Category: English

On the eve of our wedding, news broke out that my fiancé’s mistress had given birth to his child, causing quite a stir. Before I could even confront Julian Sterling, he brushed it off with an incredibly casual shrug. “It was just an accident, Chloe. Just focus on getting the rehearsal dinner ready.” “Besides, your dad has late-stage stomach cancer. Calling off this alliance right now won’t do either of our families any good.” That night, he skipped our rehearsal dinner. Instead, he posted a photo of a newborn wrapped in a swaddle on his Snapchat story. When I FaceTimed him, he was literally bottle-feeding the baby. “I’ve been busy taking care of the baby lately, so I don’t have time to hang out with you. You know the Sterling family has always struggled with heirs. This baby is a big deal.” He wiped a smear of formula from the baby’s mouth. “But don’t worry. Once he’s a month old, I’ll send him to our private estate in Switzerland.” “You just need to show up as his mother for important public events. The title of Mrs. Sterling will always be yours.” I stared at the matching diamond ring on his ring finger and laughed out loud. “Julian, the wedding is off.” He sneered, “You’re throwing a tantrum over this? Don’t be so spoiled, Chloe.” I hung up the FaceTime immediately and dialed Charles Sterling’s private number. “I heard you’ve been looking for a new wife lately? Why not consider me?” I rubbed my stomach and let out a soft laugh. “After all, Vance women are famous for our fertility gene. I can give you as many heirs as you want.” Being the sole heir must be so lonely for Julian. I’ll make sure he gets a few new uncles to keep him company.

On the other end of the line, Charles’s slightly raspy voice came through: “Chloe, what kind of nonsense are you talking about?” I chuckled, my voice dripping with mockery. “You saw the news. Your precious adopted son is dirty, and he disgusts me. I’m serious. I want a replacement.” Silence stretched over the line for a few seconds before his voice trembled slightly. “We can’t talk about this over the phone. I’m coming to see you right now.” “Sure. I’ll be waiting at my place.” My lips curved up, a look of absolute determination in my eyes. Charles was only in his early thirties, but due to a genetic fertility issue in the Sterling family, all his IVF attempts had failed. That was why he had no choice but to adopt Julian from a branch of the family to groom him as his successor. And the only reason my family, the Vances, could secure an alliance with the Sterlings was because of our women’s legendary “fertility gene.” It was said that Vance women conceive almost instantly, often with twins or triplets. Regardless of whether my father was sick or not. This marriage was a tacit necessity for both the Sterlings and the Vances. I just didn’t expect Julian, whom I had dated for five years, to be stupid enough to knock up some girl right before the wedding and expect me to just swallow my pride. But I, Chloe Vance, have never been the type to suffer in silence. Shortly after I hung up, my doorbell rang urgently. Charles stood at my door, a complex storm of emotions in his dark eyes. Before he could even speak, I grabbed him by his tie and dragged him into my apartment. “Chloe, you…” Before Charles could finish his sentence, I sealed his lips with a kiss. My fingers traced the collar of his shirt, slowly sliding inside. My actions spoke louder than any words. No hesitation. No holding back. I was showing him in the most direct way that I meant business. I could feel his internal struggle, but in the end, he surrendered to his desires. A night of wild passion. Afterward, he held me close, his voice husky. “I have some urgent business to handle overseas. I have to leave tomorrow and might be gone for a while. Wait for me to come back.” “Then… what about the wedding?” He looked down at me, his eyes dark. “It goes on as scheduled. I’ll make sure to be back. You’re the only daughter of the Vance family, and the most suitable bride for a Sterling.” After Charles left, I wanted to go back to sleep, but my phone on the nightstand started buzzing. Julian’s voice came through, sounding incredibly entitled. “Chloe, get over here right now. Melanie is exhausted. Come help her watch the baby. I’m taking her to an auction to cheer her up.” Taking care of the baby he had with another woman? Had he lost his absolute mind? “Julian, I’m not your maid or your nanny. You’ve got the wrong person.” He paused, then sighed. “Chloe, Melanie went through so much pain to give birth to this child for the Sterlings. She did it for you, too.” “This baby carries Sterling blood. As the future lady of the house, isn’t it your job to learn how to care for him?” His logic was so absurd it was laughable. I let out a mocking laugh. “Julian, your logic is truly breathtaking. It’s giving me goosebumps.” “We are over. Who you have babies with or who takes care of them has nothing to do with me.” “Do not call me again.” Before he could say another word, I hung up. I lay back down, but the anger was boiling inside me. I opened my phone to browse the news to distract myself, only for a notification to pop up on Instagram: [Sterling CEO Spends Millions to Spoil His True Love at Luxury Auction!] I clicked it. The photo showed Julian holding Melanie at the auction. The way he looked at her was so tender—a level of devotion and love I had never seen on his face during our five years of dating. My heart twinged slightly. Over the years, for my birthdays, he would just have his assistant buy some random bag or jewelry on Amazon. He never picked anything himself, let alone spent this much effort to make me happy. They say a man’s heart is where his money is. It seemed Julian had never loved me from the very beginning. To change my mood, I decided to go try on my wedding dress. But when I pushed open the boutique doors, I froze.

In front of the full-length mirror, Melanie was elegantly twirling in a wedding dress. She looked dissatisfied, pointing at the bust area and telling the stylist: “Tighten it a bit more here. And the train—I think it would look better if it were three inches longer.” That dress was custom-designed. I had spent six months collaborating with the designer to perfect it. It was fully hand-embroidered, incredibly expensive, and held all my dreams for my future marriage. Pure rage surged into my brain. I took a deep breath, forced down my anger, stepped forward, and said coldly: “Take it off. That’s my wedding dress.” Hearing my voice, Melanie flinched, shrinking back tearfully behind Julian, who was standing right next to her. “Can you not be so aggressive? You’re scaring Melanie.” His tone was accusatory, as if I were some hysterical psycho. I almost laughed in sheer disbelief. “Julian, that is my custom gown.” “It took six months of hand-stitching to make! What right does she have to wear it?!” Julian’s expression flickered with a hint of guilt. “Chloe, of course she has the right. She’s the bride, so of course she’s wearing the dress.” I didn’t understand what he was getting at. “I’ll still sign the marriage papers with you. The alliance between the Vance and Sterling families remains valid.” He paused, glancing back at Melanie. His eyes softened. “But Melanie went through hell to give me a child. I can’t let her feel cheapened.” “So, I figured she should be the one to walk down the aisle at the ceremony. It’ll give her some status.” “You… what did you just say?!” I was shaking with anger. If I went along with this, my family and I would become the laughingstock of the high society. Julian seemed to think his arrangement was completely logical, his tone growing more confident. “Chloe, I know this isn’t entirely fair to you, but Melanie really had a hard time. For the sake of the baby, just…” “Julian, you absolute bastard. You expect me to play along with this circus of a wedding?” “I sign the marriage certificate, Melanie gets the wedding night, and then I have to play mother to your bastard child?” “Do you think I’m some beggar on the street begging for your scraps, Julian?” My voice grew louder, drawing stares from other customers in the boutique. Melanie began to sob softly. “Please don’t be mad, Chloe… I know my place. I just wanted to be a bride once. I know I don’t deserve it…” Julian frowned, giving me a warning look. “Chloe, my mind is made up. You’ll agree to this whether you like it or not.” “If it weren’t for my father’s sake, do you think I’d even marry you?” I let out a cold laugh. It seemed Charles hadn’t told him about the groom swap yet. “Fine.” I looked him dead in the eye, my voice icy. We would see. At the wedding, it wouldn’t be him swapping brides. It would be me swapping grooms. Julian’s brows knit together. He clearly didn’t expect me to agree so easily, and his face filled with suspicion. Hiding behind him, Melanie’s eyes flashed with triumphant glee. Over the next few days, photos of Julian and Melanie’s pre-wedding shoot trended on Instagram for three days straight. The media still promoted it as the Vance-Sterling wedding, but the bride in the photos was Melanie. To the public, everyone assumed she was the real heiress of the Vance family. My close friends called me in a panic, asking what was going on. The elite circle mocked me, whispering that I was such a desperate simp that I let a mistress steal my entire identity. But I ignored them all, focusing solely on taking care of my father. The doctor said his condition was deteriorating rapidly and he needed to be hospitalized. I stayed by his side 24/7. I carefully filtered out all news about Julian and Melanie, terrified that the drama would stress him out. Yet, Melanie actually had the audacity to sneak into my dad’s hospital room with Julian while I was briefly away. The moment I walked back in, I saw Melanie holding a fashion magazine, pointing at the wedding photos, and speaking to my father in a sickeningly sweet voice: “Mr. Vance, look at how beautiful these photos are. Julian and I worked so hard on them.” “But to marry him in this dress, all the hard work was worth it.” “On the wedding day, I’ll make sure you get the seat of honor!” My father’s face was pale as ash. His chest heaved violently, his hand clutching the bedsheets, his lips trembling as he tried to speak but couldn’t. The heart monitor next to the bed suddenly began to beep frantically. “Dad!” I let out a bloodcurdling scream, rushing forward to slam the emergency call button. “Chloe, don’t get so excited…” Melanie purred, but I shoved her away with all my might. “Get out! Both of you, get the hell out of here!” I roared, my eyes instantly filling with tears. “Quick! The patient is in critical condition! Prep for emergency resuscitation!” the doctor shouted as they rushed in. The nurses pulled me back. I could only watch in horror as my father was wheeled into the ER. Julian tried to step forward to comfort me, but I slapped his hand away. “Don’t touch me! You monster!” I pointed right at his face, screaming. “You knew my dad was sick, yet you came here just to torment him! What is wrong with you?!” Frightened, Melanie hid behind Julian, peeking out to say innocently: “Chloe, we just wanted to visit Mr. Vance and invite him to the wedding.” “Bullshit!” Like a madwoman, I scrambled up from the floor to lunge at Melanie, but Julian grabbed me in a death grip. “Chloe! Calm down!” “Calm down?! How can I calm down?! That’s my father!” I thrashed in his arms, my nails scratching deep into his forearms.

“It was just an accident!” Julian’s voice was filled with irritation and anger he could barely hide. “Besides, Melanie was only trying to be nice. Who knew he’d react this dramatically?” He glanced at Melanie with an obvious protective instinct. “Right now, the public thinks Melanie is the Vance heiress. If no one from your family shows up at the wedding…” “People will start questioning her identity. It won’t look good for the Sterling reputation.” My lips curled into a deeply sarcastic smile. “Julian, are you blind or just incredibly stupid? You know exactly what Melanie is!” “She has nothing to do with the Vance family! She’s just a homewrecking gold-digger who slept her way to the top!” Julian’s face darkened completely. He raised his hand and slapped me hard across the face. My head whipped to the side, a sharp ringing echoing in my ears. “Even if you’re the one on the marriage license, Melanie is the only wife I will ever recognize!” “So keep your mouth shut.” Those words felt like a dull knife sawing back and forth across my already shattered heart. But louder than the pain was a volcanic wave of pure, unadulterated hatred. We had been together for five years, and yet he could be this cruel. “You don’t need to show up at the wedding in two days,” Julian said casually, though his voice carried a threat. “Just stay in the hospital and keep your dad company.” Without looking back, Julian waved at a few burly bodyguards standing at the end of the hallway. “Watch her. Do not let her take a single step out of this hospital.” The bodyguards immediately marched over, forming a human wall around me. I stared viciously at the direction where Julian had disappeared. He thought keeping me locked up in the hospital would let him marry Melanie in peace? In his dreams. I touched my stomach, pulled out my phone, and made a call… The day of the wedding. Melanie smiled triumphantly, stroking the luxurious silk of her gown. So what if Chloe was the high-born Vance heiress? In the end, she got absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, Julian stood in the grand reception hall, looking highly uneasy. He had sent out hundreds of VIP invitations. Given the Sterling name, the venue should have been packed to the brim. Yet, with the ceremony minutes away, only a handful of guests had shown up. The massive hall looked embarrassingly empty. Melanie noticed it too when she walked out. Frowning, she tugged at Julian’s arm, her voice trembling with anxiety. “Julian, where is everyone? Why is it so empty?” Julian’s anxiety spiked. He signaled a waiter to call the family butler over. But instead of the head butler, a low-level maid appeared. Julian’s temper flared instantly. “Where is the butler? Why isn’t he here?” The maid trembled slightly, keeping her head low. “The butler is busy managing the Chairman’s wedding. He can’t get away. He said if you need anything, I can handle it.” “My father’s wedding? Since when is my father getting married? To whom?” Julian’s voice faltered, his face turning pale. “To the Vance heiress, Miss Chloe Vance.” Julian’s face froze in absolute disbelief. He mumbled, “What? Say that again.” Terrified by his expression, the maid stammered out: “Right upstairs. The Chairman is currently holding his wedding ceremony with Miss Chloe Vance.”

