Category: English

1 Past midnight after my twelfth surgery, exhaustion and cramps left me bent double. Shivering, I went to Preston’s office for my cashmere blanket. He already had it draped over Brooke. “She’s fragile,” he said coldly. “You’re stronger, Summer. Don’t be difficult.” For three years, I’d written his charts, covered his shifts, taken abuse from families. His only praise: “You’re always the mature one.” Now I saw maturity meant being left in the cold. Brooke settled in as he handed her hot brown sugar water. I stood nearby, scrubs stiff with blood, invisible to him. Silently, I walked out and dropped my engagement ring in the trash. Ten minutes later, his text buzzed: Stop the tantrum. I’ll make it up after my shift. The hundredth time. I opened my email and clicked the fellowship invitation I’d ignored for months. … At the morning sign-out the next day, I dragged my sleep-deprived body into the conference room and placed three complex ICU charts on the table. Every page had been typed out, letter by letter, while I fought off waves of abdominal pain the night before. Preston walked in. Ignoring my pale face, he swept the charts off the table and handed them straight to Brooke. My heart contracted, leaving a heavy, suffocating weight in my chest. I remembered my first year of residency. I had cried in his office because I couldn’t draft a proper clinical chart. He had held my hand, guiding my pen, and whispered: “Summer, your handwriting is as beautiful as your heart. It’s meant to save lives. This is our silent partnership.” Now, that partnership felt like a slap in the face. Brooke, still wrapped in my cashmere blanket, looked up with an air of fragile innocence. “Preston, Summer stayed up all night to write these. She should present them. I don’t want to steal her thunder.” As she spoke, her eyes locked onto mine, flashing a brief, triumphant smirk. Preston’s voice cut through the room, cold and warning. “Brooke is still recovering from an illness. Who are you glaring at, Summer? You could learn a thing or two about her thoughtfulness.” A sharp, stabbing pain bloomed in my chest, and my vision blurred for a second. Ignoring Preston entirely, I looked at Brooke. “Is a stolen blanket really that warm?” Her eyes instantly welled with tears. Preston stepped in front of her, shielding her from my view. I remembered a time when I had argued passionately with the department chief over a rare disease treatment plan. I had been red-faced and furious, nearly slamming my hands on the table. Afterward, Preston had pulled me into the empty stairwell, pinching my cheek with a fond laugh: “I love how fierce you are. You never let anyone walk over you, my little thorny rose.” But now, that same fierceness only annoyed him. During grand rounds, the hospital leadership requested an update on our cardiogenic shock research. This project had been my obsession for the past three months, costing me endless sleepless nights. I raised my hand, though my arm felt like lead. Preston’s gaze swept over me, completely ignoring my hand, and landed on Brooke. “Dr. Brooke is the primary contributor to this project. It is only fitting that she presents the findings.” Brooke walked up to the podium, holding my notes, and began reading the slides with a hesitant, stuttering voice. Preston had once told me that this research would be our shared crown, the ultimate graduation gift for my residency. Now, he was handing my gift to someone else. After the meeting, he cornered me in the hallway. “The paper will be published in a major medical journal soon,” he said, his tone entirely matter-of-fact. “I want you to give Brooke the first-author credit. She needs the publication for her upcoming promotion.” Looking at his handsome, entitled face, I felt a tremor of rage run through me. My heart went completely cold. I squeezed my fists so hard my nails bit into my palms, forcing back the tears. Then, I smiled. “Sure,” I said. He seemed taken adjust by how easily I had surrendered, blinking in surprise. “I knew I could count on you. You’re always so reasonable.” I turned and walked away, pulling out my phone. I opened our shared research group chat, titled Cardiology Vanguard, and without a second thought, tapped Leave Group. To celebrate the initial approval of the cardiogenic shock paper, the department booked a private room at a high-end restaurant across the street. This dinner should have been my celebration. Instead, at the main table, colleagues took turns raising their glasses to Brooke. Brooke shrank behind Preston, her voice dripping with artificial modesty. “Thank you, everyone, but Preston won’t let me touch a drop of alcohol. He says my health is too delicate.” Preston smiled, naturally taking the glass from her hand. His eyes, as he looked at her, were filled with a soft, protective indulgence. “Alcohol is terrible for her recovery. I’ll drink her share.” For the next half hour, he drank glass after glass to shield her, the two of them looking every bit like a devoted couple amidst the cheers of our colleagues. I sat in the farthest corner of the room, my body shivering as the menstrual cramps worsened. I kept my head down, biting my lip to keep from throwing up. Suddenly, the deputy chief of the department walked over to me, glass in hand. “Summer! You’re the backbone of this research team. You’ve worked so hard, you have to drink with me!” The pain was so intense I could barely stand. I forced myself to rise, holding up my glass of warm water. “I’m so sorry, Chief. I’m not feeling well tonight. Let me toast you with water instead…” Before I could finish, a hand slid over mine. Preston easily took the water glass from my grip, picked up a bottle of liquor, and poured me a generous shot. “Come on, Summer,” he murmured in a low, coaxing voice. “The chief has always championed you. Everyone is having a good time, so don’t act like a child.” The cold glass seeped into my palm, sending a shiver up my spine. I looked at the man I had loved for five years, my voice barely a whisper. “I’m on my period, Preston. The pain is unbearable.” “And I have a severe alcohol allergy,” I added, my voice cracking with desperation. “I’ll go into anaphylactic shock. Have you forgotten?” When we were sophomores in college, I had accidentally eaten a chocolate filled with liquor. My airway had swollen shut within minutes, and I had nearly died in the emergency room. That night, Preston had broken every bottle of alcohol in his apartment, crying as he held me close. He had sworn: “Summer, I will never let a single drop of alcohol near you again. If I can’t even protect the woman I love, I don’t deserve to be a doctor.” Now, he didn’t look angry. He only sighed, his expression tinged with irritation. “Summer, that was years ago. Your immune system has gotten much stronger since then. Just take a sip or two, and I’ll drink the rest.” “With me right here, what could possibly happen to you? Just be good.” My chest ached so badly I could barely draw breath. Right then, Brooke walked over, holding a glass of dark liquor filled to the brim with ice. She held it right up to my face. “Summer, I know you’re upset about the paper’s authorship,” she said, her voice sounding like a sweet poison. “Let’s drink to put it behind us, okay?” The smell of the alcohol made my stomach heave, and I instinctively stepped back. But Preston’s hand slid around my waist, locking me in place. “Summer, Brooke is offering you a peace treaty,” he whispered near my ear. “You can throw your tantrums at home, but give me some face in front of our colleagues.” “Drink it, and I’ll take you out for your favorite dumplings afterward, okay?” A violent cramp ripped through my abdomen, and sweat beaded on my forehead. Looking at Preston’s familiar, gentle, yet utterly heartless face, a wave of absolute despair washed over me. I violently shoved his hand away. “Are you sure you want me to drink this, Preston?” I rolled up my right sleeve, exposing the jagged scar on my wrist from the emergency venous line they had cut to save my life during my last allergic shock. I thrust it right into his face. “If I drink this, I will suffocate on this floor! Are you so eager to please her that you want me dead?” The room went dead silent. Every conversation cut off instantly. Preston stared at the scar, a flicker of genuine shock crossing his features. But my gaze had already drifted to Brooke’s wrist. There, glittering under the restaurant lights, was a rare, limited-edition watch. It was the watch I had left in the hospital call room, the one Preston had gifted me last year. He had told me: “Every tick of this watch represents a heartbeat of mine for you.” It turned out his heartbeats were cheap enough to be handed out to anyone. I reached into my pocket, pulled out the engagement ring I had retrieved from the trash can earlier, and dropped it into Brooke’s glass with a sharp splash. “The wedding is off, Preston. Consider the research paper my parting donation to your new life.” “Don’t ever make me sick again.” Droplets of alcohol splashed onto Preston’s expensive shirt. When he looked up, his eyes held only a cold, patronizing authority. “Summer, you used to be so mature. You’re disappointing me today.” He loosened his tie, his voice flat and certain. “Walk out that door, and you can spend the next few days reflecting on your behavior. When you’re ready to stop acting like a child, come find me.” “But until then, don’t expect me to reach out.” I let out a cold laugh, turned on my heel, and walked out without looking back. He had no idea that just an hour ago, I had liquidated the joint investment portfolio I had set up under my name for our house down payment. I had sold the entire balance of two hundred thousand dollars at a loss, forcing him to absorb the massive financial hit. I was going to make sure he felt every single penny of that loss. The morning after I submitted my transfer request, the alarms in the cardiothoracic ward blared, shattering the peace of the hospital. A critical patient, who had been transferred from the general ward to the ICU the night before, had gone into acute heart failure. The cause was a lethal overdose of Deslanoside, a powerful cardiac medication. The administration launched an immediate investigation. Within hours, the digital footprint was uncovered. The electronic signature that authorized the fatal dose belonged to my account. The timestamp read 2:00 AM. Instantly, my colleagues looked at me with cold, accusing eyes. Rage and panic rushed to my head, leaving my limbs numb. I could barely stand. I immediately demanded to see the shift logs. At 2:00 AM, I wasn’t even in the hospital building. I had been curled up in my apartment, crying from menstrual pain. How could I have logged into the system? Brooke was sobbing behind Preston, looking pale and fragile. She offered a tearful, stuttering defense, claiming she had only “borrowed” my login to look up some reference files. She claimed she must have bumped the keyboard by mistake, leading to the error. “Summer, I’m so sorry… I really didn’t mean to…” She wept as if she were the victim here, making my teeth chatter with pure fury. “By mistake?” I yelled. “Brooke, you’ve been an assistant surgeon for five years! You’re telling me you accidentally ordered a lethal dose of a high-risk medication?” I demanded that security pull the footage from the nurse’s station and verify the IP logs to prove my innocence. But Preston grabbed my arm, dragging me away from the administration office. He slammed a pre-printed document onto my chest. The sharp edge of the paper sliced across my cheek, leaving a stinging red line. It was a Resident Clinical Error Confession Form. He spoke in a sickening, patronizing tone, trying to force me to take the fall for her. “Summer, just sign it. An incident like this will ruin Brooke’s career. But you’re different, you’re just a resident. Once she gets her promotion, I’ll use my father’s connections to get you into a fully funded PhD program. Think of this as a temporary sacrifice.” He reached out to touch my shoulder. “You’ll help us, right? You’re always the mature one.” Staring at the paper that would destroy my license and my entire career, and looking at the man who was willing to ruin my life to shield his mistress, the last of my sanity burned away. With trembling hands, I tore the confession form to pieces right in front of the hospital board. Then, I threw the paper shreds straight into his handsome face. “Clean up your own garbage, Preston!” By that afternoon, an official email was sent to the entire hospital: Resident Summer Offen Suspended Indefinitely for Major Clinical Error. My phone exploded with messages. My old mentors expressed their deep disappointment, while the interns whispered in chat groups about how my quiet demeanor had been a mask for incompetence. I hid in the empty stairwell, my back pressed against the cold concrete wall. My throat felt dry, and my chest throbbed with a suffocating weight. Just then, my father called. “Summer, did you and Preston have a fight? The news says…” He sighed. “Don’t be foolish, sweetheart. Preston is a good man.” Hearing his voice, the dam broke. I covered my mouth to muffle my tears, hung up the phone, and curled into a ball on the cold floor. My screen lit up again. It was a text from Preston: Take a couple of days to calm down. Stop being stubborn. I’ll smooth this over, and once the dust settles, we’ll get our marriage license. That arrogant, charitable tone felt like a knife twisting in my chest. I blocked his number and deleted every trace of him from my phone. On the third day of my suspension, I returned to the department to pack up my belongings. When I pushed open the office door, I found Brooke playing with my custom, hand-engraved stethoscope. It was the stethoscope Preston had promised to buy me for my birthday, but he had later backed out, calling it an unnecessary expense. I had worked three months of extra night shifts to buy it myself. Seeing me, Brooke shrank back, though her voice held a smug undertone. “Oh, Summer. You’re back?” “Preston said that since you won’t be practicing medicine anymore, he wanted me to have this as a little gift.” The last remnant of pain in my chest flared into white-hot rage. I grabbed her wrist, twisting it until she released her grip, and snatched my stethoscope back. I pulled out a disinfectant wipe and began scrubbing the metal, over and over, right in front of her. “Keep your hands off my things,” I said, my voice ice-cold. “I don’t like getting dirt on my equipment.” “Ow!” Brooke let out a sharp shriek. Hearing her cry, Preston stormed into the office, violently shoving me aside. The small of my back slammed hard against the sharp corner of the desk, sending a jolt of agony through my spine. Without even looking at me, he wrapped his arms around Brooke and glared at me. “Summer! Have you lost your mind? You’re a suspended nobody! How dare you come back here and cause trouble?” “A nobody?” I forced myself to stand straight, a cold laugh escaping my lips. I pulled my officially stamped resignation letter from my bag and slapped it hard against his chest. “Open your eyes and look closely, Preston. I quit!” Preston’s face went pale. “Summer, don’t forget that your residency completion certificate is still in my hands! Without my signature, your entire residency is a waste of paper!” He threw my resignation letter onto the floor. “You think you can threaten me with this? You’re being pathetic.” Just then, a chaotic scream echoed from the hallway. A man holding a long kitchen knife charged into the office, his eyes bloodshot and wild. He locked his gaze onto Brooke, lunging forward to grab her by the hair, delivering a brutal slap that sent her falling to the floor. “You’re the doctor who killed my mother, aren’t you?” “My mother died this morning because of your dosage error! You heartless monsters, I’m taking you down with her!” Brooke’s lip was bleeding as she screamed, “Preston, help me! Save me!” My chest tightened. This man was the son of the patient who had died from the Digoxin overdose. Suddenly, a powerful grip clamped onto my arm. Before I could react, Preston yanked me forward with brutal force, throwing me directly into the path of the lunging man. “You have the wrong person!” Preston shouted, shielding Brooke with his body as he pointed at me. “The electronic signature on the lethal order belongs to Summer Offen! She’s the one who killed your mother!” The man lunged, his blade slicing clean through the skin of my neck. Preston froze, his face turning an instant, ghostly white as my blood began to spill.

