my biological sister. I knew that since I was a kid. Mom told me that my real biological sister, Bruna, was living as the fake heiress of a billionaire family. As long as our family kept this secret, we would live comfortably for the rest of our lives. In my previous life, I secretly told Cruz the truth. After Cruz returned to her elite family, Mom and Dad favored her, and my brother ignored me. Heartbroken and enraged, she set me on fire and burned me to death. Amidst the flames, covered in burns, I cried and asked her why. Cruz’s face was twisted with resentment. “If you hadn’t told me the truth, I would still be Mom and Dad’s beloved daughter, the one they doted on. I wouldn’t have had to run so far and endure their torment!” I remember, the day Cruz left, Mom and Dad gave me the worst punishment of my life. They were furious I’d made them lose their precious daughter. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the moment Cruz asked me what secret our family was hiding. This time, I just shook my head and said nothing.

Every time I came home from school, Mom would always pull me aside privately. Today was no exception. But just as she started to lecture me, Cruz suddenly emerged from behind the door. Mom’s face instantly went pale, then she put on a fawning smile and hurried into the kitchen. “Cruz, you must be hungry. I’ll make dinner right away. Tonight, we’ll have your favorite.” It was always like this. When I was little, I couldn’t understand why Mom and Dad were so good to Cruz. Anything delicious, new clothes, or fun toys, it was all for Cruz. So, I always went against Cruz, never wanting her to get her way. Mom would punish me, she’d scold me, but the next time, I’d still find a way to mess with her. There was nothing else Mom could do, so she finally told me the truth. She said Cruz was supposed to have a glamorous life in an elite family. Our family was the one who swapped her with my biological sister, Bruna. Now, our entire family owed her. Wasn’t it only right to treat her well? Cruz grabbed my arm, her grip tightening and digging into my flesh. “Navas, what secret were Mom and you whispering about just now? Are you two hiding something from me?” “Don’t even think about lying to me. If you don’t tell me, I’ll tell Mom and Dad that you’ve been messing with me again. They’ll punish you until you wish you were never born!” At that moment, Cruz’s furious expression overlapped with the distorted face from my previous life. It was as if I was back in the flames. I felt the automatic pang of pain in my body, reminding myself again and again. This time, I wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes. Mom also saw Cruz questioning me. Afraid I’d spill the beans, she waved us over. “Cruz, come eat dinner.” At the dinner table, all the good food was placed to Cruz’s right. As I reached for something with my fork, Dad smacked my hand away, just like always. “Eat, eat, eat! All you know is eating! This is for Cruz to nourish her body. What if you finish it all?!” Mom saw this and picked the smallest piece from the platter. “Navas, you can have this.” Such scenes were my daily routine for over a decade. But ever since I told Cruz the truth in my previous life, I couldn’t even get a potato pie. Perhaps my talking was annoying Cruz. She frowned deeply and swept the plate next to her off the table without a second thought. The sharp clatter made Mom and Dad fall silent immediately. “All you do is chatter, chatter, chatter all day! It’s so annoying!” “I’m asking you, is our family hiding a secret from me?”

Cruz didn’t get an answer from me and finally couldn’t hold back, asking it directly. Mom and Dad’s faces went pale simultaneously. Dad, though, was calmer than Mom and quickly regained his composure. He smiled and said, “Silly girl, if our family had a secret, it’d be hidden from Navas, not from you.” Mom also caught on and quickly agreed. “Cruz, did someone upset you? Was it Navas, or do you not have enough money?” Seeing their concerned expressions, much of Cruz’s doubt subsided. She confirmed again, “You two really aren’t hiding anything from me?” Dad chuckled, “Cruz must be out of money. She’s just trying to butter us up for more allowance!” “Juliet, from today on, double Cruz’s monthly allowance!” I lowered my head, stuffing rice into my mouth to suppress the bitterness swelling in my heart. Cruz’s allowance was already double mine. But they never once asked if I had enough money. But it didn’t matter. This life, I would get into that top-tier university again. Without the truth coming from me, there would be no fire. In the future, I would work hard to earn my own money and never envy anyone again. Hearing Dad’s words, Cruz finally cheered up. She figured it out. These were the parents who had loved her most since childhood. How could they possibly hide anything from her? After Cruz went out to play with her friends, Dad’s smile instantly vanished, replaced by a dark, menacing frown. Mom, remembering Cruz lurking behind the door earlier, was afraid Dad would blame her. Now all the blame landed on me. “Navas, if you dare to tell her any nonsense again because you’re jealous of Cruz, we won’t let you get away with it!” The moment Dad raised his hand to strike, I dodged immediately. I clarified, “Mom, be fair.” “You’re the one who keeps repeating that secret to me every time Cruz and I come home for break.” “I told you several times that Cruz kept asking me. I told you to be more careful, but you wouldn’t listen.” This time, I wasn’t going to be a pushover. Mom stiffened, glared at by Dad. I ignored them, quickly grabbed some food from the table. I turned and went back to my room. No one else cared, so I had to care for myself. Studying required brainpower. I needed to eat well. Only by getting into my dream university could I truly escape them.

Cruz returned after dark. Just as I was about to wash up, I ran into Cruz right by the door. I instantly covered my eyes, not looking at her. “Don’t ask me. I don’t know anything. I can’t say anything.” “I really can’t say anything.” My ambiguous words made Cruz’s doubts, which she’d suppressed, resurface. She reached out and grabbed me. I recoiled as if she had the plague, practically fleeing, leaving her behind. At nine in the evening, the aroma wafted in from the kitchen window. I glanced beside me, and sure enough, Cruz wasn’t there. Mom and Dad must have been cooking a special meal just for her since she hadn’t eaten dinner. My parents were simple folks. The only truly devious thing they’d ever done was swap Bruna and Cruz. Their immense guilt and regret made them shower all their affection on Cruz. When I was little and didn’t understand, I thought, if we were both their daughters, why was Cruz the special one? So, in the years after I learned the truth, I did indeed have the idea of letting Cruz find her biological parents. On one hand, I wanted Cruz to return to the life she was supposed to have. On the other hand, I wondered, if Cruz left, would I then be Mom and Dad’s only beloved daughter? In my previous life, the day Cruz actually went to find her biological parents, the thick stick fell mercilessly on me. Only then did I realize how ridiculous that thought was. In a daze, my bedroom door was pushed open. A stronger aroma gradually approached, and before long, it reached my nose. “Navas, do you want some? It smells so good!” Any hesitation for even half a second would be disrespectful to the delicious aroma before me. Cruz watched me devour the food, a soft smile on her face. I knew her purpose. She couldn’t get any answers from Mom and Dad, so she had to find a way to get it from me. Actually, I didn’t plan to hide it from her. In this life, the burning pain still lingered. I hated Cruz. So, I still intended to send her to her biological parents to suffer their torment. But this time, the truth, buried for over a decade, wouldn’t come from my mouth.

Cruz was genuinely generous this time, leaving most of the good food for me. In the past, even the food she disliked wasn’t for me to smell. After I finished everything, Cruz gently wiped my mouth with a tissue, expecting praise. “Navas, I’m the one who’s good to you, right!” “You should know, those scraps you just ate? I promised them to Mary’s dog.” “If I hadn’t stopped them, Mom and Dad would’ve surely beaten you up.” I gasped. My status in this house was lower than the neighbor’s dog. No, I had to make something of myself, fast. But I still put on a wronged expression, my eyes tearing up. “Cruz, all these years, thank goodness you protected me.” Cruz’s smile deepened. She leaned in, whispering in my ear: “Navas, just tell me what secret our family is hiding, and I’ll protect you from now on.” I lowered my head, fiddling with my fingers, my face a mix of hesitation and fear. “No, I can’t. Mom and Dad will kill me.” I met Cruz’s gaze, very, very seriously saying, “It’s the kind you can’t protect me from.” Seeing the fear unconsciously showing in my eyes, Cruz’s interest grew even stronger. She patted my back, comforting me. “Don’t be afraid, Navas. You know how much Mom and Dad love me, right?” “With me here, how could I not protect you?” “Even if they blame someone, just put it on me. Say I forced you, that you had no choice but to listen.” Seeing me waver, Cruz upped the ante. She pulled several bills from her school uniform pocket and counted out two. Then, seeing me staring at them unblinkingly, she gritted her teeth. She crumpled them all up and shoved them into my hand. “This is all the allowance Mom and Dad just gave me. It’s all yours. Now, can you tell me?” I fumbled with the bills—there were ten of them. It was more than half a year of my allowance. They really had secretly doubled Cruz’s money. When I kept stammering, unwilling to talk, Cruz got angry. “If you still don’t tell me, I’ll tell Mom and Dad you stole my money.” “And if Mom and Dad get mad and decide to stop sending you to school, you’ll just have to get married!” I grabbed Cruz’s hand as she pulled away, looking anxious. “I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you, okay?”

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It was the fifth year after my parents’ divorce when I ran into my dad at school. He had just finished a parent-teacher conference for Ethan, my stepbrother, who was the top student in his grade, and he was beaming. The moment he saw me, his face fell. “Is this what you usually wear to school? Is this how your mom raises you?” He handed me a business card, his tone condescending. “Take this. Tell your mom that if she just apologizes and admits her mistakes, I’ll immediately enroll you in an advanced placement program. It’s better than rotting away in a regular class.” I didn’t take it, just stepped back. “No need, Mr. Maxwell.” His brow furrowed, his eyes filled with disgust. “Just like your mother, a lost cause. Don’t ever tell anyone you’re my daughter again.” I clutched the paper in my hand, watching him leave with a calm expression. He didn’t know, That wasn’t my report card. It was my withdrawal application, after Mom died and there was no one left to pay my tuition. I refolded the paper and went to the Registrar’s Office. Ms. Davies took it, first flipping to the report card tucked inside, pausing for two seconds. “Chloe, are you really sure about this?” “With your grades, dropping out now would be such a waste. You’ve always been in the top few in your regular class, and your last practice test scores were good enough to get you into a top university.” I gripped my backpack strap, simply shaking my head gently. Another teacher, who had just returned from outside, was in the office and casually mentioned, “Mr. Maxwell came for a parent-teacher conference today, and afterwards, he donated an additional scholarship fund to the school, specifically for the top ten students in each grade and those in academic competitions. The principal was just praising him.” Another teacher laughed and chimed in, “He’s truly dedicated to that boy. I heard he’s even planned out his future college abroad.” “And the kid is bright, consistently ranking first in his grade. Of course, the school welcomes parents like that.” I stood by the desk, silent. There were a few other students at the door, here to submit paperwork, and they couldn’t help but glance my way. Someone looked at the withdrawal application in my hand, then at my faded school uniform, and murmured softly, “They’re both kids, but their fates are truly different.” “Someone like Mr. Maxwell, with such a good reputation publicly, donating money to the school and even personally attending parent-teacher conferences, he surely wouldn’t neglect his own daughter privately, would he?” I looked up and met their gaze. “Whether he neglects me isn’t about what he says, but what he’s done these past five years.” That person froze. The office fell silent for a moment. Ms. Davies looked at me, as if wanting to ask something, but in the end, she didn’t. She just placed the withdrawal application beneath a corner of her desk. I turned and walked out. The school hallway was long. Light streamed in through the windows, making the floor tiles alternately bright and dark. I walked past the Wall of Fame and saw the photo in the very center. Richard Maxwell stood to one side, while Ethan stood in the middle, holding a trophy. Both of them were smiling. It was a perfect photo. Polished, shining, like a real father and son. Who would ever connect them to me? After school, I went to my part-time job at the convenience store as usual. After the evening rush, I stood behind the counter again, busy until almost ten at night. Mr. Henderson, the store manager, poured me a cup of hot water and placed it by my hand. “Is the school hassling you for tuition again?” I gave a quiet affirmative. Mr. Henderson sighed. “When your mom was still around, she was most afraid of your education being disrupted. Every time she got her paycheck, the first thing she’d ask wasn’t if she had enough for herself, but when your tuition bill was due. She always told me, ‘We can scrimp and save on other things, but your education can’t be cut short.’” The scanner in my hand paused. My gaze landed on the shelves, unmoving for a long time. After Mom left, the first thing that was cut off wasn’t my living expenses. It was that feeling of someone caring about my schooling. No matter how late I came home, she would always ask if my homework was done, how my exams went. When she was at her sickest, with needles in the back of her hand, she was still mumbling about my midterms and college applications. Now, no one asks. There’s no one even to remind me to bring my exam ID. After work, I went to the local florist and bought a small bouquet of white flowers. Then I bought a discounted cake from a bakery that was about to close, and took the last bus to the cemetery. The wind wasn’t strong tonight; the mountain road was quiet. I placed the flowers and cake before the grave, squatting down to look at Mom’s photo. “The school asked for tuition again today.” “I submitted the withdrawal application.” I paused, then recounted what had happened that afternoon. “I saw Richard Maxwell at school today.” “He had just finished Ethan’s parent-teacher conference, beaming.” “The first thing he said when he saw me was still asking if I usually dress like this for school. Then he handed me a business card, saying if you just apologized and admitted your mistakes, he’d immediately enroll me in an advanced placement program.” As I spoke, I couldn’t help but let out a soft laugh. The smile was so faint I could barely feel it myself. “He still doesn’t know you’re dead.” I unwrapped the cake, cut a small piece with a tiny fork, and placed it on the small plate beside the grave. “Mom, I originally wanted to hold on a bit longer.” “But I really can’t anymore.” “Please don’t blame me.” I stared at the gravestone, my throat tightening. “I know you were most afraid of me not going to school.” “But I’ve truly tried my best.” The wind swept down from the mountain, rustling the blades of grass before the grave with a faint, brittle sound. I sat by the grave for a long time, until my phone screen lit up. It was a message from Ms. Davies. 【Please come to school tomorrow to pack up your personal belongings.】

