Author: Momo Chan

Before Joshua and I ever started dating, he made one thing ruthlessly clear: he was not a man who apologized. He didn’t soothe ruffled feathers, he didn’t grovel, and he never, ever chased. So when our ninth blowout fight spiraled into another frosty standoff, I did what I had always done—I swallowed my pride and walked up to his penthouse to offer the olive branch. Every time we fought, Joshua would pack an overnight bag and retreat to his own place downtown, waiting like a king in exile. And every single time, I was the one who showed up at his doorstep, giving him the graceful exit he demanded. I reached his door, my knuckles raised to knock, when the sound of careless laughter drifted through the gap. “Come on, Joshua, you’re really not gonna throw the girl a bone?” “Seriously, man. If Elise finds out you bought flowers and a designer purse just to beg your cute little assistant for forgiveness last night, she’s gonna lose her mind and dump you.” Joshua let out a low, amused scoff. “Dump me? Elise?” His tone dripped with effortless condescension. “She’s so hopelessly wrapped around my finger, it’s pathetic. Give her three days of radio silence and she starts clawing at the walls. She’d never dare leave.” He paused, a quiet, indulgent sigh slipping into his voice. “Amber is different. If I don’t pamper Amber, she’ll actually ice me out for a whole month.” My hand froze in midair. The blood in my veins turned to ice water. It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to comfort someone. It wasn’t that he was too proud to chase. He just didn’t care enough to do it for me. And if that was the case, then this pathetic, lovesick fool was officially done chasing. … “Oh, stop it!” Amber’s voice chimed in, bright and syrupy. “I wouldn’t ignore you for a whole month! Two weeks tops!” Joshua chuckled, his voice thick with a warmth I hadn’t heard in years. “Two weeks is still two weeks too long. Better to just keep you happy.” I pulled my hand back. My shoes felt like they were filled with wet cement, anchoring me to the plush hallway carpet. Inside, one of his fraternity brothers whistled. “Man, you’ve got it made. But for real, you’re not even a little worried Elise is gonna blow up your life?” Joshua took his time answering. A drag of a cigarette, a soft exhale. “Worst-case scenario? We break up.” He paused, his voice laden with lazy amusement. “Then again… do you really think she has the guts to walk away from me?” A roar of laughter erupted through the heavy oak door. “Fair point. Every single time you two fight, no matter who started it, she’s always the one on her knees begging for peace.” “She’s head-over-heels obsessed with you, man.” Joshua didn’t dispute a single word. When it came to me, he had always held all the cards, and he knew it. Amber giggled, tossing in her own smug guarantee. “Don’t worry, she’ll be here tonight. You guys don’t even know—last time before she came over, she sent Joshua this giant, pathetic essay spilling her guts. I literally texted back ‘UNSUBSCRIBE’ from his phone. You should’ve seen her face when she walked through the door. Ghost white!” She burst into peals of laughter. Outside in the dim corridor, a bitter, self-mocking smile crept onto my lips. So “that” was who sent that text. When I had arrived that night, Amber was lounging on his sofa. She hadn’t flinched, hadn’t looked remotely guilty. She had just offered me a pair of guest slippers with a hostess’s practiced grace, as if she were the woman living there. “Honestly,” Amber added, her voice dripping with mock sympathy, “her little essay was so well-written I almost felt bad enough to forgive her on your behalf. Right, boss?” Joshua’s reply was a stroke of tender indulgence. “Right. Whatever you say.” “Let’s make a bet,” Amber said playfully. “Let’s bet on… what time Elise shows up tonight.” The dull clink of Joshua crushing his cigarette into a glass tray echoed through the hallway. “Fine. Put me down for tonight.” “Hell yeah! You guys never go past three days of the silent treatment, right?” someone called out. “Never,” Joshua replied smoothly. “Well, today’s day three. Looks like you’re taking the pot, Joshua.” Standing in the cold hallway, the pieces clicked together with agonizing clarity. Three years together, and we rarely fought—not because we were harmonious, but because whenever a fissure appeared, I scrambled to patch it before the seventy-two-hour mark. I was always the one handing him the script to make amends. This was our ninth fight. Today was day three. Inside, the chatter grew louder, everyone congratulating Joshua on his guaranteed victory. Joshua basked in it. “Elise can’t handle being ignored. The second I pull away, she panics and comes running back on her own. It’s hopeless. She’s pathetic like that.” My desperate attempts to save our relationship had been nothing more than a spectator sport to him—a badge proving I was a dog that would never stop begging. I let out a quiet, hollow laugh. Unfortunately for him, he was about to lose that bet. This time, nobody was coming to smooth things over. … Joshua didn’t come home until the following evening. His expression was dark, his jaw tight with irritation. The moment he stepped through the door, his eyes locked onto me, his brow furrowing deep. “Why didn’t you come by last night?” At midnight, Amber had posted a video on her social feed, teasing Joshua for losing their little bet. In the clip, Joshua’s face had been stone-cold, his frustration barely masked beneath a veneer of swagger. Looking directly into her camera, he had muttered, “Doesn’t matter. If she doesn’t crawl back today, she will tomorrow.” Yet throughout the entire day, my phone had remained silent. No calls. No long paragraphs. He had only come home because the predictable script had failed to play out. “Why should I have?” I put down my coffee mug and looked straight into his eyes. Joshua blinked, visibly thrown off balance by the bluntness in my tone. Then, a flicker of understanding crossed his face, followed by a faint, derisive smirk. “Trying out a new tactic this time?” “No,” I said evenly. “I just finally grew a brain.” He stared at me, his arms crossed over his chest. “If it wasn’t my mistake,” I said, my voice dangerously calm, “why should I be the one bowing my head?” The root of this ninth fight had been a smear of plum lipstick on his collar. Amber’s shade. Shortly after Joshua had walked through the door that night, a text had popped up from her—dripping with fake innocence—apologizing for accidentally grazing his shirt during an office run, begging me not to take it the wrong way or fight with him over a silly misunderstanding. When I pressed Joshua about it, he called me paranoid. The conversation spiraled into a screaming match. Nine fights in three years. Every single one of them had Amber’s fingerprints all over it. Ever since she became his executive assistant a year ago, the foundation of our life had begun to rot. When I once asked him to transfer her to a different department, do you know what he told me? He told me my mind was filthy. He said that without a legitimate professional reason, transferring her would be an abuse of power. “What is that supposed to mean?” Joshua asked, his voice hardening. I met his gaze, ignoring his question, and asked one of my own: “Joshua, in your eyes, was my love just me being a pathetic pushover?” Silence fell over the room. He didn’t deny it. Even though I had already heard the truth with my own ears, a sickening hollow opened up in the center of my ribs. Three years of devotion, reduced to a punchline. The heartfelt messages I poured my soul into, handed over to his assistant to mock. The grace I offered him, turned into a drinking game for his friends. “You were outside my place yesterday?” he asked, finally putting the pieces together. “I was,” I said without flinching. “I heard everything.” “Oh.” His features barely shifted, settling back into that infuriating, dismissive calm. “No wonder you’re acting out.” He gave a short, careless chuckle. “It was just a joke, Elise.” “A joke.” Everything in Joshua’s world was a joke. Taking shots with Amber with their arms linked at company dinners was a joke. Filling his Instagram story with candids of her was a joke. Letting her kiss his cheek when he lost a party game was a joke. And making bets on my dignity was just another harmless joke. What wasn’t a joke to him? Was refusing to ever comfort his girlfriend while buying bags and bouquets for his assistant just another punchline? Seeing my silence, Joshua’s posture softened by a fraction. “Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. Guys talk shit when they drink. Nobody takes it seriously…” “You bought her flowers and a designer purse to apologize,” I cut in, my voice level. “Didn’t you?” Three years. He had never once apologized to me. To say it didn’t hurt would be a lie. Three years of my youth, crushed under the heel of his indifference. “You’re really hung up on that?” Joshua sighed, annoyed. “Amber is my assistant. She represents my firm when we meet high-end clients. She needed a decent bag to look the part. And the flowers…” He rubbed his temples. “I picked them up on a whim. She made a rookie mistake on a filing, I came down hard on her, and she got upset. I just bought them to smooth things over.” “To smooth things over.” Those words tasted like battery acid. On our very first anniversary, he looked me in the eye and told me he didn’t know how to coddle people. He told me he would never be the guy who groveled. So I spent three years bending over backward, shaping myself into the girl who never demanded anything, never made a fuss. He didn’t lack the ability to soothe someone. He just didn’t think I was worth the effort. A lump tightened in my throat. It took several seconds before I managed to force out a whisper: “Right. Understood.” Joshua looked at me, perplexed by the lack of tears or screaming. Before he could speak, his phone began to buzz against the marble counter. He glanced at the screen, then shot me a guarded look before stepping into the hallway to answer it. When he returned, his mask of effortless control was back in place. “Let’s just consider this silent treatment over,” he announced, as if granting me a royal pardon. He locked his phone and slid it into his slacks. “Something came up at the office. I need to head back in.” A routine lie. Practiced and polished. My expression didn’t waver. “Go ahead.” Without a second glance, he grabbed his keys and walked out. I waited two minutes, grabbed my jacket, and followed. … Joshua’s sleek black sedan pulled up to the valet stand of an upscale private lounge downtown. I slipped inside the building a few paces behind him, riding the elevator up to the sixth floor, where the private VIP suites were tucked away behind heavy velvet curtains. I paused outside suite 602. Through the frosted glass panel, Amber’s bright, bubbly laughter rang out clear as day. “Did you manage to calm her down, boss? Was she thrilled that you actually went home to her?” Amber giggled. “Honestly, she’s so easy to handle. One crumb of attention from you and all her anger just evaporates.” A mutual acquaintance chimed in: “Seriously, man, I’ve never seen a girlfriend that low-maintenance. Usually she’s the one chasing you, but you just show up once and it’s like nothing ever happened.” “Joshua, drop the masterclass, bro,” someone else laughed. “How do you train a girl to be that obedient?” Joshua tossed out a lazy curse. “Shut up.” He paused, swirling the ice in his glass. “Elise has always been easy. Even after hearing what we said yesterday, she didn’t scream at me. A couple of words and she was fine.” Amber gasped softly. “Wait, she actually came by yesterday?” “Yeah.” Another wave of snickering swept the room. Some called me hopelessly devoted; others joked that I was a stray that would never leave no matter how hard I was kicked. They praised Joshua for having me wrapped around his little finger. I stood in the dim corridor, taking in every single syllable. So that was why he had suddenly come home. That was why he had offered that half-assed truce. A faint, hollow laugh tore from my chest. The suite door suddenly swung open from the inside. “Elise?” The guy holding the handle froze, his face draining of color. The room instantly plunged into dead silence. Joshua stepped forward, a momentary flicker of guilt flashing across his eyes before his brow knit into an irritated scowl. “Were you following me?” I looked into his eyes, tilting my head slightly. “Didn’t you say there was an emergency at the office?” I glanced past his shoulder, letting my gaze drift over the silver balloons, the custom cake, and finally landing on Amber’s wide, guilty eyes, before looking back at Joshua. “This is your emergency?” Joshua’s tongue seemed glued to the roof of his mouth. Amber quickly hurried over, plastering a fragile smile across her face. “Elise, please don’t be mad at Joshua. Today is my birthday. He only came to help me celebrate. He only said it was work because he didn’t want you to overthink things.” She sounded like she was playing the peacemaker, but the gleam of triumph in her eyes was sharp enough to draw blood. I didn’t scream. I didn’t flip the table. I just nodded slowly. “Is that so? Happy birthday, then.” My unnatural calm caught Amber completely off guard. Her rehearsed smile froze. Joshua grabbed my wrist, pulling me a few steps down the empty hall before letting go. “Elise, what are you trying to pull here?” Looking at the tension in his jaw, I almost wanted to laugh. “Nothing,” I whispered. “I just wanted to make sure of something.” His scowl deepened. “Make sure of what?” “Make sure that every last piece of my heart is completely dead.” When I didn’t answer, Joshua parted his lips to say something more, but Amber was already at his side, sliding her arm through his with the practiced ease of someone who had done it a hundred times. He didn’t pull away. “Joshua, the games are starting! Everyone’s waiting for you,” she chirped, before turning to me with a saccharine pout. “Elise, why don’t you join us?” “No thanks,” I said. Amber stuck out her tongue playfully. “Alright then. But… you aren’t really mad, are you?” “Not at all,” I replied. Joshua studied my face, utterly baffled by my complete lack of resistance. Yet the relief won out. “Go home and get some sleep. Don’t wait up for me.” The suite door clicked shut behind them. I stood alone under the fluorescent lights of the hallway, blinking rapidly against the sharp sting behind my eyes, forcing the tears back down. My phone buzzed in my palm. A notification lit up the dark screen—a message from a contact I had saved three days ago. “Hello Elise, this is Marcus. If you’re free, we should meet and finalize the details.” I lowered my eyes, my thumb tapping out a single, steady reply. “Let’s do it.” … Joshua didn’t return until late the next morning. He was wearing a fresh button-down, crisp and unwrinkled. Catching me looking at him, he immediately offered a preemptive excuse: “Amber had too much to drink last night and threw up on my jacket. I had to buy a clean shirt at the hotel lobby shop. Don’t read into it.” I looked away. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t reading into anything anymore, but the words felt like too much effort. Joshua ladled a bowl of oatmeal and sat down across from me at the kitchen island. “I’m leaving for a business trip this afternoon. I’ll be gone for about a week.” “With who?” I asked quietly. He paused for a beat. “Amber is my assistant. She’s coming with me.” I gave a faint nod and kept eating. I had already known the answer before asking. “Joshua, let’s break up.” I set my spoon down onto the ceramic bowl with a soft, dull clatter. “I’ve already packed my things. I’m moving out today.” Joshua froze. He looked at me as if I were speaking a foreign language. “What did you say?” The kitchen was so quiet I could hear the hum of the refrigerator. I looked directly into his dark, bewildered eyes. “I said, we’re done. I’m leaving.” Joshua stared at me, then let out a breathy, dismissive laugh. “Elise, what kind of joke is this?” He shook his head, leaning forward. “Look, I lied about last night because I didn’t want you spiraling. It was a dumb party. Is that really worth throwing three years away?” One small thing wasn’t worth it. But a mountain of small betrayals, stacked high over twelve agonizing months, had crushed everything beneath them. “If it’s about the party, I apologize,” Joshua offered, his lips curving into a placating half-smile. “Stop talking out of anger.” I looked at him, completely checked out, refusing to engage in the debate. He took my silence as surrender, assuming I had folded just like every other time. “Look, there’s nothing going on between me and Amber,” he added, his voice smooth with practiced reassurance. “Stop letting your imagination run wild.” That sentence again. I had heard it so many times I was entirely numb to its cadence. “Okay,” I murmured, and said nothing more. Twenty minutes later, the front door chime rang, followed by the electronic beep of the keypad. Amber strolled inside. “Last time I stayed over after that company mixer, Joshua gave me the door code so I wouldn’t have to ring the bell,” she chirped, blinking with wide, faux-innocent eyes. “You don’t mind, do you, Elise?” The girl wore her ambition on her sleeve. Transparent, greedy, and utterly brazen. “Not at all,” I said calmly. “Come and go as you please.” It had nothing to do with me anymore. He could hand the code to the entire city for all I cared. “I wasn’t even supposed to go on this trip,” Amber continued, watching my face for any sign of a crack. “Joshua insisted on bringing me. He said I need more exposure to high-level negotiations so nobody in the industry takes advantage of me.” During the first grueling year of Joshua’s startup, I had stayed up with him until three in the morning every night, surviving on black coffee and cheap takeout, enduring the condescension of every investor in town just to secure a meeting. And now, the road we had paved with my sweat and tears was being laid out as a red carpet for her. My face remained a smooth sheet of ice. “Good for you. Best of luck.” Joshua came down the stairs carrying his leather weekender bag, catching the tail end of our conversation. A flash of annoyance crossed his brow. “Elise, Amber didn’t mean anything by it. Drop the passive-aggressive act.” I didn’t argue. I didn’t say a word. “Well, we’re heading out, Elise!” Amber beamed, flashing a bright, triumphant smile. The day after Joshua boarded that flight, I cleared out the last of my belongings. Then, I drove downtown to meet Marcus, signing the paperwork that sealed the next chapter of my life. … During that entire week out of town, Joshua didn’t receive a single message from Elise. It was entirely unlike her. In three years, she had never gone seven whole days without checking in, asking about his schedule, or reminding him to take his vitamins. Joshua pushed the unsettling knot in his gut down, telling himself she was just being stubborn. “Boss, should we grab dinner before we head home?” Amber asked, strolling up to him in the terminal. She caught a glimpse of his open messaging screen. “Are you waiting for Elise to text?” Joshua locked his phone without answering. “Is she still mad at me?” Amber asked, her voice dropping into a fragile whisper. “Maybe I should go apologize to her when we get back.” Joshua tucked his phone into his coat. “Forget dinner. Let’s just head straight back.” Standing by the gate, he finally gave in and dialed Elise’s number to let her know he was on his way home. The phone rang three times before clicking open. The voice that answered, however, wasn’t hers. “I’m so sorry, the bride is currently busy doing the champagne toasts. If it’s urgent, could you please call back later?”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “580231”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Every autumn throughout our four years of college, Jonas would find the most vibrant sycamore leaf on campus and bring it to me. He promised that once our senior road trip was over, he would press all four leaves into a glass frame and hang it in our very first apartment together. Yet, when we arrived at the mountain cabin and sorted out the rooms, he gave the only master suite with a private bath to Vivian. “She got trapped in an elevator as a child,” Jonas explained, his tone infuriatingly reasonable. “She gets panic attacks if she has to sleep in a dark room alone.” I stared at her heavy duffel bag in his hand and asked quietly, “And what about me?” Before Jonas could answer, my roommate Beth laughed. “April, come on. You two have been together for four years. Are you really going to throw a fit over one night?” The others chimed in, annoyed that I was ruining the mood. Without asking, they relegated me to the drafty, leaking attic. Then they took the custom wooden frame I had brought, claiming Vivian had always loved pressed leaves and that it would make the perfect graduation keepsake for her. Jonas didn’t say a word to stop them. Only when Vivian’s eyes welled with tears as she offered a fragile apology did Jonas turn to me, his voice dipping into that cool, admonishing register. “She lost the best four years of her youth being stuck overseas. You have everything, April. Can’t you just let her have this one thing?” A sudden, hollow realization settled over me. Ever since Vivian returned to the States, everyone had remarked on how much my quiet demeanor, my short haircut, and even the curve of my smile resembled hers. It turned out Jonas had never been cherishing those four golden leaves. He was merely collecting the echoes of her that he saw in me. Outside, the autumn rain battered the sycamore trees against the windowpane. They all thought that taking that frame away only cost me a sentimental souvenir. None of them knew that beneath those four pressed leaves lay the official acceptance letter Jonas had spent two desperate years chasing. And in that quiet attic, I decided: none of it mattered anymore. 1 “The light in the attic is dead. Does anyone have a flashlight?” I stood at the top of the narrow staircase. Rainwater dripped steadily through a crack in the cedar ceiling, soaking through the edge of the mattress. Beth was busy unpacking Vivian’s coats into the downstairs closet. She didn’t even turn around. “Just use your phone flashlight. Make it work for one night, April. Everyone’s exhausted after an eight-hour drive.” “The bed is completely drenched.” “Then throw a couple of jackets over it,” Eli, our class rep, said as he passed by with a crate of snacks. “It’s a rustic cabin trip, not a five-star resort. Vivian’s health is fragile—learn to be a little considerate.” Jonas stepped out of the master suite carrying a steaming mug of hot water. He caught sight of my damp cuffs, his brow instantly furrowing. “Why haven’t you changed into dry clothes yet?” “My suitcase is right under the leak. It’s too heavy to drag across the floor.” Jonas pressed the warm mug into my hands and brushed past me up the stairs. He hauled the cot away from the damp patch, found a wooden pail to catch the steady drip, and took his own bath towel to wipe down my wet suitcase. “Drink some,” he said, turning back to me. “Your hands are freezing, and you’re still acting stubborn.” The hot water was steeped with dried orange peel and honey. Whenever I got carsick, he always made this for me. The citrus steam washed over my face, and I wrapped my fingers around the warm ceramic, swallowing the argument on my tongue. Perhaps he was just looking out for Vivian for a single night. Jonas pulled back the duvet on the narrow daybed across the attic, pressing his palm flat against the mattress. “This side is completely dry. I’ll sleep up here with you. Vivian can have the suite to herself.” From the bottom of the stairs, Beth’s voice drifted up: “Jonas, you’re ridiculous. You can’t even spend one night away from April?” He didn’t acknowledge her, keeping his head down as he checked the window latch. Looking at the familiar line of his jaw, I swallowed the quiet “forget it” lingering in my throat. Footsteps creaked on the stairs. Vivian came up slowly, clutching the banister. She was wearing Jonas’s oversized gray fleece—the one I had bought him for his birthday, with a tiny maple leaf embroidered inside the cuff. A sweater he had never let anyone else touch. “Did I cause trouble?” Vivian asked softly, her eyes wide. “April, please take the suite back. I can just sleep on the couch in the living room.” Jonas stood up straight. “Why are you wearing so little?” “The zipper on my duffel got stuck, and Beth said I should borrow something warm from you,” Vivian said, pulling the oversized sleeves over her hands. “You don’t mind, do you, April?” She directed the last question straight at me. “It’s not my sweater,” I said evenly. “Well, you picked it out for him—you have wonderful taste,” she murmured, burying her chin into the high collar. “It even smells like your detergent. Warm and sweet.” Jonas walked over to her and gently tugged the collar higher around her neck. “Come on. I’ll pry the zipper open for you.” “Aren’t you staying up in the attic?” she asked. His steps paused. “She can’t unjam the lock alone. I’ll come right back up once it’s sorted.” Vivian tugged lightly on his sleeve. “Never mind. Don’t make April upset. I’ll just figure it out myself.” “Stop being difficult, Vivian.” Jonas followed her down the stairs. I sat in the cold attic until eleven o’clock. The water in the wooden bucket rose until it spilled over the rim. He never came back, and my calls went straight to voicemail. Around midnight, I carried the bucket down to empty it. As I passed the master suite, the door was half-ajar. Vivian was sitting on the plush rug, and Jonas was kneeling on the floor before her, carefully winding a compression bandage around her swollen ankle. “April?” Vivian looked up, startled. “My bag fell over, and when Jonas caught me, the broken zipper sliced his hand. You should look at him.” Only then did I notice the raw, bleeding scrape along the web of Jonas’s thumb. When he saw me standing in the doorway, his first instinct was to pull his hand behind his back. “It’s just a scratch. Don’t look—you get lightheaded around blood.” He remembered. I fetched the first-aid kit from the hallway, but as soon as I uncapped the antiseptic, Vivian reached out and took his hand with practiced ease. “Let me do it,” Vivian said softly. “I’ve patched him up ever since he played high school basketball.” The sterile cotton swab remained frozen in my fingers. Jonas didn’t pull his hand away from her. Instead, he pulled the suite key from his pocket and held it out to me. “There’s a dryer in the private bath. Bring your wet clothes down. I’ll run them for you.” I took the key. My heart, against all reason, softened by a fraction. I turned toward the open closet in the suite to grab an extra hanger. There, taking up half the wardrobe, hung a neat row of men’s ironed shirts. Jonas’s electric razor sat beside the bathroom sink, right next to Vivian’s ceramic toothbrush holder. The receipt tape still stuck to the base of the holder was dated two weeks ago. Outside the door, Vivian’s light, playful voice drifted in. “Jonas, you brought all the spare clothes you had over at my place anyway. Why did you pretend you were only staying one night?” 