Category: English

The day my parents split up, my sister—with her sun-kissed hair and honeyed words—left with our mother. My brother, the bouncy, charismatic golden boy, was scooped up by our father. When it was finally my turn, they looked at me and spoke in perfect, chilling unison. “You need to be the sensible one, Myra.” “You’re practically an adult now. You can take care of yourself.” 1 They left me, a ten-year-old girl, at my grandmother’s drafty, decaying farmhouse in rural Ohio. Then, they wrapped their arms around their favorite children and drove away, entirely satisfied with their choices. I already knew I was unloved. That wasn’t new. But in that moment? My chest caved in. It physically hurt, a sharp, twisting agony behind my ribs. My name is Myra Callahan. Since the day I was born, I’ve been the leftover part of the equation. After they had my sister, Bianca, they wanted a boy to complete the perfect picture. Instead, they got me. Another girl. A disappointment. So, they dumped me in the country with my grandmother. They didn’t bring me back to their manicured suburban life until I was six, right after she died. And now, four years later, they were throwing me right back. Except this time, the old house was completely empty. My grandmother wasn’t here anymore. Not that she had loved me much when she was alive—she was quick to slap and quicker to curse when she was in a foul mood—but at least she was a warm body in a cold room. Kids need someone. Anyone. But my parents never seemed to grasp that concept. It didn’t matter that my mother, Evelyn, was an award-winning literature teacher at a prestigious prep school. Or that my father, Robert, was a highly respected associate professor at the university. They had eyes only for the children they deemed worthy. They never paused to wonder if their middle daughter might need them, too. And just like that, I was left behind. 2 I became the wildest, most untethered kid in the county. I could climb to the very top of the old oak trees to peek into bird nests without anyone yelling at me to get down. I could wade into the freezing creek and swim for hours until my lips turned blue. If I stayed out all day, it didn’t matter. The other kids in town were bitterly jealous. “Man, I wish my parents didn’t care what I did,” they’d groan. “If I climbed that high, my dad would actually ground me for a year.” They envied my freedom, but God, I envied their chains. They had parents. Parents who cared if they fell. My parents had stopped caring a long time ago. When late afternoon rolled around, the air would shift. You’d hear Tommy’s mom shouting from her porch, telling him dinner was on the table. You’d see Sarah’s grandma shuffling down the gravel road to drag her inside. One by one, the woods would empty. And I would become entirely alone. I would sit in the branches, watching them retreat toward warmly lit windows, before slowly sliding down the bark and making the long walk back to my own dark house. It was so quiet inside. The kind of quiet that rings in your ears. I cooked for myself. I ate by myself. Spring, summer, fall, winter. It never changed. When night fell, I would crawl under the damp, heavy quilts of my bed. But no matter how long I lay there, I could never get warm. The icy wind would whistle through the cracks in the ancient window frames, seeping straight into my marrow. I remember staring out the window, confused. It was early autumn; it shouldn’t be this cold. Why was I shivering? I would pull my knees to my chest, cocooning myself in every blanket I owned, waiting for a pocket of body heat that never came. I didn’t understand it when I was little. It was only when I got older that I realized the truth. It wasn’t my body that was freezing. It was my soul. It was the absolute, hollow chill of having nothing and no one to anchor you to the world. Children are supposed to be insulated by love. I had none. So even buried under a mountain of cotton, I remained freezing. I grew up in that cold. Inch by inch. Year by year. By the time I was a senior in high school, sitting in a fluorescent-lit classroom churning through AP practice exams, I had come to a quiet revelation. It was okay not to be loved. It was okay not to have a family. I could survive on my own. Graduation was months away. Once I got my diploma, I could leave this town, this state, this life. I would go somewhere new, build a fresh existence, and surround myself with so many friends that the gaping hole left by my parents wouldn’t matter anymore. I had a plan. And then, I got sick. 3 Two months before graduation, my already irregular period turned into an unrelenting, heavy hemorrhage. I was terrified. I scraped together every dollar of my meager savings and took a bus to the main hospital in the city. The ultrasound tech was quiet. The doctor was grave. She told me there was a mass growing inside my uterus. A massive fibroid cyst. That was what had been destroying my cycle and causing the bleeding. The doctor looked at me with deep, unmistakable pity. “Honey, hasn’t this been agonizing? A mass this size… medically speaking, you should have been in debilitating pain for a long time.” I stared at my knees. “And your periods being this erratic,” she continued, her brow furrowing. “You’re young, maybe you didn’t know it wasn’t normal, but didn’t your mother notice? Has she never brought you in for a checkup?” “A simple ultrasound years ago would have caught this,” she sighed, rubbing her temples. “If we had seen it early, you wouldn’t be looking at surgical intervention right now.” I dug my nails into my palms and forced a tight, brittle smile. “It doesn’t hurt that much.” “And… I never told my mom about my periods. She doesn’t know.” But that was a lie. I had told her. I told her that my cycle was a nightmare. That I would skip months, and when it finally came, I would bleed for three weeks straight. I told her about the blinding, white-hot pain in my abdomen. Twice, the cramps had been so violent I actually passed out cold. Her response? “Stop being so dramatic, Myra.” “Your sister never acts like this. When Bianca gets cramps, I make her some herbal tea and she’s fine.” “She doesn’t call me crying, claiming she’s ‘dying.’ You’re just weak. No wonder people find you exhausting.” “I don’t have time for this, her SAT prep tutor is waiting. I’ll Venmo you. Go buy some Advil. Honestly, all you ever do is ask for money.” My phone had buzzed a minute later. Ten dollars. Exactly enough for a generic bottle of ibuprofen at the pharmacy. I had tried telling my dad, too. He wasn’t any better. It was the second time the pain made me black out. I had collapsed on the hardwood floor of my lonely house, hitting my head on the coffee table. I woke up with blood in my hair. A kind classmate had helped me to the school nurse the next morning. I was young and terrified, but even I knew something was profoundly wrong inside my body. Sobbing, I called my father. It rang and rang. When he finally picked up, his voice was ice. “Myra. What on earth possesses you to blow up my phone like this? Do you have any idea that your brother is currently on stage performing his violin solo?” “If I hadn’t muted my phone in time, you would have ruined his entire competition.” “Thomas needs to win this to secure his conservatory admissions. You are nothing but a liability. No wonder your siblings call you the ‘Mistake.’” Myra the Mistake. That was the nickname Bianca and Thomas gave me. Kids are brutally honest in their cruelty. When they brought me back from the country at age six, Thomas was five. He was the prince of the house. Bianca was the prized princess. They each had their own massive bedrooms. Neither of them wanted the weird, feral country girl encroaching on their territory. Mistake. Get back to your doghouse. My dad had heard them say it once. He frowned and scolded them. “Don’t speak to your blood like that,” he’d said. Then, he cleared out a corner of the enclosed sunporch and put my bed there. Because of that one half-hearted scolding, I used to foolishly believe my dad was the only one who didn’t think I was a burden. But he was exactly like them. That day on the phone, bleeding and terrified, I stammered through my tears, trying to explain my symptoms. He met my terror with irritated exhaustion. “Fine, I get it. You don’t feel good.” “This is just a pathetic excuse to beg for your allowance early, isn’t it? Thomas is right. Teenage girls are just a nightmare of manufactured drama.” “Making up lies about dying just to get cash. It’s actually sickening, Myra.” He hung up on me. Hours later, I got a Venmo notification for $200. The note read: Your allowance for the month. Do not ask for more. And so, my illness festered in the dark, growing until it demanded to be cut out. Thankfully, the doctor assured me the surgery was relatively straightforward. An incision, a removal, and I would be cured. The catch? After my meager insurance, the out-of-pocket cost was $5,000. Thinking of the $10 sitting in my bank account, I swallowed the heavy lump in my throat. “Doctor… can the surgery wait? Just two months?” Graduation was in two months. Once I was out, I could get a factory job, work double shifts, and save the five grand. Her next words shattered that fragile hope. “Wait two months? Honey, you need to be admitted today.” “This cyst is causing active hemorrhaging. If we don’t intervene, you are at extremely high risk of bleeding out. You could go into cardiac arrest.” She leaned forward, her voice softening into a desperate plea. “You have your whole life ahead of you. Do not let stubbornness or fear cost you your life.” “Go home. Bring your parents back here to sign the consent forms and pay the deposit.” She was right. My life hadn’t even truly begun yet. I couldn’t just die over five thousand dollars. In my civics class, we learned about parental obligation. They brought me into this world; legally, they had to keep me alive in it. Paying me a pathetic $200 a month to rot in a farmhouse wasn’t enough. They had to pay for my medical care. They had to. 4 My mother’s manicured suburb was a long way from my part of the county. My bank account was running on fumes, but I spent $5 on a commuter train ticket to get to her house. I reasoned with myself on the ride over. She was a woman. Surely, when confronted with a mass growing inside my uterus, the sheer, terrifying reality of female anatomy betraying itself, she would understand. I stood on her pristine porch for a long time before I finally knocked. The door swung open. It was Bianca. Where I was gaunt, pale, and trembling, she was glowing. Her skin was flawless, her hair glossy. She radiated the kind of vibrant health that only comes from being deeply, expensively nurtured. She was the hothouse rose. I was the weed growing in the asphalt. We shared the same DNA, but our universes couldn’t have been further apart. Bianca looked at me, her brow furrowing in instant, deep annoyance. She looked at me like I was a tax auditor showing up unannounced. “What are you doing here?” “Didn’t Mom already send your pathetic allowance?” She planted her body firmly in the doorway, blocking the entrance. I opened my dry lips to speak, but my mother’s voice drifted out from the kitchen. “Is Thomas here yet? Tell them to come in!” Bianca rolled her eyes. “No. It’s Myra.” The house went dead silent for three agonizing seconds. Then, my mother’s voice, laced with heavy reluctance: “Oh. Well… let her in, then.” Bianca stepped aside just enough for me to squeeze past, acting as if she were bestowing a grand blessing upon me. The moment I stepped into the dining room, I understood why she hadn’t wanted me inside. The sprawling mahogany table was groaning under the weight of a feast. Filet mignon, butter-roasted lobster tails, artisanal sides I didn’t even know the names of. And right in the center, a towering, gorgeous custom birthday cake. My mother emerged from the kitchen carrying a plate of glazed chicken wings. She paused when she saw me. “Myra. Why are you here?” “You really should have called ahead. It’s your sister’s birthday today. We’re expecting guests and I didn’t make extra food.” My stomach, hollowed out by days of rationing crackers, gave a violent ache. I pressed my hand against it. “I’m not hungry,” I lied quickly. “I ate before I came.” Bianca crossed her arms and flopped onto the velvet sofa. “Doesn’t matter if you called ahead anyway. I don’t want a bloodsucker who only shows up to beg for cash ruining my birthday.” My face flushed a hot, dark