The moment I stepped through the school gate the next day, I sensed something was off. Some people saw me and immediately lowered their heads to whisper to those beside them. Others held up their phones, pointing them at me, and quickly lowered them when I looked up. As I walked toward my classroom, passing the staircase, two girls who had been talking suddenly lowered their voices when they saw me, their eyes still drifting to my face. I reached my seat, placed my backpack down, and then saw several lines written in chalk on my desk. Ungrateful wretch. Can’t stand to see others do well. Jealous of her stepbrother. Every word was written heavily, as if afraid someone might miss it. I stood there for a few seconds, then took out a tissue from my backpack, moistened it slightly, and slowly wiped the words away. My deskmate subtly shifted away, as if afraid of getting tangled in trouble. Just then, Ms. Davies stood at the doorway and called my name. “Chloe, to the office.” I zipped up my backpack and followed her out. When the office door opened, my gaze immediately fell on Richard Maxwell. He stood by the window, his face looking even worse than yesterday. Vivian sat in a chair, her eyes red-rimmed, clutching a tissue. Ethan stood beside her, head bowed, looking all hurt and innocent. Ms. Davies handed me her phone. “See for yourself.” Last night, an anonymous post had suddenly appeared on the school forum. The post’s title was direct, and its content even more so. It claimed that Ethan wasn’t Richard Maxwell’s biological son, yet he was using Richard’s money to pave his way, monopolizing all resources. It also hinted that Richard had abandoned his first wife and biological daughter, only to raise someone else’s kid. The post was quickly deleted, but screenshots had already spread everywhere. Richard stared at me, opening with a question: “Was it you who posted it?” I pushed the phone back. “No.” Vivian immediately wiped away a tear, her voice trembling. “Chloe, I know you’re upset. But Ethan hasn’t done anything wrong.” I stayed silent. There were two other teachers in the office, and hearing this, they couldn’t help but side with her. “Yes, if there’s an issue, handle it privately. Don’t air it out on the forum for the whole school to know.” Listening to these words, I found it utterly ridiculous. I hadn’t done anything, yet everyone already assumed I was the most suspicious one. Because in their eyes, Richard was rich and influential, while I was just a student in a regular class who was about to drop out. So, regardless of the truth, blaming me was always the safe bet. I looked up, addressing Richard directly. “What good would it do me to post that?” “I’m already here today to withdraw from school. Do you really think I have time to watch you three play happy family?” Everyone in the office froze for a moment. Ms. Davies frowned, “The withdrawal process isn’t finalized yet, is it?” I didn’t answer, just gripped my backpack straps tighter. Richard, however, seemed to grasp something significant, staring at me, his tone suddenly dropping. “So you did this on purpose?” “Intentionally staging this withdrawal to make me soft-hearted?” “Your mom used to love playing the victim card. Now you’ve learned it too.” I looked up at him sharply. That sentence was like a needle, stabbing directly into my heart. The emotions I’d suppressed for a day and a night completely broke at that moment. “If my mom was truly as good an actress as you claim, she wouldn’t have been so thoroughly deceived by you back then.” The office went silent. Ms. Davies’s face changed, and she opened her mouth to intervene, but Richard cut her off with a raised hand. His face slowly darkened, his gaze fixed intently on mine. He turned to the teachers in the office and said, “Could you please step out for a moment? This is a family matter.” Ms. Davies hesitated for a moment, then led the others out. The moment the door closed, only the four of us remained in the room. No, Ethan was there too. He stood beside Vivian, his head bowed even lower, his hands clenched tightly. Richard took a step closer to me, his voice heavily suppressed. “Chloe, how much longer are you going to keep this up?” I scoffed. “What am I ‘keeping up’? Did I post it, or did I beg you to acknowledge me yesterday?” “I came quietly today to withdraw from school. You’re the ones who cornered me in this office first thing in the morning, determined to pin this on me.” Richard frowned, “If you weren’t instigating things behind the scenes, Ethan wouldn’t have suddenly found out about all that.” I looked up at him, questioning him word by word. “So in your eyes, the truth itself isn’t important? What matters is who said it?” Richard paused. Seeing the situation was turning bad, Vivian immediately stood up, her eyes red as she looked at me. “Chloe, I never intended to steal anyone’s place, nor did I want you to drop out. If you’re really short on money, I can privately help you out financially. But I beg you, please stop targeting Ethan. He knows nothing and has never hurt anyone.” I stared at her. Her ‘my child is innocent’ act was exactly the same as five years ago. Back then, she was just like this, standing behind the crowd, clutching her stomach, claiming she couldn’t handle the stress. Richard immediately turned to comfort her, not even sparing a glance for my mom and me. I forced a smile. “You’re best at using ‘the child is innocent’ as a shield, aren’t you?” “It was true five years ago, and it’s true now.”

What Richard hated most was anyone bringing up five years ago. I looked at him and suddenly remembered the many years ago when I used to watch from the window, waiting for him to come home. I was little then, and Mom always defended him. She said Dad’s company was going through a tough time, and things would get better after this rough patch. Then one day, Richard came home, looking terrible. He sat at the dining table in silence for a long time before telling Mom that the company’s finances had collapsed, he was in debt, and he was afraid of dragging us down, so he wanted a divorce first. Mom’s face turned pale that day. But she didn’t blame him. She only asked one question: “Is it really that hard?” Richard nodded. After that, Mom took out all the money she’d saved during their marriage—bank cards, savings passbooks—she gave him everything, keeping nothing for herself. She also took on many odd jobs, sewing clothes for others during the day and helping out in the kitchen of a small restaurant at night, wanting to help him get through that difficult period together. Back then, what I looked forward to most every day was coming home from school and waiting by the window. Waiting for him to open the door, waiting for him to pick us up. Mom always said, “Just wait a little longer, Dad will come when he’s not so busy.” I believed it for a long time. Until later, Richard came again and said that the house also had to be collateral for his debts, and we needed to move out. Mom still believed him. She took me to live in the cheapest rental apartment in the run-down part of town, continued to work desperately, and continued to wait for him. But it wasn’t long before news of Richard’s remarriage was everywhere—on TV, phones, and big screens in shopping malls. The wedding venue was grand, the lights were bright, and there were many people. Vivian stood beside him in a wedding dress, and Ethan stood between them, like a child recognized by everyone. The host said it was the picture of a perfect family of three. Mom held her phone, her hand trembling. She watched for a long time before finally coming to her senses. She took me in a taxi to the wedding venue. But we couldn’t even get inside. Security guards blocked us, and everyone around was staring. Mom explained repeatedly that she just wanted to see Richard and get some answers. But no one would let us through. Later, Richard saw us across the crowd. I thought he would come over. But the next second, Vivian clutched her stomach and leaned into his arms, claiming she couldn’t handle the stress. Richard immediately told the security guards to drag us out. “Don’t let them cause a scene here.” Those were the last words he said. When Mom and I were pushed out of the hotel entrance, it was raining outside. Mom was drenched but refused to leave, staring at the lights inside. Later, I chased after Richard, refusing to let go, grabbing his jacket corner and asking him why. He got annoyed and just shook me off. I tumbled down the steps, my ear hitting the railing. The pain was so intense I couldn’t hear anything. Mom held me and rushed to several hospitals. The doctors made it clear: if treated early, there was still hope. But we didn’t have the luxury of “early.” Thinking of this, I looked up at Richard. “Aren’t you supposed to be the best at protecting her and her son? Now you can’t even stand to hear the truth?” Richard’s face was terrible, and a flicker of unease finally crossed his eyes. But when he spoke, he still chose to blame Mom. “What happened back then, your mom just couldn’t let go. She refused to accept reality and insisted on blowing things up. If she hadn’t kept pestering us, we all could have lived in peace.” I stared at him, feeling a surge of anger flare in my chest. “Live in peace?” “Do you know why my ear was damaged?” Richard froze. This was the second time today he truly noticed the hearing aid behind my ear. Yesterday, when we met, he was too busy complaining about my shabby clothes to even notice anything new on my ear. I raised my hand and tucked my hair behind my ear, letting him see more clearly. “The day you had us thrown out, I fell down the steps, and that’s how my ear was damaged.” “Of course, you don’t remember. That day, you were busy getting married, busy comforting Vivian. You didn’t have time to care if I’d fallen and gotten hurt.” Richard’s lips moved, as if he wanted to argue. I didn’t give him a chance, continuing. “All these years, my mom and I did try to find you. We called, we messaged, we begged, and we waited. But every time, the call was hung up, or Vivian would pick up and tell us you were busy, to be ‘sensible’ about it.” “Later, my mom’s health worsened, and she was diagnosed with a condition requiring long-term treatment.” “You didn’t even bother to properly look at her medical records, assuming it was just another one of my mom’s acts.” “Finally, you threw a bank card at me, saying there was money in it, and told me to disappear.” As I spoke, my hand was numb from clenching. That day, I really believed it. I thought, no matter how cruel a person was, they wouldn’t joke about a human life. I ran back to the hospital with that card, not even noticing one of my shoes had fallen off, my mind filled with the thought that Mom was saved. But at the billing office, the staff swiped the card three times, then looked up at me. “There’s no money in it.” At that moment, standing in the hospital lobby, my whole body went numb. I didn’t know whom to blame. The bank, myself, or the father who never once looked back? I looked at Richard, my voice growing colder. “You call that ‘living in peace’?” “Was there ever a single moment when you genuinely wanted my mom and me to survive?” The room was eerily silent. Richard looked at me, the expression on his face finally changing. But after a long silence, his first words were still, “I would never give you an empty card.” I almost laughed. Even now, his first instinct was to defend himself. “So you think my mom and I conspired to deceive you?” “There must be another reason for this,” he said. “Yes, another reason,” I stared at him. “But whatever that reason is, the only one who died was my mom.” Richard’s face changed instantly. “What did you say?” I looked at him and said, “My mom died.”