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1 My wife and daughter claimed they could cross into another world through our TV, where they had another home and family. On Father’s Day, Lily announced she’d spend the day with “Daddy Nathan,” her “real dad” there. For our anniversary, Evelyn brushed off my new suit, saying her other-world husband was waiting. Even when I had a raging fever, they rushed out to meet Nathan at an amusement park. Over the Fourth of July, they vanished for a week. Returning, Evelyn cradled a newborn. Lily proudly declared him “the baby brother Daddy Nathan gave me.” Evelyn added, “Nathan thinks you should raise him. You’re not productive anyway.” I grabbed her wrist, shaking. “This is an affair! Do you care about us?” She yanked free, impatient. “He’s in another dimension. We’ll never meet. What are you jealous of?” Taking Lily’s hand, she headed for the living room. “Come on, sweetie. Back through the portal to Daddy Nathan.” As they walked away, I dialed the electronics recycler. “I need an old TV hauled tomorrow morning.” … The next afternoon, Evelyn and Lily stepped out of the television. The moment they crossed the threshold, they froze. Usually, lunch would be waiting on the dining table. The dishes would be piping hot, the soup simmering, and their favorite snacks neatly arranged on the coffee table. Today, there was nothing. The table was bare, the floors unswept. The baby lay alone on the sofa, his voice raspy from crying for hours. I was sitting in the darkest corner of the room, watching the baby cry without moving an inch. Evelyn’s face fell. She rushed over and scooped the baby into her arms. “What is wrong with you?” I remained silent. “Are you deaf? The baby is screaming his lungs out and you’re just sitting there? No food, no cleaning… what do you even do all day?” She glared at me. “I ask you to do one simple thing, to help watch a child, and you fail miserably. No wonder my husband in the other world is ten times better than you. He actually knows how to be useful.” Lily stood beside her, her expression dripping with disgust. “You’re a terrible dad. Daddy Nathan is always gentle. He keeps his house spotless, plays with me, and takes great care of baby brother.” She crossed her arms and added, “If the TV portal didn’t have a twelve-hour limit every day, Mommy and I would never come back here. We hate looking at your face.” In the past, hearing those words would have sent me into a panic. I would have leaped up, apologized profusely, run to the kitchen, and swallowed my pride just to keep the peace. Today, I didn’t budge. I just stared at them, completely silent. Evelyn assumed I was playing passive-aggressive games. She rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to soothing the crying infant. Lily sneered and ran off to find her toys. Neither of them noticed the absolute coldness in my eyes. I looked at Lily’s young face, remembering how she used to cry through the night when she was a newborn. Evelyn was always busy with her career, so I never let her wake up once. I kept telling myself that if I just got through this phase, things would get better. When Lily was two, she became terrified of strangers. I quit my job to become a stay-at-home dad just to give her a sense of security. I told myself again, just get through this phase. When she was three, she tripped and cut her forehead. I held her tight as we sped to the emergency room. She got three stitches, and I cried harder than she did. The doctor told me that kids don’t remember early trauma, that she would forget it when she grew up. She did forget. She forgot everything I had ever done for her. Now, she stood before me, summarizing my ten years of devotion with a single word: terrible. Evelyn handed the baby to Lily and began packing a bag with formula, baby food, fresh clothes, and a few small toys. “Come on, Lily,” Evelyn said. “Let’s head to the supermarket. We need to buy your brother some new clothes, and pick up some of the groceries Nathan likes.” Lily’s eyes lit up. She hurried after her mother, barely slipping her shoes on before rushing out the door. The heavy click of the front door echoed through the empty house. I was alone again. I walked over to the television and stared at it for a long time. The screen was black. In its glossy reflection, I saw my own face. My eyes were bloodshot, my hair disheveled, my skin pale. I looked like a stranger. I had foolishly believed that if I worked hard enough and loved them gently enough, they would eventually appreciate me. But yesterday, when Evelyn stood at the door holding another man’s child and demanded I raise it, something shifted. It wasn’t anger, and it wasn’t sadness. It was a sudden, terrifying clarity. It was never about me not being good enough. It was simply that they had decided, a long time ago, that I would always be the very last thing on their list. 2 Late that night, a fever took hold of me. By the time Evelyn and Lily came back, I was slipping in and out of consciousness. The moment they walked in, they began organizing their haul. The new baby clothes were folded neatly into a storage box, and the gourmet ingredients bought for Nathan were packed into the fridge. Evelyn finished up, turned around, and began rattling off instructions in her usual demanding tone. “Starting tomorrow, feed the baby at seven in the morning, noon, and right before bed. Change his diaper every three hours. Wash his clothes the day they get dirty; do not let them pile up.” I leaned against the bedroom doorframe, barely able to keep my eyes open. “Nathan said he is worried about leaving the baby with you, so he told me to keep a close eye on things,” she added, not even looking at me. “You don’t have anything else to do anyway, so just make sure you get this right.” Lily nodded solemnly beside her. “Yeah, you need to take good care of baby brother. No slacking off. Daddy Nathan works so hard, you can’t let him down.” I parted my dry, cracked lips. “I have a fever.” Evelyn frowned. “A fever?” “Yes.” She glanced at me, her eyes lingering on my pale face for less than two seconds before darting away. “Drink some hot water and take some ibuprofen. It can’t be that bad.” I took a deep, shaky breath, gripping the doorframe to stay upright. “Can you please grab the medicine for me? It’s in the cabinet. I’m too dizzy to stand.” She didn’t move. Instead, her eyes drifted toward the television. I followed her gaze. The screen was already glowing, the portal’s countdown timer ticking away. “Can you stop being so difficult?” her voice snapped with irritation. “Nathan worked a double shift last night, and we finally have a chance to go over and keep him company. You just have to ruin it, don’t you?” She sighed. “It’s just a fever. Stop being so incredibly selfish.” I stared at her, the silence stretching between us. Lily stepped around her mother, looking up at me like a disapproving adult. “You’re acting like a baby, always causing trouble,” Lily said. “Daddy Nathan never complains when he’s sick, and he still takes care of us. He’s the best dad.” She paused, pointing a finger at me. “Make sure you watch my baby brother. If you mess up and make Daddy Nathan sad, Mommy and I will be furious.” She grabbed Evelyn’s hand. “Mommy, hurry! The portal is going to close!” Evelyn squeezed her hand, and together they stepped toward the glowing television screen. A second later, they vanished into the light. The living room plunged back into quiet. I stood there, my muscles aching, my head throbbing, my ears ringing with a high-pitched buzz. I limped over to the television and struck the side of the plastic frame. The screen flickered violently, suddenly displaying a live feed of the other side. It looked like a security camera feed. In a cozy kitchen, a man wearing an apron stood by a stove. Evelyn walked up behind him, leaning in close to whisper something. He laughed and playfully nudged her away, her face lighting up with joy. Lily sat at the dining table drawing. “Daddy!” she called out. The man smiled and walked over, praising her drawing. Lily beamed and planted a kiss on his cheek. They looked like a perfect, happy family. After dinner, Evelyn helped him clear the table, and Lily eagerly offered to wash the dishes. The man tried to stop her. “Go play, sweetie. I’ve got this.” Evelyn wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Let her do it. Go sit down and rest.” Lily rolled up her sleeves and stood by the sink, looking back with a bright grin. “Look, Daddy! I learned how to wash dishes!” The man watched her, his eyes welling with touched tears. Watching the screen, the final piece of my heart shattered into dust. They weren’t incapable of helping around the house. They were willing to fight over who got to wash the dishes for him, but they couldn’t spare three seconds to hand me a single pill. 3 Evelyn and Lily returned promptly at noon the next day. I was still in bed, having survived the night through sheer willpower. “Mommy, I bet baby brother is going to roll over today!” “Really? Let’s go see.” I heard their footsteps head toward the living room, followed by a sudden silence. A moment later, Evelyn’s heavy steps marched toward the bedroom. She threw the door open and yanked me up from the mattress. “Did you miss his night feeding?” “I had a fever,” I whispered, my throat raw. “I don’t care!” she barked. “A baby cannot miss a feeding! Do you have any idea how bad that is for him?” I looked into her cold eyes. “I burned up all night. You didn’t bring me medicine or water. I had to crawl out of bed to find the pills myself. I still got up to soothe him when he cried…” “Enough, enough,” she waved her hand dismissively. “I’m asking about the baby. Why are you bringing up your own drama?” Lily peeked through the crack of the door, seeing me still lying down, and scoffed. “You are so lazy. What if baby brother got hungry? Daddy Nathan would be devastated if he knew.” Evelyn pulled out her phone, checking the living room security feed. Her expression darkened further. “You spent almost the entire afternoon in bed. How many times did you feed him? Did you even change his diaper?” “Once,” I said. “Only once?” “My temperature was 102 degrees.” She stared at me as if I were a stubborn child who refused to understand basic logic. “So what if you had a fever? Feeding a child is a basic human duty. If you can’t even handle that, what use are you to this family?” She stepped closer, her voice rising. “Just because you felt a little under the weather, you decided to neglect a helpless infant?” “How old is he? He can’t feed himself! Do you have a single shred of responsibility left in you?” “You don’t care about anyone but yourself.” She began grabbing my arm, trying to drag me out of bed while dialing her phone. “Get up. I’m calling an ambulance. Go to the hospital. If you stay here and infect us, we won’t be able to go back to the other world. Do you understand?” Lily nodded in agreement. “Yeah, go to the hospital, Dad. What if you make Daddy Nathan sick?” “He has a weak immune system. If he catches your germs, Mommy and I will never forgive you.” I looked at the two of them standing side by side. Their expressions were identical, painted with the same chilling sense of entitlement. I suddenly laughed. I laughed at the realization of how many years I had wasted worrying about these two ungrateful people. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll go.” The ambulance arrived quickly. The paramedics loaded me onto a gurney. “Is any family coming with him?” one of the paramedics asked. Evelyn stood by the doorway, shaking her head. “No. He can manage on his own.” The paramedic blinked, looking between her and me. “The patient has a very high fever. It’s much better if someone accompanies him…” “He’ll be fine,” Evelyn interrupted, her tone sharp. “I have a baby to look after. I can’t leave the house.” The paramedics didn’t argue. They wheeled me out. I spent three days in the hospital. During that time, neither Evelyn nor Lily visited me once. They didn’t even send a text. I opened my phone and checked our home security cameras. Unsurprisingly, they entered the television portal right on schedule every day, returning only at the very last second. On the fourth day, I was discharged. It happened to be Lily’s first day back at school. Out of old habit, I walked her to the school gates. One of her classmates called out her name, and the two girls began whispering. Lily laughed, her voice loud and proud. “I have two dads, you know!” Her friend looked confused. “Two?” “Yeah!” Lily bragged. “One lives in another world, and one lives in my house. Daddy Nathan in the other world is the best. He never yells, he plays with me, cooks delicious meals, and loves me the most.” She rolled her eyes and sighed. “The dad at home is useless. He just nags and complains. I absolutely hate him.” The classmate didn’t say anything, but she glanced awkwardly at me. Their teacher walked over, kneeling down to look at Lily. “Lily, you shouldn’t talk about your father like that.” Lily looked at the teacher, completely unbothered. “But it’s the truth.” The teacher frowned, about to speak, when Lily suddenly turned around and shoved me. “I wish Daddy Nathan could stay with me forever,” she shouted. “I don’t want you!” I was still weak from the hospital and lost my balance, falling backward onto the pavement. Lily didn’t even look back as she ran through the gates and disappeared into the crowd. As I sat there on the cold concrete, my phone buzzed. It was the electronics recycling company. “Hi, we have an opening tomorrow morning. Would that work for you?” “Yes,” I said, brushing the dirt off my palms. “Tomorrow morning. I’ll be waiting.” 4 I didn’t go to pick Lily up that afternoon. When she finally walked through the front door, her face was twisted with rage. “Why didn’t you pick me up?” I sat on the sofa and didn’t answer. “Every other kid had their parents waiting for them! I had to walk home all by myself!” She threw her backpack onto the floor. “What do you even do all day? You’re so lazy you can’t even remember your own daughter?” I kept my eyes on her, silent. She huffed, turning around to forage for snacks in the pantry. I watched her small back, remembering how I used to stand outside her school gates every single day, holding her favorite treats, ready to take her bag and ask how her day was. She had always pushed me away, eager to get home and rush to the TV so she could see Nathan. When Evelyn came home from work, she tossed a heavy grocery bag onto the kitchen counter. Lily immediately ran over and wrapped her arms around her mother’s leg. “Mommy! I miss Daddy Nathan and baby brother so much! Can we please go see them now?” Evelyn smiled warmly, stroking her hair. “Of course, sweetie. Right now.” She turned to me, her warm expression instantly freezing into a cold glare. “Cook these groceries. I want to take the meals inside with us tonight.” I didn’t argue. Instead, I pulled a stack of documents from the drawer and handed them to her along with a pen. “Sign these first,” I said. “They’re utility authorizations and some administrative paperwork.” Evelyn grabbed the pen and scribbled her signature on the lines I pointed to, not even bothering to read a single word. She shoved the papers back into my hands. “There. Now hurry up and cook.” She had no idea that the very bottom sheet of that stack was a mutual divorce agreement. I put the papers away and quietly walked into the kitchen. Behind me, Evelyn’s voice drifted through the air. “Look how perfect this is. I spend half my time with you, and the other half with Nathan. Everyone gets a piece of the pie. No one loses.” She chuckled. “Don’t overthink it. He’s over there, you’re over here, you’ll never cross paths. It’s peaceful. You just stay home, cook, take care of the baby, and I’ll make sure your allowance is paid on time.” I finished cooking and packed the food into neat containers, handing them to her. She looked pleased and patted Lily on the shoulder. “Let’s go find your father and brother.” They walked over to the television, the screen flared with light, and they stepped through, vanishing into the glow. I stood in the center of the dark living room, watching the television screen. On the display, Nathan was setting the table. Evelyn opened the containers, and Lily leaned in happily. “Daddy, look! Mommy brought more delicious food!” The man smiled warmly, taking the boxes. “Thank you, girls.” They gathered around the table, laughing and preparing to eat. I turned around and walked into my bedroom, lying down on the mattress. I closed my eyes. The dose of sleeping pills I had crushed into that food was more than enough to put them all into a deep, uninterrupted sleep on the other side. A sleep long enough for the recycling crew to arrive. Long enough for the television to be taken away. Long enough for everything to end. At eight the next morning, the recycling crew knocked on my door. They walked into the living room and eyed the television. “This the one?” “Yes,” I replied. As the worker reached for the power cord, I spoke up. “If the screen is shattered and the frame is broken, do you still take it?” The worker paused. “Yeah, we mostly just strip them down for the internal components to sell back to manufacturers. We don’t care if the casing is damaged.” I walked over to the hall closet and pulled out a heavy claw hammer. The worker’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say a word. I raised the hammer, aimed directly at the center of the screen, and swung with everything I had. The sharp, deafening crack of imploding glass shattered the quiet of the room. The screen splintered instantly, a web of fractures spreading across the dark glass before it went completely dead. I swung a second time. Then a third. Every blow was heavy, landing square in the center. Pieces of glass rained down onto the hardwood floor with a soft, metallic clatter. The worker stood by, completely speechless. I stopped, letting the hammer slip from my hand to clatter onto the floor. I looked at the ruined, hollow shell of the machine. My voice was quiet and cold. “It’s ready. You can take it now.”

