Author: Momo Chan

1 For our third anniversary, three-year-old Nate brought home an alpaca. “Her name is Sugar!” he chirped. “I bought her for you!” Garrick smiled. “He spent hours picking her out. He said she’d keep you company.” The alpaca tilted its head, its dark eyes sweeping over me with a cold, calculating stare. The moment I thanked my son, it opened its jaws. Pfft! A thick, foul gob of spit hit my face. I calmly wiped it away. I had been reborn. In my past life, the abuse started the same way. I spent two years trying to win it over while it spat at me constantly. Yet Garrick and Nate received nothing but affection. My husband called me petty; my son accused me of being mean. I developed auditory hallucinations and nightmares before swallowing a bottle of pills. As my soul drifted toward the ceiling, I heard the truth: the alpaca housed the soul of Archie, my fragile adopted sister who had stolen my life for twenty years. She had been sickly since childhood, the pampered darling of my biological family. When I was finally brought back to the mansion, everyone treated me like an uncultured, dirty intruder. Only Garrick seemed to love me. He married me and gave me a home. I thought it was true love. In reality, he just needed a healthy vessel to house Archie’s soul. Even the son I had carried for nine months was created from Archie’s harvested egg, secretly swapped during my IVF treatment. My own parents were in on the plot. Their cruelty toward me was designed to isolate me, forcing me to cling desperately to Garrick. Every time that alpaca spat on me, Archie’s soul pushed a little deeper into my body. After two years of torture, they had finally succeeded in erasing me. But now, my eyes flew open. I was back on our wedding anniversary. Garrick’s smile faltered, a hint of awkwardness crossing his face. Nate’s little face darkened, and he slapped my hand away. “Mommy! You scared Sugar!” He threw his arms around the alpaca’s neck, cooing softly. The alpaca leaned into him, rubbing her head against his cheek. At the same time, it cast a sly, triumphant glance at me. I smiled. “Since she doesn’t seem to like me, I probably won’t be a good owner. Why don’t we send her back?” 2 Nate panicked, screaming, “No!” Garrick’s expression shifted, and he quickly intervened. “Sugar is just nervous because it’s her first day. Give it some time. This is Nate’s special gift to you. Don’t throw away our boy’s sweet gesture.” I watched their faces. Both of them were incredibly tense, terrified their perfect little plan was about to fall apart. I nodded slowly. “You’re right. I love the gift. Sugar is her name, right? I’ll make sure to take very good care of her.” Nate let out a sigh of relief, and the tension left Garrick’s shoulders. I crouched down, ruffling my son’s hair with a smile. “Go on and set up her room. Since she loves you both so much, she’ll definitely love whatever space you arrange. Let me spend some quiet time with her to build a connection.” I nudged them toward the study, then led the alpaca out to the courtyard. Before we even reached the grass, she opened her mouth to spit. I dodged easily. The glob of green bile hissed as it hit the stone tiles, bubbling faintly. That wasn’t normal animal saliva. It was the concentrated malice of Archie’s rotten soul. Garrick peeked through the door one last time before shutting it, satisfied. Now, it was just me and the beast. She tilted her head, her eyes flashing with pure defiance. She opened her mouth to try again. But I was prepared. I reached behind my back and pulled out a long aluminum catch pole with a sturdy U-shaped collar at the end. With practiced precision, I pinned her neck to the grass. She thrashed wildly, her hooves kicking at the dirt, but she couldn’t break my grip. I leaned down, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “Listen to me, you miserable parasite. I’m the one who’s going to be home with you all day. If you push me, I will make your life a living hell.” “I could drive this metal pole straight through your neck right now and claim it was an accident. Do you want to test me?” Terror flashed in her eyes, and she let out a desperate, wheezing shriek. Hearing the commotion, Garrick and Nate rushed outside, their faces pale with anger. “Audrey! What the hell are you doing?!” Garrick roared. Nate charged like a little cannonball, shoving me aside. “You mean woman! Don’t hurt Sugar!” I stepped back smoothly, retracting the pole. The alpaca scrambled to her feet, running straight to her protectors, her eyes locked on me in sheer terror. I raised my hands, looking entirely innocent. “Why are you both so upset? I was just playing with her.” “Look, the collar is padded with soft foam. It doesn’t hurt her at all.” The two of them froze, their mouths agape, completely speechless. I smiled gently. “I told you, I wanted to build a connection with our new family member.” It took Garrick a moment to find his voice. He patted Nate’s back. “Apologize to your mother, Nate. You shouldn’t speak to her like that.” Nate mumbled a reluctant apology. I turned and walked back into the living room, masking the freezing cold in my eyes. This time, I was going to make Archie pay back every single drop of torment she owed me. 3 That night, Nate didn’t ask for his usual bedtime story. “I want Sugar to sleep with me, Mommy,” he declared, hopping onto the alpaca’s back and riding her into his room. Garrick watched their retreat, his eyes filled with a tenderness I had never received. Seeing how tightly Nate clung to that animal, a sharp pain pricked my heart. But then I reminded myself: he wasn’t my child. No matter how much I loved him, he would always be Archie’s spawn. Half an hour later, Nate fell asleep. The alpaca trotted casually out of his room. I reached out to lead her to the study, but she leaped back, dodging my hand. Instantly, she spat another wet glob onto my blouse. Garrick walked up, placing a hand on her neck. “Audrey, Sugar doesn’t want to sleep in the cold study. Why don’t we let her sleep in our room?” He stroked her head lovingly. “Come on, Sugar. Be sweet to Mommy.” The alpaca tilted her head and delivered another wet pfft right at me. I grabbed a few tissues, calmly wiped my shirt, and headed to the bedroom. “I’m a light sleeper. If she keeps spitting at me in the middle of the night, I’ll never get any rest. Put her in the study.” My expression must have been terrifyingly cold because Garrick didn’t push further. “Fine. I guess Sugar will have to make do tonight.” Before he closed the study door, the alpaca glared at me, her eyes dripping with pure venom. In the middle of the night, I drifted into a light sleep. Suddenly, I felt a warm, wet breath on my face. Then, a freezing sensation. I snapped my eyes open. The alpaca was standing right by the mattress, her face hovering inches from mine, her throat working as she prepped another blast. I didn’t know how she had unlocked the doors, but I was ready. The moment I woke up in this new life, I had traveled to the outskirts of the city to St. Jude’s Hermitage. There, Reverend Silas had given me a powerful spiritual warding talisman. I reached under my pillow and gripped the paper amulet tightly. Instantly, the alpaca froze. It was as if an invisible, iron hand had clamped around her windpipe. She tried to scream, but only a wet rattle came out. Her legs buckled, and she collapsed onto the floor, trembling violently as the dark light in her eyes faded significantly. I grabbed a wet wipe and slowly cleaned my skin, staring down at her. “How does that feel?” She couldn’t answer. She could only shiver in agony. The next morning, Nate ran straight to the study, only to find the alpaca slumped on the floor. Her fleece was dull, and her eyes were half-closed. “What’s wrong with Sugar?!” he shrieked. Garrick rushed over. The alpaca weakly raised her head, looking at him with desperate, pathetic eyes. He whirled on me, his face contorted with rage. “Did you beat her because she snuck into our room last night?” Nate glared at me, tears of anger in his eyes. “You’re a bad mom! You made Sugar sick!” I knelt down, looking calmly into Nate’s eyes. “Nate, I slept the entire night. I didn’t touch her. She’s probably just struggling to adapt to a new home.” “But don’t either of you find it strange? How did an alpaca manage to open two locked doors to get into our bedroom?” My question caught them off guard. Their expressions tightened in panic. Sensing the shift, the alpaca summoned the last of her strength to spit right onto my knee. Nate threw his arms around her, sobbing. “Look! She’s so sick and she still hates you! You must have done something horrible to her yesterday!” Garrick sneered. “Audrey, when did you become so incredibly petty? Picking fights with a helpless animal? She only spits at you because she senses your malice. You need to look in the mirror and reflect on your own toxic behavior!” The last spark of warmth in my heart died completely. In my past life, it was always the same. Whether it was the alpaca or Archie, whenever there was a conflict, I was always the villain. But Archie was the fake daughter who had stolen my identity. While she grew up wrapped in luxury, I was digging through trash to pay for my school supplies. While she was pampered, my adoptive parents tried to sell me to a remote village for a dowry. They had even used my body to bear her child. Yet, to them, Archie was always the fragile victim, even while she was actively stealing my life. I wiped the spit from my knee and walked away. This time, I wouldn’t give them a single inch. 4 I locked myself in the bedroom, pulling a small vial of consecrated elixir from my drawer. Reverend Silas had blessed it. If the alpaca consumed it, the soul-transfer would backfire. Every time she spat, Archie’s soul would tear away from my body and dissipate. The more she spat, the faster she would fade. But the beast was clever. Whenever I tried to feed her, she kicked the bowl over. She would only eat when Garrick or Nate offered the food. “You have no patience,” Nate complained. “That’s why she hates you!” Garrick chimed in. “You need to try harder to win her over. Stop looking so miserable around her. If she doesn’t like you, do something sweet to please her. Our son went to so much trouble for this gift.” I laughed inwardly, but kept my expression perfectly submissive. “I understand. I’ll be more gentle.” I knelt down, offering a handful of clover to the alpaca. “Come on, sweet girl. Just take one bite.” She didn’t even look at the food. Instead, she kicked me hard, sending me sprawling to the ground, before spitting on my shoulder. Nate didn’t even check to see if I was hurt. He snatched the clover from my hand and fed it to her himself. The alpaca cast a smug, mocking look at me as she chewed slowly. Nate glared at me. “Sugar is sensitive. She knows you’re secretly evil!” I hid my smile as I watched her swallow every last bite of the clover. I knew she wouldn’t take it from me. I had intentionally provoked Nate to feed her myself. Because that entire batch of feed had been thoroughly soaked in the elixir. That evening at dinner, Garrick made an announcement. “The preschool has a week-long trip to Europe next week. I’ll take Nate.” Nate cheered happily. I set my fork down, looking at them. In my past life, I was the one who went on every school trip. Garrick was taking him this time for one reason: to leave me entirely alone with the alpaca. He wanted Archie to finish taking over my body. I smiled warmly. “Have a wonderful trip. Don’t worry about Sugar. I’ll take great care of her.” Garrick nodded, satisfied, and Nate actually gave me a rare smile. The next morning, I waved them off at the gate. The alpaca stood by my side, whimpering as she watched the car disappear. She rubbed her head against Garrick’s hand and nuzzled Nate’s cheek before they left. The moment the car cleared the driveway, my smile vanished. Sensing the shift in the air, the alpaca whipped her head around to spit. I dodged easily, swinging the metal catch pole to pin her neck to the gate. I bound her tightly to the post. Then, I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I had saved days ago. “Hello, is this the Apex Circus? I heard you recently imported a new male alpaca.” The director laughed over the line. “Oh, yes! A massive beast from South America. He’s incredibly strong, but he’s in constant heat and tearing up the enclosures. We’re at our wits’ end.” The alpaca locked her eyes on me, her body stiffening with dread. “I have a female here,” I said smoothly. “She’s ripe for breeding. I’ll donate her to your program.” The director gasped in delight. “Really? When can you bring her over?” “Today.” I hung up and looked down at the trembling animal. She understood every word. I tightened the rope around her neck, offering her a sweet, merciless smile. “Don’t worry, sweet girl. Your best days are just beginning. And don’t you dare complain if your new husband spits too much.”

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On the day of my agonizing labor, I fought with everything I had to bring my husband’s child into the world. Ben wept with relief, pressing his forehead against mine, his eyes full of deep, aching tenderness. “Jess, he is perfect. He is healthy, and he looks just like you. The doctor gave you a sedative, sweetheart. Just close your eyes and rest.” I squeezed his hand, a weak smile brushing my lips. The Monroes had struggled with fertility for generations. After years of painful injections and endless medication, I had finally delivered a healthy baby boy. But just before the darkness claimed me, the muffled voices of my husband and my brother, Nate, drifted through the heavy haze of the sedative. “Do it, Nate. Rainey might have been adopted by our family, but she has always been fragile and insecure. She compares herself to Jess in everything.” “This time, because her own baby was born with a dark birthmark, she has been completely devastated. If she finds out Jess gave birth to a perfectly healthy boy, it will break her.” Nate’s hands trembled as he held the surgical shears. “Ben, are you sure? This might be the only child you ever have. You really want to clip his finger and make him disabled?” My heart constricted violently. The blood in my veins turned to ice. “Don’t talk about it, Nate.” Ben’s voice wavered, but then it hardened with terrifying resolve. “We already agreed. Rainey has suffered too much. Protecting her is our responsibility. If I wasn’t bound to Jess by that childhood arrangement, well, forget it. I’ve already failed Rainey in this life. Nothing matters more than keeping her happy from now on.” I tried to wake up, screaming inside, but my limbs felt like lead. 1 But my body betrayed me. Under the heavy weight of the sedative, I could not even flutter my eyelids. A sharp, piercing wail of a newborn shattered the quiet of the room. Nate’s voice drifted over again, carrying a faint, relieved chuckle. “It’s done. Go tell Rainey the good news. This should cheer her up.” Ben’s response was eager and hurried. “Thanks, Nate. I’ll leave the rest to you.” I lay there, my body frozen, feeling as though I had been plunged into an abyss. That desperate cry echoed in my mind, refusing to fade. “No!” I jolted awake, gasping for air. Looking around the unfamiliar recovery room, my heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. I threw off the blanket, desperately trying to get out of bed, but a pair of strong, familiar hands caught my shoulders, pinning me down. “What’s wrong, Jess?” Ben looked down at me, his eyes wide with concern. “You just gave birth. You are incredibly weak. The doctor said you cannot get out of bed yet.” “Where is my baby?” I stared at him, my gaze cutting like a knife. Ben’s eyes rimmed with red. He hesitated, looking away before speaking in a low, choked voice. “Jess, I am going to tell you the truth, but you have to stay calm.” “The baby, he was born with a congenital defect. His middle finger is missing half its length. Nate took him to a specialist right away to see if there is any way to reconstruct it.” “Don’t worry.” He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me tight against his chest. “No matter what it takes, no matter the cost, I will find a way to fix our son.” Listening to his shameless lie, my chest tightened. It felt as though a thousand needles were piercing my heart over and over, suffocating me. I pushed him away with all the strength I could muster. “I want to see my baby. Now!” I stumbled toward the door, my legs trembling. Just as I reached the hallway, I ran headfirst into Nate. He was cradling a sleeping infant in his arms. A gasp of relief escaped my throat. I snatched the baby from him, immediately unwrapping the blanket to check his tiny hands. Ten perfect fingers. Not a single scratch. Wait. Something was wrong. My hands shook, and I nearly dropped the child. Nate quickly took the baby back, glaring at me with deep disapproval. “You are a mother now, Jess. How can you be so careless? Rainey’s baby is the pride of our family. What if you had dropped him?” Ignoring his scolding, I gripped his arm. “Where is my baby, Nate? Ben said you took him. Where is he?” Nate blinked, a sudden look of guilt crossing his face. “Oh. I ran into Rainey on the way, and she needed to use the restroom. I just left your baby on the plastic chairs by the elevator.” The world seemed to spin. I pushed past him and ran down the corridor. Ben chased after me, calling my name. But then, a soft, delicate voice echoed from behind us. “Ben.” The hurried footsteps behind me stopped instantly. Mercifully, my baby was still on the bench. Two kind strangers were standing guard over him. I wept as I thanked them, cradling my son against my chest. Looking down at his tiny, bandaged hand, a fresh wave of agony washed over me. When I carried my baby back to the room, sound of laughter drifted through the half-open door. Ben and Nate were huddled around Rainey, eagerly playing with the baby in her arms. They looked like a perfect, happy family. And I felt like the stray they had accidentally brought home. I wiped a tear from my baby’s soft cheek, turned around, and walked to the nurse’s station to borrow a phone. I dialed a number I hadn’t called in years. “I’ve decided to join the classified research project.” The voice on the other end lit up with excitement. “Jess! I am so glad you finally realized how much the department needs you. But this project is a ten-year commitment in a secure, isolated facility. Are you sure you can leave your family behind? What about the baby?” “I am bringing my son with me,” I whispered, my voice thick with unshed tears. “But I have one condition.” “Name it.” “Help me find the best pediatric reconstructive surgeon in the world. We need to leave within the week.” The line went quiet for a moment, the tone shifting to one of serious concern. “Jess, what happened?” “Please don’t ask. Just help me.” A heavy sigh came through the receiver. “Alright. Consider it done. I will have everything arranged within seven days.” 2 “Jess.” Rainey was the first to notice me standing at the door. Her soft call made the two men freeze, the cheerful smiles on their faces instantly turning into awkward grimaces. Ben quickly hurried toward me. “Jess, is the baby okay?” I didn’t say a word. I walked past him, heading straight for my bed. “Please don’t be sad, Jess.” Rainey handed her baby to Nate, then reached into her bag, pulling out a delicate gold bracelet and a matching lock charm. “Ben and Nate got these for my baby. They had them blessed at a temple to keep him safe and healthy.” “But I want your baby to have them instead. I am sure your little boy will get better soon. Don’t worry.” I looked down at the gleaming gold pieces. Before Rainey’s baby was even born, I had watched Ben spend weeks meticulously choosing these exact gifts. At the time, I foolishly thought they were for our child. It was all a lie. “No, thank you,” I said, my voice cold and flat. “Since it was a gift of love from them to your child, my son doesn’t deserve to wear it.” Rainey’s hand hovered in the air, her knuckles whitening as she gripped the gold. “Jess, are you still angry with me? Do you still think I am trying to steal what is yours?” Her lower lip trembled, and her face grew pale. I wanted to laugh. Had she ever stopped? From the moment she was adopted into our home at ten years old, she had taken over my life. On her very first night, she claimed she was afraid of the dark, and my parents gave her half of my bedroom. Later, when she caught a mild cold, she said she was afraid of making me sick, and I was permanently moved to a tiny, drafty spare room down the hall. When I was thirteen, I scored the highest marks in the city. Nate bought me a limited-edition Lego set as a reward. Rainey cried in her room for an hour, and by evening, my Lego set belonged to her. My new dresses became her dresses. Even the university I fought so hard to get into, she entered right alongside me, riding on the coattails of my family’s connections. And then there was Ben. He was my childhood friend. When he knelt and proposed to me, I finally believed there was something in this world that belonged solely to me. But it was only because of a stupid childhood arrangement between our parents. How blind had I been? It took the mutilation of my own son to finally wake me up to the truth. Seeing my silence, Rainey stuffed the gold lock into Ben’s hand. “Forget it, Ben. Since Jess is unhappy, you should take it back.” Ben’s face darkened instantly. “Jess, it is just a gold lock. If you want one, I will buy you another. There is no need to make a scene and ruin everyone’s day.” I turned away, too exhausted to argue. My body was still aching, and my energy was rapidly draining. I placed my baby gently into his bassinet, intending to lie down and rest. But Rainey suddenly lunged forward. Seeing her hands reaching directly toward my baby’s bassinet, right toward his injured hand, panic surged through me. I threw my weight forward, pushing her away. The next second, a stinging slap cracked across my face. The force of the blow made my ears ring. I turned my head slowly, looking at Ben. His hand was still raised in the air, his expression icy and furious as he held a trembling Rainey in his arms. “Jess, how can you be so vicious?” “Over a gold lock, you would put your hands on your own sister?” “Do you have any idea how bad Rainey’s back injury is? If I hadn’t caught her, she would have slammed into the sharp edge of that table!” Nate stepped forward, his eyes cold. “I saw the whole thing, Jess. Rainey just lost her balance, and instead of helping her, you shoved her.” “You grew up in the same house, ate the same food. How did you turn out so incredibly selfish and cruel?” “Apologize to Rainey. Now.” 3 I was the cruel one? Rainey had targeted my baby’s bandaged hand on purpose. She had been standing perfectly fine, yet somehow, she managed to lose her balance on a flat, even floor. Looking at the two of them shielding her like she was a fragile glass doll, a bitter laugh escaped my lips. “I am sorry, Rainey.” Rainey sniffled, leaning into Ben’s chest before stepping back. “It’s okay. I know Jess didn’t mean to.” Ben’s expression softened slightly. “I will have my assistant buy another gold lock and send it over. You don’t need to be jealous of Rainey.” I didn’t even bother to smile. My child would never need anything from him again. On the day I was discharged, Ben had promised to pick me up. But by the time I took a taxi back to the Taylor residence, he was nowhere to be found. Instead, I saw Rainey’s latest social media update. “Taking the baby for his vaccinations. I am so terrified of needles, but thankfully, I have someone here to keep us safe.” The post was accompanied by a photo of a man’s back, a baby resting on his shoulder. I didn’t even need to zoom in. I recognized the slope of those shoulders instantly. It was Ben. The ringing of my phone broke my train of thought. “Jess, I have managed to contact a world-class reconstructive surgeon. But he is currently in Europe and cannot travel here. You will need to bring the baby to him.” “Okay,” I said, a weight lifting from my chest. “I will pack our things and leave tomorrow.” “Going where?” Nate’s voice startled me. He was standing near the doorway, his brow furrowed in disapproval. I quickly locked my phone, my voice returning to a neutral calm. “A friend recommended a private wellness retreat. I am going to check it out.” He didn’t press further, his tone turning indifferent. “Rainey is coming back to stay for a few days. If you don’t have any pressing business, you should leave early.” My grip tightened on the phone. Ten years of secure, classified research meant I would not see this place again for a very long time. Before leaving, I simply wanted to spend one last night in the house where my parents had raised me. Five years ago, I refused to give up my research assistant position to Rainey. In a fit of tears, Rainey had run out of the house. Our parents had chased after her into the rainy night, only to be hit by a truck. Since that day, Nate had hated me. He believed I was the one who killed them. “I will be gone tomorrow morning,” I said quietly. “Good.” Before dinner, Ben walked through the door, carrying Rainey’s bags. “Ben, when that needle went into the baby’s arm, I couldn’t even look. I am so glad you were there,” Rainey said, her voice dripping with sweet affection. Ben gave her a gentle smile, but then his eyes found me, and he quickly walked over. “Jess, I spent the afternoon consulting with several specialists about our son’s hand. That’s why I couldn’t pick you up. Nate told me you came here. Why didn’t you call me?” Rainey’s eyes flashed with a sudden spark of jealousy, though she quickly masked it with a sweet smile. I tested the temperature of the formula on my wrist, gently placing the bottle into my baby’s mouth. “I forgot,” I replied, not looking up. He hesitated, reaching out to touch the baby. “You must be exhausted, sweetheart. Let me hold him.” I subtly shifted my shoulder, shielding my baby from his touch. His hand froze in midair, his face tightening as he slowly drew back. That night, my baby’s soft whimpering woke me. Before I could even open my eyes, low whispers from the hallway drifted through the door. “Ben, can my baby call you Daddy?”