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The first year after I died, my daughter, Lily, was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Director Davis from the orphanage called Nicholas, telling him they needed half a million dollars for her treatment. He was holding Barbara, his childhood friend, absently toying with her hair. His face was cold as ice. “No treatment. If she dies, she dies. She can just go keep her short-lived mom company.” In the end, Lily died at the orphanage because there was no money for her medical care. Director Davis called Nicholas again. He sounded annoyed. “Oh? Is she really dead this time?” It was a full day after Lily died before Nicholas finally showed up at the orphanage, sauntering in without a care. He looked even colder than when I’d last seen him a year ago. In his hands were bags full of baby supplies. My heart twisted. No wonder he was so late. It was because his current wife was already pregnant with his child. He saw Director Davis and snapped, “Where’s Lily’s body? Weren’t you calling me non-stop to come and deal with it?” The director, who had been wiping away tears, froze. She led him to the room where Lily’s body lay. Nicholas walked over, pulled back the white sheet, glanced at it, and then chuckled. “Not bad. This prop looks pretty real. Chloe must have paid you a lot to put on this act with the orphanage, right?” The director’s anger flared. “Mr. Nicholas, Lily is truly gone. If I didn’t need a relative’s signature for the cremation, I wouldn’t have bothered you.” Nicholas ignored her and spoke directly to Lily, who was still covered by the sheet. “Looks like you weren’t that important to your mom either! You’re dead, and she still won’t show up.” My nose stung. Nicholas, it’s not that I don’t want to show up. It’s because I’m already dead. I died a year ago. But for some reason, my soul stayed by Lily’s side after death. Countless nights, I watched Lily convulse in pain, kneeling on the ground and calling my name. Yet, I was powerless. And her biological father? He was busy creating a new life with his childhood friend. Lily didn’t seem like his flesh and blood; she was more like trash he’d tried every possible way to discard. “Since she’s dead, I can take her body, right?” Nicholas’s words pulled me back from my thoughts. He walked out the front door, answered a phone call, and then tossed Lily’s body into a garbage can. He even remembered to tell his bodyguards to buy some hungry dogs from a pet store. I was stunned. After I registered what was happening, I immediately flew into the garbage can, frantically trying to pull Lily’s body out. He wanted Lily to be torn to pieces! But no matter how hard I tried, I could only watch helplessly as drooling, vicious dogs slowly closed in on Lily’s body. Nicholas’s lips curled into a cold smile. He murmured, “Trash belongs in the trash can.” “Chloe, why would I want your discards?” I screamed in despair, “Nicholas, this is our Lily!” The stray dogs pounced on Lily, tearing at her relentlessly. When cold blood splattered onto the ground, a flicker of confusion crossed Nicholas’s eyes, but it vanished instantly. “The props are quite convincing, but even if this little brat was truly dead, I wouldn’t feel a thing.” “Just like your dead mother, you should have been out of my life long ago.” Nicholas only looked away, satisfied, when the hungry dogs had devoured Lily’s remains, leaving nothing intact. Just then, Director Davis rushed out of the orphanage. She was speechless at the sight. She pointed a trembling finger at Nicholas. “You… you…” Nicholas looked at the director with icy eyes, a confident smirk on his face. “Tell Chloe that if she wants custody, she shouldn’t hide. This trick of using the little brat to fake her death won’t fool me.” “My mother’s anniversary is coming up. If she doesn’t show, I don’t mind making sure this little brat is truly dead.” He emphasized “truly dead” with chilling intensity. Others might think he was joking. What father could be so cruel to his own daughter? But I knew. He meant every word. I suddenly felt a strange relief, a twisted gratitude that Lily was truly dead. Before Director Davis could speak, Nicholas left, surrounded by his bodyguards. My soul followed him. The bodyguard drove to a villa. As soon as they reached the entrance, a woman with a visibly pregnant belly ran out to meet him. Her figure felt incredibly familiar. It wasn’t until she walked up and embraced Nicholas that I remembered who she was.

Barbara. Nicholas’s childhood friend. During the years Nicholas and I were together, she had humiliated me countless times. She’d told me to stay away from Nicholas, even calling me a low-class nobody to my face, saying my meager salary wasn’t even enough for one of Nicholas’s meals. I ignored her, but she kept showing up at the hospital every few days, making appointments at my clinic. She spread rumors, accusing me of being an incompetent doctor, and even arranged for someone to try and cripple my surgeon’s hands. When Nicholas found out, he immediately had his company heavily suppress Barbara’s family business, vowing that if she ever bothered me again, he wouldn’t hesitate to bankrupt her family. Barbara’s father had no choice but to keep her locked up. And now, Barbara first asked about Nicholas’s whereabouts that day with concern. When Lily was mentioned, Nicholas’s striking eyes turned cold. “My bodyguard already told me Lily is perfectly healthy. This is all just a trick Chloe pulled, in league with the orphanage, to deceive me.” Barbara’s face showed a hint of guilt. She tentatively asked, “What if she really died?” My heart felt clutched by a giant hand as I also stared at Nicholas. The old Nicholas, the one I knew, would lose sleep over Lily even just sneezing. He used to say that Lily and I were the most important people in his life. But now, Nicholas’s face was cold, and his tone was impatient. “Then I’ll hire a band and celebrate for three days and three nights.” The next morning, Barbara suddenly had stomach pains, and Nicholas rushed her to the hospital. At the hospital, Barbara was wheeled into the delivery room. After several hours, she gave birth to a girl who was the spitting image of Nicholas. Nicholas’s gaze softened as he held the baby in his arms, refusing to let go for a moment. He looked exactly like he did when I first gave birth to Lily. But now, he had given his fatherly love to another child. His phone rang on the bedside table. As soon as Nicholas answered, his secretary’s hurried voice came through the line. “Mr. Nicholas, I apologize, but there’s an urgent company matter that requires your attention.” After talking for a while, Nicholas placed the baby next to Barbara, his voice gentle. “Be a good girl, or Daddy won’t spare you just because you’re small.” These words struck me like a lightning bolt, making my ethereal form tremble slightly. Barbara’s child was Nicholas’s? How could this be? Why Barbara? She was the one who caused your mother’s death! “Nicholas!” I screamed, rushing to his ear. But how could he hear a dead person’s voice? I gradually calmed down. As Nicholas was about to leave, a doctor walked in, holding a stack of files, a worried frown on his face. “Mr. Nicholas, our examination shows that the baby has a heart condition.” “If she doesn’t get a heart transplant before she’s three, she likely won’t survive to adulthood.” “But finding a suitable heart is extremely difficult, and it needs to be from a child under ten, otherwise there’s a high risk of rejection.” The doctor’s words cast a dark cloud over everyone in the room. Nicholas’s face first showed shock at the news of his child’s illness, then it relaxed. “Leave this to me. I have a way.” After the doctor left, he gestured for a bodyguard to come in. “Bring Lily here.” I instantly understood his plan. He wanted to use Lily’s heart for this new child. The bodyguard received the order and immediately left. Nicholas looked out the window, his eyes fierce. He muttered to himself, “Chloe, you and your daughter owe me this. A life for a life. Fair enough, isn’t it?” I gave a bitter laugh. I couldn’t even explain when I was alive that I wasn’t responsible for his mother’s death. How could I expect him to believe me now that I was dead? After all, all the evidence surrounding his mother’s death had pointed to me. Nicholas had believed it. On the day of his mother’s funeral, Nicholas had pinned me in front of her urn, forcing my head down, hitting the ground again and again. That day, he held his mother’s urn in his arms, his eyes bloodshot, staring at me with pure hatred. “Chloe, we’re enemies to the death.”

From that day on, I transformed from Nicholas’s most beloved person to his most hated. He tormented me endlessly, and he tormented Lily, who resembled me so much. Lily was only a few years old, yet she was forced to do housework and hard labor. If anything displeased him, she would be severely disciplined with a ruler. I had considered divorcing him and taking Lily, but he refused. He even threatened that if I dared to mention divorce again, he would break Lily’s legs. When he saw the despair in my eyes, he would chuckle, pinch my chin, and sneer, “Chloe, feeling hopeless? You deserve every bit of it.” But I truly wasn’t responsible for his mother’s death, even though his mother had never liked me, believing I wasn’t good enough for Nicholas. Even though she humiliated me in every setting, calling me a worthless tramp, a shameless whore. Even when she slapped me in front of the media. I never resented his mother, because I always remembered that Nicholas, to marry me, had not hesitated to break ties with his mother, on whom he depended so much. But his mother died at the hands of someone he loved. How could he not break down? In the evening, the bodyguard returned. When Nicholas heard that Lily hadn’t been found, he immediately swept the fruit from the coffee table onto the floor. “What?” “Lily has already been taken by Chloe.” My skeptical gaze fell on the bodyguard. If I hadn’t been right in front of him, I never would have imagined how much blame was being heaped on me. During Barbara’s postpartum recovery, Nicholas directly hired a private investigator to find my whereabouts. Upon receiving the information, he immediately rushed to that location. He had his men kick the door in, then walked in unhurriedly. “Chloe, hand over Lily, now.” Seeing no response, he sat on the sofa, waved his hand, and sent the bodyguards to look for me. By the time the bodyguards reported they hadn’t found me, his face had turned dark. He called the private investigator directly. Upon learning that this was the last place I had been seen, he gritted his teeth and said, “Chloe, I dare you to hide like a rat in a sewer forever.” Nicholas, I’m not hiding! I don’t need to hide! I’m standing right in front of you, but you can’t see me! The sky slowly darkened. Nicholas’s face was grim, his eyes fixed on the doorway. Finally, a sound came from the entrance, and soon, Gregg’s figure appeared. When he saw Nicholas through the bodyguards outside the door, a flicker of hatred crossed his eyes. “What are you doing at my house?” Nicholas sneered, “What am I doing? Of course, I’m looking for Chloe and Lily.” Gregg saw something and chuckled. “You’ve probably come to the wrong place, haven’t you?” “They’re both dead. You haven’t forgotten, have you?” “You think a fake dummy can fool me? I’m not an idiot. Hand them over right now.” A trace of pain flashed across Gregg’s face, his eyes, like stagnant water, coldly fixed on Nicholas. “I told you, Chloe and Lily are both dead. You even went to retrieve Lily’s body yourself.” Nicholas grabbed Gregg by the collar, staring intently at him. “Are you taking me for a fool?” “Lily cherished her life so much, how could she die?” “I’m warning you, make her come out and see me immediately. Her worthless life was always meant to repay me!” Just then, his phone rang. Nicholas saw the incoming call, put it on speaker, and scoffed, “Chloe, what? Finally willing to show yourself?” But it was the private investigator’s voice on the other end. “Mr. Nicholas, I learned through an informant that Ms. Chloe died a year ago.”