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1 During an escape room game, my boyfriend and my best friend left me locked inside a coffin. They promised it would only be ten minutes. They said they would solve the final puzzle and come right back to let me out. But I ended up counting fifty blocks of ten minutes. Over eight hours in the dark. When the heavy wooden lid finally creaked open, it wasn’t Marcus or Ella waiting outside. It was a panicked, apologetic employee. Night had fallen by the time I stepped out of the venue. I called Marcus, and his voice on the other end was breezy, utterly unbothered. “Honestly, it slipped my mind.” “Nora, you’re so dense. If we didn’t show up, you should’ve just climbed out yourself.” Yet, on Ella’s Instagram, a photo of her and Marcus at Disneyland told a completely different story. Underneath their bright, smiling faces, the caption read: Ditched the scaredy-cat. Best day ever! In the bottom corner of the image, two annual passes peeked out of her purse. During my three years with Marcus, both he and Ella, who absolutely loved adrenaline rushes, had never ridden a single roller coaster or watched a single horror movie. They always claimed it was to protect my weak heart. I used to think it was a beautiful sacrifice, a testament to their love and care. Now, I realized it was just a quiet resentment they had wrapped up in a pretty bow. I stared at the Live Photo on my screen, watching the two of them scream with pure thrill as the coaster dropped. Then, I opened my email inbox and pulled up an old message: an offer from a prestigious research institute in London. They wouldn’t have to hold themselves back for me anymore. Sitting on a bench outside the escape room venue, I stared at Ella’s post. A mutual friend had commented: You guys go like a dozen times a year and still aren’t sick of it? I had never seen a single one of those trips on my feed. They had blocked me from seeing their stories for years. Marcus and Ella finally called me back, claiming they had received a last-minute job interview invite and completely lost track of time. “Nora, go wait for us at the diner next door,” Marcus urged. “We’re on our way now.” That “now” took another two hours. When they finally burst through the diner doors, panting and offering hurried apologies, they blamed the traffic. I kept my eyes on my lap. I had checked the navigation maps minutes ago; the roads were entirely clear. Two hours was exactly enough time for them to squeeze in one last ride before leaving the theme park. At the table, they ordered a massive spread of my favorite mild, healthy dishes. But neither of them touched a single bite. They hated bland food. Halfway through the meal, they exchanged a quick look. “Your heart might be acting up from the scare earlier, Nora,” Marcus said, standing up. “I’ll run to the pharmacy and grab your meds.” Ella stood up right after him. “And I drank way too much water. I need to use the restroom.” I watched them disappear around the corner, heading straight for the hot wing joint next door. When they returned ten minutes later, Ella’s lips were swollen and bright red. Marcus’s nose was flushed from the heat. I waved down our waiter. “Could we get two cans of ice-cold Coke, please?” They both froze. I pushed the cans toward them, my voice completely flat. “On the house. The restaurant gave them to us because we hit the minimum spend.” Only then did their shoulders drop, their expressions relaxing. On the drive home, Marcus checked the health data synced from my smartwatch. When he saw my heart rate had spiked to 180 beats per minute inside the coffin, his brow furrowed in annoyance. He turned to Ella, his voice sharp with blame. “This is on you. Why did you insist on bringing Nora to an escape room?” “You’re the one who agreed to it!” Ella shot back. “Stop,” I whispered. “I won’t go again.” Only then did they quiet down. The truth was, I had begged them for months to let me join them just this once. Usually, they spent days planning our outings, filtering out anything even remotely risky. No hiking near steep cliffs, no horror movies, and strict dietary checks. Everything exciting was a forbidden zone. Whenever I told them they didn’t need to baby me, they would say in unison: “No way! We’re a team, everyone has to have fun.” I had believed them. Now I realized I was just a chore they had to manage. Back at our shared apartment, Ella’s tote bag was slumped on the sofa. A furry blue monster headband peeked out of the half-open zipper. It was a character from a popular animated movie. It suddenly clicked. A few days ago, Marcus had tried on a goofy, matching blue monster hoodie, checking himself out in the mirror and asking me if he looked handsome. He was usually so serious, yet he had posed in that childish hoodie for twenty minutes. It matched Ella’s headband perfectly. Leaving me behind hadn’t been a sudden mistake. It was a carefully orchestrated date. I told Marcus to make sure Ella got home safely and went straight to my room. But Marcus didn’t even wait a minute before slipping in after me. He wrapped his arms around me from behind, his touch familiar and suffocating. As he did, his phone screen lit up on the nightstand. A notification popped up: Your booking for the tandem skydiving experience is confirmed. See you soon! The date was our fifth anniversary. The next second, Marcus whispered into my hair, “Nora, I have to head back to my hometown on our anniversary. Family stuff.” “What a coincidence,” I said softly. “I have plans that day too.” “We’ll make up for it later, okay?” I didn’t answer. My plans for that day involved going to the consulate to secure my visa. There would be no “later” for us. The next afternoon, feeling guilty, they suggested a movie night at home to keep me company. They chose a slow, artsy drama. Twenty minutes in, Marcus was yawning continuously, and Ella was scrolling through her phone. Every now and then, they would lean in close, whispering and giggling at something on her screen. When I got up to get a glass of water, I heard Ella whisper, “This movie is agonizing.” “Just hang in there,” Marcus murmured, rubbing her shoulder. “You know Nora can’t handle anything intense. Next month, we’ll do the skydiving trip. Did you watch the video I sent you?” Ella nodded eagerly. “Yes! It looks insane. We should sneak away for it the next time we take her hiking.” Hiking. Over the years, we had gone to parks and nature trails. But every single time, the two of them would fall behind. Marcus would claim he was looking for a beautiful leaf to give me. Ella would say she was chasing away bugs. I had always slowed my pace, waiting for them to catch up, only for them to return empty-handed and breathless. They had been using every spare second to slip away and chase the cheap thrills they denied themselves around me. I walked back into the living room and said, “I’m feeling a bit tired. I think I’ll head to bed. Why don’t you guys put on something you actually like?” Marcus’s face instantly cleared. Within minutes, the low, creepy soundtrack of a bloody slasher film echoed through the apartment. I shut my bedroom door, blocking out their laughter, and opened my laptop. I pulled up the email from the London research institute. I typed a quick reply to the HR coordinator: Hello, my visa appointment is booked. I look forward to joining the team as soon as possible. They replied almost instantly, confirming my start date. A knock sounded on my door. Marcus walked in carrying a mug of warm herbal tea, perfectly brewed. He was always so attentive. But my eyes drifted past him to the living room table. There sat a massive pitcher of rum and coke alongside boxes of blazing hot takeout, dripping with spicy red oil. Bold, fiery, and exciting. Meanwhile, my tea was tepid, bland, and safe. “I know you don’t like spicy food, so I didn’t ask,” Marcus said, noticing my gaze. “It’s fine,” I murmured. He squeezed my hand. “Let’s go hiking this weekend. Didn’t you want to visit the historic chapel on the mountain to draw a fortune slip?” I had wanted to go for months. With graduation approaching, I wanted to pray for their career success, to pray that the three of us would never grow apart. But they had always claimed they were too busy with job interviews, pretending to be stressed out and exhausted. Now, they suddenly had time. I knew why. The mountain had recently opened a new cliffside rappelling course. Looking at his gentle smile, I said, “Okay.” Only this time, the wish wouldn’t be for them. On Saturday, we drove to the mountain. Marcus packed everything with his usual meticulous care: bug spray, rain ponchos, and snacks. He handed me an insulated bag with four sandwiches he had made. “Keep these in here. They’ll last a couple of days.” “I thought we’d be back by noon?” I asked. Marcus stiffened slightly, then recovered with a quick laugh. “Just in case you want to feed the stray dogs on the trail.” When Ella arrived, she twirled me around. “Nora! You look beautiful in that pastel pink set I bought you!” It was a soft, pale pink. She had told me it matched my gentle personality and that we had matching sister outfits. But Ella wasn’t wearing hers today. She was dressed in bright, neon orange. When Marcus walked out of his room, he was wearing the exact same shade of vibrant orange. Ella playfully punched his arm. “Copycat! Why are you wearing orange? You look ridiculous.” “You’re the one who looks like a neon traffic cone,” Marcus joked back. Same brand, same glaring color. I looked at them. “Do you guys not like the shirts I bought you? I’ve never seen you wear them.” Their laughter died instantly. “They’re in the wash,” Marcus stammered. “They’re too nice to ruin on a dusty hike,” Ella chimed in. The same old excuses. I used to think it was just bad timing. Now I knew they simply hated my taste, yet they had pretended to love the gifts anyway. Before I could think further, they pulled me out the door. The front passenger seat had always been my spot. It had the soft, light-colored seat covers I liked and the plush toys Marcus had won for me. He had even started the AC before we got in. It was perfect care, but it felt hollow. In the back seat, Ella cracked open a cold beer and popped some spicy chips. She gasped from the heat, complaining, “Your driving is awful today, Marcus.” “Still better than yours,” Marcus snapped. “Remember last time when we…” He stopped abruptly. The car fell dead silent. Another “last time” I was never told about. I stared out the window. Soon, a massive billboard for the mountain rappelling course flashed by. “They opened rappelling up there,” I murmured. “Do you guys want to try?” They answered almost in unison. “No way,” Marcus said, squeezing my hand. “It’s too dangerous. Your heart couldn’t handle it.” “We’re here for you today, Nora,” Ella added, leaning forward. “Don’t worry about us.” But as we started up the trail, their minds were clearly elsewhere. Their eyes kept darting to the directional signs for the rappelling ledge. Halfway up, Marcus used his usual routine. “There might be snakes ahead. I’ll go scout the trail.” Ella immediately chimed in. “I’m parched. I’ll run back down to the trail shop and grab us some water.” They vanished down the side path with practiced ease. This time, I didn’t stand there waiting. I turned and walked up toward the chapel alone. By the time I came out of the chapel, a torrential downpour had started. I pulled on the rain poncho Marcus had packed, but the wind was too strong, and within minutes, I was soaked to the bone. The mountain path became a muddy slide, and my foot slipped, twisting my ankle with a sharp crack of pain. Limping, I made my way down to the mid-mountain medical station. Near the rappelling platform, I saw two figures in bright orange suits, locked in a tight, joyous embrace before leaping off the ledge together. Their wild laughter echoed through the rain. They looked so light, so free. And I felt so heavy. Why couldn’t they just tell me the truth? Why did they have to construct an elaborate cage of lies just to spare my feelings? A rushed tourist accidentally collided with me, knocking the fortune card I had drawn from my hand. It fell into a puddle, turning into a soggy mess of paper. I knelt in the mud, desperately trying to piece the fragments back together, my tears mixing with the rain. My eyes burned far worse than my swollen ankle. Suddenly, a hand gripped my shoulder. I looked up to see Marcus and Ella. Marcus scooped me up, his voice trembling. “Why did you wander off? We told you to wait!” Ella held a bottle of juice, her clothes caked in mud. “Nora, we went back and you were gone! You scared us to death!” Her eyes were red, spilling over with real tears. But as I looked past them, I saw the two people in orange walking down from the rappelling landing zone. They were complete strangers. Marcus hoisted me onto his back. “Forget the ruined card. I’ll carry you back up to get a new one.” He began trudging back up the muddy trail, Ella hovering close by, her eyes glued to me. Inside the smoky, quiet chapel, my hands shook as Marcus handed me the wooden canister of wishing sticks. I closed my eyes, gave it a gentle shake, and a single slip fell to the floor. It was the worst possible omen. I didn’t ask the monk to translate it. I slipped it into my pocket and walked out to find Marcus and Ella, who were whispering near the courtyard. “Nora has been acting strange lately,” Ella whispered. “She even asked about the rappelling. I knew she’d come looking for us.” “Thank god we took the cable car down right after we finished,” Marcus replied, sounding relieved. “Otherwise, she would have caught us red-handed.” “Paying those two strangers to wear our orange gear was genius,” Ella giggled quietly. “Now she’ll just think she’s being paranoid. She won’t doubt us again.” My fingernails dug deep into my palms. I said nothing, turning back toward the main hall. When they caught up with me, they eagerly asked what my fortune said. I pulled out the slip and handed it to them. A shared path cannot stretch a thousand miles; this lifetime is destined for an early parting. Their faces went pale. “This is garbage!” Marcus hissed, crumpling the paper into a tight ball. Ella hugged me tightly, her voice shaking. “Nora, I’m never letting you go.” I only murmured, “Let’s head down. We need to pack for the move.” They had both signed with the same company in San Diego. They claimed they had turned down prestigious offers in Boston just so I could live in a milder, warmer climate. I had told them they didn’t have to, but they had ignored me, already planning out our lives. They discussed which neighborhood we’d live in, what style of furniture to buy, and which local spots to visit. They had even chosen a job for me: a braindead, dead-end desk job at a tiny local firm. “We’ll take care of you,” Marcus had said, ruffling my hair with patronizing affection. “You don’t need to stress yourself out.” They seemed to forget that I had graduated at the top of my class, winning the university’s highest honors. Multiple top-tier firms had fought to recruit me. On moving day, they insisted I rest and handle none of the heavy lifting. They packed my things with extreme care and loaded them into the truck. But when they slammed the truck doors shut and drove off, they didn’t even notice I wasn’t in the car. It wasn’t until they were halfway down the highway that Marcus realized. His call came through, frantic. “Nora! Where are you?” “At the airport,” I said. I heard both of them sigh with immense relief over the speaker. Marcus chuckled. “Well, flying is much easier on your heart anyway. Glad you didn’t have to suffer through a long drive.” Staring at my boarding pass for a flight to London, I said nothing. This time, I was flying in the opposite direction.

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1 Right before graduation at my elite private university, I accidentally bumped into the campus queen bee, a girl dripping in generational wealth. I apologized and walked away, assuming that would be the end of it. I was wrong. That very afternoon, she filed a formal report with the university. She claimed I had stalked her into the campus woods and relentlessly sexually harassed her. Victoria was the untouchable golden girl. Her family had donated half the buildings on campus. Naturally, everyone chose to believe her. Even I could not understand why she would bother framing me, a dirt-poor scholarship kid who barely existed in her world. I was expelled immediately. Sixteen years of grueling academic work went up in smoke. I was doxed, branded a predator online, and dragged into those same woods by a group of trust-fund frat boys who beat me within an inch of my life. When my adoptive parents saw my broken body, they did not offer comfort. Instead, they conspired to sell my labor to a brutal, off-the-grid manufacturing plant just to squeeze the last drop of value out of my existence. Driven to absolute despair and freezing in the winter rain, my heart finally gave out. I collapsed outside the campus gates, dying a pathetic, miserable death. Then, I opened my eyes. … I was standing on the tree-lined campus promenade. Victoria was walking straight toward me. Without thinking, I threw myself entirely out of the way. My knees slammed into the concrete, sending a sharp spike of pain up my legs, but I let out a massive breath of relief. I had successfully avoided her. Before my death, I had replayed this moment a million times. Bumping into her was the catalyst for my entire tragedy. Victoria always looked at people like me as if we were insects. I figured my touch had disgusted her so much that she decided to crush me just for fun. But as I pulled myself up from the ground, Victoria suddenly pivoted. She stepped directly into my space. Before I could back up, our shoulders collided. My blood ran ice cold. The original collision was never an accident. It was a premeditated setup. Victoria frowned in disgust, staring at the edge of her designer skirt where it had brushed against my jeans. She looked as though she had just been contaminated. Her perfectly manicured sidekicks immediately jumped forward, pointing their fingers in my face. “Are you completely blind? How dare you touch her! Get on your knees and beg for forgiveness right now!” It was the exact same script from my past life. But this time, I did not cower. I did not stammer out an apology. I slowly straightened my spine. “She intentionally stepped into my path. Why the hell should I apologize?” The lead minion widened her eyes, raising her hand to slap me. “You absolute trash! I will teach you how to speak to your betters!” Victoria glanced at me, a flicker of surprise breaking through her icy mask, but she quickly smoothed her expression into utter indifference. “Do not waste time on him,” she said flatly. “We have actual business to handle.” The minion lowered her hand, instantly shifting into a sycophantic smile. “Of course, Victoria. We will get everything ready perfectly.” The business Victoria mentioned was her grand, public proposal to Sebastian, the billionaire golden boy of the university. In my previous life, while the sky exploded with fireworks celebrating their perfect aristocratic love, I was bleeding out in the dirt of the campus woods. But why? Why go to such lengths to destroy me? I waited until Victoria and her entourage disappeared around the corner before I realized my legs were shaking violently. Fear was useless now. God had given me a second chance, and I was going to fight tooth and nail to survive. I immediately sprinted to the main campus gates, as far away from the woods as possible. I found a spot directly beneath a highly visible security camera and stood completely still. Two hours later, my phone rang. It was Dean Sinclair. Her voice was trembling with suppressed rage. “Rowan, my office received a severe complaint from Victoria.” “You stalked and harassed her in the campus woods this afternoon. Get to the administration building this instant!” I looked up at the blinking red light of the camera above me. “I was never in the woods.” “Shut your mouth!” Dean Sinclair snapped. “If you want to lie to my face, you can do it in my office!” “It is not a lie,” I replied, my voice steady and unnervingly calm. “Since Victoria bumped into me on the promenade two hours ago, I have been standing directly beneath the main gate security camera. I haven’t moved an inch.” “Therefore, it is physically impossible for me to have been in the woods.” The line went dead silent for three seconds. Then, she let out a cruel sneer. “You really think you are smart, pulling an alibi out of thin air. Did you forget that camera is broken?” I stared right at the glowing red operation light. “It is not broken. I am looking right at the recording indicator.” “It is broken as of right now,” she said coldly. A second later, the red light above me clicked off. A campus security guard stepped out of the nearby booth, grabbing me roughly by the bicep. “Move it, kid. Dean Sinclair wants you in her office right now.” I yanked my arm out of his grip, forcing my heart rate to slow down. “Take your hands off me. I can walk myself.” I had tried to use the camera to prove my innocence, but they casually disabled it without breaking a sweat. The power imbalance was suffocating. But panicking would only get me killed again. I had to face them head-on. The Dean’s office was stifling. Victoria was lounging gracefully on a leather sofa. She looked at me the way one looks at roadkill. Dean Sinclair’s face was pinched in fury. She threw a withdrawal form across her heavy mahogany desk. It fluttered to the floor at my feet. “Sign the expulsion papers, apologize to Victoria, and we will consider the matter closed.” “Victoria is gracious enough not to press criminal charges against a charity case like you. It would ruin her aesthetic.” I did not move to pick it up. The sharp edge of the paper had grazed my cheek, leaving a thin red line. I casually wiped a drop of blood away with my thumb. “Why would I withdraw, and why would I apologize for something I did not do?” “Is she being gracious, or is she just a pathological liar?” “How dare you!” Dean Sinclair slammed her palms onto the desk, her voice echoing off the walls. “You commit a filthy, degrading act, and you have the audacity to play the victim?” I dug my fingernails into my palms to keep my hands from shaking. “I did nothing! If you are accusing me, bring out the proof.” Dean Sinclair laughed, a harsh, grating sound. “Who do you think you are? Do you honestly believe a girl of Victoria’s breeding would lower herself to frame you? Trash like you does not belong in an institution like this!” “How do you know she wouldn’t?” I leaned forward, refusing to break eye contact. “And as a Dean, taking one side of a story without a shred of evidence while calling a student ‘trash’ violates every code of conduct in this university.” “The only person who doesn’t belong in this institution is you!” Dean Sinclair’s chest heaved. Her eyes looked like they wanted to strip the flesh from my bones. She pointed a trembling, manicured finger right between my eyes. “Say that to me one more time.” I did not flinch. “I will say it as many times as you want. You are making wild accusations because Victoria is your actual niece. This is a blatant abuse of power and nepotism.” I had wanted to scream those exact words in my last life. “My administrative methods are none of your concern!” Dean Sinclair glared at me, her rage boiling over into a terrifyingly calm smile. “Expulsion is off the table now. Get on your knees and beg for my forgiveness. Now.” She placed her hand on the brass doorknob of her office. “Otherwise, this leaves the room, and your life is over.” It was a naked threat. I looked her dead in the eye. “I didn’t do it.” Dean Sinclair’s face turned purple. She ripped the door open. A crowd of students and faculty, drawn by the yelling, immediately swarmed the doorway, whispering and pointing. Victoria slowly stood up from the sofa, adjusting her immaculate cardigan. She pointed a delicate finger at me. “He stalked me. He cornered me. And now he is trying to play the victim. It makes me sick.” The crowd erupted. “Rowan always played the quiet nerd. Who knew he was such a creep?” “Harassing Victoria? A scholarship rat trying to touch an heiress? He should be locked up!” “Expel him! Get that predator out of here!” Dean Sinclair crossed her arms, her voice booming over the hallway. “Rowan has sexually harassed a female student, refused to admit fault, and verbally assaulted faculty.” “Since this has now caused severe disruption to our campus environment, the university has no choice but to involve law enforcement.” Victoria let out a soft, mocking laugh. “If this goes to the police, I guarantee he sees the inside of a cell.” They both stared at me, waiting for me to crack. Waiting for my knees to buckle. Waiting for me to beg. My face lost its color. I knew exactly what the wealthy elite could do to a nobody like me. “Please do not call the police!” Right on cue, my adoptive parents shoved their way through the crowd, looking panicked and frantic. “Ma’am, please, we are Rowan’s parents.” My adoptive father hunched his shoulders and actually dropped to his knees in front of Dean Sinclair. I instinctively reached out to pull him up. “Don’t beg them! I am completely innocent!” He aggressively slapped my hands away, looking up at the Dean with a sickeningly sweet, fawning expression. “We failed to raise him right. It is our fault. Blame us.” “Please, you are a big, important person. Have mercy on him.” My adoptive parents kept bowing their heads. Dean Sinclair let out a dramatic, theatrical sigh. “A parent’s love is truly a tragic thing. For your sake, I will offer Rowan one final chance.” “If he withdraws voluntarily and gets on his knees to apologize to my niece right now, we will drop the charges.” My parents’ pathetic smiles froze on their faces. “Does he have to drop out?” my adoptive mother pleaded. “It took everything we had to get him out of the trailer park. We borrowed from everyone in town just to afford his bus ticket here.” “If you just let him keep his scholarship, we will owe you our lives. We will kiss your shoes…” This time, Dean Sinclair didn’t even bother looking at them. “Spare me the poverty sob story. Expulsion is an act of extreme mercy on my part.” Victoria dramatically checked her diamond-encrusted Patek Philippe watch. “Well? Make a choice. I do not have all day to breathe this air.” My parents collapsed onto the floor in a theatrical display of despair. They crawled toward me on their knees, grabbing my pant legs, tears streaming down their weathered faces. “Son, just listen to the nice lady. Drop out and apologize.” “If the cops come, your life is ruined, and your father and I won’t be able to survive the shame! Please, I am begging you!” In my past life, this was the exact moment my spirit broke. I surrendered. I did it because I knew I could not fight billionaires, and because I thought my parents actually loved me. But shortly after my expulsion, while pretending to support me, they secretly sold my labor contract to an illegal factory for a quick cash payout. The memory of my lungs failing in the freezing mud rushed back to me. I dug my nails into my palms so hard the skin broke. God had given me a chance to clear my name. I was not going to walk back into the slaughterhouse. “I will say it one last time. I will not confess to a crime I did not commit.” My body was trembling, but my voice was completely steady. “Furthermore, the police are already on their way. I called them myself.” The entire hallway went dead silent. Dean Sinclair blinked, genuinely shocked. “You called the cops? You?” Victoria scoffed. “You really have a death wish.” My adoptive parents lunged at me, their eyes bloodshot with sudden, inexplicable rage. “Call them back and cancel it! You are going to go to jail!” “Stop being stupid! Just drop out! We cannot afford to mess with people like this!” Looking at their twisted, furious faces, something clicked in my brain. We were poor. Dirt poor. I was their only child. Years ago, a neighbor accused me of stealing a ten-cent egg, and my adoptive father nearly burned the man’s house down in my defense. Yet today, facing a life-ruining sexual assault allegation, they did not even ask me for my side of the story. They instantly believed I was guilty. It made no sense. None of this made any sense. Through the chaos of my racing thoughts, a terrifying theory began to take shape. Before I could process it, heavy footsteps echoed down the marble corridor. It wasn’t just the police. The crowd parted, revealing a dozen professional camera crews and reporters flanking two uniformed officers. The lead officer scanned the room. “Who is the caller? Rowan?” I raised my hand. “That is me.” The reporters immediately swarmed forward, microphones extended. “Are you the one who tipped us off about a massive campus cover-up?” I nodded. “Yes.” For the first time, Dean Sinclair’s arrogant mask cracked. “Rowan, have you lost your absolute mind? You invited the press? Do you honestly think the media is going to side with a trailer park kid over the Victoria family?” My adoptive parents dug their dirty fingernails deep into my forearms, screaming in my face. “Tell the cops you made a mistake! Tell them right now!” “Tell the news people to get out of here! Do you hear me?!” I stood perfectly still. The pain in my arms only made my mind sharper. “I did nothing wrong. I am not afraid of the spotlight.” A private settlement meant a quiet death. I had no choices left. I had to detonate the entire situation. I had to make it so loud they couldn’t bury it. “Step away from the student.” The officer aggressively pushed my adoptive parents back. He turned to me, his tone shifting to something more neutral. “Son, walk me through exactly what happened.” I pointed a steady finger at Victoria. “Today, she intentionally collided with me on the main promenade. Then, she falsely accused me of harassing her in the woods. During the exact timeframe she claims the assault happened, I was standing directly beneath the campus gate security camera.” I then pointed at the pale, sweating Dean. “When I informed our Dean—who happens to be Victoria’s biological aunt—about my alibi, she immediately claimed the camera was broken. Based solely on her niece’s unverified accusation, she ordered me to get on my knees, apologize, and accept expulsion.” A reporter in the front row gasped loudly. “Wait, the Dean is covering up for her own niece to ruin a scholarship student?” Dean Sinclair’s face flushed dark red. “Do not listen to his manipulative lies! I am entirely impartial.” Victoria casually rolled her eyes and glanced at her minions. They took their cue perfectly. “Rowan is a liar! He bumped into her on purpose! I saw the whole thing!” “He has been obsessed with her for months! He is always creeping around trying to get her attention!” A reporter shoved a microphone toward them. “Are you talking about Victoria, the heiress to the tech fortune?” “Exactly! Rowan is just a disgusting peasant from the middle of nowhere. Use your brains, people. Who is framing who here?” The atmosphere shifted instantly. The reporters exchanged skeptical looks, their cameras turning back toward me with heavy judgment. Only the lead officer remained professional. “Are there any other witnesses to the alleged incident in the woods? Aside from the two parties involved?” A suffocating silence fell over the room. Then, the sound of expensive leather shoes clicked down the hallway. “I can personally vouch for the victim.” An older man in a bespoke suit walked through the crowd, his hands clasped firmly behind his back. It was Chancellor Wallace. “I have watched Victoria grow up since she was a little girl. I stake my decades of academic reputation on the fact that she does not lie.” “Chancellor Wallace, your reputation is noted,” the officer said politely but firmly. “But the law requires empirical evidence.” Seeing the police refuse to bow to campus royalty gave me a surge of hope. But then, another figure stepped out from the shadows of the corridor. Victoria, who hadn’t bothered standing up for the Chancellor, immediately leaped to her feet. “Sebastian! Are you here to testify for me?” She practically threw herself into his arms, her normally cold eyes melting into pure adoration. My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit. Sebastian was the campus prince. Old money, impeccable manners, and famously philanthropic. He was known for sitting down and eating with HIV patients just to combat social stigma. I had never cared about Victoria, but I had always genuinely admired Sebastian. I believed a guy with that kind of moral compass would never commit perjury. But Sebastian looked at the police officers and nodded with absolute certainty. “Yes. I am the eyewitness.” “I personally saw Rowan stalk and physically harass Victoria in the woods.” “Why?” I whispered, shaking my head in sheer disbelief. “Why are you lying to destroy me?” Sebastian looked deeply troubled, playing the role of the reluctant hero perfectly. He took a deep breath. “During the struggle in the woods, his shirt was torn. I saw a very distinct, bright red birthmark right over his left pectoral muscle.” “If you want to know who is lying, an immediate physical examination will settle it.” All the blood drained from my face. I could not form a single word. It was an incredibly intimate secret. Not even my college roommates of four years knew about it. How the hell did Sebastian know? It was utterly impossible. My deathly pale, stunned silence looked exactly like a confession to everyone in the room. Looks of sheer disgust rained down on me from every direction. I even saw the frat boys who had beaten me to death in my past life smirking in the back row. The police officer sighed heavily. “Rowan, do you consent to a physical examination?” The reporters immediately raised their glowing smartphones, preparing to live-stream my utter ruin. Slowly, the shock faded, leaving behind absolute clarity. The chaotic puzzle pieces in my mind snapped perfectly into place. “Yes.” I reached into my back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of heavy stock paper. I held it directly up to the closest camera lens. “But before you check my chest, you might want to look at this.” Like a drop of cold water hitting boiling oil, the entire room exploded.