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For ten agonizing years, I was stalked by my former middle school classmate, Aria. She had absolutely zero concept of boundaries. She would show up uninvited to my basketball games with sports drinks, or wait outside in the freezing winter snow just to hand me a thermos of hot soup. She single-handedly ruined two of my relationships. Worse, she somehow brainwashed my coworkers, my friends, and even my own family with her sickening brand of “deep devotion.” They constantly lectured me, saying no one in this world would ever love me as much as she did. They told me I should just man up and put a ring on her finger. Finally, after I rejected her confessions for what felt like the millionth time, she turned around and started dating my buddy, Liam. “Derek, I don’t want to have a crush on you anymore,” she told me. My friends secretly placed bets on how long it would take for me to realize my true feelings and start crawling back to her on my hands and knees. They had absolutely no idea that I was thrilled. I was practically throwing a party in my head. I was finally free from that suffocating nightmare. 1 Aria and I went to the same middle school. We were in different grades and different classes, so we rarely ever crossed paths. But one afternoon during my eighth-grade year, I was walking home and stumbled upon Aria being harassed by some local street punks. I had inherited my dad’s genes and was already hitting six feet tall. Just standing there with a heavy scowl was enough to scare off those scrawny losers. Back then, Aria didn’t even look like a middle schooler. She was tiny, frail, with dull, stringy blonde hair. She was crying so hard her knees were buckling, so I figured I might as well just walk her to her front door. Later, Aria would tell me, “No one has ever been that nice to me.” I didn’t think much of it. It was just a random act of kindness. I had no idea I had just planted a ticking time bomb that would blow up my entire life. After that day, every time I glanced over my shoulder on my way home, I would see Aria trailing silently behind me. I figured we were walking in the same general direction anyway, and maybe she was just terrified those punks would come back. So, I silently allowed it. I even chased off a few creeps who tried to bother her again. When high school hit, I moved into the dorms at a prep academy across town. I thought my paths with Aria had permanently severed. I was dead wrong. On the very first day of my sophomore year, Aria materialized right outside my homeroom door. She had grown taller. She looked entirely different. She shoved a sickeningly sweet-scented pink envelope into my chest and sprinted away down the hall. Over the roaring cheers and catcalls of my classmates, I chased her down, shoved the letter back into her hands, and looked her dead in the eye. I told her I only cared about my GPA and getting into a good college. I had zero interest in dating. I thought I was being brutally clear. I thought a rejection that blunt would instantly sever whatever romantic delusion she had cooking in her head. It didn’t. She began weaving herself into every microscopic crack of my existence. If I played ball, she was on the bleachers with water. If I went to the cafeteria, she was fiercely guarding a seat for me. Even on holidays, she would stand like a statue outside my classroom, waiting to walk to the bus stop with me. I told her over and over again. I told her I didn’t need a stalker. I told her she was suffocating me. At first, she would just stare at the floor in silence. Then her eyes would turn bloodshot, and heavy tears would splash onto the back of her hands. “But I have feelings for you. I want us to be together. I want to do these things for you.” But I didn’t want it! Since polite declines and harsh warnings bounced right off her, I resorted to throwing the water she brought right into the trash. I treated her like she was invisible in the cafeteria. I started taking massive detours through town just to shake her off my trail before going home. But barely half an hour after I arrived, Aria would magically appear at the front doors of my apartment complex, her knees scraped and dripping blood from tripping on the pavement. She had actually tracked down my exact address and apartment number. My dad brought her upstairs and chewed me out relentlessly. My mom cleaned her wounds, applied bandages, and demanded to know why I was bullying a defenseless girl. I was practically screaming in frustration. “I didn’t touch her!” “Then why did she drag herself all the way here looking like this? If you didn’t do this, who did?” I was completely defenseless. Aria just sat on my family’s couch, letting the tears stream down her cheeks in silence, allowing my parents to rip me to shreds without offering a single word to clear my name. I stopped caring about saving her pride. I spilled the entire twisted truth right then and there. My dad just burst out laughing. “Damn, son. You’ve got some serious charm.” My mom just sighed in exhaustion. She pulled Aria aside for a private chat, and then she and my dad drove the girl home. When my mom got back, she told me Aria had promised never to pull a dangerous stunt like that again. I exhaled a massive breath, genuinely believing the nightmare was over. But I was naive. She just stopped coming to my house. At school, she was still a parasite, constantly finding ways to latch onto my side. It was impossible to describe the sheer disgust I felt during those years. The entire student body knew Aria was obsessed with me. My buddies would poke me in the ribs, joking about how relentlessly devoted she was, asking when I was finally going to cave. And those were the nice comments. Aria, on the other hand, became a prime target for severe bullying. When someone tipped me off and I pulled her out of a pitch-black gym storage closet, she buried her face in my chest and sobbed hysterically. I didn’t want to give her even a sliver of false hope. I physically pried her fingers off my shirt, ignoring her pathetic weeping, and shoved her an arm’s length away. “Aria, stop obsessing over me. Stop doing things that only ruin your own life. It’s embarrassing. It’s pathetic.” I glared at her. “Put all this psychotic energy into your grades, alright?” It was like she was physically incapable of understanding human speech. “If I get my grades up… if I get accepted into the exact same college as you, you’ll finally date me, right?” I stared at her tear-drenched, desperately hopeful face, and I felt sick to my stomach. I spun on my heel to walk away, but I stopped, whipped back around, and spat out the harshest words I could find. “Get this through your head. I will never have feelings for you!” “I don’t care what you do. I don’t like you! I will never, ever be your boyfriend!” “Do you understand me?” Aria stared at me like I had just shot her. She collapsed onto the gym floor, wailing. I pulled out my phone, called the dean of students, and walked away. When it came time to apply for colleges, I guarded my list like a state secret. Everyone around me finally started to realize that I genuinely despised this girl. When I finally moved out to the East Coast for a prestigious university in the city, I tasted the first breath of pure, unadulterated freedom. That freshman year was the absolute best year of my life. Then sophomore year started, and my personal hell resurrected. Aria had actually gotten accepted into my university. She even declared the exact same major. During the fall welcome ceremony, I was on stage giving a speech as a student representative. The second the crowd broke apart, Aria darted out from the masses and blocked my path. “Derek! You promised me back in high school. You said if I got into your college, you’d let me be your girlfriend.” “Well, I’m here now. So are we making this official?” She was grinning from ear to ear, staring at me like I was the center of the universe. My entire body went rigid. I was in full panic mode, turning to explain the situation to the girl standing next to me. But my girlfriend’s face had already turned to stone. She ripped her hand out of mine and walked away without looking back. 2 Yeah. I had a girlfriend. When Aria realized I was already taken, she started sobbing like I had committed some ultimate betrayal. “You promised me! You said you would wait for me!” “I love you so much! How could you do this to me?” I swear to God, I was losing my mind. When did I ever utter those words? I denied it repeatedly. I told everyone in earshot I never said anything remotely like that, and I never would. But Aria refused to listen. “I spent all these years studying just to keep my end of our promise! How can you just back out?” I forced my voice to stay level. I asked her exactly when, where, and how I had supposedly made this promise. If I said it, there had to be context. Aria just clammed up. She dropped into a crouch on the campus lawn, hugging her knees, crying so violently her shoulders shook. I felt the burning stares of dozens of students. I heard their whispers. For a second, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I knew my peaceful college life was officially dead and buried. My girlfriend dumped me that very night. I really liked her. I didn’t want my first real relationship to end in a fiery trainwreck, and I definitely didn’t want Aria destroying the peace I had fought so hard to build. I tried to explain the stalking to my girlfriend. I swore on my life I never made any pact with Aria. She said she believed me, but the damage was done. “I just wanted a normal college romance. I don’t want to be dragged into this insane toxic drama, and I definitely don’t want people calling me a homewrecker.” Her eyes were red when she apologized and handed back every gift I had ever bought her. I was completely hollowed out. I went to a dive bar off-campus and drank until my vision blurred. When the nausea finally hit, I opened my eyes and realized the blurry figure wiping my face with a damp towel in the booth was Aria. I stared into her obsessively infatuated eyes, and a flood of pure, unfiltered malice breached my sanity. Since she was so desperately obsessed with me, why not just date her? Everyone on campus already thought I was a toxic trashbag anyway. Why not lean into the role? I could date her, use the title of ‘boyfriend’ to completely shatter her, and inflict every ounce of pain she had caused me right back onto her. Maybe once her heart was entirely pulverized, she would finally leave me alone. But the twisted thought vanished as quickly as it came. I didn’t even understand the root of her delusion. If it was because I scared off some punks years ago, my endless cruelty since then should have snapped her back to reality. The only thing I knew for sure was that Aria was dangerously relentless. I had rejected her a thousand times, and she still lived in her own warped reality where her sacrifices mattered. If I actually gave her the title of a girlfriend, she would just dig her claws in deeper. The thought of spending my future chained to someone I violently resented made my skin crawl. When I sobered up, I sat her down. I told her I didn’t like her. I would never like her. I told her to stay the hell out of my life. I had recited that exact script countless times over the years. Her reaction was identical. She sat completely still. Her massive, hollow eyes stared at me with sickening sorrow as the tears dripped off her chin. “Why can’t you just like me?” “I’ve tried so hard. I’ve spent years doing everything for you. Why can’t you just give me a chance?” “Even just a tiny bit.” She looked incredibly pitiful. But all I felt was a raging inferno tearing through my chest, making me want to physically shatter her pathetic facade. What did she mean, ‘why’? You either click with someone, or you don’t. You can’t just forcefully grind your way into a romance like it’s a video game achievement. But Aria was immune to logic. She possessed a terrifying, infinite stamina when it came to stalking me. No matter how many times I broke her down, she would lick her wounds and throw herself right back into the fire. I stopped trying to reason with a psycho. I treated her like she didn’t exist. Thanks to my ex-girlfriend clearing the air, the rumors about me being a manipulative jerk slowly fizzled out. Aria’s reputation shifted, too. In less than six months, she went from being the tragic victim of a broken promise to the campus laughingstock, a desperate girl with zero self-respect. “She’s having a hard time. She’s a good girl, Derek. Even if you don’t want her, you don’t have to stomp all over her feelings.” That was Liam. He had been my closest friend back in high school. He went from understanding my misery to suddenly being completely captivated by Aria’s “undying loyalty.” He had tried to lecture me multiple times back then, telling me to go easy on her because she was a girl. I had distanced myself from him before graduation specifically because of that. But I never expected him to take a bus all the way to New York just to advocate for her. I looked at his deeply disappointed expression, catching the faint flicker of frustration and jealousy buried in his eyes. Suddenly, the puzzle pieces snapped together. “Liam. You’re in love with her, aren’t you?” He didn’t panic. He just hesitated for a split second before owning it. “Yeah. I like her. She’s amazing. She…” “You’re the one who told her I promised to date her in college. Aren’t you?” Liam’s face hardened. “She was getting bullied every day because of you. Her grades were tanking. I just needed to give her a reason to keep fighting.” I drove my fist straight into his jaw. “If you wanted her to fight, you should have manned up and asked her out! Why the hell did you use my name?” “Do you have any idea that your little motivational lie cost me my relationship?!” Liam staggered back, then lunged at me, swinging wild. “So what?! You owe her!” Aria came sprinting out of nowhere to break us up. When she grabbed Liam’s arms, I used the opening to land three solid hooks to his face. Liam roared and tried to charge me again, but Aria threw herself right in front of me, shielding my body. “Liam! Don’t you dare touch him!” I saw the absolute heartbreak shatter Liam’s eyes, and I actually burst out laughing. What an absolute circus. I shoved Aria out of my personal space and laid it out bare. “I never said I’d date you. Ever. Liam made that up to motivate you, using my name as bait.” Aria froze. I chuckled bitterly. “Aria, he’s in love with you. Are you blind?” “I genuinely hope you two end up together. Go ruin someone else’s life. Really. Best of luck.” I turned and walked away. Aria screamed after me, sobbing, “Derek! You’re a monster!” And Liam just muttered, his voice cracking, “Aria…”

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At the grand annual academic summit, I projected the surveillance footage of my fiancé and his graduate student in his private laboratory. The screen filled with their passionate, tangled embrace. The crowded auditorium erupted into absolute chaos. A week ago, I had been browsing an obscure international academic forum, lurking under an anonymous account, when I stumbled upon a thread: “Is it normal for my advisor to hold me while we do experiments?” Beneath it, someone had replied: “What kind of experiments?” The original poster answered: “He teaches me how to use the pipette hand-in-hand. He holds me from behind, his body so warm against mine that my hands shake and I can’t even align the pipette tip with the multi-well plate.” Another user quickly commented: “That definitely sounds like it exceeds the boundaries of professional teaching.” She immediately defended him: “But he told me I’m the most special student he has ever taken. He said I’m nothing like that boring, clinical bookworm of a fiancée he has, who only cares about raw data and papers. He said she has absolutely no romance in her, and he is sick of her. He told me that being with me is the only time he feels truly alive.” The post was accompanied by a blurry, candid photo. In the frame, a man in a white lab coat had his sleeve rolled up, revealing a silver watch. On the bezel of that watch was a tiny, distinct scratch. It was the exact same watch I had gifted Arthur. 1 He had scratched the bezel while personally hauling heavy equipment into our new laboratory. At the time, he had laughed, gently stroking my hair, and told me that even with the scratch, it was his favorite timepiece because it served as a monument to our shared beginning. Even more glaring was the chromatography machine in the background of the photo. Engraved on the side of its metal casing were our joint initials. I had traveled to nine countries to secure that exact, state-of-the-art model. It was a rare import, and I had personally wheeled it to his private workstation as an engagement gift. The blood in my veins turned to ice, and my throat tightened until I could barely breathe. Arthur had betrayed me. But the bitter irony was that once, I had been his student too. With trembling fingers, I refreshed the thread. Several users had begun to criticize her: “Are you actually looking for advice, or are you just bragging about sleeping with your advisor?” She shot back instantly: “It is not just an affair. It is a meeting of minds. He brought me into his lab right under his fiancée’s nose. He is even taking the breakthrough project from the Chief Scientific Officer and giving it to me so I can publish it and secure my career.” Another comment read: “I despise academic nepotism. That is not giving, that is theft! Aren’t you two ashamed of what you are doing to that Chief Scientist?” She replied: “Why should we be? He simply loves me more. He needs an understanding muse, not a cold, sterile research machine.” Every single word felt like a poisoned needle driving straight into my heart. Just ten days ago, Arthur had sat me down in his office, his face full of grave sympathy. “Giselle, someone in Europe just published a paper with your exact concept. Your current project is dead. You will have to start over and find a new direction.” It had been a lie. He had taken my blood, sweat, and tears, and handed it to his mistress as a stepping stone. Arthur had always been the epitome of professional distance. In our industry, he was considered as pure as distilled water, an intellectual monk devoted solely to science. When I was his student, he would always maintain a strict half-arm distance whenever we discussed data. When he first showed me how to use the pipette, his fingers had briefly brushed my wrist, and his ears had flushed a deep, bright red. He had told me back then that I was his most brilliant, most special student. Even after we realized our feelings were mutual, he was so terrified of rumors damaging my reputation that he waited until I graduated, until I stood beside him as an equal, before he ever dared to hold my hand in public. That disciplined restraint, that quiet integrity, had made me fall hopelessly in love with him. On the night he proposed, he told me that scientists value absolute devotion, and his devotion belonged entirely to me. Now, staring at the diamond ring on my finger, and then looking at the blurry photo of their bodies pressed together in our lab, a wave of pure nausea washed over me. Every vow he had ever whispered to me had been recycled into cheap, filthy lines to seduce a graduate student. The passion and dedication I poured into my research, which he had once cherished as my greatest quality, had now become the traits of a boring, clinical machine. I scrolled down further, and a newly uploaded photo appeared. It showed Arthur leaning down, his lips pressed against her neck. My stomach churned violently. I ran to the bathroom and retched until my chest ached. 