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Mrs. Gable, a legendary retired educator, was a guest on a high-profile talk show. She had spent forty years molding the minds of the elite; her former students were now CEOs, tech moguls, and Nobel-nominated scientists. When the host asked which student left the deepest mark on her soul, Mrs. Gable’s composure faltered. She pressed her lips together, a bitter, haunting smile playing on her face. “The one who failed the most,” she whispered. “She was the valedictorian, a brilliant girl with the world at her feet. But she fell for the class burnout—a boy with bleached hair and a record. To save her future, I intercepted their love letters and read them aloud at a PTA meeting, framing them as a cry for help against his ‘harassment.’ I tore them apart to save her.” Mrs. Gable looked into the camera, her eyes glassy. “I thought I was playing God. But she ended up failing her finals, while the boy she loved—the one I tried to ‘protect’ her from—went on to an Ivy League, became a titan of Wall Street, and changed the world. Life has a cruel sense of irony.” The host sighed, moved by the weight of the confession. “If she’s watching now, what would you say to her?” Mrs. Gable let out a ragged breath, a single tear escaping. “She can’t hear me. She developed leukemia and couldn’t afford the treatment. She died three years ago, alone and penniless.” The clip went viral instantly, a lightning strike across social media. But Rowan, the man at the center of the story, knew nothing of the storm. He had just stepped out of an international summit, his mind focused on a single task: buying a rare pink diamond necklace for his fiancée, Felicity. … Felicity’s radiant face filled his phone screen. “Don’t be late to the auction, Rowan. If you lose that necklace to some hedge fund brat, I’ll never forgive you,” she teased. Rowan felt the weight of his exhaustion lift. He looked at her with a soft, indulgent gaze. “Mission accepted. I’ll bring it home. I had the housekeeper pick up those potato wedges you like from the place downtown. You’ve been skipping meals lately; you need to eat.” Felicity laughed, holding up a takeout container. “I’m eating, I’m eating! Honestly, I should thank your ex-girlfriend. Whoever she was, she trained you so well. I’m just reaping the benefits of her hard work.” Rowan’s face went rigid. He blinked, his voice turning cold and flat. “How many times do I have to tell you? There was no one before you. You’re the only one.” I was drifting silently in the air above him, watching the micro-expressions he thought he was hiding. I didn’t miss the flicker in his eyes. At the mention of an ‘ex,’ his gaze didn’t soften with nostalgia; it sharpened with a vivid, crystalline hatred. Rowan hated me. He hated me with a fervor that had fueled his ascent to the top. My ‘confession’ letter hadn’t just stripped him of his dignity; it had triggered his father’s massive heart attack. His father was still in a vegetative state, a ghost kept alive by machines. Rowan had ridden that rage all the way to a scholarship, a billion-dollar exit, and an engagement to a girl like Felicity—the kind of girl who was born into the world he had to conquer. I understood why he denied me. When life is perfect, you don’t acknowledge the monster who broke your world. His assistant checked the tablet and cleared his throat. “Sir, we’re passing the television studios. Your old high school teacher, Mrs. Gable, is finishing an interview. Would you like to stop and send flowers? She’s a major figure in education now; a photo op would be great for the firm’s ESG branding.” The company was in the middle of a massive expansion. They needed the good press. Rowan nodded. In his mind, he owed Mrs. Gable a debt. If she hadn’t exposed my ‘true’ feelings, he would have stayed a fool, shackled to a girl who looked down on him. Mrs. Gable appeared under the flashing lights of the studio exit. She looked older, but she carried herself with a sharp, vibrant energy. As the crowd parted, she recognized Rowan instantly. “Rowan… I didn’t expect to see you,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. Rowan gave her a dutiful, polished smile. He handed the bouquet over with the practiced grace of a man used to public appearances. “It’s been a busy few years, Mrs. Gable. I’ve been meaning to reach out. I’d love to take you to dinner to catch up properly.” She looked at him with a strange, pitying kindness. “Tonight, then. Your old class is having a small reunion at the Tavern. You should come.” Rowan hesitated. The silence stretched. Mrs. Gable leaned in, her voice low. “Don’t worry. She won’t be there.” It was a tactful, adult way of acknowledging a wound that had never closed. The reunion was loud, fueled by expensive bourbon and the desperate need to prove how much everyone had changed. One former classmate, several drinks deep, raised a glass with a flushed face. “Remember the last time we were all together like this? Right before the scandal broke with Rowan and Willa? God, seven years flies by.” The room went tomb-quiet. Everyone stole glances at Rowan, waiting for the explosion. Rowan just took a slow sip of his scotch and smiled. “Willa? Which one was she again?” The tension broke into a wave of awkward, forced laughter. “Exactly! Too busy making billions to remember some high school drama. Not important.” Our three years of fire and wreckage were dismissed as a footnote. As the night ended, Rowan walked Mrs. Gable to her car. The alcohol had loosened her composure. She looked at him, her eyes heavy with a complicated grief. “Rowan,” she said, her voice cracking. “Don’t hold it against her anymore. She didn’t have it as good as you. When she passed… she didn’t even have anyone to claim her. She was so alone at the end.” “You’re successful now. You’re getting married. It’s time to let it go.” Rowan claimed he didn’t remember me, but his body betrayed him. His knuckles were bone-white against the car door. He had spent the whole dinner glancing at the entrance, a reflex he couldn’t kill. Mrs. Gable saw his agitation. She felt the guilt gnawing at her. She had truly believed she was doing the right thing, never imagining she would dismantle two lives so completely. She had tried to make amends to me in the end; she was the one who sat by my bed through the worst of the chemo. Rowan paused as he closed her door. He let out a sharp, cynical laugh. “Willa always was a great actress,” he said. “She probably convinced you to play along with this little ‘death’ stunt. People like her don’t just die. They’re like cockroaches.” “I won’t seek revenge, as long as she stays gone. Tell her if she shows her face like she did three years ago, I won’t be so generous.” Three years ago, when the diagnosis came, I was utterly alone. I went back to my childhood home, only to find my mother had moved and changed her number months ago. A young couple lived there now, their toddler’s laughter ringing through the hallway where I used to hide from my mother’s moods. I stood on the sidewalk that day, crying until the rain soaked through my skin. That was the day I broke a four-year silence and called Rowan. I asked for money. A million dollars. “Consider it back pay for all the tutoring I gave you in high school,” I told him, my voice shaking. Rowan’s laugh on the other end was jagged. “My father’s ICU bill is ten thousand a day, Willa. If you were the one lying in that bed, I’d pay it gladly just to watch the monitor flatline.” I was silent for a long time. “Rowan, I’m dying.” The line went dead. He hadn’t even waited for the end of the sentence. The universe has a sick sense of humor, because the very next day, I fainted while handing out flyers in the heat and collapsed right into his arms outside his office building. At first, he was the Good Samaritan. He told his assistant to call 911, offered to cover the initial ER bill. But when he pulled my hair back and saw my face, he recoiled as if he’d touched a corpse. I hit the pavement hard. The sun-baked asphalt scorched my arms. As I slipped into unconsciousness, I felt something fluttering down onto me. Rowan was throwing cash—hundreds of dollars—onto my limp body like I was a cheap performer. “You must have worked hard to track me down,” he sneered, his voice echoing in the darkness of my fading mind. “Since you’re so committed to the ‘dying’ act, take this. It should be enough for a decent casket.” The rest of the story followed a predictable, dreary script. I didn’t want to die, so I scraped together every cent for chemo. I actually used that money he threw at me to prepay for my cremation. The remaining seven thousand dollars? I left it with Mrs. Gable to give back to him. Mrs. Gable stood by my grave now, her lips trembling. “I’ll wire the money to your account, Rowan. Willa wanted things settled between you.” “Tomorrow is the anniversary of her passing. Whether you believe it or not… I hope you’ll come say goodbye.” Rowan stood by his floor-to-ceiling windows that night, staring out at the city. I remembered the first time I saw him look like that. I had gone to find him, intending to pick a fight, only to find him huddled in an alley, bleeding from a fight with his dad. It was pouring rain. He had handed me his jacket to keep me dry, even as he shivered in the cold. He had been my hero once. He used to leave warm breakfast in my desk. He’d wait two hours in line just to get me a seat in the quiet section of the library. When my mother had her first psychotic break, he stood between us and took the blows she meant for me. “Don’t cry,” he’d said, wiping my tears with a bruised hand. “I’ve got you. Always.” By senior year, that protection had turned into something deeper. He had walked ninety-nine steps toward me, and I wanted to take that final one. I wrote so many drafts of that letter—bright, colorful stationery scattered across my floor. I never imagined Mrs. Gable would go through our bags during the PTA meeting. In her version of the letter, I called Rowan the ‘son of a mistress,’ a ‘piece of trash with bad genes’ who I was only using to feel better about myself. Rowan’s father heard it all. He collapsed that night. The doctors issued three critical notices before his heart finally gave out, leaving him a shell on a ventilator. My mother locked me in my room, screaming that I was a disgrace. I climbed out the window to find Rowan, to tell him it was all a lie. But his eyes were like shards of ice. “Loving you was the biggest mistake of my life. My mother ruined yours, and now you’ve killed my father. We’re even.” He threw a bouquet of lilies at my feet. The graduation card was trampled into the mud. I knelt at his door, begging for an hour, but he never came out. On the walk back, I was dragged into a dark alleyway. A group of men, smelling of stale beer and malice, tore at my clothes. In the struggle, I managed to hit redial on my phone. It was Rowan. “Rowan… please… help me… I’m at the park… please…” Rowan’s voice was clear, sharp, and utterly devoid of mercy. “Congratulations,” he said. “You always hated women like my mother. Now you can finally understand what it’s like to be one.” The line clicked. He blocked me. My plea for help vanished into the ether. All I remember from that night was the sound of the dial tone and the cloying scent of lilies. When they found me, my right arm was shattered, and I was covered in bruises that would never really fade. My mother’s condition worsened. Only Rowan and I had no parents at graduation. That was the last time I saw him. Later, I heard he got into Harvard. I bombed my SATs and barely made it into a local community college. I didn’t go. I needed money for my mother’s care. In my third year working at a textile factory, my health broke. That was when Mrs. Gable found me. She told me what she’d done and offered to pay for my school. I just shook my head. “I’m sick. I just want to live. That’s all I want.” But after the second round of chemo, the will to live started to fray. I lay in that hospital bed, too weak to even cry, watching Rowan on the news talking about his latest acquisition. He flashed a wedding ring at the camera. I told Mrs. Gable I wanted to stop. Everyone had let me go, so I was letting myself go, too. In my final days, I prayed for one last glimpse of him. Not for revenge, but because I didn’t want to leave with a heart full of misunderstandings. God listened, in a way. Rowan came to the hospital for a charity gala. He was only a curtain away from me. I tried to call his name, but blood surged up my throat, choking the words. Nurses rushed in, and as the world turned gray, I felt my soul lift. Rowan seemed to hear something. He turned, looking toward my bed, but the doctors were already pulling the white sheet over my face. We passed each other in the hallway—the living and the dead—separated by nothing but a thin shroud. The sound of glass shattering snapped me back to the present. Rowan was in his office, bleeding from a cut on his hand. He didn’t seem to notice. “Cancel my meetings,” he told his assistant. “We’re going to the cemetery tomorrow morning. I want to see how far Willa is willing to take this performance.” My plot was in the cheap, overgrown section of the cemetery. It was covered in dead leaves and silt. Mrs. Gable was there, huddling under an umbrella, trying to clean the headstone. “I never liked you two together,” she whispered to the wind. “His mother destroyed your family. I thought I was putting things back on track. I didn’t realize you were serious about him. I didn’t realize I was killing you.” I watched her. Her hair was entirely white now. She was sobbing harder than I ever had. In the end, she had used her entire pension to pay for my comfort. A pair of polished leather shoes appeared. Rowan looked horribly out of place in the gray, muddy yard. He tossed a bunch of lilies—the same flowers from graduation—onto the dirt. I flinched. Even without a body, the memory of that scent made me recoil. Willa Dwight. Passed January 1st, 2022. Free at last. My entire life, summarized in three lines. “Not bad,” Rowan sneered. “She even got the props right. She must have spent years planning this exit strategy.” “She called me a mistake once. Now she’s probably waiting in some hotel for me to call her, begging for a payout. Well, she can rot here. I will never forgive her.” Mrs. Gable stood up slowly. She looked at him with a hollow expression. “She knelt at your door and you didn’t open it,” she said. “She called you for help and you laughed. She owes you nothing, Rowan. You were the one who destroyed her.” She pulled a piece of crumpled, pink paper from her pocket and handed it to him. The letter. Seven years late. I felt a phantom surge of anxiety. I watched his face, waiting. Rowan frowned. The paper slipped from his fingers and landed in a puddle of muddy water. He wiped his hand on his trousers, disgusted. “I don’t need to read her trash.” My heart—or where it used to be—ached. Mrs. Gable couldn’t take it anymore. She slapped a bank card against his chest. Her voice was a ragged scream. “She bought her own coffin with your twenty thousand dollars! This is what’s left!” “She only had one wish: for you to know the truth. She didn’t want to leave this world with you hating a lie.” She closed her eyes, gasping for air. “I changed the letter, Rowan! She was going to tell you she loved you! I was the one who wrote those things about your mother! I wanted to break you up… I never knew your father would die… I never knew what would happen to her that night in the park…” Rowan froze. His pinky finger twitched—a nervous habit from high school. After a long silence, he let out a dry, hollow chuckle. “You’d say anything to protect her. Even lie about your own career. Even if she is dead, she’s still a murderer in my eyes.” Mrs. Gable reached into her bag one last time. “If you don’t believe me… look at this.”