red. The sheer humiliation of why I was actually there made my skin crawl. My mother didn’t correct her. She just looked at me, her silence a loud, ringing endorsement of Bianca’s words. Tears burned the back of my eyes. I wanted to scream that it wasn’t true. The only times I ever asked for money was when they completely “forgot” to send my allowance. I would wait. Days would pass. A week. And nothing would hit my account. Yet, they never forgot to reward Bianca with a trip to the Bahamas for bringing her math grade up a single letter. They never forgot to buy Thomas a three-thousand-dollar gaming rig because he learned a new concerto. I survived by eating dollar-store ramen and plain bread. But sometimes, even that ran out. I remembered sitting in class, my vision swimming from hunger, looking at the teacher’s pink eraser and hallucinating that it was a piece of meat. I only called them when I was so starved I was eyeing the half-eaten sandwiches in the cafeteria trash cans. Only then did I break down and ask for my own money. But to Bianca, I was a bloodsucker. What kind of vampire survives on two hundred dollars a month? “Mom,” I choked out, fighting the tears. “I’m not a bloodsucker. I only asked for money when my account was negative…” My mother held up a hand, cutting me off. “Enough. You’re a fine kid, Myra, but your sister isn’t entirely wrong. I’ve spent plenty of money on you over the years.” “Do you have any idea how exhausting it is being a single mother to a teenager? Let alone having to support you out in the country on top of it?” “Bianca didn’t do well on her SATs last year, so I had to put her in that elite prep course. That was fifteen thousand dollars upfront. Things are tight right now. You calling and demanding cash… you can’t blame your sister for being irritated.” Her words felt like liquid nitrogen poured straight into my veins. For a split second, she made me feel like the villain of the story. But I wasn’t the one draining her bank account. I cost her two hundred dollars. Something inside my chest, a dark, jagged thing, began to claw at my throat. I felt like I was going insane. I needed to scream. Before I could, my mother sighed. “Anyway, you’ve made your appearance. You should head back.” “You don’t know any of Bianca’s friends. It’s going to be awkward for everyone if you just hover here.” Panic seized me. I pulled the crumpled, slightly damp medical report from my jacket pocket and thrust it toward her. “Mom, please, I came because I have to tell you something. I’m sick…” Ding-Dong. The doorbell chimed, bright and cheerful. Bianca instantly lunged forward, grabbing my arm and shoving me hard toward the kitchen. Her face was twisted in absolute disgust. “Listen to me, you little freak,” she hissed. “If you don’t want to get thrown out on the street, you stay in this kitchen and keep your mouth shut. Do not tell anyone you are my sister.” “I am not letting my friends know I’m related to a trash-dwelling charity case. One word, and I’ll drag you out by your hair.” I thought of the blood, the doctor’s warning, the $5,000 I desperately needed just to survive. I shrank back against the refrigerator. “I won’t say anything,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “Just please don’t kick me out yet.” Bianca shot me a look of pure venom, smoothed down her dress, and walked back out to greet her friends. 5 Bianca’s friends were exactly like her. Polished, loud, practically dripping in wealth. Standing in the shadows of the kitchen in my faded, hand-me-down sweater—clothes Bianca had discarded years ago—I truly did look like a feral animal that had wandered indoors. Soon, the house was filled with the sound of “Happy Birthday.” The clinking of glasses. The rich smell of expensive food being devoured. Just as they were about to cut the cake, the front door opened again. Two familiar voices echoed in the entryway. “Happy birthday to my beautiful girl! Sorry Dad is late!” And then, my brother, Thomas—who had never spoken to me without a sneer—sounded like the perfect, charming sibling. “Sorry, B. My fault entirely. Rehearsal ran late. I brought you that new Prada bag you wanted to make up for it.” A girl in the living room gasped loudly. “Oh my god, is this the famous violin prodigy brother?” “He’s exactly like the rumors! So handsome and so sweet.” Another voice chimed in. “Sweet? He’s a genius. He skipped two grades in middle school. He’s taking the SATs with us this year.” “No way! Thomas, what colleges are you looking at? Let a girl know so I can apply there too!” Thomas chuckled, the sound smooth and practiced. “Mostly just the Ivy League. Harvard’s humanities program has a better vibe than Yale, I think.” The girls practically swooned. “God, a prodigy brother and a gorgeous, smart sister,” someone sighed. “Bianca’s top of our class, too. Your parents’ genetics are absolutely insane.” My parents laughed. It was a warm, deeply satisfied sound. “Oh, stop. We aren’t that special,” my mother demurred modestly. “We’re just educators.” “Such a humble-brag!” a boy laughed. “Seriously, your family is like a poster for perfection.” The atmosphere in the living room was euphoric. I stood perfectly still in the dark kitchen, watching the warm glow of the dining room light spill across the floor. I felt like a thief, peering through a window at a family I was never allowed to join. Then, someone asked the question. “With genes like that, why didn’t you guys have more kids? Imagine how perfect a third sibling would be.” My breath hitched. My fingernails dug half-moons into my palms. What will they say? Would they, for one brief, fleeting moment, acknowledge that I existed? My father let out a short, dismissive scoff. “Actually, we do have another one. But she… didn’t exactly get the family traits.” “Oh?” a girl asked, intrigued. “What do you mean?” My father’s tone darkened. “I don’t know if it’s a genetic misfire, or if being raised by her grandmother out in the sticks stunted her brain. She’s dull. Slow. We brought her back when she was young, but she has no social skills. Completely withdrawn.” My mother, riding the high of the party, eagerly joined in. “Exactly. Zero emotional intelligence. She never even calls us.” “The only time we hear from her is when she wants money. Honestly, sometimes I look at her and wonder how Robert and I could have produced someone so… lacking. But thankfully, she turns eighteen soon.” “Once she’s a legal adult, our obligations are done. We won’t have to deal with it anymore.” The words didn’t just hurt. They severed something deep inside me. I stared blankly at the tableau in the living room. So, their love was entirely conditional. Because I wasn’t as aggressively brilliant as Thomas, or as socially dominant as Bianca, I wasn’t fit to be their daughter. That was why they dumped me during the divorce. That was why they never bothered to ask who I really was. If they had, they would know that my bad grades in elementary school were because the underfunded rural school never taught me phonics or basic math. When I was dropped into their suburban district in first grade, I was drowning. But that was elementary school. By middle school, I was never out of the top ten. Now, at my high school, I was ranked third in my entire senior class. My teachers called me brilliant. They said I was a lock for MIT or Stanford. My classmates loved me. I stayed late to tutor anyone who asked, breaking down complex physics problems with infinite patience. But to my own parents? I was a dull, stunted, emotionally deficient genetic mistake. It was hilarious. Truly, bitterly hilarious. Through the doorway, Bianca’s eyes locked onto mine. She wasn’t hiding her vicious, triumphant smirk. Under her piercing gaze, I suddenly felt dirty. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I felt like a cockroach caught on the kitchen tiles. I took a panicked step backward, desperate to hide deeper in the shadows. My foot hit something hard. CLANG. A heavy metal pot lid went spinning across the tile floor. The noise was deafening in the quiet kitchen. The laughter in the living room died instantly. “Who’s in there?” my dad demanded, his voice dropping an octave. Bianca sneered. “Probably just a rat.” In the dark, I wrapped my arms around myself, shaking violently. Please don’t come in. Please just ignore it. If I wasn’t seen, I could pretend this night never happened. But the heavy footsteps grew louder. “That wasn’t a rat. That sounded like a person,” my dad said, his voice hard. “Get out here, right now.” Click. The harsh fluorescent lights of the kitchen flickered to life. And there I was. Stripped of the dark, exposed in my ragged clothes, looking like the most pathetic clown in the world. 6 A girl in the hallway shrieked. “Oh my god! There’s actually someone in there! Is she a burglar? Call 911!” Thomas let out a dry, cruel bark of laughter. “Relax, guys. It’s not a burglar. It’s just my idiot sister.” “What are you doing skulking around in the dark, Myra? Come to beg for more cash?” A dozen pairs of eyes shifted from fear to profound, morbid disgust as they stared at me. My mother sighed loudly, playing the weary, martyred parent. “Everyone, I’m so sorry. Myra isn’t a thief. She just came to visit and must have fallen asleep in the kitchen.” She turned to me, her eyes dead. “Alright, Myra. You’re awake now. It’s time for you to go back. You have graduation coming up. I know you aren’t going to get into a real college, but you still need to pass.” “Try not to fail out completely. It’s embarrassing enough for your siblings as it is.” She was stepping toward me, her hand reaching out to physically push me toward the back door. But I couldn’t leave. I didn’t have the surgery money. As her hand clamped onto my shoulder, the last shred of my dignity evaporated. I dug into my pocket and yanked out the crumpled hospital paperwork. My face was completely bloodless as I looked up at her, begging. “Mom, please don’t make me leave.” “Thomas is right. I did come for money.” The air in the room turned hostile. My mother’s face contorted in fury. I spoke as fast as I could, terrified that if I stopped, my throat would close up and I would choke on my own grief. “I’m sick. The doctor said I need surgery immediately. It’s not even that much, Mom, it’s just five thousand dollars for the copay.” Five thousand dollars. Less than half the cost of the Prada bag Thomas had just casually handed Bianca. A fraction of what his violin cost. But saying the number out loud felt like I had pulled a pin on a grenade. My father, who hadn’t spoken directly to me in months, closed the distance between us in two strides. SMACK. His hand cracked across my cheek with brutal force. “Five thousand dollars isn’t a lot?!” he roared. “Do you have any concept of how hard I work?” “You absolute embarrassment. You skulk in the shadows like a rat, you don’t even have the decency to wish your sister a happy birthday, and then you ambush us in front of guests for five grand?” My cheek burned like it had been held to an open flame. But the pain in my face was nothing compared to the violent tearing in my chest. “Bianca told me to hide!” I screamed, the truth ripping out of me. “She said she didn’t want anyone to know she had a trashy sister! And is five thousand really that much to you, Dad? Bianca’s new bag costs ten! Thomas’s bow alone costs more than my surgery!” “I’m in agony, Dad! I’m bleeding! I pass out at school from the pain, and you know that because the nurse called you!” For a fraction of a second, a flicker of guilt crossed his eyes. But his ego quickly crushed it, and his self-righteous rage returned. “You don’t get to compare yourself to them!” he spat. “Bianca is top of her class! Thomas wins national awards! They earn their rewards!” “What have you ever done but bring us down? Why should we invest a dime in you?” “And this supposed illness? I’m sure it’s just another one of your psychotic lies. You’ve been making up stories for attention since you were a kid.” Thomas stepped forward, snatching the crumpled ultrasound paper from my shaking hand. “Yeah, let’s see what terminal disease you’ve invented this time, Mistake.” He scanned the paper. Suddenly, he dropped it like it was coated in acid, wiping his hand aggressively on his jeans. He looked at me, his eyes wide with exaggerated, theatrical disgust. “A 10-centimeter uterine mass? Bleeding?” Thomas yelled, making sure the entire living room heard him. “Are you kidding me, Myra? You’re begging us for money because you caught some dirty STD?”