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My husband is a world-class actuary. His time is valued at five thousand dollars an hour. Every single thing I ever asked of him had to be paid for in “equal labor exchange.” Even when we were intimate, the second the timer went off, he would pull away without a shred of hesitation. Our social circle used to joke about it. They said a million dollars couldn’t buy you time, but it could buy my marriage to Declan. Until this morning. I was trapped in another state by a sudden, violent storm. My mother suffered a massive heart attack, and I called him, sobbing, begging him to go to the hospital and sign the emergency consent form. Declan’s voice was as cold and methodical as a recorded line. “You didn’t submit the financial reports you promised. The labor exchange failed. Actuary Household Rule Number Two: We do not accept post-payment under any circumstances.” Then he hung up. I nearly lost my mind. I drove through the blinding rain, risking my life to get back to the hospital, only to run into him in the emergency room. Declan—a man who treated minutes like diamonds—was sitting beside his young assistant’s bed. He was holding a pair of tiny tweezers, patiently helping her assemble a Hello Kitty perler-bead craft. The freezing rain on my clothes mixed with the tears on my face. My voice shook as I looked at him. “You told me your time was never free.” Declan frowned slightly, letting out a soft, exasperated sigh. “Daisy was just bored during her IV drip. Do you really have to be this petty right now, Giselle?” I stood there, clutching my mother’s critical condition notice in my hand, a bitter ache spreading through my entire chest. I realized then: when there is no love left, even a human life has to step aside for his favoritism. This meticulously calculated relationship? I suddenly didn’t want it anymore. … Daisy huddled under the hospital blankets, timidly tugging at the edge of his sleeve. “Giselle, please don’t blame Mr. Ward. I was just so scared being sick all by myself in the city.” She looked up with wide, watery eyes. “He only sees me as a promising junior he’s investing in. Please don’t be mad at him.” I stared at the delicate tweezers in his hand. A self-deprecating laugh escaped my throat. At home, Declan used a stopwatch to calculate the exact extraction time for his morning espresso. Yet here he was, happily wasting his afternoon sitting by her side, putting together a childish plastic toy. I used to think he was just naturally detached, purely rational, and genuinely too busy. Now I knew better. It wasn’t that he lacked time. He just didn’t want to spend it on me. Seeing how pale I was, Declan stood up and walked over, pulling my rain-drenched coat tighter around my shoulders. “Giselle, you’re thirty years old. Why do you still let your emotions run wild like a little girl?” My eyes burned. I tried to reach for his wrist, my hand trembling as cold water dripped from my hair onto my skin. “Declan, please. I am begging you. My mom doesn’t have time.” My voice cracked. “I need the money from your account for the surgery, and I need you to sign the consent form.” But Declan turned his head away, his expression neutral. “I ran the numbers on your mother’s health data and cardiac metrics over the last two years,” he said, his tone flat. “I built a survival probability model. This is just a standard acute ischemic episode. According to my projections, she is at least seventy-two hours and forty-eight minutes away from entering any true danger zone.” Looking into his calm, unbothered eyes, the blood in my veins turned to ice. “Besides, I moved that capital into a high-yield short-term account yesterday. It won’t reach its peak interest yield for another two days.” He reached out, gently tucking a wet strand of hair behind my ear. His breath was warm against my face, but I shivered. “Giselle, you breached our agreement first. Refusing to sign the form is simply a small consequence for your failure to follow the rules. Once the interest posts in two days, I will personally arrange for the best cardiologists in the city.” I took a step back, flinching away from his warm touch. “What if your model is wrong?” I whispered, my throat raw. Declan let out a soft, confident chuckle. “Giselle, in this field, I don’t make mistakes. Go home and get some rest.” I didn’t argue. I didn’t scream. I just started making calls, desperately trying to borrow money from anyone I knew, stumbling blindly toward the ICU. But by the time I reached the doors, the bright red light above them had already flickered off. The lead surgeon walked out, pulling off his mask, and gave me a tired, sorrowful shake of his head. “The family arrived too late. It was a massive myocardial infarction. She missed the golden window for resuscitation.” “We’ve officially lost her vital signs. I’m so sorry. You should begin preparing for the funeral.” In an instant, the world went silent, save for the dull hum of the hospital’s ventilation system. The doctor handed me the death certificate. With a shaking hand, I wrote my name. Four years ago, when Declan’s first startup collapsed, he was buried under a mountain of debt. He was so depressed he could barely get out of bed. It was my mother who sold her retirement home, handing him every single dollar of her life savings to pull him out of the abyss. Back then, he had fallen to his knees in front of her, tears streaming down his face, swearing that he would treat her like his own mother and never let her suffer a single day. Yet today, he calculated his interest down to the last penny, completely ignoring the unpredictable margin of human error in medicine. My phone vibrated. It was a text from Declan. “Daisy’s IV is finished. I’m taking her out for some light sushi.” “Go down to the billing department later and pay the basic emergency room fee. Consider this a secondary penalty for your attitude today.” “I have it scheduled. I’ll go sign the release forms on Wednesday morning. Stop throwing tantrums.” Looking at the screen, a profound exhaustion settled over me. I typed back a few simple words. “No need.” “Declan, I want a divorce.” I followed the gurney alone as they wheeled my mother down to the cold basement of the morgue. As the heavy steel drawer slid shut, a blast of freezing air hit my face. I sat on the plastic bench outside, staring blankly at my phone. I opened social media and saw a post Declan had uploaded thirty minutes earlier. It was a photo of the completed, colorful Hello Kitty perler-bead design. The caption read: “Sometimes, slowing down to do silly things with a kid is the best kind of rest.” I bit my lip so hard the taste of blood filled my mouth, mixing with the hot, bitter tears sliding down my throat. With trembling fingers, I sent a message to my personal assistant. “Check Declan’s offshore trust funds. Let me know if there have been any recent changes.” Within minutes, an encrypted PDF arrived. I opened it, the harsh white glare of the screen burning my eyes. Three days ago, a new secondary beneficiary had been added to the trust. Daisy. That trust held our first pot of gold. It was the money we made after I spent countless sleepless nights working alongside him, drinking with clients until my stomach bled. When he rebuilt his empire, he had set up that trust. I remembered how he had held me, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead. “Giselle, love is just a temporary chemical reaction. It can’t offer long-term financial security. But with this trust, even if I go bankrupt again, you will always be taken care of. My ultimate goal will always align with your happiness.” That was the only time in his life he had laid all his cards on the table for me. Now, he had quietly carved out a piece of that promise and handed it to another woman. I texted him: “Why is Daisy’s name on the trust?” He replied almost instantly. “Her family is underprivileged. I’m grooming her to be a core member of my team. Consider this a loyalty retainer paid in advance.” “Your share hasn’t decreased; it’s just slightly diluted the surplus yield. Giselle, you are already Mrs. Ward. You have so much. Stop looking at my business strategies through such a petty, narrow-minded lens.” I stared at his words. My tears splashed silently onto the steering wheel. What did I have? Did I have a husband who calculated the depreciation value of his marital loyalty? That evening, I dragged my exhausted body back to our villa. The house was massive, beautifully decorated, but cold and utterly lifeless. I pulled out a suitcase and began quietly packing my things. Ten minutes later, the front door clicked open. Declan walked in, bringing the chill of the night with him. He was carrying a small, elegant bakery box. Daisy skipped in right behind him, wearing a pair of sparkly Disneyland ears and clutching a pile of plush toys. Seeing her bright, carefree smile, a memory pierced through me. Today was our anniversary. Three days ago, I had excitedly planned a trip for us. Declan had rejected it, claiming the “return on investment” of a vacation didn’t justify the time lost. For eight years, I had begged him to take me to Disneyland. He had always refused. Yet he had happily gone with someone else. Declan’s brow furrowed when he saw the suitcase on the living room floor. “What are you doing now? We agreed on the rules before we even got married. You were the one who broke the contract this time.” He set the bakery box on the coffee table and walked over, placing a firm hand on my suitcase. I glanced at the box. It was a chestnut tart from my favorite boutique bakery. “I already explained the trust fund,” Declan said, his voice dropping to a softer, placating tone. “It’s just a retention strategy for a valuable employee. I’ve calculated your penalty period. It ends tomorrow morning at eight. Your mother’s surgery is scheduled for nine.” “I will be at the hospital on time tomorrow morning to secure the best surgical team for her.” I looked up, staring into the handsome face of the man I had loved for nearly a decade, but his features seemed to blur before my eyes. I used to think his calculated, strategic mind was his most attractive quality. Now, I realized with sickening clarity that even a human life was just a bargaining chip to him. My mind flashed back to five years ago. I had been in a terrible car accident due to exhaustion and ended up in the ICU. Declan had walked away from an acquisition deal worth over a hundred million dollars just to sit by my bedside. Back then, he had told me it was a massive financial loss, but because it was for me, it was a trade he would make every single time. Now, saving my mother was just a bad deal. I didn’t bother explaining. I simply reached out and pulled his hand off my suitcase. “There’s no need to wait until tomorrow. My mother doesn’t need your surgical team anymore.” Declan froze, a flicker of confusion crossing his eyes. “Did you transfer her to another hospital? Giselle, according to Actuary Household Rule Number Nine, any major decision made without consulting me incurs a five percent interest penalty based on your daily income.” “If you insist on doing this, you’re only increasing your own sunk costs.” I watched his lips move, but the words ceased to carry any meaning. I wiped my tears, grabbed my suitcase, and walked past him toward the door. He grabbed my wrist, his grip tightening in annoyance. “Giselle, that’s enough.” “I have a business trip with Daisy tomorrow morning. I don’t have time to play these runaway-wife games with you.” “You’ve broken eight household rules in the last three days. Do you really expect me to apologize to you?” I pulled my hand back, peeling his fingers off my wrist one by one. “You don’t need to apologize, Declan. And you don’t need to waste any more of your precious time.” “We’re done. I’ll have the divorce papers sent to your office.” Without waiting to see the shock register on his face, I wheeled my suitcase out into the rainy night. In the back of the cab, I scrolled through photos of my mother on my phone. The grief in my chest was so suffocating I felt like I was breaking apart. The boy who would have given up the world to save me had vanished, replaced by a man who calculated the cost of my mother’s survival and found it too expensive. I returned to the hospital morgue and sat with my mother all night. The next day, I contacted a local crematorium and quietly arranged everything. Because I had so little money left, I couldn’t afford a proper burial plot. I had to place her ashes in a simple, cold urn. My phone lit up. It was a text containing Declan’s itinerary. “Daisy was shaken up by a client on our trip today, so I’m staying back to help her unwind. Use the next two days to calm down. I will meet you at the hospital’s cardiology wing on Wednesday at eight-thirty AM.” “Don’t be late. My time is expensive.” I read the message, blocked his number, and bought a one-way ticket to a quiet coastal town in the South. It was a place my mother had always wanted to visit. Before leaving, I mailed the signed divorce papers to his firm. I left behind every piece of jewelry, every designer bag, and every expensive gift he had ever bought me. I took absolutely nothing, including my rights to that offshore trust. As the ferry horn blew, heading out into the deep blue sea, I closed my eyes. Eight years of love, five years of marriage. In the end, it was just a bad debt that had finally been settled. “Declan, let’s end this transaction.” On Wednesday morning at exactly eight o’clock, Declan arrived at the hospital. He was carrying a container of savory pork and egg congee—my mother’s favorite. He walked up to the nurse’s station and spoke to the young nurse on duty. “Hi, could you page the patient in bed three, Giselle Ward? I’m here to settle the surgery fees and sign the consent forms.” The nurse looked up, giving him a strange, cold look. “You’re the family member for bed three? You’re too late.” Declan checked his watch, looking thoroughly confused. “I’m not late. The doctor said as long as I signed before nine AM today, we could proceed.” The nurse stood up, double-checking her monitor. “Yes, you are. The patient in bed three suffered a massive cardiac arrest on Monday afternoon. We couldn’t resuscitate her.” “The death certificate was issued that night. The family has already taken the body to the crematorium.” The polite smile on Declan’s face froze. The thermos in his hand slipped, clattering against the counter. “What nonsense are you talking about? My predictive model clearly showed she wouldn’t reach the critical threshold until today…” The nurse sighed, sliding a photocopy of the death certificate across the desk. “The daughter signed the papers herself. The body was cremated yesterday.” “A human life doesn’t wait around for your schedule, sir. Did you think you could negotiate with death like a business deal?” Black ink on white paper. The evidence was irrefutable. Panic flashed in his eyes. He lunged for his phone, dialing my number, only to be met with the cold, automated operator. “Where did Giselle go? How could she not tell you that her mother passed away…” Daisy murmured from behind him. Declan whipped around, his gaze so sharp and terrifying that she immediately took a step back, silencing herself. For the first time in his life, sheer terror washed over him. He frantically called his personal assistant. “Find Giselle’s flight records, train tickets, anything! Now!” Just then, his phone rang with an unknown number. He swiped it open instantly, his voice trembling. “Giselle? Is that you…” But a deep, formal male voice answered. “Hello, is this the family of Giselle Ward? This is the Coast Guard.” Declan stopped breathing, his fingers clawing at the edge of the desk. “I am her husband. What’s wrong?” “An hour ago, the passenger ferry Mrs. Ward was on struck a reef and sank in the eastern waters.” “So far, we have only recovered her backpack and a set of signed divorce papers.” “The chances of survival are extremely low. We need you to come down to the station to identify her personal effects.” Declan stood frozen, the hospital corridor spinning violently around him.

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I spent four million dollars on the house that was supposed to be our fresh start—a fully automated, state-of-the-art smart home. On my very first night there, my boyfriend remotely locked all the doors and windows from his phone and turned on the gas fireplace and stove. I woke up to the frantic sound of neighbors throwing themselves against the front door. By the time they dragged me out, I was barely conscious. At the hospital, the emergency room doctor told me that if I had been in there even five minutes longer, I would have ended up brain-dead. While I was still hooked up to monitors in the ICU, my boyfriend called. He didn’t ask how I was. He was annoyed. “Couldn’t you have just hung in there a little longer? Who said you could leave?” I stared at the ceiling, the sterile smell of disinfectant burning my nose, as his voice drifted through the speaker. “Bella was conducting a medical experiment,” Baron said, his voice entirely devoid of warmth. “She wanted to see how long a human subject could survive in a carbon monoxide-saturated environment.” He paused, a note of genuine disappointment creeping into his tone. “We were actually planning to light a match to see if it would ignite. Now that you ran out, the whole trial is ruined.” The day I was discharged, I drove straight back to the house. But when I pressed my thumb against the biometric scanner at the front door, the screen flashed red: “Access Denied.” My phone vibrated in my palm. It was Baron. “Bella needs a facility for her research,” he said, his tone flat and administrative. “Your place is spacious, so I told her she could use it. Go find yourself a rental for now, and don’t disturb her. This is for the adAdamsment of medicine. Try to show some grace instead of being so petty.” I didn’t argue. I didn’t cry. I simply hung up the phone and called a real estate broker to list the house for an immediate cash fire sale. The second the closing documents were signed and the funds cleared, I sent a message to the one person I hadn’t spoken to in years—my childhood rival. “Do you have a house? If so, let’s get married.” His reply came almost instantly. “A waterfront estate on Bainbridge Island. Twelve million. Consider it your dowry.” … “Twelve million,” Sean’s voice came through the receiver, carrying his usual dry, quiet confidence. “Okay,” I said, and hung up. My phone buzzed with a text notification from my bank. The wire transfer had cleared: $3,780,000. I looked up and offered a polite smile to the couple sitting across from me at the brokerage office. “The smart-lock code has been reset to six zeros. It’s all yours.” I walked out of the office and headed toward the parking garage. Before I could reach my car, my phone rang. Baron’s voice was like ice. “You’re really committing to this little act, aren’t you? You even hired actors to play the buyers.” I opened my mouth to speak, but he cut me off. “You think selling our wedding house is going to scare me? You’ve miscalculated, Lila.” His tone was infuriatingly condescending. “Tell your people to leave immediately, then come over and apologize to Bella. She’s literally crying right now.” “Crying.” I thought back to the ICU, to the moment the doctor told me how close I had come to dying. I had almost lost my life, and Bella was crying because her playground had been taken away. “The house is sold,” I said, my voice flatter than I’d ever heard it. “You both need to pack your things and get out before the new owner calls the police.” There was a brief pause on the other end. Then, Baron sighed, his patience entirely evaporated. “Enough. If you stretch this drama any further, no one is going to comfort you. You think you’re Bella?” He raised his voice, his irritation mounting. “Bella has a calling. She has intellectual pursuits. She isn’t like you—obsessing over domestic trivialities, throwing these cheap, childish tantrums.” I actually laughed. “Right. The medical experiment.” “Take it up with the new owner. See if they’re willing to let her play scientist in their living room.” I hung up. Less than a minute later, Baron’s name flashed on the screen again. His tone had shifted from anger to a tense, sudden panic. “Did you actually sell it?” I gripped the steering wheel. “A four-point-two-million-dollar cash purchase. One hundred and fifty thousand in custom renovations. I listed it at four million, and closed at three-point-seven-eight.” I articulated every digit with absolute clarity. “The money is in my account, the contract is signed, and the deed has been transferred.” The silence on the other end was heavy, like a wire stretched to its breaking point. Finally, he spat the words out through clenched teeth. “Lila, have you lost your mind? That was “our” house!” “I bought it. With my money. In cash.” “So what?” he interrupted, his voice rising in desperation. “You bought it for us! Half of it belongs to me. How dare you sell it without my consent?” “Did you ask for my consent when you let Bella move in?” Baron let out a harsh, bitter laugh. “So that’s what this is. A pathetic attempt to target Bella. You’re vicious, Lila. You’ve orchestrated this entire nightmare just to make a young girl’s life miserable.” “Vicious.” Because I survived. Because I refused to let them suffocate me in my own home. I hung up without another word. I walked down to my designated parking space in the garage, but the spot was empty. I opened my phone and pulled up the GPS tracker for my new car. The $72,000 BMW was currently parked in a neighboring city—specifically, in Bella’s hometown. Without hesitating, I activated the vehicle’s anti-theft lockout mode and called the police. The police were remarkably efficient. Within two hours, the car was towed back to the local precinct. A young man stepped out of the driver’s seat, looking utterly indignant. It was Bella’s younger brother, Dustin. He glared at me with pure venom. “My brother-in-law gave me this car! Who the hell do you think you are, calling the cops on me?” Before the officer could intervene, hurried footsteps echoed through the precinct lobby. A slim figure dressed in white rushed past, throwing her arms around Dustin. Bella’s eyes were red, tears streaming down her face. “Dustin has never even seen the inside of a police station,” she sobbed, her voice trembling like a leaf in the wind. “And now he’s being treated like a common thief…” Baron walked in right behind her. He didn’t look at Dustin, and he didn’t look at the officers. He marched straight to me and grabbed my wrist. “Apologize.” I tried to wrench my arm free. “It’s my car. You gave it to him without my permission—” “It’s our wedding car!” he barked, tightening his grip. “I have every right to let anyone drive it!” I had bought the car a month ago. He had chosen the model and the color, but I had written the check. On the day we got the plates, he had taken Bella out for a test drive, leaving me sitting alone at the DMV for three hours. My chest heaved as the memory hit me. “I paid for it in full—” Before