2 “Vivian just moved back to the city. She had nowhere else to stay, so I let her crash in my old apartment for a few days.” Jonas shut the wardrobe door with a firm click and took the receipt tape from my hand. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, my voice dangerously calm. “It was just an empty apartment. I didn’t want you overthinking things, so I didn’t mention it.” Vivian leaned against the doorframe, her ankle neatly bound in Jonas’s bandage. “April, that place is two blocks from the clinic. When my chronic condition acts up, I can’t be left alone. Jonas was just dropping by to check in on me.” “Checking in on you enough to move his entire wardrobe in?” “April.” Jonas placed a heavy hand on my shoulder. “If you’re mad, take it out on me. Don’t corner her.” He stood so close that the faint, bitter scent of medicinal ointment on his collar drifted into my nose. Whenever I ran a high fever, he used to sit by my bedside all night, wringing out cool washcloths every hour on the hour. Back then, he used to whisper that he never grew tired of looking after the people he loved. I hadn’t realized that list could hold two people at the same time. Vivian picked up the glass frame from the console table and held it out. “It’s all my fault. Take it back, April. The leaves are precious to you; I never should have accepted them.” The frame had already been pried open. The tip of the first leaf was snapped clean off. The fourth leaf had a deep, jagged crease down its center. The linen backing thread had been severed, exposing the white corner of the hidden envelope underneath. I reached out to take it, but Beth stepped between us and pressed her hand over the glass. “We’re shooting our graduation short film this afternoon! We already agreed to use the frame as a hero prop. We’ll give it back the second we wrap.” “I never agreed to that,” I said. Eli walked in carrying his camera rig. “The entire cohort is waiting on this shoot. Changing props now will throw the whole schedule off. Vivian isn’t trying to steal it from you, April. Stop making this so ugly for everyone.” Jonas rubbed the bridge of his nose, looking bone-tired. “April, it’s just for half a day. I’ll keep an eye on them. I won’t let it get damaged any further.” For four years, he had called me “April” in that low, gentle cadence. He only ever used my full, formal name when he was angry. I looked into his eyes. “Just half a day?” “I’ll put it back together with my own hands the moment we wrap.” Jonas reached over, gently slipped the black hair tie from my wrist, and gathered my windblown hair into a neat low ponytail. “The wind is picking up outside. You hate it when your hair whips across your face.” His knuckles brushed the sensitive skin behind my ear, winding the elastic twice—the exact tension I always preferred. Once again, I yielded. The shoot took place at the abandoned heritage railway station at the base of the mountain. Vivian sat on the wooden bench beneath the rusted station sign, clutching the frame, with Jonas seated beside her. Beth, directing the scene, tossed a thick crimson scarf across their laps, instructing Vivian to wrap it around Jonas’s neck. It was the scarf I had spent three months knitting by hand last winter. “Use a different one,” I said, stepping forward. Beth glanced back, annoyed. “The red pops on camera against the stone! Don’t interrupt the take.” “That was my gift to Jonas.” Vivian’s hands hovered in midair, but before she could pull the wool, Jonas intercepted it. “We won’t use it.” He walked over to where I stood on the gravel path, wrapped the scarf gently around my neck, and cupped the back of my head with a warm palm. “My things. You have the final say.” A few classmates whistled and cheered. On the bench, the smile faded from Vivian’s face. In that brief, shining second, he truly seemed to be choosing me. I gripped the fringe of the scarf, a wave of self-doubt washing over me. Perhaps I had been making mountains out of molehills. Perhaps I was suffocating him with my insecurity. The slate clapped, and the cameras rolled again. Vivian sat alone on the bench with the frame. When it was time for Jonas to step back into the frame, a sharp, metallic screech echoed down the tracks. A distant freight train sounded its long, piercing horn. Vivian clamped her hands over her ears, her entire body trembling as she shrank behind the wooden post. Jonas shoved the camera lens aside and lunged forward, throwing himself in front of her. “Look at me, Vivian! Don’t listen to it.” Vivian clutched his jacket hem, sobbing. “Can you… can you just hold me?” “Jonas.” I said his name once. He looked back at me, his eyes fractured with panic, but his arms had already encircled Vivian’s shaking shoulders. Beth physically stepped in front of me, blocking my view. “When she was trapped in that elevator, the freight train was roaring right outside the shaft! Are you really going to hold her trauma against her?” Eli lowered his camera, glaring at me. “Everyone knows Jonas’s family owes their lives to Vivian’s dad. He’s comforting his benefactor’s daughter—what is wrong with you?” Vivian buried her face in his chest, wiping tears with the back of her sleeve. “April, I’m so sorry… I can’t control it…” Jonas didn’t let go of her. Instead, he reached out, unwrapped my red scarf from my neck, and draped it over Vivian’s head, muffling her ears against the sound. “Let her borrow it for a minute,” he murmured. The fringed end of the scarf dropped into a muddy puddle between the tracks, soaking through with dark, filthy water. In the commotion, the wooden frame slipped from Vivian’s grasp. It struck the steel rail with a sharp “crack”. The shattered backboard split open, and the thick, pristine white envelope hidden beneath the pressed leaves slid out onto the gravel. 3 “The Northern Institute for Book Arts and Rare Paper Conservation. Joint Fellowship Acceptance Notice.” Eli picked up the letter from the gravel and read the official masthead aloud. Jonas shoved past him and snatched the document from his hand. His gaze scanned down to my printed name, then locked onto the stamp date at the bottom right. “You’ve had this for seven days?” “Give it back to me,” I said, stepping forward. “Why did you keep this from me?” “I was going to tell you once the trip was over.” Beth craned her neck. “Wait, isn’t that the fellowship Jonas applied for? He spent two years on the waitlist hoping for an opening. How did you get it first?” “Because this was a direct institutional nomination,” I said coldly. “It wasn’t through the general pool.” “But you two specialize in the exact same field of paper restoration,” Eli chimed in, flipping through his phone. “If April accepts the nomination, our university’s quota is filled. That means Jonas loses any chance at a supplemental spot this year.” Jonas folded the acceptance letter carefully and slid it back into the envelope. His voice softened, taking on that coaxing, soothing tone he always used when trying to de-escalate me. “April, let’s talk about this privately.” He took my hand and led me around to the stone wall behind the station depot. The wind was bitter back there. He immediately shrugged out of his heavy coat, wrapped it around my shoulders, and smoothed down my hair. “Your hands are like ice. Don’t be angry yet.” “Give me my letter, Jonas.” “I’m not keeping it from you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small brown paper bag of dried sour plums. “I saw these at the general store in town this morning. Bought them specifically for you.” My favorite sour plums. He hated anything tart, yet he could always pick out the exact brand I loved from a crowded shelf. I squeezed the paper bag, my knuckles whitening as his voice dropped to a low, tender murmur. “If you really want to move up north to Boston, I’ll go with you. We can break our current lease, and I’ll find a job at a local archive or studio up there. Just don’t make these life-altering decisions all on your own. Okay?” I searched his eyes. “You would really move for me?” “We promised we wouldn’t be apart after graduation.” A treacherous, shameful spark of hope flared in my chest. Perhaps those four years of pressed leaves weren’t a total lie. Perhaps the future we talked about was still real. Vivian was just a debt of gratitude he felt obligated to pay—an obligation, not a choice. “Jonas,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “I can tolerate you checking in on her. But there have to be strict boundaries. No more living under the same roof, and no more keeping secrets from me.” “I promise.” “Give me the frame back.” “The second the shoot wraps, I’ll hand it over.” Vivian’s voice drifted from around the stone corner. “Jonas? The department advisor just called back.” She stepped into view, holding out her phone. “The committee said my overseas studio hours haven’t been fully verified. They need a graduating senior from the same specialized track to sign an institutional endorsement for my portfolio.” Jonas didn’t take the phone. “Ask Eli to co-sign.” “Eli doesn’t meet the qualification threshold,” Vivian said, turning her gaze directly onto me. “April does. She has the official Fellowship acceptance—her endorsement carries the highest academic weight.” I gripped the bag of sour plums so hard the paper tore. “I won’t sign it.” The color drained from Vivian’s face. “It’s just to let me sit for the final thesis defense, April. It won’t affect your fellowship at all.” “I don’t know your portfolio, and I don’t know your restoration logs,” I replied coldly. “I will not legally vouch for work I haven’t supervised.” Beth came around the corner, grabbing my arm. “It’s just a signature! Vivian had to put her studies on hold for a year to nurse her dying father. Why do you have to be so cruel and cut off her entire future?” “You’re not the one putting your professional license on the line,” I snapped, shaking her off. “It’s very easy to be generous with someone else’s career.” “Enough!” Jonas barked, stepping between Beth and me. But as he did, he smoothly slipped my acceptance letter into his own backpack and zipped it shut. “Nobody is forcing anyone to sign right now. We’re heading back to the cabin.” I stared at his backpack. “Give me my envelope.” “You’re too worked up right now, April. You’re going to crumple it.” “Jonas. This is my boundary.” Jonas pulled the zipper tight. “When you calm down, I’ll give it back.” On the ride back in the van, Vivian sat in the passenger seat beside him, while Beth and Eli took the row behind them. I was relegated to the front bench beside the heavy metal equipment cases. Across the narrow aisle, Jonas passed me a bottle of water. The cap was already twisted open. I didn’t reach for it. He looked at me for a long moment, then placed the bag of sour plums quietly onto the seat beside my knee. “You’ll get a stomachache if you don’t eat anything sour when you’re nauseous. Don’t punish yourself.” As the van pulled into the cabin gravel, my phone chimed. An updated schedule for tomorrow evening’s department graduation symposium had been posted in the cohort group chat. The final item on the program read: “Overseas Portfolio Showcase – Vivian.” Under the field marked “Institutional Endorser”, my name had already been typed in. 4 “It’s just a placeholder,” Jonas said, closing his phone screen and pulling out a chair for me at the symposium hall. “Without your actual signature, it has no legal effect.” Long banquet tables had been arranged in the courtyard of the lodge, filled with faculty advisors, mentors, and classmates. My seat was tucked at the far edge, while Vivian sat directly beside Jonas, the dismantled glass frame resting on the table before her. The four pressed sycamore leaves were pasted onto the cover of her portfolio binder. The title was embossed in gold: “The Journey Home.” I reached across the linen tablecloth to seize the binder, but Beth immediately slammed her hand down on the edge. “The presentations are about to start! Don’t make a scene here.” “Those are my leaves,” I said, my voice shaking with fury. Vivian stood up, her lip quivering. “Jonas told me I could use them as design accents. I didn’t realize you were still so angry about it, April. If it bothers you this much, I won’t present.” She reached out to peel the first leaf off the heavy cardstock. The delicate veins had been set with industrial craft glue. The second her fingernail caught the edge, the brittle, dried leaf snapped in half. “Stop touching it!” My voice cracked across the quiet courtyard. Jonas caught Vivian’s wrist, grabbed a pair of fine tweezers from his toolkit, and began meticulously separating the leaf from the paper. He managed to salvage most of the first one, but the second leaf had fused entirely with the backing sheet. He looked up at me, his eyes full of pleading. “I can fix it, April. I promise you.” “You promised you wouldn’t let them break it in the first place.” Jonas’s jaw tightened, but he offered no defense. He retrieved a sheet of sterile mulberry paper, gently laid the broken fragments inside, and dragged his chair all the way over to my side of the table. “Sit down, April. I won’t let her touch them again. Once this showcase is over, I’ll help you mount them into a new frame.” He reached into his breast pocket and handed me the pristine white envelope. The paper was smooth, uncreased. “And here is this. I’m giving it back. When we get back to town, we’ll figure out Boston together.” I clutched the envelope, my knuckles white, and sat down. He had stopped Vivian from using the project, returned my fellowship letter, and chosen to sit beside me in front of all our peers and professors. In four days, this was the first clear, unambiguous choice he had made in my favor. When the moderator announced Vivian’s name, she didn’t step up to the podium. She kept her head down, quietly packing away her binders. Just then, Jonas’s phone buzzed loudly against the wood. It was an incoming call from his father. The courtyard was so quiet that when Jonas answered, the older man’s booming, exasperated voice spilled through the receiver for everyone to hear. “Jonas! Why hasn’t Vivian’s portfolio endorsement gone through yet? Mr. Hardy entrusted that girl to our family on his deathbed! You cannot let her walk away without her degree!” Jonas pressed his thumb over the mic. “Dad, this is April’s professional decision.” “You and April have been solid for four years! Missing one signature isn’t going to break you two up! Vivian has nothing left in this world—how many times do you expect her to beg on her knees?” Beth’s eyes were red with indignation. “April, we stayed in that drafty cabin, we gave you your acceptance letter back—do you seriously need the entire world to beg you before you show an ounce of human decency?” Eli shoved the endorsement form in front of my face. “It’s just an attestation that she completed foundational lab hours! The department board conducts the final review anyway—you won’t be held liable!” “Then find someone else to sign it.” “No one else has the credential,” Vivian whispered, her hands shaking over her portfolio. “Forget it, Jonas. My father didn’t give his life for yours just so I could hold it over your head. I’ll just drop out.” She reached out to rip the registration form in half. Jonas’s hand shot out, catching her wrist before the paper could tear. I saw the violent hesitation in his eyes. And then, as his gaze turned back toward me, that familiar, stubborn certainty hardened on his face. “April,” he said, his voice dropping into that pleading, suffocating pressure. “Help her. Just this once.” “I will not sign.” “If she doesn’t get the degree, she loses her studio apprenticeship.” “That is the consequence of her own incomplete coursework.” “April!” He barked my name, the frustration finally snapping through. “You already have the most prestigious fellowship in the country! Why can’t you leave a single path open for her?” The entire courtyard fell dead silent. Dozens of eyes burned into my back. The senior advisor flipped through Vivian’s submitted portfolio, pointing at the signature line on the final page. “Once the endorser signs, both students’ portfolios undergo a joint ethics review. April, think carefully before you proceed.” “I refuse to endorse it,” I said clearly. Jonas reached over and pulled the acceptance letter out of my hands. “Then we’ll temporarily defer your fellowship confirmation. We’ll wait until Vivian’s board review is complete, so it’s fair to both of you.” I stood up, my chair scraping violently against the flagstones. “By what right do you touch my future?” “Your online portal passcode is our anniversary date,” Jonas said, his fingers already flying across his phone screen. “I’m only submitting a temporary deferral request, April. I’m not canceling it. The second Vivian’s graduation is secured, I will personally reinstate your acceptance.” “Let go of me!” Beth stepped into the aisle, physically blocking the courtyard exit. “We’re not done sorting this out! Where do you think you’re going?” Jonas held me with one hand while tapping the confirmation portal with the other. He was still the same boy who remembered every password, every date, every tiny detail of my life. The very familiarity that once made me feel cherished had now become the cage that trapped me. Suddenly, Vivian picked up her portfolio binder and thrust it toward me. “Fine, April! If you won’t sign, take your damn leaves back!” She jerked the binder. The four dried sycamore leaves slipped from the loose plastic sleeves and fell straight into a wide ceramic mug of boiling tea on the table. The delicate, brittle veins expanded in the scalding liquid, instantly dissolving into dark, soggy mush as they sank to the bottom. Jonas instinctively reached into the scalding water to fish them out. Before his fingers could touch the surface, I reached over and pressed the power button on his phone, killing the bright screen. Then, I pulled off the simple silver ring he had given me for our third anniversary and dropped it into the mug of tea. It hit the ceramic bottom with a dull “clink”, settling right into the ruined leaves. His phone screen had been frozen one second before the deferral request could be submitted. “You don’t need to defer anything,” I said, my voice ice-cold. “I already formally accepted the fellowship.” Jonas looked up, dazed. “When?” “The night you left me alone in the leaking attic.” I pulled my arm from his grip and picked up my duffel bag, which had been sitting packed by my chair since dawn. Accepting that fellowship meant forfeiting the three-year apartment lease we had signed in the city. It also meant the supplemental candidate on the waitlist—Jonas—would never get the call. Outside the courtyard gates, the official shuttle from the Northern Conservation Institute was idling, its headlights cutting through the dusk. Jonas sprinted to the gate, catching the handle of my rolling bag. “April! The lease has three full years left! What about our home? What about our life?” I reached down and peeled his fingers off the handle, one by one. Behind us, the advisor at the table flipped to the very first preservation log in Vivian’s portfolio binder and suddenly shouted Jonas’s name across the courtyard. “Jonas! This portfolio piece wasn’t restored by Vivian! The primary registry and archive seal belong to April!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “580230”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

On my twenty-fourth birthday, Jonas proposed to me. We were standing in the heart of the city, surrounded by a swelling crowd, when the towering digital billboard above the skyline lit up against the dusk. “Vivian, marry me.” Vivian was my older sister. Four years ago, she died in a violent car crash on the highway while driving to the airport to pick me up. Jonas, shattered by the loss, slipped into a severe, unyielding psychiatric break. In his mind, reality fractured, and the doctors warned that forcing the truth on him could push him over the edge. Consumed by the suffocating weight of survivor’s guilt, I agreed to play the part. I became her ghost. I became my sister’s substitute. Standing under the neon glow, looking into Jonas’s misted, tender eyes, I held back my tears and nodded, whispering, “Yes.” I reached out my right hand for the ring. In a split second, the tenderness vanished. His face contorted with sudden, feral rage. “Why are your nails painted?” he snarled, his grip turning to iron. “Vivian hated nail polish! She never wore this garbage!” The cheers around us curdled into terrified screams. Jonas seized my fingers, wrenching and tearing at the acrylics until my real nails ripped away from the nail beds, one by one. The blinding, searing agony tore through my nervous system, and everything went black. Cruelties like this had happened too many times to count. I once had hair that fell to my waist, but Vivian wore hers in a chic, shoulder-grazing bob. In a fit of manic rage, Jonas took kitchen shears and hacked off the eighteen years of hair I had carefully grown. I wasn’t allowed to touch sweets because Vivian detested sugar; I couldn’t listen to indie folk because Vivian favored classical; I couldn’t wear heels because Vivian preferred flats. The moment I slipped—the moment I acted like myself instead of her—Jonas lost control. When I opened my eyes, the stark white ceiling of a private hospital room greeted me. Outside the cracked door, Jonas was speaking in hushed tones with his close friend, Dr. Evans. “It’s been four years, Jonas,” Dr. Evans murmured, his voice heavy with fatigue. “Let Aurora go. And let yourself go, too.” “How do you know she isn’t enjoying every second of it?” Jonas’s voice drifted through the gap, freezing, detached, and razor-sharp. “I went through her journal. She developed feelings for me. Pathetic, disgusting feelings.” He paused, his tone laced with venom. “Just looking at her makes my stomach turn.” Beneath the thin hospital blanket, my bandaged hands clenched so tightly that fresh blood seeped through the gauze. The one-woman show I had been performing for four years had finally reached its curtain call. … The air conditioning hummed, blowing a frigid draft that made me shiver uncontrollably. “Jonas, what happened back then was an accident,” Dr. Evans pleaded softly. “Why take it out on Aurora? She’s endured hell for four years just to treat your supposed ‘condition.’ If she ever finds out you’ve been faking this entire breakdown…” “An accident?” Jonas cut him off with a harsh, mocking laugh. “If she hadn’t demanded to come home unannounced, Vivian wouldn’t have driven out in the middle of a torrential storm. She wouldn’t have died.” I could hear the bitter sneer in his breath. “In her diary, Aurora wrote that her only birthday wish this year was to cure me—to pull me out of the dark. Well, three days from now, at our wedding, I’m going to grant her wish.” Dr. Evans sounded alarmed. “What are you planning to do?” “I’m going to expose her in front of everyone,” Jonas said, his voice twisting with malice. “I’ll project pages of her diary on the big screen. I’ll let our families, our friends, and the press see how she used my grief as an excuse to crawl into my bed. I want the world to know what kind of vile, shameless parasite she is—stealing her dead sister’s fiancé.” Dr. Evans gasped. “Jonas, are you insane? Aren’t you afraid she’ll break? What if she hurts herself?” Jonas’s silence was deafening. When he finally spoke, every syllable was carved from ice. “If she’s truly that fragile, she can consider her death an apology to Vivian. But if she survives the humiliation… then I’ll pretend my mind cleared up. I’ll play the honorable man, take responsibility, marry her, and bury the past for good.” He paused, glancing through the small window in the door. I saw a flicker of something dark and unreadable pass through his eyes—an unsettling, possessive shadow. Dr. Evans hesitated before asking, “Jonas… be honest with yourself. In these four years, haven’t you developed even a shred of real feeling for Aurora?” Jonas didn’t answer. He simply patted Dr. Evans on the shoulder and instructed him to call the moment I woke up before walking away down the sterile hallway. Once their footsteps faded into nothingness, I slowly opened my eyes. The fragile love, the patient hope, the quiet devotion I had harbored in the deepest corners of my chest shattered entirely. His words crashed over me like freezing tidal waves, dragging me under until I couldn’t breathe. Four years ago, upon learning of Vivian’s death, Jonas collapsed in acute shock. When he woke, he looked at me and called me “Vivian”. Dr. Evans told me Jonas had developed severe dissociative grief, warning that any sudden shock could drive him to suicide, and begged me to play along for his therapy. Choked by guilt, believing my sister died because of me, I agreed without hesitation. Whenever Jonas had lucid intervals, he would apologize profusely for the physical pain he caused during his “episodes.” He took me on quiet dates, brought me flowers, and looked at me with tenderness. Slowly, helplessly, I fell for him. I foolishly believed that once he healed, I would finally step out of the shadows and stand by his side simply as Aurora. It had all been a lie. These four years were not treatment. They were Jonas’s meticulously designed torture chamber. With trembling, bandaged fingers, I retrieved my phone and opened my inbox. Sitting there was an official job offer from an architectural design firm in London. The start date listed on the contract was three days away—the exact day of the wedding. Without a second of hesitation, I clicked “Accept”. The wedding would go on as planned. Only the bride would be different. … The next morning, my parents rushed into the hospital room. Before I could open my mouth to tell them about Jonas’s deception, my mother pulled a chair up to the bed, her face drawn in sharp disapproval. “Aurora, what on earth were you thinking, wearing nail polish?” she snapped, lowering her voice. “You know Vivian never touched that stuff. Jonas’s mental state is hanging by a thread—he can’t handle triggers like that!” She leaned in, her eyes hard. “Until the ceremony is over, I’m staying right by your side to make sure you don’t step out of line. You have to be Vivian.” My father stood by the doorway, his shoulders slumped, wearing his usual look of exhausted indifference. “Listen to your mother, Aurora. Play Vivian properly. Your brother is graduating this spring, and his placement at that private equity firm depends entirely on Jonas’s connections. If it weren’t for Jonas funding his Ivy League tuition these past four years, our family would never have had this kind of prestige.” I opened my mouth, the words burning at the back of my throat, but I swallowed them down. They didn’t care about the truth. Even if they knew Jonas was sane, they would order me to keep playing the part. They needed his money and influence to pave Leo’s golden future. If they caught wind of my plan to leave, they would lock me in a room until I walked down that aisle. Footsteps echoed outside, and Jonas stepped into the room. My father immediately straightened up, bowing slightly. “Jonas! We were just lecturing Aurora about yesterday. She knows she made a mistake. It won’t happen again.” Jonas walked right past him, his gaze fixing onto my bandaged hands with an expression of profound, agonizing heartbreak. “Vivian… what happened to your hands?” Before anyone could speak, he raised his own hand and slapped himself across the face with a brutal crack. “It’s my fault,” he choked out, his eyes brimming with tears. “I failed to protect you. I swear, Vivian, I will never let anyone hurt you again.” I stared at his reddened cheek and the glossy sheen of tears in his eyes. A cold numbness washed over me. His acting was flawless. For four years, he hadn’t dropped character once. No wonder I had been such an easy mark. Seeing me remain silent, Jonas knelt by my bedside, taking my wrapped hands gently into his own. “Rest these few days, my love,” he whispered softly, his voice thick with devotion. “I’ll handle the wedding. Everything is designed according to your taste. I’m going to make you the most beautiful bride in the world.” The warmth radiating from his eyes was intoxicating enough to melt steel. But I knew the venom hiding beneath it. “I want the world to know what kind of vile, shameless parasite she is.” The phantom echo of his voice rang in my ears. I wanted to scream, to laugh, but my trembling lips flattened into a quiet, resigned line. I lowered my eyes. “Okay.” My parents exchanged satisfied glances and quietly slipped out of the room, closing the door behind them. Jonas stood up, pulled back the edge of the blanket, and climbed onto the narrow hospital bed. He slid an arm beneath my neck, pulling my head onto his chest, while his other arm draped lightly over my waist. “Vivian, it’s still early. Let me hold you while you sleep.” Vivian hated sleeping alone. At home, our mother slept in her room; after she began dating Jonas, he stayed by her side every night. Lying against his chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heartbeat, my body went rigid with dread. A second later, Jonas’s eyes snapped open. “Aurora!” Before I could react, he kicked me violently off the bed. My forehead slammed into the sharp mahogany corner of the nightstand. A warm, sticky trail of blood immediately ran down my temple, dripping onto the floor. As if snapping out of a trance, Jonas scrambled off the bed, his face pale with horror, and scooped me up. “I’m sorry, Aurora… I’m so sorry. I lost control again. The episode just took over.” I kept my lips pressed together, tasting copper, and said nothing. Two years ago, he had gotten heavily drunk and pulled me into his bed. That was the night we crossed the line. The following morning, before I even opened my eyes, he seized my bare arm and dragged me out into the hotel hallway, tossing a single towel at me to cover myself. He had stood in the doorway, shaking with rage, his eyes wild. “Aurora! I’m your sister’s fiancé! How could you take advantage of my drunkenness to crawl into my bed? How can you be so utterly shameless?” His furious shouts had echoed through the corridor. Guests opened their doors to gawk, and someone snapped pictures of my humiliated, half-naked state and posted them online. I was twenty-two, freshly graduated with a promising architectural job offer that was instantly revoked because of the scandal. Afterward, full of tearful remorse, Jonas gave me a position at his firm to “make it up to me.” Back then, I believed he was truly ill. I swallowed every drop of humiliation because I thought he was suffering more than I was. In the hospital room, a nurse cleaned and dressed the gash on my forehead. My mother walked back in, saw the fresh bandages, and frowned deeply. “How could you be so careless? The wedding is in three days! You have to protect your face—it’s the only part of you that looks like Vivian. If you upset Jonas and ruin your brother’s future, don’t bother coming home.” My father chimed in from behind her. “Aurora, we’re only saying this for your own good. A man like Jonas is the best match you could ever hope for. You need to learn gratitude.” I kept my head down and smiled faintly. “I’m grateful.” They gave me a few more sharp warnings about keeping Jonas happy before leaving to inspect the venue. When Jonas returned from settling the medical bill, he carried an embossed luxury shopping bag. “Vivian, today is our tenth anniversary,” he said with an easy, radiant smile. “I had my assistant book a table at the rooftop restaurant downtown. Put this on tonight. I’ll come pick you up at seven.” Another performance. I didn’t break character. “All right. I’ll be waiting.” The dress inside was Vivian’s size—a tight, structured silk sheath that was a full size too small for my frame. I spent the afternoon fasting, barely sipping water, and had to hold my breath just to zip it up. Walking was agonizing; every step threatened to tear the seams or pull the hem up too high. When Jonas arrived, he offered no coat. Passersby in the restaurant lobby cast lingering, uncomfortable glances at my exposed skin and strained posture. Jonas walked beside me with an air of absolute normalcy—or rather, quiet satisfaction. At the restaurant, he pulled out my chair with theatrical chivalry. “I ordered all of your favorites tonight, darling. Seafood. You’re going to love it.” Plate after plate of lavish seafood was brought to the table—king crab, oysters, lobster. I sat with my hands folded in my lap, not touching a single fork. I had a severe, life-threatening shellfish allergy. Even a tiny trace caused anaphylaxis, swelling my throat shut within minutes. Jonas knew this. He had seen my medical chart. Yet he cracked open a crab leg, dipped the meat in butter, and placed it directly onto my plate with a broad smile. “Eat, Vivian. Everything is ready.” I looked directly into his eyes. “I can’t eat seafood.” The smile on Jonas’s face vanished instantly. He slammed his palms against the table, rising like a towering shadow, his eyes burning with cold fury. “You’re not her,” he hissed, his voice dropping into a dangerous register. “Vivian loved seafood! She had a sensitive stomach, but she loved it so much she’d eat until her belly ached. How dare you say you can’t eat it?” He rounded the table, grabbed the chunk of crab meat from the plate, and shoved it toward my mouth. “Eat it!” I clamped my teeth shut, thrashing wildly with my bandaged hands, knocking over wine glasses that shattered on the marble floor. But Jonas was relentless. His fingers clamped around my jaw with crushing force, wrenching it sideways until a sickening “pop” signaled the dislocation of my joint. My mouth was forced open. The crab meat was shoved down my throat. Almost instantly, a suffocating constriction clamped around my airway. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird, dark spots blooming across my vision as I gasped for air that wouldn’t come. As the world dissolved into blackness, Jonas leaned down, his lips brushing my ear in a chilling whisper: “Aurora… why wasn’t it you who died that night?” … When I awoke, I was back in the sterile white room. Jonas sat by the edge of my bed, holding my hand, his face etched with familiar, theatrical remorse. “Aurora, forgive me… I lost control again. I swear to you, this was the last time. It will never happen again.” I gave a weak, barely perceptible nod. “Okay.” I didn’t believe him. But it didn’t matter anymore. He would never get the chance to hurt me again. Seeing the faint, victorious smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, I made a silent promise to the empty room. “Jonas, I hope you love the wedding gift I left for you.” … On the morning of the wedding, the bridal suite smelled of fresh-cut peonies and expensive champagne. My parents and my brother Leo were practically glowing. The moment the vows were exchanged, my parents would take possession of the multi-million-dollar estate Jonas had promised them, and Leo’s high-paying executive job would be finalized. Jonas had spared no expense. The cathedral was drowning in imported white orchids; the bespoke gown had been flown in overnight from Paris; the guest list included high-society elites, city officials, and prominent media outlets invited to livestream the event. In the dressing room, my mother sat on the velvet sofa, crossing her legs as she watched the makeup artist finish. “Aurora, remember that everything you have today is because of Vivian and us,” she said, her voice dripping with self-satisfied authority. “When you walk down that aisle, smile properly. Jonas loves Vivian’s smile. And after the ceremony, we’ll go down to city hall to legally change your name to Vivian. We can’t have Jonas seeing the wrong name on the marriage certificate and having another episode.” She spoke with sickening enthusiasm, as if erasing my identity entirely was a generous gift. My father tapped my shoulder before walking out. “We’ll be sitting in the front row, Aurora. Don’t be nervous.” I didn’t look at them. A few minutes later, Jonas entered the room. Seeing the gown draped over my form, his lips curled into a pleased, triumphant smile. “You look stunning, Vivian. You’ll be the most breathtaking bride today. I have a surprise waiting for you on stage… something you’ll never forget.” I looked at him through the grand mirror. “Jonas,” I said quietly, my voice level. “If you call off this wedding right now, there’s still time.” Jonas frowned slightly, entirely oblivious to the fact that his game had been exposed. He rested his hands on my shoulders, softening his voice. “Are you getting cold feet, darling? Don’t worry. I’m right here. I’ll be waiting for you at the altar.” He turned and walked out. The bridal suite fell into profound silence. I took off the diamond earrings. I unzipped the couture dress, letting the heavy white silk pool at my feet like shed skin, and pulled on my simple jeans and dark sweater. Reaching into the back of the wardrobe, I pulled out my small, pre-packed carry-on suitcase, slipped out the service exit of the hotel, and stepped into a waiting cab headed straight for JFK. … Inside the grand cathedral, the organ swelled with the opening chords of the bridal march. The heavy double doors swung open. Standing at the altar, Jonas watched the veiled bride take slow, measured steps down the aisle toward him. For some inexplicable reason, Aurora’s bright, sorrowful eyes flashed through his mind. A sudden, uncharacteristic wave of anxiety tightened in his chest; a bead of cold sweat rolled down his temple. The officiant smiled and announced into the microphone: “Ladies and gentlemen, please direct your attention to the screens for a look at the journey that brought this bride and groom together—” “Shut it off!” Jonas suddenly roared, panic lurching in his throat. It was too late. The technician hit play, and the massive LED walls illuminated. The chatter in the cathedral abruptly died. The images flickering across the screens were not the diary entries Jonas intended to broadcast. They were high-resolution photographs of Vivian—alive, laughing, wrapped in the arms of a handsome man on yachts in Monaco, dining in Milan, lounging on private beaches in the Caribbean. Below each photograph was a clear, unassailable timestamp spanning the last four years. “Isn’t that Vivian?” a guest whispered loudly. “Didn’t she die in a car crash four years ago?” “Is this some kind of sick deepfake? How could a dead woman take photos in Paris last month?” “I heard Jonas kept her sister as a replacement… is this Aurora’s revenge?” Jonas whipped around, staring at the screens, his blood turning to ice. With shaking hands, he lunged forward and ripped the veil off the woman standing before him. “Vivian?!”

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My sister had a gift—or a curse, depending on whose side of the grave you were standing on. She could see the last meal every human being would ever eat before they died. When we were kids, she pointed at our grandmother sitting on the porch and said, “Cheeseburger.” The next afternoon, Grandmother—a woman who had spent seventy years preaching against fast food—choked to death on a takeout burger our cousin had accidentally brought home. A year later, she pointed across the driveway at our neighbor and whispered, “Shrimp chowder.” The neighbor, who carried an EpiPen everywhere because of a severe shellfish allergy, died of anaphylaxis when a delivery order got mixed up on a rainy Tuesday. And then, my sister set her sights on the man I loved. When she failed to steal my fiancé, she stood in the center of the room, stared directly at his face, and said, “Vanilla cake.” Before I could scream, before my lungs could find air, he had already taken a bite of the pastry sitting on the sideboard. He dropped dead on the carpet, right in front of me. While I collapsed into the abyss of my grief, my sister wore a smug, radiant grin. “I don’t just see the final meal,” she whispered into my ear. “Once I say the words out loud, the sentence is executed.” My fiancé’s family branded me a curse, a black widow in training. My relatives turned their backs on me, whispering that tragedy followed wherever I walked. Meanwhile, my sister turned her lethal clairvoyance into a goldmine, charging fortunes to rid the ruthless of their rivals. Three years passed. I rebuilt my life in another city and met someone else—a man far wealthier, stronger, and more powerful than the fiancé I had lost. Today was our wedding day. And once again, uninvited, she appeared. “Clara,” she sneered, stepping into the aisle, her gown shimmering in the chandelier light. “Hand your fiancé over to me right now. Or you die.” I adjusted my veil and let a slow, icy smile touch my lips. “And what if I say no?” … My knuckles turned white against the lace of my wedding gown as my eyes locked onto Kendra. Around us, the grand ballroom of the coastal estate dissolved into a low hum of confused murmurs. “Who is that? Why is the bride’s sister dressed like she’s the one walking down the aisle?” “She wasn’t on the program. Looks more like she came to burn the place down.” Kendra had started her entrance with that familiar, predatory swagger, her eyes fixed arrogantly on the space just above my head. But suddenly, she froze. Her pupils dilated, shuddering violently. “Wait… what is that?” She took two halting steps forward, squinting, craning her neck as if trying to decipher something impossible hovering over my hair. A shadow of doubt crossed her face, and for a fleeting second, she looked unsettled. Then, shaking her head as if shaking off a momentary hallucination, she muttered under her breath, “No. I must have misread it.” Exhaling sharply, she regained her sneering composure and turned toward the man beside me. “You’re Paul Sterling, aren’t you? The eldest son of the Sterling empire. CEO of the entire shipping conglomerate.” Kendra tilted her chin up, looking at him as if he were a prize she was graciously deigning to claim. “Your pedigree is adequate. Barely. So I’m giving you one chance: throw Clara out into the street, marry me right now, and sign over your assets to my name. If you refuse, you’ll end up in a morgue drawer before the night is out. Don’t believe me? Just ask your darling bride.” The room erupted into an uproar. Several of the board members and family associates muttered that the girl had clearly lost her mind, speaking to Paul Sterling with such brazen lunacy. Yet Kendra stood there, overflowing with that same unshakeable, grotesque confidence she had worn the day she killed the first man I loved. Paul squeezed my hand, his palm warm and steady, though his brow furrowed with concern. “Clara, is this really your sister? Do you need me to have security escort her out?” I shook my head gently, offering him a calm, reassuring smile. “She is my sister. But calling security won’t do any good. If she wants someone dead, they die. Instantly.” A collective gasp rippled through the front rows. “What? Murder?” “On a wedding day? Is this a joke?” An older investor near the second row scoffed, eyeing Kendra’s petite frame with open contempt. “A scrawny little girl talking about murder? What is this, some tacky piece of wedding theater?” He chuckled, turning to the guest beside him. “Look at her—she doesn’t have half the grace of her sister. Looks like a back-alley stray, and she thinks she can march into the Sterling family?” That man was Marcus Thorne, a high-ranking executive in the shipping syndicate. And his insult had hit Kendra like a slap. Her head snapped toward Marcus. Her eyes narrowed into slits, staring intently at the space above his silvering hair for three silent, suffocating seconds. Then, a cold, breathless laugh slipped from her lips. “You miserable old bastard. Enjoy the crossing. “Lobster bisque.” On every banquet table in the room sat an exquisite, chef-curated tasting menu, featuring steaming bowls of artisanal seafood bisque. The ballroom hung in an awkward, stifled silence for a few beats. A few nervous chuckles broke out, assuming Kendra was simply having a hysterical meltdown over the catering. Then, Marcus Thorne’s face turned an ashen, bruised purple. His eyes bulged. His hands flew to his throat, his fingernails digging frantically into his collar as he fought for air that would not come. He lurched out of his chair, gasping, knocking over crystal champagne flutes, before collapsing heavily onto the polished marble floor, white foam bubbling at the corners of his mouth. Within twenty seconds, he went completely still. “My God! He’s dead!” “Is the soup poisoned? The food is poisoned!” Screams tore through the hall. Pandemonium broke loose as guests scrambled from their chairs, some lunging for their phones to dial 911, others rushing toward the towering double doors of the ballroom. Before the panic could spill out, I gave a sharp signal. Paul’s private security detail moved instantly, locking the heavy brass doors from the inside. Simultaneously, our installed signal jammers activated, cutting every cell phone in the room from the outside world. Two guards swiftly lifted Marcus’s body and carried him through the discreet service door toward the back kitchen. The guests stood frozen, staring at Kendra in sheer, unadulterated horror. Kendra reveled in it, her chest heaving with delight. “Clara! Did you really think running away to this coast for a year would save you from me? Keep dreaming!” she yelled, her voice bouncing off the vaulted ceilings. “Whatever Kendra wants, Kendra takes. Even if I have to track you to the ends of the earth!” I took a deep, steadying breath, lifted the microphone from the podium, and spoke into the silence. “I knew this day would come,” I said, my voice smooth and resonant. “Which is why we prepared for it. Everyone, please remain calm. Mr. Thorne was not poisoned. Every dish on these tables is entirely safe. It was simply his fate to die after tasting the bisque.” I looked across the sea of terrified faces. “The ceremony is not over. The Sterling family values discretion above all else; we will not allow rumors or hysteria to leak onto the internet, which is why your phones have no service. My wedding will not be ruined a second time by my sister. Please remain in your seats. The reception will continue.” A deathly quiet settled over the room. No one dared touch their silverware. Kendra kept her predatory glare locked on me. “That was just a courtesy demonstration. Hand Paul over, or I’ll go down the line and read out every single person’s execution meal.” Paul pulled me closer against his side, his voice a low, protective rumble. “Clara, shouldn’t we call the police?” “The police can’t stop this,” I whispered, sighing softly. “Let me tell them the story instead.” Kendra had hated me since the day she was old enough to look in a mirror. She was born plain and sullen, while I was favored with our mother’s looks and top marks at school. Our parents loved me openly, and that love festered like rot in Kendra’s chest. Then, during her teenage years, she woke up with an impossible sight: she could see the last meal hovering above people’s heads. Grandmother. The neighbor. The girls at school who didn’t invite her to parties. Even celebrities she despised on television. As long as she named the food out loud, death arrived with ruthless, terrifying punctuality. For ten years, she had never been wrong. Eventually, word leaked into the darker corners of high society. Desperate, corrupt people sought Kendra out, paying her to look at their enemies so those rivals would quietly perish in bizarre, inexplicable food-related accidents. The authorities could only ever rule the deaths as choking, heart failure, or misdiagnosed allergies. After all, how could a prosecutor indict someone for simply uttering the word “pancake”? Corporate magnates paid her fortunes to eliminate competitors. Kendra grew rich, and with every deposit into her accounts, our parents began to treat her like a queen—and me like an outcast. It wasn’t affection they felt for her; it was raw, paralyzing terror. They lived in mortal fear that she would look at them across the breakfast table and whisper a word that would end their lives. She reduced me to eating her scraps, wearing her cast-offs, treating me like a servant in my own childhood home. “If you want to stay breathing, Clara,” she would whisper, digging her nails into my shoulder, “you obey me.” To survive, I endured it. Until I met Landon. Landon was handsome, kind, and possessed an integrity that didn’t bend. When Kendra set her sights on him, flaunting her money and trying repeatedly to seduce him, Landon didn’t take the bait. He firmly, coldly told her to back off. Enraged, Kendra hired local thugs to assault me in an alley behind my apartment. If Landon hadn’t arrived in the nick of time, fighting them off and pulling me into his arms, I would have been destroyed. That night, my hatred for Kendra hardened into something solid and permanent. I confessed everything to Landon—Kendra’s supernatural curse, the terror our family lived under. He listened quietly for a long time, his brow knitted. “It sounds like a psychological trick, Clara. Think about it: if someone simply avoids eating whatever she names, do they become immortal? That defies basic science. Don’t be afraid. Once we’re married, I’m taking you abroad. We’ll leave her behind forever.” I couldn’t convince him. No matter how much I begged him to take her seriously, his rational mind refused to accept the impossible. On the day of our engagement party, I didn’t invite Kendra. Yet she appeared anyway, clad in an immaculate white gown, her eyes dripping with resentment. “Landon,” she had purred, stepping between us. “Are you really going to choose my plain sister over me? One last chance.” Landon placed his hand over mine and smiled calmly. “I love Clara. She’s the only woman I will ever marry.” Kendra’s expression darkened, and she pointed a single, painted finger at him. “Vanilla cake.” My breath hitched. On the dessert cart nearby sat a platter of vintage-style sponge cake. My heart violently seized. “Landon! Don’t eat the cake!” I lunged forward, but Landon merely offered a faint, skeptical smile. “What, my final meal is cake? Clara, watch me break this ridiculous superstition once and for all.” Before I could stop his hand, he slipped a bite into his mouth. Kendra smiled a grotesque, triumphant little smile and turned on her heel. Within three minutes, Landon’s skin turned the color of chalk. He collapsed across the linen-covered table, dead of sudden cardiac arrest before the paramedics even reached the driveway. His family went half-mad with grief, demanding an autopsy. But the lab found no poison, no foul play—just an inexplicable failure of a healthy heart. I cornered Kendra that night. “Why didn’t you just kill me too? Tell me my meal! Let me die