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This was my fifth wedding. Or, more accurately, my fifth attempt at one. The groom, Logan, was late. Again. My phone buzzed on the vanity, a push notification from a local trending thread: “Now that you’ve finally landed the guy you’ve pined after for years, what’s the most reckless thing you’ve done?” The original poster had answered her own prompt: “Become his wife, obviously. And steal him away from his ‘best friend’s’ wedding. Five times and counting.” She added a follow-up: “We just finished in the bridal suite. It was world-shifting.” The comment section was a vitriolic bloodbath, but the poster didn’t seem to care. She uploaded a photo—shot from the neck down, skin flushed and damp with sweat. Her face wasn’t visible, but the bridesmaid’s dress she was wearing was unmistakable. Beside her, a man in a tailored tuxedo was partially visible, his sharp profile caught in the shadows. A cold, hollow sensation settled in my chest. I knew that profile. I knew that dress. The heavy double doors of the bridal suite creaked open. Two people walked in, looking exactly like the figures in the photo. It felt like the temperature in the room plummeted forty degrees. One was Melanie, my “soul sister” and best friend of thirteen years. The other was Logan, the man I had legally married five years ago, even if we’d never managed to make it down the aisle. 1 My father stood up so abruptly his chair screeched against the floor. He ripped the boutonniere from his lapel, his face contorted with rage, the veins in his neck bulging. “Five times, Logan. Five goddamn times. What could possibly be more important than your own wedding ceremony?” the guests in the hall held their breath, the silence thick and suffocating. Logan offered a practiced, charming smile, stepping forward to placate him. “Please, Tom, calm down. There was an emergency at the office. A crisis that couldn’t wait.” After settling my father, he turned to me. He pulled a velvet box from his pocket, a diamond ring glittering inside. His expression was light, almost teasing. “I didn’t mean to be late, Jo. Tell me how I can make it up to you, and I will. Anything you want.” He moved closer, his voice dropping to a seductive murmur. “Let’s just get through the vows, okay?” But my eyes weren’t on the diamond. They were on the small, flesh-colored bandage on his neck. It was positioned perfectly to hide a fresh bite mark—Melanie’s signature. “Is that so?” I asked, a sharp, jagged laugh escaping my throat. He blinked, startled. He likely thought I was so blinded by love that I’d offer him a sixth chance. He looked relieved. In the next heartbeat, I lunged. I grabbed Melanie by her perfectly styled hair and emptied a glass of vintage red wine directly over her head. “Diana, have you lost your mind?!” Logan roared. As I threw the glass down, it shattered against the marble. Logan’s first instinct wasn’t to check on me, but to shield Melanie. A flying shard of glass sliced a thin line across my cheek. Every guest in the room stared at me with horror, as if I were the one who had just committed an act of madness. Logan tucked Melanie behind him, his eyes burning with a sudden, sharp loathing. “Yes, Melanie had a family emergency, and I went to help her. That’s why I was late. She’s been your sister since you were kids—how could you do this to her?” His voice rose, thick with accusation. “How can you be so vicious?” I tried to remember when he had started caring for her so much. In college, Melanie’s crush on him was a joke everyone was in on. Back then, Logan spoke of her with a curated disgust. “She’s exhausting,” he’d say. “Not particularly bright, either. I don’t know why you’re friends with her.” It was cruel, but back then, I felt a shameful sense of relief. I thought I had secured both my love and my friendship. I was a fool. He had gone to the mat for me once. He had stood before his grandfather, the patriarch of the wealthy family firm, and endured a literal beating to prove his devotion. “I won’t marry anyone but Diana,” he’d shouted. “I’ll die before I give her up.” And Melanie? She had stood in the sweltering heat outside their estate for five hours, pleading my case. “Diana’s happiness is everything,” she had sobbed. “Please, let her be with the man she loves.” Now, Melanie stood there, drenched in wine, looking at me with a performative, guilty flinch. The guests whispered. My father looked broken. Logan stood there with the air of a man granting a stay of execution. “Enough drama,” he said. “Let’s just finish the ceremony.” I reached up and unpinned the pathetic corsage from my dress. My voice sounded like it was coming from someone else—someone cold and terrifyingly calm. “I’m done, Logan. I want a divorce. I don’t want you anymore.” Logan froze. He searched my face for a hint of a bluff, a sign that I was just throwing a tantrum. We’d been legally married for five years; this wedding was supposed to be a formality, a celebration of a life already built. But he didn’t realize that I had spent those five years waiting for this one day. As he stepped toward me, Melanie caught his arm. “Diana, I know you’ve been resentful since the wedding planning started,” she whimpered. “But don’t do this. Don’t embarrass Logan just to get attention. It’s your big day. Don’t ruin it.” Logan’s eyes turned icy. If there was one thing he hated, it was feeling manipulated. “You’re the one who told me to look out for her, Diana,” he snapped. “You said she was alone in this city, that she had no one. Now you’re turning into a paranoid shrew? You’re making us look like a joke. Think about the family’s reputation!” Suddenly, the narrative shifted. I was the villain. I could feel the judgmental weight of a hundred pairs of eyes. Logan’s grandfather, who had remained silent until now, spoke with a gravelly, authoritative venom. “I knew a girl from a family like yours would be trouble. Security! Escort her out and deal with this insolence.” Logan looked at his grandfather, then at me. He chose silence. As the security guards moved in to grab my arms, my father surged forward. He swung a mahogany chair at the guards. “You stay the hell away from my daughter!” But with a single nod from Logan, the guards overpowered him, dragging him toward the exit. “Tom, look at her,” Logan said, his voice devoid of warmth. “She’s out of control. We have standards in this family. We won’t let her spread these lies.” 2 The first blow from the heavy wooden ruler across my back sent me sprawling to the floor. It was a custom-made piece, used for “disciplinary” purposes in the family’s old-school tradition. By the third strike, I felt the warm, sticky bloom of blood soaking through the white silk of my wedding gown. Involuntary tears blurred my vision. I remembered when Logan had taken ten strikes for me, years ago, after we eloped behind his grandfather’s back. He had emerged pale, drenched in sweat, but he had smiled at me through the pain. “Anything to be with you,” he’d whispered. He knew exactly how this felt. And yet, he was letting them do it to me. The dress felt like it was made of lead, heavy with blood. I crawled toward him, clutching at the hem of his trousers, my voice a broken rasp. “Please… take me to the hospital.” Before the words fully left my lips, Melanie gasped and collapsed into his arms. “Logan, my head… everything is spinning. I think I’m going to pass out.” Logan caught her instantly, his face a mask of concern. He didn’t look down at me again. The room cleared out. The “family” business was done. By the time a sympathetic catering staff member got me to the ER, I was drifting in and out of consciousness. The doctors treated the lacerations on my back. As soon as I could hold a pen, I called my lawyer. “Draft the papers,” I said. “Everything. I want out.” I fell into a heavy, medicated sleep, only to be jolted awake by a frantic call from my father. “Diana, you have to get here! A construction crew… they’re at the house. They say they’re tearing the old place down!” Before I could answer, a sickening thud echoed through the line, followed by my father’s agonizing scream. Then, silence. The world tilted. I ripped the IV out of my arm and threw on my clothes, racing to my childhood home. I found him pinned beneath the treads of a bulldozer. He was gasping for air, his voice a thready whisper. “Diana… don’t… don’t beg him. Not for me.” The ambulance took him away, but the crew didn’t stop. They kept moving, iron and steel grinding against the history of my life. “Stop! Who authorized this?!” I screamed. The foreman stepped forward and shoved me back. “Move it, lady. Mr. Logan personally called this in. We have the permits.” I fumbled through my bag, pulling out our marriage certificate. “I’m his wife! I’m telling you to stop!” The crew gathered around, looking at the paper. Then, a roar of laughter erupted. “You’re really trying to pull a fast one with a fake document?” the foreman mocked. “There’s no seal on this, lady. It’s a prop. Get lost before we call the cops on you.” I looked down at the certificate. He was right. There was no state seal. No official signature. I remembered Melanie’s post. “My husband.” She meant legally. In the eyes of the law, I was a ghost. I was a laughingstock. I waited outside the operating room like a hollowed-out shell. I called Logan, my hand shaking so hard I nearly dropped the phone. “How could you?” I sobbed. “Why are you tearing down my father’s house? Your people… they crushed him, Logan. He’s in surgery!” Logan’s voice came back as a vicious snarl. “Then he shouldn’t have gone around telling people Melanie was a mistress. He shouldn’t have posted her private photos online!” “What are you talking about?” “You want the medical bills paid? Fine. Go on a livestream. Apologize. Tell the world you lied because you were jealous of Melanie. Do it now, or don’t expect a cent from me.” I gripped the phone, my knuckles white. I didn’t say a word. But he wasn’t done. Within the hour, I found my bank accounts frozen. I was penniless. I tried to apply for emergency loans, for jobs, for anything—but every door slammed in my face. A sympathetic HR manager eventually showed me why. My name was tagged in a private industry database: History of instability. Violent tendencies. Narcissistic personality disorder. He had once promised to make me the happiest woman in the world. Now, he was grinding me into the dirt to make me bow to Melanie. The hospital’s billing department called every twenty minutes. The pressure was a physical weight on my chest. Finally, I broke. I agreed to the public apology. Logan’s voice on the phone was smug. “I knew you’d see reason. It’s your father’s fault, really. He brought this on himself. Be a good girl, Diana. Or watch him die.” He flicked a gold credit card against the camera during our video call. “I’m holding the check for his surgery right here.” He used to say I’d never have to worry about money again. He was right. He’d made sure I was completely dependent on his mercy. 3 I swallowed the metallic taste of blood in my mouth. As I stood before the bank of microphones at the press conference, Melanie stepped forward with a look of faux-sympathy, reaching out to steady me. “Diana, I never wanted it to come to this,” she whispered, loud enough for the mics to catch. “But your father’s lies… the things he said about me being a ‘homewrecker’… the photos… I’ve been living in a nightmare. If we’re truly sisters, you’ll do the right thing.” The word sisters made my stomach turn. I wanted to reach out and tear her throat out. Before I could speak, Logan’s voice cut through the room, cool and detached. “She’s right, Jo. You gave those photos to your father, didn’t you? It’s only fair that you give Melanie a sincere, public apology. In fact, maybe you should show everyone the kind of ‘remorse’ you expect from others.” I stared at him, my heart stopping. “Are you insane? Logan, I’m your wife!” The flashes from the cameras were blinding. In the harsh light, Logan looked like a stranger. “You’re wasting time,” he said. “And your father is running out of it.” The reporters surged forward, hungry for the fall of the “Golden Girl.” Melanie played the protector. “Give her a moment, please. She’s going to apologize.” I looked at her beautiful, lying face and spat on the floor at her feet. The room gasped. Logan’s expression darkened into something murderous. Suddenly, my smartwatch chimed—a notification from my father’s home security system back at the old house. My neighbor, Mrs. Gable, was calling. “Diana! Some men are here—they’re auctioning off the furniture right off the lawn! They’re saying the house is sold!” I looked up at Logan, my eyes wide. “You’re selling the house? My father will die if he loses that place.” “Apologize,” Logan said. “And I’ll stop the sale. It’s just a few words, Diana. Don’t let your pride kill your father.” A jagged, hysterical laugh broke from me. With numb fingers, I began to unbutton my coat. I let the cold air hit my skin. I didn’t care who was watching anymore. I didn’t care about the cameras. I knelt on the hard floor. I pressed my forehead against the linoleum until it bled. “I. Am. Sorry.” When I looked up, blood was trickling into my eyes. “Are we done?” Melanie couldn’t hide the glint of triumph in her eyes. Logan, however, looked momentarily stunned. He cleared his throat and tossed his blazer and a credit card at my feet. “Stop making a scene. Put your clothes on. This will cover the hospital bills.” I kicked the card away. I didn’t look back as I bolted out of the room. As he watched me run, a flicker of unease finally crossed Logan’s face. But Melanie was already pulling at his sleeve. “The interviewers are waiting, Logan.” “Right.” He turned to the cameras. And then, the world exploded. A massive boom shook the building, shattering the windows behind us.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “438308”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