I could finish, a sharp crack echoed through the room. My head snapped to the side. I stood there, frozen. I had known Baron for ten years, and we had been together for five. Before Bella entered the picture, if he so much as raised his voice at me, he would lose sleep over it. Now, for the sake of another woman, he had slapped me in a public police station. Baron’s fingers began to tremble. He made a small, instinctive movement toward me, but Bella let out another choked sob. His expression instantly hardened again, the brief flash of regret vanishing behind a mask of cold authority. “Lila, all you care about now is money. You’ve become entirely materialistic, and it’s disappointing. This slap is a lesson. Don’t ever talk about money in front of others again.” I reached up and gently touched my stinging cheek. “There won’t be an ‘again’.” I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I calmly sat down with the officer, signed the paperwork, verified the vehicle recovery, and closed the incident report. As I walked out of the precinct, a hand caught my wrist again. Baron’s voice had softened, adopting that familiar, placating tone he used whenever he wanted to sweep things under the rug. “I booked a table at that Italian place you like. Your blood sugar is low, and you need to eat.” He squeezed my hand gently. “Just apologize to Bella over dinner, buy the house back from those people, and let Dustin keep the car. Be good, Lila, and we can go back to how things were.” The chill in my bones seemed to seep into my fingertips. I pushed his hand away. “We can never go back, Baron.” He frowned. I managed a small, empty smile. “I’m getting married.” The air between us went perfectly still. Baron stared at me for a moment, then let out a soft, dismissive chuckle. “I know you’re desperate to get married,” he said, shaking his head. “But if Bella is unhappy, I won’t agree to it. Your priority right now is making her happy.” Bella walked over, her expression cool and superior. “Lila, I know you’re desperate for a ring, but there’s no need to take your insecurities out on me. I’m not like you. I have goals. I don’t spend my life hovering over a kitchen stove.” She sighed, looking at me with pity. “But I suppose you wouldn’t understand that.” She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Never mind the apology. Just come with us to the DMV and transfer the title of the car to Dustin so he doesn’t feel uncomfortable driving it.” I didn’t stay to hear the rest. I turned and walked away. I rented a small, furnished apartment on the edge of the city. I had just lain down on the bed when my phone rang. It was the director of the upscale care facility in the suburbs. “Lila, Mrs. Channing had thirteen luxury physical therapy sessions added to her chart this month, totaling $7,300. We also need to process next month’s retainer. Should we charge the card on file, or do you have another preference?” Three years ago, Baron’s mother had suffered a severe stroke that left her partially paralyzed. Baron had just transitioned to a lower-paying job and claimed he was strapped for cash. I had linked my salary account to her facility fees. I had paid every single bill for three years, without fail, until today. “From now on,” I said clearly, “please contact Baron Channing directly for all of his mother’s expenses.” The administrator paused, caught off guard. “But—” “Also,” I interrupted, “please email me itemized invoices for every payment I’ve made over the last three years.” The next morning, I went to the hotel downtown where we had booked our wedding reception to cancel the reservation. The events manager looked at me with deep embarrassment. “Lila… the groom’s family and guests are already here. They’ve started dining.” I stared at him, dumbfounded. Before I could process this, the elevator doors slid open and Baron marched out, heading straight for me. “Why are you so late?” he demanded, his brow furrowed. “Go pay the balance on the banquet hall. And tell them to open up two more private rooms—Bella’s extended family just arrived.” The manager quickly stepped forward and handed over the invoice. $27,130. I pushed the paper back toward Baron. “What is the meaning of this?” Baron sighed, looking at me with a patronizing, weary disappointment. “Lila, this is your own doing.” He crossed his arms. “You made Bella so upset yesterday that she cried to my mother. My mother was devastated. You haven’t even married into this family yet, and you’ve already managed to offend your future in-laws. I had to invite them all to a nice dinner to smooth things over.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice as if he were doing me a favor. “Go in there, apologize to everyone, and make sure your attitude is sincere. Once Bella nods and my mother is happy, you’ll still have a place in the Channing family.” From the banquet hall down the corridor, the clinking of glasses and laughter drifted into the lobby. I looked at Baron and took a deep, steadying breath. “I don’t think I was clear enough yesterday, so let me say it again.” I looked him dead in the eye. “There is no ‘us’. The moment I sold that house, we were over.” Baron’s face darkened instantly. But before he could speak, a soft, sweet voice drifted from the doorway of the banquet hall. “I don’t think you’re in any position to be throwing around ultimatums, Lila.” Bella walked out, stopping beside Baron with a small, cruel smirk playing on her lips. “Baron told me all about you,” she said, her voice raised just enough to carry. “He told me how your parents were murdered in that home invasion years ago. And how the killer assaulted you before the police arrived.” The lobby went entirely silent. The hotel staff and a few guests standing nearby froze, their eyes instantly darting to me like needles pricking my skin. My blood ran completely cold. Bella tilted her head, her eyes shining with mock pity. “You’re damaged goods, Lila. Baron’s willingness to overlook your baggage is a miracle. I don’t understand why you’re playing hard to get. You’re just trying to manipulate him because you know no one else would want you.” My vision blurred with a sudden, hot rage. My hand rose instinctively, but Baron caught my wrist with practiced ease, shoving me back. “Bella isn’t an outsider,” Baron said, his voice cold and defensive. “She has a right to know everything about my life. You’re the one who forced this situation. Bella only spoke up because she cares about me. This is your fault.” A crushing, suffocating despair threatened to pull me under, but I fought to keep my voice steady. “Baron, let’s just end this cleanly. I have never done anything to hurt you—” “You were violated,” Baron interrupted, his voice dripping with disgust. “You call that not hurting me? Who’s to say you didn’t let it happen? Who’s to say you didn’t want it?” The world seemed to tilt. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. I lunged at him, my fingernails tearing at his face in a blind, desperate frenzy. “Lila! Stop!” Two hotel security guards grabbed my arms, pinning me back. “Ma’am, please calm down! This is a respectable establishment!” Bella adjusted her collar, looking down her nose at me. “Are you reacting like this because I hit a nerve, Lila?” Just then, the elevator doors opened again. Mrs. Channing was wheeled out by two of Baron’s cousins. She didn’t look at me. Instead, she reached up to touch Baron’s face, her voice trembling with anger. “Baron, what is going on? Why are we being kicked out of the care home?” Baron blinked, confused. “Mom? What do you mean? Don’t you have physical therapy today?” Mrs. Channing’s voice was like gravel. “She canceled the funding. The facility discharged me this morning. They put my things in garbage bags!” Baron’s head snapped toward me, his eyes burning with an intense, furious hatred. “Lila! I tolereted your tantrums, but targeting my disabled mother is crossing the line!” Mrs. Channing let out a harsh, rasping laugh. “She hasn’t even married into the family and she’s already trying to control us with her money. Trying to play the heavy hand with her future mother-in-law!” She slammed her fist onto the armrest of her wheelchair. “I am not dead yet!” The cousins stepped forward, glaring at me. “An orphaned girl with no parents really has no breeding. She doesn’t even know the first thing about respect.” “Baron, you need to think long and hard about this. You can’t just let a woman like this into our family.” Baron took a deep breath, smoothing down his jacket. He turned back to me, extending his hand as if delivering a final verdict. “Lila. You’ve taken this too far. Apologize to my mother, write the check for the hotel bill, and reinstate the care home funding. Right now.” I took a step back, staring at the family I had spent five years trying to please. “No.” Baron’s face settled into an icy glare. “If you keep being this stubborn, don’t blame me for what happens next.” Bella let out a soft, mocking sigh. “Baron, why are you still pleading with her? You’re her fiancé. Her money is legally yours anyway.” Before I could react, Bella lunged forward, grabbing my purse to snatch my phone. I tried to pull away, but Baron stepped in, pinning my arms behind my back. I was held fast, humiliated in the middle of the lobby, as Bella grabbed my phone, forced it in front of my face to bypass the lock screen, and began tapping rapidly on the screen. Just then, the heavy glass doors of the hotel lobby swung open. A dozen men in tailored black suits entered in a silent, coordinated line, quickly blocking every exit. The hotel manager hurried forward, his face pale. “Excuse me, who are you? You can’t just—” The man leading the group briefly flashed a gold badge in a leather wallet. The manager’s jaw dropped. He immediately stepped back, bowing deeply, not daring to make eye contact again. The smug expressions on the Channings’ faces vanished. Baron’s grip on my arms loosened slightly as he watched several bodyguards flank me, cutting him off. “Who are you people?” Baron demanded, trying to sound authoritative. “This is a family matter. She is my fiancée—” The roar of a high-performance engine cut him off. A sleek, black town car pulled up to the curb outside. The rear door opened, and a tall man in a bespoke charcoal suit stepped out. He adjusted his cuffs, his dark eyes scanning the lobby before landing on me. He walked past the guards, stopping right in front of me. He leaned down, his thumb gently brushing a stray tear from my cheek. A slow, familiar smile touched his lips. “Crying on our wedding day?” Sean murmured, his voice low and steady. “I didn’t know you were that excited to marry me.”

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My friends always told me I was dating a girl with “main character syndrome”—someone who was a master of the silent treatment and petty tantrums. On the morning of our courthouse wedding, the photographer I’d hired was already waiting downstairs. I finished getting dressed and urged Zoey, “Come on, turn off the game. We need to go.” She only threw me a cold, dismissive look, deliberately queued up for another match right in front of me, and locked the bedroom door from the inside. She was always like this. I never knew what triggered her, or how long her mood would last. I was always expected to knock on her door, dissect my own behavior, apologize, and buy her some expensive luxury item she had casually mentioned weeks ago just to make peace. But this time, my hand hovered over the wood, unable to knock. The “I’m sorry” that usually slipped so easily from my tongue felt like a dry bone caught in my throat. I had been coddling her for five years. Five years of bending myself backward until I felt completely numb and hollow. The sudden realization that this would be my life forever—this endless cycle—terrified me. “Zoey!” I called out. The room went quiet for a moment. I could picture her perfectly: putting down her controller, reclining in her gaming chair, waiting to hear my voice break as I begged for forgiveness. She loved the chase. She loved watching me crawl back. But today, I used the last shred of my energy just to speak evenly. “Please come out. We planned this months ago. The photographer is waiting outside.” My only answer was the sudden blast of the game’s volume. I hadn’t given her the right answer. I hadn’t apologized. I stood there in the quiet hallway. After a long moment, I reached up, untied my tie, and began taking off my suit. I washed my face with cold water, rinsing away the exhaustion and the quiet tears I didn’t even realize were falling. Looking at the man in the mirror, all I saw was a ghost. I was so tired. I didn’t want to play the savior anymore. … I walked to the entryway to put away my newly polished dress shoes. Zoey’s sneakers were kicked carelessly into the corner, as always. They were a new pair of platform sneakers, bought specifically for today so she’d look taller in the photos. But the moment she got them, she wore them out to a greasy taco truck down the street, leaving deep oil stains on the white canvas that wouldn’t come out. We had argued so late last night that I hadn’t had the energy to clean them for her. I stared at them for a second, then stepped right over them, my pace quickening as I headed out the door. The photographer had been waiting by his car. The first thing I said to him was, “I’m so sorry, man. You can go. We’re not doing this today.” I paid him the 50% cancellation fee. Since he still got paid for his time, he wasn’t angry. Instead, he leaned in and lowered his voice. “Hey, man… to be honest, when you guys came in to choose props last week, I wanted to say something. Your girlfriend… she acts like a giant toddler.” “Remember when she wanted water? She wouldn’t get up. She made you walk three blocks to get it. Then, when you came back, she drank both bottles—yours too—without even looking at you.” “Honestly, Chase, off the record? I don’t think she deserves you.” My instinct was still to defend her. “She really wanted sparkling water, but the bodega’s fridge was broken, so I only got flat. She was just frustrated.” But seeing the pity in the young photographer’s eyes, my words died in my throat. I could only manage a bitter smile. Yeah. Just because the water wasn’t cold, she felt entitled to ruin my day, and to punish me by drinking my bottle too. She didn’t care that I had worked a ten-hour shift, walked blocks in stiff leather shoes, or that in ninety-degree heat, I was suffocatingly thirsty too. My phone buzzed in my pocket. A Venmo notification. Zoey had just sent money to Ryan, her favorite male coworker, with a note: “For stomach meds and warm soup. Feel better!” He had a chronic stomach issue. She remembered his pain, went out of her way to send him care, and wanted him to know she was thinking of him. She knew how to care for people. She just didn’t want to waste it on me. My mind drifted back to last night’s fight over a plate of pork chops. Well, it wasn’t a fight. It was just her screaming. “You know I like spicy food!” she had yelled, throwing her fork down. “Why are these so bland? Did you even try, or do you just not give a shit?” My doctor’s report and prescription for my gastritis were sitting right there on the coffee table. She had been lounging on the couch playing games next to them for hours, never once glancing at them. “My stomach has been acting up,” I said softly, trying to keep my voice steady. “The doctor told me to avoid spicy food for a while.” “If you didn’t want to cook for me, just say so. Don’t make up pathetic excuses.” She pushed the plate away, refusing to eat another bite. I looked at her. “Zoey, do you even know what day it is?” She let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “What? Is your birthday supposed to be a national holiday or something?” “…No.” It wasn’t. Our birthdays were only a few days apart, so we usually lumped them together. I bought the cake; she blew out the candles. But yesterday, I had walked past a bakery after a long call with my mother. Since her remarriage, we only spoke around the holidays. Hearing her say “Happy Birthday, sweetie” had made me feel strangely sentimental. So, I bought a small chocolate cake. Zoey had stared at that cake on the counter for a long time. For a foolish second, I let myself hope. Maybe she would say something nice. Maybe she had secretly bought me a card, or a small gift. But she said nothing. Her eyes were hard, almost accusatory. “You think you’re special because it’s your birthday?” she sneered. “Special enough to throw away the gift I bought you?” I remembered the giant plush bear sitting on the hallway table when I came home. It was huge, cheap, and shed fibers everywhere. I had moved it out to the balcony. “That was for me?” “Duh. Do you think I’d buy that garbage for myself?” “Zoey, I’m highly allergic to synthetic plush fibers. I’ve told you this a hundred times.” Every time I brought it up, she would just roll her eyes. “You’re so dramatic,” she’d say. “Next time, you get nothing.” But there always was a next time, and it was always another plush toy. I rubbed my palms, which were already starting to itch just from thinking about it. “I literally break out in hives. Please, just don’t buy them anymore.” “Will hives kill you?” “What?” “I asked if it would kill you. I went out of my way to buy you something. Is it really that hard to hold it, take a photo, and say thank you? You’re so ungrateful.” I sat there, utterly silenced by the sheer absurdity of her anger. And, like always, I folded. “I’m sorry.” “My bad.” “I won’t do it again.” But she wasn’t done. “Chase,” she said, leaning in, her voice dripping with venom. “Do you want to know why your parents didn’t want you when they split? Why they passed you around like hot garbage?” “Because you’re impossible to love.” She knew exactly where to twist the knife. Every time she brought up my childhood, it brought back the paralyzing memory of standing in that courtroom, listening to my parents argue over who “had” to take me, while the lawyers looked on with cold, professional pity. The only way to stop the roaring in my ears was to let the anger take over. So, I picked up the birthday cake I had bought and threw it against the wall. It shattered into a sticky, ugly mess. Zoey just whistled, turned on her heel, and went back to her video game. I spent the rest of my birthday night on my knees, scrubbing chocolate frosting off the baseboards, crying silently into the rag. “Am I really ready to marry her tomorrow?” I had asked myself over and over. One voice whispered: “She just has a temper. She’s not a bad person. And you’ve wanted a family your whole life. Don’t throw this away.” But another, quieter voice asked: “Can you really survive a lifetime of nights like this?” I must have been lost in my thoughts for too long, because the photographer was looking at me with genuine concern. “Hey, man. You okay?” I shook my head slightly. “Just… a little lost.” “Look, I know it’s none of my business,” he said gently. “But marriage is a long haul. If you’re having doubts, maybe take some time to think about it.” “Yeah,” I breathed. “I think I need to do that.” When I walked back upstairs, Zoey was leaning against the doorframe, fully dressed. She looked away the moment our eyes met, her jaw tight. This was her version of an olive branch. A tiny, grudging peace offering. She knew she had pushed me to the absolute edge last night, so she was giving me just enough space to calm down so I wouldn’t “ruin” her day. “I sent the photographer home,” I said. She stiffened. “Whatever. I told you hiring a photographer for a courthouse wedding was a waste of money anyway.” The living room was a disaster—laundry piled high on the sofa, mixed with mail and empty takeout containers. I sighed and began folding the clothes, one by one. When I picked up her purse to move it, a cascade of colorful wedding mints spilled out onto the floor. She lunged forward, snatching them up. “Who told you to go through my stuff?” she snapped. But she didn’t close the bag. She left it wide open, letting me see the rest of the mints inside. Last month, while walking through Target, I had mentioned that we should buy some nice mints and candies to hand out to the clerk and the photographer at the courthouse. “It’s just a nice gesture,” I had said. Zoey had scoffed. “God, Chase, are you really that desperate? You want everyone to know some lonely, aging bachelor finally managed to trick a girl like me into marrying him?” The words had stung so badly I couldn’t even force a laugh. I just walked away. And because I didn’t play along, she had thrown a fit, stormed out of the store, and driven off, leaving me standing in the parking lot with a cart full of half-scanned items. There had been no apology then. But now, she was standing here, waiting for me to fall to my knees in gratitude because she had remembered and bought the mints. This was her grand gesture, and I was supposed to feel honored. I had always been so good at reading her mind, but she had never once bothered to look at mine. If she had, she would have seen the quiet terror taking root. I was done playing my part in this exhausting, toxic play where we scream, freeze each other out, and then pretend everything is perfect again. I didn’t say a word. I just kept cleaning the couch. After a minute of tense silence, she slammed her purse onto the floor. “Chase!” she yelled, looking around the room until her eyes landed on her shoes. “Why haven’t you cleaned my sneakers yet?” “I swear, you do nothing all day. They’re filthy. Look at them!” “I’m telling you right now, if those shoes aren’t spotless, I’m not getting married today.” I looked at the sneakers, lying crookedly by the door. Then I looked at the rest of my life, stretching out ahead of me like a long, grey highway of endless chores and eggshells. No matter how hard I worked to keep her happy, it would never be enough. I looked at Zoey, who had already thrown herself back onto the couch, her eyes darting to me to see if I would run for the shoe cleaner. In that exact moment, without a single shred of hesitation, I said, “Zoey, let’s not get married. Not today. Not ever.” Right as the words left my mouth, her game found a match, and the loading screen music started up. I didn’t know if she had actually heard me. But as I spoke those words, a crushing weight lifted off my chest. I felt light. I walked to the door, picked up the trash bag, and stepped out into the hallway. As I passed her dirty sneakers, I “accidentally” stepped right on the white canvas, leaving a dark, dusty footprint. When I turned back around, she wasn’t looking at her phone. She was staring at me, her eyes dark and incredibly sharp. “What do you mean, ‘not ever’?” “Chase, my youth is valuable. I don’t have time to play games with you.” “If we aren’t getting married, we’re breaking up.” Breaking up? I had lived with her for so long I couldn’t even remember what a quiet apartment felt like. I’d have to find a new place, sure, but… maybe I could find something closer to my office. I could sleep in an extra thirty minutes every morning. The thought of it felt like a warm breeze. “Give me a week to move out,” I said.