with him!” She had looked up at the space above my head, frowned for several seconds, and then laughed wickedly. “Where’s the fun in that? I want you to live in terror. I want you to rot slowly in fear.” Desperate, I begged our parents to pack their bags and flee the country with me. The night before our flight, my parents were found dead at the kitchen table. Their last meal had been homemade meat pies. I broke down and went to the police, screaming that Kendra was a murderer. But the detectives looked at me with pity and irritation—how could a girl kill her parents by saying the word “pie”? For three years, I chased every whisper of the occult. I consulted mystics, astrologers, spiritual mediums, searching for a way to break her grip. The most renowned was an old spiritual practitioner who claimed to cleanse demonic entities. He set up an altar to purge Kendra. Kendra had merely glanced at him from across the room and muttered, “Sticky rice.” Three days later, the old man passed away in his sleep. His autopsy confirmed his last meal was sticky rice. I fell into absolute despair. Finally, under the cover of a midnight storm, I packed a single bag, abandoned everything, and fled across the coast to start over. For a year, there was peace. Then I met Paul. Paul was everything Landon had been—brilliant, protective, and unyielding—backed by the immense wealth of the Sterling legacy. Somehow, Kendra found out. The threatening messages began flooding my phone. “How does a worthless bitch like you land an heir to a fortune?” “Tell me where you are. Hand him over to me, or you won’t survive the year.” I blocked every number she used. And now, here she was, standing in the middle of my wedding aisle. “She’s like a parasite,” Paul muttered beside me, his jaw set, glaring at Kendra. I squeezed his arm, my voice trembling with crafted sorrow. “Paul, I love you. I want to protect you, but more than that, I need you alive. You saw what happened to Marcus Thorne. If she speaks your meal…” I turned to face the terrified room. “You don’t understand how absolute this is. There was a man whose meal she declared to be whole milk. He scoffed, purged his house of dairy, and avoided it religiously for weeks. But on the day he let his guard down, his wife took an exotic milk-infused bath before bed… they embraced, and he went into cardiac arrest within minutes.” The silence in the hall was suffocating. “Once she opens her mouth, the trigger is inevitable.” Kendra’s eyes locked greedily onto the five-carat diamond resting on my left hand. “Exactly!” Kendra cackled. “Paul, if you want to see tomorrow’s sunrise, you take off her ring and put it on mine! Her last fiancé died because he thought he was smarter than destiny!” Paul sneered, lacing his fingers through mine. “Bullshit.” He stepped in front of me, his voice ringing out across the hall. “I don’t care what kind of parlor tricks or dark magic you think you wield. In this life, I love only Clara!” “Paul, no!” I gasped, pretending to reach for his mouth too late. A look of pure malice twisted Kendra’s features. She stared at the crown of Paul’s head and whispered three venomous words: “Dark chocolate truffle.” Paul let out a dry, defiant chuckle. “I’ve despised dark chocolate since childhood. I don’t touch it. The Sterling estate oversees every morsel that enters my kitchen—” Suddenly, his voice cut off. His posture froze. His eyes widened in sheer, paralyzing horror as he turned his gaze to me. “The wedding favors…” he choked out. My breath caught. “What?” “In the limousine on the way here… my blood sugar was dropping. I opened a gift box and ate a small dark chocolate truff—” Before the word left his lips, Paul’s complexion drained to ghost-white. He clutched his chest, gasped violently, and collapsed onto his knees! “Paul!” I dropped to the floor, catching his shoulders as he slumped against me. Kendra threw her head back, laughing hysterically. “Who told you the food has to be eaten “after” I speak? Once I perceive your final meal, even if you ate it yesterday, the clock runs out the moment the word leaves my lips!” Paul’s skin grew icy under my hands. With the last ounce of his strength, his trembling fingers brushed my cheek, his lips barely moving. “I’m sorry… Clara… I couldn’t… protect you…” Tears streamed down my face. “Paul! No, please!” The ballroom erupted into chaos. High-society women wailed, men backed into corners, clutching their chests, terrified that drawing a single breath might draw Kendra’s gaze. Fighting back my sobs, I looked at the head of security. “Take my fiancé’s body to the back. Don’t… don’t let him lie out here.” “Are you out of your mind?!” an elderly guest screamed from the back. “Your groom just dropped dead and you’re not calling the FBI? Tackle that monster!” I turned a freezing glare toward him. “Do you want her to read your meal next?” The man’s mouth snapped shut instantly, his throat bobbing as he swallowed his own terror. Kendra strutted up the aisle, drunk on power. “Losing Paul is a shame,” she purred, looking down at his empty spot. “A handsome man. But since he was foolish, he’s just a corpse now.” She turned her gaze onto the room—dozens of the wealthiest elites on the eastern seaboard. “I can see every single meal floating above your heads,” Kendra announced, her voice sweet and lethal. “If you want to walk out of this hall alive, every family writes me a check for twenty million dollars. Make me the new queen of this city. Refuse, and you and your children will be dead before midnight. The police can’t touch me—legally, it’s just a tragic medical coincidence!” The terror was absolute. A hedge-fund billionaire broke first, his hands shaking violently as he pulled out a leather-bound checkbook, scribbling zeros with trembling ink, desperate not to end up like Marcus Thorne or Paul Sterling. Within minutes, Kendra held a stack of checks worth hundreds of millions. As one tech executive handed over his slip and turned to leave, Kendra’s hand darted out, grabbing his sleeve. “Wait a minute. What screen were you just on? A satellite phone?” She snatched the rugged backup device from his inner pocket. It bypassed the ballroom’s jammers. On the screen was an unsent SOS message to federal authorities. Kendra’s face darkened with rage. The executive turned white as paper. “Please—” “You dare cross me?” Kendra hissed. “Your last meal was “blackened prawns”!” The man let out a strangled cry, shoving two fingers down his throat, desperately trying to purge whatever he had eaten at the cocktail hour. But within seconds, a spray of dark blood erupted from his lips, and he crashed onto the carpet, convulsing until his limbs went limp. Screams tore through the room. People were ready to throw themselves through the reinforced glass windows. “Wait!” Kendra’s voice cracked like a whip. Her eyes drifted back to me. She squinted, staring at the space above my head once more, verifying whatever she saw until a smug, cruel smile spread across her face. “I see it clearly now,” Kendra proclaimed to the cowering crowd. “A compromise, everyone. If Clara dies, I’ll let all of you walk out of here, and I won’t even cash your checks! But if she refuses to die, I will name every last one of your final meals until this hall is a graveyard!” The room shifted in an instant. The desperate guests dropped to their knees, directing their weeping pleas at me. “Clara, please! Have mercy!” “I have three children at home, Clara! Please save us!” “It’s between you and your sister! Don’t let innocent people die!” I looked at the sea of weeping elites groveling on the floor. I let out a soft, resigned sigh. “Very well,” I said quietly. “I will sacrifice myself to save you all.” A wave of sobbing gratitude washed over the room. Kendra looked at me with pure contempt. “To think this is how it ends for you, Clara. You were always destined to lose to me.” I met her gaze, my voice steady. “Kendra… when you first walked in, you stared at the space above my head and hesitated. Why?” Kendra blinked, a flicker of unease passing through her eyes. “My eyes were playing tricks on me. I thought I saw something… impossible. But now I see it. It’s the most pathetic, ordinary thing in the world.” She stepped closer, sneering. “For years, the space above your head was just a blur. I thought you somehow didn’t have an execution meal. But now it’s crystal clear.” She pointed directly at my forehead. “Clara, your final meal is a plain white dinner roll.” The room held its breath. “If I knew your execution meal was something so trivial,” Kendra mocked, “I would have ended you years ago!” Without a word of protest, I turned and walked calmly toward the kitchen entrance, returning a moment later holding a fresh, unbuttered white dinner roll on a small porcelain saucer. “I’m going to eat it,” I said softly. “Keep your word. Let them go.” Kendra laughed. “Of course. Living cows can be milked again; dead ones are useless to me.” I nodded. Under Kendra’s manic, expectant gaze, and beneath the suffocating silence of eighty terrified onlookers, I lifted the roll to my lips… And bit by bit, I chewed and swallowed the entire thing.

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Ever since my boyfriend and my best friend claimed they shared an inexplicable “empathic bond,” our sex life completely ceased to exist. The first time it happened, we had barely turned off the lights when Chloe suffered a sudden flare-up of gastritis across town. Elliott was hit with the phantom agony right there in our bed, breaking out in cold sweats, groaning into his pillow. In the end, he gritted his teeth, scrambled into his jeans, and drove forty minutes through midnight traffic to deliver her medication. The second time, we were in the middle of a kiss when Chloe got her period. Elliott went ghost-white, clutching his lower abdomen before rolling away from me. “I have to drop off some Midol and a thermos of ginger tea,” he muttered, breathless with rehearsed pain. “Just give me an hour.” By the tenth time, we had finally made it past the foreplay. Skin against skin, breathing heavy. Then, right at the threshold of intimacy, he collapsed onto my chest, exhaling a shuddering breath. “Verna… god, it hurts. That disaster of a girl is having another crisis. I have to go check on her.” He threw on his clothes in a frantic rush and bolted out the door. A knot formed in the pit of my stomach. I grabbed my coat and followed him. When I reached the door of Chloe’s apartment, the hallway was dead silent—except for Elliott’s low, teasing drawl filtering through the wood. “You’re playing with fire, you know that? How many times is this? One of these days your precious bestie is going to figure it out.” “Please,” Chloe’s voice drifted out, dripping with smug amusement. “She actually bought that whole telepathy bullshit. How much credit do you give her brain? There’s no phantom pain. I just tap the couple’s band, and it calls you straight to my door.” … I froze on the welcome mat, every muscle locking into place. Memories flickered behind my eyes in sharp, humiliating bursts. The matching matte-black wristbands they both wore. Chloe had casually brushed it off months ago, claiming they were promotional freebies from a gym membership drive. I had believed her. I had never had a reason not to. My hands shook violently as I pulled out my phone and typed a quick search into the browser. The results popped up instantly: “Bond Touch Smart Bracelets for Couples.” They synced in real time. Not only could you monitor each other’s resting heart rates, but whenever one person tapped the face of the band, the other would receive a gentle, rhythmic vibration on their wrist. Which meant that every single time Elliott climbed on top of me, every time his pulse accelerated with arousal, Chloe’s band warned her. She tapped the sensor. Elliott felt the pulse. And he abandoned me without hesitation. A bone-deep chill crept from the tips of my fingers straight into my chest. Five years with the man I planned to marry. Fifteen years with the girl I called my sister. Behind the door, another round of muffled laughter broke out. Unable to stomach another second, my thumb punched the keypad lock. The passcode was our combined birthdays—a sequence Chloe had used for every lock, phone, and card since high school. The deadbolt gave a sharp, metallic “click”. The door swung open. Chloe was lounging on the sofa in a slinky silk slip, one bare leg propped casually over Elliott’s thigh. The moment their eyes met mine, they sprang apart like they’d been electrocuted. Chloe’s face flushed an ugly, mottled gray. “Verna? What… what are you doing here?” She forced an awkward, fragile smile. “I’m such a klutz. I twisted my ankle on the treadmill earlier. Elliott felt the sympathy ache and came over to help me ice it…” Elliott chimed in immediately, his expression morphing into a mask of practiced annoyance. “Verna, talk some sense into her, will you? Tell her to stop hurting herself. I’m sick of taking the fall for her clumsy ass.” A seamless performance. Practiced, polished, completely synchronized. A cold, bitter laugh escaped my throat. “Save it. How much longer were you two planning to treat me like a moron?” Chloe’s eyes flickered, but she kept up the act, feigning lighthearted relief. “Oh, thank god, you finally caught on! Remember that night we got wasted and started joking about psychic links? We never dreamed you’d actually fall for something so ridiculous, you silly girl. We just thought it was hilarious. We were taking bets on how long it’d take you to notice.” She stepped forward, reaching for my hand. I violently jerked away. I barely made contact, but she staged an exaggerated stumble, tumbling dramatically onto the plush rug. Tears sprang to her eyes on cue, spilling over with delicate tragedy. “You’re… you’re not actually mad, are you? I’m sorry. Verna, I’m so, so sorry…” Seeing her on the floor, Elliott’s eyes turned instantly bloodshot with panic. He rushed past me, lifting her up with tender urgency before glaring at me with undisguised venom. “It was a joke! Did you really have to push her?” “A joke?” My voice cracked, raw and suffocating. “Inventing a medical lie to ditch my bed ten times in a row—that’s your idea of a joke?” “Chloe just finalized her divorce!” Elliott snapped defensively. “You were the one who told me to check in on her and keep her company. Nothing happened between us! What the hell is wrong with you?” Chloe tugged weakly at the hem of his sleeve. “Elliott, don’t yell at her… It’s all my fault.” Her voice grew faint, thin as parchment. Beads of sweat broke out across her forehead. “What is it? What hurts?” Elliott asked, his voice dropping into frantic tenderness. “My stomach… the old ulcer,” she gasped, gently pushing at his chest. “Don’t worry about me. Just take some antacids from the cabinet. Go after Verna. Please, go comfort her.” “Comfort her? Screw that!” Elliott didn’t even spare me a glance. “Are you out of your mind? You’re sitting here dying of pain and still defending her?” He scooped Chloe up into his arms in one fluid motion, deliberately slamming his shoulder into mine as he barged toward the entryway. “I’m taking you to the ER.” At the front door, he gently set her down for a fraction of a second, kneeling on the floor to slip her sneakers onto her feet before picking her up again. Then the door slammed shut. Silence swallowed the apartment. I stood there in the echoing quiet, staring at the framed photograph hanging above the console table. Our eighteenth birthday. We were wearing matching high school uniforms, grinning wildly under the flash, our arms slung around each other’s necks. We had promised to be in each other’s lives until we were old and gray. A sudden wave of nausea hit me. My hand brushed the frame, knocking it to the floor. The glass shattered. When I picked it up, I noticed the back of the frame was loose. Tucked behind our portrait was another print. A photograph of Elliott, fast asleep in bed, the morning sun spilling across his bare shoulders. A woman’s hand rested gently against his cheek, fingers curved with intimate, possessive tenderness. On the side of the index finger, a small, dark mole was unmistakably visible. Chloe’s hand. The doorbell chimed, slicing through the air like a siren. I dragged my feet to the entryway and pulled the door open. Standing in the hallway was Marcus, Chloe’s ex-husband. “…What are you doing here?” I rasped. He hadn’t expected to see me. His brow furrowed in mild surprise. “Just grabbing the last of my storage boxes.” I didn’t have the strength to argue. I stepped aside. He walked into the living room, and his eyes landed on the photograph clutched in my trembling fingers. There was no shock on his face—only a tired, knowing indifference. “So,” Marcus said quietly. “You finally figured it out.” “Figured… what out?” “I never stepped out on her,” Marcus said, crossing his arms. “She was the one sleeping around behind my back.” My chest seized. Even now, some deeply ingrained, pathetic instinct tried to defend her. “Shut up. Don’t make shit up.” He let out a dry, incredulous chuckle. “No wonder Chloe always called you naive. Look at you, still running interference for her. How can someone be this blind? You bankrolled her divorce lawyer, practically moved into her life to support her, and didn’t you end up losing a baby in the process?” My throat closed up. The phantom ache in my lower abdomen flared violently, tearing open a scar that had barely begun to heal. Three months ago, Chloe had called me in tears, claiming Marcus was meeting his mistress in our neighborhood. It was twenty degrees below zero in the middle of a freak blizzard. I crouched behind a snowbank across the street for nearly four hours, waiting to snap photos of him. The ice was slick. I slipped on the stairs, crashing hard against the concrete. My winter coat was soaked through with blood. The pain was so agonizing I blacked out. If a random pedestrian hadn’t called 911, I would have frozen to death on that sidewalk. When I woke up in the hospital, the doctor told me I had been three months pregnant. The fall took the baby. Marcus looked at me, a flicker of genuine pity softening his sneer. “I guess I might as well tell you the whole story,” he said quietly. “The two shadows you saw tangled up against the window that night? That wasn’t me with some side piece. It was your best friend and your boyfriend. They were upstairs the entire time, watching the flashing lights of the ambulance carry you away from behind the blinds, too chickenshit to step outside.” My heart felt like it had been dropped into a vat of boiling oil. That night… I had texted our three-person group chat the second I spotted the figures in the window, telling Elliott and Chloe to hurry over so we could catch Marcus together. Both of them had texted back immediately: “On our way. Hold on.” They never showed up. They only appeared at the hospital hours later, pale and breathless, offering empty consolations over my empty womb. Marcus sighed. “Hard pill to swallow, huh? I had the exact same look on my face when I caught them. I wanted to burn their lives to the ground, but my regional manager happens to be golfing buddies with Elliott’s father. A few subtle threats against my career, and I folded. I thought you already knew. Look around this place, Verna. We’ve been divorced for months. Who do you think all this men’s stuff belongs to?” I forced my eyes across the room. The navy blue slippers by the door. The matching ceramic mugs on the drying rack. The soft gray cashmere sweater draped over the armchair. And the date stamped in the bottom corner of the photo in my hand: “January 22nd.” The day after my miscarriage. I was confined to bed rest, half-dead, bleeding into sterile hospital sheets. Elliott had claimed he was sent on an urgent out-of-town business trip. Chloe had claimed she had to visit her sick grandmother upstate. They had been here. In this bed. Together. Tears blurred my vision until the room dissolved into smeared watercolors. Marcus didn’t say another word. He rolled a black hardshell suitcase out of the guest room, gave me a final, sympathetic look, and closed the door behind him. The latch clicked, and my knees completely gave out. I collapsed onto the cold hardwood, sobbing until my ribs ached and the air in my lungs turned to ash. My entire universe shattered into jagged pieces. Fifteen years. We had shared a cramped dorm room in college. When we graduated, we split a drafty studio apartment, adopting a scruffy stray cat and sleeping under the same quilt to save on heating bills. We pooled our paychecks, never keeping tabs on who spent what. When I lost my first job and spiraled into panic attacks, Chloe had stretched her tiny two-thousand-dollar monthly salary to cover both of our rents and groceries for three months. She had even donated plasma just to buy me the leather jacket I’d been eyeing for my birthday. When I found out, she had just laughed and wiped my tears, telling me that as long as I was happy, nothing else mattered. She knew I had been in love with Elliott since sophomore year. She had proofread every confession letter I’d ever drafted. On the night Elliott and I finally made it official, Chloe had cried harder than anyone, grabbing him by the collar and threatening to break his neck if he ever made me shed a single tear. Was every single memory a lie? My fingernails dug into my palms until the skin split, blood pooling in the creases of my hands. When the tears finally ran dry, something inside me went cold and dead. I unlocked my phone, opened the chat, and sent Elliott a three-word text: [We’re done. Goodbye.] The message sat there. No reply. I walked back to our apartment in a trance. I didn’t go to the bedroom. I went straight to the study, opened my laptop, and filled out a transfer application for our regional branch across the country. Then I packed my life into two suitcases. Elliott didn’t come home until dawn. Stubble darkened his jaw, and his eyes were bloodshot from exhaustion. “Chloe’s stomach was acting up so badly she couldn’t even stand. I had to stay the night at the clinic,” he said, kicking off his shoes. “What’s with that crazy text? Verna, stop throwing tantrums. Since when are you this insecure about my relationship with your own best friend? How many times do I have to say it? We are completely platonic.” He lied with an ease so seamless it made my stomach turn. When I didn’t respond, his tone softened. He let out a long, weary sigh and walked toward me. “Sweetheart, stop driving yourself crazy. You’re the one I love. You’re the one I’m going to marry.” “Buzz. Buzz.” The band on his wrist gave two sharp pulses. Elliott’s hand instinctively snapped behind his back. “Look, be good, okay? Don’t be mad. Something urgent just came up at the office, I have to run in early. I’ll take you out for a nice steak dinner tonight, I promise.” Without waiting for an answer, he ducked into the bathroom, rinsed his face, and practically sprinted out the door with his hair still damp. I knew exactly where he was going. My phone rang. The screen displayed my supervisor’s name. I picked it up, expecting to hear about the transfer request. Instead, his voice came through cold, sharp, and dripping with fury. “Verna. Get into the office right now.” A pit opened in my stomach. Ten minutes after arriving at headquarters, I was summoned into the corner office. “Your transfer request has been denied,” my boss said, slamming a file folder onto the mahogany desk. “Why?” “Because you’re fired.” My mind went entirely blank. “What?” He slammed his open palm onto the desk, shaking with rage. “We spent three months preparing the tender for the metropolitan redevelopment project! The bidding war is in a week, and our confidential floor price was leaked directly to our competitor this morning! The entire contract is dead in the water!” “What are you saying?” I choked out. “You think I leaked it?” He let out a harsh, mocking bark of laughter. “We traced the IP. The leak went straight to the lead designer at Apex Media—your best friend, Chloe. And the only people who had access to that encrypted pricing sheet were me and you!” The room tilted on its axis. I opened my mouth, but the words withered in my throat. “Pack your personal effects and get the hell out of my building,” he snarled. “We don’t harbor corporate spies.” I was shoved out of the office. The moment the glass door swung open, a cup of scalding coffee splashed across my chest. “You ungrateful parasite!” My senior associate glared at me, her eyes wild with fury. “Three months of eighty-hour weeks, ruined because of your filthy side hustle!” My desk had already been trashed. Liquid glue was smeared across my monitor, my design sketches ripped to shreds and scattered across the carpet. Vicious insults hissed through the bullpen like venom. Eight years of sweat, late nights, and sacrifices—evaporated in a single morning. Security escorted me off the premises like a common thief. I stood on the sidewalk, covered in brown coffee stains, dialing Chloe’s number over and over. Voicemail. I called Elliott. Voicemail. I took a cab to the hospital. The receptionist informed me that Chloe had checked herself out the previous evening. The betrayal, the injustice, the sheer suffocating weight of it all crushed down on my chest like an avalanche. I opened our three-person group chat and typed with trembling thumbs: [Did you steal my bid file?] [Why would you do something so disgusting?] [Answer me! Are you trying to destroy my life?] Silence. Until ten minutes later, when I opened Instagram. Elliott’s childhood friend had just posted a story. The video showed a dimly lit VIP lounge at an upscale karaoke bar downtown. Elliott was there. Chloe was there. So were half a dozen of our mutual college friends and close acquaintances. Everyone was cheering, clinking glasses of champagne under the strobe lights. A guy in the background yelled into a microphone: “A toast to Chloe’s massive promotion! Drink up, everyone!” … I flagged a cab and went straight to the club. I found the private room on the second floor. Through the heavy wooden