2 As the criticism on the forum grew louder, the girl only became more arrogant. “I have to go now,” she posted. “His boring fiancée is sick, and he is terrified I might catch whatever she has. He is taking me abroad to help me relax.” Just that morning, before he left for the airport, Arthur had cradled my feverish body in his arms. His voice had been thick with tender concern. “I am going to use this international symposium to look for new research ideas for you, Giselle. Rest at home, sweetheart. Don’t overwork yourself. Seeing you sick breaks my heart.” He knew this was the final year for my tenure and promotion evaluation. Yet, he had stolen my project and handed it to another woman. To meet the year-end deadline, I had been working day and night, surviving on black coffee to draft a new proposal from scratch, completely ruining my health in the process. When I watched his taxi leave for the airport, I had felt so guilty for being too ill to accompany him, blaming myself for letting him carry my burdens alone. I had no idea he was jetting off to a tropical resort with his mistress. The sudden ringing of my phone broke the silence. It was Arthur. He always called the moment his flight landed. “Giselle, why is your voice so raspy? Have you been resting and taking your medicine?” his voice flowed through the receiver, dripping with warmth. When I didn’t reply, he sighed, as if making a grand sacrifice. “I have been thinking. Even if you can’t finish the new proposal in time, I will use my entire professional network to guarantee your promotion this year.” I let out a silent, bitter laugh. He knew exactly what that meant. If he did that, I would be branded a fraud for the rest of my career, a woman who climbed the ranks through nepotism rather than merit. “Arthur, you once told me you never wanted my talent to be overshadowed by gossip. You said you wanted me to stand on my own feet.” He cut me off with a soft sigh. “But I cannot bear to watch the woman I love suffer. To me, you are the best. Even if people accuse me of playing favorites, I don’t care.” He sounded incredibly devoted. But then, in the background, I heard the faint, sweet giggle of a woman. I gripped the phone tightly. “Who is at your door, Arthur?” He let out a quick, forced cough. “Just room service. I asked them to bring up some extra writing pads and pens.” “Alright, sweetheart, I need to get to the conference. Take care of yourself. I bought your favorite pastries and left them in the fridge. Eat them even if you don’t have an appetite.” I stared at the blank screen after he hung up. His prompt check-in calls upon landing were never about love. They were preemptive strikes, designed to keep me from calling him at an inconvenient moment and interrupting his vacation. That night, I opened the forum again. She had updated her status. “The unapproachable god has finally been brought down to earth. He knows exactly what I like to eat, and he guides my research hand-in-hand. Being with him feels so natural. He told me tonight was the most unforgettable night of his life.” I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and shut down the page. Suppressing the bile rising in my throat, I walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge. The pastries he had left were covered in a thick layer of crushed peanuts. I am severely allergic to peanuts. The girl’s posts had mentioned how Arthur had walked across town in the heat just to find her favorite peanut-rice cakes. He had brought her leftovers home for me. I picked up my phone and sent Arthur a message: “Arthur, are you really going to abuse your position like this?” He replied almost instantly, assuming I was still talking about the promotion: “Giselle, everyone in our field knows you are my fiancée. Even if I do absolutely nothing, people will still whisper. We might as well secure the title and make it official.” It was true. Even when I had worked myself to the bone to reach the top of my field and earn the title of Chief Scientific Officer, people still looked at me with suspicion. When we first announced our relationship after my graduation, anonymous letters had flooded the university administration, accusing me of trading favors for grades during my student years. The online vitriol had been savage. To silence the doubters, I had practically moved into the laboratory. I worked eighty-hour weeks, churning out paper after paper, until the scientific community had no choice but to recognize my work. He had watched me bleed for that respect. Now, he dismissed it all with a casual shrug. The man who had once stood before the board of regents to defend my honor, the man who had threatened to resign his prestigious fellowship rather than let them slander me, was gone. Only a hollow, grotesque shell remained. 3 My laptop screen flashed with a new email notification. It was a formal offer from a premier international research institute in Switzerland. They had doubled their previous salary offer, desperate to recruit me to lead their core molecular biology laboratory. I had turned them down twice before, solely because I wanted to remain by Arthur’s side. When we founded Aura Research, we had nothing but a three-desk office and my initial research project. Over five years, we had grown into a major listed biotechnology firm. Arthur used to wrap his arms around me and whisper, “Giselle, my intuition was right. You are the most brilliant scientist I have ever known. You are the true cornerstone of Aura.” Yet, behind my back, he had slipped his mistress into my laboratory, using our workspace for their cheap trysts, and stealing my intellect to build her career. The “temporary security camera malfunctions” and the mysterious leaks of my research concepts all made sense now. I drove to the laboratory, my body still shaking with fever, wanting only to download my raw data and files. But when I reached the executive research wing, his secretary blocked my path. She looked down at her desk, refusing to meet my eyes. “Dr. Taylor… I am sorry, but the access permissions for this entire wing have been transferred to Dr. Monroe’s graduate assistant, Miss Isla.” It was absurd. I had built this laboratory from the ground up, and now I was locked out of my own office. I took out my phone and sent Arthur a text: “Maybe you should just get a new fiancée. Your precious Miss Isla seems like she would fit the role perfectly.” My message disappeared into a void. He didn’t reply, and my calls went straight to voicemail. Around me, my colleagues were whispering, their eyes filled with a mixture of curiosity and pity. An hour later, a text from an unknown number popped up on my screen. It was Isla. “Sensing that your time is up, Chief? Arthur is in the shower right now, and his phone is with me. He doesn’t have time for you.” “By the way, he told me you aren’t as innocent as you look. He said you were just a cheap student who seduced her advisor in college.” “I am different. Arthur pursued me. He told me that when he met me, he finally understood what uncontrollable passion felt like.” A sharp, suffocating pain flared in my chest. I coughed violently, tears spilling over my cheeks. When the rumors had threatened to destroy me years ago, Arthur had held me through the night, telling me we would prove them all wrong. Now, he was the one handing his mistress the knife to stab me in my oldest wound. I drove back to our quiet, cold apartment. Near midnight, my phone finally rang. It was him. “Giselle, you didn’t call me all day. I was starting to feel neglected.” His tone was smooth and affectionate. I felt a chill run down my spine. He clearly had no idea that Isla had used his phone to text me. “I did try to reach you,” I said, my voice dead and flat. “You just didn’t see it.” He let out a light, nervous laugh. “Ah, the conference must have kept me too busy. But I have some wonderful news to share.” “My new graduate student, Isla, has incredible potential. She just presented a research concept at the seminar that is remarkably similar to your work.” “I am planning to appoint her as the new Chief Scientific Officer of Aura, and you can step down to serve as her deputy. That way, you can guide her, and we can co-author the main projects. With my influence, your tenure will be guaranteed.” “Are you listening, Giselle? You should really thank her. Having both of you working under me is the greatest blessing of my life.” It was a blessing for him, but a nightmare for me. My teeth ground together as I asked, “Arthur, what if I refuse?” He let out an irritated sigh. “Don’t be childish, Giselle. The Chief position belongs to whoever can produce results. You haven’t submitted a single viable project this quarter. Why embarrass yourself by clinging to a title you aren’t earned?” I stood on the balcony, letting the freezing night wind numb my face. I thought of the endless nights I had spent in the lab, the times I had been hospitalized from physical exhaustion just to keep Aura ahead of our competitors. I had poured my life into this company, only for him to hand it to his mistress. I pulled out my phone, opened the email from the Swiss institute, and hit reply: I accept your offer. I will start next month.

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In my past life, my son Tony was in acute heart failure and desperately needed the only available biological valve. Yet, my husband, Richard, forced the hospital to give it to his first love’s son, Harry, to treat a minor heart murmur. I knelt before him, begging until my forehead was bloody and bruised, only to receive his cold, indifferent sneer. “Vivian’s son is sensitive, he cannot handle a fright. Can you stop being so malicious?” Later, Tony died of cardiac arrest on the operating table. In my absolute despair, I set fire to our home, dragging them all to hell with me. Reborn into this life, when Richard demanded the valve once again, I simply wiped my tears. I smiled and handed him the surgical consent form. “Fine. Give it to him. I won’t fight you for it.” But the moment he took the paper, Richard’s hand began to shake. 1 “Gwen, although Harry only has a congenital defect, he has always been sensitive and afraid of pain,” Richard’s voice echoed in the sterile, white hallway of the hospital, carrying a familiar, cold arrogance. “Tony’s heart is failing, yes, but he has always been a resilient boy. Besides, his rejection rate is incredibly high. Even if we gave him this valve, his body might not accept it. It is better to wait for the next batch.” “As my wife, can you try to show some basic compassion? Do you really have to fight a single mother over her child’s only lifeline?” The harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital hallway made my eyes burn. I blinked, staring at the man standing in front of me, his expression twisted with impatience. Richard. My husband, the man I once loved more than life itself, and the man I ultimately grew to despise with every fiber of my being. In his hand, he tightly gripped the surgical allocation slip. That slip represented the only highly compatible bio-active valve in the state, the final hope to save our son Tony’s life. In our past life, at this exact door of the pediatric intensive care unit, I had clawed at him like a wild animal when he suggested giving the valve to Vivian’s son. I had wept, screaming that Tony had been confined to that freezing hospital bed for three months, that his heart could stop beating at any second. But Richard had kicked me to the floor with utter disgust. My head had slammed against the hard marble, blood blurring my vision. He didn’t even look back at me as he turned and handed the allocation slip to a weeping Vivian. Looking down at me, he had said, “Gwen, the way you behave makes me sick. No wonder Tony is always so sickly under your care.” Ultimately, because he missed his critical surgical window, Tony’s tiny body grew cold in my arms on a stormy night. Before he drew his last breath, he clutched my finger and whispered, “Mom, it doesn’t hurt. Please don’t cry.” After my son’s death, I lost my mind. Richard claimed I was suffering from severe postpartum depression. To bury his own guilt, he committed me to a psychiatric hospital. On the day of Tony’s memorial, he took Vivian and Harry to Disneyland to celebrate Harry’s recovery. In that asylum, I found a box of matches and set the building on fire. The flames painted the night sky red. They didn’t kill that despicable couple, but they consumed me. The phantom pain of my flesh burning still seemed to linger in the depths of my soul. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to this very day. Seeing my silence, Richard assumed I was preparing to throw another tantrum. His expression darkened, his voice growing sharper. “Gwen, I am talking to you. Stop playing dead.” “Vivian is a single mother raising a child alone in this city. If anything happens to Harry, it will destroy her life.” “Besides, I was the one who pulled strings to get this valve. I have the right to decide who gets it.” 2 Not far away, Vivian stood leaning against the wall, dressed in a pale blue hospital gown. In her arms, Harry was playing a cartoon on an iPad at maximum volume, his cheeks flushed with healthy color. He looked nowhere near a state of critical illness. Seeing me look over, Vivian instantly put on a panicked expression, tears flowing on command. “Richard, Gwen, I am so sorry. This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have brought Harry to this hospital.” “If Gwen is unwilling, let it go. I will take Harry back and manage his condition with medication. At worst, he just won’t be able to play sports.” As she spoke, her body began to slide weakly toward the floor. Richard reacted instantly, catching her in his arms. He turned to glare at me. “Gwen! Will you only be satisfied when you have driven this poor mother and child to their graves?” Looking at this performance, I found it incredibly absurd. In my past life, I cared too much about Richard. I wanted so desperately to preserve my family. That was why I fought so hard, why I dragged my dignity through the mud, begging him on my knees. And what did I get? I lost my son’s only lifeline, and ultimately, I lost my son. In this life, I would not make the same mistake. I took a deep breath, forcing down the absolute hatred boiling in my chest. Then, I looked up, offering Richard a remarkably gentle smile. “Alright.” Richard froze. His brow furrowed, the lecture he had prepared suddenly trapped in his throat. “What did you say?” I looked at him calmly, my voice softer than it had ever been. “I said, since Harry’s condition is so delicate, let him have it.” “After all, a child’s life is at stake. I wouldn’t want to be malicious.” I pulled a pen from my bag and signed my name on the treatment waiver. The tip of the pen slid across the paper, making a sharp scratching sound. Richard took the signed waiver, a look of bewilderment crossing his face, as if he couldn’t believe I had surrendered so easily. “You are really okay with this?” he asked suspiciously. I nodded, looking through the glass window at Tony, who lay in the ICU bed, hooked up to various tubes. “Yes. I am okay with it.” “You were right. We shouldn’t be selfish. Sometimes, we have to let things go.” The doubt in Richard’s eyes vanished, replaced by the smug satisfaction of a man who had won. “I am glad you finally see sense.” “I knew those tantrums of yours were just cries for attention. Deep down, you know how to behave.” He handed the waiver to Vivian, his voice dripping with tenderness. “Go register for the procedure, Vivian. Let’s not delay Harry’s surgery.” Vivian took the paper, a spark of triumph flashing in her eyes, though she still kept up her fragile act. “Richard, won’t Gwen hold a grudge against me for this?” “She won’t.” Richard didn’t even look at me as he wrapped his arm around Vivian’s shoulders, leading her toward the administrative office. “She is being sensible now. She finally understands what matters.” Their figures disappeared down the long hallway. They looked exactly like a happy, devoted family of three. The smile vanished from my face, replaced by an icy, absolute coldness. I looked down at Tony’s pale little face, gently running my fingers over his bruised hand, scarred from constant intravenous lines. My tears fell silently onto the white sheets. Tony, I am so sorry. Mom is not giving up on you. It is because Mom knows that this valve is actually a death sentence. In my past life, after Harry received that valve, I uncovered the truth. That specific batch of biological valves carried a severe genetic defect. Because of a data error during the cultivation process, the valves triggered an extremely violent autoimmune rejection once inside the human body. After Harry received it, his heart murmur disappeared, but his kidneys and liver failed completely within six months. And my Tony, given his incredibly weak state, would have died right on the operating table if we had used it. So, Richard. Since you love that child so much, I am more than happy to let you have this poison. 3 The moment Richard left, I slipped into the emergency stairwell and dialed a number I had kept hidden for years. The phone rang three times before it was answered. A deep, quiet voice came through the line, carrying a hint of disbelief and suppressed hope. “Gwen?” Hearing his voice, my throat tightened, and my tears nearly spilled over. Austin. He was a world-class pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon, my childhood friend, the boy next door who had protected me growing up. In my past life, when Tony was in critical condition, I had wanted to beg him for help. But Richard, driven by toxic jealousy, had spread rumors that Austin and I were having an affair. He threatened to cut off all funding for Tony’s treatment if I ever contacted him. For the sake of Tony’s immediate bills, and to preserve my battered dignity, I had cut off all contact. It was only after Tony died that Austin found out. He flew back from Switzerland immediately. At the cemetery gates, his eyes were bloodshot as he grabbed my shoulders and yelled, “Gwen, why didn’t you call me? Just one word from you, and I would have carved out my own heart to save Tony!” In this life, I would never push away the one person who truly wanted to save my son. “Austin.” I tried to keep my voice steady, though it trembled slightly. “I remember you mentioned that your research center in Switzerland is running a clinical trial for pediatric stem-cell cardiac therapy.” Austin’s tone instantly shifted to professional urgency. “Yes. But there are only three slots globally, and the screening process is extremely rigorous. Is Tony’s condition worsening?” “Yes,” I replied, leaning against the cold concrete wall. “Our options here are exhausted. Richard gave his only matching valve to someone else. I want to bring Tony to Switzerland, to you.” The line went silent for a few seconds. Then, I heard the sound of something heavy falling, as if he had knocked his chair over as he stood up. “Is Richard out of his mind? Tony is his own flesh and blood!” “He lost his mind a long time ago,” I said with a cold laugh. “Austin, I have made up my mind. I will do whatever it takes to save Tony. I will divorce him, I will leave with absolutely nothing.” “Alright.” Austin’s voice was filled with an absolute, reassuring strength. “Leave the clinical slot to me. Even if I have to pull every favor I have, I will secure it for Tony. Your job right now is to protect him and gather all his medical records.” “I will arrange a private medical charter to pick you both up. I should be there in twenty-four hours.” I looked at my watch. “Twenty-four hours. Okay. I will be waiting.” Hanging up the phone, I let out a long, slow breath. One day. If I could just get through this one day, I could take Tony and escape this hell. As for Richard. I looked out the window at the dark, storm-filled sky, a cruel smile touching my lips. Our accounts are finally ready to be settled. That evening, Richard returned to the hospital. He seemed to be in an excellent mood, carrying a large, limited-edition Lego box in his hand. “Harry’s pre-op checks went perfectly today. The doctor says the success rate is very high.” He set the box on the table, glancing at Tony, who was still on oxygen. “Tony isn’t awake yet? This boy is just too weak, he doesn’t take after me at all.” I was wiping Tony’s brow with a damp cloth. My hand paused for a fraction of a second before I replied softly, “The doctor said he needs absolute quiet.” Richard frowned, clearly displeased by my cold reception. “Gwen, I know you are still upset. But today, Harry’s situation was simply more urgent. The doctor said the micro-procedure is much easier to recover from.” “Besides, I bought this for Tony. It is the Star Wars collector’s set he has been asking for. I had someone import it from Europe.” 4 His tone was entirely patronizing, as if I should be kneeling to thank him for his generosity. I looked at the box. It was indeed the Star Wars set. But it was a highly complex model rated for ages fourteen and up. Tony was only five years old. Because of his heart failure, his hands shook so badly he could barely hold a spoon, let alone assemble thousands of tiny plastic blocks. I had explained this to Richard dozens of times. But he never bothered to listen. In his mind, he only remembered that Harry loved complex assembly toys because it made him look intelligent. This toy had probably been bought in duplicate. One for Harry, and the spare tossed to my son. I didn’t expose him. I simply pushed the box to the corner of the table. “Tony cannot play with this right now. Keep it.” Richard’s expression immediately hardened. “Gwen, don’t be ungrateful. I went out of my way to buy this for him, and this is how you behave?” “Are you still bitter because I gave the valve to Harry? Do you think I don’t love Tony?” “I told you, Harry’s case was an exception! Besides, I am Tony’s father. Even a beast wouldn’t harm its own offspring. Do you honestly think I would hurt him?” Father? Hearing that word come out of his mouth was so nauseating it made my skin crawl. In our past life, while Tony was in the emergency room being resuscitated, Richard was at the aquarium with Harry, watching the whales. On the day Tony was cremated, he was hosting a celebration dinner for Harry’s recovery. He even allowed Harry to play with Tony’s urn, knocking it to the floor. When I screamed, he simply shrugged and said, “He is just a child, he didn’t mean it. Don’t be so dramatic.” That was his version of being a father. I turned around, looking him dead in the eye, my gaze cutting like glass. “Richard, do you truly love Tony?” Richard flinched slightly under my stare. He quickly looked away, his voice rising to cover his guilt. “Of course I do! If I don’t love him, who do I love? I work myself to the bone every day to support this family, to pay for his treatments!” “But look at you. Ever since Tony got sick, you have become completely unhinged. You are paranoid, suspicious, constantly complaining like a miserable shrew.” “If you had half of Vivian’s grace and understanding, this home wouldn’t be so cold.” Vivian, always Vivian. In his world, Vivian was the golden standard of perfection. She was gentle, elegant, and understanding, the eternal muse of his youth. And I was simply the bitter, nagging woman who did nothing but ask for money. I nodded, agreeing with him. “You are right. I am nothing like her.” “So from now on, I will learn from her.” “Whatever decisions you make, I will support them. I won’t argue with you anymore.” Richard was stunned. He clearly hadn’t expected such an easy submission. He studied my face suspiciously, but finding no trace of sarcasm, he let out a sigh of relief. He reached out to drape his arm over my shoulder, a satisfied smile returning to his face. “That is my girl. There is no reason for husband and wife to keep secrets.” “As long as you behave and stop making scenes, I will take good care of you both. Once Harry’s surgery is successful, I will take us all on a vacation.” I subtly stepped back, avoiding his arm, and went back to packing my things. “I am tired. You should go rest.” Richard’s hand hovered in the air, before he pulled it back with an awkward chuckle. “Alright. You should get some sleep too. I am going back to the office tonight to oversee a major project.” To the office? He was going to the hospital to stay with Vivian and her son. I didn’t call him out. I simply gave a quiet nod. “Okay. Drive safe.” It was perfect. His absence made my plans much easier to execute.