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The torrential rain was drumming hard against the laboratory windows, and I’d been waiting by the entrance for Austin for three hours. Then my phone buzzed, and his voice cut through the static, casual and entirely dismissive. “Cathy used one of her privilege cards,” he said. “She needs me to pick her up. Grab a Lyft back, okay?” It was the sixteenth time this month. It didn’t matter if it was Valentine’s Day or my birthday. If Cathy called, Austin would abandon me without a second thought, running to her side. When they broke up years ago, they had left ninety-nine “relationship privilege cards” unredeemed. They were little handmade tokens of absolute entitlement he had gifted her during their honeymoon phase—coupons for “one free ride,” “one late-night ice cream run,” “one pass to skip an argument.” Now, she was redeeming them like currency, and Austin was paying the debt with my time, my dignity, and my heart. I looked at my rideshare app. There were over a hundred people ahead of me in the queue. I squeezed the handle of my umbrella, my fingers cold and stiff. “Austin, it’s pouring… Can’t you please pick me up first?” There was only a sigh of mild irritation on the other end. “I know it’s raining, Lila, but she said she can’t find a ride, and you’re in the opposite direction. It makes no sense to drive all the way to you and then back to her. It’s just a waste of time.” The line went dead. He had hung up on me. Once again, he chose her. He had sworn to me that Cathy’s last birthday card was the very last one. I guess promises to me were written in sand, while his debts to her were carved in stone. I stared at the screen, a dry, self-deprecating laugh escaping my throat. I closed the rideshare app, scrolled through my contacts, and tapped on my advisor’s name. “Professor Evans, I want to sign up for the three-year isolated Antarctic expedition.” The polar research vessel was scheduled to set sail in three days. … By the time I unlocked the door to our apartment, I was soaked to the bone. Water dripped from my hem, pooling in dark, silent stains on the hardwood floor. But the living room was bathed in a warm, amber glow, thick with a cozy, domestic intimacy that felt entirely foreign. Austin was standing behind the sofa, gently blow-drying Cathy’s hair. Cathy was holding up her phone, showing him something on the screen, and they were laughing, their shoulders brushing. Looking at them, I felt a familiar, dull ache in my chest. It was like stepping into a time machine, watching a movie of their past where I was never cast. Hearing the door, Cathy turned around. “Oh, Lila! You’re back.” Austin placed a hand on her head, gently guiding her back. “Don’t move,” he chided, his voice dripping with affection. “Otherwise you’ll complain I didn’t dry it right.” Then he looked up and noticed my dripping clothes. His brow furrowed in mild surprise. “Did you forget your umbrella?” The exhaustion of the last three hours swelled in my throat, but the words died before they could form. My eyes drifted to Cathy. She was wearing my silk loungewear—the matching set Austin and I had bought together. Cathy and I had grown up together. We were the same height, the same weight, with almost identical measurements. We had shared clothes since we were kids. Back then, we thought our matching tastes were a beautiful proof of sisterhood. Until we fell in love with the same man. That symmetry had curdled into something suffocating. I forced my eyes away, offering the same quiet, agreeable smile I always did. “Yeah… I forgot.” Austin didn’t offer an explanation for why he hadn’t picked me up. He just shrugged. “Well, luckily you’ve always had a strong immune system. A little rain won’t hurt you. Cathy’s different—she’s fragile. She actually wasted one of her privilege cards just because of a drizzle.” Cathy rolled her eyes playfully, nudging him. “I just needed a free chauffeur, and since it didn’t cost me a dime, why not?” They fell back into their easy, bickering rhythm, a practiced dance that seemed designed to keep their history casual and harmless. Without a word, I peeled off my wet coat and walked into the kitchen. On the stove, the pot of ginger tea I had brewed before leaving was stone cold. I poured a cup, intending to just drink it cold to soothe my scratchy throat. Just then, a soft sneeze echoed from the living room. Cathy was curled up on the sofa, clutching her stomach, her face pale, tiny beads of sweat forming on her forehead. Austin rushed into the kitchen, gently taking the cup of cold tea from my hand. He turned on the stove, carefully reheating it, adding a spoonful of brown sugar and honey. I suddenly remembered. It was that time of the month for Cathy. No wonder there was a pharmacy delivery box sitting by the entryway. He had ordered her preferred brand of heating pads. Seeing me standing idle, Austin spoke without looking up, his tone entirely matter-of-fact. “Lila, go help her rub her back, will you? I’ll boil some fresh water.” He handed me a freshly filled hot water bottle. The intense heat stung my frozen hands, a sharp, biting pain. But he didn’t notice. I smiled faintly, taking the bottle, and sat down beside Cathy, gently placing the heat source over her lower back. Austin came in with a fresh mug of tea, draping a soft throw blanket over her knees, fussing over her like an anxious mother hen. Cathy leaned her head against my shoulder, her pale face lighting up with a soft, sweet smile. “You know, when I broke up with him and practically pushed you two together, I knew I made the right choice.” She sighed happily. “Look at this. Now I have both of you to take care of me.” Hearing this, Austin let out a sharp, annoyed scoff, though there was no real heat in it. Cathy giggled, then turned to me, her voice softening into a whine. “Lila, I’m so hungry. I miss your cooking.” Austin straightened up, looking down at me. “Lila, go whip up a bowl of chicken noodle soup for her, okay? She’s really hurting right now.” Cathy weakly grabbed my arm, feigning protest. “Maybe later. She’s been out in the rain; she hasn’t even showered yet.” But Austin was insistent. “She can shower after she cooks. It’ll only take fifteen minutes, and if we eat any later, it’ll mess with your stomach. That’s bad for your digestion.” Before I could answer, he gently guided me toward the kitchen and shut the door behind me. The click of the latch felt like the boundary between two entirely different worlds. As I chopped the vegetables, my mind drifted. The knife slipped, slicing deep into my left index finger. A sharp, stinging pain made me gasp. A drop of bright red blood welled up, dripping onto the cutting board. From the living room, the loud, booming laughter of a comedy show drifted through the door. When the soup was finally ready, I heard Cathy call out from the sofa. “Austin, I’m too weak to move. Can you bring it to me?” Austin entered the kitchen. He picked up the bowl meant for Cathy and turned on his heel, leaving mine sitting solitary and cold on the counter. Cathy always said that those who come first plant the trees, and those who come later enjoy the shade. But this tree had grown entirely in Cathy’s image. The pale-yellow curtains in the living room, the fabric sofa, the kitchenware—all of it had been chosen by Cathy years ago. The branches of this relationship were thick and lush, but they didn’t leave a single inch of shade for me. I felt a sudden wave of dizziness. I walked out and sat on the far edge of the sofa. Austin and Cathy were engrossed in a movie. “Did you see this one? The main character was such an idiot,” Cathy pointed at the screen, laughing. “You insisted on dragging me to the theater for this, and then you slept through the whole thing.” They were sharing a past I had no part in, a language of inside jokes and shared memories. I sat beside them, a ghost in my own home. The air conditioning was blasting, and my wet hair made me shiver. Just as my vision began to blur from the rising fever, a warm cashmere throw blanket was draped over my shoulders. Austin leaned down, carefully tucking the edges around me. “How old are you, Lila? You still don’t know how to take care of yourself.” For a split second, I wanted to lean into that warmth, to believe that maybe I still mattered. But then Cathy rubbed her bare arms. “Brr, this movie is making me feel chilly too.” Austin’s hand on my shoulder stiffened. The next second, the blanket was pulled back. He took the majority of it, draping it over Cathy’s lap, leaving me with a tiny, useless corner that barely covered my knees. The cold air rushed back, and my head throbbed with a vengeance. I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood up. “You guys watch. I’m going to bed.” Before closing my bedroom door, I couldn’t help but look back. Austin had taken my spot on the sofa. Cathy’s head was resting naturally on his shoulder. They looked exactly like the couple in the movie—perfect, peaceful, and meant to be. I collapsed onto the bed, my head pounding like a drum. I don’t know how much time passed before the door clicked open. Austin walked in, muttering under his breath. “Cathy went home. It’s so late, and she refused to let me drive her.” He was staring at his phone, tracking her location. “Okay, she made it back safely. Thank god, otherwise—” He finally looked up and saw my flushed face. “Lila?” He reached out, pressing his palm against my forehead. “Jesus, you’re burning up.” He hurried to the bathroom and brought back a cold, damp cloth, gently laying it over my brow. His face was inches from mine, his eyes wide with a concern that didn’t look fake. A sudden, sharp ache rose in my chest. “Austin,” I whispered. “I’m leaving.” He paused, a soft, indulgent chuckle escaping him. “Are you delirious from the fever? Where would you go?” But when he checked the thermometer, his smile vanished. “103. This is too high. I’m taking you to the ER.” He scrambled to grab his car keys and coat. Watching his frantic silhouette, the icy wall around my heart cracked just a little. Maybe he did care. Maybe, if things got bad enough, he would choose me. Before he could even put his jacket on, his phone rang. It was Cathy. “Austin, Buster is gone!” Her voice was frantic, cracking with tears through the speaker. “I’ve looked everywhere. He must have slipped out…” Buster was the cat they had adopted together. When they broke up, Cathy kept him. He had become Austin’s permanent excuse to visit her apartment. Austin’s hand froze on his car keys. “Stay with me,” I said softly, looking at him with the very last shred of hope I possessed. “Please.” Whether it was going to the hospital or just staying in this room, I didn’t care. I just needed him to choose me, just this once. Austin avoided my gaze. “Take some fever reducers first,” he said, pulling a random box of pills from the medicine cabinet and shoving them into my hands. “Buster is like my kid, Lila. It’s pouring outside; he’ll be terrified.” He turned and practically ran out of the room, his departure so hurried it felt like an escape. The front door slammed shut. I looked down at the box of medicine in my hand. It wasn’t a fever reducer. It was Cathy’s prescription allergy medication. He kept it stocked here, always. I threw the box into the trash can, picked up my phone, and smiled. It was a clean, hollow feeling. I opened my email, pulled up the Antarctic research project agreement, and typed my signature at the bottom. After sending it, I stumbled out to the living room to look for actual medicine. My legs felt like lead, every step dizzying. I pulled open the drawer of the coffee table. Inside were Cathy’s hydrating face masks. Underneath were Cathy’s vitamins. Cathy’s hand creams. In this apartment that was supposed to belong to Austin and me, every corner was a museum of their shared life. I finally found some generic cold medicine, swallowing two dry pills. They scraped down my dry throat, leaving a bitter, burning trail. As I sat there, waiting for the medicine to kick in, I opened Instagram. There, at the top of my feed, was a post Austin had uploaded just minutes ago. It was a photo of Cathy holding a damp but safe Buster. Austin’s hand was resting gently over hers on the cat’s back. The caption read: The family is whole again. Mommy and Daddy will always love you, buddy. I stared at the words Mommy and Daddy for a long time. When I refreshed the feed, the post was gone. I didn’t know if he had customized his settings to hide it from me, or if he had deleted it entirely. I didn’t have the energy to care. Then, a text from Austin popped up. Still looking for Buster. It’s pouring out here, go to sleep. He didn’t even bother to coordinate his lies. The cat was safe, but he wanted to stay with her anyway. Are you staying the night at Cathy’s? I typed. A long pause, then: We broke up a long time ago, Lila. Don’t overthink things. I tossed the phone onto the nightstand. I lay back in bed, letting the low fever burn through me all night. When the sun finally rose, my pillow was damp with a mixture of sweat and tears I didn’t remember crying. The next morning, Austin shook me awake. “Lila, happy third anniversary.” He pulled open the curtains, letting the harsh, bright sunlight flood the room. “We’re going to the zoo today.” My head was still spinning, but he pulled me out of bed and led me downstairs. When we reached his car, I saw Cathy sitting in the passenger seat. “If I hadn’t reminded him, you’d be spending your anniversary getting yelled at,” Cathy said, stepping out of the car with a teasing smile. She stood close to Austin, fixing his collar. “He was never this forgetful when we were dating.” Austin rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, slipping into the driver’s seat. Cathy took my hand, her smile bright. “Lila, you’re just too sweet to him. With guys like Austin, you have to keep them on a tight leash.” It wasn’t that I had never fought for us. In the beginning, Austin would apologize profusely if he was even ten minutes late for a date. Once, after our worst argument, he drove eight hours through a blizzard to the field station where I was doing research. He knelt in the snow, crying, swearing he would never make me wait again. I had laughed through my tears, and he had looked at me like I was his entire world. “Who else would I ever bend the knee for, baby?” he had whispered. But then Cathy returned, and the “privilege cards” started appearing. Our dates were constantly cut in half. Our dinners were interrupted. It became an unspoken rule: Cathy always came first. And today was no different. It wasn’t our anniversary celebration; it was just a trip Cathy wanted to take. The zoo was packed. At the main entrance, the crowd split into two paths. To the left was the Polar Pavilion. To the right was the Artificial Rainforest. Our group ticket required us to scan in at different gates. The Rainforest was hosting a special “Couples’ Challenge” today, requiring pairs to enter. Cathy looked at me, a delicate, apologetic expression on her face. Before she could speak, Austin made the decision. “Lila, you go to the Polar Pavilion,” he said, pushing me gently toward the left turnstile. “You’re always talking about wanting to go to Antarctica anyway. Plus, it’s cold in there—it’ll help bring your fever down.” He took the remaining two tickets and guided Cathy toward the Rainforest entrance. I stood at the gate, watching their figures blend into the colorful sea of tourists. The cold air of the Polar Pavilion hit my face, making my joints ache. I found a quiet bench in the corner and sat down, burying my face in my hands. A young couple walked past, holding hands. “Let’s go to the Rainforest next! They have that couples’ compatibility game.” “I heard the grand prize is that limited-edition plush penguin. You have to win it for me!” I stood up, walking slowly through the exit, and made my way around the massive park to the exit of the Artificial Rainforest. A loud, cheering crowd had gathered around a stage. As I drew closer, the sheer volume of the spectators pushed me toward the front. Above us, on the big screen, Austin was holding Cathy. They were locked in a deep, passionate kiss. The host’s voice boomed through the speakers. “Ten more seconds!” Austin’s hand was resting firmly on the small of her back, holding her protectively against him. Cathy was on her tiptoes, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck, responding with equal fervor. “Three! Two! One!” The crowd erupted into wild applause. The host handed Austin the microphone. “Congratulations to our champions! Sir, do you have anything you want to say to your lovely lady?” Austin took the mic, looking down at Cathy with a tenderness that made my throat tighten. “You will always have special privileges,” he said, his voice echoing clearly. Cathy blushed, kissing his cheek. The crowd cheered again. Beside me, a teenage girl sighed. “Oh my god, they are so cute. He is totally head over heels for her.” I looked down, a quiet smile spreading across my lips. Yes, he was. He was just head over heels for the wrong girl. As the crowd dispersed, Cathy and Austin walked down from the stage. She was clutching the giant, limited-edition plush toy, her lipstick noticeably smudged. Seeing me, she didn’t look flustered at all. Instead, she reached into her bag and handed me a small, palm-sized keychain. “Lila! I knew you’d love this,” she said brightly. “I made Austin enter the contest just so we could get this little guy for you.” I looked down at the keychain. The stitching was crooked, and the price tag was still stuck to the plastic back. $4.99. The real prize, the one that required the kiss, was held tightly in her arms. Austin avoided my eyes. “I know you like those little trinkets,” he muttered. “Consider it an anniversary gift.” Our third anniversary. I waited three hours in a storm, only to be told to get an Uber. I suffered through a 103-degree fever, only for him to leave and find her cat. I was pushed into a freezing exhibit while he kissed her on a stage. And now, he was handing me a five-dollar leftover as an anniversary present. “What kind of contest was it?” I asked quietly. Cathy’s smile stiffened slightly. “Just a silly game. The host was just playing up the couples’ thing for the crowd. It didn’t mean anything.” Austin frowned, his tone dipping into irritation. “Lila, don’t make a scene in public.” I stared at him. Apparently, simply asking a question was now considered “making a scene.” I squeezed the cheap plastic keychain, the edges digging sharply into my palm. “Austin,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “Let’s break up.” But right then, a massive, noisy parade float rounded the corner, the music blasting so loudly it shook the ground beneath our feet. My goodbye was swallowed whole by the noise. Austin squinted at me. “What did you say?” Beside him, Cathy was reaching up to adjust his collar, her movements so natural, so wifely. Suddenly, the fight drained out of me. It was just so incredibly exhausting. “Nothing,” I said. Austin let out a sigh of relief, turning back to Cathy. “Are you tired? Do you want to head back?” Cathy blushed, swatting his arm. “It’s your fault for kissing me so long.” They walked ahead, their shoulders aligned. This time, I didn’t follow. Half an hour later, a text from Austin popped up. The parking lot is a nightmare and there are no Lyfts. I’m going to drop Cathy off first. You grab a cab, okay? It was always the same sentence. I stared at the screen, and for the first time in years, I felt entirely light. Five hours later, I was sitting in the back of a taxi heading to the airport. Before blocking his number, I sent him one last text. Austin. I don’t want either of you anymore. Austin stayed at Cathy’s place until the following evening before he realized something was wrong. Lila hadn’t texted him once. When he tried calling her, the call went straight to voicemail. On iMessage, his texts were met with a chilling silence—and then, a red exclamation point. A sudden, heavy weight dropped in his stomach. He immediately dialed the number for her university laboratory. Her lab partner, Mark, answered. “Lila?” Mark sounded confused. “She accepted the professor’s offer yesterday.” Austin’s hand tightened around his phone. “What do you mean?” “She joined the three-year Antarctic research expedition,” Mark said. “She boarded the vessel. She won’t be back for three years.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “536351”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