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“Jared, sweetie, if I don’t sell this prosthetic limb soon, they are going to fire me!” My fiancé received this desperate plea from his precious childhood sweetheart, Gemma. To help her meet her sales quota, he actually orchestrated a horrific car crash to shatter my limbs, forcing me to buy Gemma’s overpriced, defective prosthetics. The cheap materials led to a severe infection, and I died in agony on a cold hospital bed. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back. Back on the very day of the crash, sitting in the passenger seat of my newly started car. Remembering my fiancé’s deeply superstitious family, a dark smile played on my lips. I gripped the door handle. As a cemetery plot sales representative, I was under huge pressure to meet my sales quota, due before Memorial Day. 1 “Sweetheart, I just realized you were up all night taking client calls. It is too exhausting for you. Let me drive today.” Reborn, I wasted no time unbuckling my seatbelt and opening the car door. In my past life, in less than thirty minutes, a preplanned truck would smash into us on this very road. Jared had deliberately faked a bad phone signal, delaying the ambulance until my severed limbs missed their golden window for reattachment. The memory of that bloody nightmare was still raw in my mind. I was not going to sit here and wait for death. “It is fine, babe. Your office is so far away, and you run around all day. I love doing things for you.” Jared lifted his foot off the gas pedal, squeezing out a smile. He reached over, trying to buckle my seatbelt back in. I stepped out of the car and yanked his door open. “I will drive.” Seeing the absolute resolve in my eyes, Jared’s jaw twitched. His gaze flickered away guiltily. While we were at a standstill, the car’s Bluetooth automatically connected to an incoming call. “Jared, how is it going? Did she break her legs or her arms? When should I bring the sales contract to the hospital?” I pretended not to understand, keeping a calm, pleasant smile fixed on my face as I stared at Jared. “Gemma, I am a bit busy right now. I have not left yet. Let us talk later.” He hung up in a panic, beads of cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. “Oh, well, Gemma just started as a sales rep at a medical prosthetics company. She asked me to recommend some clients so she would not lose her job. I remembered a friend of mine who was recently in a bad wreck, so I wanted to hook them up. I just have not had the chance to introduce them yet.” A cold sneer rippled through my mind. Of course not. Because the client’s legs had not been shattered yet. In my previous life, when Gemma found out my limbs were completely crushed, her ringing laughter echoed in my ears: “Jared, you are amazing! I signed a massive contract. Not only will my boss keep me, but I might even be the top seller of the month!” But this time around, his precious sweetheart’s sales crown would not be so easy to claim. “Jared, I actually had a terrible nightmare last night. I dreamt you drove me to work this morning. You know how treacherous the roads to my office can be. We got into a horrific crash. My limbs were shattered, and you…” I let my voice trail off, looking at him with deep, chilling intensity. He wiped his sweat. “What happened to me?” “Oh, do not ask. It was too gruesome. They had to shovel your remains into a body bag.” I sighed heavily, putting on a show of grief. Jared, who had always been deeply terrified of the paranormal and bad omens, went completely pale. “Such an ominous dream. God must have seen how good a person I am and sent you a warning! We should definitely drive separately today. Our wedding is right around the corner, we cannot have any bad luck!” Terrified out of his wits, Jared slammed on the gas and sped off alone in his own car. I could not tell if he was running out of guilt because I had exposed his plot, or if he was genuinely spooked. I smiled triumphantly and called a cab to my workplace, Havenwood Cemetery. Before this, Jared always claimed Gemma’s office was on his way and only drove her. It was clear his sudden offer to drive me today was packed with malice. Looking down at my perfectly intact limbs, a profound sense of relief washed over me. In my previous life, the moment I arrived at the hospital, the doctors declared my limbs unsalvageable. I was doomed to spend the rest of my days relying on cheap prosthetics. Jared and a smug Gemma, who had been waiting like vultures, marched into my ward to force me to sign the purchase contract. When I refused, Jared dragged me off the bed onto the cold tile floor, stomping brutally onto my freshly stitched stumps. The wounds ruptured, spraying blood across the floor. That was how I was bankrupted, becoming Gemma’s ticket to a promotion as sales manager. He dumped me immediately after and married Gemma at the very venue I had booked. Their mothers practically glowed with joy at the wedding. They even ordered people to throw my personal belongings from the old apartment onto the road so the bridal caravan could run them over repeatedly to dispel the bad luck. All I got was a pair of mismatched, defective prosthetics: two left hands and two right feet. I died alone, shivering from a rampant infection. But now, I was alive, and my boss had just let me off shift early. Humming a tune as I walked out of the cemetery gates, I spotted Jared’s car parked in a secluded patch of woods nearby. The vehicle was rocking violently. As I drew closer, heavy panting and high pitched moans drifted through the cracked window. “Jared, consider this your reward for working so hard for me! When your precious bride to be comes out, do not miss your chance like you did this morning!” “Don’t worry, babe. With you cheering me on like this, I’ll drag her into the car myself if I have to. I will get you that sales commission!” I scoffed quietly. Bending down, I grabbed a thick stack of burnt offering ritual paper from the ground, stuffed it deep into his exhaust pipe, and took a cab home. The moment I walked through the front door, I saw my future mother in law, Helen, locked in an intense game of bridge with her friends. Among them was Gemma’s mother, Beatrice, who was even more superstitious than Helen. Seeing me walk in, they all turned their heads and spat on the floor three times. “What bad luck! May the spirits forgive us!” Accustomed to their hostility, I ignored them. I stood behind them, watching the game while humming a light tune, which only made them glare harder. “Audrey, have you no shame?” Helen slammed her cards down, glaring at me. “Working in a depressing place like that all day, and then coming home to ruin our luck!” “Oh, Helen, do not get worked up,” Beatrice chimed in, dripping with smug satisfaction. “Who told your son to propose to a cemetery worker when he could have married my highly educated daughter? You brought this on yourselves.” I let out a soft laugh. Who knew selling fake limbs made someone a highly educated elite now? Before Helen could snap back, the phone call I had been waiting for finally arrived. I immediately pressed the speakerphone button. Jared’s trembling, terrified voice filled the living room. “Audrey! Is there a curse on your cemetery? I came to pick you up out of the goodness of my heart, and my car suddenly caught fire on the road! It was spitting ash and burnt paper from the exhaust! The car is a total loss!” At this, Helen could not care less about the card game. “You have not even married into this family yet, and you have already ruined my son’s luxury car! You jinx! Your parents died because of your bad luck, and now you work in a graveyard! If anything happens to my Jared, I will make you pay!” Thinking of Jared’s terrible second hand luxury car, I suppressed a chuckle and forced a vulnerable, trembling expression onto my face. “Mom, I told you I had that nightmare last night. It warned me that if we shared a car, we would have a horrific accident. Today is right before Memorial Day, and my company hired a high priest to perform a cleansing ritual. I prayed so hard… maybe the spirits were protecting us by warning me in my dream.” Helen’s eyes lit up. She snatched the phone from my hand. “That’s right! Son, from now on, you are not allowed to ride in the same car as her! Do not let this curse touch you!” Over the line, I could hear Gemma huffing in frustration, but I ignored it. I reached into my bag and pulled out several embroidered sachets. “Ladies, the priest who did the cleansing is highly renowned. I bought these protective sachets for all of you to keep the bad energy away, especially around Memorial Day. It is for your safety.” Helen’s scowl softened into approval, and Beatrice’s eyes gleamed with greedy delight as she took one. “Well, at least you are somewhat useful,” Helen muttered, hanging the sachet around her neck and keeping one for her son. “You are the biggest bad luck jinx around here. Wearing this might actually block some of your negative energy.” Both women loved temple trinkets and blessed charms, so they readily accepted them. What they did not realize was that the patterns on these sachets were very specific. Jared returned shortly after, his face deathly pale. He clearly had not recovered from the shock of his car catching fire. Helen rushed over and hung the sachet around his neck. “Look how terrified my baby is! You only got into this mess because you pampered this jinx by picking her up! I swear, we need to rethink this wedding. I would be too embarrassed to look our guests in the eye if they found out what she does for a living!” Jared glanced at me. Seeing my submissive, quiet demeanor, he let out a sigh of relief. I knew he would not let me go. Not until he could squeeze every cent out of me to buy Gemma’s prosthetics. I stepped forward with a warm, eager smile. “Mom, today was entirely my fault. Jared got scared because of me. Let me make it up to you.” I held up the keys to the brand new car I had picked up this afternoon. The moment they saw the keys, their scowls instantly vanished into broad, greedy smiles. The next morning, as I stepped out, I saw Jared and his mother loading my new car with luggage. Gemma and her mother were already sitting inside, looking like they were heading off on a luxury vacation. Even more ridiculous, all four of them were wearing matching family outfits, complete with bright gold embroidery on their chests. As they rolled past me, Gemma made Jared slow down. She rolled down the passenger window, a mocking smirk on her lips. “Morning, Audrey! Sorry about this, but since you and Jared cannot ride in the same car, we decided to take your new ride for a spin. You do not mind us breaking it in for you, do you?” Through the window, I could see her hand resting firmly on Jared’s thigh. Helen sat regally in the back, barely deigning to look at me. “My son is doing her a favor by driving her car. He is too kindhearted, always doing charity work. Otherwise, who would want a jinx like her? Even a beggar would turn her down.” Without waiting for my response, they laughed loudly, and Jared slammed on the gas. As they sped away, the two of them leaned out to share a kiss while flipping me off through the window. I smiled serenely, entirely unbothered. I pulled out my phone and tapped into the hidden camera feed I had installed in the car. Helen’s loud, angry voice filled my screen. “You two were childhood sweethearts. If only you had married Gemma instead of that trash!” Then, Gemma excitedly laid out their grand scheme to the two older women. Hearing the plan, Helen finally burst into a hearty, satisfied laugh. “Gemma, you really are brilliant! This way, we can bleed that orphan dry, throw her out, and use her wedding venue for you and Jared. It is flawless!” Beatrice rolled her eyes proudly. “My Gemma has always been a genius. It is just a shame she did not do well on her college exams, otherwise Jared would not have had to settle for that graveyard girl. Now that Gemma is back with her master’s degree, she will show everyone what she is made of! But if she cannot ride with Jared, how are we going to break her limbs?” “That is easy,” Helen sneered. “We will invite her hiking next time. We can just push her off a steep ledge. Just make sure she does not die on impact.” Jared looked at Gemma with sheer adoration, his eyes growing hazy. “Gemma, you are not just smart, you are absolutely gorgeous. Your skin is so soft, and your body… God, I cannot wait to wrap my hands around you…” The older women stared in shock at Jared, whose face was flushed as he started drooling. “Jared, what nonsense are you talking? Your mothers are right here!” Gemma snapped, trying to pull her hand away. But Jared grabbed it tightly and guided it down to his lap. “Gemma, don’t you love doing it in the car? Let us make this drive exciting. Let us do it while I drive!” “You animal! My daughter is a decent, highly educated woman, and you are trying to ruin her right in front of us!” Beatrice shrieked in fury, lunging forward to grab Jared’s collar. Helen and Gemma scrambled to pull her back, and the cabin of the compact car descended into pure chaos. The car began to swerve wildly across the winding mountain road. Jared seemed to snap out of his daze just as a stray cat darted across the pavement. In a panic, he slammed on the brakes. The heavy vehicle skidded violently, its momentum carrying it over the edge of the cliff. The car ground to a halt with its front wheels dangling precariously in mid-air, spinning over the empty abyss. “Jared, are you insane? Thank God we are good people and the heavens protected us, or we would be dead!” By the time they crawled out of the back doors, their legs were shaking so violently they could barely stand. Remembering her son’s bizarre behavior right before the near-crash, Helen was white with rage. Jared took several deep breaths, then burst into loud, pathetic wails. “I don’t know what happened to me! The moment I looked at Gemma, I lost all control. I felt possessed!” Beatrice’s eyes darted around. “Have you two done something to offend the spirits recently? Tell the truth, or we might lose our lives next time!” Blushing, Gemma hesitantly confessed to their midday tryst right outside the cemetery gates the day before. “No wonder! The wedding is in a few weeks, and you two had to do that in a place where the dead rest? The car spitting ash yesterday was a warning! We need to find a spiritual medium right away, or we will all die before we can even touch Audrey’s money!” Watching the four of them clutch the sachets I gave them, kneeling in a neat row at the edge of the cliff to pray to the heavens, I nearly choked on my laughter. They would never guess that the scent from those sachets, when combined with the specific air freshener in my new car, acted as a potent aphrodisiac specifically designed for the driver. I chose that exact moment to dial Jared’s number. “Sweetheart, are you guys having fun? How is the new car?” Jared quickly brushed it off, his voice trembling. “Oh… it is great. Just a minor hiccup, we are handling it.” “That is a relief,” I said warmly. “As long as you are safe. I spent all my savings on that car, but I consider it part of my dowry anyway!” The moment I hung up, all four of their faces drained of color. “She spent all her money on the car? What about my prosthetic sales commission?” Gemma hissed, gnashing her teeth. “Don’t worry,” Jared sneered, pulling out a contact card for a predatory high interest loan. “We will make her take out a massive loan. Once she is dead, she won’t have to pay it back anyway.” They all shared a wicked, dark laugh. I looked down at the four cemetery plot registration forms in my hands, my smile far brighter than theirs. They would be needing these very soon.