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I knew perfectly well that my boyfriend’s childhood best friend was practically legally blind. Yet, during a critical wilderness rescue operation, I willingly handed my customized tranquilizer rifle over to her. Then I pulled out my phone, leaned back against a pine tree, and booted up a mobile battle royale game. I did it because I remembered my past life. Back then, this exact same girl, a big-box store cashier, suddenly stepped up at our tactical training range and shot perfect bullseyes. When people questioned her impossible accuracy, Bella just shrugged and said that scanning barcodes at a cash register was the exact same muscle memory as pulling a trigger. She claimed it was just practice making perfect. From that day on, she replaced me as the core tactical marksman of our elite search and rescue squad. She soaked up all the glory, the media praise, and the massive bonuses. I was reduced to a glorified pack mule, enduring endless eye rolls and mockery from the very teammates I used to protect. It wasn’t until she retired to marry my boyfriend that she finally revealed the truth. She lured me to an empty shooting range, fired a few flawless shots, and laughed in my face. “Riley, I finally don’t have to drag you around like a pathetic shadow anymore,” she had sneered. “So what if you trained until your fingers bled for twenty years? In everyone’s eyes, I’m the only genius sniper around here.” That was when I finally understood. Every single time Bella looked down a scope, she was neurologically linking to my brain, perfectly leeching and replicating my hard-earned shooting skills. Then I blinked, and the world reset. I was reborn, standing right back on the very day Bella first claimed that scanning groceries was the same as firing a high-caliber weapon. This time, I was going to let them all burn. 1 “Fifty-yard stationary, nine points.” “Skeet shooting, twenty-two hits.” “Moving target, eight points.” “Riley, you took first place in the tactical assessment again. You really are the undisputed ace of this squad.” I stared at the crowd of teammates cheering around me. The midday sun glaring off their tactical gear felt entirely surreal. My boyfriend, Connor, jogged over with a polished marksman medal in his hands, flashing a brilliant smile. “Come on, Ry. Take your prize. You earned this.” My hand reached out entirely out of habit. Right at that moment, a loud, obnoxious scoff cut through the applause. My chest tightened. Here it comes. “You guys give out medals for scores like that? I mean, shouldn’t anyone with functioning hands be able to do that?” The squad went dead silent. Everyone turned to see who had the nerve to talk such garbage. When they realized it was Bella, a chorus of mocking laughter broke out. “Ignorance really is bliss,” one of the guys snickered. “A supermarket cashier with a barcode scanner thinks she can look down on elite rescue operatives.” Bella flushed bright red, visibly furious that her little comment had backfired. “It’s just pulling a trigger. What is the big deal? I come from a generational military family. I practically have gunpowder in my blood.” That only made the squad laugh harder. “Your dad is a local gun nut who shoots beer cans in the woods,” someone shouted. “What kind of military family is that? The discount aisle militia?” I watched Bella pout her lips, fully anticipating her next move. Just like in my past life, she was going to latch onto Connor and beg for a turn. Right on cue, Bella grabbed the sleeve of Connor’s tactical jacket and whined. “Connor, please just let me try. What, are you worried I’m going to waste a few dollars in ammo?” She paused, her eyes darting over to lock onto mine. “Or… are you worried Riley will get mad if my score is better than hers?” Connor and I had been a couple for years. We fought side by side in the harshest wilderness environments. He should have known I wasn’t the jealous type. But his reaction was just as disappointing as the last time. Connor furrowed his brow, looking at me with a hint of warning. “Riley, Bella is just acting like a kid. Treat it like a game to humor her. Don’t throw a tantrum over this, okay?” Without waiting for my response, he made the executive decision and guided Bella straight to the firing line. For someone supposedly from a military family, Bella held the rifle like it was a rotting fish. Her posture was stiff, awkward, and completely wrong. But the second the buzzer sounded, a phantom shift took over her body. Her movements became ruthlessly efficient. Her trigger pulls were completely devoid of hesitation. Whether it was a stationary paper target or a mechanical clay pigeon flying across the field, she tracked them with absolute perfection. When the final target popped up, Bella squeezed the trigger. A clean, devastating hit. “Bullseye. Bullseye. Bullseye. Every single one is a dead center hit!” The squad could not hide their absolute shock. They swarmed her immediately, practically vibrating with excitement. “You just shattered Riley’s all-time record! You are an absolute natural. A total prodigy!” I looked over at Connor. He wasn’t even glancing in my direction. He ran straight to Bella and wrapped her in a massive bear hug. “Bella, when the hell did you learn to shoot like this? Why didn’t you tell me?” Bella soaked up the attention, her face glowing with smug satisfaction. “It really isn’t a big deal. You look at the target, you pull the trigger. The bullets go in a straight line. It’s not rocket science.” 2 The entire squad was already drunk on the fantasy of discovering a hidden tactical genius. “Bella, you have never touched a firearm in your life, and you didn’t even flinch. Riley comes from a family of elite marksmen, and she literally cried the first time she fired a gun.” Surrounded by a chorus of aggressive flattery, Bella was practically floating. “I really don’t know what to tell you guys. What is the difference between scanning a bag of chips and pulling a trigger? Maybe Riley is just a little too pampered and delicate.” Not a single guy on the squad cared about the blatant insult she just hurled at me. They were all talking over each other, demanding that Connor recruit Bella onto the team immediately. Connor’s face was plastered with absolute pride. That was when I stepped forward. “Captain. Bella has exceptional accuracy, but she has absolutely zero physical conditioning or field training. Throwing a civilian straight into live wilderness operations is a massive liability. She won’t know how to move with the unit.” In my past life, Bella joined the squad midway through the season. Her stamina was pathetic, and her survival instincts were nonexistent. Aside from stealing my shooting skills, her only contribution to the team was constantly dragging us down and putting lives at risk. I suggested she go through basic physical conditioning first. But Bella immediately twisted it, crying to the squad that I was purely jealous. She convinced them I wanted her gone so I could keep all the glory for myself. Because of that, Connor stripped me of my sniper designation. He forced me to become Bella’s personal pack mule, carrying her heavy rifle and tactical gear through miles of treacherous terrain just so she wouldn’t get tired. This time, the trap hadn’t been sprung yet. If Connor had a shred of actual leadership in him, he would know better than to throw an untrained civilian into the deep woods. Hearing my logic, Connor hesitated. Bella saw him wavering and immediately turned her crosshairs on me. “Riley, I promise I won’t try to steal your spotlight. Please, just give me a chance to change my life. Please?” She covered her face with her hands, letting out pathetic little sobs. “I know I’m just a nobody cashier. I don’t have a rich military pedigree like you do. But is it a crime to be born poor?” I kept my voice dead level, refusing to take the bait. “That is not what I said. Wilderness rescue means navigating cliffsides, ravines, and highly aggressive predators. One wrong step gets people killed. We cannot risk the lives of the team or the victims just to let you play soldier.” But Connor’s expression only darkened with every word I spoke. “That is enough, Riley! So what if you’ve held a rifle longer than she has? Stop acting so damn superior. We get it, you’ve never had a casualty on your watch. Do you want a gold star?” The words caught in my throat. I suddenly remembered that years ago, Connor’s personal negligence on a mission had cost one of our teammates their life. He had just weaponized his own guilt against me. “I am making the call right now. Bella is the new primary marksman for this unit.” A ripple of shock went through the squad. “Captain, if Bella is taking the lead shooter spot, what happens to Riley?” Connor’s tone left zero room for argument. “She just got outperformed by a girl who has never touched a gun before. What right does she have to hold the title? Riley will act as Bella’s support element and carry her gear.” The gavel had fallen. A few guys looked slightly worried about Bella’s lack of experience, but since the captain had made it an official order, they just clapped her on the shoulder and offered congratulations. Seeing that her scheme worked perfectly, Bella couldn’t hide her twisted grin. “Connor, does that mean we get to be partners for the rescue op this afternoon?” Connor stumbled back slightly as she threw her arms around his neck, shooting a rapid, guilty glance in my direction. “Don’t be crazy, Bella. Riley is standing right here. I can’t pair up with you.” Bella rested her chin on Connor’s shoulder, her eyes locked onto mine, dripping with pure provocation. “Riley, you wouldn’t say no to us teaming up, right?” I didn’t even blink. “Absolutely not.” Her face instantly morphed into a mask of deep, agonizing hurt. “Riley, I just want to team up with Connor so we can save lives. It is purely professional. Why does your mind always have to go to such dark, toxic places?” Connor looked at me like a stranger, his eyes full of disgust. “Bella’s only focus is saving people in danger. Why is your mind so filthy, Riley?” Even the rest of the guys chimed in, fully convinced I was acting out of bitter jealousy. “If your aim sucks, go to the range and fix it. Spreading trashy rumors about another girl just makes you look pathetic.” “Connor goes to her supermarket to hang out all the time, and you never threw a fit before. You’re just pissed she took your crown, Riley.” A stampede of absolute rage thundered through my skull. “I said absolutely not, because she cannot walk into a live rescue operation looking like that.” I gestured coldly at her outfit. “She needs properly fitted tactical gear. People project their own insecurities onto others, Bella. Out in the field, there is a lot more to learn than just how to start romantic rumors.” Bella ground her teeth together. “Right. Because when it comes to actual marksmanship, you clearly have absolutely nothing left to teach me.” 3 The squad dispersed. I ignored Bella entirely and began prepping my tactical vest for the afternoon op. The objective was to extract a group of amateur hikers trapped by a highly aggressive wolf pack in a rocky ravine. After we reached our designated overwatch position, I dropped my heavy pack and quickly assembled the customized tranquilizer rifle. We didn’t use lethal rounds. Everything was heavy-duty sedatives, and the rifles were heavily modified for maximum velocity and silence. The second I clicked the bipod into place, Bella shoved her way in front of me and wrapped her hand around the pistol grip. She glanced back over her shoulder, smiling like a venomous snake. “Sorry, Riley. I am the lead shooter now. Why don’t you just sit back and take notes?” I crossed my arms and watched her struggle to get comfortable on the dirt. “I thought you wanted to partner up with Connor?” Connor’s voice crackled through my earpiece. “Bella doesn’t have live combat experience yet. I ordered her to stay by your side so she can shadow your process. Next time, she takes full control of the nest.” I didn’t argue. I just silently pulled a secondary spotting scope out of my bag and set it up in the dirt. We baked under the blistering sun for three brutal hours before the wolf pack finally emerged from the tree line. Ignoring the stinging sweat pouring into my eyes, I immediately locked my scope onto the alpha wolf’s skull. Thwack. A perfect hit to the neck. But I wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger. My finger was hovering right over the guard when Bella turned her head, grinning ear to ear. “Oops, sorry Riley. You were just moving way too slow. I was terrified the alpha was going to bolt.” For the rest of the op, Bella didn’t give me a single chance to fire. Every single time I mentally locked onto a target, calculated the windage, and prepared to squeeze, her bullet would leave the chamber a split-second before mine. Shot after shot. Her performance was a flawless, terrifying display of lethal precision. She hit every target, bailing the ground team out of deadly corners and ensuring the hikers didn’t take a single scratch. When the dust finally settled and the op was called, the mood was electric. At the base camp celebration that night, we learned the rescued hiker was a billionaire’s son. He personally handed Bella a velvet box stuffed with diamond jewelry as a token of absolute gratitude. Staring at the millions of dollars glittering in the box, Bella couldn’t even pretend to hide the raw greed in her eyes. “I am so sorry, Riley. This was supposed to be your reward.” Connor grabbed Bella by the shoulders, practically glowing with pride. “You have nothing to apologize for. If Riley had been on the trigger today, there is zero chance the op would have gone that smoothly.” The regional director of the rescue company was at the party. He raised a glass to Bella, entirely ignoring me. “Bella, for a rookie on her first live op, your performance was completely unprecedented. I listened to the radio logs. You didn’t utter a single word on the comms, yet your synergy with the ground team was flawless. You were born for this squad.” Bella puffed her chest out. “True synergy doesn’t need to be spoken out loud. It just happens.” She shot me a side-eye. “The guys on the ground are fighting for their lives. Flooding the comms with useless chatter just distracts them and drags them down.” “I trust my aim. No matter what goes wrong, I know I can save them. I don’t need other people sacrificing themselves just to make up for my mistakes.” Standing in the corner of the tent, my head was throbbing. What an absolute load of garbage. A sniper sits at the highest elevation specifically to act as the eyes of the battlefield. Calling out targets and directing traffic is half the job. During the entire op, all Bella did was brain-leech my shooting mechanics. I was the one mentally tracking the wolves, calculating the drops, and quietly adjusting the spotting scope to feed her the angles. Without me doing the heavy mental lifting, she would have been shooting at dirt. But the director was already glaring at me. “Connor, the company’s annual Elite Marksman nomination is going to Bella this year. We have too many people taking up space on the payroll, acting like they own the place while stepping on their teammates’ hard work.” Without giving me a single second to defend myself, the director turned his back and walked away. For the rest of the night, Connor paraded Bella around the VIP tent, introducing her to the wealthy executives and politicians. He entirely forgot about his actual girlfriend. When we finally got back to the compound, Bella proudly announced that the billionaire had gifted her an all-expenses-paid, seven-day trip to Bora Bora. Connor told me it was a well-deserved reward for her heroism. “Oh, by the way, Ry. Bella gets a little spooked sleeping in new places. I want you to clear your stuff out of our room. I’m going to stay with her for a few nights until she gets comfortable. You can move back in later.” Every single bunk in the compound was full. I stared at the dusty, spider-infested storage closet at the end of the hall. I didn’t say a word. Lying on a damp, moldy mattress, I scrolled through social media. Bella had just posted a photo of her and Connor in matching swimwear on a white sand beach. My chest felt hollow, filled with a toxic mix of disgust and exhaustion. Over the next few months, Bella rinsed and repeated the exact same strategy. By parasitically draining my skills, she racked up flawless mission records. The legend of the prodigy sniper grew to astronomical heights. Every time the alarm rang, I carried her eighty-pound gear bags up mountainsides without a single complaint. The more she showed off, the more I willingly fed her the targets. Then came the red-alert call. The son of the country’s wealthiest tech mogul was trapped deep in a ravine, completely surrounded by a den of territorial grizzly bears. I was at the range doing extra conditioning drills when the guys walked by. “Still trying to steal your sniper spot back? You really think you can climb over our dead bodies just to get a shiny trophy on your desk?” Bella was standing there, wearing expensive silk hand-masks to protect her skin. “Real talent doesn’t come from having ugly calluses on your fingers, boys.” She covered her mouth, giggling softly. “Riley, seriously, you need to spend more time on your makeup and hair. Otherwise, when you finally get kicked to the curb, you won’t even be able to find a man.” She raised her left hand, flashing a blinding, massive diamond ring under the floodlights. The entire squad gasped. “Captain bought you a ring?! Holy hell, when is the wedding?” 