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My husband took our daughter for a routine check-up, and she never came home. He returned to the house alone, placing a single glittery hair tie on the coffee table as if it were a peace offering. “Donna is staying at Clara’s place for a while to recover,” he said, his voice flat, refusing to meet my eyes. “She’ll be back in a few weeks.” Three days later, I found her. Not at Clara’s, but in a stainless-steel drawer in the basement of the county morgue. When I pulled back the sheet, I saw the thick, jagged black sutures running down her small chest. Inside, she was hollow. I brought her ashes home and placed them in the sunroom, surrounded by the scent of the jasmine she loved. Three days after that, the car pulled into the driveway. My husband, Marcus, stepped out of the SUV. Clara followed close behind him, cradling a rosy-cheeked little girl in her arms. Clara walked right up to me, her chin tilted up in that practiced way of hers—half-pitying, half-superior. “Elaine,” she said, her voice like honey poured over glass. “My daughter’s recovery isn’t going as well as we hoped. She needs regular transfusions from Donna to help with the rejection. Tell her to come out; we need to leave now.” I looked at her, then pointed toward the small, blush-pink urn sitting among the flowers. I actually felt a smile touch my lips—a cold, jagged thing. “You want her blood?” I whispered. “Then you’d better go over there and get on your knees first.” 1 I was in the sunroom, my hands deep in the damp earth as I repotted the succulents Donna used to help me water. The sound of tires on gravel announced their arrival. Then came the laughter—a bright, silver-bell chime that set my teeth on edge. I knew that sound. It was Zoe, Clara’s daughter. And then I heard Clara’s voice, that breathless, performative trill she used whenever Marcus was within earshot. “Marcus, honey, Donna went missing from the room last night, but Zoe started having complications and I just couldn’t leave her side… a child that small, she wouldn’t have anywhere else to go but home.” Marcus’s voice was a low murmur of comfort. “Donna’s always been difficult. I’m sorry you had to deal with her for those few days.” Clara gave a soft, saintly laugh. “You don’t have to thank me. Not after everything we’ve been through.” Marcus pushed open the glass door of the sunroom, the child in his arms. I didn’t look up. I kept my focus on the dirt under my fingernails. “Where is she?” His tone was exactly what it always was—the impatient command of a man who expected the world to rearrange itself for his convenience. I didn’t blink. I didn’t stop my work. “What do you want?” I asked. When I didn’t jump to my feet to greet him, his jaw tightened. He started to snap at me, but Clara reached out and touched his arm, a gentle, restraining gesture that felt like a claim of ownership. Clara stepped forward, looking down at me with a faint expression of disgust. “Elaine, listen. Zoe’s post-op isn’t going well. The doctors say she needs three days of transfusions from a direct match to stabilize the rejection. Let Donna come out and help her, okay? For the sake of the family.” The words were kind, but her eyes were hard as marbles. Marcus couldn’t see it. He only saw the version of Clara he’d been obsessed with since high school—the “one who got away,” the soft, selfless woman he’d traded his soul to protect. I glanced at the pink urn on the windowsill. I said nothing. Marcus’s patience snapped. He set Zoe down on the floor with a tenderness he had never shown his own daughter. My Donna had spent years begging for that look, and she’d never received it. Even though she was his flesh and blood, she could never compete with the ghost of his first love’s child. He turned to me and kicked the tray of seedlings at my feet, sending soil and plastic pots flying. “Stop acting like a martyr and go get Donna. Now!” I stood up slowly, brushing the dirt from my palms. I pointed to the pink urn by the window. “Donna is right there.” Marcus let out a sharp, mocking bark of a laugh. “I don’t have time for your games, Elaine. Zoe is in pain.” “I’m not playing,” I interrupted him. “Donna is dead. That’s her, in the jar.” The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the wind whistling through the screen door. Marcus frowned at me as if I were a stranger speaking a foreign language. “Are you insane? What kind of mother wishes death on her own child just for attention?” I didn’t flinch. “Donna is dead.” He sneered, tossing his car keys onto the wicker coffee table and slouching onto the sofa. “Enough with the drama.” He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, his movements arrogant and heavy. “She’s throwing a tantrum, isn’t she? Just like last time.” “She’s just being a brat,” he continued, blowing a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. “Remember when I wouldn’t let her have that candy? She gave me the silent treatment for two days. Refused to take my calls.” The “candy” he was talking about was a souvenir he’d promised to bring her from a business trip. But the moment Zoe saw it, she’d wanted it. Marcus had snatched it out of Donna’s hands without a second thought, then yelled at her for being selfish and not “looking out for her sister.” He looked at me with profound boredom. “You and your daughter are exactly the same. Drama queens. Donna can act out all she wants, but you’re an adult. Stop being ridiculous.” Clara stepped out from behind him, holding Zoe, a sympathetic smile plastered on her face. It was nauseating. “Elaine, don’t be mad at Marcus. He’s just stressed,” she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “I know you’re worried about Donna, but Zoe really can’t wait. Just let her come out. I promise I’ll bring her right back after the transfusion, good as new.” She looked down at Zoe, her eyes welling with practiced tears. “Zoe had a fever of 104 last night. I didn’t sleep a wink…” Marcus stood up immediately, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, his face a mask of devotion. “Why are you even explaining yourself to her?” He turned back to me, his voice cold. “Elaine, I’m warning you. Don’t push me.” “Zoe’s health is the priority here. Get Donna out here before I lose my temper.” I stood there, watching them play their parts in this twisted little play, and felt a sudden, violent surge of bile in my throat. “I told you,” I said, pointing once more to the urn. “Donna is right there.” 2 Marcus actually laughed this time. It was a sound of pure exasperation, the way you’d laugh at someone who thinks the earth is flat. “Are you serious right now?” He walked over to me, towering over me. “You put a cheap jar on a shelf and tell me it’s my daughter?” He reached out and flicked the side of the urn with his finger, a hollow clink echoing in the room. “Have you finally lost it? You stayed in this house too long, Elaine. You’re telling me a living, breathing kid turned into ash in three days? There’s a limit to how much bullshit I’ll swallow.” Clara let out a soft, tinkling laugh. “Elaine, do you have some kind of paranoid delusion?” She stepped forward, shifting Zoe on her hip. “How about this? Let Marcus go see Donna, just to prove she’s okay, and then we can talk about the transfusion. Does that work?” She looked at Marcus, playing the role of the peacemaker. Marcus huffed, pulling his phone from his pocket and thrusting it in front of my face. “Look. Look at the video Clara sent me yesterday.” “Donna and Zoe were playing with blocks. They were perfectly happy.” I looked down at the screen. In the video, a little girl with a ponytail was hunched over a set of Lego bricks, Zoe sitting beside her. The girl’s face was turned away from the camera. All I could see was dark hair and a pink hoodie. It was Donna’s hoodie. But it wasn’t Donna. Donna had a bright red strawberry birthmark on the back of her right hand. We’d taken a photo of it on her third birthday. The child in the video had hands that were perfectly, hauntingly clear. “See?” Marcus retracted the phone, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “What do you have to say to that?” I looked at his face—the arrogance, the absolute certainty—and I wanted to scream. He didn’t even know his own daughter had a birthmark. He didn’t remember what she looked like. He saw a pink sweatshirt and that was enough for him. It was easier to believe a lie than to look at his own life. “That isn’t Donna,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “Donna has a birthmark on her right hand. Did you forget that?” Marcus blinked, a flicker of confusion crossing his face before he looked at Clara. Clara’s expression shifted for a fraction of a second—a momentary crack in the mask—before she smoothed it over. “A birthmark?” She smiled thinly. “Elaine, you must be misremembering. Donna didn’t have anything on her hands. I watched her for days; I would have seen it.” I stared at her. “When exactly did you ‘watch’ her?” “Every time she came over, I took wonderful care of her,” Clara said, her tone dripping with mock-innocence. “Whatever Zoe had, Donna had. I treated them exactly the same.” Exactly the same. I almost choked on the irony. Every time Donna came home from “visiting” Clara, she had tiny red dots on her skin. Her arms, her legs, her ankles. They were hidden under her clothes, small enough that you’d miss them if you weren’t looking. Once, Donna cried and told me, “The lady poked me with a needle.” I’d called Clara, furious. Clara had laughed it off. “Elaine, you’re overreacting. It was just a routine blood draw for her check-up. Kids are just dramatic about needles.” Marcus had been standing right there. He’d told me I was making a scene over nothing. “It’s just a blood test. What’s the big deal?” “She’s weak, Marcus. She can’t keep giving—” “She’s ‘weak’ because you spoil her,” he’d snapped. “Clara is a nurse. She knows what she’s doing.” He thought she knew what she was doing. And she did. She knew exactly what she was doing while her daughter’s father remained blissfully, willfully ignorant that his own child was being drained dry. 3 “Just leave,” I said, turning my back on them. “Donna isn’t here anymore.” Marcus’s patience finally evaporated. He lunged across the sunroom, grabbing my arm and jerking me around. His grip was like iron, and my shoulder slammed into the doorframe. I gasped as a sharp pain flared through my arm. “Listen to me,” he hissed, his face inches from mine. “If anything happens to Zoe because you’re being a psycho, I will make sure you and that kid never see the light of day again.” “Make her life miserable?” I looked at him and started to laugh. It was a jagged, broken sound. “When have you ever made her life anything but miserable?” “You think hiding her is going to work?” he sneered. “I have people in this city. I’ll check every school, every daycare, every relative’s house. I will tear this town apart until I find her.” “Go ahead,” I said. “Dig.” He let go of me, disgusted. He turned to Clara. “Call the kid.” Clara pulled out her phone and hit speaker. Ring… ring… ring… “The subscriber you are trying to reach is unavailable.” Clara looked at Marcus with a worried pout. “Marcus, she’s probably just upset. She won’t pick up…” “FaceTime her.” Clara tried the video call. No answer. She looked at me, her voice softening into that faux-maternal tone. “Elaine, please. Just have her pick up the phone. Just for a second. I just want to say hi to her.” I said nothing. Clara sighed, turning to Marcus. “Maybe we should go? She’s clearly just having a moment. We can come back when she’s calmed down.” “When she’s calmed down?” Marcus’s eyes were like flint. “Does Zoe have time to wait for her to calm down?” Clara’s eyes reddened. “I know she doesn’t. But if Donna won’t come out, we can’t… we can’t force her, can we?” She looked down at Zoe, her voice trembling. “We can’t just make her.” Marcus’s face went dark. He looked at me, then at the pink urn, and then he smiled. It was a cruel, ugly expression. “You think this is a game, don’t you? You think if you hide her, I’ll come crawling back to you?” He stepped closer, his shadow falling over me. “You think you can use our daughter as a bargaining chip to save this pathetic marriage?” He shook his head with a look of mock-pity. “Let me be clear: give it up. I love Clara. This stunt you’re pulling? It just makes me hate you more.” Clara reached out and tugged at his sleeve. “Marcus, don’t be so hard on her. She’s had a difficult time…” Marcus scoffed. “Difficult? She lives in my house, spends my money, and her only job was to raise one kid—and she couldn’t even do that right. Donna is a spoiled, selfish brat because of her.” He looked at me as if I were something he’d stepped on in the street. “Look at Clara. She raised Zoe alone, worked a full-time job, and never complained once. And look at you. Aside from holding your hand out for a check, what are you actually good for?” I stared at him. I watched his mouth move, heard the poison spilling out, and suddenly I was back in time. Three months ago. Donna on the phone, whispering: “Mommy, Daddy took me for a check-up. The lady gave me some juice that tasted like strawberries, and then I went to sleep.” When she woke up, there was a fresh bruise on her arm. It stayed swollen for three days. I’d sent a photo to Marcus, asking what happened. He’d replied with one word: “Ok.” That was it. “Marcus,” I said quietly. “You don’t know anything. You don’t even know how she died.” “Don’t start with the ghost stories again, Elaine.” His voice was a low growl. “We’ll deal with Donna’s ‘disappearance’ later. Right now, Zoe needs help. Give her up, or so help me—” “Or what?” “Or you’ll find out exactly how little our marriage certificate means.” I looked at him and laughed. “You’re using my daughter’s blood to save your mistress’s kid, and you want to talk to me about the sanctity of marriage?” 4 The tears finally spilled down Clara’s cheeks. “Elaine, how can you be so cruel?” She clutched Zoe tighter. “I know you hate me, but Zoe is innocent. She’s just a baby…” “My daughter was a baby, too,” I snapped. “She was three.” Clara’s sobbing hitched for a second. Marcus stepped forward and shoved me. It wasn’t a light push; I lost my balance and fell back into the potting soil, my clothes staining black, my hair disheveled. I looked pathetic, broken. “Elaine, that’s enough!” “Clara has been nothing but kind to Donna! Your jealousy is turning you into a monster.” “Jealousy?” I pointed to the urn. “Your daughter is in that jar, and you think I’m jealous?” Marcus reached his breaking point. He let go of Clara and marched toward the window, his hand reaching for the pink urn. “Fine. Let’s see what’s actually in this thing!” “Don’t you touch her!” I screamed. Marcus froze, his hand inches from the ceramic. He turned to look at me, a sadistic glint in his eyes. “You think you can threaten me? You think I care about your little shrine?” His fingers closed around the top. “This pile of trash is going in the garbage!” He jerked his hand. The urn slipped. It hit the tile floor with a sickening, final shatter. “No! Donna!”