My mom once dumped the richest man in our city. Eight years later, I beat up his son. My teacher forced my mom to get on her knees and beg for forgiveness. The billionaire pushed open the classroom door and froze. “I used to treat you like a princess, terrified you’d melt if I didn’t hold you tight enough. And you’re on your f***ing knees?” “Sarah, whose pride are you trashing right now?” 1 I never had a dad. I didn’t even know any of my extended family. As long as I could remember, it was just my mom raising me. She worked the night shift at a convenience store and often came home very late. So, she asked our neighbor, Mrs. Higgins, to add an extra plate for me when she made dinner for her own granddaughter. It wasn’t a handout, of course. My mom paid Mrs. Higgins for my meals every month. But Mrs. Higgins would take that money and turn around to buy me milk and fresh fruit. She constantly sighed about how hard my mom worked and told me not to tell her about the extra treats. I’d nod, and she’d praise me for being such a good girl. Honestly, I just felt that if I was good, it would make things a little easier for my mom. At school, I was the most invisible kid in the class. I paid attention during lessons, but I never raised my hand or showed off. My classmates called me the “Little Mute” because they thought I didn’t like to talk. The truth was, I just liked listening to them talk. In third grade, the most popular topic of conversation was everyone’s families. Some kids would broadcast everything—from their dad’s hemorrhoids to their mom fighting off his mistress. There was a boy in my class named Connor Hayes. He was a new transfer student, and he constantly complained about his CEO dad. He said his dad had a temper like a rabid dog and a face as cold as a widower. He said his dad never had time for him; it was just drivers and nannies at home every day. He said his dad only cared about money. For his birthday, he just had his secretary drop off a black Amex card. … Long story short, he hated his dad. But I envied him for having one. I didn’t know why, but out of all the kids in class, I wanted to be close to Connor the most. Because I didn’t have a dad, and rumor had it, Connor didn’t have a mom. In a way, we were the same kind of different. One day, while we were lining up to go home, Connor was complaining about how terrible his dad’s cooking was. I couldn’t help but chime in: “My mom makes really good desserts.” If he just talked to me, I thought, I could bring him some of my mom’s desserts. But Connor turned his head and glared at me viciously. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I looked at him, confused. “You’re making fun of me for not having a mom, right?” Connor shoved me hard, his face twisted in anger. I fell hard onto the pavement. While I was still in shock, my homeroom teacher, Ms. Evans, yelled from behind: “Chloe! Are you blind? You’re ruining the line formation! Get up right now!” I had no choice but to slowly pick myself up and brush the dirt off my clothes. Ever since I spoke to Connor that day after school, I inexplicably became the thorn in his and his little posse’s side. Every time he walked past my desk, he’d pinch my arm through my shirt. If we crossed paths in the hallway, he’d purposely ram his shoulder into mine. Not to mention, he was always surrounded by a gang of followers. Every time I walked by, they would yell out of nowhere: “Chloe, the Little Mute, what a loser.” Then they’d make weird, mocking noises with their mouths. I gathered my courage and decided to tell the teacher. However, when I went to Ms. Evans’s office, she was sitting cross-legged, holding her phone. I didn’t know who she was talking to, but it was “Mr. Hayes” this and “Mr. Hayes” that, and her whole face was lit up with a smile. I stood at the door for ten minutes, and she didn’t even notice me. The bell rang. The next period was English. I had no choice but to go back to class. Our English teacher had assigned an essay that day. The prompt was: “My Father.” I didn’t know how to start, so I sat there staring at a blank page for the entire period. The sky outside was an ashy gray, looking like it was about to rain, making everyone feel gloomy. Connor, however, was ecstatic. He announced to the whole class that his dad was coming to pick him up today. When school let out, it started pouring. In a cruel twist of irony, out of the entire massive school campus, Connor and I were the only two kids left without anyone to pick us up. The security guard brought us into the guardhouse. Connor looked furious. He kept yelling into his smartwatch: “I don’t care! I don’t want to hear your excuses! You have to come get me!” Then he dropped his wrist and started stomping the floor violently, thump-thump-thump. I thought he looked like an angry, unreasonable little monkey. I don’t know how much time passed, but the Hayes family’s driver finally appeared outside the guardhouse. “I don’t want you. Where is my dad?!” The little tyrant threw a tantrum at the driver outside the window. Looking troubled, the driver made a phone call. Not long after, a tall man holding a massive black umbrella walked over at an unhurried pace. The sky was still dark, and the wind was howling outside— Although the umbrella obscured his face, you could tell from his straight, imposing posture that he possessed a calm confidence, unafraid of any storm. Connor jumped up, rushed out of the guardhouse, and threw himself toward the man. The man reached out a single hand and effortlessly caught Connor by the collar of his jacket, stopping him mid-air. It was a hand that looked powerful and safe—large, with pronounced knuckles. It looked exactly like a father’s hand should. The man set Connor down. Holding the umbrella with one hand, he tilted it so it mostly covered Connor. Then, without hesitation, he smacked the back of Connor’s head. It was a crisp, solid thwack, like slapping a ripe watermelon. I stared, a little dazed. Connor didn’t mind. Instead, he suddenly turned around and shot me a smug, gloating smile. “Loser.” He taunted me with a funny face. “Have fun waiting by yourself!” 2 I ended up just staying in the guardhouse. I practically finished all my homework before the torrential rain finally stopped. The security guard, Mr. Miller, even shared his dinner with me—a delicious basket of steamed buns. I thanked him and walked back to the apartment my mom and I rented. I did a quick sweep with the mop, read a chapter of a book, and my mom finally came home. The bedroom door pushed open, and my mom poked half her body in, smiling brightly: “Hey sweetie, why aren’t you asleep yet?” I instantly noticed she was hiding her other arm behind the door. “Mom! Did you hurt your left hand?” She scratched her head: “You’ve got sharp eyes, kiddo. 20/20 vision for sure.” I asked her what happened. “A box fell on it at work,” she sighed. “It’s fine now, but I can’t use my left hand for a couple of weeks.” “Does that mean you can stay home and rest for those couple of weeks?” I asked carefully. “What kind of generous capitalist do you think I work for? Taking two weeks off? Do I still want a job?” I lowered my eyes, feeling a bit upset. “Ta-da! Look what I got!” My mom suddenly raised her voice, quickly pulling out a container of roast duck and a can of beer from behind her back to change the subject. “My boss actually gave this to me.” “Were you planning on eating it all by yourself before you saw me?” I asked quietly. She scratched her cheek. “Am I that kind of person?” I had to remind her of the numerous “cold cases” where she had secretly eaten takeout, drank boba, and binge-watched TV shows in the living room while I was asleep… In the dim light, we polished off the roast duck. I suddenly remembered seeing Connor’s dad today, so I softly asked: “Mom, what kind of person was my dad?” I knew my mom didn’t like talking about my dad. But after a moment of silence, she actually told me: He had a bad temper. He spent all his time working. To solve problems, he only knew how to throw around black credit cards… “What did he look like? Did he have big hands?” “Pretty big. He was pretty tall too.” My mom burst out laughing. “Why are you asking?” I wanted to hear her say more, but my mom’s voice went flat: “Kiddo, knowing these things is useless. He’s dead.” I had to ask one last question with pleading eyes: “Did Dad love me back then?” She stroked my hair, her voice softening. “Go to sleep, sweetie.” I don’t know why, but her smiling face looked so sad. The next day, I got to school early and finished writing the English essay I hadn’t completed yesterday. When I turned the essay in, Ms. Evans actually took mine and read it aloud to the whole class as a model essay. “My Father” My father often has a stern face and always looks unhappy. My father is always very busy and has no time to take care of me, but I know he is always by my side. My father is the best father in the world. Whenever it rains, he drops all his work to come to school and pick me up. His hands are so big, just like his big black umbrella, capable of shielding me and my mother from the storms of the entire world… After school, Connor found me, his face filled with rage: “You thief! You clearly wrote about my dad.” He reached out to shove me. I quickly backed away, but he chased after me, pinning me against the wall at the back of the classroom, yelling fiercely: “Thief!” I suddenly felt a surge of anger. I used all my strength to shove him forward. I was actually taller and stronger than him. He fell hard onto the floor, his face immediately turning black as he started cursing at me. I had never heard so many vicious words in my life! The new and old grudges combined. Not only did I not let him go, but I straddled him, throwing a punch for every curse word he spat. By the time we came to our senses, Ms. Evans had rushed into the classroom. She let out a shriek, yanked me off Connor, and held him, comforting him for a long time. Connor put on a fake crying act, whimpering a few times, and cried out emotionally: “Ms. Evans, my dad entrusted me to you. I’ve always seen you as a mother. You’re all I have left, boo-hoo-hoo.” Ms. Evans turned her head and glared at me fiercely: “Chloe! Right now, immediately, tell your mother to come to the school!” 3 “Does your daughter have violent tendencies?” Ms. Evans’s voice was shrill. “Look at what she did to Connor!” Connor immediately let out a whimper, pretending to be in extreme pain. Ms. Evans turned to him, her voice turning gentle. “Connor, be a good boy. I called your dad; he’s on his way.” My mom had her left arm in a sling. She was still wearing the green vest from the convenience store, and a cheap baseball cap with the store’s logo. She looked like she had rushed over; her bangs were blown into a messy tangle. She glanced at me and said anxiously, “Chloe is usually very well-behaved. She wouldn’t hit someone for no reason.” Ms. Evans raised her voice. “Are you saying I’m framing your daughter?” “That’s not what I mean,” my mom said quickly. “I just want to hear the child explain what happened.” “Chloe,” Ms. Evans turned to me coldly. “Tell me yourself, what did you do wrong?” I stubbornly pressed my lips together. Ms. Evans seemed furious. “Fine, if you won’t say it, I will.” “When lining up to go home, you broke the rules.” “Your classmates don’t like you. You have absolutely no ability to integrate into the group.” “And now you’ve resorted to assaulting a classmate.” “Earlier, when I asked you, you wouldn’t say a word. You’ve even started being deceitful.” “I’m asking you, do you have any respect for me as your homeroom teacher?” My mom looked at me, her lips moving. “Ms. Evans, there must be some misunderstanding…” Ms. Evans let out a contemptuous laugh. “Since you insist on turning a blind eye to your daughter’s faults, I have nothing more to say.” She firmly placed her thermos on her desk. “I can’t teach her. You need to find another teacher. Go ask around yourself and see which homeroom teacher in this school is willing to take her, and transfer her out immediately.” My mom turned pale as soon as she heard that. Although she wasn’t a very conventional mother, she was extremely strict when it came to education. Usually, if I scored below an 80 on a test, she wouldn’t hesitate to give me a spanking. To her, education was more important than her own life. “That’s not true.” My mom was starting to panic. She pleaded, “Ms. Evans, please give Chloe one more chance. She’s young; she doesn’t know better.” Ms. Evans turned her head away, let out a cold hmph, and faced the wall. My mom continued to plead bitterly, saying almost everything she could think of. But no matter what my mom said, Ms. Evans just told her to find someone else to take me. But in a school, what homeroom teacher would willingly take a student that someone else rejected? “Please, have some mercy.” My mom raised her injured arm. “I will discipline Chloe properly when we get home. Please don’t give up on her.” Ms. Evans turned back, but still spoke critically, “How can I trust you?” My mom paused, as if making up her mind. “Ms. Evans, I’m usually very busy with work and don’t have time to pay attention to Chloe’s mental state. She’s always been alone, and no one taught her what she should or shouldn’t do.” I stared at my mom, stunned. It was the first time I had ever seen her speak so formally. But my mom gripped the armrest of a chair, slowly knelt onto the floor, and pleaded once more. “Ms. Evans, the person who made the mistake is actually me, her mother. I failed to raise her right; it’s not Chloe’s fault. Please, give her one more chance.” As she spoke, her shoulders, which were usually thin but straight, hunched forward deeply. I stared at her, paralyzed. This was my mom—the woman who was usually joking around, never taking anything seriously; the woman who was kneeling on the floor, humbling herself to beg the teacher not to give up on me; the woman who taught me to be an honest person and to work hard in my studies… A difficult life had never crushed her, but at this moment, she surrendered her dignity for me. I couldn’t hold on any longer. I immediately hugged my mom’s shoulders and knelt down beside her. “I’m sorry, it’s my fault. Mom, it’s not your fault.” I had never regretted anything so much in my life. Tears poured from my eyes, and I felt like my heart was breaking into pieces. Ms. Evans seemed startled too, and she lowered her voice. “That’s not what I meant…” “I’m sorry, Ms. Evans.” I started crying too. “I promise I’ll never hit anyone again.” Amidst the commotion, Connor suddenly yelled excitedly, “Dad, you’re finally here.” Ms. Evans was startled. She quickly pushed us aside, bent over, and hurriedly applied lipstick using a small mirror on her desk. The first thing I heard was a cold voice: “Connor, tell me yourself, what trouble have you caused this time?” The office door was pushed open, and footsteps approached from a distance. The man’s voice seemed to carry a mix of exhaustion and annoyance: “Confess right now, before I have to hit you.” I felt my mom’s body stiffen. She turned her head for a glance, then immediately lowered it, as if she had seen something unbelievable. For a moment, I felt like she wanted to hide under the desk. “Mr. Hayes.” Ms. Evans stood up with a radiant smile. “You misunderstood. Connor was the one being bullied today. Please don’t scold him.” The man stopped casually behind her. “Who bullied him?” “Her.” Ms. Evans pointed at me, sighing. “There’s something wrong with this girl’s head.” I didn’t dare argue back. I could only turn around, lay prostrate on the floor, and say, “I’m sorry.” The man crouched down. He looked at the bruises on Connor’s face, his tone completely flat. “You got beat up? Does it hurt?” Connor quickly let out a pitiful “Mhm.” The man frowned, yet said mercilessly, “Useless.” After criticizing Connor, his sharp eyes swept toward me. “A little girl, getting into fights at such a young age. Didn’t your parents teach you any manners?” I was glared at by his dark, menacing eyes, almost scared to tears again, and could only