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1 Philip’s childhood friend Lenore was a viral relationship coach. He swore love needed her rules, not instinct. Lenore said women were stray cats. Starve them to make them cling. So when I worked late, he bolted the door, leaving me shivering in the hall until dawn. She claimed security bred complacency. So at our engagement party, he vanished to test if I would break down publicly. Each time I sobbed, he sighed. Lenore says you are projecting low vibrations. Boundaries protect our future. I endured it until Mother’s stroke landed her in the ICU. I borrowed from everyone, still twenty thousand dollars short. Begging Philip, he sent not a dime but forwarded my pleas to Lenore. By nightfall, I was viral. The video’s title read, Girlfriend Uses Sick Mom to Extort Twenty Grand. Charity Grift? My mother’s blurred ICU notice fueled the mockery. Comments hailed Philip as a high value man. I was a greedy parasite. Bloodshot, I begged him to delete it. He chuckled. The comments help me cut losses. Reflect on why you look like a scammer. Something in me died. No more explanations. I would scrub this rot from my life and walk away forever. … The hospital billing counter was closing in ten minutes. I slid my debit card into the machine three times. The balance mocked me, stuck permanently at thirteen thousand six hundred dollars. The nurse slid the invoice back under the glass. “You are still short on the upfront fees.” “If you cannot cover the rest before midnight, we will have to delay her next round of medication.” I clutched the paper and bolted out of the hospital doors. Rain was pouring down in sheets. There was an estate jeweler glowing warmly just across the street. The appraiser inspected the diamond through his loupe. “The stone is small. The setting has noticeable wear and tear.” “Eighteen grand, tops.” Philip had paid sixty-eight thousand for it. On the day we went ring shopping, he held my hand and walked with me through the jewelry district for an entire afternoon. The ring I truly fell in love with was a hundred and twenty thousand. He had squeezed my fingers tight. “Wait until our tenth anniversary. I promise I will upgrade it to something massive.” On the drive home, Lenore sent him a dozen voice notes. “Never feed a woman a full meal on the first try.” “If you meet all her expectations immediately, she will bleed you dry later.” In the end, he drove back alone and bought this cheaper one. Lenore praised him on her next live stream for keeping a level head. “As long as you let her try it on and invest her time, she will automatically rationalize the disappointment for you.” And the pathetic truth was, I really had made excuses for him back then. I slid the ring across the velvet counter. “Sell it.” My phone finally buzzed. It was Philip. “Where are you?” “The jeweler across the street from the hospital.” Philip went dead silent for a second. “Are you pawning your ring?” “My mother needs the money to survive.” “Hazel, why do you have to be so extreme every single time things do not go your way?” I crushed the pawn receipt in my fist. “Philip, my mother is in the ICU.” “I know.” “And I am already here, am I not?” I looked up. He was standing across the street in the pouring rain. He was holding a thermal takeout bag from that little soup place behind the hospital. I ran over to him. He reached out and brushed the wet hair away from my forehead. “Why are you wearing so little in this weather?” Inside the bag was creamy tomato bisque. Low sodium, no basil, extra croutons. Seeing that familiar order made my eyes burn with sudden, stupid tears. Philip twisted the lid off and handed me a plastic spoon. “Eat a little bit first.” I had barely reached for it when his phone rang. Lenore’s voice echoed loudly through the speaker. “She is highly dysregulated right now. Do not soothe her.” “Make her record an apology video first.” “If you cave now, she will learn that throwing a tantrum gets her exactly what she wants.” The hand holding the spoon froze in midair. Philip looked at me, then slowly placed the lid back on the soup. “I did not lie to anyone.” “You saw the critical condition notice with your own eyes.” Philip furrowed his brows. “A stroke does not mean she is definitely going to die.” “Lenore looked it up. A lot of patients wake up perfectly fine the very next day.” “You came at me crying and demanding money. Anyone would have their guard up.” He held his phone inches from my face. On the screen was a pre-written caption. I exaggerated my mother’s illness due to severe anxiety. Philip never refused to help me. I want to thank Lenore for keeping us both grounded. “Read it to the camera.” “Once you read it, she takes the post down, and I wire you the money.” I did not take the phone. His voice hardened into something cold and corporate. “I am willing to pay.” “But you cannot use your sick relative to trample all over my boundaries.” We had been together for seven years. Boundaries was his favorite word. I was not allowed to look at his phone. I was not allowed to ask where he and Lenore went on the weekends. I was not allowed to feel insecure when they talked on the phone until three in the morning. But Lenore was allowed to read our private texts. She was allowed to dictate his replies. She was allowed to decide when he should hold me, and when he should leave me freezing in the dark. The bank notification popped up on my screen. The jeweler had wired the money. I looked down and paid the hospital portal on my phone. Philip stood in the rain, his expression freezing over. “If you refuse to film this today, do not ever say I did not give you a chance to fix this.” It was past one in the morning by the time I finished the paperwork and sat outside the ICU doors. My phone kept blowing up with clips of Lenore’s latest live stream. She was sitting in front of her ring light, casually twisting a new diamond bracelet around her wrist. “Huge shoutout to an old friend who wants to remain anonymous.” “He knew I just hit ten million followers and insisted on spoiling me.” The camera conveniently caught the price tag on the velvet box. Nineteen thousand eight hundred dollars. The video had been posted exactly seventeen minutes after I sent Philip that voice note begging for my mother’s life. It was not that Philip did not have twenty thousand dollars. It was just that saving my mother was not worth his money. The next morning, HR called to suspend me. “We received hundreds of complaints overnight.” “Management feels you are a liability to our clients right now.” The moment I stepped out of the office building, my phone buzzed again. My GoFundMe campaign had been frozen due to mass reporting. The sixteen thousand dollars I had managed to raise was locked. I could not withdraw a cent. Then the hospital called. People were posing as relatives, calling the front desk to ask if my mother was a paid crisis actor. Some demanded the hospital do a live stream to prove she was actually dying. The nurses’ station was harassed for half an hour until they were forced to unplug the main phone line. When I sprinted back to the ward, there was a massive floral wreath sitting ominously in the hallway. The white ribbons had jagged red letters painted across them. Hope the scammer mother and daughter rot in hell together. I grabbed the heavy wooden frame and dragged it toward the elevators. The sharp wires sliced right through my palm. Blood dripped steadily down my fingers, staining the pristine hospital floor. The elevator doors chimed open. Philip stepped out. His eyes locked onto my bleeding hand. He immediately dug a bandage out of his coat pocket. “Why are you always so reckless?” “Give me your hand.” I did not move a muscle. He grabbed my wrist anyway, his fingers expertly peeling the wrapper and pressing the bandage over the cut. He knew I hated raw onions. He knew thunderstorms gave me panic attacks. But when my mother was lying half-dead in the ICU, he had to ask Lenore for permission to help me. His phone buzzed against his palm. A text from Lenore lit up the screen. You offered comfort. Now pull away. Do not let her think that self-harm equals more attention. Philip smoothed the edges of the bandage down, then instantly dropped my hand like I was on fire. I ripped the bandage off and threw it into the trash can along with the grotesque flowers. “Do you really need her permission just to give a damn about me?” His jaw tightened. “Stop being so toxic.” “Lenore takes time out of her busy schedule to analyze your behavioral patterns. She is doing this to help us.” I looked him dead in the eyes. “The wedding is off.” “From now on, she can manage your love life all she wants. I am done.” Philip froze for two seconds, then actually laughed. “Using a breakup to manipulate me into backing down?” “Lenore called it last night. She said once you realized crying would not work, you would threaten to leave.” “Hazel, every single move you make is utterly predictable.” He held out a sleek canvas bag. It had my phone charger and some fresh clothes inside. “You are going to be pulling all-nighters here.” I pushed the bag back into his chest. “I need to go back to the apartment to get my ID.” He stepped into my path. “I will have my assistant drop it off.” I tilted my head, studying the stranger standing in front of me. “Or what? Do I need Lenore’s permission to enter my own home now?” He did not answer. Half an hour later, I shoved my spare key into the door of our apartment. My fuzzy slippers were still neatly lined up by the entrance. Next to them was a pair of sharp designer heels. Lenore was lounging on my living room sofa. She was wearing the thick, hand-knitted wool socks my mother had made for me last winter. I stared blindly at her feet. “Take those off.” Lenore casually glanced down. “They are just socks.” “A truly independent woman does not project her emotional baggage onto inanimate objects.” I lunged forward to rip them off her feet. The study door clicked open. Philip walked out quickly, grabbing my arm in an iron grip. “That is enough.” “Her feet were cold. She is just borrowing them for an hour.” I looked at the man holding me back. Suddenly, I remembered the day we moved in four years ago. He had pressed the metal key into my palm. “This is our home now.” “This is your safe place.” I violently wrenched my arm out of his grip. I stumbled backward, my lower back crashing into the heavy oak desk. The impact knocked one of the drawers open. A thick stack of paper bound in a blue folder slid into view. It was a seed funding contract. Philip had invested two hundred and eighty thousand dollars in exchange for a fifteen percent stake in Lenore’s new media empire. The signature at the bottom was dated the exact same day my mother was rushed into the ICU. Three years ago, Philip’s marketing agency hit a wall. He was drowning in debt. My mother sold her only house in the old suburbs. She gave him every last cent she had. Two hundred and eighty thousand dollars. The written agreement stated he would pay her back in two years. He kept delaying. Every time she brought it up, he would gently hold her wrinkled hands. “Mom, just give me a little more time.” “Once Hazel and I are married, your money is our money. We will take care of you forever.” Yet when she was suffocating on a ventilator, he refused to spare twenty grand. All while her life savings sat untouched, perfectly transferred into Lenore’s bank account. “Why is my mother’s money in this contract?” Philip lunged forward and slammed the drawer shut. “What do you mean, your mother’s money?” “The loan went into my company. It became corporate capital.” “As the CEO, I have the right to diversify our investments.” I stared at him, my chest tight. “Giving it to Lenore is an investment.” “So what was giving my mother twenty grand? A waste?” Lenore leaned against the doorframe, sipping a glass of water. “It was a black hole.” “Twenty grand today, rehab costs tomorrow, assisted living the day after.” “If Philip does not establish boundaries now, you and your mother will bleed him dry for the rest of his life.” I yanked the drawer open again. The memo line on the contract clearly read. Initial Funding for Project LG-01. Philip snatched the paper from my hands. “This is internal company documentation.” “You have no right to look at this.” “You took her money to fund a project with her initials on it.” His Adam’s apple bobbed nervously. “LG is just a random code.” Lenore walked up to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him. The new diamond bracelet on her wrist caught the overhead light, flashing brilliantly in my eyes. Suddenly, this apartment felt completely alien to me. My clothes were in the closet. My favorite mugs were in the cabinet. My photos were on the walls. But standing here, I felt like a ghost who had wandered into someone else’s life. My mother finally woke up on the afternoon of the third day. The doctor said she had severe expressive aphasia. The entire right side of her body was paralyzed. When I walked into the room, she was struggling to reach her phone with her trembling left hand. The screen was flooded with hateful text messages from unknown numbers. Just die already so you can prove your daughter is not a liar. Only trash raises trash like you. I snatched the phone out of her hand and powered it off. Her pale lips were quivering uncontrollably. The nurse handed us a clipboard and a pen. She gripped the plastic barrel awkwardly with her left hand. Every single stroke was a painful, jagged effort. It took her five minutes just to write three words. Enough money left? I dropped to my knees beside the metal bed rails. “Yes.” “My company gave me an advance on my salary.” She stared into my eyes. She knew me too well. She did not believe a word of it. “I promise, Mom. We have enough.” Tears spilled over her eyelashes, rolling into the thin hospital pillow. Her right hand was dead weight, so she clumsily patted the top of my head with her left. The heavy door creaked open. Philip walked in, holding a small white box from the local bakery. Lemon drizzle cake. “Mary, you are awake?” He smoothly reached for the remote, adjusting the head of the bed before setting the bakery box on the tray table. My mother’s eyes lit up the second she saw him. He remembered she loved lemon cake, but hated thick frosting. Four years ago, when she was hospitalized for severe hypertension, I was stuck on a business trip across the country. Philip stayed by her side for two straight nights. When I finally rushed off the plane and ran into the ward, he was slumped over the side of her mattress, fast asleep. Ever since that day, she always told me. “Philip has a good heart. He will keep you safe.” He pulled up a plastic chair and wrapped both his hands around her functioning left hand. “Mary, I am so sorry you had to deal with all this.” “The internet is just full of angry people who do not understand our situation. Please do not let it stress you out.” She looked at me, her eyes wide with frantic worry. Philip followed her gaze. “Do not worry about us.” “I am not going to leave Hazel over a little misunderstanding.” The tight lines of tension across my mother’s shoulders instantly melted away. For one fleeting second, I almost fell for it too. I almost believed he was still the same boy who had slept by her hospital bed four years ago. Then, he reached into his sleek leather briefcase and pulled out a freshly printed document. “The public backlash is getting out of hand.” “If you could just sign this to clarify things, Lenore can have her team scrub the negative trending topics immediately.” The paper read. I, Mary Lin, willingly gifted Philip two hundred and eighty thousand dollars. This was not a loan. My daughter, Hazel, recently suffered an emotional breakdown and exaggerated my medical condition to extort money. I snatched the paper and ripped it straight down the middle. “You are forcing a woman who just woke from a stroke to sign this garbage?” Philip’s face darkened. “It is just a formal clarification.” “I have her written IOU for the money.” “Then the IOU is void.” He leaned in, lowering his voice into a sharp hiss. “We are getting married in a few months.” “What is the point of drawing lines between your mother’s money and my money?” “When she gave it to me, she called us family.” “Now that she is sick, you suddenly want to treat me like a bank?” His jaw locked. “Can you stop treating our relationship like a spreadsheet?” “When my mother was dying, you literally calculated the return on investment for twenty grand.” Hearing the word married, my mother grabbed the sleeve of his expensive blazer. She pointed frantically at the torn pieces of paper, then pointed a trembling finger at me. Philip patted her hand gently. “Once you sign, I will make Lenore delete all the videos tonight.” “The wedding will go on as planned.” “I promise I will not abandon her.” My mother stared at me, her eyes pleading. I stepped between him and the bed. “Get out.” His eyes turned cold. “Hazel, stop biting the hand that feeds you.” “Your mother knows exactly what is best for you.” “She just woke up! She cannot even speak!” “The only thing she knows right now is the terror of you leaving me!” My mother pushed herself up, gasping for air. The heart monitor beside her began to shriek violently. Nurses flooded the room, aggressively pushing both of us out into the hallway. A doctor grabbed me to sign emergency consent forms. By the time I rushed back upstairs, Philip was gone. The room was deathly quiet. There was a small red ink pad sitting perfectly square on her bedside table. The statement I had ripped in half had been reprinted. At the bottom right corner, sitting bright red against the white paper, was my mother’s crooked thumbprint. When she saw me walk in, she panicked and tried to hide her left hand. On her notepad, freshly written words stared back at me. He said, sign it, and he marries you. I stood rooted to the linoleum floor. I could not breathe. I could not move. At eight o’clock that evening, Lenore dropped a teaser for her upcoming live stream. The thumbnail was a high-resolution scan of that exact document, the red thumbprint glowing like an open wound. The title was bold text. After seven years of being leeched off, he finally secured a confession from the mother. In the short clip, Philip was wearing a crisp white button-down, offering the camera a tired, devastated smile. “I truly thought of them as my own blood.” “But some people have an appetite you simply cannot satisfy.” My mother’s phone vibrated violently against the plastic tray table. I scrambled to hit the power button, but she had already seen the screen. She stared at me, her chest heaving. Her left thumb was still stained with red ink. She opened her mouth, her jaw trembling, but no sound came out. All she could do was shake her head. Over and over again. The live stream was scheduled for seven the next evening. Lenore spent the whole day dripping out exclusive behind-the-scenes clips. Footage of Philip helping my mom carry groceries from the farmer’s market. Footage of my mom sitting in his cramped first office, folding dumplings for his startup team. And finally, the video of her handing the keys of her old house to the real estate agent. All of these videos were stolen straight from my private cloud storage. Lenore’s editors had stitched them together under a new, sickening title. How to spot a generational grifter. I dialed Philip’s number. He picked up on the second ring. “Finally ready to be an adult?” “Cancel the stream.” “Too late.” “My mother just regained consciousness. She cannot take this kind of stress.” I heard Philip sigh. Through the line, I heard Lenore murmur something in the background. His tone instantly turned rigid. “You are using her health to manipulate me again.” “The broadcast is just to set the record straight.” “That money was a loan. You manipulated a brain damage patient into signing away her rights.” “If you want to dispute it, take me to court.” The line went dead. At exactly seven, the broadcast went live. I muted my mother’s phone and shoved it deep into the bottom drawer of the nightstand. I begged the nurses on duty not to play any viral videos in the ward. But someone, hungry for drama, snuck into the hospital’s public chat group and pasted the streaming link. While I was downstairs picking up her evening meds, she managed to hook her fingers around the drawer handle and pull it open. She sent one final voice note to Philip. Then, she clicked the link. When I stepped back into the room, Philip’s voice was echoing sharply off the sterile walls. “Mary always promised me that as long as I married Hazel, her money would eventually be mine.” “I was young. I actually believed she viewed me as a son.” The document flashed on the massive screen behind him. Lenore leaned into the microphone, her tone dripping with fake empathy. “So, when Hazel used her mother’s so-called critical condition to demand twenty grand from you, how did that make you feel?” Philip lowered his eyes perfectly on cue. “Empty.” “It was never about the twenty grand.” “But if you feed a stray without boundaries, eventually it will try to eat you alive.” The chat box exploded with thousands of people cheering for him. My mother sat rigidly against the pillows. Her face was the color of ash. I dropped the plastic bags and dove for the charging cable, yanking it straight out of the wall. She grabbed my arm with terrifying strength. A terrible, wet rattling sound came from deep inside her throat. “L-loan…” “L-loan…” She was trying to scream that it was a loan. But on the glowing screen, Philip had pulled out the original handwritten IOU. He held up a thick red marker and drew a massive, brutal X right across her handwriting. “Mary personally confirmed this afternoon that this paper was just for tax purposes.” “So I am choosing grace. I will not pursue legal action against them for their past behavior.” “But as of this moment, I am completely cutting them off financially.” My mother’s eyes locked onto the screen, wide and entirely bloodshot. Her chest jerked upward in a violent spasm. The heart monitor flatlined with a piercing shriek. Doctors sprinted through the door. “Secondary hemorrhage! Bag her, now!” They crashed the bed through the doors, rushing her toward the surgical unit. I ran after them for three steps before my knees completely buckled. I slammed hard into the drywall. On the phone lying discarded on the floor, the stream carried on. Lenore excitedly announced her new masterclass had just crossed one hundred thousand sales. The live studio audience erupted in applause. I grabbed the phone with shaking hands and dialed his number. Once. Twice. Seventeen times. It rang into the void. The surgical lights burned bright red for three grueling hours. When the doors finally swung open, the lead surgeon pulled down his mask and slowly shook his head. “I am so sorry. The damage was too catastrophic.” They wheeled her out. A stark white sheet covered her face. Her left hand, still faintly stained with red ink, slipped off the mattress and dangled limply in the air. I slowly sank to the floor. I gently picked up her hand and tucked it safely back under the warm blankets. My phone vibrated relentlessly in my pocket. Lenore’s live stream was now the number one trending broadcast in the country. On the screen, Philip was thoughtfully answering a fan question. “If Hazel gets on her knees and apologizes right now, will you still marry her?” He casually adjusted his silver cufflinks. It was the dark charcoal suit I had bought for him to wear to the courthouse. “That depends entirely on whether she shows genuine accountability.” “Marriage is an equal partnership, not a charity.” “I am not going to abandon my core values just because she knows how to cry.” More deafening applause. The broadcast seamlessly transitioned into a champagne celebration. A production assistant suddenly jogged onto the stage, handing Philip a tablet. “Sir, your personal phone has been ringing non-stop.” Philip glanced down. The screen clearly displayed seventeen missed calls from me. Then, an unknown local number flashed onto the screen. Lenore reached out and placed a manicured hand over his. “We are still live.” The ringtone pierced through the applause, sharp and unrelenting. Philip finally swiped to answer. “Who is this?” Because he had not muted his lapel mic, the caller’s voice blasted through the stadium speakers, echoing into millions of homes. “Am I speaking to Mr. Philip?” “This is City General Hospital.” “You are listed as the secondary emergency contact for Mary Lin.” “I regret to inform you that Mary passed away at exactly 10:27 PM following a massive hemorrhage.”