My boss, Weston Perry, ran a fever of 107.6 degrees last month. Once his temperature finally broke, he woke up convinced I was a cockatiel. He bought an entire bookshelf’s worth of parrot care manuals. One of the highlighted rules read: “Cockatiels require at least two hours of daily vocal interaction with their owners to prevent depression.” So, this ruthless titan of the Chicago business world, universally feared in every corporate boardroom, sat in front of me every single day reading quarterly financial reports. When he finished, he’d ask me in this incredibly gentle, nurturing voice: “What do you want to learn today, sweetheart? Come on, say it with me—”quarterly revenue is up thirteen percent year-over-year”.” His executive assistant stood outside the glass door, looking like he was walking the green mile. I endured this for a month before I finally snapped, told him I wasn’t a bird, and declared I was quitting. He was so thrilled. He picked me up, spun me around, his eyes shining with a pure, ridiculous joy. “You spoke a whole sentence! Say it again. I need to record it and set it as my ringtone.” … Weston gripped me right under the arms, lifting me into the air and spinning me around in a circle. The look in his eyes right now was a mix of paternal pride and absolute, manic ecstasy. I was so dizzy the room was tilting. I just hung there in his strong grip like a discarded rag doll, completely resigned to my fate. My name is Mona. I’m the executive assistant to Weston Perry, CEO of the Perry Group. A month ago, in our desperate bid to lock down the European market, Weston had the entire team pulling eighty-hour weeks. We practically lived in the office. The night of the launch party, our iron-willed boss finally collapsed. His temperature spiked to 107.6. I ended up speeding him to the ER in the middle of the night. The doctor told me if we’d arrived ten minutes later, his brain would have literally cooked. Three days later, Weston finally woke up. I was wearing a bright, grass-green knit sweater, standing by his hospital bed peeling an apple. He opened his eyes, staring at me for a solid five minutes. I honestly thought he was about to promise me a massive bonus. Instead, he reached out, grabbed my wrist with a tight, concerned frown, and turned to the chief resident who had just rushed in. He asked, deadly serious: “Why is there a cockatiel in my recovery room?” “Who authorized putting this green-feathered bird in here?” The silence in the room was absolute. It felt like the air had been sucked out of the space. The medical team ordered an emergency brain scan, eventually concluding that the fever had temporarily fried a very specific cognitive pathway. In Weston’s mind, I was no longer the tireless assistant who had worked herself to the bone for him for three years. I was a rare, highly delicate, vibrant green cockatiel. The day he was discharged, Weston had his security detail pack up my things and bring me straight to his Gold Coast penthouse. His logic was simple: “She’s a clever little thing. I’m keeping her.” My first instinct was to run. But then he deposited a fifty-thousand-dollar “nutritional stipend” directly into my bank account. As a corporate wage slave, I sold my dignity. Shamelessly. I figured playing along meant eating gourmet food and doing nothing. But I severely underestimated how meticulous Weston could be. He installed an entire wall of shelves dedicated to “The Complete Guide to Avian Care”. One page read: “Cockatiels are incredibly fragile and prone to escape.” So, that very night, he hired contractors to replace every single floor-to-ceiling window in his penthouse with bulletproof glass. He didn’t even leave a gap in the vents. Furthermore, the manuals claimed birds love shiny objects and mirrors. He hung delicate sterling silver bells all over the living room and commissioned a massive, custom-built vanity mirror just for me. My meals were prepared by a private, Michelin-starred chef—curated “premium bird food” consisting of shelled macadamia nuts and perfectly cubed organic fruit. He even insisted my drinking water be kept at a precise ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit. I endured this suffocating, gilded-cage life for a month. Finally, I broke. I gathered my courage to tell him I was leaving. Instead of getting angry, he looked ecstatic. He whipped out his phone, opened the voice memo app, and shoved it toward my face. “Sweetheart, that was beautiful. Your pronunciation of ‘I’m not a bird’ was absolutely perfect. Say it again.” I smacked the phone out of his hand, utterly exasperated. “Weston! You are out of your mind! I want to eat greasy burgers, I want to go outside, and I am sick of chewing on raw almonds and apple slices!” The smile on his face froze. He caught my hands, his expression darkening into something deeply earnest, almost reprimanding. “Absolutely not.” “The manuals are very clear. Birds cannot have heavy, oily, or spicy foods. It ruins their plumage.” “I saw how many feathers you lost in the shower drain when you washed your hair last night. I’m already incredibly worried.” Looking at his deadpan, utterly serious face, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Burn it down. Let the whole world just burn. The next day, Weston insisted on taking me to the office. His reasoning: “Birds cannot be left alone. They develop severe separation anxiety. She must stay with me.” And so, a bizarre spectacle unfolded in the executive suites of Perry Group. Right next to the mahogany executive desk, a massive, hand-woven rattan swing nest hung from the ceiling. It was lined with the softest, plush white cashmere blankets. A ring of glittering crystal wind chimes hung around it, chiming at the slightest touch. “Go play in your swing for a bit. I have a meeting.” Weston, immaculate in his bespoke Tom Ford suit, flicked one of the crystal chimes with a long, elegant finger. The room filled with a soft “ting”. He was gesturing for me to “go back to my nest.” I gripped the doorframe for dear life. “I’m not getting in there! What self-respecting executive assistant works from a suspended swing?” “You aren’t an assistant. You’re Kiwi.” He corrected me with infinite patience, stepping closer. Ignoring my struggles, he scooped me up by the waist and deposited me gently into the pillowy rattan nest. Forced to sit cross-legged in the swing, surrounded by sparkling crystal chimes, I wished for the ground to open up and swallow me whole. When Toby, his assistant, walked in with a stack of documents, he took one look at me. His face looked like he was fighting for his life in purgatory. His shoulders shook violently as he tried to swallow his laughter. “M-Mr. Perry, here are the quarterly financial reports…” Toby stammered, handing over the folder. Weston gave him a freezing look. “Keep your voice down. You’re startling my bird.” Toby shut up instantly, threw me a look of profound pity, and practically scrambled out of the office. Once the door clicked shut, Weston picked up the reports. According to that damn “Avian Care Manual”, parrots need two hours of daily conversation. You have to teach them to mimic words, otherwise they feel neglected and sink into depression. So, Weston dragged a chair over, sitting right beside my swing. He opened the folder and looked up at me, his eyes incredibly tender, filled with the kind of patience you’d reserve for a toddler. “Kiwi, what do you want to learn today?” “Come on, repeat after me: “Quarterly revenue grew by thirteen percent year-over-year”.” I rolled my eyes, grabbed a macadamia nut from the silver tray beside me, popped it into my mouth, and mumbled around it: “No. Screw off.” Instead of getting angry, Weston pulled a sleek leather-bound notebook from his desk drawer and made a meticulous entry: “[Slightly aggressive behavior today. Potentially entering a hormonal phase. Requires additional companionship.]” I nearly fell out of the swing. “Weston, I am begging you to snap out of it!” I groaned, utterly defeated. “I am Mona! Mona! The person who pulled three consecutive all-nighters to help you rewrite the acquisition draft!” He stopped writing, raising his head to stare at me in silence. For a fleeting, hopeful second, I thought the fog had cleared. But then he sighed, reached out, and gently took my wrist. He pulled a small blue velvet box from his pocket. He clicked it open to reveal a custom-made diamond tennis bracelet, dazzling under the office lights. “The books say once a bird is bonded, you should band them to prevent them from flying away.” He slipped the diamond bracelet onto my wrist with exquisite care. “It’s a little loose, but it’s shiny. It complements your feathers nicely.” “Now that it’s on, you’re my bird. No flying away, understood?” Looking at the blinding diamonds resting on my skin, I chose shameful, quiet submission. You know what? Being a fifty-thousand-dollar-a-month “cockatiel” with a custom diamond leg band actually wasn’t the worst gig in the world. For the first month, I tried every trick in the book to jog his memory. But eventually, I just got used to it. Because mental delusion aside, Weston was a flawlessly attentive caretaker. The demanding, hyper-critical boss who would dock your bonus over a misplaced comma was gone. In his place was a man who personally tested the temperature of my drinking water against the back of his hand. It was the weekend. I had just taken a shower and was towel-drying my hair as I walked into the living room. Weston was sitting on the sofa, reviewing some legal documents. Seeing me come out, he naturally set the papers aside and patted the cushion next to him. “Come here. Let’s dry this, or your feathers will get damp and you’ll catch a cold.” I walked over and sat down, turning my back to him with practiced ease. He turned the hair dryer to its lowest, gentlest setting. His long fingers slid through my damp hair, incredibly light, brushing through the strands. The warm air on my scalp was so soothing I could feel myself drifting off. Suddenly, the gentle movement stopped. The hum of the dryer died with a sharp click. I turned around, confused. Weston was deathly pale, his pupils blown wide. He was staring, transfixed, at a small clump of loose hair in his palm—just the normal shedding that happens when you wash your hair. “Did you pull out your feathers?” His voice was actually trembling, laced with an undercurrent of pure terror. I blinked. “What? No, it’s just normal shedding…” “This is the first stage of depression!” Weston didn’t hear a word of my explanation. He stood up abruptly, pacing the hardwood floor of the living room like a caged animal. “Have I not been talking to you enough these past two days?” “Or did you not like the nuts I ordered?” “Why would you hurt yourself?” “Weston, calm down. Seriously, this isn’t feather-plucking…” Before I could even finish the sentence, he had his phone out. He dialed the number for the most exclusive exotic veterinary specialist in the city. Half an hour later, a sweating veterinarian burst into the penthouse, medical bag in hand, flanked by two bewildered assistants. When the vet saw me sitting on the sofa, wrapped comfortably in a plush bathrobe, completely unharmed, he froze. “Mr. Perry… where is the cockatiel?” the vet stammered. Weston immediately shielded me behind him, his expression grim. “Her mood has been highly unstable lately. She’s started self-harming, plucking her own feathers. Check if she’s under too much stress.” The vet looked at me, then at Weston, his face turning an exquisite shade of pale. He looked like he’d swallowed a toad. But under Weston’s unyielding, icy glare, the doctor had no choice but to play along. He stepped forward, clearing his throat awkwardly. “Uh… hello there, Miss Kiwi.” “Have you been feeling… out of sorts lately? Any… urge to fly away?” I was mortified. I could have dug a hole in the floor and crawled into it. Grit my teeth, I looked at the vet. “I am not depressed. I just want to go shopping for some clothes.” The vet looked like he’d just been granted a royal pardon. He turned to Weston with absolute gravity. “Mr. Perry, your bird is physically fine. She is simply in her molting phase.” “I highly recommend taking her out for… retail therapy. A little shopping always improves their mood.” The tension in Weston’s jaw finally dissolved. He let out a long, ragged breath. He stepped closer, cup-shaping my face with both hands. His eyes held the fragile relief of someone who had just saved a life. “You scared me to death,” he whispered. “If you want pretty things, just tell me. No more pulling out your feathers, okay?” Staring into his handsome face, so close I could feel his breath, and seeing the absolute, unadulterated worry in his eyes, my heart skipped a beat. I suddenly remembered the man Weston was before he got sick. He was demanding, yes, but fiercely protective. Once, at a high-stakes corporate dinner, a client had had too much to drink and tried to put his hands on me. Weston had calmly thrown a cup of scalding tea right at the man’s feet, his voice dropping to a deadly chill: “Do not touch my people. Ever.” The memory of him that night bled into the man standing in front of me now, whose eyes were rimmed with red just because I’d lost a few strands of hair. I sighed, my hand reaching out to gently tug at the hem of his shirt. “Okay. Understood, caretaker.” After that incident, Weston’s protective instincts flared to a borderline pathological degree. Not only did he hand me a black Amex card for “retail therapy,” but he also insisted on personally approving every outfit I wore. Nothing too thin—he was terrified the wind would damage my “feathers.” One Tuesday afternoon, Weston had a massive bidding war to attend for a prime piece of real estate downtown. Before leaving, he insisted on ushering me into the back of his SUV. “The bidding venue will be chaotic. I won’t have peace of mind leaving you at home,” he said, wrapping a thick, oversized wool coat around my shoulders as he buckled my seatbelt. “Besides, you’re my lucky charm today. Having you there will bring me good fortune.” I smiled, helpless. “Sure, whatever you say.” The SUV glided smoothly along the elevated highway. Weston sat beside me, keeping his head down as he reviewed the bid documents. His profile was striking, the sharp lines of his face softening only when he looked my way. Every so often, he’d reach out, his fingers gently brushing the top of my head. But just as we approached the exit ramp, everything went wrong. A massive dump truck, completely out of control, tore through the median barrier from the opposite lane, barreling straight toward our passenger side. “Mr. Perry! Watch out!” Frank, our driver, shrieked, wrenching the steering wheel violently. The tires screeched against the asphalt, a high-pitched wail of friction. The violent turn threw me hard against the door. In the split second before impact, Weston threw his files aside. His arm shot out, pulling me hard against him, shielding my body with his own. He tucked me tightly into his chest, using his back to block the side window where the shattered glass was about to blow. The collision was deafening. The airbags deployed with a violent pop. Glass exploded inward, raining down in a million glittering shards. Our vehicle spun, slamming hard against the concrete barrier. In the final, brutal shudder of the crash, I felt Weston’s body go rigid. His head collided heavily with the window frame—a sickening, muffled thud. “Weston!” I struggled out of his arms, my head ringing with a high-pitched buzz. Weston’s eyes were shut tight, his face bloodless. A dark stream of crimson crept down his temple, dripping onto the back of my hand. It felt searingly hot. He was completely unconscious. … Two hours later, in the hallway of the ICU. I sat on the plastic chairs, shivering. My white sweater was ruined, stained with his blood. My mind kept replaying the image of him throwing himself over me without a moment’s hesitation. The red light above the operating room finally flicked off. The doctor stepped out, pulling off his surgical mask with a tired sigh. “He’s going to be fine, Miss. Just a mild concussion and some bruising.” “And… the impact of the crash actually seems to have dissolved the old hematoma that was putting pressure on his cognitive nerves.” The doctor looked at me and nodded. “His cognitive impairment has been completely resolved.”

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I’ve spent my entire life happily living in my sister’s shadow. From the time we were kids, my absolute favorite thing in the world was catering to her—fetching her water, carrying her bags, grabbing her coffee. It was my chosen role, and I loved every second of it. So when Charlotte got into Columbia University, I pulled off a massive academic sprint, skipped a grade, and followed her right in. On move-in day, Charlotte rolled into our dorm suite with a security detail of eight men. My new roommates were practically bowing, whispering about “the campus princess,” while I was quietly smoothed out the silk sheets on her bed. Only Elma Marshall watched me with a dry, knowing smirk. “You don’t look like a roommate,” she murmured, loud enough for the room to hear. “You look like her lady-in-waiting.” I just smiled and kept tucking in the corners. Later that afternoon, Charlotte casually tossed her brand-new, blush-pink quilted Chanel handbag onto my desk. “This shade suits you better anyway,” she said. “Take it.” As I beamed and caught the bag, Elma was just walking past our open door, her eyes lingering a second too long on the gold chain. Over the weekend, while Charlotte was away on a trip to Paris, Elma and I were the only ones left in the suite. “Zoey,” Elma said, leaning against the doorframe, “do you have any idea what everyone in our class calls you behind your back?” I didn’t look up from my laptop. “Charlotte Harrington’s golden retriever.” The next morning, my boyfriend, Zach Caldwell—the golden-boy lacrosse captain—asked to meet me on the campus quad. Elma was already standing next to him, her eyelashes wet with tears. When Zach saw me walk up, his forehead creased into a deep, disgusted frown. “Zoey, can you please have some self-respect?” he snapped. “You’re selling your dignity for a purse?” “Elma comes from a modest background, and she still has more grace and pride in her little finger than you do.” Elma gently tugged at his sleeve, her voice soft and trembling. “Zach, please don’t. Don’t ruin things with Zoey because of me. I’m not worth the trouble.” I looked at their joined hands, and for a second, I actually had to suppress a laugh. Seriously? Had neither of them noticed that Charlotte and I shared the exact same last name? … I adjusted the Chanel strap on my shoulder and let out a soft laugh. “You’ve been holding that in for a while, haven’t you, Elma?” I said, looking her up and down. “What’s the matter? Do you want the bag too? Too bad you can’t afford it.” Elma’s face instantly flushed a violent red. Her lips trembled as she took a fragile step backward. Zach’s brow furrowed deeper, and he stepped forward, shielding Elma with his body. The disappointment in his eyes was palpable. “Zoey! I had no idea you could be this cruel.” I tilted my head. “Cruel?” “When did you become so incredibly petty and arrogant?” he said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “Elma doesn’t have much, and you’re using your hand-me-downs to mock her? Have you lost your mind?” He looked at me with pure distaste. I froze. Petty? Arrogant? My mind flashed back to a year ago, when Zach had stopped me outside the library. His smile had been as warm as mid-July. “Zoey, you’re the brightest, most genuine girl I’ve ever met,” he’d said, his ears turning bright red. “When you laugh, it’s like the whole campus lights up. Be my girlfriend? I want to spend every day making you smile.” I guess when the love is gone, being bright is just loud, and sunshine is just blinding. A sharp, sour ache bloomed in my chest. Elma pulled at Zach’s sleeve again, her voice thick with tears. “Zach, don’t blame Zoey. It’s my fault. I just… I wanted you to talk to her. I didn’t want her to keep letting Charlotte treat her like a…” She bit her lip, cutting herself off as if the word was too dirty to utter. “But she wouldn’t listen. She just started flaunting her things to make me feel small…” As her voice trailed off into a whimper, Zach’s expression softened into pure adoration and pity. By now, our little drama had drawn a crowd. Students walking across the quad began to slow down, whispering in small huddles. Some recognized the Chanel bag; others recognized Elma. “Isn’t that the girl who practically grooms Charlotte Harrington’s hair? Why is she carrying Chanel?” “Please, the maid gets a bonus and suddenly thinks she’s royalty.” “Keep it down. You don’t want the master coming after you.” “Oh, please. Her master is out of the country. Right now, she’s just a stray with no one to whistle for her.” The comments drifted over, sharp and precise, as if they’d practiced the volume just to ensure I’d hear every word. Some of them laughed. Others surveyed me like a piece of cheap merchandise. Zach stood right there. He heard every single word, and he didn’t say a thing to defend me. His eyes held the exact same judgment as the crowd’s. Elma buried her face against Zach’s arm, her shoulders shaking with faux-sobs. But from where I was standing, I saw the tiny, victorious curl of her lip. It was almost comical. It was just a Chanel bag. I had a closet full of them back home. I’d spent my freshman year keeping a low