4 Meeting Bella’s vicious, gloating stare, I calmly broke down my rifle and packed it into its hard case. “If that’s the case, I’m officially resigning tomorrow morning.” Bella froze instantly. “I’m never getting the sniper spot back anyway. My family already bought me a plane ticket home.” “You can’t leave!” Her frantic screech echoed across the asphalt. The squad looked at her, entirely confused as to why she was having a meltdown over me quitting. She forced herself to take a breath, trying to play it cool. “I… I just mean the billionaire is probably going to give us a massive cash bonus tomorrow. It would be a total waste for you to walk away from that.” “Don’t try to stop her. Let her walk.” Connor came striding out of the command center, his face twisted in annoyance. “If you want to quit, then pack your bags and leave quietly. Did you really think making a massive scene would make us beg you to stay? Stop desperate for attention, Riley.” I didn’t even flinch. But Bella was practically hyperventilating. “Tomorrow’s op is a code red! I don’t have enough field experience for grizzly bears. I need Riley out there with me. Connor, please, just order her to stay for one more run.” The squad looked at her like she was speaking a foreign language. “Bella, with your aim, you’re virtually untouchable. Pure talent beats experience every single time.” “Yeah, Riley’s aim is garbage compared to yours. All she’s good for is wiping down the rifle barrels. Don’t let her dead weight drag you down.” Bella was trapped in a nightmare of her own making. She couldn’t tell them the truth, so she had to swallow the panic. She threw all her chips at Connor. “Connor, we agreed we were going to retire and get married after this final payout, right? The squad is going to need a marksman when I’m gone.” “Riley might not be as good as me, but she can hold the line for a while after I leave. Just look at it as a favor to the team.” Connor sighed, finally giving in to her pleading. “Fine. Riley, this is your absolute last chance. Do your job tomorrow and support Bella. If a single hair on her head gets messed up, I will personally throw you out of this compound.” When I gave a slow nod, Bella let out a massive, trembling exhale. The next morning on the tarmac, Bella’s eyes were bloodshot and swollen like she hadn’t slept a wink. “How are you supposed to look down a scope like that?” I asked coldly. “Captain, I should take the lead on this—” “Shut your mouth,” Connor snapped, cutting me off instantly. “This isn’t the first time Bella’s looked a little tired, and has she ever missed a shot? No.” “I didn’t think you’d stoop so low as to try and ruin Bella’s final retirement op. Are you really that desperate to see her fail?” I watched Connor carefully shield Bella as she climbed into the transport helicopter, and a frozen sneer formed in my chest. Back when I was the lead sniper, if my eyes were even slightly irritated, or if I had gotten less than eight hours of sleep, Connor would instantly bench me, preaching about safety protocols and team survival. Because of that, I spent ten years acting like a machine. I never played video games, never read late into the night, strictly monitored my diet, and sacrificed every shred of a normal life just to stay perfectly sharp. But with Bella, suddenly the lives of the men on the ground didn’t matter. I looked around at the squad. None of them cared. They were too busy making dirty jokes about how Connor kept Bella awake all night. I didn’t waste another breath trying to warn them. Every single person has to pay the tab for the choices they make. Connor tossed aside a woman who had bled and fought beside him for a decade, all for his manipulative childhood crush. The squad tossed aside a hardened, loyal veteran for a girl who had never fired a real weapon in her life. When the curtain finally dropped, I sincerely hoped none of them would cry about it. The chopper touched down at the edge of a massive, heavily forested canyon. This extraction was incredibly high-profile. A dozen corporate executives and rescue directors were crammed into the command tent, watching the drone feeds on massive monitors. When we reached the cliffside overwatch position, I quickly set up the heavy rifle on its bipod. Bella practically shoved me out of the way, throwing her soft, manicured hands over the grips. She pressed one of her large, doe eyes against the rubber rim of the scope. The other eye was wide open, blinking into the glaring sun. The director’s voice came over the radio. “Looking good, Apex squad. Not only is Bella a lethal shot, she looks great on the cameras. She really is the face of this company.” I had to bite my tongue to stop from laughing out loud. Real wilderness operatives sleep in the mud and hike through freezing rain. Nobody has flawless, porcelain skin out here. More importantly, a trained sniper does not keep their non-dominant eye wide open, exposed to the blinding glare, while tracking a target. It was such a glaring amateur mistake, yet nobody in the command tent seemed to care. But it wasn’t my problem anymore. Since Bella was their golden goose, they could deal with the mess. I retreated to the shade of a massive oak tree and pulled out my phone. Bella didn’t even glance back. As long as I was within proximity, she felt entirely invincible, assuming she could just siphon my mechanics. “Bella, the grizzlies are moving out of the cave. Get ready!” Connor yelled over the comms. Bella held her breath, radiating absolute arrogance. “Squad up, dropping in!” The words ripped out of Bella’s mouth without warning. The entire radio channel went dead silent. “Bella, what the hell are you doing?!” Connor demanded. Bella slapped a hand over her own mouth in sheer terror. But the side effect of her parasitic brain-link was brutal. She couldn’t just filter out what I was doing. Seconds later, she started blurting out more gamer slang. “Wiped on landing! Get me a medkit! Loot drop incoming!” She was spewing utter nonsense into a live tactical channel. Worse than her mouth were her hands. Her supposedly flawless sniper posture instantly deteriorated into the jerky, panicked movements of a teenager mashing a touchscreen. She yanked the trigger wildly. Tranquilizer darts flew into the dirt, bouncing off rocks. She didn’t just miss the massive charging bears; she nearly put a dart into the neck of our own breacher. “Have you lost your damn mind?!” The director was screaming into the radio, his voice cracking with rage. “Bella, is this a joke to you?!” Connor scrambled to do damage control. “I’m sorry, sir! Bella is just a little rattled by the bears! I’ll talk her down, just give me a second!” Then he switched to the private squad channel, his voice a furious roar. “Bella, this is not the time to play cute! Get your act together, right now!” I sat under the tree, comfortably swiping on my screen, racking up kills in my game. Bella looked like she had swallowed a mouthful of crushed glass. “Connor, I—” “Do not call me Connor! Do you have any idea how high the stakes are today?!” “If that kid gets a single scratch on him, the billionaire will bury this entire company! And he will bury us with it!” “I am asking you one last time. Can you take the shot?!”

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1 Matthew’s favorite phrase was “just wait a little longer.” Wait until his startup stabilized to get our marriage license; I waited two years. Wait until his mother’s attitude softened to have the wedding; I waited another three. In the fifth year, at Matthew’s thirtieth birthday dinner, his mother publicly slipped off the antique emerald bracelet from her wrist. Passing down the family bracelet to acknowledge the daughter-in-law was an old tradition in the Brandt family. I thought, finally, the waiting was over. “Here, give me your hand.” But Matthew’s mother bypassed my outstretched hand, sliding the heavy emerald piece firmly onto Mary’s wrist instead. The entire table went dead silent. Mrs. Brandt patted the back of Mary’s hand with a fond smile. “Mary grew up with our Matthew. We are all one family anyway.” My hands were still resting on the tablecloth, my fingertips turning icy. Someone at the table whispered, “But what about Nora?” Matthew leaned in close, lowering his voice. “My mother is sentimental, Norie. Don’t take it to heart.” “I’ll buy you a haute couture necklace on my business trip next month. Be good, just wait a little longer.” Mary held up her wrist right in front of my face, a smug smirk playing on her lips. “Be honest, Norie, isn’t it beautiful? Mrs. Brandt said this is a priceless family heirloom.” I said it was beautiful. Right then, my phone buzzed in my purse. “Have you made up your mind? When are you coming to Paris?” 2 “Why are you so quiet?” On the drive back, Matthew held the steering wheel with one hand, casting a quick glance at me. The streetlights cast flickering shadows across his handsome profile. I pulled my gaze back from the window, staring down at my bare wrist. “Nothing to say,” I murmured. Matthew sighed, braking at a red light. He reached over the console with his right hand, instinctively trying to squeeze the back of my neck. I tilted my head slightly, dodging his touch. His hand froze in midair for a second. Then he smoothly pulled it back, resting it on the steering wheel. “Are you seriously still throwing a tantrum over that bracelet?” His tone carried that familiar, weary indulgence used for a spoiled child. “You know how my mother is. She’s old-fashioned.” “Mary lost her parents when she was young and grew up in our house. My mother has always felt she owes her.” “It is just an emerald bracelet. If she wants to give it away, so be it. Was it really worth making a face at dinner?” Making a face? I had not said a single word. I had simply eaten my dinner in silence. But to him, my refusal to smile and play along with Mary’s boasting made me difficult. “Matthew,” I said, my voice flat. “Yeah?” “You told me five years ago that the bracelet would be mine.” The car went dead silent. A horn blared behind us; the light had turned green. Matthew hit the gas, and the car glided forward smoothly. “We were just starting the business back then. I didn’t have the money to buy you anything nice. It was just sweet talk to make you happy, and you’ve held onto it until now?” He let out a dry laugh, his tone casual and dismissive. “Do you really think the Brandt family can’t afford a better bracelet now?” “I’m going to Europe next month on business. I’ll bring you back a couture diamond necklace. It’ll look a hundred times better than that dusty old emerald.” “Be good, Norie. Stop sweating the small stuff.” He was always like this. Using the gentlest voice to effortlessly erase every hope I had for our future. Five years ago, Matthew bought me a cheap thirty-dollar silver band at a night market stall. With bloodshot eyes, he had slipped it onto my finger. “Norie, once I make it big, I’ll have my mom personally put our family’s heirloom emerald bracelet on you.” “I’m going to make you Mrs. Brandt, with all the bells and whistles.” I was still wearing that cheap silver band on my left hand. It had already tarnished to a dull, dark gray. The car rolled into our apartment complex’s underground garage. Matthew unbuckled his seatbelt and turned to look at me. “Tomorrow is the weekend. Where do you want to go? I’m all yours.” In the past, I would have happily researched itineraries, filling the day with plans. But now, I only felt an exhausting emptiness. “Don’t worry about it,” I said, pushing the door open. “I need to clean up the apartment tomorrow.” Matthew got out, locked the car, and caught up to me in a few quick strides. He wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, resting his chin on my shoulder. “Are you really mad at me?” His breath brushed against my ear, carrying the faint, rich scent of red wine. “Mary was so excited about the bracelet she couldn’t sleep. She wants me to take her to get a custom vintage dress tailored tomorrow to match it.” “You know she has terrible taste and has relied on me since we were kids.” “I’ll go with her in the morning, and I’ll be back to spend the afternoon with you, okay?” “Okay,” I said softly. Matthew smiled with satisfaction, planting a quick kiss on my cheek. “I knew my Norie was the sweetest.” When we got inside, Matthew headed straight for the bathroom. I walked to the entryway, hanging my bag on the coat rack. Unzipping it, I looked at the document lying quietly inside. An acceptance letter for an advanced study program at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris. At the very bottom was my signature, penned just this afternoon. I pulled it out and slipped it into the hidden compartment of my half-packed suitcase. The sound of rushing water echoed from the bathroom. I walked out to the balcony and texted my mentor in Paris. Hey, I’ve booked my flight for early Monday morning. She replied instantly: Finally came to your senses? Good for you! Forget that five-year waste of time. Get your ass to Paris. I’ll show you what real European gentlemen look like! I stared at the screen, a quiet, faint smile touching my lips. 3 The next morning. I was woken up by Matthew’s hushed, murmuring voice. He was standing on the balcony, phone pressed to his ear. “You chipped it? Is it bad?” “It’s fine if the bracelet is chipped, as long as you aren’t hurt.” “Don’t cry, it’s just a bracelet. I’m coming over right now to check on you.” His voice carried an unmasked, raw panic and tenderness. I lay in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. Five minutes later, he pushed the bedroom door open. Seeing my eyes open, he startled slightly before quickly walking over. “Did I wake you?” He sat on the edge of the bed, reaching out to stroke my face. I turned my head away and sat up. “Going out?” I asked. Matthew’s hand froze, and he awkwardly pulled it back. “Mary tried on the bracelet first thing this morning and accidentally banged it against the bathroom sink. She’s terrified and won’t stop crying.” “I need to go check on her. She lives alone, and I’m worried.” As he spoke, he swiftly shed his loungewear and threw on a crisp button-down. “Don’t wait up for breakfast. Make yourself something.” I watched him expertly knot his tie. “Matthew.” “Yeah?” He didn’t even turn around, adjusting his collar in the mirror. “I wanted to go look at the Southside townhouse today.” His hands paused on his collar. The Southside townhouse was a place we had picked out six months ago. He had called it our future home, promising we would put down the deposit right after his thirtieth birthday. Matthew turned around, a flicker of guilt crossing his face. “We don’t have to look at houses today of all days.” “Mary is completely hysterical right now. I need to calm her down first.” “Once this crazy week is over, I’ll take you to look at an even better neighborhood. Southside is a bit out of the way anyway.” I looked at him, my expression entirely serene. “Okay.” Matthew let out a visible sigh of relief. He walked over and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. “Good girl. Wait for me to come back.” The door clicked shut. Silence swallowed the apartment once more. I got up and walked into the kitchen. Opening the fridge, I saw it was packed with groceries. I pulled out two eggs and a carton of milk. As I fried the eggs, memories flooded my mind, completely unbidden. Back when we lived in that cramped, drafty rental. Matthew used to wake up thirty minutes before me every single morning to whip up creative breakfasts. Once, I offhandedly mentioned wanting those hot glazed donuts from the Westside bakery. He braved a torrential downpour, riding a rusty bicycle for half an hour just to get them for me. When he returned, the donuts were still warm, but he was soaked to the bone. “If my Norie wants something, I’ll get it even if it’s raining knives outside,” he had said, grinning through the drips. And now? Even taking a single hour to look at the house he promised me was too much of a chore. I slid the fried eggs onto a plate. As I poured the milk, my hand slipped, spilling it across the counter. Reaching for a rag, I accidentally knocked over a jar next to it. It was a jar of oyster sauce. The dark, thick liquid pooled onto the counter, releasing a heavy, briny scent. Staring at the mess, my stomach violently churned. I am severely allergic to seafood. Matthew had bought that jar two days ago. Because Mary had mentioned she was craving seafood noodles. Matthew had completely forgotten that even the smell of seafood could break me out in hives. I tossed the rag into the trash can, along with the plate of eggs and the jar of oyster sauce. Then, I walked back into the bedroom, dragged three large cardboard boxes from under the bed, and began packing. I didn’t actually own much. A few everyday clothes, some textbooks, my laptop. The rest were things Matthew had bought me. Expensive designer bags and jewelry that never fit my style. He had always dressed me according to Mary’s tastes. “Mary looks stunning in pink. You should try it.” “Mary says this perfume smells incredible, so I got you a bottle too.” I gathered all of those items and stacked them neatly at the very bottom of the walk-in closet. 4 At three in the afternoon, Matthew returned. He pushed the door open and froze at the sight of the three boxes stacked in the living room. “What are you doing?” He strode over, his brow knitting tight. “Packing away winter clothes?” I sealed the last box with heavy-duty tape. “Getting rid of old things.” Matthew’s gaze fell on an unsealed box. Inside were our matching college mugs and a stuffed animal he had won for me. His face darkened instantly. “Nora, are you seriously still doing this?” He yanked the mug out, slamming it onto the coffee table. “You’ve been throwing a tantrum since last night over a stupid bracelet!” “Now you’re throwing this stuff out? What’s next? Are you going to tell me you’re moving out?” I stood up straight, looking at him calmly. “Yes.” Matthew let out a harsh, disbelieving laugh. “Unbelievable. You’ve really grown a spine, haven’t you?” He loosened his tie, sinking onto the sofa, glaring up at me. “And where do you think you’re going? To your friend Hazel’s place? Or back to that freezing hometown of yours?” “Nora, you are twenty-seven years old. Can you stop acting like a dramatic teenager playing the run-away-from-home card?” “Do you honestly think if you disappear for a few days, I’ll come crawling back begging you to return?” He was entirely convinced I could never leave him. He believed this was just a pathetic, desperate attempt to force his hand. I didn’t bother explaining. I simply placed the mug back into the box and taped it shut. “Think whatever you want.” Watching my quiet movements, a flicker of irritation crossed Matthew’s eyes. He stood up, walked over to me, and softened his tone. “Alright, enough. Stop playing around.” “Tomorrow is our fifth anniversary.” “I booked a table at that Michelin-starred restaurant you love. After dinner, we’ll go pick out a diamond ring.” “As for the Southside place, I’ll have my assistant send over the deposit tomorrow. We’ll put it under your name.” “Does that make you happy?” He spoke as if he were granting me the ultimate mercy, throwing me a bone. I looked at his face, once so familiar, now so utterly foreign, and smiled. “Okay.” I nodded. “See you tomorrow.” Matthew breathed a sigh of relief, ruffling my hair gently. “There’s my good girl.” He had no idea that nestled inside my suitcase was a plane ticket for tomorrow. Exactly fourteen hours until takeoff. Matthew left for the office early the next morning, kissing my forehead before he walked out. “I’ll pick you up at six tonight.” “Wear that pink dress. You look beautiful in it.” The moment the front door clicked shut, I turned and walked into the closet. The pink dress hung in the most prominent spot. It was the exact same design Mary had. I didn’t touch it. Instead, I put on a simple white shirt and washed-out blue jeans. It was the outfit I wore most often when I first met Matthew. I pushed the three sealed cardboard boxes out to the hallway and scheduled a local courier to pick them up. I sent them to a friend who ran a secondhand consignment shop. “Norie, these are practically brand new. Are you sure you don’t want them?” my friend asked over the phone. “I’m sure. Sell them or do whatever you want with them.” Hanging up, I took one last look around the apartment. This twelve-hundred-square-foot space had once been filled to the brim with my personal touches. The throw pillows on the couch were hand-embroidered by me. The succulents on the balcony had been nurtured by my hands, one by one. The ceramic mugs in the kitchen were hand-painted treasures I brought back from a workshop in Vermont. Now, they were all still in their places. But any trace of me, any proof of my existence, had been completely erased. It was as if I had never lived here at all. My phone vibrated. It was a text from Matthew. Norie, I’m so sorry, but we might have to cancel dinner tonight. Mary was clipped by a delivery bike right outside the office. Her ankle is badly swollen. I have to take her to the hospital for X-rays. We can look at rings in a couple of days, okay? I stared at the text on the screen and didn’t reply. A moment later, another message popped up. Are you mad? Don’t be. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow, I promise. Make it up to me. Always making it up to me. I set my phone to silent, tossed it onto the sofa, and went to the kitchen to boil a simple bowl of plain noodles. This would be my last meal in this country. Just as the noodles were done, the front door lock clicked. Matthew rushed in, looking frantic. Seeing me standing in the kitchen with a bowl of noodles, he stopped dead in his tracks. I placed the bowl on the dining table and pulled out a chair. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the hospital with Mary?” Matthew walked over, pouring himself a glass of water. “Mary said she was craving those crab dumplings from the West End diner. I just came back to grab my car keys to pick some up for her.” The West End. The very place he had braved a storm to buy me pastries years ago. Now, he was willing to cross the entire city just to satisfy Mary’s craving. “Nora, are you seriously throwing another silent tantrum?” Seeing my silence, his brows knit together again. “I already told you, Mary is hurt. I can’t just leave her stranded, can I?” “Can’t you show a little understanding for once?” I lifted a forkful of noodles and took a bite. Bland. Completely tasteless. “I’m not throwing a tantrum,” I said quietly. “Go buy her food. Don’t keep her waiting.” Matthew shot me a suspicious look. My unusual calm seemed to catch him off guard. But he was in too much of a hurry to think deeper. “I’m heading out then. I might not come back tonight. Mary is terrified of being alone, so I’ll probably stay with her at the hospital.” “Get some sleep early.” He grabbed his keys and turned to leave. At the doorway, he suddenly froze, glancing at the empty shoe rack in the entryway. “Where are all your shoes?” I swallowed my noodles, never looking up. “They were old. I threw them out.” Matthew didn’t ask further. The door slammed shut behind him. I slowly finished my bowl of noodles. I washed the bowl and placed it upside down on the drying rack. Then, I slung my backpack over my shoulders and rolled my small, twenty-inch black suitcase out of the apartment. I didn’t look back. On the shuttle bus to the airport, I leaned against the window. I watched the neon-lit city where I had spent seven years of my life blur into a streak of fading lights. My phone lit up. It was a screenshot from Hazel. Mary’s social media post. The picture showed a box of steaming hot crab dumplings. The background was the white sheet of a hospital bed. A man’s hand, fingers elegant and long, held a pair of chopsticks, carefully feeding her. On his wrist was a Patek Philippe watch. I had saved up for six months to buy him that watch for his birthday last year. The caption read: My ankle hurts like hell, but having someone cross the entire city just to get my favorite food makes even a sprain feel like heaven. Below it was a comment from Matthew: Eat slowly. No one is going to steal it from you. Hazel’s angry text followed immediately. Nora! Tell me you aren’t sitting at home alone on your fifth anniversary! Matthew is an absolute bastard! Does he even view you as his girlfriend?! Staring at the string of furious emojis from Hazel, my fingers tapped lightly on the screen. Hazel, I’m leaving. I’m going to Paris. A long silence followed. Then, a voice note came through. Hazel’s voice was thick with tears. “Good for you, Norie. Go. And never look back.” I closed the app. I popped the SIM card out of my phone and dropped it through the cracked bus window, letting the howling wind sweep it away.

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1 As my due date drew closer, I kept having the exact same dream over and over. In the dream, a little girl was crying, begging me not to bring her into the world. “Please, Mom, just let me go.” “He cheated on you with his intern the moment you got pregnant. This family isn’t worth breaking yourself over!” “Without me, without him, you’ll finally be free!” I bolted upright in a cold sweat, my heart hammering against my ribs. Beside me, my husband immediately wrapped his arms around me. “Hey, sweetie, are you okay?” Nolan’s eyes were filled with pure worry. We had grown up together, knowing each other’s deepest secrets. Since our marriage, he had been the neighborhood’s poster child for the perfect husband. Him? Cheating? While he was in the kitchen pouring me a glass of warm water, I reached over and grabbed his phone from the nightstand. The passcode used to be my birthday. Now, it had been changed. Before I could process the cold dread settling in my chest, the doorbell rang. Late at night, a heavily intoxicated woman was standing outside our door, slurring his name repeatedly. When she saw me, her smile grew even more unhinged. “Hey there. I’m just here to grab something from Nolan.” “Do me a favor and check under his pillow. Is there a pair of black lace stockings there?” I didn’t say a word, but my stomach suddenly tightened in a sharp, sudden spasm. It was her. Charlene, the intern from my nightmares. Charlene wanted to cause more of a scene, but Nolan had already hailed a cab and bundled her into it. By the time he came back into the bedroom, I was already tossing the covers aside, searching. “What are you looking for?” “You don’t seriously believe a drunk girl’s rambling, do you?” Nolan let out a casual, disbelieving chuckle and took the initiative to lift his pillow. “See? Nothing here.” He reached out to pull me into his arms, but I quietly stepped out of his reach. “A woman gets drunk in the middle of the night, calls you repeatedly, and then shows up at our doorstep.” “Don’t you think you owe me an explanation?” I stared at him, trying to find even a sliver of guilt on his face. But he only sighed, his expression a mix of gentle exhaustion and forced patience. “I get it. You’re pregnant, and your hormones are making you hyper-sensitive.” “Young people get drunk and do stupid, reckless things. It happens.” “Paige, let’s not let silly paranoia get between us, okay?” That night was the first time we slept in separate rooms. The next morning, I didn’t wake up early to make him breakfast as I always did. The atmosphere in our home slowly froze over. By the fourth day of our cold war, Nolan didn’t return home even after midnight. Restless and frustrated, I dialed his number over and over. When the call finally connected, it wasn’t his voice that answered. “Paige? Is something wrong?” I couldn’t help but let out a cold laugh. “I’m calling my own husband. Do I need to report to you?” “You sound so hostile, Paige. I didn’t mean anything by it.” “It’s just that Nolan is completely wasted. Since you have such a big belly, are you sure you want to come pick him up?” The line went dead. I threw on a coat, ordered a cab, and rode to a private lounge downtown. Before I even pushed the heavy double doors of the VIP suite open, the raucous cheering from inside hit my ears. “Chug! Chug!” Through the glass panel, I saw Charlene coyly holding a shot glass, leaning close to Nolan. His tall frame hovered over her. He cupped her face, tilted her head back, and shared a mouthful of wine, pressing his lips against hers in a sloppy, alcohol-fueled kiss. I kicked the door open with a resounding bang. The laughter died instantly. “Paige?” Nolan frowned, his eyes narrowing as he looked at me. “What are you doing here?” I gestured toward the trembling woman beside him. “She already threw down the gauntlet. Did you really think I wouldn’t show up?” Charlene scrambled to defend herself. “Nolan, when you went to the restroom, she kept calling. I was just worried she’d be anxious, so I told her we were here for business networking.” Instead of getting angry at her, Nolan gently patted the back of her hand. “It’s not your fault.” He stood up, walking past her to face me. “Are you happy now that you’ve made us the laughingstock of the room?” Without waiting for my response, he pushed past me and stormed out of the suite. I wanted to chase after him, but a sudden, violent spasm racked my abdomen. I slid down against the wall, clutching my belly. “Nolan, it hurts…” I was admitted to the hospital that night for emergency observation to prevent preterm labor. Nolan ran around handling the paperwork and medical supplies, finally collapsing into the chair beside my bed just as the horizon began to turn gray. Exhausted, he tucked my hand back under the blanket. “Just listen to the doctor. Everything will be fine.” “Look at you, making such a mountain out of a molehill.” His dismissive tone set off a spark of pure rage in my chest. “A molehill?” “Nolan, if I hadn’t shown up tonight, would the two of you have ended up in bed?!” “Paige!” He roared, his eyes flashing with a terrifying, bloodshot anger. “Do you have any idea what business networking is?!” “I swear, you’ve got too much free time on your hands. Do you have any idea how exhausting my job actually is?!” Silence fell over the room. During my first trimester, the morning sickness had been brutal. I had spent weeks practically living on the bathroom floor, losing twenty pounds in a single month. He was the one who had begged me to quit. “Just stay home and let me take care of you. I can easily support us.” “Earning money is a man’s job. Don’t worry your pretty head about it.” The sweet promises of yesterday had become the sharpest daggers of today. A flicker of guilt crossed his face. He ran a hand through his messy hair, trying to reach for my hand. “Sweetie, I didn’t mean it like that.” “What do you want to eat? I’ll go buy it.” I stared at him, extending an open palm. “Your phone.” He froze for a second, offering a strained laugh. “What? You don’t trust me?” I didn’t blink. “Your phone.” “Why did you change the passcode?” “What is on there that I’m not allowed to see?” Nolan shoved his hand into his pocket, his fingers tightly gripping the device. He glared at me, his jaw clenching. Suddenly, he pulled it out and smashed it onto the linoleum floor. The screen shattered into a million glittering pieces right before my eyes. “Are you happy now?” “Are you done throwing tantrums?” He turned on his heel and stormed out, leaving me entirely alone in the sterile white room. I stayed in the hospital for seven days, and Nolan never showed his face again. The nurses watched me with pity. Compared to the other pregnant women whose husbands hovered over them with endless warmth, I looked pathetic. When it was time to handle the discharge paperwork, a young nurse finally couldn’t help but ask, “Do you want me to call your emergency contact? There are a lot of post-discharge care instructions.” I remained quiet, which she took as a yes. Deep down, a small, foolish part of me still hoped. Unfortunately, after she tried calling him five times, Nolan still didn’t pick up. She looked at me awkwardly. “Maybe he’s in a meeting?” I forced a smile, thanked her, and called a cab myself. As the taxi pulled up to our building, I noticed the lights in our apartment were on. Nolan was home. So why hadn’t he answered the phone? Was he still playing his petty silent game? Anger flared in my chest. I marched upstairs, determined to demand answers. But the moment I unlocked the door, I froze. There was a pair of high heels sitting on the shoe rack. Loud music was pulsing through the apartment, so loud that neither of them had heard the door open. “Nolan, grab the bowls! Dinner is ready!” “Want a glass? I bought red wine today!” Charlene’s voice drifted from the kitchen. I walked forward like a zombie, only to see Nolan wrapping his arms around her waist from behind as she stood there in her apron. “Smells amazing.” “But honestly, I’d rather eat you first.” I stood there in a daze, watching them. They looked like a loving, happily married couple. I was the intruder. Charlene giggled, turning her head to kiss him, and that was when their eyes landed on me. I slowly walked toward them. Nolan instinctively stepped in front of Charlene, shielding her. Tears spilled over my cheeks, and when I spoke, my voice was raw and broken. “Nolan…” “Why?” My mind flashed back to a dusty afternoon during my childhood. I had come home early from school, eager to show my parents my report card. Instead, I found my father and another woman in the bedroom, behaving like animals. My mother had come home early that day too. She had been carrying two heavy bags of groceries, smiling warmly as she told me, “Go do your homework, sweetie. I’m making pork chops tonight!” We never got to eat those pork chops, because she spent the evening chasing my father with a kitchen knife while he scrambled to pull up his pants. I didn’t grab a knife. I just stood there like a statue, watching Charlene scramble to gather her things and flee. Shortly after she left, Nolan tried to slip past me carrying a heavy black trash bag. “Sweetie, I’m just going to take the trash out. I’ll be right back.” I snatched the bag from his hands. Before he could stop me, I ripped it open and dumped the contents onto the floor. Stockings, handcuffs, lipstick, a toothbrush, lace lingerie, remote-controlled toys… The air in the room turned ice-cold. Trembling, I locked the front door and took the key. “Starting today, you’re not going anywhere.” “If you dare cross that threshold, I’ll take both of us down.” On the first day of our confinement, Nolan acted completely normal. He knelt before me, weeping and begging for forgiveness, claiming it was just a temporary lapse in judgment. “You’ve been pregnant and we couldn’t do anything. Charlene just happened to be assigned to my team.” “I’m a man, Paige. I have needs!” “I promise it will never happen again, okay?” He repented like a devout sinner, hovering around me, cleaning every corner of the house, and cooking elaborate meals to appease me. On the third day, his phone rang incessantly. Finally, he looked at me with a strained, pleading expression. “There’s so much going on at the office.” “Let me go out just for a bit, sweetie. You can set a timer, track my location. You can monitor the office security cameras if you want!” I gripped his hand tightly, refusing to let go. “Charlene is at the office, isn’t she?” “You’re just going to see her!” Nolan sighed with exhaustion, running a hand over my hair. “Fine, fine. I won’t go.” “Stop overthinking. I’ll stay right here with you.” We managed to survive another day in fragile peace, until the early hours of the fifth morning. A soft rustling woke me. I got out of bed to find Nolan quietly trying to pick the lock on the front door. “What are you doing?” He jumped, startled, then rubbed his temples in sheer frustration. “Paige, you are seriously ruining my career.” “I promise you, the moment I finish this meeting, I’ll come straight back.” I lunged forward, grabbing his arm and shaking my head violently. “I won’t let you leave.” “You’re going to her, aren’t you? No!” Fear and hysteria consumed me. I blocked the door with my entire body, completely losing my mind. “Paige! You’re acting like a complete psycho!” Nolan shoved me, and when I kept fighting, his patience finally snapped. He raised his hand and slapped me across the face. The sting on my cheek was burning. His harsh, mocking words rang in my ears. “Now I see why your dad walked out on your family.” “Your mother was a psycho, and so are you!” “Why don’t you just go join her in the grave!” The front door slammed shut, leaving me alone in the dark. My mother had indeed gone mad. She had refused to get a divorce, spending her days screaming and crying, her face covered in saliva and tears. She would hit me and yell at me, and I had been too terrified to even cry out loud. Back then, Nolan would always find excuses to drag me to his house. He would share his snacks and let me read his comic books. “Don’t worry, Paige!” “I’ll protect you!” Later, when my mother committed suicide, he was the one who stayed by my side to handle the funeral, bowing to every guest who came to offer condolences. “Paige, from now on, I’m your family.” He had been the only light in my dark childhood, healing my deepest scars. Yet now, he was the one ripping those scars open and pouring salt into them. Nolan refused to answer my calls, and I didn’t sleep a wink. His friend was the one who finally called me. “Paige, you’ve gone way too far this time.” “What man doesn’t make a mistake? Did you really have to leak their private photos online? How is Nolan supposed to show his face again?” Confused, I hung up and opened my browser. I quickly found a trending post featuring explicit photos of Nolan and Charlene. The title was vicious: A Trashy Whore and a Dog Belong Together. There were uncensored photos and videos of them in the office, the bedroom, the car, the park. Nolan was pouring his desire into her, his eyes, which had once belonged only to me, filled with lust for another woman. But I hadn’t posted any of that. I frantically dialed Nolan’s number. When he still didn’t pick up, I left a voice message: “Tonight at eight. The Ferris wheel where you proposed. I’ll be waiting.” After a long time, he sent a short reply: “Fine. Eight o’clock.” Those few words calmed my racing heart. I even put on lipstick, something I hadn’t touched during my entire pregnancy. I arrived two hours early, sitting beneath the Ferris wheel. Watching the couples walking past, a deep, hollow ache settled in my chest. Many years ago, we had been one of them. When the Ferris wheel was first built, Nolan had dragged me there. “Paige, legend says that if a couple kisses at the very top of the Ferris wheel, they’ll stay together forever.” Blushing, he had gotten down on one knee in the high-altitude cabin, pulling out a diamond ring. “Will you marry me? I swear I’ll cherish you for the rest of my life!” The memory was so warm that by the time I snapped out of it, Nolan was already sitting silently beside me. “Nolan…” “Let’s go.” His voice was dead flat. I followed him, trying to reach for his hand, but he pointedly evaded my touch. We stepped into the cabin, and even then, he refused to look at me. After a long, agonizing silence, I finally spoke. “About the photos, I swear I didn’t do it…” “You didn’t?” He let out a sharp, mocking laugh, finally turning to glare at me. “Paige, stop acting.” “You wanted to ruin my life, didn’t you?” “Well, congratulations! You got exactly what you wanted!” “But let me tell you something. You ruined her reputation, so now I have to take responsibility for her!” His voice escalated, screaming in the very place where he had once promised to love me forever, telling me he had to take responsibility for another woman. It felt like a bucket of ice water poured over my head. I shook my head frantically. “It wasn’t me! I swear it wasn’t me!” “You said you only loved me, Nolan!” His face was contorted with anger as he violently shoved my hand away. “I absolutely despise you right now.” “Paige, you disgust me.” His words froze the blood in my veins. As the Ferris wheel cabin touched the ground, he quickly leaped out, slammed the door shut, and locked it from the outside. My phone buzzed. It was a text from Charlene. “Don’t you love the Ferris wheel?” “Then stay up there and enjoy it!” I looked toward the control booth; it was completely empty. Through the glass, I watched Nolan wrap his arm around Charlene’s waist as they walked away. Suddenly, a warm gush of fluid pooled between my thighs. I pounded frantically on the glass, screaming in sheer terror. “Help!” “Stop the wheel! I’m in labor!” By the time the ambulance arrived, I had already given birth to my daughter inside the cabin. With severe tearing and blood staining the floor, I used the last ounce of my strength to hand the baby to the paramedics. “Where is the father? What is his number?!” I weakly signaled that I would sign the forms myself, offering a faint, weary smile. “I don’t have any family. They’re all dead.”