door, their voices drifted out over the bassline of a pop track. “Hey, Elliott,” someone chuckled lazily. “If Verna ever finds out you copied her pricing sheet, she’s going to tear your head off.” “I didn’t have a choice,” Elliott’s voice sounded muffled through the wood. “This account was make-or-break for Chloe. If she didn’t close a major win this quarter, her department was going to lay her off.” “I heard Verna was up for the creative director seat after eight years there,” another friend chimed in. “Pulling a stunt like this… she’s probably going to get blackballed across the entire regional market.” There was a brief pause, the flick of a lighter. “It’s not that dramatic,” Elliott said casually. “Besides, she was too naive. She leaves her laptop unlocked around us without a second thought. If she takes the fall, she only has herself to blame.” “Cold-blooded, man. You really don’t give a shit about her anymore, do you? So when are you guys finally going to break the news? It’s getting exhausting keeping up this double act for you two.” After a long silence, Chloe’s voice drifted out, soft and plaintive. “We’re not going to tell her… Verna is my best friend. I could never bear to hurt her.” Elliott pulled Chloe into his side, his thumb stroking her jawline. “She has a soft heart. She values our friendship too much. I’ll respect her wishes.” “How touching.” My blood turned to pure acid. I raised my boot and kicked the heavy door inward with everything I had. “BANG!” The room went dead silent. Dozens of heads snapped toward the doorway. Elliott froze, his eyes widening in sheer panic as he instinctively shifted his body to block Chloe. “Verna… How did you… Did you hear all that?” I didn’t utter a single syllable. I grabbed a full bottle of vodka from the ice bucket near the door and smashed it against the marble table. Glass exploded in every direction. Chloe shrieked, cowering into the leather cushions, trembling violently. Elliott’s friend scoffed, stepping forward to turn the tables on me. “Honestly, Verna, you should’ve stepped aside years ago. We all know Elliott was in love with Chloe from the start. You’re the one who kept throwing yourself at him! Chloe only turned him down because she didn’t want to break your delicate little heart. You’ve been living on borrowed time anyway.” “Shut up, please!” Chloe wept, clinging to Elliott’s arm before looking at me with swollen, tear-filled eyes. “Verna… please don’t be mad. You’re the most important person in my life. I can’t lose you…” She sobbed so violently it looked as though I were the one torturing her. She lunged forward, trying to grab my wrists. “Don’t touch me!” I roared, shoving her back. “Chloe, as of today, you are dead to me.” She shook her head hysterically, her breathing turning erratic—the exact same routine she pulled whenever she was cornered. Cry, scream, play the martyr. Suddenly, she grabbed a small paring knife from the fruit platter and dragged the blade across her forearm. “Are you insane?!” Elliott screamed. He caught the blade in his bare hand, blood instantly welling between his fingers and dripping onto the carpet. “Why the hell would you hurt yourself over her?!” The room descended into utter pandemonium. Friends swarmed Chloe, wrapping napkins around her arm, soothing her, passing tissues, shouting over one another. I stood there in the center of the flashing lights, watching the grotesque circus unfold. And I started to laugh. Seeing my smile, Elliott looked at me as if I were a monster. “You are truly cold-blooded… She’s bleeding, and you’re standing there laughing?!” I didn’t answer him. My eyes locked onto the delicate silver chain resting against Chloe’s collarbone. I had bought that necklace for her ten years ago with my very first design paycheck. She had worn it every day since. I took a step forward and reached out to rip it off her neck. Elliott saw my movement and lost his mind. “Stay the fuck away from her!” He shoved me backward with both hands. My heel caught on the slick, alcohol-drenched floor. I slammed hard onto the ground, my palms and knees landing directly on the shattered vodka bottle. Jagged glass sliced through my skin. Blood pooled instantly beneath my hands. Elliott froze, staring at the red spreading across the floor. “I… Verna, I’m sorry, I thought you were going to attack her…” He crouched down, his face a mess of guilt and panic, his bloody hand reaching for my elbow. “Stop acting crazy. Let me take both of you to the hospital, okay?” I jerked away from his touch. I dragged myself up from the shards, wiping the smear of red across my denim jeans. I took one final look at the two of them. Fifteen years of sisterhood. Five years of love. They were garbage. And I was done bleeding for trash. I turned around, stepping across the broken glass, and walked out into the night. On the cab ride home, my phone buzzed incessantly with notifications from the group chat. Elliott: [I’m getting Chloe patched up at the urgent care. Wait for me at the apartment. We need to talk.] [I didn’t mean to push you that hard. Please don’t be mad.] Chloe: [Verna, I’m so sorry… please talk to me.] [Are you really going to throw away fifteen years of friendship over this?] Staring at the screen, my heart felt completely still. A flatline. I typed one final word into the box: [Rot.] I hit send, left the group, and blocked both numbers. Back at the apartment, my suitcases were already waiting by the door. I booked a one-way ticket on the earliest flight out of the city and left before the sun came up.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “579589”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The first stop of our honeymoon road trip was a sold-out stadium tour. Brett had bought the tickets months ago, promising it would be unforgettable. Halfway through the set, the jumbotron began scanning the crowd, pulsing with lights and electric bass before freezing—dead center—on the two of us. On stage, beneath a blinding halo of spotlights, stood the pop star I had spent six years idolizing. She leaned into her mic, looking directly toward our section, and offered a knowing, luminous smile. “Well, hey there. It’s been a while.” A shriek tore from my throat. My heart hammered against my ribs as I waved my glowing light stick in frantic, euphoric circles. Serena chuckled softly into the mic. “Aren’t you going to introduce the lucky girl next to you?” Brett held the arena microphone that had been handed to him by a floor coordinator. His knuckles were pale, his lips pressed into a tight, bloodless line. He didn’t speak. Oblivious to the sudden chill in the air, I leaned over, grabbed the edge of the mic, and shouted at the top of my lungs, “We just got married!” The stadium erupted. Tens of thousands of fans cheered, a roar of collective joy washing over us like a tidal wave. On the massive screens, Serena’s radiant expression froze for a fraction of a second. She cleared her throat, recovering with polished grace. “Congratulations, then. As our lucky fans of the night, you get to sing a duet with me. Brett… you pick the song.” The breath caught in my throat. “Brett?” She knew his name? Brett stared up at the stage, his gaze locked onto hers. When he spoke, his voice was thick, rough with suppressed emotion. “Let’s do “Almost Lover”.” The opening chords echoed through the stadium. Brett kept his eyes fixed entirely on her as the melody swelled, his lashes glistening with unshed tears. “I never want to see you unhappy, even if your happiness means a world without me…” By the final note, Brett’s eyes were brimming with tears. Serena tilted her head, her voice purring through the stadium sound system. “Anything you want to say to your new bride, Brett?” Brett slowly turned his head to look at me. His eyes were dark, distant, carrying a heavy ache that had nothing to do with me. “Joanne,” he said, each word deliberate and hollow. “Thank you. For loving her with me.” A text pinged on my phone—the hotel coordinator sending the final floral arrangements for our post-wedding reception back home. Tears blurred the screen. With shaking thumbs, I typed a reply. “Mom. Cancel the reception.” … The concert ended, and the roaring ocean of forty thousand people slowly drained from the venue. Brett and I remained seated in the VIP floor section, surrounded by discarded confetti and empty plastic cups. The silence between us felt louder than the music had been. I tightened my grip on the plastic light stick until the plastic bit into my palm, needing to hear him say it out loud. “Brett. You and Serena. You actually know each other?” Brett paused, his body stiffening before he settled back into his folding chair. When he answered, his tone was infuriatingly casual—as though he were discussing the weather. “Yeah. She’s my ex.” My stomach plummeted. A lyric from Serena’s breakout indie track—the one that had launched her career five years ago—flashed through my mind. “So… you’re the guy?” I asked, my voice barely audible. “The high school sweetheart? The boy next door she promised forever to on a porch swing before she signed her record deal?” Brett didn’t speak. He just gave a single, quiet nod. Every drop of warmth drained from my limbs. He turned to study me. “Does it bother you?” I stared straight ahead at the dark, hollow stage. Inside my head, the question echoed like a cruel joke. “Does it bother me?” My brand-new husband was the legendary, tragic first love of the pop star whose posters hung in our study, whose vinyl records I had spent six years collecting. I didn’t dignify his question with an answer. Instead, I pressed on, desperate for the full truth. “Why did you break up?” A fleeting shadow of grief crossed his features. “When she got signed to the major label, the contract had an ironclad image clause. No public relationships. No baggage. For her career, we had no choice.” A hot tear escaped, tracking down my cheek. I looked at the man I had loved for seven years, suddenly feeling as though I were sitting next to a total stranger. “You’re terrifying, Brett,” I whispered. “What is that supposed to mean?” “For six years, you’ve bought me every single one of her vinyl variants. You made me watch her backstage documentaries. You subtly, patiently molded me into her biggest fan…” My voice broke into a bitter sob. “You didn’t do that for me. You turned me into a fan so you’d have a permanent excuse to follow her around, go to her shows, and openly mourn her without looking suspicious. Isn’t that right?!” Brett’s face contorted, raw fury flashing across his eyes—the violent defensiveness of a man caught with his hands in the dark. He shot up from his seat, sneering down at me. “You are completely out of your mind.” Without another word, he turned on his heel and stormed toward the tunnel exit. “Brett!” At that exact second, the arena’s house lights slammed off with a heavy mechanical “thud”. Pitch-black darkness swallowed the cavernous room. I have suffered from crippling nyctophobia since childhood. My chest seized; a cold sweat broke out across my skin as panic gripped my throat. “Brett! Wait for me! Please, you know I can’t do the dark!” My voice bounced off the empty concrete walls, swallowed by the void. He didn’t stop. He didn’t even slow down. Trembling violently, I fumbled for my phone, flicked on the flashlight, and stumbled through the rows of folding chairs, tripping over cables until I finally shoved my way out into the backstage parking lot. The alleyway was swarming with hundreds of screaming fans, barricades creaking under the pressure. Near the matte-black Mercedes Sprinter van, Serena was signing posters under the glow of security lamps. Suddenly, she paused her Sharpie, stood on her tiptoes, and waved past the wall of bodies with a blinding, dazzling smile. “Brett! Over here! Excuse me, guys, make a little room.” I watched from the periphery as Brett emerged from the crowd. After a split second of hesitation, a soft, indulgent smile broke across his lips as he walked straight toward her. Serena wrapped her arm through his with effortless intimacy, leaning into him as she announced to the squealing crowd, “Everyone, this is my childhood best friend. He’s actually one of the top orthopedic surgeons in the city now.” I stood on the outer fringes of the mob, frozen. Brett’s gaze was glued to her face, hungry and devoted, without a single glance spared for the surrounding lot—or for me. Her tour manager shouted over the noise, “All right, that’s wrap! Serena has a private schedule to keep!” The crowd surged forward in a frenzy of desperation. A wall of bodies slammed into me from the side. My footing gave out, and I crashed violently onto the asphalt. “Ah!” A chorus of screaming fans trampled forward. Heavy boots came down on my right hand; I heard a sickening, distinct “snap” in my fingers, followed by a searing white flash of agony. Someone else stepped squarely on my lower back to climb a barrier. The pain nearly made me black out. “Brett! Help me! Brett!” Across the sea of heads, Brett flinched, his head turning as if catching the faint sound of my voice. “Joanne?” Serena instantly leaned in, pressing her entire body against his side, whispering something urgently into his ear with a pout. Brett stopped. He didn’t come for me. Instead, he signaled toward two hired security guards, pointed vaguely in my general direction, and then wrapped his arm protectively around Serena’s waist, escorting her into the sleek black Sprinter. The heavy door slid shut. The van sped away into the night. I lay curled on the icy pavement, gasping for air through cold sweats. My phone buzzed in my coat pocket. Brett: “Serena had a small emergency and needs my help sorting it out. Take an Uber back to the hotel.” The two private guards finally wandered over, grabbing me roughly by the arms like a sack of laundry and yanking me to my feet. Once they saw I was upright, they turned and jogged off after the convoy without a word. The crowd dispersed, leaving behind flattened paper cups and crushed light sticks. The midnight wind sliced through my clothes. Clutching my throbbing, crooked fingers and limping on a wrenched back, I managed to hail a cab to the nearest emergency room. Three hours later, the X-rays confirmed the worst: fractured index and middle fingers on my right hand, a severe lumbar sprain, and extensive soft-tissue contusions across my torso. Tears spilled over my cheeks as the ER nurse wrapped my hand in a thick fiberglass splint. The attending physician jotted down notes. “How on earth did this happen?” “Crowd crush… after a concert,” I rasped, exhausted. The doctor glanced around the curtained bay. “Do you have any family here with you?” Looking down at the bulky cast on my hand, my throat tightened. “No. Just me.” The nurse gave me a look of quiet pity and gently helped me pull my cardigan back over my shoulders. On the very first night of my honeymoon, in a strange city, I checked in alone, paid my medical bills alone, and sat under the harsh fluorescent lights of an IV bay alone. It was nearly 3:30 AM when I let myself back into the hotel suite. I collapsed onto the king-sized bed, curling into a tight, guarded ball beneath the duvet. Unbidden, seven years of memories flooded my mind. I remembered Brett standing in the pouring rain for forty minutes just to pick up my favorite lavender macarons. I remembered him driving across town at two in the morning because I had a migraine. When I had been hospitalized with severe bronchitis, he hadn’t left my bedside for forty-eight straight hours. On the night he proposed, he had dropped to one knee, looking up at me with eyes so full of tender conviction: “Joanne, in my life, you will always come first.” It took tonight for me to finally understand. His “first place” had been reserved long before I ever entered the picture. Sometime later, the suite’s electronic lock chimed. I kept my eyes shut, pretending to be asleep. The mattress dipped. Brett slid in behind me, wrapping an arm around my waist to pull me against his chest. “Ah!” A sharp gasp tore from my throat as his arm pressed into my bruised ribs. I shoved him away with my good left arm. Brett blinked in the faint amber glow of the bedside lamp, taken aback. “What’s wrong with you?” “What’s wrong with me?” The dam holding back seven hours of humiliation and agony shattered. I sat bolt upright, lifting my cast-bound right arm into the light, my eyes burning with raw fury. “You’re asking me what’s wrong?” I shook. “Brett, were you completely blind? I was being trampled by a mob right outside the venue!” “I was screaming for you! Where the hell were you when my bones were snapping under people’s shoes?” Confronted with my trembling rage, Brett simply frowned, annoyance tightening his jaw. “Joanne, don’t make a scene out of nothing. Didn’t I tell security to pull you up?” “Besides, you’re a registered nurse. You know how to handle minor injuries at a clinic.” “Serena is different.” His voice softened involuntarily, laced with protective tenderness. “She pushed herself too hard on stage tonight. She twisted her ankle during the encore and was literally sobbing backstage from the pain. She’s a major public figure—she can’t just walk into a public hospital without causing a media circus. I happen to be an orthopedic surgeon…” A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. I stared at him, my stomach turning with sheer disbelief. Seeing how pale and hollow I looked, Brett seemed to realize he had pushed too far. His posture softened, and he leaned in again, trying to rest a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Okay, look… I’m sorry, alright? I messed up.” “Don’t be mad, babe. It was an unexpected situation. I shouldn’t have left you, okay?” “I swear, for the rest of the trip, I am entirely yours. Just the two of us. Deal?” He used the same soothing, practiced tone he always used whenever he wanted to smooth things over. I closed my eyes, forcing down the violent urge to scream. We had been together for seven years, and we rarely fought. Part of my brain—the desperate, grieving part—wondered if he was genuinely just this emotionally oblivious. I drew a long, slow breath and pulled back from his reach. “Go take a shower,” I said quietly, staring at the wall. “You smell like another woman’s perfume. It’s disgusting.” Brett’s jaw tightened, but he swallowed his retort, grabbed a fresh change of clothes, and disappeared into the bathroom. Listening to the running water, I stared up at the crown molding on the ceiling until dawn broke, not sleeping for a single second. The next leg of our trip was a flight out west to a luxury mountain resort in Wyoming. At the airport terminal, I turned toward the standard security line and the economy check-in desks. Brett caught my elbow, steering me toward the dedicated VIP Priority lane instead. I glanced at him, perplexed. “When did you upgrade our tickets?” Brett was notoriously frugal with travel; he would never splurge on domestic first class on a whim. “Brett! Over here!” I turned toward the sound. Serena’s personal assistant, Lexi, was waving enthusiastically from the entrance of the private lounge. Brett looked at me with an effortless, breezy smile. “Oh, forgot to mention. Serena happens to have a four-day break before her next tour leg. She heard we were heading to the mountains and thought it sounded fun, so she decided to tag along.” “With Serena traveling, economy obviously wasn’t an option, so I bumped us up.” My brain went completely numb. Our honeymoon. He had invited his ex-girlfriend to crash our honeymoon. Seeing my blank, paralyzed expression, Brett chuckled and affectionately ruffled my hair. “What, starstruck?” “I figured you’d lose your mind. Getting to vacation with your idol? That’s once-in-a-lifetime fan access.” “I didn’t tell you last night because I knew you wouldn’t be able to sleep from pure excitement.” He guided me into the lounge. Inside, Serena lowered her oversized designer sunglasses and stood up. Without missing a beat, right in front of my face, she slipped her slender arm through Brett’s, leaning her head naturally against his shoulder. “Morning, Joanne,” she said, her voice dripping with sweet, innocent charm. She reached into her Birkin, pulled out a glossy photo print, and held it out to me. “Here. Brett practically begged me for a signed print for you last night.” Serena rolled her eyes playfully at Brett. “Honestly, Brett, the moment you get a wife, you forget your little sister. I only asked you to rub some arnica oil on my ankle, and you charged me a signed photo. Cheapskate.” I looked down at the photo in her manicured hand. My lungs emptied of air. It wasn’t a promotional headshot. It was a selfie taken in a dim hotel suite late last night. In the frame, Brett was lounging on a plush sofa. Serena, wearing nothing but a sheer silk chemise, was straddling his lap, her crimson lips pressed firmly against his cheek. And Brett’s face was turned toward the camera, his eyes heavy with undisguised adoration. In the bottom right corner, Serena’s signature was scrawled in gold metallic ink. Brett caught sight of the photo and his face paled slightly. His hand twitched forward, instinctively reaching to snatch it back. Using my uninjured left hand, I calmly took it from Serena’s fingers before he could touch it. I looked up, meeting Serena’s gaze, and offered a bright, perfectly polished smile. “Thank you so much. How thoughtful.” Serena’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second, clearly frustrated that she hadn’t provoked a public breakdown. She pulled Brett toward the seating area, casually asking about my history as her fan. Brett began recounting every embarrassing thing I had ever done—how I had camped out in the rain for hours to buy a limited-edition vinyl box set, how I had begged mutual contacts for backstage passes. He told it like a stand-up routine, laughing at my expense. He conveniently omitted that “he” had been the one constantly talking about those items, sighing about how much he wished he had them, until I went out and got them to make him happy. Serena covered her mouth, giggling, then cast a pointed glance at me. “Brett… you don’t think Joanne married you just to get close to me, do you?” She laughed, half-joking, half-poisonous. “You should be careful. You never know with these obsessive superfans.” Brett turned his head, his eyes narrowing as he looked at me. “Is that true, Joanne?” His gaze was unsettlingly cold. Before I could even speak, the terminal chime rang out overhead. “First-class passengers for Flight 1408, now boarding at Gate 12…” Lexi suddenly stepped up and grabbed my coat sleeve. “Hey, where are you going?” Lexi looked at me with poorly concealed contempt. “Come with me. We’re in Main Cabin.” I stopped dead in my tracks. “Excuse me?” Lexi rolled her eyes. “Serena and Brett have the first-class suite. We’re just the assistant and the plus-one. Obviously we’re in row 28.” I turned, looking at Brett with absolute, frozen clarity. “Brett. This is what you meant by ‘we upgraded’?” A flash of awkwardness crossed his face. Serena immediately tightened her grip on his arm, giving a remorseful little pout. “Joanne, please don’t be upset. Last-minute first-class fares to Jackson Hole are ridiculously expensive, and Brett is on a surgeon’s base salary right now.” She wore the mask of a gracious saint. “You wouldn’t hold it against him just because you have to sit in coach, would you?” Brett sighed, stepping forward to pat my good shoulder. “Joanne, stop being unreasonable.” “You were planning to fly economy anyway. Don’t be vain.” “It’s only a three-hour flight. Suck it up, and we’ll meet at baggage claim. Be a good girl.” Right then, the last dying ember of my love for him went out. When the pain reaches its absolute peak, it doesn’t manifest as tears. It turns into a crystalline, icy stillness. I nodded gently. “You’re right.” Brett looked visibly relieved. He smiled back at Serena. “Let’s go, Rena.” I stood still, watching their backs as they walked side by side down the carpeted jet bridge. I turned to Lexi. “I left my prescription painkillers in the restroom by the food court. Head down to the gate; I’ll be right behind you.” Lexi scoffed, muttering under her breath, “Ugh, high maintenance. Hurry up, the plane won’t wait for you!” I waited until she vanished through the gate. Then, I turned on my heel and walked up to the customer service counter. “Hi. I need to cancel my boarding pass and recall my checked luggage, please.” The agent tapped her screen. “Of course. Where would you like to rebook?” I looked at the departures board. “One-way to Lake Tahoe. The earliest flight you have. First class.” Standing before the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, I watched the silver aircraft carrying Brett and Serena push back from the tarmac and roar into the gray sky. I pulled out my phone, opened the artist’s verified community page on Instagram and X, and uploaded a crisp, high-resolution photo of the Polaroid—the one where she was straddling my husband in silk lingerie. Caption: “A huge thank-you to my idol @SerenaSterling and my husband @DrBrettLawson for the lovely wedding gift! Wishing you both the best.” … Two hours later, Flight 1408 touched down in Wyoming. Brett checked his Rolex as they stepped off the jet bridge. “Where is she? Does it really take this long to deplane from row 28?” He stood near baggage claim for twenty minutes, his eyes scanning the crowd, but there was no sign of Joanne. Suddenly, Lexi came sprinting through the terminal doors, her face deathly pale, drenched in cold sweat. “Serena! Brett! We have a catastrophic problem!” Her hands were shaking so hard she dropped her phone onto the linoleum. Brett frowned. “Stop yelling. Where is Joanne?” “Joanne… Joanne never got on the plane!” “What? What do you mean she didn’t board?” He immediately pulled out his phone and dialed her number. “We’re sorry, but the number you are trying to reach has been turned off…” “Forget Joanne!” Lexi sounded on the verge of tears. She shoved her iPad directly into Brett and Serena’s faces. “Look at Twitter! Look at TMZ! You’re both trending worldwide!”