profile because I didn’t want the drama of being a “trust-fund kid,” but my silence had apparently branded me as a servant. Charlotte had insisted on me rooming with her only because she wanted to make sure I was eating well. I took a deep breath. “I’ll carry whatever bag I want, Elma. Why do you even care?” My indifference seemed to hit a nerve. Elma’s delicate facade cracked, and she suddenly yelled, “Zoey, who do you think you are to talk to me like that?” Her eyes were wide and swimming with tears, but her chin was tilted up in defiance. “Yes! I’m poor! My family doesn’t have money, and I’ve never owned a designer bag in my life. But at least I don’t sell my soul to get one. What gives you the right to look down on me?” The crowd’s eyes locked onto me like tiny needles. I almost laughed out loud. I hadn’t even started on her, and she was already playing the martyr. I took a step closer, looking down at her. “Elma, what makes you think I can’t afford this myself?” Before Elma could speak, Zach let out a sharp, cynical laugh. “Zoey, stop embarrassing yourself,” he said, his voice dripping with irritation. “Maybe you can fool these people, but you can’t fool me. You wear the same five outfits every week. You order the cheapest salad on the diner menu. Last month, you spent an hour on the phone arguing over a fifteen-dollar overage charge on your cell bill. Elma is at least honest about who she is. What do you have?” He gestured to my bag with a sneer. “A designer bag on you looks like a cheap knockoff from a street corner. Using someone else’s charity to humiliate Elma… aren’t you ashamed?” A low murmur of chuckles rippled through the crowd. The pain in my chest felt like a physical blow. Last month had been Zach’s birthday. He’d forwarded me a post of some influencer’s girlfriend gifting him a rare, limited-edition gaming console, adding a caption about how lucky some guys were. I wanted to buy it for him with money I earned myself. So, I took a job at a local espresso bar, standing for eight hours a day until my feet swelled so badly I could barely get my sneakers on. I took on a tutoring gig for a high school junior, spending two hours on a noisy subway after classes just to get to their apartment. I saved every single penny. But on his birthday, he’d barely glanced at the console before rushing out to a frat party with his boys. He’d probably forgotten about it the next morning. I swallowed the lump of bile in my throat. “Are you finished?” I asked, my voice deadly quiet. “Whether I can afford it or not is none of your business. Excuse me.” I turned to walk away. The crowd parted reluctantly. But I’d only taken two steps when Zach’s voice boomed behind me, sharp and furious, like a man whose pride had been wounded in public. Heavy footsteps crunched on the gravel, and then his hand clamped down hard on my arm. “Zoey, stop!” he snarled. “Elma had the decency to ask me to talk to you, and this is how you act? Who are you throwing tantrums at?” I yanked my arm out of his grip. His face flushed with rage. “You’re going to apologize to Elma right now, and then you’re going to give that bag back.” Give it back? It belonged to my family. Who was I supposed to return it to? I didn’t say a word. I just turned and kept walking. Behind me, Zach’s voice reached a desperate, angry crescendo. “Zoey! If you walk away right now, we are over!” The whispers in the crowd died down instantly. Everyone was waiting for me to turn around, to beg, to apologize. I paused for a fraction of a second. Then, without looking back, I took another step forward. When I got back to the dorm, I pulled my laundry basket from under the bed. Charlotte was coming back the day after tomorrow, and her sheets needed to be washed. I stripped her bed, soaked the linen in the basin with detergent, and knelt on the bathroom floor to scrub. The cool soapy water covered my hands, grounding me. The bathroom door creaked open. Elma walked in, carrying a bundle of dark sheets. When she saw me kneeling there, scrubbing, a small, ugly smile touched her lips. She walked over, and with a casual flick of her wrists, let her sheets drop directly into my soapy water. Suds splashed all over my face. I looked down. A dark, rusty menstrual stain was smeared across her sheets, bleeding into the clean suds of Charlotte’s linen. I slowly raised my head. “What do you think you’re doing?” Elma crossed her arms, her chin tilted up. “I started my period. My cramps are awful, and I’m too tired to wash this.” “Since you’re already doing laundry, you might as well do mine. You’re so good at washing other people’s things anyway.” She smiled, her eyes glittering with cheap victory. “We’re roommates, Zoey. Don’t be selfish.” I slowly stood up, wiping the suds off my hands with a towel. I looked at the blood-stained sheet floating in the basin, reached down, pulled it out, and shoved the dripping wet fabric right into her chest. “Wash your own damn sheets.” I knelt back down and went back to scrubbing Charlotte’s linen. The cold water soaked through Elma’s top, and she froze in shock. Then, her voice went shrill. “Zoey! What is wrong with you?” she screamed. “I’m in pain! Can’t you show some basic empathy?” I ignored her. Our other suite-mate, who had been studying in the common room, poked her head in. “Elma, starting your period doesn’t mean your hands are broken. Zoey isn’t your maid.” “Exactly,” another agreed from the doorway. “Why should she wash your blood?” Elma’s face turned an unsightly shade of grey. She bit her lip, her eyeswelling with tears, before she threw her wet sheets into her own basket and slammed out of the suite. Twenty minutes later, my phone buzzed three times in my pocket. I pulled it out. It was an unsaved number. Zoey, do you have to be such a bully? Would it kill you to help her wash a sheet? She’s on her period, for God’s sake. She’s sitting out on the bench crying her eyes out. How do you sleep at night? Another buzz. I never realized you were this cold-blooded. You won’t even help a roommate with a small favor. I am so incredibly disappointed in you. I stared at the screen and let out a dry laugh. I tapped the screen and typed a quick reply. If you want to wash her bloody sheets so badly, go do it yourself. You can lick them clean for all I care. Also, we’re broken up. You don’t have the right to be disappointed in me. I hit send. Then, I blocked the number. The screen went dark, and I went back to scrubbing. The next morning, I was woken up by a barrage of notifications. My phone was vibrating like a live wire. I squinted at the screen. My suite-mate had sent me a dozen messages, capped off with a link to the campus forum. The headline read: [EXPOSED: The Truth About Columbia’s ‘Lady-in-Waiting’—Is Zoey Harrington Actually a Fraud?] I was wide awake now. I clicked the link. The post had been uploaded at 3:00 AM. Remember Zoey Harrington? The girl who follows Charlotte Harrington around like a shadow and spent move-in day making her bed? You thought they were just close roommates? Think again. Her dad is actually a driver for the Harrington family. She’s literally domestic help. Turns out she’s just a glorified maid. The truth is finally out. Below the post was a laundry list of my “crimes.” This girl is obsessed with social climbing. She looks down on anyone from a normal background. It’s honestly embarrassing sharing a campus with someone this pathetic. At the very bottom of the thread, an anonymous user had commented: I’m her suite-mate. She never talks to any of us in the dorm. Probably thinks she’s too good for us because she gets the Harrington family’s scraps. That whiny, self-pitying tone—I could recognize Elma’s writing anywhere. The post had already gone viral on campus, with hundreds of comments rolling in. Makes sense. No normal person would be that subservient unless they were raised to do it. It’s disgusting how she acts so superior just because she gets to carry rich people’s bags. Wait, isn’t she dating Zach Caldwell from the lacrosse team? What does he see in her? Someone had tagged Zach’s account. I clicked his name and saw his public reply from an hour ago: We broke up. Thanks. Honestly, she was the one who kept throwing herself at me. The comment had hundreds of likes, with people praising him for “dodging a bullet.” Throwing myself at him? I guess he’d conveniently forgotten how he used to wait outside my lectures for hours just to walk me to the subway. I shut off my phone and stared out the window at the gray, overcast New York morning. Before I could even get out of bed, my academic advisor’s office called. “Zoey, please come to my office immediately.” Mrs. Albright pushed a stack of printed pages across her mahogany desk. It was the forum thread, with dozens of comments highlighted in bright yellow ink. She frowned, tapping her pen against the wood. “The entire university is talking about this, Zoey,” she said. “The allegations of elitism, harassment of low-income students… it’s reflecting very poorly on the department. The dean’s office is already asking questions.” She sighed, softening her tone slightly. “Look, if you just apologize to Elma, we can make this go away.” I let the word settle on my tongue. “Apologize?” “She threw a blood-stained sheet into my laundry basin, posted lies online claiming my father is a servant, and orchestrated a targeted harassment campaign against me. And you want me to apologize to her?” Mrs. Albright’s expression hardened. “Zoey, are you trying to make this more difficult than it needs to be?” I stood up, my chair scraping loudly against the hardwood floor. “Mrs. Albright, you don’t need to worry about this.” “Once my parents are back in the city, you can discuss this directly with them.” Mrs. Albright’s brow furrowed. “Fine. Let’s get your parents in here.” “I’d love to see what kind of parents raise a child to be this stubborn.” I looked her dead in the eye. “Richard Harrington. Mrs. Albright, would you like me to dial his personal office for you?” The pen slipped from Mrs. Albright’s hand, clattering onto the desk. Her lips parted, and she hurriedly pulled up the university’s donor directory on her computer. She stopped at a prominent name on the Board of Trustees. Her face went from irritation to a pale, ghostly white. “Richard… as in Richard Harrington?” she stammered. “You’re… his daughter?” “Why didn’t you say anything?” I didn’t answer. I turned, opened the door, and walked out. I was halfway back to my dorm when I saw two figures walking down the tree-lined path. Elma was clinging to Zach’s arm, her face pale and her eyes red-rimmed as if she’d been weeping for hours. Zach was leaning down, whispering something comforting to her, his expression gentler than I’d ever seen it. When they spotted me, Elma froze, then gripped his arm tighter. Zach’s face turned to stone. Elma spoke first. “Zoey… I’m so sorry. I didn’t think the post would get this big.” “I only complained in a private group chat. I have no idea who screenshotted it and put it on the forum.” “Please don’t be mad at me. I’ll apologize to you, okay? I’ll do whatever you want.” Tears began to spill over her eyelashes, perfectly timed. Zach immediately wrapped a protective arm around her shoulder. The practiced choreography of it made my stomach turn. I let out a cold laugh. “Elma, aren’t you tired of acting?” “You’ve been eyeing Zach since the day we met, haven’t you? Too bad he was my boyfriend then, so you had to play the fragile, pity-me card to get his attention.” Zach shielded her, his voice rising. “Zoey, shut up!” I ignored him, keeping my eyes locked on Elma. “Let me make something clear today.” “You went through all this trouble to steal a piece of garbage like Zach? You really shouldn’t have bothered.” “If you want him, take him. He’s a rotten apple anyway. Yours for free.” The air went dead silent. Then, Zach’s hand whipped through the air. My brain registered the movement too late to dodge. The slap landed squarely across my left cheek. My head snapped sideways. The force of the blow sent me stumbling backward, my knee slamming hard against the concrete step behind me. A sharp, searing pain shot through my leg. My cheek felt like it was on fire, my ears ringing with a deafening buzz. Zach stood at the top of the steps, looking down at me, his chest heaving, his fist still clenched. “Zoey, don’t you dare think I won’t put you in your place,” he breathed, his voice trembling with rage. “I’ve given you enough slack.” “Apologize to Elma right now. Don’t make me force you to your knees.” I slowly lifted my head, looking at him, then at Elma, who was trying to look terrified but couldn’t quite hide the smug satisfaction dancing in her eyes. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I let my eyes water, my voice cracking slightly as I dialed. “Dad… my ex-boyfriend just hit me.” “And he’s trying to make me kneel and beg for forgiveness.” A few onlookers in the crowd snickered. “Is your driver dad going to come down here and kneel with you?” Right then, the loud, rhythmic thrum of helicopter blades began to echo over the campus quad. “Who dares to bully my youngest daughter?!”

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The ultra-wealthy Dwight family had been plagued by male-line infertility for generations. After a decade of grueling IVF cycles and cutting-edge fertility treatments, they finally welcomed a baby girl. At her first-month welcoming gala, I stood in my crisp uniform as the newly hired newborn care specialist. I was about to witness this tiny girl officially become the sole heiress to a multi-billion-dollar empire. But just as the senior nanny, Beatrice Kemp, cradled the baby to take her to the nursery for a diaper change, a soft, whimpering voice echoed directly in my mind. It was a sweet, lisping baby voice, yet the panic in it was unmistakable: [Oh no, oh no! Don’t let this bad nanny take me! She’s going to swap me with her own daughter!] [If anyone can save me from this, I’ll make her my godmother and give her fifty million dollars!] My entire body went rigid. I stared in absolute terror at Beatrice. Before I could even process what was happening, another baby’s voice—this one dripping with a strange, calculating malice—echoed from a quiet corner of the room: [Once my mommy finishes the swap, all the Dwight fortune will belong to me!] [It’s a good thing the real heiress and I look so much alike. No one will ever notice. And even if they do, we can just pin it on that new nanny!] I didn’t hesitate for more than a fraction of a second. I lunged forward, throwing myself at Beatrice, and snatched the real baby right out of her arms. … “You can’t let Beatrice take her! She’s planning to swap the baby!” Desperate to protect the newborn, my heart hammered against my ribs, my voice cracking with panic. “Beatrice brought her own daughter here. She has her hidden somewhere, just waiting for the perfect moment to make the switch. You have to believe me! Do not let her near the baby!” The Dwight family and the high-society guests froze. The room went dead silent. George Dwight, the patriarch, clenched his fists, his face flushing a dangerous crimson. “Isabel Ward, have you lost your mind?” he roared. “Stop this lunatic performance and hand over my daughter!” Catherine Dwight looked at me as if I were a wild animal that had wandered into her gilded ballroom. “Beatrice has worked for our family for five years. Her character is impeccable. How dare you stand there and throw such baseless, disgusting accusations at her?” Seeing that no one believed a single word, Beatrice maintained her composure, looking at me with a mixture of pity and offense. “Isabel, I know you’re insecure because I have more experience than you,” Beatrice said, her voice smooth and maternal. “You’re afraid I’ll make you look bad. But this is between us. We can discuss this privately. Please, don’t frighten the baby.” She took a step forward, her hands reaching out to grab the infant. “She has a dirty diaper. It needs to be changed immediately, or she’s going to get a rash!” George’s eyes narrowed, gesturing for his security detail to move in. The real baby, who had been perfectly quiet until now, suddenly burst into a piercing, frantic wail. [I knew this was coming the moment I was born, but is this really how it ends? Why won’t Daddy believe this smart lady? Isabel is the only one who can protect me now…] The baby’s sharp cries cut through the room. Catherine’s eyes welled with tears. “Isabel, you’re terrifying my baby! What on earth do you want?” Beatrice kept creeping closer, a smug, barely perceptible smirk playing on her lips. I clutched the baby tighter and backed away. “The baby only cries when Beatrice gets close! Look at her—she stops the moment Beatrice steps back. She’s terrified of her! Babies are intuitive. They can sense who is safe and who isn’t. Just watch!” The tiny girl was incredibly cooperative. The moment I backed up three yards, her crying ceased, and she let out a soft, shuddering sigh. But the second I stepped back toward Beatrice, she shrieked in terror. Catherine, a fiercely observant mother, paused. Her brow furrowed. “Beatrice, why is my daughter reacting to you like that? And why is she so calm with Isabel?” Beatrice’s face twitched for a split second, but she quickly redirected the blame, pointing a trembling finger at me. “Isabel must have drugged her! She’s putting on this ridiculous show to kidnap the baby! Mr. Dwight, you can’t let her keep doing this. The baby is going to choke if she keeps crying like this!” George’s expression darkened to a terrifying pitch. Within seconds, three burly security guards and Beatrice had cornered me against the wall. My legs shook violently. I was trapped. Just as I thought all was lost, the elderly matriarch of the family, Grandmama Josephine, slammed her heavy cane against the marble floor. She stood up slowly, her gaze piercing. “Isabel,” the old woman said, her voice carrying the weight of absolute authority. “You claim Beatrice is trying to swap my granddaughter.” She paused, looking directly into my eyes. “Then tell me. Where is this other baby you claim she brought?” The moment she finished speaking, the real baby let out a series of soft, urgent babbles: [Grandmama is right! Find Beatrice’s baby, and the truth will come out. Come on, Isabel, keep going! My fifty-million-dollar trust fund is waiting for you!] Josephine was giving me a lifeline. I took a deep breath, forcing my racing mind to quiet down. I strained my ears, desperate to catch any telepathic trace of Beatrice’s baby. But Beatrice’s daughter seemed to be actively working against me. At this crucial moment, her mind was completely silent. Seeing my hesitation, Beatrice lunged forward to grab the baby. In a rush of adrenaline, I bolted toward Josephine. But I only managed two steps before Beatrice reached out, grabbing a fistful of my hair and pulling backward with brutal force. My feet slipped on the polished floor. I went down hard. To keep the baby from taking the impact, I twisted my body mid-air, forcing my own shoulder, back, and the back of my head to absorb the full, bone-shattering collision with the marble. Stars exploded in my vision. The pain was blinding, but I forced myself to scramble up, pushing through the dizziness. I desperately thrust the baby into Josephine’s arms. “Grandmama, please,” I gasped, blood trickling down my neck. “Do not let her out of your sight. And do not, under any circumstances, let Beatrice touch her!” I locked eyes with Beatrice. The sheer, murderous hatred in her gaze made my blood run cold. Josephine had been skeptical before, but as she looked down, the baby let out a tiny, gummy smile, reaching her miniature hands up toward my face. Something clicked in the old woman’s eyes. “When you fell,” Josephine said softly, her eyes shifting slowly to Beatrice, “you risked your own life to shield my granddaughter. Yet some people, who claim to care so much, didn’t seem to care if the baby was crushed in the scuffle.” Beatrice’s face flushed. “I was only thinking of the baby’s safety! I lost my temper. Mr. Dwight, you know me. I’ve served this family faithfully for five years. I would never hurt her!” George, still shaken, stepped forward, his veins bulging on his forehead. “Isabel almost got our daughter killed! She cannot go unpunished!” I wished more than anything that the baby could speak to save me, but no matter how hard she tried, she could only emit sweet, unintelligible coos. To everyone else, it was just baby noise. Catherine looked at my bleeding head, her heart softening. “The baby really seems to like Isabel. I don’t think she’s a bad person. Since no harm was done, perhaps we should just let it go.” With Catherine intervening, George managed to suppress his rage, though his face remained tense. “Today is my daughter’s celebration. I will let you go this once. Get out of my sight. If you cause another scene, I’ll make sure you regret it.