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1 The wedding had reached the moment of exchanging rings when my best friend, Charlie, suddenly stepped onto the stage. He was wearing a groom’s tux and had a smug, easy smile on his face. And my fiancée, Elena, in front of a room packed with guests, slid the ring that belonged to me onto his ring finger. I demanded an explanation right then and there. The two of them looked at each other and broke into laughter. Charlie laughed so hard he had to bend over. “Lucas, Elena and I made a bet last night,” he gasped, trying to catch his breath. “She bet that before the wedding started, you’d notice we switched the welcome banner to a photo of her and me. I bet that you trusted us too much to even look.” He flashed the silver band on his finger, his eyes gleeful. “Well, Elena lost. And according to our agreement, this wedding belongs to me now.” Elena stood beside him, her tone completely casual. “It’s just letting Charlie play the groom for a day, Lucas. Everything’s already paid for, and it would be a waste of a perfectly good venue and tux. We can always have another wedding next month. Don’t be such a sore loser.” They always did this. They loved betting on my reactions. At our engagement party, she lost a bet and slipped my engagement ring onto Charlie’s finger first. During our wedding photoshoot, she lost another bet and shot my dream winter landscape concept with Charlie instead of me. Even the study in our new house had been remodeled to fit Charlie’s taste, all because of a lost bet. Every time my heart broke, they would laugh and say, “It’s just a game, Lucas. Why are you taking it so seriously?” But only today did I finally understand. In their eyes, my wedding, my love, and my entire life were nothing but worthless chips they could toss onto a poker table. I looked at Elena, a strange, quiet peace washing over me. When I spoke, my voice was dead calm. “If the wedding is his, then you can be his too.” With that, I turned around to walk away. But Elena grabbed my wrist. “Lucas, that’s enough. All of our friends and family are here. Do you really have to humiliate everyone like this?” I ripped my hand away. “Am I the one causing a scene? Today was supposed to be my wedding!” Elena frowned, her voice dripping with irritation. “I told you, it’s just a one-day experience for Charlie. Once today is over, nothing changes between us. Are you seriously going to break up with me over a silly piece of paper and a ceremony?” She paused, as if remembering something, and let out a soft sneer. “You said the exact same thing last month, claiming you were done with us. And what happened? You ended up buying Charlie’s birthday cake yourself.” Charlie chimed in, grinning. “Yeah, Lucas. Every time you throw a tantrum, you threaten to cut us off. But within three days, you always come crawling back.” He twirled the ring on his finger, his eyes gleeful. “This time, I bet it’ll only take two days. Elena, do you want to bet on it?” Elena looked up at him. “What’s the wager?” “How long it takes for Lucas to crawl back. If he begs you to forgive him within forty-eight hours, you give me that high-end gaming chair from your new house.” Without a second thought, Elena agreed. “Deal. He won’t even last twenty-four hours.” The two of them wagered on my life right in front of me, treating my pain as a fresh, exciting game. I stared at Elena. “Are you really that sure I’ll come back?” Elena’s voice was utterly untroubled. “Lucas, we’ve been together for six years. You spent an entire year planning this wedding. You picked out the hotel, designed the invitations, and handled every detail. Are you telling me you can just throw all of that away?” She knew me too well. That was why she felt so safe pushing me past my limits. Because no matter how badly they behaved, I was always the one who cleaned up their mess. When Charlie ruined my tailored suit for the engagement, I was the one who rushed to replace it. When he ripped up our engagement photos, I was the one who told them it was fine. Even when he hijacked our home design, I was the one who apologized to Elena for being too sensitive. They knew it hurt me. They just knew I would never leave. From the audience, someone laughed and called out, “Come on, Lucas, don’t take it so seriously. Elena and Charlie are just playful. They’ve always been like this. Besides, Charlie is a committed bachelor, he’s never actually going to get married. Just let him have this experience to make up for what he’s missing out on. Canceling your wedding over a harmless joke is a bit petty, don’t you think?” One after another, the guests joined in, urging me to be the bigger person. Not a single person asked if I was willing to give away the day I had dreamed of for years. Elena’s mother stepped onto the stage from the VIP table. She patted Charlie’s shoulder, her eyes full of warmth. “I must say, that ring looks much better on Charlie than it ever would on Lucas.” Charlie grinned. “Mrs. Weston, don’t say that. You’ll hurt Lucas’s feelings.” Elena’s mother shot me a cold look. “If he can’t handle a bit of teasing, how is he going to survive as our son-in-law?” She patted Charlie again. “Honestly, I’ve always preferred you, Charlie. You have a charming personality and you know how to make people happy. Unlike some people who always have to be right, turning every little thing into a massive drama.” Elena’s father walked over, glass in hand. “If Elena lost the bet, she has to pay up. A promise is a promise. It’s no big deal to just throw another wedding for Lucas next month.” I looked at him. “So to you, a wedding is just a party you can rerun whenever you feel like it?” He frowned, annoyed. “It’s just a ceremony. As long as Elena marries you in the end, what do you have to complain about? And honestly, if Charlie weren’t so dead-set on being a bachelor, we would have much preferred her marrying him anyway.” A heavy silence fell over the room. Elena finally noticed the change in my expression and frowned, cutting her father off. “Dad, that’s enough for today.” She turned to me, her voice softening slightly. “My parents just like Charlie’s outgoing nature, Lucas. Don’t take everything so personally.” I laughed. It was funny, really. Every knife they drove into my chest was always wrapped in the excuse of a joke. Charlie stepped closer to Elena. “Hey, let’s not fight because of me. Lucas, since you said the wedding is mine, let me finish the ceremony.” He gestured to my custom-made groom’s suit with a grin. “After all, you get to do this all over again next month.” I didn’t argue. Instead, I pulled out my phone and called the venue manager. “This is Lucas. The groom for today’s wedding has been changed. I am refusing to pay the remaining balance.” There was a long pause on the other end. “Mr. Lucas, didn’t you know?” the manager asked hesitantly. “A month ago, Ms. Elena came in with Mr. Charlie and modified the contract. The groom’s name was officially changed to Charlie a month ago.” My grip on the phone tightened. “A month ago?” “Yes. Mr. Charlie also finalized the menu and the stage decorations. Ms. Elena assured us that all the changes had your full approval.” I stared at the happy couple on stage. There was no spur-of-the-moment bet last night. They had been planning this for an entire month. Fighting the tremor in my voice, I forced out my next question: “And the final payment?” “It was settled last night,” the manager replied. “Ms. Elena authorized a wire transfer of six hundred and eighty thousand dollars from your joint wedding savings account.” I frantically opened my banking app. My balance read exactly three dollars and seventy cents. That money represented every single penny of my savings from five years of grueling work. I had planned to use whatever was left after the wedding to start my own design studio. Seeing my pale face as I stared at my phone, Elena walked down from the stage. “The money is already spent, Lucas. Even if you cancel now, we won’t get a refund.” I glared at her, my voice cracking. “What gave you the right to touch my money without my permission?” Elena answered as if it were the most logical thing in the world. “That money was set aside for a wedding anyway. The wedding is still happening, so it’s not like the money went to waste.” Charlie stood by her side, raising his hand to flash the ring again. “Hey, you said the wedding was a gift, Lucas. Naturally, a gift includes the venue and catering.” Looking at them finishing each other’s sentences, my anger vanished, replaced by a hollow, chilling numbness. They hadn’t just wagered away my wedding day. They had drained my life savings to fund Charlie’s grand moment in the spotlight. As I stepped down from the stage, my mother pushed through the crowd and grabbed my hand. “Lucas, what on earth is happening?” My parents had been seated at the very back of the hall, closest to the exit. They were the only guests from my side of the family. My relatives from our small, blue-collar hometown had all wanted to come, but Elena’s mother had deemed them uncouth and worried they would embarrass her high-society guests. Elena had agreed, saying, “We can just host a small backyard dinner in your hometown later. We don’t need a crowd here.” So my parents had traveled fifteen hours on a cramped overnight train, completely alone, just to see their son get married. My mother’s elegant dress was slightly ill-fitting, its seams adjusted by her own calloused hands with a needle and thread. The “Father of the Groom” boutonniere pinned to my father’s chest was crushed and bent out of shape, but he refused to take it off. But now, seeing Charlie standing in the custom-tailored suit that was made for me, wearing my ring, my father marched up to Elena. “Tell him to take that ring off and apologize to my son.” Elena’s face darkened slightly. “Sir, it’s just a harmless bet. Charlie is just helping Lucas get through the ceremony. Once it’s over, Lucas and I are still getting our marriage license.” My father stared at her, stunned. “You have a wedding with him, but you expect my son to sign the papers? What does that make my son?” Elena frowned. “We’ve always played games like this. Lucas has never had an issue with it before.” My mother trembled with rage. “Just because he’s patient doesn’t mean you can walk all over him!” Her voice cracked, her thick, rural accent slipping out as her emotions took over. Elena’s mother instantly sneered. “Keep your voice down, woman. This isn’t one of your loud country markets. The people here are prominent business clients. Do you want to humiliate us in front of everyone?” Whispers rippled through the nearby tables. “Classic country folks. No manners.” My mother’s face flushed a deep crimson. She had only wanted to protect her son, but now, shamed and self-conscious, she shrank back, her voice barely a whisper. “I’m not trying to make a scene. I just love my son.” A heavy, suffocating pressure crushed my chest. She had done absolutely nothing wrong, yet she was apologizing to the very people who had humiliated her. Elena interrupted impatiently. “Look, the venue is Charlie’s for today. Next month, I’ll go to your hometown and host a dinner. Your relatives can all come. That’s more than enough respect for Lucas.” My father slowly looked up. “So you give a million-dollar wedding to him, and you think you can toss my son a cheap backyard party in the country to brush him off?” Elena’s expression grew hostile. “I already promised to redo it! What more do you want?” Charlie strolled over, adjusting his lapels, and stood right in front of my mother. “Auntie, a party is a party, right? You and Uncle traveled so far.” He pointed to the luxury gift boxes in the corner. “Why don’t you grab a few extra boxes of wedding favors on your way out? You can share them with your neighbors so the trip wasn’t a total waste.” My mother pulled her hand back as if she had touched hot iron. My father ripped the rose boutonniere from his chest and slammed it onto the table. “We might be poor, but we aren’t so poor that we’ll trade our son’s wedding day for a few boxes of candy!” Charlie’s smirk faded slightly. “Uncle, I was only trying to be nice.” Without hesitation, Elena stepped in front of Charlie, shielding him from my father’s furious gaze. “That’s enough! Charlie is trying to be considerate. Stop being so ungrateful.” My father stared at her. “You swore to us on your life that you would love and protect Lucas forever.” Elena avoided his eyes. My father didn’t ask anything else. He didn’t offer any empty comforts. He simply clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder, his voice sounding older, tired. “Lucas, I was wrong about her. We’re not doing this. Let’s go home.” My throat tightened, and I nodded. The entire room had pressured me to swallow my pride. Only my parents, who had been thoroughly insulted, stood tall to shield me. I reached up, tore off my own boutonniere, and held their hands. “Okay. Let’s go home.” Behind us, Elena let out a cold laugh. “Fine, if he wants to play this game, let’s make another bet.” Charlie’s eyes lit up instantly. “I bet Lucas won’t even last three days before he brings his parents back here to beg for your forgiveness.” Elena stared at my retreating back, her voice dripping with absolute confidence. “It won’t even take three days. He’ll cave by this afternoon and beg me to go to the registry office.” “And the wager?” Charlie grinned. “If he doesn’t apologize to you by tonight, that penthouse downtown is yours.” “Deal.” Their shared laughter echoed through the grand hall. Even now, my departure was nothing but a punchline for their next bet. I didn’t look back. As we stepped out into the crisp afternoon air, my father asked softly, “Lucas, are you sure you won’t regret this?” I glanced back at the elegant welcome banner displaying the names of Elena and Charlie side-by-side. Then, I squeezed my parents’ hands tightly. “The only thing I regret is taking this long to see them for who they really are.” At three o’clock, a notification popped up on my phone: Your appointment at the marriage registry is scheduled for today at 4:20 PM. Please bring your valid identification. A second later, a screenshot of the booking arrived from Elena. I’m throwing you a lifeline here, Lucas. Be at the registry office by four. Do that, and I’ll overlook the embarrassing scene you made today. We can still sign the papers. She followed it up with a voice note. “But before we sign anything, you have to apologize to my parents. And to Charlie. You and your family embarrassed him in front of everyone today. He deserves an apology. If you show some genuine remorse, we can put this behind us.” I sent back a simple, two-word reply: “Sounds good.” The group chat went silent. A moment later, Elena tagged Charlie. I won. Charlie replied with a sulking emoji. A bet’s a bet. I guess I’m crashing your honeymoon. Elena immediately shared a screenshot of a newly booked flight ticket. Ticket bought. I stared at the screen. Even the trip I had been looking forward to for months was just another trophy on their gambling table. At 4:15 PM, I arrived at the registry office. Elena was waiting near the glass doors of the lobby. When she saw me, the tension in her shoulders melted, and a smug, familiar smile returned to her lips. “I knew you’d make the right choice, Lucas. My parents and Charlie are still at the hotel waiting. Once we get the license, I’ll go with you to apologize.” She held out her hand. “Give me your ID.” I didn’t move. A second later, two police officers stepped out from behind me. “Elena Weston?” one of them asked, flashing his badge. “We have received a formal complaint against you for grand larceny, specifically for the unauthorized transfer of six hundred and eighty thousand dollars from another individual’s account.” The smile vanished from Elena’s face, leaving her pale. “What do you mean, unauthorized? That was our joint wedding fund!” I pulled out my bank statements and the venue contract. “The account is registered under my name alone, and every dollar came from my personal savings. You took my security code while I was asleep and forged my authorization to pay the venue. I’ve already handed over the bank records, the venue’s security footage, and our chat logs to the police.” The female officer stepped forward, securing the handcuffs around Elena’s wrists. Elena finally panicked, her voice rising in pitch. “Lucas! Aren’t you here to get married?” I looked at her, letting out a soft, dry laugh. “No. I’m here to watch you get locked up.”