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It was nearly midnight when I finally dragged myself away from my desk. When the elevator doors slid open on the twelfth floor, the hallway was pitch black. The light fixture was busted—again. I fumbled for my keys in the dark, found the lock, and pushed. The key wouldn’t turn. I tried again, harder this time, thinking the cold had jammed the tumbler. Nothing. I knelt on the thin, industrial carpet and used my phone’s flashlight to look at the brass hardware. My heart skipped. The lock had been replaced. It was a heavy-duty deadbolt, the kind you can only open from the inside once it’s thrown. But the lights were on under the door. I could hear the muffled roar of the TV. I could hear Rachel laughing. I knocked. Once. Twice. No answer. I hammered my fist against the wood. Finally, the muffled voice of my mother-in-law, Denise, drifted through the door. “It’s the middle of the night. Who knows who’s out there? We’re already in bed. Go find a motel.” Through the heavy door, I heard Rachel say something I couldn’t catch. Denise snapped back, her voice sharp enough to cut: “If he actually cared about this family, he wouldn’t be ‘working late’ every damn night.” I stood there, my hand still resting on the cold wood of the door. I had put down a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the down payment on this condo. I’d spent the last three years paying every cent of the mortgage. When we bought it, Denise had insisted it didn’t matter whose name was on the deed—that we were a family. She’d convinced me to put it in Rachel’s name for “tax reasons.” I guess she was right. It didn’t matter. Not to them. Because now, I couldn’t even get into my own home. 1 “Denise, please. It’s one in the morning. Just let me in.” I’d been standing in the drafty hallway for an hour. I heard her scoff from the other side of the door. “I’m not opening this door in the dead of night. What if you’re a mugger? There are crazy people everywhere these days.” Inside, the TV was blaring—some sitcom with a canned laugh track. Rachel’s genuine laughter bubbled over it. It was pouring outside. A bitter, wet wind whistled through the cracked window at the end of the hall. I’d been asking Rachel to call the building manager to fix that window for a month. She never got around to it. After a twelve-hour shift, my bones felt like lead. I just wanted to sleep. I softened my voice, hating the desperate, pleading note in it. “Denise, listen. This project is finished. With the bonus I’m getting, I can finally buy you that high-end massage chair you’ve been eyeing. The one with the heat settings.” Silence. Then the sound of slippers retreating further into the apartment. “As if I’d want a cheap chair from a man who’s never home,” she muttered. That chair cost four thousand dollars. It was nearly two months of my take-home pay. My own parents both had chronic back pain, and I’d never felt I could afford to buy them something like that. To Denise, it was “cheap.” I knocked again, more out of frustration than hope. The door across the hall swung open. My neighbor, a guy who always smelled like stale cigars, glared at me. “Are you serious, man? Some of us have to work in the morning.” “I’m sorry,” I stammered. “My family… they aren’t opening the door.” “Not my problem! Keep it down or I’m calling security to have you tossed.” The door slammed shut. I sank to the floor, leaning against my own front door, and dialed Rachel. Once. Twice. Five times. On the sixth, she picked up. “What?” she asked, her voice airy, distracted. “I was watching the season finale.” My throat felt like it was full of sand. “Rachel, please. Open the door. It’s freezing out here.” “Don’t you have your keys?” I choked back a sob. “The locks were changed, Rachel.” There was a two-second beat of silence. “Oh. Right. We did that this afternoon.” “Why didn’t anyone tell me?” “Mom said there’s been a string of break-ins in the neighborhood. She wanted us to be safe.” “Then let me in.” More silence. I heard her sigh—that long, theatrical exhale she used when I was being ‘difficult.’ “Look, Brian, it’s not that I don’t want to. But you know how anxious Mom gets. If I open the door now, she’ll be up all night with heart palpitations. You’re scaring her.” “I’m coming home to my house! How is that scary?” Her tone sharpened. “She’s seventy years old, Brian. Do you have to be so confrontational?” I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to keep the anger from boiling over. “Fine. Have her go into her bedroom. Lock her door if she’s scared. Then you let me in.” I’d been in the cold so long I didn’t mind waiting another five minutes. Suddenly, the phone was snatched away. Denise’s voice hissed into the receiver. “Who told you to stay out past curfew? Go sleep in your car or something.” “Curfew?” I asked, bewildered. “Since when is there a curfew?” “Since this afternoon. I assumed Rachel told you. House rules.” In the background, I heard Rachel mutter, “I forgot.” “We’re a family, Brian,” Denise continued. “Rules are what keep a home together.” Rules. Or just a leash for me. “I can’t even get a hotel room, Denise. My wallet and ID are inside. I only have my phone.” “A hotel? Look at Mr. Moneybags!” she mocked. “Don’t you dare waste money on a hotel. There’s a hostel down by the bus station. They don’t care about IDs. It’s ten bucks a night. Go there. You aren’t too good for a bunk bed.” That hostel was a known drug den. It had been raided by the cops twice this year. I’d be safer sleeping under a bridge. “Denise, listen—” “Mom’s just looking out for you,” Rachel chimed in, her voice sounding far away. Then the line went dead. I sat there in the dark. Through the door, I heard Denise’s muffled voice, triumphant. “That’ll teach him. Maybe now he’ll start putting this house first. What kind of man stays out until midnight? The neighbors are already talking.” I stared at the wood grain of the door. I’d paid for the down payment. I’d paid the mortgage for three years. I’d supported Rachel for six years while she “found herself” after being laid off. Six years of being the sole provider. And I couldn’t even get past the foyer. 2 The next day, I didn’t stay late. I left the office at five, skipped the gym, and headed straight home. I stood at the door and knocked firmly. “Who is it?” “It’s me, Denise. Open up.” The apartment went dead silent. I knocked again. “I brought those pastries you like from the French bakery across town. The ones with the heavy cream. They’re heavy, Denise. Open the door.” Five minutes passed before she spoke. “You aren’t working late today?” “The project is done,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. “I’m home before ‘curfew’.” I heard her click her tongue. It was a small sound, but it felt like a slap. “Brian, I have a migraine. I can’t have the smell of those pastries in the house. The sugar and butter… it’s nauseating.” “I’ll leave them in the hallway, Denise. I won’t even bring them inside.” Another sigh. “No, no. If you’ve been carrying them, the scent will be on your clothes. My head is throbbing. Why don’t you go find somewhere else to stay tonight? Give the air a chance to clear.” I stood there, the box of expensive tarts suddenly feeling like lead in my hands. If I work, I’m too late. If I’m early, I smell like food. It was never about the work or the smell. It was about the power. “Where’s Rachel? Tell her to come to the door.” Denise let out a dry little chuckle. “Rachel’s busy, Brian. She’s working. Don’t go bothering her.” “Working?” I asked. Rachel hadn’t had a job since the Obama administration. The neighbor from across the hall came out to take out the trash. He saw me and rolled his eyes. “You again? Man, take the hint. They don’t want you in there.” “This is my house,” I snapped. “I pay for this place.” The guy let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Your house? Then why are you begging like a dog at the door every night?” “The locks were changed. My mother-in-law—” He looked at me with pure pity, the kind that stings worse than an insult. “Listen, man. I’ve seen guys like you. You think you’re the king because you pay the bills, but in that apartment? You’re the stranger. It’s their world. You just pay for the privilege of standing in the hall.” He shook his head and headed for the elevator. I sat back down on the floor. I pulled out my phone to text Rachel, to demand she open the door, when I saw a new notification. It was a Facebook post from her younger brother, Kyle. It was a photo of a deed. A property title. The caption read: Best graduation gift ever! Who needs a 9-to-5 when you have a mom and a sister who have your back? Officially a homeowner! I tapped the photo, zooming in until my eyes burned. Property Address: 402 Fairmount Ave, Unit 12C. My apartment. The owner listed on the document wasn’t Rachel. It wasn’t me. It was Kyle. The hundred and fifty thousand I’d saved. The three years of five-thousand-dollar mortgage payments. It had all been a gift for a kid who’d never worked a day in his life. My blood didn’t boil. It turned to ice. 3 I didn’t knock again. I didn’t call Rachel. I didn’t send a single text. I sat in that dark, cold hallway for a long time, the silence ringing in my ears. I took a screenshot of Kyle’s post. I saved it to my private cloud. When I finally stood up, my knees were stiff, and I couldn’t feel my toes. The hallway light was still broken. I felt my way to the elevator and hit the button for the lobby. It wasn’t until I reached the street that I remembered I’d taken the afternoon off. My desk would be empty. I went to the office anyway. I sat in the glow of my monitors and opened a search bar. I looked for the best divorce and property attorneys in the city. I saved a number for a woman named Cynthia. At 2:00 AM, I walked to the Holiday Inn Express near the office. The girl at the desk looked at my disheveled suit and tired eyes. “Do you have an ID, sir?” “I forgot it,” I said. “I have a picture of it on my phone. And a credit card.” “I’m sorry. We need the physical ID for the police registry.” I knew the rules. I didn’t fight her. I sat on the sofa in the lobby and waited for morning. Every thirty minutes, a security guard would walk by and check on me, his eyes lingering as if I were a vagrant they were five minutes away from kicking out. At 7:00 AM, I went back to the office. I didn’t go home to change. I just sat at my desk and started working. My coworker, Jordan, set a coffee on my desk. “Rough night? Did you even leave?” “I left,” I said, my voice sounding like it belonged to someone else. “But I couldn’t get back in.” He didn’t ask questions. I spent the entire morning building a spreadsheet. It wasn’t for the firm. At noon, I called Rachel. “Are you free tonight? We need to talk.” “About what?” she asked. She sounded bored. “The apartment.” There was a pause. A flicker of something—hesitation? “My mom’s here.” “Then we’ll meet out. The coffee shop downstairs at seven.” “Fine,” she said. I opened my banking app. $150,000—transfer to the escrow account three years ago. Thirty-six months of mortgage payments. I took screenshots of every single one. I checked Zillow. The value of the condo had jumped. It was worth nearly a million now. Rachel was twenty minutes late. When she sat down, she didn’t look guilty. She looked annoyed. “What’s this about, Brian? I’m missing my show.” “I’m done, Rachel.” She laughed, a small, dismissive sound. “Done with what? Working late?” I looked at her. Really looked at her. In the six years we’d been married, she’d settled into a life of leisure. She looked rested. I looked like a ghost. “The condo. I paid for it. Every cent. I put it in your name because I trusted you. Because your mother said it didn’t matter.” Her eyes shifted. “What do you want?” “I want to sell it. We split the proceeds.” She set her latte down, her face hardening. “You’re serious?” “Dead serious.” “That’s our home, Brian—” “Then why can’t I get inside?” She opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. That night, she didn’t text me. Not the next day, either. On the fifth day, I got a voice memo from Denise. It was sixty seconds long. I didn’t even hit play. The next morning, Rachel called. “Mom says the apartment belongs to the family. She says the money you put in was a ‘gift’ in lieu of a dowry, and since we provided the furniture, we’re even. She says you need to stop being dramatic.” “Dramatic?” “Brian, just calm down. Can’t we just go back to the way things were?” I didn’t answer. I hung up. I opened a new Word document. Title: Civil Complaint for Return of Pre-marital Assets and Partition of Real Property. I wasn’t heartless. I wasn’t a monster. But the love I had for her had died out there in that hallway, shivering under a busted window while they laughed at a TV screen. I organized everything: bank statements, the screenshots of Kyle’s “gift,” the HOA fees I’d paid. I even had a recording. That first night, while I was sitting on the floor, I’d left my phone recording in my pocket. I had the whole conversation—Denise telling me to go to a hostel, Rachel saying she “forgot” to tell me about the locks. I never wanted to be this man. The man who sues his wife. But they hadn’t just changed the locks. They’d stolen my future. I’d spent three years building a cage for myself, and I was finally ready to break the bars. 4 The law office was tucked into a glass tower downtown. Cynthia was in her fifties, with sharp eyes and a suit that cost more than my car. She flipped through my folder in silence. “Your mother-in-law transferred the deed to your brother-in-law?” “Yes.” “When?” “Last December.” “And you had no idea?” “None.” She leaned back, tapping a gold pen against the mahogany desk. “We can win this. But you need to understand something, Brian. Once we file, there is no going back. This marriage is over the second I hit ‘submit’ on the electronic filing.” I looked out the window at the city skyline. “Cynthia,” I said quietly. “That marriage ended the moment they locked the door and told me to sleep in the street.” I signed the retainer. The court date was set for a Friday. At 4:00 PM the day before, Rachel called me. “You actually sued us?” “I did.” “Because you had to stay in a hotel for a few days? Are you really that petty?” “Rachel,” I said, my voice remarkably calm. “I paid the down payment.” “So what?” “And I paid the mortgage.” “What is your point?!” she screamed. I took a deep breath. “The point is, it’s my house.” She let out a scoff that sounded like a serrated blade. “The deed was in my name. That makes it mine. You really think a judge is going to care about your little ‘contributions’? We’re married, Brian. What’s yours is mine.” In the background, I heard Denise shouting: “Let him sue! Let’s see what that loser can actually do!” Rachel lowered her voice. “Mom says you need to hand over your copy of the keys.” “I don’t have a copy, remember? You changed the locks.” “Then stay out. Don’t come back.” “I haven’t been back in a week, Rachel.” She went silent. “Brian… does it really have to be like this?” “Ask your mother,” I said. “She’s the one who decided I was a stranger.” “She just has a temper—” “I know the truth, Rachel,” I interrupted. “I know you gave my million-dollar apartment to Kyle.”