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My best friend was peeling an orange for me when she tilted her head and asked, completely out of nowhere: “When Owen kisses you, does he taste like oranges too?” My fingers seized against the hospital bedsheet. Before I could breathe, the door swung open. Owen walked in, casually tucking the corner of my blanket over my knees. His tone was breezy, effortless: “The director threw in an unscripted kiss scene at the last minute. Forgot to mention it.” Sloane held a glistening segment of orange to my lips, her smile dripping with wide-eyed innocence. “God, the director was terrifying today. Neither of us had ever done an on-screen kiss before. He made us do seven takes before he finally gave us a pass.” Owen stood by the edge of the mattress, looking straight down at me, his mouth set in a tight, silent line. Why was he looking at me like that? Three years ago, on a sweat-drenched night in an empty rehearsal studio, he had pinned me against the wall of mirrors, his eyes rimmed with red as he begged me: “Let’s make a pact, Sadie. No kissing scenes for either of us… no matter what.” Neither of them was half as good an actor as they thought. The guilty one was overcompensating, trying desperately to project innocence. The thief was pretending to be harmless while flaunting the prize. One was terrified I would get angry. The other was terrified I wouldn’t. 01 It was almost funny. The truth was, I already knew about the kiss. The night before my surgery, Owen had called to say he couldn’t make it to the hospital. He claimed the shoot was a disaster, that the director was furious, that he couldn’t leave the set. An hour later, an obsessive set-stalker had sent the raw video straight to my DMs. There was no disaster. The crew had erupted into cheers the moment their lips touched. They kissed with a frantic, breathless hunger—so deep in it they didn’t even hear the director yell “Cut.” Someone on the leaked tape gasped, “Jesus, they’re incredible. It looks completely real.” I knew Owen. He wasn’t that talented. When he was faking an emotion versus when he was drowning in it was something I could clock in half a second. The stalker’s message beneath the video read: “Hope your surgery fails so my favorite ship can stay together forever.” I hadn’t slept a wink that night. I drafted a five-hundred-word text. I demanded to know what Sloane was to him, why he broke our rule, how he could abandon me alone in a sterile room before a life-altering operation. But by the time I finished typing every frantic question, the answers were already staring back at me in cold, blue light. As the anesthesiologist pushed the propofol into my IV, my mind drifted back to Owen three years ago. In our damp, drafty studio apartment, clutching my hands until my knuckles ached. “Sadie, from now on, you screen every script I take. I’ll turn down every intimate scene.” “It’s not that serious,” I had laughed softly back then. “It’s just acting.” “It is serious!” He had stared into my eyes with fierce conviction. “This industry is toxic. But you and me? We never change.” “We never change.” 02 When did the rot actually set in? A month ago, severe vocal cord polyps forced me to hit pause on my music career. The internet was a cesspool of rumors: Sadie Ellis had lost her voice, Sadie Ellis would never sing again, breach-of-contract lawsuits, impending cancellations. I couldn’t look at the news. I couldn’t face my fans. I was terrified of a surgery that offered no guarantees. The doctor noted a severe spike in my clinical anxiety. To mitigate PR fallout, my label put me under soft house arrest, forbidding me from stepping outside. The only face I saw was Owen’s. And then he told me he was booked as the lead in a new drama. His co-star, playing the female lead, was my best friend, Sloane. Under normal circumstances, he never should have brought her over to our place. “Sloane isn’t an outsider,” he had reasoned smoothly. “If management asks, I’ll handle it.” Sloane had beamed, stepping through the doorway with armfuls of groceries. “Sadie, we’re heading to set next week, and I just couldn’t leave without seeing you. Just rest. Even if you end up completely mute, Owen and I will take care of you forever. I’ll keep an eye on him for you on set, don’t you worry!” Owen had nudged her elbow gently, scanning my face for a reaction. Sloane took the cue instantly, looping her arm through mine. “I just mean, with both of us around, you’re safe.” That quiet rhythm between them—that shared shorthand—had been growing for months. Sloane tied my apron around her waist and bustled into the kitchen to wash vegetables. Owen stepped in beside her, chopping and seasoning. I was relegated to the living room couch. Watching their silhouettes move together in the warm kitchen light, I felt like a stranger crashing someone else’s domestic bliss. I picked up my phone and texted Owen: “Don’t you think this is weird? Am I being frozen out in my own house?” He walked over, wiping his wet hands on a towel, and tousled my hair like I was an insecure child. “Stop overthinking. You’re recovering. Can’t you just accept people trying to take care of you?” I was a patient, not an invalid. The only thing broken was my throat. At dinner, they made hot pot. They debated scene blocking and character arcs while I stared at my separate pot of bland, unseasoned clear broth. I couldn’t jump into the conversation, and I couldn’t fake a laugh. Owen kept dropping slices of meat into the spicy red broth. He forgot to drop a single shrimp dumpling into my pot—the only thing I actually loved. The spicy broth bubbled too high and spilled over the divider, bleeding red grease directly into my clear soup. Ruined. The room was heavy with steam and the sharp scent of chili oil. I sat there, isolated and erased, just like my spoiled broth. “Oh no!” Sloane gasped, dropping her chopsticks. “I didn’t see it boil over. Owen, you idiot, look what you did to Sadie’s soup. You can’t even drop meat properly.” Owen rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “The script’s been running through my head all night. I wasn’t paying attention.” I set my chopsticks down with a sharp click and stood up. My voice came out as a raw, scraping rasp: “I’m full.” I shut the bedroom door and turned the lock, tuning out their muffled calls from the hallway. After Sloane left, Owen stood outside the locked door. His voice through the wood was heavy with disappointment. “You went way too far tonight, Sadie.” “I know you’re stressed about the surgery, but once this is over, you owe Sloane an apology. She’s been nothing but good to you.” 03 A cold war began that night. He left for location shooting without saying goodbye. A full week passed before he reached out—only to tell me he couldn’t be there for my operation. I didn’t actually lack support; my agency had arranged private nurses and top specialists. What I lacked was him. Staring at the stark white hospital walls, I gripped the blanket with white knuckles, swallowing down the sob burning in my chest. I even wondered if I had been unreasonable. Like he said, Sloane was my best friend. I remembered the first time I met her on an indie music video set. She had been so broke and hungry she slipped extra catering rolls into her canvas tote. When a production assistant caught her, she had held her head high: “I’ll pay for them when I make it.” It was a three-minute music video, but she had handwritten five pages of character backstory. I loved that grit. I put her in every single one of my music videos after that. I dragged her into my brand sponsorships. I pitched her name to every director I knew. Gradually, she started booking real roles. Our “industry besties” narrative took off. Back then, Owen had hated it. “Why do you two get joint fan clubs while we have to hide in the shadows?” “Can’t you see she’s riding your coattails? She’s using you for clout.” “She’s calculating, Sadie. Keep your distance.” When the three of us celebrated my birthday, he wouldn’t even look in Sloane’s direction. Yet somehow, over the past year, the lines had blurred. He started mentioning roles he had “put in a good word for” on Sloane’s behalf, claiming it was a favor to me. Sloane, who used to act intimidated by him, began making offhand jokes about how good his physique was looking from his new gym routine. They shared script notes that filled entire margins—pages I couldn’t decipher. He personally liked a fan-edit video of him and Sloane on social media. And when I finally asked if we could go public with our relationship, he told me to wait: “Let’s not steal the spotlight from Sloane’s debut lead role.” My gut had screamed at every single red flag. But I had forced myself to stay calm, gaslighting myself into believing I was just insecure. That leaked video was the mirror that finally shattered my delusions. A flood of memories burned like acid behind my eyes as the orderlies wheeled my gurney toward the operating theater. The anesthesia took hold, plunging the pain into silence. A single, scalding tear tracked down my temple. That was the last thing I felt. 04 The surgery went smoothly. The surgeon removed the polyps, and with them, the thorn that had been lodged in my throat. Looking at the unsent five-hundred-word draft on my phone, I remembered a quote I’d read online: “Writing an essay during a breakup is the most pathetic thing you can do. They won’t read it, and they’ll only find you exhausting.” I smiled faintly, leaned my thumb against the screen, and hit delete. Owen and Sloane walked into the room just as my assistant stepped out. “I’m so sorry, Sadie,” Owen began, his face painted with worry as he leaned over the bedside rail. “The director wouldn’t release us until we nailed the scene. How are you feeling? Does it hurt?” I looked at them both with flat, empty eyes. “Sadie, please don’t be mad,” Sloane chimed in, rushing to the other side of the bed. “I heard you two fought before he left. I already gave him hell for it! Don’t hold it against him—he was worried sick about you the whole time.” “Who’s getting hell?” Owen muttered, a playful edge to his voice. “You, obviously.” They bantered back and forth. I just watched. My assistant returned with a fresh set of clothes. Sloane immediately shoved Owen toward the door. “Time to change! Boys out!” Owen obeyed without hesitation—so natural in his compliance that he seemed to forget I was his girlfriend, not Sloane. Once the door clicked shut, Sloane peeled an orange, and that was when she dropped the bomb about the flavor of his lips. Oranges? No. He had never tasted like oranges with me. Owen detested citrus. Sloane was the one obsessed with them. He had chewed orange mints specifically for her. I felt no rage. My heart didn’t even skip a beat. It was just a flatline of cold clarity. Seeing me offer zero reaction, the two of them finally sensed the eerie shift in the air when Owen stepped back in. Sloane reached out, subtly tugging at the hem of Owen’s linen shirt. “Is she actually mad?” Owen shook his head, murmuring under his breath, “Don’t worry. It has nothing to do with you.” They traded a two-second look of silent communication before speaking over each other: “The director added the scene—” “The producers demanded it… I mean, the director did.” Their clumsy overlap hung in the quiet room. They exchanged an irritated glance, silently blaming each other for the flub, before turning their synchronized smiles back to me. Sloane shrugged, letting out an airy laugh. “Look at us getting all worked up! Sadie isn’t petty like that. Besides, your boyfriend is an awful kisser. I had to guide him through the whole take. If anything, I’m the victim here.” Owen, who had been studying my blank expression, snapped his head toward Sloane, genuinely offended. “I was bad? You’re the one who froze up like a rookie.” Fresh out of throat surgery, I couldn’t utter a syllable. I tapped my assistant’s arm and pointed toward her phone. I had already texted her five minutes ago: “Get them out of here.” My assistant bit her lip, caught between two rising stars. Before she could speak, Sloane glanced at her designer watch. “Shoot, look at the time! Sadie, the director set up a video conference with the network. Is it okay if we leave you to eat lunch alone?” She pointed to a plastic takeout bag Owen had dropped on the bedside table. “We’ll be quick. We’ll come right back tonight.” Owen’s defensive posture melted into soft guilt. “Go ahead without me, Sloane. I need to stay with my girlfriend. I haven’t seen her in weeks.” “Owen…” “Cover for me on the call.” Sloane bit her lip, clearly unhappy, her fingers tightening on his shirt sleeve again. “Don’t cause drama with production. Besides, he’s with me—what does Sadie have to worry about? Right, Sadie?” I nodded slowly, then raised my hand and pointed straight at the door. “Get out.” Owen blinked, caught off guard by my absolute compliance. He looked back twice as he walked toward the exit, finally setting a thermos of warm water on the nightstand. “Drink lots of fluids. Wait for me.” The passing floor nurse smiled into the room. “You two are so sweet together.” I smiled back. “Sweet.” When Owen spoke just now, the cool scent of orange and peppermint had washed right over me. I knew exactly where they were going. Chemistry like that takes a lot of practice. 05 When Megan marched into my room, her left wrist was wrapped in a hard fiberglass cast. “Sorry, kid. PR fires everywhere. Couldn’t get away sooner.” Always impeccable, my manager hadn’t even bothered to conceal the dark purple shadows under her eyes. Managing the narrative around my vocal collapse had nearly broken her. The vultures had been circling for weeks, praying my career was dead in the water so their own talent could feast on my endorsements. “The press release confirming a successful surgery is live. Stay off social media for a while.” She dragged a chair over and sat heavily. “The surgery worked, but nobody knows what your tone will sound like when you heal. Our rivals are using the uncertainty to dig up every piece of dirt from the past three years to strip your commercial deals.” I shook my head, picked up the legal pad on my lap, and wrote: “What dirt do they have on me?” “Owen,” Megan said bluntly. “His on-screen ship with Sloane is printing money right now. If your relationship leaks today, their fans will tear you apart.” I picked up the pen without hesitating: “What if we break up?” Megan froze. She shot out of her chair so fast her cast cracked against the bed frame, but she didn’t even flinch. “Are you serious?” I gave her a firm, unblinking nod. She grabbed my good hand, her eyes blazing with raw adrenaline. “You dump him today, Sadie, and I swear to God I will make you an A-list icon tomorrow.” “If you hadn’t let that boy anchor your career with his fragile ego, you’d already be running this town!” She knew how deep my devotion to Owen had run. Over the years, whenever a massive career leap made Owen insecure, I had walked away from it. If my singles hadn’t dominated the charts by pure force of nature, the label would have dropped me years ago for being uncooperative. She squinted at me, still skeptical. “You really pulled the plug? Why now?” I didn’t want the humiliation of recounting the details. I simply pointed at the plastic takeout bag on the table. Megan opened it. “Raw salmon sashimi? “He” bought this?” I nodded. “That absolute moron. You just had throat surgery! Raw fish? The bacteria alone could ruin your recovery. A sworn enemy couldn’t have picked a worse meal.” She cursed him out in three different variations before storming into the hallway with her phone glued to her ear. When she came back, she had just ended the call. I held up my pad: “Can I take some quiet time before jumping back into work?” “No,” Megan said firmly. “Your name is trending everywhere. If you hide, the industry will assume your voice is permanently destroyed. I’ve already mapped out your post-discharge schedule.” I scribbled furiously: “I literally cannot speak for thirty days.” Megan slapped my knee, her face splitting into a predatory grin. “Who said anything about speaking? I just signed you onto a feature film. You’re playing a mute.” “Me? Acting?” “Yes. The third lead in Leo’s new prestige drama. The casting director reached out three times. I kept turning it down because the script had heavy romantic scenes and I knew you’d refuse them for Owen.” “Leo?” Megan’s eyes sparkled. “Yes. The newly crowned Academy Award winner, Leo. Sadie, darling… breaking up with that dead weight is the best career move you’ve ever made.”