bite my lip tightly. “She really lacks proper upbringing at home,” Ms. Evans quickly interjected. “I’ve already lectured her, and her mother even knelt down to apologize. Sigh… Mr. Hayes, how do you think we should handle this?” “How to handle it?” The man slowly repeated the question, his voice dripping with unmistakable coldness. Hearing this, I immediately sat up, scrambled forward blindly, and grabbed the hem of his suit jacket. “Sir, I didn’t mean to. I swear, I’ll never bother him again.” Mr. Hayes looked down at me, suddenly frowning. With one hand, he pinched my chin, his gaze revealing a mix of confusion and bewilderment. “Why do you… look so much like…” He didn’t finish his sentence. After a long silence, he just shook his head. “Ms. Evans, let it go.” Connor, however, shrieked, “How can we just let it go?” “Then what do you want?” Mr. Hayes’s tone was impatient. “I want Chloe to apologize to me in front of the whole class tomorrow.” Connor rattled on. “She also mocked me for not having a mom last time.” Mr. Hayes’s face turned dark as a storm cloud, while my mom’s face went completely white. She sneakily glanced at Connor, her eyes filled with pain and conflict. She seemed to want to say something but bit her lip, burying her head even lower, her body trembling slightly. I was a bit worried and quickly squeezed my mom’s hand tightly. “Enough, you little brat.” Mr. Hayes raised his hand and grabbed Connor by the collar. “I think you really are asking for a beating.” “Getting beat up by a little girl is embarrassing enough, and you want the whole class to laugh at you?” Ms. Evans seemed completely surprised that the matter would be dropped so easily. She pursed her lips and said, “Since Mr. Hayes isn’t pursuing it, Chloe’s mom, you should apologize to Mr. Hayes.” My mom didn’t say a word, trembling even more violently. Ms. Evans was getting impatient. “Chloe’s mom? Does muteness run in your family?” Mr. Hayes seemed to finally notice the woman still kneeling on the floor. He turned his head casually, and with just one glance, he froze. He released his grip on Connor’s collar and stood up instantly. “I’m sorry.” My mom finally spoke softly, her head still buried low. The man’s lips parted, as if it took all his strength to call out a name: “Sarah… is that you?” I had no idea how he knew my mom’s name. “You’ve mistaken me for someone else.” My mom immediately turned her face away, but her left hand, trapped in the cast, agonizingly clenched into a fist, as if enduring something terrible. “It’s you.” Mr. Hayes stared fixedly at my mom. The expression on his face was indiscernible—whether he was crying or laughing, hateful or joyous, his entire face twisted terribly. “Sarah—” He seemed to chew the name up, his eyes locked onto my mom. “When did you get back?” My mom turned her head away, refusing to meet his gaze. Even Ms. Evans noticed something was wrong. Her face changed instantly. “Does Mr. Hayes know her?” “More than know her.” He seemed utterly furious, unable to hold back any longer. He grabbed my mom with one hand and pulled her up from the floor. “Eight years since we last saw each other, and this is how you look? Poor and pathetic?” “Sarah, I treated you like a princess back then. I was terrified you’d melt if I didn’t hold you tight enough, and today you’re kneeling on the fucking floor?” “Whose pride are you trashing right now?” “Get up!” After pulling my mom up, she immediately grabbed my hand, looking like she wanted to drag me away as fast as possible. But Mr. Hayes maintained a tight grip on my mom’s thin wrist. Under everyone’s gaze, this tall, imposing man’s eyes actually grew red-rimmed. “Sarah, after all these years, won’t you even look at me?” He seemed to realize something and suddenly looked at me. “How old are you?” I nervously darted my eyes between the two of them. I was actually eight years old. I didn’t know why my mom lied about my age. But I figured she must have had her reasons. Mr. Hayes, hearing her answer, looked devastated. “You… you got married?” 4 Perhaps sensing the tension, Connor started groaning and clutching his stomach, complaining that he felt sick. Ms. Evans quickly reminded Mr. Hayes to take his son to the hospital for a check-up. My mom gave Connor a deeply concerned look, bit her lip, and followed them to the hospital. The doctor said Connor was fine. My mom wanted to pay the medical bill, but Mr. Hayes wouldn’t let her. He said pointedly, “Since you haven’t shown any concern for eight years… there’s no need to fake it now.” After the check-up, Connor demanded his dad buy him roasted chicken wings. My mom stood by for a long time, looking like she wanted to say something, her eyes entirely glued to Connor. And Mr. Hayes’s eyes were entirely glued to my mom. I rubbed my stomach and told my mom I was hungry. As if suddenly remembering, she tightly grabbed my hand and got ready to leave, but Mr. Hayes wouldn’t let us. I don’t know what he said, but my mom reluctantly agreed to have dinner together. She just looked like a wilted flower. I sat across from Connor, and they sat across from each other. This was my first time at a fried chicken place. I buried my head in my bowl and kept eating. “Has this child never had a full meal?” Mr. Hayes’s tone sounded inexplicably sour. “Does her dad not want to feed her?” My mom let out a cold laugh but didn’t say anything. I lifted my head from my bowl, looking gloomy. “My dad is dead.” Mr. Hayes’s dull eyes lit up again. I didn’t know what he was plotting. Halfway through the meal, they started arguing again about some topic I couldn’t catch. Mainly, it was Mr. Hayes speaking with a sharp, passive-aggressive edge. It was uncomfortable to listen to. My mom ignored him and told me to finish eating quickly. Halfway through, Connor made a fuss about needing to go to the restroom to wash his hands. My mom patted his head and took him to the restroom. I found it a bit strange. My mom actually really disliked other people’s kids. Just now at the hospital, and while eating, my mom had been proactively taking care of him. She almost seemed to have forgotten about me… Mr. Hayes glanced up at me and said, “That’s your second bucket. Can you really still eat?” I sheepishly put down my chicken wing. Mr. Hayes suddenly pulled out a napkin and wiped my hands for me. I secretly watched him. I suddenly noticed that this Mr. Hayes had exceptionally long eyelashes. When he looked down and didn’t speak, he was as handsome as a movie star. In a flash, he seemed to transform from an overbearing CEO into a disappointed, wounded middle-aged man. “Was your dad… good to your mom before?” he asked me in a low, bitter voice. I had never met my dad, so I didn’t know how to answer. At that moment, my mom returned, standing at the restaurant exit and calling my name. I quickly stood up. “You should ask my mom… but you need to use a nicer tone.” “Chloe.” Mr. Hayes suddenly grabbed me. I looked at him in surprise. I had no idea how he knew my name. He slipped a piece of paper into my hand. Mr. Hayes whispered to me, “This is my contact info. If you ever run into a situation where someone bullies your mom like today, call the number on here. Uncle will come, no matter how busy he is.” He hesitated for a moment, looking at me, and added reluctantly, “If someone bullies you, you can call too.” My mom firmly declined Mr. Hayes’s offer to give us a ride. She held my little hand as we walked home. I decided to ask her directly, “Mom, do you like my classmate?” “Yes,” she answered. I felt a bit sad, so I decided to badmouth him a little. “Mom, don’t let his pathetic act fool you. He’s actually just a really spoiled, angry little monkey.” My mom smiled. “Why did Chloe beat him up today, and say he doesn’t have a mom?” I quickly recounted the whole story from start to finish. My mom fell silent for a moment before saying, “How about this… why don’t we invite him over for fried chicken wings this weekend, Chloe? I’ll make some really good ones, and we can explain things to him face-to-face?” I was reluctant, but I nodded anyway. We walked a bit further, and my mom asked hesitantly, “What… what did Mr. Hayes say to you?” I hesitated a bit, but I told my mom and then asked, “Do you hate Mr. Hayes, Mom?” My mom said “Mhm.” “Then can I keep his business card?” I looked up at her. She hesitated. “Keep it… but if you need something, come to me. You are not allowed to go to him.” A question suddenly popped into my head: “Mom… did you and Mr. Hayes have some kind of relationship before?” Under the moonlight, my mom’s expression seemed dark. After a long pause, she finally spoke: “We used to be… in love. Now… he probably wants to get revenge on me.” Before going to bed, I went to close the living room window. But under the window, I saw a parked Rolls Royce. I had seen Mr. Hayes driving it today, and even the license plate was the same. Was Mr. Hayes downstairs? My heart started pounding. My mom said he was an enemy, so was he keeping an eye on us? I pulled out the business card he gave me earlier that day. It read: Arthur Hayes. It turned out his name was Arthur Hayes. I felt like I had seen that name before. Where had I seen it? Oh… at my mom’s place. On the nightstand in her bedroom, there was a framed poem— “The light skiff has passed ten thousand mountains.” (Note: The Chinese character for “ten thousand mountains” is Wan Guo Shan, which was the original Chinese name. The English name Arthur Hayes is used here, but the poem reference loses its direct connection. A localized alternative could be a framed quote or a special memento related to the name Arthur, like a King Arthur legend quote, but to keep the poem vibe, we’ll adapt.) “The once and future king.” I tilted my head in confusion, then placed the business card on the coffee table. I had a feeling… he didn’t seem like someone who came to get revenge on my mom.

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My “Lawyer-on-Call” livestreams had become an accidental sensation. One evening, a caller joined the queue, her voice heavily distorted by a digital modulator. “Attorney Valentine,” she began, the robotic pitch masking her age. “I’m seeing a man—an ‘uncle,’ though we aren’t related by blood. Is there anything in the law that says we can’t be together?” I pushed down a sudden, inexplicable prickle of unease. “Legally? No. If there’s no biological tie and both are consenting adults, it’s not a crime.” “Then I have nothing to worry about,” she said, her tone visibly lighter even through the filter. “He’s getting married next Saturday. I’m planning to confess everything to him at the altar.” I fell silent for a few seconds, the ethics of the situation clashing with my professional detachment. “Sweetheart, if he’s marrying someone else, it means he’s made his choice. Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t throw away your dignity for a man who’s already at the finish line with someone else.” To my surprise, she let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “He’s afraid of the dark, Attorney Valentine. Did you know that? Even if he has to slip his fiancée a sedative in her milk, he still comes to my room to hold me until I fall asleep. Tell me… is that not love?” I froze. The air in my study suddenly felt too thin. As I scrambled for a response—some piece of advice to pull this girl back from the edge—the heavy oak door to my study pushed open. My fiancé, Garrett, walked in. He was carrying a glass of warm milk, a soft, practiced smile on his face. … Looking at that swaying glass of white liquid, my brain let out a high-pitched ring. I snapped my head up to look at Garrett. The girl on the stream said her “uncle” put sedatives in the milk. Coincidentally, Garrett had a niece. I forced myself to remain still, my eyes darting toward the monitor. The girl had disconnected, leaving behind a chaotic waterfall of comments that confirmed this wasn’t a fever dream. Poor fiancée… for the love of God, don’t drink the milk. This ‘uncle’ and ‘niece’ are monsters. Using someone’s health as a tool for their affair? There’s a special place in hell. I checked—the girl’s using a burner account. This was a targeted strike on Brooke’s stream. I took a jagged breath and clicked the “End Stream” button. “Everything okay?” Garrett asked, stepping closer. “You look pale. Too many hours on the screen?” He leaned down and pressed a dry, cool kiss to my forehead. “I’m sorry, Brooke. Maisie was being impulsive. It’s her fault you lost your position at the firm, and now you’re forced to hustle on these streams just to keep your reputation alive.” A month ago, Maisie had thrown a tantrum because Garrett and I went to a charity gala without her. In retaliation, she filed a formal, anonymous complaint with the State Bar, accusing me of bribing a federal prosecutor. I was suspended pending an investigation. Though I was eventually cleared, the stain on my “Golden Girl” reputation was indelible. I was forced to resign to save the firm’s face. “You don’t have to work this hard, you know,” Garrett murmured, brushing a stray hair from my face. “I can take care of you. After the wedding, you can just focus on the house. We’ll have three boys, and they’ll grow up happy with Maisie right there to help us. Like one big family.” “Here,” he said, pressing the glass against my lips. “Drink this. You need to sleep. Stop overthinking.” I swallowed hard, the cold rim of the glass clinking against my teeth. The girl’s voice echoed in the silence of my mind: He’s taking the milk to her now. It’s got the pills in it. It felt like a conspiracy theory, a glitch in the Matrix. But the hair on my arms stood up. I faked a heavy cough and pushed his hand away. “I’m not thirsty right now. I’ll drink it in a minute.” Garrett’s expression instantly soured. His features, usually so handsome and refined, twisted into something sharp and unrecognizable. “Are you still holding a grudge against Maisie?” He grabbed my wrist, his grip tight enough to leave a ghost of a bruise. “Do you have any idea how much guilt that girl is carrying? She can’t sleep because of what happened at the firm! She’s just a kid, Brooke. The pressure is killing her. To be honest, she’s the one who warmed this for you. She said if you drink it, it means you’ve finally forgiven her. Otherwise—” “Garrett, let go. You’re hurting me.” I struggled, but his hand was like a lead shackle. “Auntie Brooke… do you really hate me that much?” I hadn’t heard her come in. Maisie stood in the doorway, wearing a white silk nightgown that looked more like a slip. Her eyes were rimmed with red. Without warning, she crossed the room and dropped to her knees in front of my chair. I was stunned into silence. Garrett immediately let go of me to scoop Maisie up, pulling her into his chest. He turned on me, his voice trembling with a terrifying kind of righteous anger. “Brooke, are you trying to destroy this family?” “I’ve told you a thousand times—Maisie’s father died in my arms in the Sandbox. He was my brother-in-arms. He left her to me. It is my sacred duty to