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1 After two months of complete silence, Rain on a Sunny Day suddenly claimed the number one trending spot online. It began when a close friend of the author posted a brief statement on social media. “This book is a young woman’s private diary. Before she passed, she asked me to publish it, leaving me with only one request.” “She said, ‘I hope if he ever reads this, he’ll finally stop hating me.’” Will sat at the dining table, casually scrolling past the trending post. He didn’t even tap it, setting his phone aside face down. Across from him, Renee was meticulously studying the menu, her brow slightly furrowed as if she were solving a complex equation. “Is the wild mushroom soup good here?” “It is.” Renee nodded, satisfied, and looked up to smile at him. He closed the menu for her and smoothly reached out to slide her chair an inch closer to the table. Renee had her head down, arranging her napkin, so she didn’t notice. But I did. He used to do that exact same thing for me. Except back then, I was still alive. My name is Mamie. I have been dead for eight years. Before I died, I spent two years in prison. Not long after I was released, I slipped away. Leukemia, a damp, drafty cell, a scratchy wool blanket: a fever burned for three months before it finally consumed me. I have been tethered to Will’s side, a silent ghost, for eight long years. Will and I met in high school. That winter, the city was hit by the heaviest blizzard of the year. The school’s heating broke, and we could see our own breath inside the classroom. He sat directly behind me. During a break, he swiped the small metal hand warmer from my desk. When I turned around to demand it back, he said with utter seriousness, “Your hands aren’t cold. Mine are.” “How do you know my hands aren’t cold?” I asked. He reached out, squeezed my hand briefly, and let go. “See? Warmer than mine.” He handed the hand warmer back to me, but then rested his own hands on top of it to steal some heat. “You don’t mind, do you?” By the time he asked, he was already soaking up the warmth. “What’s the point of asking now?” I grumbled. He smiled, a quiet, boyish grin. “No point. Just polite.” Later, I realized he was just that kind of person. He would do things first and only ask if you minded afterward. He would barge into your life and then ask if he was welcome. Eventually, he left a folded slip of paper on my desk. It had only six words: I like you. Do you? I took my pen and wrote beneath it: I do too. He folded the paper carefully, slipping it into his chest pocket. For the rest of the afternoon, he sat incredibly straight, as if he were trying desperately to keep a burst of joy from bubbling out of him. Sitting in front of him, I couldn’t stop smiling. He had this habit: he always drank his soup incredibly slowly. Whenever I tried to rush him, he would say there was no hurry, and that burning your tongue was no fun. “It tastes terrible once it’s cold,” I would argue. And he would reply, “If it’s cold, I’ll drink it. If it’s hot, you drink it. It’s a perfect match.” He had an old injury on his left shoulder. Every time the weather turned damp and rainy, it would ache, though he never complained. I only found out one rainy day when I caught him secretly massaging his shoulder. I went to the pharmacy and bought medicated heat patches, but he refused to use them, calling it dramatic. “Are you going to put it on, or do I have to force you?” I demanded. He looked at me, then quietly submitted. “Put it on.” From that day on, whenever rain was in the forecast, I made sure to buy the patches in advance. One day, he asked, “How do you always remember?” “Because you never do,” I answered. He finished applying the patch, and after a quiet moment, he murmured, “Mamie.” “Yeah?” “Always remember.” I thought he was talking about the patches. It was only after I ended up in prison that I realized he wasn’t talking about the patches at all. He meant he wanted me to always be there. But I couldn’t stay. All I could do, as I lay burning with fever in that damp, dark cell, was hold onto every memory of him, keeping them safe before I had to leave this world ahead of him. The waiter served the mushroom soup. Renee leaned in to inhale the aroma, her eyes crinkling. “It smells absolutely amazing.” Will ladled a bowl for her, sliding it gently across the table. “Careful. It’s hot.” I stood by the table, watching them, and felt a dull, familiar ache swell in my chest. The restaurant was quiet. Outside, the streetlights stretched their shadows long across the floor. Renee suddenly spoke up. “Will, I’ve been reading this book lately called Rain on a Sunny Day. It’s a young woman’s diary, and it’s beautifully written. Would you like to read it too?” Will placed some food onto her plate, his voice completely flat. “You’re pregnant, sweetie. You shouldn’t read things like that. Emotional rollercoasters aren’t good for the baby.” Renee nodded and dropped the subject. I stared at his lowered eyelashes for a long time. He hadn’t even grasped the significance of the title. As their dinner neared its end, the voices of two women at the neighboring table drifted over. “Did you read Rain on a Sunny Day? That poor girl’s story is heartbreaking.” “I know, I cried so much. She was locked up for two years, and after she got out, she passed away before she could even see him one last time.” Will picked up his water glass and took a slow sip. I saw his knuckles whiten slightly against the glass. It was there for only a split second, then gone. After dinner, Will went to settle the bill, leaving Renee waiting alone at the table. She looked down at her phone, the trending post still open on her screen. In the photo, the girl’s smile was soft and faint. Renee stared at the picture, her brow furrowing slightly. She felt as if she had seen this girl somewhere before. Was it an illustration from the book, or was it something else? “All set. Let’s go.” Will returned from the register, snapping Renee out of her thoughts. She stood up, took his arm, and walked out. As she passed the spot where I stood, she suddenly turned her head, casting one final, lingering glance toward the photo on her screen. Then she pulled her gaze away, stepping with him into the cool night air. I watched her retreating back, a heavy dread settling in my chest. She had recognized me. 2 The next morning, Will accompanied Renee to her prenatal checkup. He held her hand the entire time, listening intently as the doctor explained every detail of the ultrasound. When the checkup ended, Will went to the front desk to handle the paperwork, leaving Renee to wait in the lounge area. The television in the waiting room was playing a morning show about literature. “The book we’re discussing today, Rain on a Sunny Day, is a diary written in prison by a young woman who served two years for someone else before passing away shortly after her release.” “The most heartbreaking part is that the person she saved still has no idea she went to prison in his place.” “She wrote in her diary that on the day she was released, she stood at the gates for a long time, debating whether to find him. Ultimately, she chose not to.” “She said: ‘He doesn’t know what happened. Telling him would only bring him pain, so it’s better to just leave it like this.’” I stood in the corner of the waiting room, not looking at Renee. Instead, my mind drifted back to the days before those two years. It happened eleven days after my leukemia diagnosis. Will’s company ran into severe legal trouble. It wasn’t his fault; his business partner had fled, leaving Will’s signature on a fraudulent document. He called me that night, his voice dangerously calm. “Mamie, I might have to go away for a while. The lawyer says it could be two years.” I sat in the hospital corridor for hours. The diagnosis was still tucked in my bag: Leukemia. Confirmed. Prognosis highly uncertain. I sat there thinking until the sun went down. Two years. If he went to prison for two years, his career and his company would be ruined, and he would come out only to face a girlfriend who was already dying. So I called his lawyer. “I have some information I want to discuss regarding the case.” I had a way to take the blame. The price was two years. The lawyer had asked me, “Does Will know about this?” “No,” I replied. “And he never will.” When Will called me later, saying there was a sudden turn of events and asking if I knew anything, I lied. “I don’t know. Maybe there was a problem with the evidence. Don’t worry about it, just wait for the outcome.” Hanging up, I stared at my medical report. In two years, I would likely be dead anyway. So he would never have to find out. I thought disappearing quietly was the kindest way to end it. I never realized that to him, my disappearance would be a wound that never healed. “I hope he knows she didn’t just run away,” the TV host said. I stood there, a heavy lump forming in my throat. Will. I didn’t run away. I just didn’t know how to tell you where I was going. Renee sat with her head lowered, her phone screen glowing, though she wasn’t looking at it. Will returned after finishing the paperwork, and they walked out together. As they passed the television, Will’s pace slowed. He turned his head, casting a brief glance at the screen. “I hope he knows she didn’t just run away.” He pulled his gaze back, pushing open the heavy glass doors of the clinic. His steps were steady. But I saw his hand linger on the door handle for a full second before he finally pushed it open. After lunch, Will drove Renee home, explaining that he had some urgent documents to handle at the office and would return by evening. Renee stood on her tiptoes to kiss him goodbye, then headed inside. He waited until the elevator doors closed before turning toward the parking garage. But halfway there, he stopped. He stood in the empty corridor for a very long time. Then he pulled out his phone, opening the search bar. I held my breath, watching his fingers hover over the keyboard. They stayed there, trembling slightly, for a long time. Ultimately, he slipped the phone back into his pocket and kept walking. That night, Will sat alone in the study. Renee was already asleep, and the house was dead silent. He reached into the very back of his desk drawer, pulling out a worn manila envelope. The edges were frayed, and the seal had a thin rip, as if it had been opened and then hastily pressed back down. He placed the envelope on the desk, staring at it. In the bottom right corner, my name was written in tiny, elegant script. It was my handwriting. Will reached out, his fingertips stopping just short of the envelope’s edge. Standing beside the desk, my heart hammered in my chest. Will, open it. It says I didn’t do those things. It says I didn’t run away. His hand hovered there for what felt like an eternity. Finally, he pulled his hand back. He placed the envelope back into the drawer, pushed it shut, and locked it. That letter was something I had written before going to prison, intending to mail it to him, but I never did. I didn’t know how he had gotten hold of it. I had written: Will, I didn’t do those things, but I can’t explain it. Don’t wait for me. I thought that by not sending it, he would never have to know. Yet he had kept that letter locked in his drawer for eight long years. He had never thrown it away. 3 Will had a close friend from high school named Jared. That afternoon, Jared came to visit, immediately sliding his phone across the desk the moment he sat down. “Have you seen this?” Will glanced down. It was the trending page for Rain on a Sunny Day. He pushed the phone back. “Not interested.” Jared frowned. “Will, don’t you want to know what actually happened back then?” “We are not discussing this.” The room fell quiet. The television on the wall was playing the news, reporting the weekly bestseller list. “In first place, Rain on a Sunny Day, a poignant memoir about…” Will picked up the remote and shut the television off. They drank in silence for a while, but Jared ultimately couldn’t hold back. “She didn’t leave you the way you think she did, Will. It’s all written in the book. If you just read it, you’ll understand.” “Understand what?” Will’s voice was entirely flat. “I waited for her for three months, Jared. She didn’t leave me a single word.” “But the story you believe is a lie.” “That’s enough.” He stood up, grabbing his coat. “She left, and that’s all that matters to me.” With that, he walked out. The night wind was howling, and he walked quickly, as if trying to outrun the thoughts chasing him. Reaching the parking lot, he leaned against the car door, looking up at the dark sky. Back when he was waiting for me, I was burning with fever in that damp cell, constantly dreaming of him standing in the cold, waiting. In those dreams, I tried to run to him, but my legs wouldn’t move. Only later did I realize those weren’t just dreams. He pulled his car keys from his pocket, holding them tightly, but didn’t open the door. He just stood there under the dim parking lot light, staring blankly into the distance. Finally, he lowered his head, whispering a single sentence into the dark. “Mamie, where did you go?” It wasn’t an angry accusation. It was just a lonely man asking a question to a ghost who couldn’t answer. I stood right beside him, my throat tight. Will. I’m right here. I’ve always been here. He got into the car and drove out of the lot. Passing a bookstore, he saw a display of Rain on a Sunny Day in the illuminated window. The car slowed down for a brief second. Only a second, before he accelerated again. When he got home, Renee was waiting on the sofa. She hung up his coat and led him to the kitchen. “I warmed up some soup for you. Drink it before you go to sleep.” Will sat down, watching her busy profile. Renee turned around with the bowl, freezing when she caught his gaze. “What’s wrong?” “Nothing.” He lowered his head and took a sip. Renee sat across from him, hesitating. “Will, about that book…” “Let’s not talk about it,” he said softly. “Finish your soup and get some sleep.” Renee closed her mouth. Will walked into the bedroom. Renee remained at the table, motionless. Only after a long time did she pick up her phone, dialing a number and keeping her voice hushed. “Mom, he still doesn’t know about the book, but I’m afraid we can’t hide it much longer.” 4 The next day, Will went to his office to handle some paperwork. His assistant walked in to deliver coffee, placing a book on the corner of the desk. “Mr. Collins asked me to give this to you. He said it’s incredibly popular right now and highly recommended it.” It was Rain on a Sunny Day. He didn’t touch it. Throughout the entire morning, the book remained on the corner of the desk. He signed documents, held meetings, and made phone calls, never once letting his gaze drift toward it. As midday approached, he finally spoke. “Take this book away.” “But Mr. Collins said…” “Take it away.” After the afternoon meeting, two colleagues were chatting in the hallway. “The saddest part is when she wrote about standing outside the gates on her release day, wondering if she should find him, but ultimately deciding not to.” “Why didn’t she go?” “She said he had no idea what had happened to her. Telling him would only bring him pain, so she decided to let it go.” Will walked out of the conference room, passing right by them. His pace faltered for a fraction of a second. But he didn’t stop, continuing back to his office. Sitting in his chair, he didn’t immediately return to work. He just sat there, staring out the window. After a long time, he opened his drawer and pulled out the worn manila envelope. He placed it on the desk, staring at it. This time, his fingers touched the seal. He paused. I held my breath. Will, open it. His fingers slowly moved down, grasping the edge of the seal. Just then, his phone vibrated. It was a text from Renee. “Will, what do you want for dinner? I can come pick you up after work.” He stared at the screen for a long time. Finally, he placed the envelope back into the drawer and locked it. He picked up his phone to reply: “No need, I’ll drive home myself.” I watched the locked drawer, a heavy despair settling deep in my chest. So close. Every single time, it was so close. That evening, Will went to the grocery store alone. Renee had been craving strawberries, so he spent a long time carefully selecting two of the best cartons. While waiting in the checkout line, his eyes drifted to a display of bestsellers near the register. Rain on a Sunny Day was stacked in the most prominent spot, its cover facing out. Will reached over, picked up a copy, and flipped it open to the first page. “Today is my first day here. The cell is damp, and the blankets are stiff. I didn’t tell him where I am, and I don’t plan to. But I don’t know why, every time I close my eyes, I see him waiting for me.” Will’s finger trembled. The line moved forward. But he didn’t move. He kept reading. “Day 17. I heard it’s snowing outside. I wonder if anyone reminded him to use his heat patches. His old injury always flares up when it snows.” “Day 41. I have a fever. I was delirious and called his name out loud. My cellmates teased me for a long time.” His breathing slowed as he flipped the page. “Day 63. Someone visited me today and brought oranges. I ate one, but it wasn’t very sweet, which made me think of him. He hates oranges because they’re too sour, always lecturing me whenever I bought them. I wonder if anyone is eating dinner with him now.” The cashier called out, “Sir, you’re next.” Will didn’t hear. He kept flipping the pages. “Day 90. I’m out. The wind is freezing today. I stood at the gates for a long time, wondering if I should find him. Ultimately, I didn’t. He doesn’t know what happened these past two years, and I don’t plan on telling him. Let’s just leave it at this.” “Sir?” He ignored the cashier entirely, flipping to the final pages. The handwriting there was shaky and uneven, written with a trembling hand. “My health is failing; I don’t think I have much time left. I still don’t plan on telling him the truth. Not because I don’t want to, but because it’s pointless now. It would only make him miserable.” “Let it be.” “Will, I didn’t abandon you.” “I just couldn’t tell you where I was going.” Will stared at that final line. For a long time, he didn’t turn the page. Slowly, he flipped to the back cover. In the bottom left corner, the publisher had printed a tiny biography. “Author: Mamie Lin. Born… Died eight years ago in the spring, at the age of twenty-three.” The grocery store’s intercom continued to blare advertisements. Will stood there, completely frozen. I hovered beside him, watching him stare at those words for what felt like an eternity. Then, he raised his head. His gaze swept past the registers, past the bookshelves, locking directly onto the empty space where I was standing. I gasped. His eyes were entirely bloodshot. We were separated by eight years, by a truth he had never known, by all the words I had never gotten to say. Yet, he looked straight at me, his eyes locking with mine.