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On the first night my best friend returned to the country, he got blindingly drunk over his first love. “Three years, man,” Caleb slurred, clutching his glass of bourbon like a lifeline. “Three whole years, and I still can’t get her out of my head.” He leaned forward, his bloodshot eyes locking onto mine before drifting deliberately toward the woman sitting beside me. “She’s getting married next week. Tell me, Eli… should I steal her back?” He was asking me, but his gaze remained glued to Elena. Elena swirled the amber liquid in her tumbler with practiced indifference, but under the mahogany table, her knuckles were white against her silk trousers. I parted my lips to speak, but before a sound could escape my throat, translucent lines of glowing text suddenly drifted across my field of vision like a phantom ticker tape: [Look at this clueless side character trying to comfort him. His fiancée’s looking at the male lead with enough raw tension to set the room on fire.] [She only stayed with Eli for three years to bide her time. Now that her first love is back, who wants the knockoff?] [Let them finish this drink. The real couple is reuniting tonight, and the placeholder needs to pack his bags.] I froze, the air evaporating from my lungs. Looking across the table into Caleb’s expectant, faintly mocking eyes, I felt a strange, icy calm wash over me. I smiled softly. “You don’t need to steal her.” 1 Both of them snapped their heads toward me at the exact same time. A flicker of irritation crossed Caleb’s features. “What’s that supposed to mean, Eli? We’ve been brothers for years. Don’t you want me to be happy?” When I didn’t answer, he pushed himself up, fueled by alcohol and reckless entitlement, and grabbed the lapel of Elena’s blazer. The distance between them vanished in an instant. “If he won’t give me an answer, you will,” Caleb breathed against her mouth. “Should I steal you back, Elena?” He dragged out her name, every syllable heavy with shared history. The luminous words scrolled across the air in a frenzied blur: [Just kiss already! They’ve lost so many years!] [True love always wins!] [Why is the fiancé still sitting there? Hasn’t he realized she only started dating him so she could keep tabs on Caleb?] Through the dim lounge lighting, I watched Elena’s throat bob. She swallowed hard, her body taut with an effort at restraint that looked almost painful. My mind flashed back to the beginning of our relationship. Every time Caleb posted an update from London, Elena’s profile would show up in my viewer history within minutes. I had spent three years believing she was simply clingy, so infatuated with me that she checked my feed religiously. She wasn’t looking at me. She was looking through me. Caleb tightened his grip on her lapels, pulling her so close their breaths mingled. Only then did Elena finally raise her hands and push him back, her voice breathless. “You’ve had too much to drink.” “I haven’t had enough!” Caleb shouted, leaning over the table. “Why should you two get married? I just want back what was always mine. Is that a crime? I want an answer from you two tonight.” Elena’s jaw tightened. She said nothing. I had always known there was a ghost living in her past—a phantom ex-boyfriend for whom she had once swallowed a bottle of pills, for whom she had swallowed her pride and claimed her rightful place as the illegitimate heir to the Sterling estate just to prove a point. I just hadn’t known the ghost was Caleb. She had never breathed a single word of his name to me. The theatrical tragedy unfolding before me suddenly felt cheap. I picked up my glass, drained the whiskey in one swallow, and set it down with a crisp clink. “Like I said,” I remarked, my voice entirely steady, “you don’t have to steal anything. She’ll be handed right back to you.” Elena visibly flinched. But when Caleb stumbled beside her, her instinct took over—she caught him by the waist before he could fall. Caleb wiped the drunken tears from his lashes and threw his arms around my shoulders in a suffocating embrace. “Are you serious, Eli? You can’t take it back!” “I won’t,” I said. Before I could add that there was nothing left to take back, Elena cut in. Her brow furrowed as she wrapped her tailored coat around Caleb’s trembling frame. “He’s drunk and out of his mind,” she said, her tone laced with sharp reprimand directed at me. “Why are you indulging him? Let’s end the night here. I have to stop by the office anyway; I’ll drop him off on the way.” She guided Caleb into the passenger seat of her Porsche with practiced gentleness, buckling his seatbelt before walking back to where I stood on the curb. “Don’t overthink this,” she murmured, brushing an imaginary speck of dust from my shoulder. “I’m only helping him because he’s your friend.” She lingered on the pavement, her chin slightly tilted, waiting for me to flare up, to show jealousy, to demand she stay. She seemed to have forgotten that I had never given her Caleb’s new apartment address. How could she possibly know it was on her way? The excuse was riddled with holes, but I suddenly found myself lacking the will to care. I smiled, meeting her guarded eyes. “It’s fine. You’re free to do whatever you want.” 2 It was two in the morning before I managed to hail a cab in the rain. As soon as I sat down, my phone buzzed. A text from Caleb: “Eli, thanks for the green light, bro. I’m going to make things right with her. She told me she never stopped loving me—she was just hurt that I left when she had nothing. Now that she has her family’s money, the air is totally cleared between us.” I rested my head against the cool leather headrest and typed back a single word: “Congratulations.” Whatever mess they made of each other from here on out was no longer my concern. Back at the apartment, I collapsed onto the sofa and opened my photo archive. The shared album I had kept with Caleb spanned nearly a decade of memories. Before he moved abroad, he had cried on my couch, lamenting the girl he left behind. “She has the face, she has the body, but she’s completely broke, Eli,” he had whined. “She practically begged me on her knees this morning not to board that plane. I know she loves me, but love doesn’t pay rent in Mayfair.” Back then, he hadn’t known that the broke girl would claim a multi-million-dollar inheritance just to spite him. While Caleb was overseas, we facetimed constantly, sharing the mundane details of our lives. I posted those snippets on my public blog. That was how Elena found me. Her profile had lingered on every single post. She liked every video that featured Caleb’s voice in the background. When she slid into my direct messages, charming and attentive, I genuinely believed she had fallen for me. We met two months later, and within a year, we were living together. My screen lit up again. A text from Elena: “Working late at the office tonight. Don’t wait up for me.” It was the first time in three years she hadn’t come home. The luminous text drifted lazily across the ceiling: [The endgame couple is finally back in bed together.] [I swear, if the side character tries to guilt-trip her into coming home, he’s the worst.] [Please don’t interrupt their reunion, we’ve waited so long for this chapter.] I locked my phone, tossed it onto the coffee table, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. Around noon, Caleb’s call woke me. “Hey, Eli! Let me buy you two lunch today. Consider it an early wedding gift. Come on, don’t leave me hanging.” I paused for two seconds, then agreed. They arrived at the bistro before me. When I stepped into the private dining room, the entrees were already served. Caleb’s head was resting comfortably on Elena’s shoulder, a picture of domestic bliss. “If Eli finds out about us,” Caleb murmured softly, “do you think he’ll be upset?” Elena turned her face away, her expression unreadable. “Drop it. He can never know.” Her tone carried the exact same unshakeable conviction as the day she had proposed to me. Six months ago, she had knelt on one knee by the ocean, sliding a platinum band onto my finger. “Once you wear this, you can never take it off,” she had whispered. “You belong to me for the rest of your life.” Six months was all it took for forever to rot. I took a quiet breath and walked over to the table. Caleb sat up immediately, rubbing the back of his neck with a sheepish grin. “Sorry, Eli. My blood sugar dropped a little, so I borrowed your girl’s shoulder. Don’t read into it, okay?” He nudged Elena playfully. “Why don’t you go sit next to Eli?” Before she could stand, I raised a hand. “Stay where you are. I have my coat on that side anyway.” Caleb shrugged, raising his glass of iced tea. “Eli, seriously, congrats on the wedding.” He drank it down, then hesitated, glancing sideways at Elena. “Actually, I wanted to ask a favor today. My mom found out I was back in the States and is badgering me to go on blind dates. I panicked and lied, told her I already had a serious girlfriend.” He paused, biting his lip. “I don’t know anyone in town anymore. I was hoping Elena could play my girlfriend for a couple of days to get my mom off my back. Would that be cool? Elena already said yes.” The words floated up again: [Poor baby Caleb, he has to make up an excuse just to bring the love of his life to meet his parents.] [The fiancé is definitely going to throw a fit. Classic petty villain behavior.] I picked up a piece of seared salmon, chewed slowly, and ignored the dark shadow crossing Elena’s face. “Sure,” I said instantly. “Just make sure you guys look convincing.” 3 A radiant smile broke across Caleb’s face. “I knew you were the best bro ever! Don’t worry, I’ll take great care of her for you.” Throughout the rest of the meal, Elena sat in stony silence. I couldn’t fathom what she was brooding over. When the server finally brought the bill, Elena tapped her black card against the terminal without looking up. “Ma’am,” the server said brightly, handing over a promotional card, “we have a promotion today. If you leave a review, we have a complimentary gift set for your husband.” He smoothly extended the menu of gifts toward Caleb. Caleb accepted it without missing a beat. “I’ll take this leather cardholder!” Elena quietly scanned the QR code to finish the review. Not a single person at the table corrected the server. Not a single word was offered in explanation. The moment we stepped through the front door of our apartment, Elena shoved me against the entryway wall, her frame radiating sharp, suppressed fury. “Since when did my fiancé become so generous?” she hissed, her dark eyes pinning me down. “Throwing me into another man’s arms like I’m nothing?” I pushed her hands off my chest with a cold shove. “You said yes before I even got there.” She stood frozen in the foyer for several seconds. “I told him I’d only go if you agreed,” she said, her voice dropping. “I thought you would say no.” When I didn’t respond, she let out a bitter, humorless laugh. “Whatever. It’s just one day of pretending. We’re getting married next week, Eli. I have the rest of our lives to make sure you care about me again.” Hearing her deliver those polished, poetic promises felt like nails on a chalkboard. Elena was an extraordinary actress; she had proved that over the last three years. If she weren’t, I never would have been fooled so completely. I reached down, slid the platinum band off my ring finger, and set it on the entryway console with a soft, final thud. “Whether you wanted to go or not is between you and your conscience,” I said quietly. “Don’t push the blame onto me. And take this back.” Elena’s face drained of color. “What are you doing? He’s your best friend, Eli. Stop throwing a tantrum over nothing.” Her eyes locked onto the ring, her hand reaching out to grab it, but the sudden chiming of her phone cut the tension in half. It was Caleb’s custom ringtone—the same melody programmed into my phone. She looked at the screen, hesitated, and stepped back toward the door. “Eli, something urgent came up at his parents’ place. I might not be back tonight.” She avoided looking at the ring on the console. “His hometown is a few hours out. It might take a couple of days, but I promise I’ll be back the evening before the rehearsal.” I gave a faint nod. “Go ahead.” The luminous ticker flashed past: [Is the fiancé seriously still expecting a wedding?] [Wait until he sees Caleb crash the altar. He’s going to cry himself to sleep for a month.] [He deserves it for getting between them in the first place.] The moment Elena’s car pulled away, my phone rang. Caleb’s voice came through the speaker, breathless and slightly strained. “Eli… you’ve known Elena was my ex all along, haven’t you?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “I know you two are supposed to get married. I shouldn’t have stepped in. But I regret everything I did back then. I never stopped loving her, Eli, and she still loves me.” He paused, his voice cracking with staged emotion. “Being with someone whose heart belongs to another man won’t make you happy. Can you just… let us be?” In the quiet, cavernous hallway of my apartment, I let out a long breath. “Sure,” I said evenly. “I’ll let you have her.” Caleb gasped on the other end, caught off guard. “You… you mean that?” “I mean it.” I hung up, blocked his number, and deleted the contact. Our friendship had died three years ago; it just took me until today to bury it. 4 Standing in the center of the living room, every shared object felt like an insult. I grabbed a stack of heavy-duty contractor bags and began tearing down the life we had built. The matching linen robes, the ceramic mugs we had thrown together at a pottery class, the framed photographs from our trips to Maine—all of it went into the trash. When I was finished, the things that truly belonged to me barely filled two duffel bags. I sat on the stripped sofa and checked my phone. Caleb had created a three-person group chat with his parents and Elena, flooding it with photos of their road trip. The latest post on his public feed was a smiling family portrait: Caleb’s parents beaming in the center, flanked by Caleb and Elena. “Caption: Brought the girlfriend home to meet the folks. They love her!” I tapped the ‘like’ button. Seconds later, Elena sent a private message: “Babe, his parents insisted on that photo. I couldn’t say no without making a scene. I’m picking up some local coffee beans you love on the way back, okay?” I replied “Whatever” and turned off my phone. A ninety-minute drive took them three full days. Elena finally returned at two in the morning on the eve of the wedding. She walked in and immediately wrapped her arms around my waist from behind, resting her cheek against my back. “Eli, your friend is way more high-maintenance than you are. I am never doing that again.” She kissed the nape of my neck. “They say the bride and groom aren’t supposed to see each other the night before the ceremony, but I missed you too much. I had to see you.” Her touch made my skin crawl. I pulled away smoothly, putting the kitchen island between us. She didn’t get angry. She just offered a tired, affectionate smile. “Are you still brooding over the fake girlfriend thing? He really needed the favor. He even wrote a beautiful toast for our ceremony tomorrow. I read it on the drive back—it’s incredible. I’ll recite it for you at the altar.” The floating comments flickered into view: [I feel so bad for the female lead. She has to run back and baby the side character just to keep him from ruining tomorrow.] [Tomorrow’s altar swap is going to be cinematic gold.] [Can’t wait to see the fiancé’s face crumble.] I looked at Elena and whispered, “Then I wish you a very happy wedding.” She caught only half the sentence, stepping closer. “What did you say?” Before I could answer, the custom ringtone blared again. She answered immediately, and Caleb’s panicked voice spilled into the room. “Elena… I drank too much at the lounge down the street. My head is spinning, I can’t stand up… please come get me!” Elena straightened instantly, all exhaustion vanishing behind raw alarm. “Stay right where you are. Don’t move. I’m coming.” She hung up, her face filled with hurried guilt. “Eli, Caleb’s in trouble. Let me go help him out—consider it payment for the wedding toast. I’ll see you at the altar tomorrow, okay?” She pressed a frantic kiss to my forehead and bolted out the door. “You won’t see me tomorrow,” I thought, touching my cold forehead. “I’m not your groom.” The ring remained on the console table. She was so blinded by her urgency for Caleb that she hadn’t noticed the bare walls, the empty closets, or my packed bags waiting by the back door. She had missed her last chance to notice. The next morning, the grand ballroom of the St. Regis was packed with high society. Early that morning, Elena had sent one final text: “Eli, I’m finally marrying you.” The ceremony began. Elena stood behind the towering carved doors in a custom Vera Wang gown with a five-yard train, waiting to walk toward the man she thought was waiting for her. The doors parted. The room fell dead silent. At the end of the aisle stood Caleb, wearing a midnight-blue tuxedo, pinned with the bespoke emerald brooch Elena had personally designed months ago. She took three steps forward before the spotlight shifted, illuminating his face. Elena froze. “Why are you here?”

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The night before Valentine’s Day, I found a velvet jewelry box tucked into the inner pocket of Ethan’s winter coat. Engraved along the inner band of the silver ring were two words: “Lila. Forever.” Beside the box was a folded slip of paper, yellowed at the creases, bearing a vow in his unmistakable handwriting: “Ethan will marry no one but Lila.” I stood in our walk-in closet, staring at the cursive ink, and wondered what I had been to him for the past three years. A placeholder? A comfortable compromise? When I turned around, Ethan was leaning against the bedroom doorframe, his expression completely detached. “Leah, who said you could go through my coat?” I held up the ring—it was visibly too small for my finger—and asked in a calm, flat voice, “Who was this for?” Ethan gave an indifferent shrug. “If you want it, take it.” I looked him dead in the eye and dropped the box straight into the trash can beside the dresser. I don’t keep jewelry meant for other women. And I certainly didn’t want a man who was still mourning someone else. … “Happy now?” Ethan muttered. He sat on the sofa, scrolling through his phone without looking up. “Drop the attitude, Leah. Don’t make a scene over nothing.” I didn’t answer. He glanced up, his gaze sweeping over me with mild irritation. “Whatever you want for Valentine’s tomorrow, just go buy it. Put it on my card. If there’s something on your mind, say it. Don’t sit there giving me the cold shoulder.” Three years together, and he had never once bothered to ask what I actually liked. I remembered catching the flu last week, shivering under the duvet, texting him that my chest ached and I couldn’t get out of bed. He had replied: “Ordered you an Uber. Head downstairs. License plate ending in 402.” It wasn’t until later that I saw Lila’s Instagram story from that same afternoon—a picture of a tea mug with the caption: “Stomachache from hell.” Ethan had driven forty-five minutes across town in rush-hour traffic just to hand-deliver antacids to her door. On my birthday, he told me he was stuck at the office with a critical project rollout. Later that night, Lila posted a bouquet of pale pink peonies: “Mentioned I liked these, and look who showed up at my doorstep.” Out of ten promises he made me, keeping two was considered a good run. “No need,” I said quietly. “Ethan, we’re done. Let’s break up.” He set his phone down on the glass coffee table, his brow furrowing. “What is your problem now?” “The ring in your overcoat—” “That’s an old relic from years ago. I forgot to throw it out.” “You forgot for three years?” He paused, his voice sharpening with impatience. “Leah, what do you actually want from me? It’s not like I’ve never bought you jewelry. What’s that sitting on your left hand right now?” I looked down at the ring on my ring finger. He had given it to me last New Year’s. It was expensive, clear-cut, and blindingly bright. But the inside of the band was smooth and hollow. Blank. Nothing etched into the metal. Meanwhile, that battered old ring in his coat had another woman’s name permanently carved into its core. “And the note?” I asked. “‘”Ethan will marry no one but Lila”‘—what was that?” For the first time, a hairline fracture appeared in his composure. “Something stupid I wrote when I was young. It doesn’t mean anything anymore.” “Then why keep it?” He was silent for a beat. Then he stood up, walked over to the trash can, bent down, and fished the velvet box out of the bin. He tossed it onto the coffee table. “If it bothers you that much, keep it. Do whatever you want with it. Rip it up, burn it. Just stop picking fights over ancient history, all right?” I didn’t move. I didn’t nod. “Ethan, if Lila came back tomorrow and asked you to be with her, would you go?” He looked at me, his jaw tightening. “Her coming back has nothing to do with me.” “You didn’t answer my question.” “Leah, can you stop inventing hypothetical scenarios that don’t exist?” “You carried her ring and your vow to marry her in your chest pocket, and you’re telling me this doesn’t exist?” He pinched the bridge of his nose, the sheer exhaustion in his demeanor far outweighing any patience. “Then tell me what you want me to do. Give me a solution, and I’ll do it.” I parted my lips, ready to speak, but the words withered on my tongue. Looking at him standing there—looking so terribly put-upon—a wave of deep, bone-weary exhaustion washed over me. I turned around, went into the guest bedroom, and locked the door behind me. I slid down against the wood until I was sitting on the floor. Outside, someone in the neighborhood was setting off fireworks. The muffled pops sounded distant and hollow. I pulled out my phone and searched Lila’s public profile. Her latest post was a photograph taken through an airplane window, the city skyline glowing beneath the wings: “Back in the city after so long. Feels good to be home.” In the comments section, a freshly registered burner account had left a single reply: “What time do you land?” The comment had already been deleted, but not before I caught it. The profile picture was the exact same default graphic Ethan used for his secondary gaming account. “Has nothing to do with me.” That was what he had called it. The next morning, I woke up and got ready for work as usual. Ethan had left earlier than me. He had paused in the entryway by the shoe rack, looking as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, the front door just clicked shut. On the dining table was a paper bag from a local café—breakfast he had ordered for me, though he hadn’t touched any himself. I sat down, finished the oatmeal, got dressed, and left. At the office, my coworkers were buzzing about their Valentine’s plans. One of them turned to me with a bright smile. “Leah, what kind of surprise does Ethan have planned for you tonight?” I offered a faint smile. “Not sure. Probably nothing.” “Come on, Ethan spoils you rotten. He’s going to do something big.” I smiled and let the conversation drift away. Ethan “was” good to me, on paper. He wired money on holidays, gave me designer bags on my birthdays, and made sure to hold my hand in front of his friends. But he couldn’t remember the foods I was allergic to. He couldn’t remember the indie film I had been talking about seeing for three weeks. His affection was procedural. It was the way someone operates heavy machinery—following the manual step by step, pressing button A to receive reaction B. He didn’t care to know how the machine worked on the inside, as long as it kept running quietly without causing him trouble. At noon, a text arrived from Ethan: “Dinner tonight. I made a reservation at that omakase place you said you wanted to try.” I stared at the screen for a long time. I had never once asked to go to an omakase place. I didn’t even eat raw fish. When my shift ended, his black sedan was idling by the curb outside my office building. The window rolled down as I approached. I opened the passenger door and slid in. A subtle, floral perfume hung in the car air—powdery and sweet. It wasn’t mine. I didn’t ask. At the restaurant, the table filled with delicate plates of sashimi and raw oysters. Flipping through the menu, Ethan asked, “Didn’t you say you loved salmon?” “I don’t eat raw food, Ethan.” His hand paused mid-turn. “Want me to ask them to sear it?” “Don’t bother. This is fine.” He looked at me, a brief shadow passing over his eyes, but said nothing more. Halfway through dinner, his phone rang. He checked the screen, answered with a few clipped words, and hung up within ten seconds. I didn’t ask who it was. In the past, I would have. And he would always say, “Work.” Until the evening I caught a glimpse of that same number flashing across his screen, saved under a single contact name: “Lila.” After that, I stopped asking. Near the end of the meal, Ethan laid his chopsticks down across his ceramic rest. “Leah. About yesterday. I took care of it.” “How?” “I threw the ring away. And I burned the note.” “You tossed it into the coffee table drawer, Ethan.” He hesitated. “I threw it in the outside dumpster this morning.” “Is that so?” “You don’t believe me?” I didn’t answer. Silence stretched between us before he let out a measured breath. “Lila and I… that’s completely in the past. She’s just an old friend from school. We check in occasionally. That’s all.” “How often is ‘occasionally’?” His mouth opened, then closed. “Ethan, in three years, you’ve never once asked what my favorite meal is, what colors I like to wear, or what flowers make me happy,” I said, my voice barely above a murmur. “Yet every time Lila posts something, your like is on it within minutes. You know every single thing she loves. You tell me you two only talk occasionally. So tell me—do you know what I like to eat?” The silence that followed was suffocating. Finally, he offered, “…You like things mild, right? Light flavors.” I let out a soft, dry laugh. “I love spicy food, Ethan.” He went completely quiet. We didn’t exchange another word for the rest of the night. When he pulled up to our apartment complex, he cut the engine and reached out to touch my hand. I pulled my fingers back, tucking them into my coat pockets. “Leah—” “I’m exhausted. I’m going up to sleep.” I pushed the door open and walked into the lobby without looking back. Over the next few days, an eerie, fragile peace settled between us. He didn’t bring up that night, and neither did I. We ate at the same table, left the apartment at the same time, and slept on opposite sides of the king mattress. We simply stopped talking. It was so quiet that whenever he casually said, “Long day at work,” it took me several seconds to realize he was addressing me. On Wednesday night, I stayed late at the office to finish a quarterly audit. By the time I unlocked the front door, it was past ten. The living room light was on. Ethan was sitting on the sofa with his laptop balanced on his knees. He glanced up. “You’re back?” “Yeah.” “There’s soup on the stove. It’s still warm.” “Thanks.” I went into the kitchen, ladled a bowl of broth, and sat at the island counter. Ethan walked over and leaned against the doorway, watching me. “Leah, there’s an industry gala this weekend. Come with me.” “Okay.” “It’s black-tie.” “I know.” “I had my assistant order a gown for you. It should be delivered tomorrow.” “All right.” He lingered, his lips parting slightly as if searching for something to say, but no sound came out. I kept my head lowered, sipping the soup, never meeting his eyes. Eventually, he turned and walked back to the living room. The rhythmic tapping of his keyboard filled the silence. I sat alone at the island, looking at the tiny orange goji berries floating on the surface of the broth. I thought about our first year together. He used to leave soup for me back then, too. He used to stand in the kitchen doorway and watch me drink it, and in those days, his eyes carried a faint warmth. Over time, that warmth had degraded into habit, and habit had hardened into routine maintenance. He didn’t leave soup because he loved me; he left it because doing so ensured the domestic gears kept turning smoothly. The night of the gala, I wore the gown he had ordered. It was champagne silk, floor-length, tailored to perfection. Except I had never once bought a champagne-colored dress in my life. He didn’t know that my closet was almost entirely blue. The ballroom was bathed in chandeliers and champagne flutes. Ethan held his glass, working the room with effortless charm, while I stood beside him, nodding and smiling on cue. Near the halfway mark, his phone buzzed in his breast pocket. He slipped it out and looked down. A notification flashed on the glass. I caught the contact name: “Lila.” He typed a two-word reply and slid the phone back into his suit. “Who was that?” I asked. “A colleague.” “It was Lila, wasn’t it?” He paused, not bothering to deny it. “She’s at an event a few blocks over. She asked if I could give her a ride home on the way.” “Go ahead, then.” “Leah—” “You told me you two only talk occasionally. Occasionally enough that she coordinates her location with your schedule?” He said nothing, a slight frown tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Go,” I told him evenly. “I’ll take an Uber.” I turned on my heel and walked toward the exit. Behind me, he called my name once. I didn’t look back. When I got home, I took off the champagne gown, folded it into neat squares, and placed it on the highest, most inaccessible shelf in the closet. I sat at the vanity, pulled the diamond ring off my left ring finger, and laid it on the marble surface. I had worn it for three years. The skin beneath it was pale and slightly indented. I traced that faint groove with my thumb for a few moments, feeling the ghost of its weight. Then I stood up, walked into the study, and booted up my laptop. I pulled up an email draft containing an application for an overseas assignment—a three-year project based out of a Scandinavian coastal office. I had filled it out eight months ago, then hesitated, leaving it saved in drafts out of some foolish lingering hope. I updated the date and hit “Send”. The next morning, when Ethan returned to the apartment, I was already at my desk at work. He sent a text: “Dropped her off and came straight back last night. You weren’t home.” I didn’t reply. A minute later, another message arrived: “Leah, can you please stop acting like this? It was on the way. I couldn’t just leave her to walk alone in the dark.” I still didn’t reply. When my phone screen lit up with his incoming call, I pressed decline. Then came a third text: “When are you coming home? We need to talk.” I typed a single response: “Later.” That afternoon, HR confirmed my transfer. The assignment was based in a quiet port town in Northern Europe, effective for three years, with a departure flight scheduled for the following week. I didn’t tell Ethan. Over the days that followed, he became noticeably more attentive. He started asking what I wanted for dinner before I left the office. He texted “I’ll pick you up” when five o’clock rolled around. Whenever I walked through the door, he would look up from the sofa, watching me carefully. I responded to every gesture with immaculate, polite courtesy—the exact tone one reserves for an acquaintance from another department. He didn’t sense that anything was fundamentally broken. Or perhaps he noticed, but assumed I was merely throwing a prolonged tantrum that would blow over in due time. He had no idea that every single day, while he was at work, I was purging my life from that apartment. Piece by piece, I sorted through my clothes. The items I no longer wore were boxed up for donation; the essentials were packed into my rolling suitcase. I picked two books from the shelves and gave the rest away. I packed my daily skincare into a travel pouch and left the half-empty bottles behind. When I took down our framed photograph from the hallway console, my fingers hesitated. It was taken on his birthday last year. He was looking down, cutting the cake, while I leaned into the frame, smiling with everything I had. In the photo, his lips were barely curved into a polite half-smile. I stared at the picture for three seconds. Then I turned it facedown, slid it into a blank white envelope, and laid it in a drawer. I didn’t tear it up. I didn’t even have the energy left for rage. The day I left was a Tuesday. When Ethan walked out the door for his morning meetings, I was still under the blankets, eyes wide open. My packed suitcase was standing by the entryway. I sat on the edge of the mattress, waiting until the heavy thud of the front door echoed through the hallway. Only then did I stand up. I took one last look at the place where I had spent three years of my life. The balcony plants had been given away to the neighbors. The refrigerator was scrubbed bare. The kitchen counters were wiped clean, devoid of a single stray mug. I stood by the threshold for a few seconds, then pulled the door open, grabbed the handle of my luggage, and walked out into the crisp morning air. In the elevator, my phone vibrated in my coat pocket. It was a text from Ethan: “What time are you off today? Let me grab you. Dinner’s on me.” I stared at the glowing letters for a brief moment, then held down the power button and shut the phone off. As the plane lifted off the tarmac, I leaned my forehead against the cold oval window. Beneath the wing, the lights of the city dissolved into a blur of amber and silver, shrinking into the cloud cover until there was nothing left to see. Goodbye, Ethan.