protect her for the rest of her life! In this house, her well-being comes first!” My heart felt like it was being crushed by a giant’s hand. My voice came out as a fragile whisper. “Does her ‘well-being’ include lying to the Bar? Does it include ruining my career because of a missed dinner?” When she found out I was pregnant two years ago—during her finals week—the two of them sat me down and shamed me. They told me I was “undisciplined,” that my timing was “selfish” and “disgusting.” The stress became a physical weight. I miscarried three days later. I had endured it all for Garrett. I had swallowed the bitterness because I believed in his “heroism.” But he didn’t care about my sacrifice. “You’re a grown woman arguing semantics with a twenty-year-old?” Garrett hissed. “You can find another job. But if you break her spirit, that’s forever!” “Garrett,” Maisie sobbed, clutching his shirt. “It’s my fault. Please don’t fight. If Brooke can’t stand the sight of me, I’ll just… I’ll just end it! I don’t want to live in a world where I’m a burden!” She broke from his arms and ran toward the floor-to-ceiling window. Garrett lunged for her. In his haste, he shoved me aside. I hit the edge of the mahogany desk, a sharp pain exploding in my temple as a knot began to form. Maisie struggled in his arms, her cries growing louder. “She won’t drink the milk! She hates me! I just want to go be with my dad in heaven!” My head was spinning, my vision blurring. Through the fog, I heard Garrett’s barking command: “Brooke! Drink it! Now! Show her you forgive her or so help me—” “You know what she means to me! If you drive her to the edge, you’re driving me there too!” Watching them—the “grieving” veteran and his “broken” ward—I felt a sudden, profound exhaustion. The fight left me. I stood up unsteadily, picked up the glass, and downed the milk in three long gulps. When the glass hit the table empty, I caught a glimpse of Maisie’s face over Garrett’s shoulder. She wasn’t crying anymore. She was wearing a tiny, predatory smile. My gut screamed at me. Something was wrong. I waited until they left the room, then stumbled into the bathroom. I didn’t hesitate. I shoved two fingers down my throat and forced everything back up until my stomach was empty and my throat burned. At 3:00 AM, I heard the faint floorboards creak in the hallway. “Garrett? Are you still coming?” My heart stopped. Garrett’s voice was a low, firm murmur. “Of course. You’ve been afraid of the dark since you were five. I’m not letting your father down tonight.” A moment later, my bedroom door eased open. Garrett crept in, checking on me. “Shh, she’s out cold,” he whispered to someone in the hall. Maisie stepped into the room, giggling softly. “I told you. She’s not waking up for a long time.” She walked over to my closet and pulled it open with a flourish. “God, Brooke is such a closeted flirt. Look at all this lace. She won’t mind if I borrow something, will she?” Garrett looked nervous. “Maisie, don’t. If she finds out, she’ll blow up. You know her temper.” Maisie ignored him, sliding a sheer negligee over her shoulders. “Let her. I’ll put it back before she even stirs. I want her clothes, Garrett… and I want her man, too.” She jumped onto Garrett’s back, whispering into his ear, “Actually, I prefer sleeping with nothing on. Is that okay, Uncle?” Garrett’s ears turned bright red. He glanced one last time at my “sleeping” form, his face a mask of conflict and desire, before carrying her out and closing the door. The moment the latch clicked, a single, hot tear tracked down my temple. It was her. The girl on the livestream. It had been Maisie all along. I didn’t sleep a wink. At 6:00 AM, Garrett slid back into bed beside me, radiating the scent of Maisie’s floral perfume. He kissed the corner of my mouth. “I love you, Brooke.” The bile rose in my throat. I nearly vomited on him right then and there. At 8:00 AM, I walked downstairs, the dark circles under my eyes heavy enough to feel. Maisie was in the kitchen, glowing with energy, stirring a pot of steel-cut oats. “Brooke! I heard you love honey and cinnamon oats. I got up at six just to make them for you. I felt so bad about the firm… I wanted to do something nice.” Her voice was a sugary poison. I felt a violent shiver run down my spine. “I’m not hungry.” I reached out to gently move her hand away from the bowl she was offering. The next second, the bowl hit the floor with a ceramic crash. Maisie let out a theatrical shriek. “It’s hot! Brooke, why would you push me?!” Garrett, half-dressed, came flying down the stairs. “Brooke! What is wrong with you? I leave the room for five minutes and you’re bullying her?” He grabbed Maisie’s hand and thrust it under the cold tap. “It’s okay, Maisie. I’ve got you.” “Don’t be mad at her, Garrett,” Maisie whimpered, leaning her head on his shoulder. “It’s my fault. I’m just… so sore and exhausted from last night. I was clumsy. My legs felt like jelly.” Garrett’s face flushed deep crimson. “If you’re that tired, you shouldn’t be standing. Come here.” He swept her up into a bridal carry. As they reached the stairs, they didn’t even bother to lower their voices. “Garrett, you’re so mean to her. What if she doesn’t marry you next week?” Garrett let out a ragged breath. “Please. She wouldn’t dare.” “We’ve been together seven years. She’s obsessed with me. She has nowhere else to go.” I watched them go, my eyes finally dampening. Seven years ago, he was my mountain guide on a trek through the Grand Tetons. We got caught in an avalanche. In that moment, he defied every human instinct for self-preservation and threw his body over mine. When he woke up in the hospital, the first thing he said was, “You’re mine. I’ll keep you safe forever.” I had been so swept away that I walked away from a pre-arranged family merger, a life of high-society security, just to be with him. Seven years later, the rugged guide was the CEO of a luxury travel empire. We had everything now. But his heart had rotted along the way. If Maisie was more important than me, then it was time I looked for my own version of “forever.” I pulled out my phone and dialed the wedding planner. “About the ceremony next Saturday,” I said, my voice cold and clear. “Change the venue. All of it.” “And… we’re going to need a different groom.” The night before the wedding, I went live one last time. The viewer count exploded—over a hundred thousand people in minutes. My stomach dropped. Something was wrong. The comments were a blur of vitriol: Look at the trending news, Brooke. You’re a fraud. I opened a news app. My name was at the top of the social media scandal board. SHOCKING: FAMOUS ‘VIRTUE’ LAWYER BROOKE VALENTINE REVEALED AS SERIAL BRIBERY OFFENDER. SECRET ABORTION FOR HIGH-PROFILE CLIENT EXPOSED. An hour before my stream, an account claiming to be my “former assistant” had posted a massive thread. It accused me of systemic bribery during my time at the firm. Even worse, it posted a photo of me from two years ago—masked, looking haggard and broken, sitting outside an OB-GYN clinic. The comments were merciless: No wonder her win rate was so high. She was buying judges. Preaches about the law and justice, but she’s just a high-end fixer. Who knows if she paid with money or her body? Probably both. I stood up, phone in hand, and kicked open the door to Garrett’s study. “It wasn’t her,” Garrett said before I could even speak. “Maisie is twenty. She doesn’t have the resources or the malice for a hit job like this. You probably pissed off the wrong person at the firm and they’re coming for blood.” I shoved the phone in his face. “Look at the account handle. This person joined my livestream yesterday. Look at the clip.” I played the recording. The distorted voice was clear: Is it legally problematic if I’m seeing an ‘uncle’—not by blood, obviously? Garrett’s brow furrowed as the clip played. The realization was right there, written in his eyes. But he shook his head, hardening his expression. “You’re so obsessed with winning, Brooke. It’s pathetic.” “You’re actually framing a young girl just to save your own skin? You don’t know Maisie. She’s gentle. She’s kind. She would never drug someone. But you—” He stood up, looking at me with pure disdain. “You’re a criminal defense lawyer. You know every dirty trick in the book. You’ve probably been planning this ‘scandal’ for months just to make her look like a villain.” I stood there, paralyzed. A sharp, acidic burn rose in my throat. “You think I would destroy my own career? My own reputation? Just to spite her?” I tried to breathe, but the air felt like shards of glass. He hadn’t just broken my heart; he was trying to erase my soul. My phone buzzed. It was the wedding coordinator. “Brooke, we’ve seen the news. About tomorrow… is the ceremony still on?” I looked Garrett dead in the eye. “Yes. Everything is proceeding as planned.” Garrett leaned back in his chair and chuckled. “You really are desperate to marry me, aren’t you? Too bad.” He dragged out the words. “You’ve spent so much time attacking my Maisie that you deserve a lesson. Don’t expect me to show up on time tomorrow. Maybe I won’t show up at all.” A smirk touched my lips. “Suit yourself.” On my way out, I passed Maisie in the hall. She raised an eyebrow, her face full of triumph. “Oh, Auntie. Going out to try and fix the ‘leaks’? Honestly, you should just admit it. The internet has a short memory. In a few months, everyone will forget you ever existed.” “And by then, you’ll have no job, no money, and no name. You’ll just be a housewife, totally dependent on Garrett. I wonder how long his ‘protection’ lasts for a loser like you.” I didn’t give her the satisfaction of a response. I walked out the front door. The wedding was in ten hours. … “Garrett, are you really not going?” Maisie stood before a mirror, her eyes gleaming as she adjusted Garrett’s silk tie. He was already in his tuxedo. “Let her wait.” Garrett pinched her nose playfully. “She went out of her way to frame you. I can’t just forgive that. I’m going to let her sweat. Let her realize who actually holds the power in this relationship.” Maisie wrapped her arms around his waist. “Garrett… after you’re married, will you still love me best?” “Always. I promised your father.” “Then… why can’t you just marry me?” She looked up at him, her lips parted. Garrett stiffened slightly, then gently pushed her back. “Maisie, don’t be silly. You’re family. I sleep in your room because you’re scared, that’s all. It’s… different.” He checked the gold watch on his wrist and picked up a bouquet of white roses. “Okay. It’s been two hours. That’s enough of a lesson. Let’s go.” When they arrived at the cathedral, Garrett stepped into the foyer and stopped dead. The place was empty. He grabbed a wandering janitor by the shoulder. “Where is everyone? Where’s the Valentine-Miller wedding?” The man looked at him like he was insane. “Mister, you’ve got the wrong day or the wrong place. This hall wasn’t booked for today. It’s empty.” Garrett felt the blood drain from his face. He had booked this venue six months ago. He had paid the deposit himself. How could it be empty? He dialed my number frantically. Busy signal. Over and over. In a fit of rage, he hurled his phone against the marble floor, shattering it into pieces. Seeing his meltdown, the janitor pointed upward. “Maybe try the rooftop garden? There’s a huge wedding happening up there. Started a while ago. Looks real fancy.” I had always been the one with the money. I had planned every detail of this day. Garrett felt a surge of relief. She moved it to the rooftop. Of course. She wanted a better view. He sprinted up the stairs. Halfway up, he collided with me. I was in my full Vera Wang gown, radiant and composed. The moment he saw me, he exploded. “Brooke! What the hell is wrong with you? Changing the venue without telling me? Do you have any idea how many people are waiting?” I didn’t say a word. I didn’t have to. From behind me, Callum walked forward and swept me into his arms.

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My wife had barely boarded her international flight when my phone vibrated with a banking notification. Incoming Transfer: $1,000,000.00. The sheer volume of the number was jarring enough, but it was the attached memo that slid into my ribs like a blade of ice. “This is my final compensation to you. From here on out, we go our separate ways. I’m moving overseas with her to start over.” My hand began to shake, the phone suddenly heavy and foreign in my grip. This wasn’t Norah. My Norah was grounded, relentlessly loyal. Even if her heart had somehow wandered, she was the kind of woman who would sit me down at our kitchen table, look me dead in the eye, and break me with the honest truth. Before I could even process the shock, the doorbell rang. A courier dropped an anonymous package on my porch and vanished. The moment I tore through the brown paper, the air evacuated my lungs. Inside was a stack of glossy photographs. My wife. And another woman. I recognized the stranger. Her name was Val. In the pictures, they were tangled together, Norah’s face lit up with a brilliant, breathless smile I hadn’t seen in years. But it was the very last photo that made the blood freeze in my veins. The background wasn’t a restaurant or a hotel room. It was the distinct, curved interior of an airplane cabin. A horrific, suffocating realization violently forced its way into my mind. I didn’t think. I just grabbed my phone and dialed 911. “I need to report a crime,” I gasped out, the words tasting like ash. “There’s a body on American Airlines Flight 3218.” The dispatcher’s voice was sharp, urgent, demanding the identity of the victim. A sob ripped its way up my throat, impossible to suppress. “It’s my wife. Norah.” … 1 Norah and I had been married for ten years. To our friends, we were the blueprint. The couple everyone envied. She used to lay with her head on my chest and talk about our future. How, even if we never had kids, we would grow old together, checking into a swanky retirement home, holding hands until the very end. But tonight, that beautiful, quiet illusion of a forever-love had been brutally shattered. Norah had packed for a last-minute business trip. The second her plane was in the air, she wired me a million dollars and left me a digital goodbye. In her message, she confessed to a seven-year betrayal. [Seven years ago, I fell in love with someone else. In that exact moment, I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life with them.] [I am so sorry, Theo. But I can’t fight who I am anymore.] She was giving me her entire life savings as a parting gift, a severance package for a decade of marriage. The message was absolute. Cold. Final. The moment she crossed international airspace, she and her lover were going to get married abroad. She left me no room to beg. No room to fight for her. Ten years of breathing the same air, and seventy percent of it had been built on a lie. I sat in the dead-silent living room. My heart was hammering against my sternum like a trapped bird, but my eyes