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The night before our supposed engagement, my boyfriend, Derek, sent me a file with a cryptic, romantic-sounding title: The Love Audit. We had been together for three years. I clicked it open with a fluttering heart, expecting a digital scrapbook—a montage of our late-night drives, brunch dates, and whispered promises. Instead, my screen was flooded by a cold, clinical Excel spreadsheet. It was a meticulous record of every cent spent since our first date. Every coffee, every subway fare, even a two-dollar bottle of water from six months ago. He had calculated the sausage I bought at a street fair down to the second decimal point. My blood ran cold. I dialed his number, my breath hitching. He picked up instantly, his voice brimming with a terrifying kind of pride. “Olivia, look, I’m all about gender equality,” Derek said, sounding remarkably self-satisfied. “I’ve crunched the numbers for the last three years. Total expenses come to $12,600.” “Derek, what is this?” I managed to whisper. “Wait, let me finish. I promised your parents a $10,000 engagement gift as a gesture of goodwill, right? So, I’ve deducted that from what you owe me. That leaves a balance of $2,600. Since we’re getting our marriage license tomorrow, you don’t even have to wire it to me. We’ll just call it even and use that credit to cover the ‘appreciation gift’ I was supposed to give your grandparents during the ceremony. Pretty thoughtful of me, right? It saves everyone the hassle of bank transfers.” Listening to his smug tone, a chill settled deep in my bones. What Derek didn’t know was that I wasn’t the “struggling freelancer” I pretended to be. As the sole granddaughter of the Fitch estate, my grandfather had been testing him. He had a trust fund set up in my name—five million dollars, ready to be signed over as a “start-up fund” for our new life the moment we tied the knot. All Derek had to do was show a shred of genuine generosity. But since he wanted to play accountant with our relationship, I decided right then: he wouldn’t see a single cent of that five million. Not now. Not ever. 1 “Olivia? You there? I’m telling you, this is the foundation of a modern, healthy marriage. No resentment, just transparency.” Derek’s voice was steady, almost lecturing. I stared at line 432 of the spreadsheet. Date: July 12, 2021. Item: Dasani Water. Amount: $2.00. Note: Olivia drank two-thirds, I drank one-third. Split adjusted: Olivia owes $1.33, rounded to $1.40 for convenience. I took a slow, jagged breath. “Derek, are you sure this is a ‘Love Audit’ and not a ‘Debt Collection Notice’?” He let out a sharp, patronizing click of his tongue. “Olivia, don’t be emotional. Business is business, and family is family. Even brothers settle their tabs. Besides, isn’t this what you wanted? To be a ‘strong, independent woman’ who doesn’t rely on a man? I’m respecting your values.” I gripped the phone so hard my knuckles turned white. “And the engagement gift? You’re just… canceling it out?” Derek chuckled, a sound of pure, calculated superiority. “It’s just a formality anyway. Moving money from the left pocket to the right. My mom says that giving too large an engagement gift makes it look like we’re ‘buying’ you. We’re an academic family, Olivia. We don’t do that gauche, transactional stuff. Waiving that $2,600 debt is the ultimate gesture of my sincerity.” I almost laughed. An academic family? His father was a retired warehouse clerk and his mother was the neighborhood’s most notorious gossip. Since when did they become the Vanderbilts? “So, let me get this straight,” I said, my voice dropping an octave. “I should be thanking you?” “Exactly! I’m glad you’re finally seeing sense.” He didn’t catch the razor-sharp irony in my voice. “Oh, and for dinner at my parents’ place tomorrow, wear something… modest. My mom doesn’t like girls who look ‘expensive.’ And about that $2,600—even though I’m waiving the payment, I’ll need you to sign a quick promissory note. Just for our records. In case we ever have a big fight, it’s good to have a paper trail. Emotional risk management, you know?” I hung up. The silence in my apartment felt heavy, suffocating. This was the man I had loved for three years? The man who once ran three miles through a thunderstorm to bring me cold medicine? I used to be so moved by that. Now, I wondered if he had logged the wear and tear on his sneakers in a hidden tab of that spreadsheet. I opened the search bar in the file and typed: Cold Medicine. There it was. May 20, 2022. DayQuil: $14.50. Delivery Tip: $5.00. He had billed me for his “heroic” act of love. If my grandfather knew that his $5 million dowry was being weighed against a $2 bottle of water, he’d probably have a heart attack. My phone buzzed. A text from Derek. “Babe, double-check the math. If you have questions, let me know, but I was very thorough. Don’t forget to bring some fruit tomorrow. Don’t get the organic stuff—it’s a scam. Just grab whatever’s on clearance at the corner store.” I stared at the screen, my eyes turning cold. You want to count pennies, Derek? Fine. Let’s start counting. 2 The next day, I went to his parents’ house as requested. But I didn’t buy the clearance fruit. I showed up empty-handed. When I walked in, Derek’s mother, Martha, was perched on the sofa, mindlessly scrolling through her phone while snacking on cashews, spitting the shells directly onto the coffee table. When she saw my empty hands, her face soured instantly. “Oh, Olivia’s here,” she drawled, not even looking up. “Is it a new trend for young people to show up to their in-laws’ with nothing but their pride?” Derek poked his head out from the kitchen. Seeing me without a gift, his brow furrowed. “Olivia, I told you. Some fruit. It’s common courtesy.” I kicked off my shoes and sat on the armchair opposite Martha, wearing a perfectly pleasant, blank smile. “Derek, I was looking at your spreadsheet last night,” I said. “I saw an entry from last Christmas. You bought a box of chocolates for my parents. Thirty dollars. You said we believe in total equality now, right? So, by me not bringing a gift today, I’ve effectively balanced out the ‘debt’ of those chocolates. We’re officially even on the ‘visitation gift’ front. Isn’t that great?” Martha froze, a half-chewed nuts falling from her lip. Derek walked into the living room, wiping his hands on a towel, his expression darkening. “Olivia, don’t be petty. That spreadsheet is between us. You don’t bring up private accounting in front of the family.” I blinked innocently. “Why not? You said it’s the foundation of a healthy marriage. Martha is going to be family soon. She should know how organized and fair you are.” Martha didn’t understand the “Love Audit,” but she understood the word “accounting.” She slammed her hand on the table. “What accounting? Olivia, since you’re joining this family, let me be blunt. Our Derek is a top-tier university grad. He’s a manager at a major firm. He has a brilliant future. Marrying him is your ticket up in the world.” I suppressed a smirk. Manager? He was a mid-level supervisor in a dying logistics firm. “The $10,000 engagement gift? Derek waived it to help you out,” Martha continued, her voice rising. “But the traditions of the Harrison family must be upheld. The house—Derek put down the deposit with his own savings. It stays in his name. That’s non-negotiable.” I leaned back. “The deposit was Derek’s?” Derek puffed out his chest. “Six years of savings. Fifty thousand dollars.” Fifty thousand wouldn’t even buy a parking spot in downtown Chicago. The “house” was a crumbling fixer-upper in the far suburbs that smelled like damp drywall. “And the renovations?” I asked. Martha chimed in quickly. “The wife handles the renovations, obviously. The man provides the shell; the woman provides the soul. Nothing too fancy—maybe some modern-European finishes, smart appliances. You should probably set aside sixty or seventy thousand for that. And after the wedding, Derek’s salary goes to the mortgage. Yours covers the groceries, the utilities, and a monthly allowance for us. After all, you’re living in his house. It’s only fair you pay your way.” The audacity was almost impressive. They wanted me to pay $70,000 to renovate a house I wouldn’t own, pay for their lifestyle, and handle all the bills, while he “built equity” for himself. I wasn’t a bride to them; I was a subsidized live-in maid with a high credit score. Derek saw my silence and mistook it for submission. He sat beside me, lowering his voice into that soft, manipulative tone he used whenever he wanted something. “Olivia, I know it sounds like a lot. But think of our future. I’m in a high-growth phase of my career. I need a partner who supports the vision. Once the kitchen is done, I’ll take you to the Maldives. Deal?” The Maldives? I thought of the spreadsheet. He’d probably bill me for the sunscreen by the milliliter. “Martha. Derek,” I said, smoothing out my skirt. “Since you’re both so fond of the math, I think it’s time we looked at my ledger.” 3 Derek blinked, caught off guard. “What ledger?” I pulled out my phone and tapped an app. I had spent the night creating a presentation. I swiped, and it mirrored directly onto their smart TV. “If we’re going to do 50/50, let’s go all the way,” I said. “Derek, you said the $50k deposit makes the house yours. Reasonable. But if I’m putting $70k into renovations, that’s more than the deposit. My name goes on the deed. 60/40 split in my favor.” Martha shrieked. “Absolutely not! A deposit is an investment! Renovations are… consumables! Paint fades, but land appreciates!” I nodded thoughtfully. “Good point. Fine, I won’t pay for renovations. Since I’m a ‘tenant,’ I’ll pay rent. Market rate for that neighborhood is $1,200. I’ll pay you $600 a month. Utilities split down the middle. But, as a tenant, I only do half the chores. I cook only for myself. I wash only my clothes. And as for ‘honoring my in-laws’…” I looked Martha dead in the eye. “Why would I pay an allowance to my landlord’s parents? That’s not in the lease.” Martha’s face was turning a dangerous shade of purple. “You… how dare you! No daughter-in-law talks to her family this way!” Derek stood up and snapped the TV off. “Olivia, you’re crossing a line. We’re a family. Why are you being so transactional?” “You started the spreadsheet, Derek,” I said calmly. “I’m just finishing it.” “I was protecting my pre-marital assets!” he yelled. “And besides, with your salary, if you don’t cover the household expenses, do you expect me to carry you? I make $90k. You make $55k. I’m already the one losing out in this deal!” Looking at his entitled, sneering face, the last shred of warmth I had for him evaporated. He didn’t see a partner. He saw a bargain to be exploited. “Derek, if you feel like you’re losing out, then maybe we shouldn’t get married at all.” The room went silent. Derek hadn’t expected me to walk. In his mind, I was an “aging” woman who should be grateful for a “high-value man” like him. He softened his tone, trying to use the “sunk cost” trap. “Olivia, let’s not be hasty. We’ve been together three years. You’re twenty-eight. Do you really think you can find someone better at your age? Besides, that $2,600 debt? If we don’t marry, I’ll need that back in cash. And I turned down a promotion in Seattle to stay here with you. I should probably bill you for the lost income potential, too.” I looked at him, feeling a profound sense of pity—not for him, but for the version of me that had hidden my family’s wealth for three years just to find “true love.” My grandfather was right. You have to meet a few monsters to appreciate the light. Suddenly, Derek’s phone lit up on the coffee table. A notification from someone named Lexi. The message was brief: “Hey babe, did you get the money from that boring girl yet? I saw a Prada bag I need. Can’t wait for tonight.” The blood rushed to my head and then went icy cold. Boring girl? Prada bag? Everything clicked. The “Love Audit.” The “frugality.” The “gender equality.” He wasn’t saving for our future. He was squeezing me dry to fund a lifestyle for someone else. I didn’t scream. I didn’t grab the phone. I simply stood up and straightened my hair. “Derek, you’re right,” I said, my voice eerily steady. “I’m twenty-eight. It’s a hard market out there. I was being impulsive.” He smirked, victory dancing in his eyes. “I’ll wire you the $2,600 tonight,” I continued. “And about the renovations… let me talk to my parents. I think I can get them to cover the whole $70,000.” 4 Derek’s eyes gleamed with pure greed. He thought he had won. He thought he had broken me. Martha huffed, picking up another cashew. “That’s more like it. A woman needs to know her place. Wire the money, forget the ‘appreciation gift,’ and we’ll go to the courthouse tomorrow.” I pulled out my phone and, right in front of them, sent Derek $2,600 via Zelle. When his phone chimed with the confirmation, he beamed. “That’s my girl,” he said, reaching out to pat my shoulder. I flinched inwardly but let him. “I don’t really want your money, Olivia. I just wanted to see the right attitude. Stay for dinner? Mom made pot roast.” I looked at the greasy, grey slab of meat on the table. “I can’t. My office called—emergency project. I need to go handle the renovation funds with my parents. $70,000 is a lot to move around.” “Of course, of course!” Derek waved me off magnanimously. “Work is important. Tell your parents we’re all one big family now.” Walking out of that stale, suffocating house, I took a lungful of fresh air. I got into my car and dialed a number I knew by heart. “Hey, Grandpa.” “Olivia? Sweetheart, what’s wrong? Did that Derek boy do something? Just give me the word, and I’ll have him blacklisted from every firm in the Midwest.” I smiled, though my eyes were stinging. “No need for that yet, Grandpa. But that $5 million trust? Freeze it. And I need a favor. Look up a girl named Lexi. She’s connected to Derek. I want to know exactly where my ‘contributions’ to our relationship have been going.” I sat in my car, opened the “Love Audit,” and scrolled. Every number was a piece of evidence in a post-mortem of a dead relationship. Within twenty minutes, Grandpa’s assistant sent over a file. Lexi was a junior associate at Derek’s firm. Young, blond, and perfectly practiced in the art of “the damsel in distress.” To her, Derek was a “wealthy executive” from an old-money family. He had been buying her designer bags, taking her to five-star dinners, and apparently, he was even paying the rent on her downtown loft. The records showed that last month alone, he had spent over $5,000 on her. In that same month, he had spent three hours making a spreadsheet to charge me $1.40 for a bottle of water. The irony was a physical weight. He wasn’t cheap. He was just cheap with me. He used his exploitation of me to subsidize his fantasy life with her. I looked at the Zelle confirmation. That $2,600 was the last “sweetener” he’d ever get from me. It was his toll for the road to hell. Since he loved accounting so much, I was going to give him an audit he’d never forget. I was going to make him vomit up everything he’d stolen, with interest. I wiped my eyes. My vision had never been clearer.