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Josephine holding the baby tightly, with Catherine guarding them closely. Relieved that the baby was safe for now, I slipped away to search for Beatrice’s actual child. I had to find that second infant to put an end to this nightmare once and for all. But for some reason, the other baby remained completely silent. I wandered through the massive estate like a headless chicken, searching the coatrooms, the pantries, the empty lounges. Nothing. Where could she have hidden a newborn? After searching every corner of the main level, I came up empty-handed. I grit my teeth, realizing I had to change tactics. Since I couldn’t find the fake baby, I would simply stick to Josephine like glue and watch Beatrice’s every move. But the moment I turned back toward the ballroom, a faint, suffocating whimper echoed in my mind. [Help me… it’s so dark… so hot… I can’t breathe…] [Isabel, please help me… I don’t want to die…] My heart stopped. I had only been gone for fifteen minutes, and somehow, Beatrice had already succeeded. Ignoring George’s warning, I threw open the double doors of the ballroom and charged back inside. “Stop! The baby has been swapped!” The room froze again. Everyone stared at me as if I were a lunatic who had escaped an asylum. In Josephine’s arms, the fake baby’s thoughts flared up in a panic: [How does this nanny know? It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t have proof. I’ll just cry to distract them!] Immediately, the infant in Josephine’s arms let out a shrill, ear-splitting cry, turning red and thrashing about. Catherine panicked, her maternal instincts overriding everything else. “Isabel, shut up! We only lost sight of her for a few minutes when we went to the restroom. How could she possibly be swapped?” To the parents, it was the sound of a distressed child. To me, it was a cold, calculated confession: [I just have to cry harder. Make them pity me. This nanny is finished.] George’s eyes were like daggers, but I couldn’t back down. If the real baby was trapped in a suffocating space, she had minutes left to live. And if she died, Beatrice would make sure I took the fall. “Beatrice, where did you put her?” I screamed, stepping toward her. “Tell us now, and you might avoid a life sentence. If anything happens to that baby, you are finished!” Beatrice flinched, a flicker of panic crossing her features. I turned to Josephine, raising my voice to carry over the baby’s crying. “Grandmama, look at her closely! No two babies are identical. You are sharp. Look at her features—I know you can tell the difference!” Josephine’s brow furrowed. She lifted the baby, trying to examine her face. The fake baby thrashed violently in her arms. [I won’t let them look! Mommy, don’t back down. Just hold out for a few more minutes, and that real brat will stifle to death!] Beatrice fell to her knees, tears streaming down her face in a masterful display of victimhood. “Isabel, I don’t know what I did to make you hate me so much. We can settle this outside, but please, stop terrorizing this family!” The elegant gala had devolved into utter chaos. Losing his remaining patience, George snatched a crystal glass from a passing waiter’s tray and hurled it at me. “Isabel, enough! Nobody touches my daughter in my house!” I couldn’t dodge in time. The heavy crystal struck my temple. A sharp ringing filled my ears as warm blood poured down the side of my face, blurring my vision. Security guards swarmed me, ready to drag me out. I retreated, my hands raised, shaking as I screamed through the pain: “She is not your daughter! Do a DNA test if you don’t believe me! Your real daughter is trapped in a dark, airtight space. We have to find her now! A few more minutes and she will suffocate!” Through the dizzying fog in my head, the real baby’s voice grew fainter, drifting into a whisper: [It’s so hot… it feels like fire… my head is so heavy…] [Is anyone coming…?] I caught the detail. “Fire. Hot.” If I just ran off now, they would think I was fleeing and tackle me. To force them to follow, I made a desperate split-second decision. I lunged forward, ripped the fake baby out of George’s arms, and bolted toward the service corridors leading to the kitchens. “If you want her back, follow me!” I screamed. Catherine shrieked, sprinting after me. George’s roar echoed behind her, vibrating through the tiled hallway: “Protect the baby! Get her!” I ran through the winding corridors, my blood dripping onto the clean tile floor. The fake baby in my arms screamed bloody murder: [Don’t let her find her! Don’t let her ruin this!] The guards were close, their heavy footsteps loud behind me. I pushed through the double swinging doors of the main kitchen, ignoring the startled gasps of the culinary staff. With one arm holding the fake baby, I used my free hand to tear open the stainless-steel cabinets. “Heat… smoke… it has to be the kitchen…” I muttered, my voice cracking. “Sweetheart, please cry. Just make a sound so I can find you…” But my mind was met with silence. The real baby had stopped projecting. My chest burned. “Please, just hang on. I’m almost there.” George burst into the kitchen, flanked by guards and a breathless Josephine. “If you drop my child, I will end you,” he hissed. “She’s not your child!” I sobbed, my hands trembling as I ripped open another set of metal doors. “Your daughter is in one of these units! She’s dying! Help me search!” Catherine fell to her knees by the prep tables, weeping hysterically. “Isabel, please… we’ll give you whatever you want. Just give me my baby back…” I ignored them, frantically throwing open pantry doors, storage bins, warming drawers. Nothing but dry goods and clean linen. Then, a tiny, fading sigh brushed against my consciousness: [Isabel… I hear you… I’m right… here…] I spun around, my eyes locking onto the massive, commercial-grade sanitizing dishwasher at the far end of the line. “She’s in there! Open the dishwasher!” I lunged toward it, but before I could reach the handle, two guards tackled me from behind. One wrested the fake baby from my arms, while the other pinned my shoulders to the floor, my joints popping under his weight. “Mrs. Dwight!” I screamed into the tile floor. “Look at the baby in your husband’s arms! Look at her face! You know your own daughter’s eyes!” Catherine, clutching her chest, instinctively looked at the baby George was holding. She stared at the crying infant, her expression faltering. Beatrice rushed into the kitchen, trying to shield the baby from view. “Mrs. Dwight, don’t listen to this madwoman. It’s too hot in here for the baby. Let’s get her back to the nursery.” Catherine hesitated, but looking at the crying child, she let Beatrice guide her toward the exit. My strength was entirely spent. The room spun, and my vision began to darken. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Grandmama Josephine. She was standing still, her gaze fixed on the industrial dishwasher. She walked slowly toward it, her cane clicking against the floor. I mustered the absolute last of my strength to cry out: “Grandmama, please… just look. Your granddaughter is in there. Her life is in your hands…” George sneered. “Still babbling your nonsense? My daughter is right here!” Beatrice smirked from the doorway, while the fake baby let out a smug mental laugh: [He bought it. Goodbye, sister. The Dwight fortune is mine.] Josephine’s hand hovered over the heavy metal handle of the dishwasher. Then, she paused, her hand dropping back to her side. Despair washed over me. Tears mingled with the blood on my face. “I’m sorry, little one. I tried.” “Throw Isabel in the cold storage until the police arrive,” George ordered. But just as the guard began to drag me backward, Josephine leaned closer to the rubber seal of the industrial dishwasher door. Her eyes widened in sudden, absolute horror. “Stop!” she shrieked, her voice cracking. “Nobody move! There… there is a baby in here!”

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Before my best friend, Jackie, died of cancer, the only thing he couldn’t let go of was the girl he’d been dating online—a girl he had never actually met in person. He grabbed my hand, tears streaming down his face, begging me: “Theo, she has severe clinical depression. I’m terrified this will push her over the edge. Please, log into my account. Keep talking to her, but start pulling away slowly. When enough time has passed, break it off. Please?” With bloodshot eyes, I promised him I would. I kept that promise. Using Jackie’s voice, I stayed by her side through the screen for three whole years. I was there when her depression flared up again, and I was there when she climbed back to the top of her career. And then, I slowly began to pull away, just like he asked. Today, I decided three years was long enough. Long enough for her to let go of a dying flame. So, I pressed send: “We shouldn’t see each other anymore. It’s over.” The very second I hit send, Verna’s personal phone on the coffee table lit up. There, glaring on her screen, was the exact breakup text I had just sent. … “Theo, the water’s perfect. Go ahead and get in. I’ll join you as soon as I dry my hair.” Verna’s voice drifted from the bathroom, warm and tender through the steam. I froze. I stared at the avatar on her screen. That account—I’d been using it for three years. “We shouldn’t see each other anymore. It’s over.” Word for word. Exactly what I had just typed. The bathroom door swung open. Verna stepped out, wrapping her robe around herself and towel-drying her hair. When she saw me standing rigid in front of the coffee table, she paused. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” She walked over, her hand instinctively reaching out to adjust the collar of my pajamas. I flinched back, my lower back hitting the armrest of the sofa. A sharp pain shot through my spine. Her hand hung in midair. “Theo?” Her eyes followed mine, landing on the glowing screen of her phone. Her face went completely blank. The phone buzzed. It was the custom notification sound she’d set only for him. She lunged forward, grabbing the phone. Her fingers shook violently as she unlocked it, staring at the screen. She read those seven words over and over, three times. “No…” her voice was barely a whisper. “He wouldn’t…” She began typing, deleting, typing again, unable to send a single message. Then she dialed. Once. Twice. Three times. In my pocket, Jackie’s old phone remained completely silent. I had kept it on silent for years, terrified she would find out I was posing as her online boyfriend and misunderstand. “Pick up… please, pick up…” her voice trembled, sweat breaking out on her forehead. I had never seen her like this. No, that wasn’t true. I had seen her like this. In my chat history with her as “Jackie.” During her worst depressive episodes, she had begged me just like this, pleading for “him” not to leave. But in real life, the face she showed me was always perfectly composed, flawless, and distant. “Verna,” I said. She didn’t hear me. She kept dialing. “Verna!” She snapped her head up. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face twisted in sudden rage. “Shut up!” The words hit me like a slap. I froze for a second, and then, a dry laugh escaped my throat. She seemed to snap out of it, quickly softening her expression. She slipped right back into that polished, polite mask of hers. “I’m sorry. I just… I have something urgent to handle.” She turned and marched toward the bedroom, immediately pulling clothes from the closet. “What’s so urgent?” She was moving so fast she missed a button on her blouse, not even caring. “It’s an emergency.” She didn’t look at me. “What kind of emergency? We’re supposed to go try on our wedding outfits tomorrow.” Her hands paused. Finally, she spared a glance in my direction. There was no guilt in her eyes. Only irritation at being held back. “Go try your suit on alone. Choose whatever wedding dress you like, I don’t care. Just put it on my card.” “Put it on your card?” I repeated, the words tasting bitter. “Verna, what could possibly be more important than our wedding?” Her face went cold. She looked at me the way she would look at an annoying stranger. “Theo, you’ve always been the sensible one.” “Why are you acting so childish all of a sudden?” Before I could say another word, she grabbed her car keys and slammed the door behind her. “Mr. Hawthorne, is your fiancée still unavailable today?” The consultant at the bridal shop wore a practiced, professional smile, but her tone carried a pity she didn’t bother to hide. I sat alone in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror. This was the second time she had stood me up. Around me, the whispers of the shop assistants drifted over. “Is that him? The illustrator? I have no idea how he managed to bag Verna.” “She hasn’t shown up once. Didn’t even try on her dress. This wedding is as good as off.” I ignored them. In the dressing room, I pulled out Jackie’s old phone. The screen was flooded with hundreds of unread messages from Verna. [Jackie, why are you ignoring me?] [Did I do something wrong? Tell me, I’ll change.] [Please call me. Just for a second.] [Jackie, are you leaving me?] [Please, don’t leave me.] Then, a sixty-second voice memo. I hesitated for a long time before tapping play. Her voice was choked with tears, the low hum of her car engine rumbling in the background. “Jackie… I’m sorry… please give me another chance… I can’t survive without you… I’ll literally die… I will…” The woman who had just told me to “shut up” and called me “childish” last night was currently sobbing so hard she could barely breathe on my other screen. There was a knock on the dressing room door. “Mr. Hawthorne, Miss Natalie is here.” Natalie. Verna’s childhood friend. I wiped my face quickly, changed out of the suit, and walked out. Natalie was sitting on the plush sofa, legs crossed. When she saw me, she pulled a black card from her designer handbag and tossed it onto the table with a sharp slap. “This is for the remaining balance. Verna is busy. She doesn’t have time to waste on stuff like this.” She stood up, walking over to me, her voice dropping to a low, mocking hum. “Let’s be honest for a second, Theo.” “You know exactly why Verna chose you. You’re quiet. You’re easy. You don’t cause trouble.” “She’s giving you the title of husband. Just sit there, be grateful, and play the part. Don’t start demanding things like ‘love.’ That’s not for people like you.” My hand twitched, wanting to slap the smug look off her face. She caught my wrist before I could. “Angry?” She tightened her grip. “Just a friendly warning: Verna is in a terrible mood lately. Don’t push her. If you don’t want this spot, there’s a line of men waiting to take your place.” She shoved my hand back, making me stumble a couple of steps. “The PIN is her birthday. Pick whatever suit and dress you want. You’re only wearing them once anyway.” With a dismissive pat to her skirt, she turned and walked out. I stood alone in the empty, silent boutique. In my hand, a phone filled with my fiancée’s desperate cries for another man. On the table, a black card thrown down by her best friend. “Mr. Hawthorne, are you happy with this suit?” “No,” I whispered. “I don’t want it.” When I got back from the shop, I felt feverish and dizzy, so I went straight to bed. In the middle of the night, a sharp, white-hot pain suddenly ripped through my abdomen. Cold sweat drenched my shirt, and my vision swam. Shaking, I reached for my phone and called Verna. It rang for what felt like an eternity before she finally picked up. “Yeah?” The background noise was filled with airport announcements. My heart sank into my stomach. “Verna… my stomach hurts so bad I can’t get up… Can you come home and take me to the hospital?” Silence stretched over the line for a few agonizing seconds. “Theo, I have an actual emergency right now. You’re a grown man. Can’t you just call an Uber?” An emergency. Of course. Your precious “Jackie” wanted to break up with you. What could be bigger than that? I lay on the cold hardwood floor, my limbs freezing. And then, driven by some dark, masochistic urge, I reached for Jackie’s phone and typed out a single line: [I want to see you.] Send. Almost instantly, I heard Verna scream at someone next to her through the line. “Rebook it! Rebook it right now! Put me on the next flight to Seattle! I don’t care how much it costs!” Seattle. That was the city I had randomly chosen as “Jackie’s” home to make the lie feel real. She was at the airport. She was abandoning me, flying across the country for a ghost. “Verna,” I whispered into the receiver. “What if I die tonight?” Her voice came back, cold and entirely hollow. “Stop using death to manipulate me. This desperate act of yours is suffocating.” She hung up. I stared up at the ceiling, the floor freezing beneath me. The pain in my abdomen flared again, more violent than before. I curled into a ball, my consciousness slipping away. Using the absolute last ounce of my strength, I dialed 911. “Acute ruptured appendicitis! If he’d gotten here any later, he would’ve developed severe peritonitis!” “Where’s his family? We don’t even have anyone to sign the consent forms!” The surgery took three hours. I spent three days in the hospital. Verna didn’t call once. Not a single text. Jackie’s phone, however, was bombarded with hundreds of frantic notifications every single day. [Jackie, I’m in Seattle. Where are you?] [I’ve checked every coffee shop, every park you ever mentioned. Why won’t you see me?] [I’m waiting at the café we talked about. I’ll stay here until you show up.] I turned the phone off without feeling a single thing. The day I was discharged, it was pouring. I handled the paperwork myself, walked out into the rain, and took a cab back to the apartment we had shared for three years. When I pushed the door open, everything was exactly as I had left it. I began to pack. No tears, no screaming. Just quiet, deliberate motions. I folded the clothes she’d bought me and placed them neatly back in the wardrobe. My own clothes went into my suitcase. In the study, I pulled the dust covers over the expensive art supplies she’d gifted me. Piece by piece, I erased every trace of my existence from her living room. That was the scene Verna walked into. She had spent three days waiting at an airport and a coffee shop in Seattle, waiting for a ghost that never came. She looked hollowed out—her makeup was smudged, her hair was a mess, and her eyes were webbed with broken red vessels. When she saw me zipping up my suitcase, she froze. “What are you doing?” her voice was raspy. I didn’t answer. I reached down, moved the potted monstera from the coffee table to the floor, and slid the engagement ring off my finger. It was a simple platinum band. Nothing flashy. She had placed it on my finger herself the night she proposed. I remembered her words: “Theo, marry me. Let me take care of you forever.” I set the ring down on the center of the coffee table, right next to my house keys. “Theo, I’m talking to you!” Her tone sharpened. She strode over and grabbed my wrist. “What kind of tantrum is this?” I looked up, meeting her eyes. “Verna, I’m not throwing a tantrum.” She blinked, her grip loosening. She rubbed her temples, letting out a heavy sigh as her voice softened into a patronizing tone. “Fine. I admit I was harsh the other night.” She pulled her wallet out and slid a credit card into my hand. “I’ll double your allowance this month. Put the ring back on. Stop making a scene.” Always money. “That night, my appendix ruptured,” I said, my voice completely flat. “I almost died.” Her hand dropped. A flash of panic crossed her face, but she quickly masked it. “…Was it bad?” “The surgeon said another hour and I wouldn’t have made it.” Her lips parted slightly. “I’m sor—” “Don’t,” I interrupted, pushing the card, the ring, and the keys back toward her. “You don’t need to apologize, and I don’t plan on forgiving you.” I took my suitcase and headed for the door. She lunged from behind, wrapping her arms tightly around my waist. She was holding on with everything she had. “Theo… please let me explain. I really, truly had something crucial to handle that night…” “I know,” I said quietly. “Your Jackie wanted to break up with you.” She went entirely rigid. “How… how do you know about that?” I pried her fingers off me, one by one, and turned around to face her. I gave her a small, empty smile. “Verna, I’ve always known.” She stumbled back half a step, the color draining from her skin until she looked like plaster. Then, the panic vanished, replaced by the cold, calculating look she used to crush her competitors in boardrooms. “You went through my things? You spied on me?” “It doesn’t matter.” I picked up my suitcase. “We’re done. The wedding is off.” “Theo,” her voice cut through the quiet apartment. “Have you actually thought this through?” I didn’t stop. “What are you going to do on your own? Paint? Does your little freelance work even cover rent in the city?” My grip tightened on the suitcase handle. “Once you walk out that door, there’s no safety net. No one to catch you.” I opened the door. “You’ll regret this.” The hallway was dead silent. I dragged my suitcase toward the elevator, never looking back.