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The day Lexi left for college, she posted on Instagram: [Does it count as growing up if I finally stop relying on my big sister?] In the photo, she wore the Jordans I bought her, held the designer bag I paid for, and beamed at the campus gates. Half an hour earlier, she’d texted: “Hey, transfer another thousand.” “Mom and Dad said I need to treat my new roommates to dinner. You’re footing the bill.” I stared at the screen and let out a dry laugh. Growing up, when she broke something, I paid for it. When she cheated on a test, I went to the principal’s office to apologize. When she lost a classmate’s phone, my parents forced me to replace it with my scholarship money. Their excuse was always the same: “You’re the older sister. If you don’t look out for her, who will?” I had looked out for her for eighteen years. When I checked her post, my parents were already flooding the comments: [Our little girl is finally independent.] I closed the banking app, opened Instagram, and replied: [Since you’re all grown up now, starting today, you can pay your own tuition, earn your own spending money, and clean up your own messes.] A minute later, Lexi called. “Sloane, what the hell is your problem?” “It means your big sister is finally growing up, too,” I said calmly. 1 “Seriously, what is your problem?” Lexi’s voice hissed through the speaker, competing with a chaotic background noise. I could hear the clinking of expensive glassware, the hushed giggles of her roommates, and a waiter politely reminding them about the bill. I glanced at the automated text message that had just popped up on my screen. “Your supplementary credit card ending in 0716 has been frozen.” I swiped the notification away. “The first step to me growing up is securing my own financial independence.” A few seconds of dead silence passed before Lexi let out a forced, venomous laugh. “Are you mentally ill?” “I am sitting at The Grand Regent. My three roommates are staring right at me. Are you seriously going to humiliate me right now?” I raised an eyebrow even though she could not see me. “Didn’t you just announce to the world that you were done relying on me?” Lexi lowered her voice, completely dripping with disgust. “That was just for social media clout, you idiot. Did you actually take it seriously?” “I am your flesh and blood. What is the big deal if I spend a little of your money?” “You don’t even have a boyfriend. Who else are you hoarding all that cash for?” My grip on the phone tightened until my knuckles turned white. It wasn’t that I never wanted to date. I just couldn’t afford a decent dress, and I could never justify spending twenty bucks on a movie ticket. Every single time my paycheck hit my account, it immediately went toward Lexi’s tuition, her new iPhones, and filling the endless financial sinkholes she created. My entire existence had been reduced to discount ramen, dollar menus, and clipping digital coupons. Meanwhile, her social media feed looked like a luxury influencer’s mood board. “Figure out how to pay for your own dinner,” I said softly. I heard the harsh scrape of a chair pushing back against a marble floor on her end. “Sloane, don’t you dare!” I didn’t stick around to hear the rest of her tantrum. I just hung up. Less than thirty seconds later, my mother called. Since the day she was born, Lexi never had to solve a single problem on her own. All she had to do was shed a single tear, and my parents would violently bulldoze anyone in her path. Especially me. “You ungrateful brat! Are you bullying your sister again?!” my mother shrieked. “It is her first day of college. What is wrong with her treating her roommates to a nice meal?” “Transfer the money right now. Actually, send her an extra two thousand so she can take them out to a club afterward.” I looked down at the soggy, overcooked instant noodles in my cheap plastic bowl. “My entire paycheck this month went to her tuition. I am broke.” “If you don’t have cash, put it on credit!” my mother snapped without skipping a beat. “Max out your cards! Take out a cash advance! Just do it!” I let out a bitter, exhausted laugh. “Her social status is priceless, but my actual survival means nothing to you?” I heard my father’s heavy, aggressive breathing take over the receiver. “If we hadn’t given you life and fed you, you would have starved in the gutter years ago.” I had heard that exact phrase my entire life. They gave birth to me, which meant I owed them a blood debt until the day I died. Whatever Lexi wanted, I had to provide. And the justification was always the same. You are the older sister. But there was exactly one person in this world who never saw me that way. My Grams. Before she passed away, she transferred the deed of her house entirely into my name. “Sloane, this is the only safe harbor I can leave you,” she had told me, holding my hands in her frail ones. “From now on, if anyone tries to force your hand, if anyone tries to bully you, you come back here and lock the door.” That same afternoon, she looked me dead in the eye and said the words that saved my sanity. “You are a person, Sloane. Not a walking ATM.” Because of her, this small house was the only real home I had. I hung up on my parents and permanently blocked both of their numbers. A warm, furry head nudged against my knee. Biscuit, my golden retriever, looked up at me with huge, soulful eyes. I knelt down and buried my face in his soft fur. “It’s just going to be the two of us from now on, buddy.” Half an hour later, a violent pounding shook my front door. My father was outside, roaring at the top of his lungs. “Sloane! You worthless animal, get your ass out here right now!” 2 Biscuit crawled out from behind the sofa, planted himself in front of my legs, and started barking aggressively at the door. I gently pushed him behind me. “Whatever you want to say, say it tomorrow.” “Tomorrow?!” my father bellowed through the heavy wood. “Your sister is being held by hotel security because she can’t pay the bill, and you are hiding in there playing dead?!” I looked through the peephole. His face was twisted into a vicious, ugly snarl. My mother was standing right behind him. “Fine, you don’t have to open the door today,” her voice cut through the wood, entirely devoid of warmth. “But that house your grandmother left behind was never supposed to go to you in the first place.” My fingertips slowly slid off the deadbolt. “What are you talking about?” My mother completely dropped the act. “That old woman was always horribly biased toward you.” “Lexi is the one who needs to finish college, establish her career, and marry into a good family. You are a washed-up spinster who is never getting married. What right do you have to hoard a whole house to yourself?” I didn’t answer. A split second later, I heard the metallic click of a key turning in the lock. I stumbled back. The door swung open. My mother was holding a shiny spare key, a cold, triumphant smirk plastered across her face. It hit me like a physical blow. Last month, she had visited, claiming she just wanted to see if I was living comfortably. She had wandered into my bedroom alone. That was when she stole my emergency spare key. My father stormed into the living room and immediately backhanded me across the face. The slap echoed like a gunshot. A high-pitched ringing pierced my eardrums. The left side of my face instantly ignited in blistering heat, and the sharp, metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth. He pointed a thick finger at my face. “You think you have the right to lock me out?!” Biscuit lunged forward, baring his teeth and barking fiercely to protect me. My father spun around, grabbing a heavy glass ashtray off the coffee table. “Shut up, you useless mutt!” I lunged to stop him, but I was a second too late. The solid glass smashed directly into Biscuit’s hind leg. The dog let out an agonizing, piercing yelp. His claws frantically scraped against the hardwood floor, but his back leg completely gave out. He couldn’t stand up. “Biscuit!” I dropped to my knees, wrapping my arms around his trembling body. My father just marched over to my work desk and swept his arm across the surface. My company laptop crashed onto the floor. The screen shattered into a spiderweb of dead pixels. It held the final, unsaved draft of a massive project I had spent the last three months agonizing over. I reached out to salvage the pieces, but my fingertip grazed the broken glass, slicing open a deep, bleeding gash. My mother just stood in the doorway, watching me bleed with absolute indifference. “Don’t blame us for this, Sloane.” “If you had just listened and behaved, Lexi wouldn’t have been humiliated at that hotel tonight.” I looked up at her, my vision blurry with tears of pure rage. “So you smash up my home, break my dog’s leg, and then demand I behave?” “Your home?” My father stomped his heavy boot directly onto the shattered laptop screen. The plastic casing let out a sickening crunch. “You have my blood in your veins. Everything you own belongs to me.” “Bring your ID and the deed to the county clerk’s office tomorrow at ten in the morning. We are transferring the title to Lexi.” My mother had already walked into my bedroom. I heard drawers being yanked open and the annoyed clicking of her tongue as she rummaged through my things. A few minutes later, she walked out holding my old iPad. She shoved it roughly into her designer tote bag. “You care so much about your pride, right?” she sneered. “Let’s see what your coworkers think of you tomorrow when I show them what kind of monster you really are.” Before stepping out into the hallway, my father slipped the stolen house key into his jacket pocket. “Ten o’clock tomorrow. If you don’t show up, I am going to your office building with a megaphone and a protest banner.” The front door slammed shut. The only sound left in the ruined apartment was Biscuit’s suppressed, agonizing whimpers. I gently scooped him into my arms and walked out the door. Grams had told me to lock the door when people tried to bully me. But this time, closing the door wasn’t going to be enough. I was going to throw them out of my life entirely. 3 I sat in the sterile waiting room of the emergency veterinary clinic until three in the morning. “He has a severe fracture in his hind leg, along with deep soft tissue contusions.” Biscuit was lying flat on the stainless steel examination table. The anesthesia hadn’t fully worn off, and his eyes were only half-open. When he saw me, his tail gave a weak, pathetic thump against the metal table. I stroked his golden head, my tears dropping silently onto his fur. After bringing a heavily medicated Biscuit back to the apartment, I walked into my office building the next morning with the left side of my face still visibly swollen. The second I stepped into the bullpen, every single pair of eyes locked onto me. I walked to my cubicle. Sarah, the senior analyst sitting across from me, quietly slid her phone across the desk. “Sloane, your mother is dragging your name through the mud in the company Slack channel.” I tapped the screen. The messages were coming from my own account. Technically, it was my mother typing on my stolen iPad. [To all management and colleagues. I am Sloane’s mother.] [I am reaching out here because I am completely out of options and desperate for help.] [Sloane refuses to support her elderly parents, financially abuses her little sister by cutting off her food money, and is trying to illegally embezzle a house left behind by her grandmother.] [Her personal life is completely degenerate, and as her parents, we simply cannot control her anymore.] She attached several photos to the diatribe. The first photo was my completely trashed living room. Caption: [Sloane threw a violent tantrum and destroyed our home.] The second was a photo of Lexi crying outside The Grand Regent hotel. Caption: [My youngest daughter’s first day of college, humiliated because her cruel sister refused to pay for a simple meal.] The third was a cropped snapshot of the official property deed. Caption: [An inheritance meant for the whole family, hoarded entirely by her.] I stared at that third photo for a very long time. Before Grams died, she was absolutely terrified that I wouldn’t be able to protect the house from my parents. Even though she could barely walk, she forced herself to go down to the notary office. The clerk had asked her, “Ma’am, are you absolutely certain this property is to be transferred solely to your granddaughter, Sloane?” Grams was sitting in a wheelchair. Her voice was incredibly slow, but every single syllable was forged in steel. “I am certain.” “This child has never known a day of real love in that house. This property is her armor. No one is allowed to take it from her.” That was the last time she ever left the house. On the cab ride home, she leaned against the window, looked at me with a soft smile, and asked, “Sloane, are you happy you finally have a home of your own?” I had cried so hard I could only nod. Now, my mother had taken that sacred gift and publicly labeled it as ’embezzlement.’ The HR assistant walked up to my desk, looking incredibly uncomfortable. “Sloane, Greg wants to see you in his office.” Inside the glass-walled office, an official suspension notice was already sitting on Greg’s desk. “Your personal drama has severely impacted the company’s professional image,” my manager said coldly. “We are reassigning your current project to Justin.” I stared at the piece of paper. That project was the result of three months of agonizing overtime. I had rewritten the core proposal seventeen times. Now, he was just handing it over to a junior employee. “Greg, this is a coordinated smear campaign,” I kept my voice steady. “I can provide full documentation to prove it.” He clicked his expensive pen and tossed it onto the desk. “I have zero interest in playing referee for your toxic family disputes. Please leave my office.” I grabbed the suspension notice and walked out of the building. Standing right outside the lobby’s revolving doors was Lexi. She was wearing a pristine white sundress, expensive strappy heels, and carrying the newest season Chanel bag I had paid for. The second she saw me, she jogged over, her eyes perfectly rimmed with red like she had been weeping. “Sloane, please don’t be mad at Mom and Dad anymore.” A few of my coworkers purposely slowed their pace as they walked past us, eavesdropping. Lexi grabbed my sleeve, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “If you just go to the clerk’s office and transfer the deed to my name today, I will make Mom go into your company chat and clear everything up.” “She’ll just say it was all a big misunderstanding.” I looked down at her completely flawless makeup. “That is Grams’ house. She left it to me.” Lexi furrowed her brow, looking genuinely annoyed. “You live alone. Keeping a house that big is a complete waste of space.” “Mom and Dad said that house is much better suited for me.” I calmly pulled my phone out of my pocket and hit record on the voice memo app. “So, what you just said is… as long as I sign my house over to you, you will clear my name at work. Is that correct?” Lexi’s eye twitched. She lunged forward, trying to snatch the phone out of my hand. “You’re recording me?! Sloane, you are literally psychotic!” I sidestepped her easily. “Go back and tell Mom and Dad.” “I am not giving up a single square inch of that property.” “And none of you will ever see another dime of my money as long as you live.” Lexi stood frozen in front of the glass lobby doors, her voice rising to a hysterical screech. “You are going to regret this! Mom and Dad are going to ruin you!” I didn’t even look back. But when I finally got back to my apartment complex that evening and slid my key into the deadbolt, it wouldn’t turn. I looked closer. The entire lock cylinder was brand new. I could hear the television blaring inside my living room, mixed with the loud, abrasive laughter of my parents. I pounded my fists against the door. The apartment went dead silent for two seconds. Then, my father’s smug voice drifted through the heavy wood. “Ready to go sign the transfer papers?” 4 I stood in the cold hallway, my fingers gripping the original key Grams had given me until the metal teeth dug into my palm. “This is my property,” I yelled through the door. “What right do you have to change the locks?!” My father just laughed from the other side. “You have my blood in your veins. Everything you own is mine by right.” My mother chimed in immediately. “Sloane, stop being so incredibly stubborn.” “Just give the house to Lexi, and we’ll let you move back into the guest room. You are the older sister. Fighting your baby sister over real estate is absolutely humiliating for everyone.” I closed my eyes, forcing down the panic rising in my chest. “Where is Biscuit?” No one answered. I kicked the door as hard as I could. “Where is my dog?!” My mother let out an annoyed sigh. “That useless mutt? Your father threw him downstairs hours ago.” I spun around and sprinted down the stairwell. I checked the landscaping bushes by the lobby. I ran down the ramp into the underground parking garage. I screamed Biscuit’s name until my throat was raw. Nothing. Finally, I ran to the far edge of the complex, where the massive industrial dumpsters were kept. I found him. He had been violently stuffed into a soggy cardboard box next to a pile of rotting garbage. His beautiful golden fur was matted into dark, filthy clumps. Fresh blood was caked around his muzzle. His broken hind leg was twisted at a grotesque, unnatural angle. The only sign he was even alive was the incredibly shallow rise and fall of his chest. I dropped to my knees in the puddles of filthy rainwater. When I reached out to touch him, my hands were shaking so violently I was terrified of hurting him worse. “Biscuit…” He didn’t open his eyes. Only the very tip of his black nose twitched faintly. I scooped him into my arms, ignoring the blood and garbage water soaking through my clothes, and sprinted for the street. “Don’t go to sleep. Biscuit, please, stay awake.” When I finally reached the emergency vet, the technicians took one look and rushed him straight into the trauma bay. When those double doors swung shut, my legs completely gave out. I slid down the waiting room wall and buried my face in my hands. My phone started vibrating endlessly in my pocket. I pulled it out. Lexi had just posted a new viral video on social media. [My older sister cut off my food money, stole my house, and kicked our elderly parents out onto the street—all because I wanted to be independent. I guess growing up really does come with a price.] She uploaded a carousel of photos with the video. A selfie showing her violently sobbing with red eyes outside the hotel. Screenshots of my mother’s smear campaign in my company’s Slack channel. And a photo of my trashed living room, entirely devoid of context. The comment section was an absolute bloodbath. [What a psychotic control freak. The second her sister stops obeying her, she cuts off her money.] [Kicking her own parents out onto the street? What a total sociopath.] Even people from my graduating class were blowing up my direct messages. [Sloane, is that video real?] [Your sister is a freshman. You don’t need to be so aggressive with her.] Even an old college roommate, someone I used to consider a close friend, sent a single text: [Whatever happened, she is still your flesh and blood, Sloane.] I stared at the flashing cursor in the text box. I typed out half a sentence explaining the truth, then slowly deleted it, letter by letter. I closed the app and didn’t reply to a single person. The doors to the trauma bay finally opened. The vet pulled down his surgical mask, his expression incredibly grim. “It doesn’t look good. We’re going to have to monitor him through the night.” When I signed the authorization forms, my hands were trembling so badly my signature was completely illegible. The receptionist handed me the invoice. Four thousand, eight hundred dollars. My debit account had exactly two hundred bucks in it, because I had drained it paying for Lexi’s tuition a week ago. I stood in front of the billing counter, pulled out my last remaining credit card, and handed it over. When the transaction approved, a dark, hollow laugh escaped my chest. I left the clinic and walked straight to my apartment complex’s property management office. The young girl working the front desk took one look at me and her entire demeanor shifted. She quickly placed her phone face down on the desk. The screen had been paused on Lexi’s crying video. “I need you to pull the security footage for my floor,” I demanded. Her voice was instantly dripping with icy judgment. “We do not release security footage to anyone who isn’t a verified property owner.” I pulled up a high-res photo of the deed on my phone and shoved it in her face. “I am the owner.” She barely glanced at it before pushing my phone away. “You still have to file a formal request through the proper channels.” The security guard lingering by the water cooler decided to chime in. “Look, lady, just drop it. Your parents raised you. So what if they crash at your place for a few days?” “Calling the cops and demanding security tapes? Do you know how psychotic that makes you look?” I stared at the two of them. The sheer ignorance was suffocating. I couldn’t even force words past my teeth. I left the office and drove straight to the county clerk’s public records division. The clerk handed me a freshly stamped, certified copy of the deed and the notarized will. Grams’ signature was a little shaky, but it was the ultimate shield she had forged just for me. I sat on a bench in the government building lobby for a very long time, clutching the paperwork to my chest. My phone buzzed. A new friend request from Lexi. [Transfer the house, and I’ll delete the videos.] I tucked the certified documents into my bag and drove back to my complex. Looking up from the street, I could see the lights blazing in my living room windows. My parents were probably sitting on my couch, watching my television, completely unbothered. I stood in the freezing wind, pulled out my phone, and dialed 911. “Hello? I need to report a home invasion.”

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