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1 During puberty, I put on some weight, and my younger sister never let it go. “You look like a pig,” she’d giggle. Mom lightly tapped her on the head. “Don’t make mean jokes about your sister, sweetie!” One afternoon, I woke up from a nap just as the front door opened. My parents, older brother, and younger sister walked in together. They were all wearing matching outfits. Dad smiled at me apologetically. “We saw you were sleeping, so we didn’t want to wake you. We went ahead without you.” “Besides,” he added casually, “you’re too heavy right now. They don’t make the family outfits in your size anyway, so it’s better you don’t wear one.” The next day, our extended family hosted a massive party at a countryside lodge. That was when I found out the rule for the event: every single family had to wear matching outfits. I was the only one in the entire venue dressed normally. I stuck out like a sore thumb. … Later that afternoon, my sister tricked me into walking toward the back of the property, right by the actual pig pens. “You broke the party rules!” she squealed, locking the wooden gate behind me. “People who don’t wear the family outfit don’t get a room! You have to sleep with your own kind tonight!” The smell was overwhelming. A massive, muddy pig kept nudging my legs. Terrified and crying, I pulled out my phone and called Mom, Dad, and my brother. No one answered. Desperate, I recorded a short video of myself trapped in the pen and sent it to the family group chat, begging for help. Only Mom replied. It was a voice note, her tone soft and entirely unbothered. “Oh, did she do that? I’ll give her a talking to later. We’re busy taking the big family portrait right now. We’ll come get you in a bit. If the pigs chase you, just run! Think of it as a workout.” A pig shoved its snout into the back of my knees, knocking me into the dirt. My phone screen lit up. It was a new notification from Mom’s Instagram. It was a picture of my sister smiling on a tire swing. The caption read: My precious little princess~ One of our aunts commented jokingly: What about your other princess? Don’t love her anymore? Mom replied quickly: She’s too heavy. She’d break the swing. Mom… is that really why you don’t love me? Just because I’m heavy? Sitting in the mud, something finally snapped. A profound, crystal-clear realization washed over me. I dialed my college advisor’s number. “Professor,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “That international exchange program you mentioned. I’ll take it.” Love is something you can only hope for, not demand. If I wasn’t going to get it here, then I didn’t want it at all. … “Oh my god, Chloe, why do you smell so bad?” “Walk in the back, please. Don’t stink up the whole group in front of your aunts and uncles.” It wasn’t until ten o’clock at night that someone finally let me out of the pig pen. My parents, my brother Liam, my sister Mia, and a dozen relatives strolled past me, laughing and chatting. They gave me a few half-hearted instructions to wash up before immediately changing the subject. Three different families were walking together, all wearing their perfectly matching outfits. It was blinding. “Yeah, Mia’s a little troublemaker, she just loves messing with her older siblings. What can you do? She’s the baby of the family, we have to spoil her!” Mom laughed, chatting with an aunt. “She’s mischievous, sure, but her grades are amazing! Top ten in her class! And Liam, our oldest, he’s getting his Master’s at a state school, but hey, he got a full ride!” I trailed far behind the group, listening to Mom brag. I felt like a pathetic clown secretly observing someone else’s happy family. I didn’t even dare to walk closer. I was terrified the stench of my own misery would ruin their perfect evening. Months ago, I had earned a full academic scholarship for a Master’s program, alongside an offer for a fully funded international exchange. I had been practically buzzing with excitement when I showed my parents the acceptance letters. Mom had kept scrolling on her phone. Dad hadn’t looked away from the TV. “We already know you get good grades,” Mom had said dismissively. “You don’t need to announce it every time.” Back then, I thought I just wasn’t successful enough. But looking at Liam and Mia, I realized the truth. Even if they were mediocre, they would always be my parents’ greatest pride and joy. “Oh, Chloe, what about you? I heard you’re doing great in school too!” Back at the lodge, an aunt finally noticed me standing awkwardly in the corner of the living room. She reached out to grab my hand, but Mia quickly slapped her arm away. “Auntie, don’t! She smells like a literal pig! Go take a shower, Chloe! You’re grossing everyone out!” My face burned with humiliation. Mom gave Mia a gentle, scolding look. Dad ruffled Mia’s hair, and Liam pinched her cheek affectionately. Not a single one of them offered a word of comfort to me. I kept my head down, rushing to the bathroom. When I came back out, showered and changed, I saw my parents handing out small gift bags to all the cousins in the living room. Even the oldest cousin, who was twenty-five, got a box of gourmet cookies. When it was my turn, Mom’s hands were empty. She let out a small gasp. “Oh shoot! Mia’s best friend tagged along today, so I gave yours to her.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Cookies are high in calories anyway. Skipping them is good for your diet.” Then, as if remembering something else, she patted my arm. “Oh, right. Since Mia’s friend is here, we’re short a bed. You’ll have to sleep on the sofa in the living room tonight.” Liam and Dad were sitting right there. They glanced over, then went back to their conversation. They were completely used to me giving up my space. That was just the reality of being Chloe. I was the middle child. I was expected to be the most understanding, yet I was given the fewest rights. It was the middle of summer, and the living room didn’t have AC. I lay on the stiff leather sofa in my pajamas. The male relatives kept walking back and forth to the kitchen, their eyes lingering on me awkwardly. My clean clothes from home were all dirty, so I was stuck in my thin sleepwear. I curled into a tight ball, trying to protect myself from the stares. My phone buzzed. It was a text from my advisor. “Chloe, are you sure about this? You always talked about wanting to stay close to your family for your Master’s.” “Are you absolutely certain… you want to go abroad for three years?” The blue light of the screen illuminated my face. My expression was set in stone. In this life, I was done begging for love. The next morning, the adults were going fruit picking, while the kids were pairing up to ride bumper cars. Mia immediately threw a fit, pouting her lips. “I don’t want to ride with Chloe! She’s too big, she’ll squash me! I want to ride with my best friend!” Mom sighed, immediately moving to placate her. “We only bought a set number of tickets! Fine, fine, you can go with your friend. Chloe can just stay in the lodge, okay?” Hearing this, Liam tossed his sweaty t-shirt at my face. “Oh, you’re staying? Perfect. Wash this for me, will you?” Dad thought for a second. “Go pack up our bags in the rooms. It’s a mess in there, and I don’t want to leave anything behind when we check out.” Nobody asked if I wanted to go. Nobody cared. Only my aunt gave me a pitying look before they all walked out the door. My phone buzzed again. “Chloe, you’re deciding on this very late,” my advisor texted. “You need to submit the application packet by the end of the day. Thankfully, you already have your passport and visa sorted from that summer program, so the school is expediting the paperwork.” I looked at the dirty laundry Liam threw at me, and thought about the messy rooms Dad ordered me to pack. I let out a long breath. I called an Uber, and left the lodge entirely. My university highly valued my academic record. They had already pre-approved the full international scholarship. By the time I got back to our actual house in the city, it was late at night. My family had returned from the lodge a few hours prior. I kept the application documents hidden in my tote bag. I had no intention of telling them. Even if I did, they probably wouldn’t care. Or worse, they’d stop me from going just so they wouldn’t lose their live-in maid. Whatever their reaction might be, I didn’t want to deal with it. I was trying to think of an excuse for why I had left the lodge early, but when I walked in, Mom just glanced up from her magazine. “The shower is free. Hurry up and use it.” Liam was in his room playing games. Dad was on his laptop. None of them even asked why I had disappeared. Only Mia peaked her head out of the kitchen, looking mildly curious. “Chloe? Did you run away? Mom and Dad totally thought you ran away.” My throat tightened. They thought I had run away… and they didn’t even care enough to call? If Mia so much as stubbed her toe, they panicked. If Liam slightly furrowed his brow, they rushed to ask what was wrong and sent him money to cheer him up. I had nothing. Summer was officially starting, and my parents were planning a family vacation to Florida. Mia was trying on the new sundresses they bought her, looking miserable in the mirror, complaining that she looked bloated. Liam grabbed my arm and dragged me over to the mirror. “You’re not fat at all! Look at Chloe! If she’s not complaining, you have nothing to worry about.” Mom immediately pulled out the digital scale, making me and Mia stand on it one after the other. Seeing the massive difference in our weights, Mia’s mood instantly improved. My face was completely drained of color. Dad noticed my rigid posture. He gave my back a dismissive pat. “Go to your room if you’re going to pout.” As I walked down the hall, I heard Mom’s voice, laced with faint concern. “Is she okay?” “She doesn’t need to be coddled,” Liam replied, sounding entirely indifferent. “She’ll get over it by herself. Don’t worry about it, Mom.” I shut my bedroom door. A new email notification popped up on my phone. The exchange application was approved. The scholarship funds had been transferred to my student account. My advisor needed my passport details to book the flight. It was finalized. I was moving across the ocean. Knowing I was leaving made their coldness feel so much lighter. Once the flight was booked, I started packing. I ordered a few heavy-duty essentials online. Because I was hauling packages inside every day, Dad finally got suspicious. “What are you buying? That box is massive,” he asked as I dragged a large carton through the front door. Before I could stop him, he grabbed a box cutter and sliced the tape. Inside was a large, hard-shell suitcase. My heart jumped into my throat. “What do you need a giant suitcase for?” he frowned. I opened my mouth, but my mind went blank. I had no excuse ready. My tote bag, which held all my international student documents, was sitting right next to the box. Dad’s eyes drifted toward it, and he reached out to open the flap. My heart hammered against my ribs. Was this it? Was he going to find out? Would he be angry? Would he… beg me not to go? “Chloe!” Mom’s voice pierced the air, stopping Dad in his tracks. She walked into the living room, took one look at the suitcase, and her face shifted into a look of awkward guilt. She softened her voice, putting on a gentle, placating tone. “Chloe, about the Florida trip… I think it’s best if you stay home.” She sighed, playing with her rings. “We’re going to the mountains, doing a lot of hiking and ziplining. It’s a lot of steep walking. Honestly, at your size, I’m worried the safety harnesses won’t even fit you. It’s too dangerous.” “More importantly,” she added quickly, “Mia’s best friend really wants to come. We don’t have enough hotel rooms. You understand, right?” Mia’s friend happened to be sitting on the sofa. She walked over and grabbed my hand, looking apologetic. “Chloe, we can totally share a bed! It’s fine! When we go out to the parks, you can just stay in the hotel room with the AC since your parents didn’t buy you a ticket…” Her voice trailed off. She realized she had said the quiet part out loud. Even if she hadn’t slipped up, I already knew. Whenever they used that gentle, ‘discussing’ tone with me, they had already made the decision. As the invisible child, the live-in maid, I had no right to choose. They were just giving me the illusion of a choice to save face. But with outsiders, they bent over backwards to accommodate them. I pressed my lips together. Suddenly, I didn’t care anymore. I was leaving for three years. This was my final goodbye. “I… I wasn’t planning on going to Florida anyway,” I said quietly. “I’m going somewhere else.” “I—” “Oh, perfect!” Mom interrupted, clapping her hands together, completely ignoring what I was trying to say. “I almost forgot! Today is the anniversary of the day Mia said her first word! Since her friend is here, let’s have a little celebration!” Because it was a spur-of-the-moment idea, they hadn’t bought any decorations. “Chloe, didn’t you save up for months to buy that custom party dress? Let Mia wear it for the photos!” Before I could say a word, Mom pushed past me and walked straight into my bedroom. Because I had been secretly packing, my room was a disaster. As she opened the closet door, the draft caught the printed flight itinerary sitting on my desk, blowing it directly onto the floor. Mom looked down. Her eyes landed squarely on the flight ticket. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. A cold sweat broke out on my back. “Why is your room such a mess? Papers are flying everywhere,” she muttered. She bent down and picked up the itinerary. Without even glancing at the destination or the dates, she blindly placed it back on the desk. She grabbed my expensive custom dress from the closet and walked out. “Mia! Come try this on! Chloe is way too heavy for it now, so I’ll pin the back so it fits you perfectly!” The living room lights were dimmed. A small cake with Mia’s name iced on it sat on the coffee table. They had cast a home video to the TV, showing a tiny baby Mia babbling her first words. The whole family was ecstatic. Dad was wiping tears from his eyes, and Liam was cheering loudly. I didn’t have a video like that. I barely had any baby pictures at all. Mia was born less than a year after me. The second she arrived, all of my parents’ attention instantly transferred to her. Liam and Mia both knew what it felt like to be completely, unconditionally loved by our parents. I was the only one who didn’t. I was unloved. Mia’s friend’s mom called to tell her it was time to come home. She had the phone on speaker. I could hear her parents’ voices, soft, patient, and full of adoration. The girl whined playfully, complaining about having to leave early. Her parents responded to every word, coaxing her gently, trying everything to make her smile. Is that what love is? To me, love felt like a beautiful, decadent cake sitting behind a bakery window. It was stunning. It was so far out of reach. I didn’t deserve it. I couldn’t afford it. On the day of my flight, I dragged my suitcase through the living room. Mia was sitting at the mirror, touching up her makeup. Her friend had come over again, and they were whispering about school drama. Liam stretched lazily on the couch, then reached over and messed up Mia’s hair, making her screech in annoyance. The two siblings started play-fighting, throwing pillows across the room. Suddenly, they noticed me standing by the door. Liam dropped the pillow. He looked at me with polite detachment, like he was talking to a distant acquaintance. “Do you need something?” I shook my head. No. I just realized that you two are the real siblings. You fight, you laugh, you act like family. To you, I’m just a stranger renting a room. Mom and Dad walked out of the master bedroom. Mom clapped her hands, beaming. “Alright kids, let’s go! Florida, here we come!” Dad pulled a stack of thick envelopes from his jacket pocket. “Vacation funds for everyone!” he announced cheerfully. “When we have free time, go buy yourselves whatever you want!” He handed an envelope to Liam. One to Mia. And one to Mia’s friend. I didn’t get one. Dad didn’t even look at me. He just skipped right over me. Mia frowned slightly, glancing at my heavy suitcase, but she kept her mouth shut. Click. The front door closed behind them. I let out a long, shaky breath. It was time to go to the airport. The terminal was incredibly loud. From a distance, I saw my advisor waving frantically. Standing next to him was a group of my classmates, holding up a hastily made banner. Bon Voyage, Chloe! I stopped dead in my tracks. “Look at you! You’ve lost so much weight!” my advisor said, frowning deeply as he looked me up and down. “Don’t focus on dieting over there. Make sure you’re eating proper meals.” My classmates swarmed me, all talking over each other. “Chloe! Who’s going to proofread my papers when you’re gone?!” “You have to send me copies of your lecture notes!” “Drop your location as soon as you land! I’m coming to visit you over winter break!” I stared down at the tips of my shoes, my vision blurring. “I… I’m so heavy, and I’m so quiet,” I stammered, my voice breaking. “I thought… I thought you guys didn’t even like me…” The group went dead silent. Then, the class president slapped me on the shoulder. “Who cares about your weight? You give the best hugs! And what do you mean quiet? You’re the most genuine, reliable person in our cohort. Everyone loves you, Chloe!” They all started laughing. I laughed too, though the tears were burning my eyes. My advisor handed me a plain white envelope. “Everyone chipped in. Buy yourself some good food on the layover. Don’t you dare try to save this money, you hear me?” The envelope was thin. I knew there wasn’t a massive amount of cash inside, but it felt a million times heavier than the envelopes Dad had handed out. I gripped it tightly against my chest and nodded. “I’m going now.” I turned around. The light pouring through the security gates was blindingly bright. I dragged my suitcase forward, and I didn’t look back once.

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Starting from the second week of college, I suddenly began gaining weight no matter what I ate. Meanwhile, my roommate Vivian, who used to weigh a massive 200 pounds, was visibly shedding weight by the day. Within a month, our weights completely swapped. She was down to 100 pounds. I was up to 200 pounds. She even snatched my slot to host the annual Homecoming Gala. And because she was terrified I’d stop trying, she rallied the entire class to “supervise” my weight loss. But why the hell should I listen to any of them? Wouldn’t it be much more fun if we were all fat together? Soon enough, her weight started ballooning like a pumped-up balloon. And Vivian literally fell to her knees, begging me to break the bond! I had just finished my ten-kilometer run for the day. Dragging my leaden legs back to the dorm, I hadn’t even wiped the sweat off my face before Vivian’s screeching voice pierced my ears. “Oh look, the fat pig is back!” She was sitting in my desk chair, dangling her feet in a pair of limited-edition designer heels she had just dug out of my closet. Her little clique of minions instantly caught the cue and burst into nasty laughter. “Look at her. Disgusting.” “Other people sweat, but she? She’s sweating pure lard!” “She reeks. She’s not even in the same league as Vivian anymore.” A wave of heat rushed straight to my face, making my cheeks burn. “Vivian, are you done?” I panted, my voice trembling slightly. “Not even close,” she said, standing up. Though she was barely 5’3″, she strutted toward me like she owned the world, spitting words right into my face. “Fat pigs don’t get to rest, okay? Keep moving. Otherwise, how are you going to burn off all that lard?” She poked my shoulder hard with her finger. My muscles were already trembling from overexertion, and with that poke, I lost my balance and fell straight to the floor. A surge of raw anger hit my brain. I violently slapped her hand away. “Vivian, that’s enough! So what if I’m fat? I still have my dignity!” Vivian acted like she had just heard the funniest joke in the world. She threw her head back and laughed, and her minions joined in, howling with amusement. Suddenly, she grabbed a freshly opened bottle of my expensive hydrating toner from my desk. Without even unscrewing the cap properly, she gave it a cruel flick. The ice-cold liquid, heavily scented, splashed all over my face and chest. My brand-new gym top was instantly ruined, covered in a giant, dark wet stain. “Oops, my hand slipped!” She covered her mouth, but the malicious glee in her eyes was impossible to hide. Another minion giggled as she grabbed my canvas tote bag hanging from the bedpost. With a loud clatter, she slammed it down by my feet. My textbooks and notebooks scattered all over the floor. “Pick them up, piggy.” Vivian crossed her arms and tilted her chin up, commanding me like I was a stray dog. “And while you’re down there, my shoes got a little dusty. Wipe them.” The air in the room froze. Blood roared in my ears. A crushing weight of humiliation wrapped around my chest like cold vines, squeezing the breath right out of me. I bit my lower lip so hard I tasted copper. My fingernails dug into my palms. The sharp pain was real, but it couldn’t drown out the overwhelming shame and anger. Just a month ago, Vivian was a 200-pound girl who was too terrified of rejection to even look people in the eye. But today, she had completely transformed. Not only had she successfully shrunk to a model’s size, but her personality had also taken a nasty, arrogant turn. I had never done anything to hurt her. In fact, I was the only person in this entire school who had ever treated her like a real friend. How dare she treat me like this!