were bone-dry. She had timed it perfectly. The flight was already in the air. She was gone, leaving me alone with a suffocating, toxic rage. The anger boiled over. I surged to my feet, marched into our bedroom, and ripped our massive, custom-framed wedding portrait off the wall. It hit the hardwood floor with a deafening crash, glass spiderwebbing over our smiling faces. I flicked open my lighter. The flame danced, inches away from the torn canvas of the photo, when the frantic pounding on the front door interrupted me. By the time I yanked the door open, the porch was empty. Just the anonymous package sitting innocently on the welcome mat. A memory flashed. Last year, Norah had pulled the exact same stunt. I had opened a mysterious box on the porch, and she had jumped out from behind the rhododendron bush, wrapping her arms around my neck with a bouquet of hydrangeas. “Happy ninth anniversary, husband!” For a split second, looking at this new box, a desperate, pathetic hope flared in my chest. Was this a prank? Did she remember today was our ten-year anniversary? Was she hiding in the shadows right now? With trembling fingers, I tore the package open. But there were no flowers. Only evidence. A handsome, sharp-jawed woman, pressing against my wife in a dozen different, intimate poses. Browsing boutiques. Sharing a candlelit dinner. Tangled up in the back seat of the SUV we shared… The photos slipped through my fingers, revealing the final Polaroid. The two of them, cheeks pressed together in the first-class cabin. Written in black marker across the bottom: [Norah & Val. Forever.] In the photo, Val’s eyes were locked dead on the camera. Smirking right at me. A victor’s gloat. It was designed to humiliate me. To provoke me. But as I stared at the harsh lighting of that airplane cabin, my rage suddenly evaporated, replaced by a cold, primal terror. Fighting the panic rising in my throat, I called the police. “I need to report a concealed corpse on Flight 3218!” I shouted into the receiver. “The victim… is my wife.” 2 The police drilled me for details, and I answered every question with rapid-fire precision. But when they asked for concrete proof, I choked. Silence stretched over the line. Every ticking second meant the plane was getting closer to the border. The dispatcher’s tone turned severe. They warned me that forcing a commercial international flight to turn around carried devastating federal consequences. If this was a hoax, the fines alone would exceed a million dollars. I could face serious prison time for inciting a panic and grounding a multi-million dollar route. I pressed my hand against my chest, feeling my erratic heartbeat. For one agonizing second, doubt crept in. If I was wrong—if I was just a paranoid, jealous husband—my life would be over. I’d be bankrupt and behind bars. But I looked down at the Polaroid again. Something about it… the lighting, the stiffness in Norah’s shoulders. The doubt vanished. My voice trembled, but it was forged in steel. “I am fully prepared to accept the consequences. Ground the plane. I need the truth.” While the police mobilized, I grabbed Norah’s work briefcase and bolted for my car, speeding toward the airport. Time was bleeding out. At every red light, I frantically dug through her files. My gut was screaming at me. This sudden “business trip” had to be connected to the massive expose she had been obsessed with. Norah was the senior investigative editor at The Tribune. For months, she had been quietly reopening a cold case—a string of grotesque serial murders from a decade ago. This trip was supposed to be a covert meeting with the sole surviving witness. Everything in her notes looked perfectly normal. I flipped through pages of rigid schedules and meticulously documented interviews. Norah was a creature of absolute habit. Her timeline left zero room for a secret, seven-year, globe-trotting affair. Even without physical proof, the idea that she had been lying to me hurt. It hurt like hell. I tossed the files onto the passenger seat, closed my eyes, and let out a ragged sigh. Suddenly, a dog darted into the street. I slammed on the brakes. I jolted forward, the seatbelt biting into my collarbone. The briefcase tumbled off the seat, spilling papers all over the floorboards. As I scrambled to gather the mess, my fingers brushed against the false bottom of her leather portfolio. A small, yellow sticky note fluttered out. It was Norah’s handwriting. Frantic. Rushed. [Flight pushed back a day. She has to be on this plane!] Every hair on the back of my neck stood up. The air in the car turned to ice. I ignored the blaring horns of the traffic jam at the airport entrance, abandoned my car at the curb, and sprinted through the sliding glass doors toward the international arrivals gate. The PA system chimed. The police had successfully forced the airline to return. I sat in the holding area, gripping Norah’s files so hard my knuckles were white. Every passing minute was a physical torture. I wiped my sweating palms on my jeans, my eyes locked on the secure exit doors. Finally, just as the sun began to dip below the terminal windows, the announcement echoed: “Flight 3218 has arrived at the gate.” I shot out of my chair, pressing myself against the glass partition. As the passengers were escorted out by federal agents, I spotted Detective Vargas leading the pack. I shoved my way forward, practically begging her. “Detective Vargas! Please, you have to investigate my wife’s murder!” I shoved the files toward her. “This is the cold case she was working on. It has to be connected!” Vargas didn’t even look at the papers. She pushed my hands away and pointed toward the back of the passenger line. “Mr. Davis,” she said, her voice dripping with exhaustion and disgust. “Your wife is right there, at the end of the line.” “And as for you,” she continued, “do you have any idea what you’ve just done? You grounded an international flight, terrified 113 passengers, and wasted federal resources. Do you have a lawyer?” I whipped my head around. My eyes locked onto the woman at the back of the line. She was wearing Norah’s beige trench coat. Her hair was styled just like Norah’s. And her fingers were intertwined with Val’s. My voice came out as a hollow, weightless whisper. “That’s impossible. That’s not my wife.” Because the passenger manifest for this flight… was 114. 3 Where was the missing passenger? That question clawed at my brain, expanding into a dark, bottomless abyss of terror. Seeing Detective Vargas turn to walk away, I grabbed her sleeve, desperate. “Please! Check the headcount again! Someone is missing!” Vargas yanked her arm free, her patience completely exhausted. “We did check, Mr. Davis. One passenger canceled at the absolute last second. The actual onboard count was 113. It matches perfectly.” She stepped closer, her tone lowering into a legal threat. “I don’t care about your messy divorce. But you don’t get to use the federal government to stage a domestic dispute. You’re looking at a million dollars in airline restitution, and I will personally see to it that you’re charged.” Her words hit me like a bucket of ice water. I was cornered. If I couldn’t prove the woman standing ten feet away wasn’t my wife, I was going to prison. I forced myself to breathe. To focus. I looked at the woman in the trench coat. She wore Norah’s wire-rimmed glasses. She stood with Norah’s stiff, slightly awkward posture. When a TSA agent asked her a question, she nervously pushed the bridge of her glasses up with her index finger—an exact mirror of Norah’s tic. The only difference was the way she clung to Val’s hand. I took a step forward, staring relentlessly into “Norah’s” face, hunting for the seams of the lie. Suddenly, my view was blocked. Val stepped between us, puffing out his chest with a nasty, mocking smile. “Hey, buddy. You should be begging the cops for a plea deal right now, not staring at my fiancée.” He crossed his arms, oozing arrogance. Behind him, the woman with Norah’s gentle eyes looked at me. But her gaze was a void. Pure, unadulterated ice. It took me a second to process. Val. The “handsome woman” from the photos was standing in front of me presenting as a man. The gender-bending disguise was deliberate, meant to confuse and disorient. I looked Val up and down, and a dark, hysterical laugh bubbled out of my chest. “You aren’t Val,” I said. “And she isn’t my wife.” Val’s jaw clenched. He lunged forward, raising a fist. I didn’t flinch. I just glanced over his shoulder at the armed federal air marshals. Val froze, lowering his hand but pointing a harsh finger at my chest. “You’re a real piece of work, Theo. Keep talking crazy. Let’s see how confident you are when the feds hand you that million-dollar invoice.” My fingernails dug crescent moons into my palms. Just then, the forensics team descended the jet bridge, shaking their heads at Vargas. Four officers, plus a K-9 unit. They found nothing. No body. No blood. Nothing. The narrative was cementing: I was just a psychotic, jealous husband who called in a bomb threat-level hoax to catch his wife cheating. Vargas glared at me. The passengers, realizing why their flight had been grounded, turned venomous. “Are you kidding me?! This psycho ruined our trip because he’s insecure?!” “I have a thirty-million-dollar merger waiting in London! I’m suing this lunatic!” The collective hatred of the room pressed down on me like a physical weight. I couldn’t breathe. Then, an electric jolt of realization hit me. The fake Norah hadn’t spoken a single word yet. If I could just get her to talk, I could prove it. I knew the cadence of my wife’s voice, the rhythm of her breathing. My heart hammering against my ribs, I shoved past Val and stood right in front of her. “Norah—” My voice cracked, the grief suddenly swelling in my throat. She cut me off. The voice was pitched perfectly, but the tone was dripping in a haughty, arrogant cruelty my wife had never possessed. “Theo, I didn’t want to do this here. The reason I wouldn’t have children with you all these years… is because Val and I already have a son. He’s six.” She tilted her head, enjoying the knife twist. “You wanted to force my hand? Fine. Are you satisfied now?” The sheer audacity of the lie hit me like a physical blow. I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. It was a broken, breathy sound. I reached up to wipe my face and realized my cheeks were soaked with tears. “Is that why you wired me a million dollars?” I asked softly. “As a… divorce settlement?” I expected her to maintain that flawless, arrogant mask. But for a fraction of a second, the muscles around her eyes tightened. A micro-hesitation. “…Yes.” In that single, quiet moment, a strange, terrible peace washed over me. The tears were still falling, but the panic was gone. If she was the one who wired the money, she wouldn’t have hesitated. She didn’t know what I was talking about. My wife was still on that plane. 4 Seeing the ground crew preparing to tow the plane to the hangar, I sprinted toward Vargas, practically throwing myself in her path. “Detective Vargas, I need you to weigh the aircraft! Please!” It was a theoretical forensic tactic Norah had explained to me years ago over dinner, while researching cartel smuggling routes. Vargas recoiled, her face flushed with anger. “Mr. Davis, this is a federal tarmac, not your personal theater! Step back!” The crowd groaned, the whispers turning into vicious insults. “If I had a husband acting like this, I’d fake my own death too.” “Arrest him already! He’s unhinged.” But I didn’t care. I looked wildly around and locked eyes with the forensic lead, Dr. Rossi. “Dr. Rossi! Check the gross takeoff weight versus the landing weight minus fuel burn!” Rossi paused. She looked at me, then turned to Vargas. “Actually… that’s a highly specific metric. It’s worth a check.” Reluctantly, the plane was towed onto the load cells. I stood in the terminal, my shirt plastered to my back with cold sweat. The adrenaline was making my vision blur. Minutes felt like hours. Finally, a technician jogged over, holding a tablet. “The aircraft is heavy,” he said, looking bewildered. “Factoring in fuel consumption… the plane is exactly 140 pounds heavier than it should be.” The weight of an adult human being. A deadly silence fell over the gate. Vargas’s annoyance vanished, replaced by the sharp, terrifying focus of a homicide detective. She grabbed the K-9 leash and marched back down the jet bridge herself. Dr. Rossi motioned for me to follow her toward the imposter. “We’re running biometric scans on-site,” she told the woman. They brought out the mobile scanners. Facial recognition. Retinal scans. Fingerprints. The machine beeped. Green light. Green light. Green light. It was a perfect biometric match. My stomach plummeted into an endless freefall. The crowd, which had gone quiet, immediately reignited. “See? He’s making it up!” “Maybe the ‘body’ on the plane is just him threatening her! Lock him up!” The conspiracy theories mutated in real-time. Suddenly, I wasn’t just a sad husband; I was a dangerous predator. The passengers backed away from me. Dr. Rossi remained clinical. She pulled out the final piece of equipment—a next-gen EEG polygraph headset. The woman sat down calmly and let Rossi attach the nodes to her temples. Rossi asked the baseline questions. Name. DOB. Purpose of travel. The woman answered flawlessly. The monitor held steady in the green. Then, Rossi asked about the million-dollar transfer. Again, I saw that micro-fraction of a pause. “I felt a moral obligation as his wife to provide for him.” I stared at the monitor, praying for a spike. The system processed the brainwaves… and flashed a steady, quiet green. The collective glare of the terminal felt like a physical heat. It was over. I looked crazy. The fake Norah stood up, smoothing her trench coat with delicate fingers. Val wrapped an arm around her, sneering at me. “The only one who needs a lie detector is you, man. If you hadn’t pulled this psycho stunt, my fiancée and I would be halfway to the Maldives.” The passengers started shouting at the airline staff, demanding my immediate arrest. I ground my teeth together, tasting copper. “Hook me up,” I told Dr. Rossi. I sat in the chair. The nodes were cold against my skin. The crowd watched, waiting for me to fail. I breathed through the panic, answering every question with cold, hard truth. The machine glowed green. Dr. Rossi’s face paled. If the woman wasn’t lying, and I wasn’t lying… what was the truth? Rossi pulled out the Polaroid of the two women. “Mr. Davis, why did this specific photo lead you to the conclusion that your wife was murdered, rather than just having an affair?” I closed my eyes. I reached into my bag and pulled out a battered, leather-bound notebook from seven years ago. I leaned in and whispered a single sentence into Dr. Rossi’s ear. The moment the machine registered my truth in brilliant green, Dr. Rossi bolted upright and pointed directly at the couple holding hands by the gate. “Arrest them right now! Nobody moves!”