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To dodge the endless parade of blind dates her parents set up, my best friend, Bridget, asked my boyfriend, Austin, to play the part of her fake partner. On a rainy evening, Austin left me stranded at the subway station just to drive across town and pick Bridget up from work. On my birthday, he canceled our dinner reservations to accompany Bridget back to her hometown to face her family. Whenever I voiced even the slightest grievance, Bridget’s eyes would instantly turn red with tears. “I’m so sorry, Kendall,” she would murmur, voice trembling. “If it makes you uncomfortable, I won’t bother him ever again.” Seeing her distress, Austin would immediately frown, turning on me with sharp reprimands. “He was just doing her a favor. Why do you have to be so damn insecure?” “She’s your best friend. Stop being so petty.” Later, the three of us took a weekend trip together. While we were waiting in line at a cafe, two guys approached us, asking for our numbers—one for mine, and one for Bridget’s. Austin froze for a fraction of a second. Then, with sudden urgency, he grabbed Bridget’s hand, lacing his fingers through hers. “Sorry, man. She’s taken.” Standing right beside them, I simply smiled. He had fallen so deeply into the role that he had forgotten it was supposed to be a performance. And it was long past time for me to cut my losses. … I unlocked my phone, pulled up my Instagram QR code, and handed it to the stranger standing in front of me with an easy, practiced smile. Austin’s face instantly darkened. “Kendall, what the hell are you doing?” I glanced down at his hand, still tightly clasped with Bridget’s, their fingers intimately entwined. A cold, quiet laugh slipped from my throat. “You should focus on managing your own girlfriend.” Bridget startled, as if suddenly realizing the physical contact, and abruptly yanked her hand away from Austin’s grip. “Kendall, please don’t be mad,” she stammered, flustered. “Austin was just acting. You know that.” She nudged Austin’s elbow with a subtle, delicate gesture. Austin knitted his brows together, his voice dropping into that familiar, cool baritone that always sounded like a lecture. “All right, drop the attitude. You know it was just for show. Delete him right now. Exchanging contact info with random strangers—do you have any self-respect?” “For show?” Was it also just for show when he spent the last ten minutes meticulously peeling an entire bowl of prawns, only to slide the finished dish directly in front of Bridget without a second thought? The waiter arrived, placing the iced drinks I had ordered onto the table. Before the glass had even settled, Austin’s hand shot out, touching the chilled surface. He turned to Bridget, his tone shifting into something soft, almost reverent. “You can’t drink this.” “Your period is starting in a couple of days. You know you shouldn’t have anything cold.” I froze. Bridget let out a breathless gasp, her cheeks flushing pink. “You actually remembered?” Austin’s lips curved into a faint, self-satisfied smirk. “Of course. I downloaded that tracker app on my phone and marked every single cycle.” The words felt like shards of ice plunging straight through my chest. Beneath the wooden table, my hands curled into tight, trembling fists. In all the three years we had been together, Austin had never once remembered my cycle. Even on the nights when cramps had me curled on the bathroom floor, gasping for breath, the most he had ever offered was a detached, “Go drink some hot water.” Before I could swallow down the bitter sting rising in my throat, Bridget’s phone chimed. It was a FaceTime call from her mother. Bridget chatted for a few seconds before naturally, effortlessly, angling the screen toward Austin. “Hi, Mrs. Thornton. It’s Austin,” he said. He leaned forward, his posture softening into an instinctive deference that I had never seen before. His voice was gentle, polite, attentive to a fault, patiently answering every mundane question her mother threw his way. I watched him in silence, a heavy wave of memory crashing over me. Just last week, my own mother had flown in from out of state to visit. Austin had worn a cold, stony expression the entire weekend. Whenever my mother tried to strike up a cheerful conversation, he offered nothing more than clipped, monosyllabic answers, constantly checking his watch before finally excusing himself to the home office under the pretext of an urgent deadline. Austin ended the call, set down the phone, and looked at me across the table. “Next weekend is Bridget’s company retreat,” he said casually. “I need to go with her.” It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t a discussion. It was a unilateral announcement. In the past, whenever my firm organized an annual retreat or a holiday party, I had begged him to come with me. Every single time, he had shot me down without hesitation, claiming he detested crowds and would rather spend his weekend sleeping in. I set my fork down with a quiet “clink”. A profound sense of emptiness washed over me. When had it happened? When did every one of his protective instincts, his subconscious priorities, and his tender allowances become exclusively reserved for Bridget? My phone buzzed against my leg. It was an email from my regional director. “Kendall, another senior associate just applied for the transfer to the Denver branch. This is a massive leap for your career track. I urge you to reconsider before I submit the final name.” The company was expanding, opening a brand-new regional hub—an incredible promotion that came with a department lead title. My boss had offered it to me three times, and three times I had turned it down. Because I couldn’t bear the thought of long-distance with Austin. Looking at him now, I felt an overwhelming wave of self-mockery. I had rearranged my entire future around a man whose heart was already occupied. My thumbs moved quickly across the screen. “Director Miller, I’ve made up my mind. I accept the transfer.” Bridget, ever perceptive, caught the sudden shift in my silence. She reached across the table, tugging softly at my sleeve, her voice pitched high and innocent. “Kendall, please don’t overthink this. Austin is only coming along to keep the creepy guys in my department away. There’s really nothing going on between us. Please don’t take it to heart.” Austin frowned at my lack of response, his patience thinning. “All right, that’s enough. Stop dwelling on minor details. Didn’t you say you wanted to check out that new immersive escape room downtown?” I didn’t argue. I rose from the table like a ghost, following the two of them out into the crisp afternoon air. When we arrived at the venue, the front desk informed us that the horror-themed room required a minimum of four players; because the slots were fully booked, we would have to merge with another group. When the other two players walked over, my breath caught. It was the two guys from the cafe. Recognizing me, the one who had asked for my Instagram—Caleb—brightened instantly. “Hey, what a coincidence! Our other friends bailed on us last minute,” he said, offering a warm, easy smile. “If things get too terrifying in there, you can stick close to me. I’ll make sure you get out in one piece.” The gentle, unpretentious warmth in his tone brought a faint, genuine curve to my lips. Across from us, Austin’s jaw clenched tight. He lunged forward, gripping my wrist with bruising force and yanking me a few paces away from the group. “Stay the hell away from him,” he hissed under his breath. “I’m right here. Why would you need some random stranger protecting you?” For one fleeting, pathetic second, a tiny ember of longing flickered in the dark corners of my chest. That warmth shattered into dust the moment the steel doors locked behind us. Ten minutes into the labyrinth, the lights cut out, and a blood-soaked actor burst from a hidden panel in the wall. Bridget and I flinched at the exact same second. Austin didn’t hesitate. He didn’t even look in my direction. In a single, fluid motion, he stepped across the narrow corridor, wrapping his arms securely around Bridget. He pulled her entirely against his chest, his large hands clamping over her eyes, shielding her from the darkness as he whispered frantic, soothing words into her hair. “I’ve got you. Don’t look. You’re safe.” The ambient screams and the blaring sirens faded into static. I stood alone in the dim shadows, watching the man who claimed to love me shield another woman with his entire body. Whatever fragile illusions I had desperately clung to withered and died right there on that cold concrete floor. I let out a breathless, soundless laugh. “I’ll protect you.” What a joke. I had actually let myself believe he meant it. “Not bad, Kendall. You didn’t even flinch,” Austin remarked casually once the game ended and we stepped back into the bright lobby. He raised an eyebrow, half-teasing. “Didn’t hear a peep out of you.” I offered him a hollow, distant smile. He hadn’t looked at me once during the entire hour. How could he possibly know whether I was terrified? Besides, compared to the slow, agonizing death of watching the man you love choose someone else by instinct, what was a simulated monster in the dark? Exiting the facility, we wandered toward an artisan boutique exhibition down the street. Inside the central display sat a limited-edition blown-glass star lantern—a piece I had fawned over on social media for months. Because of the holiday event, the gallery was running a couple’s challenge: only pairs who completed a series of puzzle checkpoints together could win the exclusive commemorative piece. I took a breath, about to speak, when Austin naturally took Bridget by the elbow, steering her straight toward the registration desk. The event coordinator smiled, reviewing the rules. “To verify that you’re an authentic couple, we require a kiss before we hand over the scorecard.” Bridget lowered her head, the tips of her ears turning crimson, her eyes darting toward Austin with a shy, breathless hesitation. Austin paused for a beat. Then, leaning down with effortless grace, he pressed a tender, lingering kiss onto the center of Bridget’s forehead. A cold numbness rushed through my veins, freezing me where I stood. Austin turned his head, his gaze finally catching mine. I had expected a flicker of guilt, a hurried excuse, an apology—anything. Instead, his eyes barely shifted, his voice utterly level. “The course involves a lot of running between rooms. It takes physical endurance.” “You get winded easily. Don’t push yourself. We’ll win the lantern and bring it out for you.” Bridget chimed in immediately, her voice dripping with sweet devotion. “Exactly, Kendall! Don’t worry at all. Austin and I are going to give it everything we’ve got.” “After all, you’re the most important person in the world to both of us.” “The most important person.” The words landed on my skin like dirty water. A pretty little veil, carefully tailored to disguise an illicit intimacy as an act of selfless generosity on my behalf. Neither of them had ever truly seen my humiliation. Neither of them cared about the bleeding wounds they left behind. I didn’t answer. The moment the glass doors closed behind them as they entered the challenge hall, I pulled out my phone, booked the next one-way flight back to my apartment, turned on my heel, and walked away. The second the plane touched down on the tarmac, my phone exploded with a barrage of notifications, voicemails, and missed calls. Before I could even clear the screen, Austin’s name flashed across the display once more. I stared at the glowing letters for a long moment before sliding my thumb across the screen. “Kendall! Where the hell are you?” His voice was ragged, laced with a panic that instantly curdled into fury the moment I spoke. “I’m at the airport. I flew home.” “Home?!” he roared through the receiver. “Kendall, Bridget is in the parking lot having a full-blown panic attack because she thinks something happened to you! You’re telling me you just abandoned us and went home?!” “Can you stop throwing these pathetic, childish tantrums for once in your life?” “Childish tantrums.” He used that phrase whenever I refused to play my assigned part in their little drama. He genuinely believed I was obligated to sit quietly, smiling like an idiot while he played the devoted protector to my best friend, swallowing the lie that it was all just a harmless favor. Did he think I was blind? Did he think I was completely devoid of human dignity? “Austin,” I said, my voice dropping to a calm, quiet hush. I took a slow breath, the air filling my lungs with a strange, unprecedented clarity. “Let’s break up.” Without waiting for his response, I ended the call. Within ten seconds, Bridget’s number flashed on the screen. I held down the power button and shut the phone off entirely. That night, just as I was preparing to turn off the bedside lamp, the sound of a key grinding into the deadbolt echoed through the silent apartment. Austin pushed the door open, with Bridget trailing half a step behind him. Bridget’s eyes were swollen, rimmed with red. The moment she saw me sitting on the sofa, she rushed forward, her voice breaking into a wet sob. “Kendall, I’m so sorry. Is this because Austin and I have been spending too much time together? Did I make you feel left out?” I sat motionless, watching her performance with deadened eyes. Seeing my complete lack of reaction, Bridget wiped furiously at her cheeks, pulled out her phone, and opened her Instagram profile. “Look, Kendall,” she cried, holding the screen up to my face. “I’m posting it right now. I’m telling everyone I’m completely single, and I promise I will never, ever ask Austin to help me pretend again. Is that okay? Will you please forgive us?” She showed me the draft, tapped “Share”, and then burst into tears, turning and running out the door as if she were the ultimate martyr. The heavy front door clicked shut. The apartment fell dead silent, leaving only Austin and me. Austin’s brows were knotted into a tight, furious ridge. The look he gave me was thick with exhaustion and disgust. “Are you satisfied now?” “Did you really have to drag this out and make everything so repulsive?” “Bridget is out there crying her eyes out because of your insecurity. Do you possess even a shred of basic empathy?” The dam broke. The exhaustion, the grief, the humiliation of the past six months rushed behind my eyes, and a single, hot tear spilled over my lashes, tracing a slow line down my cheek. Seeing me cry, Austin froze. His angry posture instantly deflated. He let out a long, weary sigh, crossing the room until he stood over me. Slowly, he reached down, his fingers lightly brushing through my hair in a gesture of practiced comfort. “All right. Stop crying.” “I promise you, from now on, I’ll keep my distance from Bridget.” “Just let this go, okay? Don’t hold onto it.” His voice was soft, patient, carrying the exact cadence that used to melt every defense I had. But this time, nothing stirred. The soil inside me was completely barren. Glancing at my phone, which I had powered back on, I saw the confirmation email from HR: a morning flight to Denver, departing in less than thirty-six hours. I tapped the screen and typed a single word: “Confirmed.” The following evening, Austin and I sat across from one another at the dining table, eating what would be our final dinner together. I had barely taken two bites when his phone vibrated violently against the wood. Austin answered, listening for less than three seconds before his fork clattered against the porcelain plate. “Bridget’s in trouble.” Without another word—without even pausing to put on a jacket or proper shoes—he bolted through the front door, slamming it behind him. A cold adrenaline spiked through my head. Driven by an automatic, residual instinct, I grabbed my keys and ran out after him. By the time I caught up to him two blocks away, Bridget was cornered against a brick wall near the entrance of a dimly lit alley, a strange man gripping her forearm, trying to drag her into the shadows. Austin let out a feral roar, charging forward like a madman. In a flurry of violent shoves and wild punches, he sent the man stumbling back into the street, fleeing into the night. I stepped forward, my chest heaving, reaching out a hand toward Bridget to check if she was hurt. Bridget flinched, dodging my touch entirely. Instead, she threw herself fully into Austin’s chest, wrapping her arms around his neck in hysterical tears. “Austin… someone followed me all the way from the train. I was so scared…” Austin stroked her back with frantic tenderness, his voice trembling with protective rage. “I’m here. It’s okay. You’re safe now.” “Bridget, are you—” “Shut up!” Austin’s vicious bark cut me off entirely. He whipped his head toward me, his eyes blazing with an unhinged, accusatory venom. “Are you happy now?” “Look at her! If I hadn’t made it in time, do you have any idea what would have happened to her tonight?!” He glared at me as if I were a murderer standing over a crime scene. “If you hadn’t thrown your petty, selfish fit yesterday and forced me to cut contact with her, she wouldn’t have been walking home from work alone in the dark! If she had been assaulted tonight, how would you have lived with your conscience?!” I stood beneath the flickering streetlamp, completely paralyzed. Through the dim, yellow haze, I caught a glimpse of Bridget’s face buried against Austin’s shoulder. For one fleeting fraction of a second, her tear-stained lips curled into a sharp, triumphant smile. In that quiet, terrible moment, a profound realization settled over me. My entire youth, the three years I had devoted to this man, the loyalty I had offered to that friendship—it had all been a grotesque, pathetic joke. “Bridget is severely traumatized. I’m taking her back to her place,” Austin said, his arm locked tight around her waist. He cast a single, frigid glance in my direction. “Walk down to the 24-hour pharmacy on 4th Street and pick up some sedative herbal tea and sleep aids, then bring them over to her apartment.” He didn’t wait for my answer. He didn’t care that the streets were pitch-black. He didn’t care that the predator he had just scared off might still be lurking around the corner. It never once crossed his mind that I, too, was a woman walking home alone in the dark. I dragged my leaden feet away, turning my back on them. I didn’t go to the pharmacy. I walked straight back to our apartment. My eyes swept slowly across the living room—the framed photos on the bookshelf, the matching coffee mugs by the sink, the throw blanket we had picked out together. Every square inch was suffocating, thick with the ghosts of a life that no longer belonged to me. I couldn’t breathe. Without pausing for a single second, I grabbed my pre-packed suitcases, walked out the door, and caught a cab to the airport transit hotel. “Where are you? Why aren’t you at Bridget’s yet?” “Does it take half an hour to buy tea and pills?” Two consecutive text banners flashed across my screen from Austin. I didn’t reply. I opened his contact card, bypassed the block button, and permanently hit “Delete”. Across the city, sitting on Bridget’s living room sofa, Austin stared at his screen, waiting for an answer. Growing impatient, he hit the voice call button. A split second later, a harsh system dialog popped up across his display: “Message failed to send. You are no longer connected with this user.” Austin froze, the air leaving his lungs in a sudden, disbelieving gasp.

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