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The very night my mother took her own life after discovering my father’s affair, he brought his first love’s sickly daughter, Deborah, into our home. At the time, my three older brothers stood in front of me like a protective wall, their voices thick with defiance. “Autumn is our only sister!” they shouted at him. But it took less than a week for their loyalty to shatter. “If you hadn’t encouraged Mom to go through with the divorce, she would never have run to that roof,” Chris, my oldest brother, had snarled at me. “Deborah’s health is only this bad because you terrified her,” Jordan, the second oldest, added. To make me a viable donor for Deborah, they forced me to eat, keeping me heavily overweight, hovering near two hundred pounds. It was as if they wanted to replicate Deborah’s physical misery onto me, tenfold, as a form of penance. Then came Deborah’s eighteenth birthday party. Alex Pierce, the youngest son of the prominent Pierce family, was the only one who stood up for me. “Don’t be afraid,” he had whispered, stepping between me and my brothers’ glares. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” He became my savior. He listened to me, encouraged me to start losing weight safely, and gently guided me out of the darkness. I truly believed he was the man I would spend the rest of my life with. But the night before our engagement party, I saw a group chat open on his laptop. It was a thread with my brothers, titled “Project Pig Pen”. “Weight loss successful, physical exam cleared,” Alex had texted. “We’re on track for the bone marrow transplant for Deborah next week.” Jordan replied with a thumbs-up emoji: “Being able to say ‘I love you’ to all that blubber… respect, man. Have you actually touched her yet?” “Her skin is all loose and saggy now,” Alex wrote back. “It’s repulsive. I can’t bring myself to do it.” Staring at the screen filled with laughing emojis, my chest went completely numb, cold as ice. I closed the laptop, picked up my phone, and called my mentor. “Professor Reynolds… that three-year residency program,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “I’ll take it.” … On my computer screen, the wedding planner’s final email was still open, showing the master track for our engagement party. I had spent two weeks perfecting it. Alex used to love hearing me sing. When he proposed, he promised he would play the piano for me for the rest of our lives. “Autumn’s voice was kissed by angels,” he’d say. But now, his messages in the chat read: “When she runs, she wheezes like a broken accordion. I’m honestly terrified she’s going to drop dead of a heart attack right in front of me.” “It’s wild how a girl can just let herself go like that. No self-control whatsoever.” “All that fat jiggling around, and the sweat… God, the smell. Jesus.” My third brother, Dylan, chimed in: “Got any videos?” Alex immediately forwarded a thread. [Alex & Deborah: 36 Shared Media Files] “Watch at your own risk,” he wrote. I clicked it. It was full of photos and videos Alex had taken of me during my workouts. At the very bottom of the thread, Deborah had reacted with a giggling emoji. My fingers trembled so violently I could barely hold my phone. He had turned my agonizing struggle into a running joke just to keep Deborah entertained. In the videos, my face was tomato-red, drenched in sweat, utterly pathetic. Yet, my eyes looking at the camera had been so full of hope and light. His words of encouragement echoed in my ears, suddenly sounding like a mockery. “Keep going, Autumn! If you fall, I’ll be right here to catch you.” “You’re cute when you’re chubby, but I want my sweet girl to be healthy. We need to live long, healthy lives so we can grow old together.” When I was too exhausted to take another step, he would grab my hand and pull me forward. When I tried to pull away because my palms were sweaty, he only squeezed tighter. “So what? This sweat is proof of how hard you’re fighting. Let me share some of that strength.” The wind had blown the hair from my forehead as I struggled to keep up with him, telling myself, “just one more step. Just one more.” I had pushed myself to lose over a hundred pounds in six months for him. How had I been so blind? The affection in his eyes wasn’t for me. It was for the healthy body I was building—a perfect vessel to harvest bone marrow for Deborah. He was no different from my brothers. Jordan typed: “Are you guys seriously getting engaged tomorrow?” The chat went silent for a moment. Then Alex replied: “It’s just an engagement. Think of it as a dress rehearsal for Deborah. Good practice.” “Won’t Autumn be pissed?” I held my breath, waiting. The next message popped up. “If Deborah really minds, I’ll just make up an excuse and not show up tomorrow. I’ll hire some stand-in or have someone fill in. Autumn is easy to fool. I’ll just pretend to be sick later, and she’ll be too busy worrying about me to care.” The glow of the screen cast a hollow, self-deprecating smile across my face. What was I even hoping for? None of them cared about my feelings. It had always been about Deborah. It was never about me. A text from the wedding planner flashed on my screen: “Hi Autumn, are we locked in on this version?” “No,” I typed back. “I’ll bring the final cut to the venue tomorrow myself.” I closed the window and redialed my mentor’s number. “Professor Reynolds… about the fellowship. I’ll go. I’ll see you at the airport on Saturday.” Professor Reynolds’ voice swelled with relief. “Wonderful, wonderful! I’m so glad you’ve finally seen reason, Autumn. I’ll arrange for someone to pick you up.” The National Opera Fellowship for Emerging Artists was a prestigious, highly selective three-year residency. It required total seclusion and had strict confidentiality clauses. I had turned it down once. For Alex. But Alex had taught me well. I still remembered what he told me a year ago: “You did nothing wrong.” He was right. I hadn’t. Which meant they were the ones in the wrong. And actions have consequences. When I woke up the next morning, the house was empty. I tried calling each of my brothers, then Alex. None of them answered. It turned out my ears hadn’t played tricks on me the night before. I remembered overhearing a whispered conversation in the hallway: “Deborah is upset about the engagement. Let’s agree—no one drives Autumn tomorrow. Let her walk down the mountain.” The estate was tucked deep into the hills, miles away from any main road where I could easily hail a cab. I had no choice but to take off my heels and walk. Five miles. On foot. Just as another blister on my heel burst, the purr of Alex’s sports car echoed behind me. The window rolled down, revealing Deborah sitting in the passenger seat. She was wearing Alex’s jacket, and a custom plushie—one I knew Alex had flown to Tokyo to get for her—was clipped to her seatbelt. Meanwhile, the hand-crocheted sunflower plushie I had spent a month making for him was tossed carelessly on the floor mat of the backseat, dirty and forgotten. “Autumn, why didn’t you wait for us?” Deborah asked, her voice dripping with mock innocence. “You’re going to make it look like we’re bullying you again.” I said nothing. I just got into the back seat, picked up the filthy sunflower, and tried to wipe a muddy footprint off its petals. My finger accidentally brushed the hidden button inside. The toy began to sway, but the recorded voice inside—my voice—stuttered out a distorted, broken “I… l-love… y-you…” Alex had practically begged me to make that for him. He said he wanted my voice recorded so he could feel close to me whenever he was driving. Deborah giggled, leaning her head onto Alex’s shoulder. “Autumn, are you seriously still into stuff like that? It looks so cheap…” Alex frowned, looking at me through the rearview mirror. “Are you deaf? Deborah asked you a question.” “I heard her,” I replied quietly. “I just don’t want to answer.” He sighed, his impatience flaring. “What is your problem today? You’re her older sister. Why can’t you act like it and take a page out of Deborah’s book?” I let out a dry, sharp laugh. “Take a page out of her book? You mean learn how to throw myself at my sister’s fiancé? Or maybe how to call another girl’s boyfriend in the middle of the night to beg him to soothe me to sleep? Or perhaps how to strip off my clothes when I’m drunk and crawl into his lap?” Alex’s face went white, then flushed red with anger. “Autumn! Why do you always have to be so paranoid, just like your mother was? Stop projecting your sick fantasies onto everyone! Leave Deborah out of your bitter drama!” I clenched my teeth, a sharp pain radiating through my chest. He had defended me with that same righteous fury once. Only now did I realize how much hypocrisy had been masked beneath his handsome face. They kicked me out of the car. It was pouring on the highway overpass. “Calm down and think about what you’ve done!” Alex yelled before speeding off. I pulled out my phone to call a cab, but the trending headlines on social media nearly made my knees buckle. [EXCLUSIVE: The Cornell Family Tragedy! How a Ruthless Daughter Drove Her Own Mother to Jump!] [The Dark Secret of a Prestigious Dynasty: Jealous Sister Steals Younger Sister’s Fiancé!] The gossip blogs had twisted the narrative, stitching together selective facts to paint my mother’s suicide as my fault. According to them, I was a tyrannical monster at home, and this entire engagement was forced upon Alex because I had blackmailed him using Deborah’s medical condition. Though the photos in the articles were blurred, I recognized them instantly. They were candid shots Alex had taken of me. The comment sections were a feeding frenzy of vitriol. – What a poisonous snake. She literally drove her own mother to suicide.” – I’m not one to judge by appearances, but with all that fat, she looks like a high school bully.” – The younger sister and the boyfriend are the real victims here. How tragic.” – Her brothers are saints for not disowning her. She destroyed a perfect family.” By the time I reached the venue, a crowd of self-righteous onlookers and reporters had gathered at the entrance. They swarmed me like piranhas catching the scent of blood, shoving cameras into my face and screaming accusations. I covered my face, trying to shield myself from the flashing lights. Security guards eventually pushed through to clear a path. My second brother, Jordan, grabbed my wrist and dragged me inside. “Autumn, are you completely brainless?!” Jordan hissed as soon as we were behind closed doors. “Did you not see the news? Why the hell did you let them spot you at the front entrance? Are you trying to remind the whole world that you’re the murderer who killed Mom? You’ve humiliated this family!” I yanked my arm out of his grip, my throat raw. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t kill her. I didn’t make Mom jump.” Jordan stared at me, letting out a harsh, mocking laugh. “Oh, outstanding. Now that you’ve got Alex wrapped around your finger, you think you can rewrite history? Let me remind you, Autumn—you owe this family a life. You will always owe us.” I took a deep breath, swallowing the bitter lump in my throat. I unlocked my phone and pointed to the username of the “anonymous insider” leaking the stories. “That is Deborah’s burner account. Are you really too blind to see that?” My oldest brother, Chris, walked into the dressing room, his brow furrowed in disapproval. “Enough. Stop shouting, Autumn. Even if it is her account, is there a single lie in those articles? If you had the nerve to do it, don’t play the victim now.” His eyes were heavy with a cold, familiar disappointment. “Or is fleeing from reality the only thing you managed to learn from Mom?” I stared into Chris’s eyes. There was only resentment. I couldn’t find a single trace of the boy who used to sing me to sleep when I was afraid of the dark. When our parents’ marriage fell apart, my brothers had dismissed our father’s affair as a temporary lapse in judgment. I was the only one who stood firmly by my mother’s side, urging her to file for divorce and free herself. After she jumped, my father couldn’t handle the guilt. He brought Deborah into our home, took our mother’s ashes, and retreated into a monastery, cutting off all contact. For years, my brothers blamed me. They believed that if I hadn’t encouraged her, Mom would never have given up, and our family wouldn’t have shattered. “I did nothing wrong,” I said, each word deliberate, my voice rising. “The ones who are wrong are Deborah, Dad, and all of you!” “Slap.” A sharp sting erupted across my cheek, forcing my head to the side. Alex stood there, looking at me with a mixture of disgust and pity, while Deborah lurked behind his shoulder, a smug, fleeting smirk on her lips. “Look at yourself,” Alex said, his voice dripping with disappointment. “You look manic. You’re in no state to go out there. Stay in this room and think about what you’ve done. Deborah will stand in for you to complete the ceremony.” The designer gown was brought in—and it fit Deborah perfectly. It was the dress my mother had left for me. When Alex had taken me to get it tailored, he had held me close, noting down the adjustments. “Just three more months, Autumn. By then, you’ll be down to this size anyway,” he had whispered. How blind I had been. The dress was never meant for me. It had been measured for Deborah from the very beginning. In the mirror, Deborah’s cheeks were flushed pink with health, showing no sign of her supposed frailty. “Autumn,” she cooed, “I saw the bridal makeup look you practiced last week. It was gorgeous. Why don’t you do my makeup for me? Your dress, your makeup design, your fiancé… if you think about it, it’s basically you walking down the aisle.” My eyes burned. “Take it off. That belongs to my mother.” It was the only tangible piece of her I had left. Jordan grabbed my shoulders, forcing me down into the chair in front of Deborah. His grip dug painfully into my collarbone. “It’s just a dress, Autumn. She’s doing you a favor so you don’t humiliate us out there. Don’t be ungrateful. Hurry up and do her makeup. Deborah’s health is delicate; she doesn’t have time to tolerate your tantrums.” Alex offered a warm, gentle smile to Deborah. “Thank you for doing this, Deborah.” I closed my eyes, my nails biting deep into my palms. “Just wait,” I told myself. “Wait until the ceremony starts. Wait until the live streams are running.” “Fine,” I whispered. Once the door clicked shut, leaving only the two of us in the dressing room, Deborah stared at me with a venomous smirk. “Autumn, don’t you ever feel like an utter failure? If I were you, I would have jumped off that roof right along with your mother.” My hand froze mid-air. My voice went cold as steel. “Shut your mouth. You don’t have the right to speak her name.” Deborah chuckled, entirely unfazed. “Your mother lost to mine, and now you’ve lost to me. Alex never loved you. Do you want to know why he actually proposed?” She leaned in close, her breath hot against my ear, her words winding around my neck like a venomous snake. “Because he couldn’t let you accept that fellowship abroad. He had to keep you here. You’re nothing but my backup organ bank, Autumn.” “You and your mother are identical—stepping stones for me. Honestly, I should thank her. If she hadn’t been stupid enough to believe me and jump, I wouldn’t have moved into the Cornell estate so quickly.” “And don’t worry, I don’t care about playing pretend today. What I want—what I’m going to get—is a wedding that is entirely mine.” She smiled, a chilling, deliberate expression. Before I could recoil, her hand shot out, clamping down on my jaw with surprising strength. A burning, acrid liquid was forced down my throat. Agony exploded in my chest. I fell to the floor, clutching my neck as my vision went dark and tears streamed down my face. I tried to scream, to call for help, but only a dry, raspy wheeze escaped my throat. Deborah smiled as she picked up an eyebrow razor, scoring a shallow, bleeding line across her own collarbone. Then she began tearing at the delicate silk of my mother’s dress, ripping the hand-stitched embroidery to shreds and trampling it under her heels. My mind went blank. Every ounce of sanity evaporated. I threw myself forward to stop her, letting out a horrific, animalistic screech from my ruined throat. “Stop! Stop! That’s all I have left of her!” Deborah didn’t fight back. She simply let herself fall backward onto the floor, screaming in terror. “Autumn, you’ve lost your mind!” The door burst open. Alex rushed in, shoving me hard against the vanity, and pulled Deborah into his arms. She trembled against his chest, her face pale, sobbing hysterically. “Alex… I’m okay… It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have worn her dress. I don’t deserve it…” Alex’s face was dark with fury. “Autumn, apologize to her. Now!” I stared at his hand resting protectively on her waist. My voice was gone. My throat felt like it was lined with broken glass. How was I going to sing? What was I going to tell my mentor? I pointed to my neck, tears streaming down my face as I shook my head, begging him with my eyes to look at me. To believe me just this once. If he couldn’t hear me, couldn’t he at least see my despair? But there was only cold disgust in his eyes. “Autumn, it’s a simple apology. Are you really going to play dumb and pretend you can’t speak just to get out of it? I’m so disappointed in you. Is a stupid ceremony really worth losing your sanity over?” Dylan strode into the room. He kicked the back of my knees, forcing me down. Ignoring the shattered glass bottles scattered across the floor, he shoved my shoulders, forcing me to kneel. Sharp shards of glass bit deep into my skin. A sickening pain shot up my legs. Alex flinched slightly, but before he could speak, Deborah clutched her chest, gasping for air. “Alex… I can’t breathe… Am I going to die?” Alex instantly tore the remnants of my mother’s dress away from her, wrapped his suit jacket around her shoulders, and lifted her into his arms. “You’re going to be fine,” he muttered, his voice shaking. “The engagement is off,” he barked at my brothers. “Jordan, Dylan, bring Autumn. We’re going to the hospital. Now.” I shook my head in terror, trying to crawl backward away from them. Alex looked down at me, letting out a heavy, weary sigh. “Autumn, please. Just cooperate for once. Deborah can’t wait. You’re the older sister, yet you’re always so incredibly selfish. You have no idea how much you owe her. Donating your marrow is the bare minimum. Stop throwing these childish tantrums. If you want a wedding, I’ll give you one after the surgery. We’ll give the townhouse to Deborah as an apology, and we’ll figure out how to make things right with her later.” Jordan and Dylan exchanged a glance, then stepped forward, grabbing my arms and dragging me to my feet. “Autumn, you’ve gone way too far this time,” Dylan muttered. Chris had the car waiting at the exit. They threw me into the back seat and escorted me directly to the private wing of the hospital, straight toward the operating rooms. “Ignore her bleeding knees!” Jordan yelled at the nurses. “Prep Deborah first! She’s the priority!” Just before the surgical curtains were drawn, I caught a glimpse of Deborah’s face. She was smiling. The cold sting of the anesthetic flowed into my veins, and the world began to slip away into darkness… Meanwhile, in the adjoining prep room, Deborah sat casually on the edge of the examination table, swinging her legs. Her phone was pressed to her ear. “Yeah, Mom, it’s almost done,” she laughed softly. “This family… God, they’re so incredibly stupid. You could combine all of their brains and still not make a single functioning one.” She tilted her head, her tone dripping with lazy amusement. “Her mother was a weak, pathetic fool when I pushed her off that ledge, and Autumn was born to be my plaything. I fed her brothers a couple of sob stories, and they ate it right up. Now she has nothing left. And with her throat ruined, let’s see how she plans on leaving the country.” Hanging up, Deborah let out a soft, mocking sigh. “Oh, Autumn. Your mother was a brainless dog, your brothers are rabid mutts who would bite their own family for a scrap of bone, and you… well, you’re not even an animal. You’re just a beautifully wrapped, self-delivering organ container.” Outside the half-open door, the medical consent forms slipped from Chris’s fingers, fluttering onto the linoleum floor. Alex’s face had gone entirely bloodless, white as paper.

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