I didn’t know what was happening lately. No matter what I ate, I just kept blowing up. My weight was climbing like crazy. Going from 100 pounds to 200 pounds took only a single month. And somehow, Vivian had managed to lose exactly that much weight in the same month, dropping from 200 to 100 pounds. It was pure insanity—the kind of ridiculous plot you’d only see in a trashy fantasy drama. Yet, it was happening to me in real life. But I refused to believe it at first. The moment I realized I was gaining weight, I started starving myself and working out, pushing my body to the absolute limit. I woke up before dawn to run, with only the streetlights cast stretching shadows on the track. At the cafeteria, I only dared to order plain celery and boiled kale. By midnight, my stomach would burn with agonizing hunger. Every single time I stepped on the scale, my heart lodged in my throat. But that cursed number remained welded to the display, refusing to budge. Occasionally, I’d lose half a pound, only to gain back double the next day. Despair slowly crawled up like cold ocean water, submerging me. The beliefs I had lived by for over a decade almost crumbled in that moment. Was Vivian really some kind of chosen one? And was I just her miserable foil? I stared at the bloated, swollen stranger in the mirror. The fat had swallowed my facial features, leaving no trace of the sharp, pretty girl I used to be. But what about Vivian? She spun around in an XS-sized dress she had stolen from my closet, practically floating. She basked in the attention of the boys who swarmed around her like flies, soaking up titles like “goddess” and “untouchable,” while they used me as a doormat to make her look better. “Don’t waste your breath, Chloe,” she whispered in my ear, her voice dripping with venom. “Some people are just born to be fat pigs.” The final string in my head snapped. To hell with dieting! I marched into the cafeteria. I loaded my tray with everything I had been terrified to touch before—cheeseburgers, pizzas, loaded fries. The rich aroma of grease and carbs hit my nose, bringing a sense of pure, vengeful euphoria. I buried my face in the food, eating like a starving wolf. Strangely, after a few days of total indulgence, no matter how much trash food I shoved down my throat, my weight stayed completely stagnant. That was bizarre. Losing weight was hard, but gaining weight shouldn’t be this difficult either. Just then, Vivian’s hysterical shriek echoed from across the room: “Where is my jawline?! Why do I have a double chin?! What happened to my face?!” She was clawing at her cheeks, which had visibly rounded, and at the sudden roll of fat spilling over her waistband. She looked like she was losing her mind. A bizarre, wild thought suddenly crept into my head. Something was seriously wrong here. I was eating like a pig, so why was she gaining weight? And back when I was killing myself at the gym, my weight wouldn’t budge, but she was getting lighter by the day!

I decided to investigate Vivian. If she was behind this, I was going to destroy her. That evening, she received a phone call. Her voice instantly turned sweet enough to cause cavities, and she hurriedly ran downstairs. Acting on pure instinct, I quietly followed her. Sneaking past the secluded woods behind the campus library, I spotted Harry in the distance. My boyfriend of one year. The guy who always claimed he loved me for being “independent and confident.” They were hooking up behind my back. I clenched my fists so hard my knuckles turned white. Nice move, Harry! We hadn’t even broken up yet, and you were already screwing around with Vivian! The next second, Vivian threw herself into his arms like a butterfly. Harry wrapped his arms around her waist, leaning down to nuzzle her forehead with a tenderness I had never seen him show me. “Harry, do you like my new dress?” Vivian’s voice drifted over with the breeze. “You look beautiful. You look amazing in everything.” Harry’s voice was pure mush. “Way better than Chloe, right? She’s got such a nasty temper, and now she’s as big as a house. It’s so embarrassing to be seen with her.” “Don’t even mention her,” Harry said, his voice dripping with utter disgust. “My Vivian is the best. You have such a perfect body. Walking with you makes me look so good.” So that was it! I forced myself to stay calm. They made out for about half an hour before Vivian took a shopping bag from Harry and started walking back. I slid behind a thick bush, letting the darkness swallow my heavy frame. Vivian hummed a tune as she walked, practically skipping. She was on cloud nine. “Chloe thinks she’s so special. Too bad she’s bound to my system now! Her perfect weight belongs to me!” She snapped a twig in her hand, her voice sending a chill down my spine. “Chloe, you’re nothing but my stepping stone for the rest of your life. Once I lock Harry down for good, everything you own will be mine.” Vivian’s sudden weight loss. Harry’s sudden coldness and his constant threats to break up with me. All the puzzle pieces fell into place, revealing a terrifying truth! Vivian had bound a system to me, and she had swapped our weights. Fine. Perfect. Vivian, so this is how you repay me. To think I actually felt sorry for her poor background and constantly bought her food and clothes. She literally stabbed me in the back! Vengeance spread through my veins like wildfire. Force her to unbind? No. I wanted her to drink her own poison! Losing weight is pure torture. Working out is a nightmare. Why don’t we just give up and be fat together like “best friends”?

Step one: get my stolen stuff back. I went straight to Professor Ford, throwing down photos and receipts on his desk. The Cartier necklace Vivian bragged about every day, the Chopard watch on her wrist, and the empty jars of La Prairie skin cream stacked on her vanity. Every single item belonged to me. “Professor, these items are worth over $30,000 in total. Vivian has been ‘borrowing’ them for almost a year and refuses to return them.” “Should I call the police and file a grand larceny report, or would you prefer to contact her parents directly?” Professor Ford’s face turned several shades of pale. When Vivian was summoned to the office, she still had her nose in the air. She dragged a heavy plastic bag behind her and tossed it at my feet with a loud clatter. The necklace was scratched and dull—clearly a cheap replica, not my original. The watch was real, but she obviously hadn’t cared for it; the leather strap was heavily worn, severely tanking its value. And the luxury skincare jars were practically scraped clean. “There! Take it back! We’re classmates, is it really that serious?” She rolled her eyes, acting like I was the dramatic one. “You seriously don’t know the first thing about being a team player!” “I don’t touch trash that other people have ruined,” I said coldly, pushing the bag away. “Either you pay me the full $30,000 value, or you can explain it to a judge.” Vivian’s face drained of color instantly. I knew her family’s financial situation. Forget $30,000—they couldn’t even scrape together $2,000 without selling their house. She shot a panicked look at Harry, who had just burst into the office. “Chloe! Don’t push it!” Harry yelled, looking incredibly righteous. “Vivian just used a few of your things! What’s the big deal?” “Can’t you just be the bigger person? Do you have to ruin her life? Apologize to Vivian right now!” Where did this clown get the nerve? I almost laughed out loud. “Did you pocket the cash from the real necklace I bought, Harry?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Or did you plan this theft together? Because let’s be real, Vivian doesn’t have the brains to pull this off alone.” Vivian probably didn’t even know what luxury brands were before she met me! Harry panicked, quickly cutting me off. “Chloe, shut up! I… I’m just standing up for what’s right.” “We’re all classmates. There’s no need to make things this ugly.” Even now, he was still trying to play both sides. Even if I adopted a dog, at least it would be loyal! I looked at the two of them—one completely lost, the other shifting his eyes guiltily. I felt a sudden wave of pity for my past self. How did I let myself get played by these two absolute idiots? What a joke! I stood up, done wasting my breath. “That’s why I brought Professor Ford in as a witness instead of calling the cops directly. I was trying to spare you guys.” “But let me make this clear: the total value is $30,000. I don’t take cash. Wire it directly to my bank account!” Hearing this, Vivian completely lost her mind. “Chloe! You’re robbing me! A stupid necklace is not worth $30,000! You’re insane!” I slapped the original purchase receipts onto the desk one by one. “I get that you don’t understand luxury brands, Vivian. But I have the receipts. Feel free to take them to the store to verify.” Vivian looked at Professor Ford, begging him to intervene. But Professor Ford just rubbed his temples and said with a sigh, “Chloe is right. If you don’t believe her, we can involve the police. The amount is too high for the university to handle internally.” Vivian’s face went entirely white. Harry didn’t dare say a word. He was completely stunned. I didn’t expect to get the money today anyway. I had to give them some time to sweat and scramble, after all. Professor Ford, terrified of a scandal reflecting badly on the department, promised me he would make sure they paid me back. But I knew Vivian’s revenge would be fast and dirty. She had never planned on playing nice. But the trap wasn’t fully set yet. I couldn’t let them off the hook too easily…

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When my son, Leo, was three, my wife, Chloe, secretly took him away and gave him to her childhood friend, Carlos. She then lied to me, claiming our boy was lost. While I was frantically searching the streets, out of my mind with worry, I saw Carlos’s latest Instagram post. “A family of three. Simple happiness.” The photo showed Carlos holding a sleeping Leo, with Chloe leaning in close for a cozy selfie. Ignorant friends had flooded the comment section with blessings. My reply was the only one that stood out like a sore thumb: “Give Leo back to me.” Ten minutes later, the post was deleted. Chloe called me, absolutely furious. “What is wrong with you? He’s just a kid! We can always have another one later!” “Carlos can never have his own children. What’s wrong with letting him raise ours?” In the background, I could hear Carlos’s soft, soothing voice. Chloe snapped, “You need to think about your attitude,” and hung up. An hour later, Carlos updated his Instagram again, tagging me directly. “The one who truly loves you will bring everything you want to your feet.” The picture showed the custom diamond ring I had ordered six months ago. It was Chloe’s way of putting me in my place. But this time, I wasn’t going to take it anymore.

Chloe didn’t get home until 9 PM. By then, I was already packing my bags. The bedroom was a total mess. She walked in with a sneer. She was clearly here to fight for Carlos. “You know Carlos just found out he’s sterile! Why would you rub salt in his wound? Don’t you think you’re being incredibly cruel?” Looking at this self-righteous woman spitting words at me, I found it almost hilarious. This was my wife. She was terrified that a single word from me would hurt Carlos. Yet, she didn’t care at all about how terrified I was when she lied and told me our son was missing. I didn’t even want to argue. I stood there, holding a glass of water, watching her storm around the room, frantically packing up the rest of Leo’s things. My mind flashed back to two mornings ago. I had barely sat down at my desk at work when my phone rang. Her voice was trembling on the other end: “Liam, what do we do? Leo is gone! I lost him!” Through her sobbing, she claimed Leo had wandered off at the mall. I panicked. I immediately called my friends and organized a search party around the mall. Even as I frantically searched every corner, I didn’t forget to call and comfort her. But where was she? She was probably by Carlos’s side the whole time. Because Carlos had just been diagnosed with infertility. He could never have biological children. Her heart bled for him. She wanted to be with him twenty-four hours a day, terrified he might do something drastic. And when I called her a few more times to get more details about how Leo went missing, she got annoyed. She thought I was interrupting her time with Carlos, so she blocked my Snapchat and my number. For two days and nights, I didn’t sleep or eat, searching desperately. Still, there was no sign of him. Just as I was on the verge of a total breakdown, I stumbled upon Carlos’s Instagram update. “A family of three. Simple happiness.” In the photo, Carlos was holding a sleeping Leo with one arm, his other arm wrapped around a blushing Chloe. They looked like a perfect, happy family. At that moment, all the strength drained from my body. I couldn’t understand what I was to Chloe. Seeing me sitting silently at the table, Chloe’s anger flared up again. “Why aren’t you talking? Playing mute again? Giving me that silent treatment—who do you think you are?” “I already explained it to you on the phone. Carlos can’t have kids.” “Isn’t it perfect to give Leo to him? He didn’t ask for much—just one child!” My hands trembled around the glass. I forced down my rage, looking up at her. “He can ask for whatever he wants. But Leo is mine. Bring him back.” Chloe lost her temper, throwing a pile of clothes right at my face. “Liam, have you had enough?!” “I’ve told you a thousand times, Carlos and I are strictly platonic! I’m just trying to help him!” “You’re always jealous whenever I’m near him. Now that he’s sick, why do you have to throw a tantrum?” “Carlos was right. You’re just a controlling, insecure guy trying to satisfy your own ego!” I was too stunned to speak. The scratch on my leg from searching for Leo began to throb.

Just as the pain made me break into a cold sweat, the doorbell rang. Seeing me sit there, Chloe went to open it. “Hello, we received a report of a missing child…” Before the officer could finish, Chloe cut him off frantically. “No, we found him. Sorry for wasting your time.” She slammed the door shut. Turning back to me, her face was twisted in rage. She screamed: “Liam, are you crazy?! Why the hell did you call the cops? You did this on purpose, didn’t you!” “Carlos was right. You just wanted to terrorize me so I’d submit to you!” She was about to keep screaming, but when she noticed my pale face, she stopped and took a few hesitant steps forward. But she quickly froze. “Oh, please. Are you seriously faking it now?” “You work out every day. You’re telling me searching for a kid for two days made you this weak?” “I get it. You’re trying to copy Carlos to get my sympathy, aren’t you?” Looking at her sneering face, I felt a wave of disgust. So Carlos being sterile meant he was fragile and needed protection, but me being genuinely hurt was just “faking it”? He could play the victim to steal my child and enjoy everything that belonged to me, and she found it completely justified? I gritted my teeth and wrapped a bandage around my shin, sinking back into my chair to catch my breath. Seeing this, Chloe pulled a box of chocolates out of her purse and tossed it onto the table. Her voice softened slightly. “Here. Eat up.” “Carlos made me bring this back for you.” “He said Leo is safe with him, so you don’t have to worry. Consider this box of chocolates his apology.” “Liam, we’re doing this for the kid’s sake.” “Just accept it. We can still be friends. You can visit Leo whenever you want.” I looked at the half-melted chocolates on the table, my heart turning to ice. The packaging had clearly been opened. Most of the chocolates had melted together, exposing crushed almonds. If I looked closely, I could even see bite marks on the corners of some pieces. “No, thanks.” My voice was raspy. My throat burned. Chloe didn’t use to be like this. She used to love me. She knew all my likes and dislikes. She knew I had a life-threatening almond allergy—that I couldn’t even touch them. But ever since Carlos came back from abroad, she had become a completely different person. Seeing me reject her offering, Chloe snatched the box and threw it at me. The sticky dark chocolate splattered all over my white shirt. “Enough, Liam! Stop being so ungrateful!” “If you keep throwing this tantrum, you’ll never see Leo again.” “Don’t forget, I’m the one who gave birth to him!” I froze, the pain in my leg instantly forgotten. I never thought the woman I had been married to for five years, the woman I loved deeply, would one day use our son to threaten me. “I want to see Leo. Now.” The thought of little Leo being ripped away from his parents, crying out for his dad somewhere, sent a sharp pang through my chest. Chloe smirked, thinking she finally had leverage over me. She grabbed her phone to FaceTime Carlos. “Sure. But you have to apologize to Carlos first.” I snapped my head up, utterly bewildered. “You stole my son and gave him away, and now I have to apologize to *him* just to see my own kid?” Chloe lost it. She hurled her phone at me. “Your kid? Don’t forget, he came out of my body! Without me, you wouldn’t even have a son!” “And as for Carlos?” “Let me make one thing clear: he’s my child, and I’ll let whoever I want raise him!” “If you don’t want to apologize over the phone, fine. You can apologize to him in person!” With that, she grabbed my hair and dragged me toward the door. The sudden movement tore the wound on my leg open again. Fresh blood soaked through the bandage.

The agonizing pain made me think of Leo. He was such a sweet, sensible boy. He must be so scared right now. I remembered how much Chloe had changed after she picked Carlos up from the airport. She stopped caring about me, and she barely paid attention to Leo. Until a week ago, when Chloe, who had been MIA for weeks, unexpectedly came home early and cooked a huge dinner. She apologized softly, claiming she had been neglecting us because of work. Leo was so happy that day. But he didn’t understand—what kind of “work” makes a mother completely ignore her child for three whole months? Yet, despite the flimsy excuse, I chose to believe her for the sake of our family. Ever since Carlos returned, she hadn’t sat down for a single meal with our son. I had tried to respect her choices. Even when Leo cried for her, I did my best to soothe him. But now, I finally understood. It was all because of another man. That rare family dinner was interrupted by a phone call from Carlos before we even started eating. Carlos’s low, depressed voice on the line sent her into an instant panic. She grabbed her car keys and bolted. Leaving behind a resigned me, and a heartbroken Leo. The trail of blood on the floor was hard to ignore. Chloe finally noticed, and her grip on my hair loosened. She hesitated. “Are you really hurt?” I could only offer a bitter laugh. When we first got married, we were so in love. Chloe’s entire world revolved around me. Back then, let alone this much blood, she would worry over the tiniest bruise. And now? Every vow we made had become a worthless, forgotten promise. An impatient look crossed her face as she grabbed her keys. “Fine. If you were hurt, why didn’t you say so earlier? Let’s go to the hospital.” I didn’t argue. I let her help me into the car. The moment I sat in the passenger seat, I realized her car had completely changed too. On the dashboard was a bottle of cologne from France—where Carlos had just returned from. And in the corner of the rearview mirror, there was a Polaroid of her and Carlos. Seeing my eyes fixed on it, Chloe looked slightly guilty. “Don’t overthink it. It’s just a silly photo we took as friends. He pasted it there for fun.” “If you don’t like it, I can take it down…?” I leaned my head against the window, closing my eyes to block out the sun. “It’s fine. Just take me to the hospital.” As a man, how could I not see through Carlos’s little games? He was quietly invading my space, marking his territory, and mocking me. In the past, I would have thrown a fit. But now? I didn’t want this woman anymore. Anything related to her no longer mattered. We had only been driving for a few minutes when Carlos called. Over the phone, Carlos’s whiny voice was accompanied by Leo’s hysterical crying. My heart clenched. Helpless, I grabbed Chloe’s arm. “What’s wrong with Leo?! Why is he crying like that?!” But Chloe didn’t care about my panic. She pulled over to the curb, unlocked the passenger door, and shoved me out. She left me with one sentence:

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