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I came home for the Memorial Day weekend, but my son was sullen, barely looking at me. Davis tried to soothe me, his voice low and practiced. “He’s just not used to having you around, Jo. Give him a second to adjust.” A sharp pang of guilt twisted in my gut. Toby was ten now. For every one of those ten birthdays, I’d been stuck in holiday traffic or chained to my desk, chasing the double-pay overtime. This year, I’d pulled a fast one on both of them, taking the time off in secret just to surprise them. I turned to the counter and brought out the cake I’d spent all morning preparing. Looking at Toby’s soft, flushed cheeks, I felt like I was melting from the inside out. “Make a wish, sweetie,” I whispered. Then, my ten-year-old son yelled his wish loud enough for the neighbors to hear. “I wish Mom was still stuck on the highway and never came back!” He didn’t stop there. “Then Dad and Auntie Ursula could take me to the theme park instead.” … The candles flickered out. The room plunged into a suffocating darkness. My hand hovered over the light switch, but it felt like it was made of lead. I couldn’t move. Then, a pair of cold hands covered mine. The lights hummed back to life. It was Davis. His breath was heavy, his hand sliding slowly from the switch to my cheek, giving it a light, patronizing squeeze. “Jo, it’s just Ursula.” “You remember her. My intern from back in the day? She’s at the firm with me now.” His skin was cold, and he carried the faint, briny scent of a seafood dinner. I remembered the company retreat last year—he had been so careful to remind everyone that Ursula was allergic to mangoes. But he’d forgotten that I was the one allergic to shellfish. Looking at the table, I realized this dinner hadn’t been made for me at all. His voice trembled slightly. “Honey, what’s that look for? You don’t trust me?” I forced my head up, meeting his expression—a calculated mix of helplessness and practiced innocence. The front door clicked open a second later. Ursula walked in. She moved with a terrifying familiarity, the way she handled the keys, the way she stepped into the foyer—she looked more like the mistress of this house than I did. Toby shrieked with joy and threw himself into her arms. “Auntie Ursula!” My chest felt like it was being crushed by a physical weight. Ursula caught my eye and looked momentarily flustered. She made a half-hearted attempt to push Toby back, but he clung to her like a burr. I watched him. Since I’d walked through the door, he hadn’t given me so much as a smirk. Now, he was giving her every ounce of sunshine he possessed. “Jocelyn…” Ursula started. I said nothing. Davis stood beside her, his eyes fixed firmly on the floor. “I believe you guys,” I said, my voice eerily calm. I began to slice the cake with deliberate precision. In the past, I always held back, waiting for Davis and Toby to finish so I could scavenge the leftovers. Not today. I cut a massive, decadent slice for myself. Toby scowled. He reached over and scooped a large blueberry off my plate with his finger. “I want the berries.” I didn’t flinch. I picked up my fork, speared a blueberry, and ate it. For ten years, I had deferred. For ten years, I hadn’t realized that a simple blueberry could taste so sharp, so real. Toby burst into a theatrical wail. Davis slammed his spoon down. “Jocelyn, for God’s sake, knock it off.” “I explained everything to you, didn’t I? If you’re mad at me, fine, but don’t take it out on a child.” “So,” I said, chewing slowly, “you think I don’t even deserve a piece of fruit in my own house?” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “If that’s how you want to see it, I can’t stop you. I just thought, as his mother, you’d be willing to give a little.” I just stood there. Suddenly, the last ten years of my marriage felt like a bad punchline. When he wanted a kid, I had to quit my job. I should give a little. When he got transferred, I had to move three thousand miles away from my family. I should give a little. And now, even over a blueberry, I was expected to yield. Ten years. I wanted to scream. I wanted to ask him what I actually was to him. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket, the click-clack of his lighter punctuating the silence. Smoke curled around his face, blurring his features. He inhaled deeply, exhaling a long, grey cloud. We sat in that silence until the cigarette burned down to the filter. He dropped it on the hardwood and ground it out with his shoe. His chest was heaving. “What do you want, Jocelyn? It’s his birthday. I don’t want to fight.” I pressed my lips together. I felt like I was looking at a stranger. He asked me what I wanted? How was I supposed to keep playing the role of the devoted, selfless wife? Was I supposed to “give” him and my son away too? For a few minutes, I considered going nuclear. I wanted to scream for a divorce, tell him he could keep the kid, keep the house, keep everything. But then I looked at Toby. The boy’s face was already etched with a cold, clear resentment toward me. I swallowed the words. I wasn’t so delusional that I thought motherly love could fix this now. For ten years, I had “given” enough. I decided I would fulfill my role as a mother one last time before the end. I didn’t want his last memory of me to be a screaming match. Because soon, I wouldn’t be his mother anymore. Without a word, I stood up and walked to our bedroom. Toby’s voice drifted down the hall, high-pitched and excited. “Dad! She’s gone! Can we go to the park with Auntie Ursula now?” Davis didn’t answer. But his silence said everything. Back in the room, I was calmer than I expected. I didn’t realize I could be this cold—coldly packing a suitcase, coldly googling family lawyers. And then, I saw it. Davis’s work phone, sitting right there on the nightstand. In ten years, I had never doubted him. I never checked his messages. I never questioned the late nights. He used to joke about it: “Jo, do you even love me? You never check up on me.” My friends called me naive. My sisters told me to wake up. But the truth was, I knew. Even in our first year of marriage, I’d caught a glimpse of a video he sent Ursula while he was drunk. It was a ten-minute clip. I saw the thumbnail—a photo of them together—and I had closed it instantly, buried it deep. I wasn’t stupid. I was just terrified that if I looked too closely, I’d lose the only life I had. Now, ten years later, I opened that hidden account. The messages had been scrubbed, but the “Burner” contact was still pinned to the top. My hand shook as I tapped the screen. A video started playing. It was the first time I’d ever seen Davis look that happy—sun-drenched and carefree. He was holding her in his arms at the university where they’d met. The video cut through scenes of them in the grass, the cafeteria, a motel room, the library. They were holding hands. They were talking late into the night. He was kissing the small mole on the back of her neck. I watched for the entire night. One thousand, three hundred and thirty-eight photos. They had loved each other so effortlessly while I was busy building a home out of scraps. My eyes burned, tears finally leaking out of the corners. Ding. A notification popped up. A “Special Interest” alert from Davis’s Instagram. Ursula had posted: [Surrounded by the one I love and the one who loves me.] It was a grid of nine photos. They were at the theme park with Toby. Toby’s hand was resting naturally on Ursula’s face; Davis was holding a bucket of popcorn. They looked like a perfect, natural family. I turned the phone off and put it back exactly where I found it. I acted as if I were still stuck on that highway, just like the nine years before. I left. I took the cheapest Greyhound bus out of town. I could have afforded better, but I was used to making do with less. It was a five-hour trip on a hard seat. Traffic turned it into twelve. I cried for all twelve of those hours. I learned that you really can run out of tears until there’s nothing left but a dry, ragged wheeze in your throat. When I reached my destination, I took a cold shower. My reflection was unrecognizable. My eyes were swollen slits; the lines on my face were deep trenches. I wasn’t young anymore. I was thirty-two, worn down by a decade of being a ghost in my own life. I was terrified. If I divorced him, where would I go? I stepped out of the bathroom. My phone lit up. You’re home early? I didn’t respond. More pings followed. Why didn’t you tell me? Answer me! I sent back a short “Yeah.” He sent three or four voice notes. I didn’t listen to them. I lay on the bed and closed my eyes. Every Memorial Day for the last decade, he had gone back “home” three days early and come back a day late. Seven days total. The night before, I had scrolled through Ursula’s entire feed. Her top ten posts were from the last ten Memorial Day weekends. While he was telling me to work overtime for our “future,” he was taking our son on a honeymoon with her. I tossed and turned, the scent of Davis still lingering on my skin, making me sick. The next morning, I packed the rest of my things and sent in my resignation. I looked around at the relics of my life. This sweater—Davis bought it for me when I was pregnant. I’d wanted it for months, and he finally got it for me at 25% off as a “reward” for quitting my job. I’d been too afraid to wear it, keeping it tucked away like a treasure. The family photo—Toby was two, at the aquarium. A jellyfish he caught had died, and he’d cried in my arms for hours. Shortly after that, I’d moved across the country for Davis’s career, and Toby had never held me that tightly again. The dried flowers—Toby had bought them for my birthday when he was five. I’d spent hundreds of dollars having them professionally framed. The diamond ring—our seventh anniversary. I labeled every single item with the date and the memory. Maybe if I were just a little more grateful, a little more foolish, I could still be happy. But I was done. I threw every single one of those items into the trash bags. I hauled them down to the dumpster myself. On the third day, Davis sent flowers. The card was covered in tiny, desperate handwriting. I didn’t read it. On the fourth day, he carpet-bombed my phone with calls. I didn’t pick up. On the fifth day, Davis came back early. When he opened the door and saw me sitting on the sofa, looking “normal,” he let out a massive sigh of relief. He was sweating, his shirt clinging to his back. He’d clearly rushed home. “Jo, I’m so sorry.” The words startled me. But then I realized—it was just a “sorry.” He’d said it so many times before. Sorry I almost died during Toby’s delivery. Sorry you had to quit your dream job. And now, sorry I’m having a decade-long affair. “Okay,” I said quietly. He walked over and tried to wrap his arms around me from behind. “Honey, don’t be mad. Ursula and I… we’re strictly professional. I didn’t come home because I wanted to give Toby some extra time. That’s all.” A wave of nausea hit me so hard I felt it in my teeth. I shoved him off, ran to the bathroom, and retched. ——– That night, we slept in separate rooms. I took the bedroom; he took the sofa. To him, this was just another fight, another storm he could weather with enough “sorrys.” He didn’t know I had a train ticket for the next morning. If he hadn’t come home early, he wouldn’t have seen me at all. I didn’t sleep. The house was so quiet I could hear him breathing in the living room. At 5:00 AM, I opened the door. The sound woke him slightly. He rubbed his eyes, then closed them again. He didn’t think I would actually leave. I boarded the Amtrak heading south. An hour in, I realized how fast the world moves when you aren’t stuck on a bus. Ding. A message from Davis. Jo, where are you? I just needed some space, I lied. I didn’t want to hear his “innocent” explanations anymore. I turned off the phone. I reached the city, found a small rental, and told no one. Every day, Davis messaged me: What are you eating? Where are you? When are you coming back? I gave him one-word answers. On the fourth day, a notification popped up on my Facebook. Ursula was requesting to message me. I hit “Accept” like a glutton for punishment. She sent a message about Toby. Toby had gotten into a fight at school and knocked out a classmate’s tooth. The school had called the parents. Toby had given them Ursula’s number. Ursula’s voice note sounded annoyed. “Jocelyn, look, about Toby… you really need to come back and handle this, okay?” “Call his father,” I replied. My voice was dead. In the background, I heard Toby screaming. “I don’t want her! Tell her not to come back! I hate her!” My heart felt like it had been punched. I waited until the ringing in my ears stopped, then I said, “Ursula, put Toby on.” “I won’t talk to her! I don’t want her! She’s not my mom!” “Toby!” I shouted. The line went quiet. He sounded startled. In ten years, I had never raised my voice to him. “Toby, listen to me. Starting today, I am not your mother. Anything that happens at school, anything that happens in your life—don’t call me. Call your father. Do you understand?” I said it again, slower this time. “From now on, I am not your mother.”

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