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My husband, Alexander Vance, had recently taken in a not-so-obedient young woman. He spoiled her so much that she forgot her place and actually came to cause trouble right in front of me. The young woman’s eyes were bright, and she stubbornly refused to call me Mrs. Vance. “Miss Sterling, in love, the one who isn’t loved is the real third wheel.” I smiled, reached out a slender finger, and forcefully yanked the pearl earring from her ear. Drops of blood instantly bloomed on her earlobe. Behind us, Alexander appeared, his jaw tight. Chloe just stood there with red eyes: “Mr. Vance, please don’t be angry. Miss Sterling probably didn’t mean it.” Alexander just took my hand, blowing on it gently: “Abby, does your hand hurt?” Chloe stared at him in disbelief as a large tear rolled down her cheek. And I just offered a faint smile. 1 Chloe was taken away by Alexander’s secretary. She seemed to have a thousand things to say, probably not understanding how the man who had been somewhat gentle with her yesterday could turn like this today. Alexander’s affection for me wasn’t entirely fake. He noticed a faint, barely visible mark on my finger and kissed it repeatedly. “Abby, a woman like that isn’t worth dirtying your own hands,” he said, a hint of disapproval in his dark eyes. I looked at Alexander, my expression normal. I wasn’t surprised by his actions. We were childhood sweethearts, growing up together. By nature, he wasn’t a particularly docile person, yet he was always tolerant and considerate of me. In prominent, old-money families like ours, rotting marriages are everywhere. But he was the one I had actively chosen. Even when we got married, my best friend, Serena, was endlessly envious. After all, when people reach a certain status, they view basic moral constraints with cold indifference. Alexander was genuine toward me. Serena said that in elite families, fidelity is often viewed as a weakness. When wealth expands to a certain level, expecting a man to remain forever faithful is truly rare. For many arranged marriages between powerful families, maintaining a facade of peace is already an achievement. But Serena had seen how Alexander served me food, seen how he unknowingly smiled just at the mention of me. He truly cared for me. But his care wasn’t one hundred percent. In his position, not having beautiful women swarming around him would be abnormal. The few “understanding companions” Alexander occasionally kept were nothing in Serena’s eyes. It was just too common. It seems that when corruption becomes the norm, innocence becomes the anomaly. 2 Dinner was cooked by Alexander. For a young, successful man like him to be willing to cook was truly rare. Even my usually picky mother was full of praise. They all seemed to envy me for having the vast majority of Alexander’s love and his complete tolerance. I only had to frown, and Alexander could make whatever I disliked disappear forever. He carefully cut my steak for me, and I lowered my eyes, taking small, slow bites. His phone kept lighting up. I instinctively reached for it, and he, thinking I wanted the wine from his glass, thoughtfully handed it to me. When he saw I was reaching for his phone, he just smiled, picked up a napkin to wipe his hands, and then handed the phone to me. “Wife, it’s rare for you to check up on me.” The smile in his eyes was genuine. Alexander never really hid his “understanding companions” from me. It was probably because the men around him behaved far worse than he did. He gave his wife total respect, consideration, and always put me first. Moreover, even my own parents each had their own separate lives outside. I knew for a fact they had several illegitimate children. My mother didn’t have a son, so she chose a relatively decent illegitimate son to inherit the family business. He respected my mother and was quite protective of me, his sister. In old-money families, fidelity is a joke. No matter how gentle the surface appears, the bones are rotten. I unlocked the phone. I couldn’t find Chloe anymore. I understood; after offending me, Alexander wouldn’t let her off easily. Scrolling further down, I saw Mia. She had been by Alexander’s side for a while now. I had heard of her—a submissive, obedient type. When she saw me, she acted like a frightened quail. She kept her head as low as possible. Alexander was very satisfied with her tactfulness, so she was getting good resources now. A few days ago, I even saw her at a jewelry exhibition. I attended as Mrs. Vance. Alexander sat to my right, and Mia, wearing a diamond necklace, sat opposite us, essentially displaying that necklace to me. I glanced at it a couple of times, and Alexander bought it. Mia thanked me softly. She was very tactful, didn’t stay long, and certainly didn’t flaunt her status in my face. That night, Alexander even sensed my displeasure and whispered in my ear, “Don’t like her? I’ll swap her for someone else right away.” The affection in his eyes was real. Whatever I disliked, he could discard. I smiled, my eyes curving. “Alexander, aren’t you being a bit too sensitive?” Ever since we were little, I called him by his full name. When we were young, I would sit behind him on his bike, the wind blowing his shirt like a sail, and I would press my cheek against his back. It smelled like sunshine. It was the fluttering of a young heart. It was the budding of love. Alexander patted my hand. The lighting was dim, but his tone was sweet: “Abby, I often think about the path we’ve walked together.” I didn’t say a word, just stared silently into the distance. 3 That night, Alexander didn’t sleep beside me. He said he had business at the company. I properly straightened his clothes and watched him leave. Not long after, Serena called: “Hey, I think I saw your Alexander. He’s with my bastard husband. I heard they ordered quite a few escorts, but don’t worry, your Alexander doesn’t play that wild; it’s usually just one-on-one.” In the dark, I turned on the lamp: “And how many male models did you order?” Serena burst out laughing: “I used to invite you out, but you’re an outlier. You hate this stuff and don’t understand the fun of it. Abby, you need to broaden your horizons. It’s better when husbands and wives play together. If one stays strictly faithful, it just leads to frustration.” I remained silent. Her voice continued: “Abby, I know what you want. But you have to realize, when you reach a certain level, women swarm these men, and they’re surrounded by flattery and sycophants. It’s too hard to stay clean.” “I haven’t stayed clean,” I said quietly. Serena let out a sound of surprise, sounding very interested: “You’re keeping someone too? Who is it? Tell me.” I was just about to speak when I heard the sound of the front door unlocking. I smiled and hung up the phone abruptly. 4 I stood at the landing of the stairs, looking toward the door. Elias, dressed in simple, clean clothes, familiarly turned on the light, took off his shoes, and walked inside. The young man had gentle features. Seeing me, he offered a shy smile and made a gesture with his hands. I met Elias on a rainy day, right after I found out Alexander was seeing someone else. I was sitting on the bench at a bus stop, the rain mixing with my tears, dripping down continuously. When you love someone, you use all your strength, leading to possessiveness. Suddenly hearing about his infidelity, no matter how good your temper usually is, jealousy spreads through your entire body. But I had seen too much of this. My friends, relatives, and parents had all set very bad examples for me. When they talked about these things, they didn’t even take it to heart. For a long time, I felt like I was the freak. Even Serena, who understood me best, looked at my depressed state with sheer bewilderment: “Abby, the Vance family is valued at over thirty billion, and Alexander is the standout among them. With a status like that, it’s unrealistic for him not to have a few women hovering around.” Everyone told me to relax, that Alexander was just lacking in fidelity, and that it was a harmless flaw. But I suppressed my pain, not daring to show it, because I had seen how pathetic my mother looked. Vases shattered all over the floor; the torment made my usually gentle mother somewhat unhinged. Later, she frequently sought comfort outside too. At first, it was out of revenge, but later, it became an addiction. With a look of lust in her eyes, she told me that when you can’t fight it, you just have to go with the flow. Elias, holding an umbrella, appeared in front of me. The young man was very tall, his knuckles smooth like jade. When he smiled, dimples appeared on his cheeks. I looked up and told him to get lost. But he seemed not to hear me. He just tried to hand the umbrella to me. I poured all my unvented anger into the most vicious words directed at this stranger, but Elias only looked at me with a calm face. His eyes were as vast and accepting as the ocean. After a long while, he looked down at his phone and typed a sentence: [I’m sorry, I sent my hearing aids in for repair today. I can’t hear what you’re saying.] He smiled, his eyes curving like crescent moons. The words got stuck in my throat, unable to go up or down. I felt ashamed. I had actually vented my anger on such a gentle boy. We met again in a university lecture hall. I was invited as a successful alumna to speak about the ups and downs of life. During the ribbon-cutting ceremony, I saw him. As an outstanding student, he took a photo with me. Surprisingly, when I received that photo from my assistant, the boy’s features were gentle, radiant like stars and the moon. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I had my assistant send him a pair of high-end hearing aids. 5 While I was lost in thought, Elias, wearing a backpack, tapped on my car window. My assistant looked displeased, but I told her to shut up. The young man smiled and handed the expensive hearing aids back to me: “Hello, this belongs to you.” He looked at me calmly, and in that moment, I suddenly realized he had already forgotten that I was the pathetic woman in the heavy rain that day. After that, I frequently appeared near Elias. At first, I didn’t plan to do anything. It was probably just because people this pure rarely appeared around me. Maybe when money reaches a certain amount, life becomes truly boring, and you want to find some amusement. During that time, Alexander found his second “understanding companion”—a girl who dared to love and hate, bright and sunny. He was probably just enjoying the novelty of it and was so caught up in his pleasure that I rarely saw him. He even slipped up in front of me several times. I suppressed my anger, eating and watching TV in silence. Alexander would pat my hair: “But Abby, the path we’ve walked together is ultimately different.” Of course, I understood the meaning of those words, and I knew he meant it sincerely. After all, my relationship with him was indeed different. I never doubted his sincerity toward me. We were from equally matched families, both proud. In a secluded grassy field, I had spontaneously kicked off my heels and danced under the moonlight. He good-naturedly held my shoes, his eyes filled with nothing but my image. At our grand wedding, he said he would love me forever, but he didn’t say he would only love me forever. 6 Elias was reserved and strictly followed the rules. Before I even realized it, I suddenly noticed he had developed feelings for me. Because every time I spoke to him, the tips of his ears would turn bright red. Sometimes I couldn’t help but laugh and asked if he wanted to listen to me play the piano. At that time, the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. On the tree-lined campus path, students walked in twos and threes. I walked a long way with him. The hill behind the school was next to the train tracks, and cargo trains always passed by. That day, under the setting sun, the light flowed across his cheeks. Behind us was the deafening roar of the train. Elias touched my hand, seemingly afraid I would be startled by the noise. He reached out and covered my ears. His fingertips were warm. Right at that moment, the boy opened his lips and said a sentence. I asked him what he said, but he didn’t make a sound. Later, sitting in the car as it drove toward the residential enclave, I rested my hand against my forehead and suddenly smiled. Actually, after knowing Elias for a while, I had learned sign language and lip-reading. If I wasn’t mistaken, what Elias said then was, “I like you.” The boy’s love was earnest, but I felt despicable. He didn’t even know I was already married. Someone like him, bright and clean as the moon, could never understand the unspoken games played within elite families. 7 For a long time, Elias knew I suffered from insomnia at night, so he would take a cab to my house to read me stories. I didn’t cross any physical boundaries with him. Sometimes I even felt a bit self-destructive. I didn’t erase Alexander’s presence from the house, but interestingly enough, Alexander’s footprint in this house wasn’t that significant anyway. He was probably having too much fun outside, and later, while I maintained a calm facade, I had already distanced myself emotionally. Just like today, Elias read me a fairy tale as usual. I was raised by nannies when I was little. My parents’ love was there, but it didn’t feel deep. The classmates at my international school started competing with each other at age eight. My overly premature entry into adult life meant I wasn’t really exposed to fairy tales. I blinked and asked Elias: “So, the huntsman wanted to kill Snow White, but in the end, he let her go. Would Snow White forgive the huntsman?” He was used to answering my questions every day, so he wasn’t surprised. Without a moment’s hesitation, he answered directly: “She would.” “Why?” I asked him back. “If I were Snow White, I would never forgive. The person who wanted to kill me should burn in hell forever, never seeing the light of day.” “But why shouldn’t someone who realizes their mistake and turns back be forgiven?” he said from half a meter away. I don’t know what I was thinking in that moment. Since birth, I had never really cared about anything involving money. People around me flattered me, sought my favor; I had my own circle. Some people behaved recklessly, wildly, and even played some very intense games. Although I didn’t participate, I had seen so much of it that for a long time, I was used to it. I suddenly stood up, tilted my head, and kissed Elias on the cheek. His snow-white skin instantly turned beet red. His eyes shone with unshed tears as he blinked his large eyes: “Abby… Abby…” My chest filled with a warm sensation: “Elias, do you like me?” Even the boy’s neck turned bright red. 8 I didn’t expect Alexander to rush back. At that moment, I was wearing a loose sweater, reading a book under the lamp. He first scanned the room. Finding no one else, he relaxed and walked over to me. He casually took off his watch, his voice gentle: “Sorry, Abby. I didn’t tell you the truth. I was actually with Henry today.” Henry was Serena’s husband. I didn’t like him very much. Simply because Serena once had someone she was interested in, but it was an arranged marriage, and personal feelings were the least important factor. Henry had dealt with that man, and the man’s outcome wasn’t great; he fled abroad. When he left, he stubbornly asked Henry to treat Serena well, saying Serena was the best girl in the world and needed to be protected completely. That man never blamed Serena, nor did he blame Henry. When he left, he only took a book Serena had given him. Later, Serena didn’t have a very good life. Henry was arrogant and rebellious. Marrying her, aside from business needs, was also about showing her who was boss. Henry’s humiliation never made Serena cry. But I saw her in her vulnerable moments. On the day the man left, she hid in her room alone, looking up at the sky. The corners of her eyes were red. It seemed that character flaws weren’t a big deal among the men in their circle. Even if Alexander knew I was cold toward Henry, he wouldn’t say it to my face, but internally he felt Henry did nothing wrong. Many things, once they become commonplace, are taken for granted. I flipped through the fairy tale book and smiled faintly: “It’s okay. It’s just business.” Alexander reached out to touch my forehead, but pulled back because he was cold and smelled of perfume. “I’ll go take a shower first.” The smile was still on my face as he turned around. But when I saw the half-peeled orange on the cabinet, a sudden chill hit me. A massive shadow loomed over me, and I looked up. Alexander’s face looked normal; I couldn’t tell if he was happy or angry. “Abby, I remember there were no oranges in the house when I left. Did you tell someone to go out and buy them?” Even though he knew I didn’t like oranges, which was why they never appeared in the house, he still considerately gave me an excuse. I only needed to play along, and on the surface, we would probably go back to our old routine. “Alexander, when Serena called me, you heard it, didn’t you?” I put down the book and looked straight at his face. “That’s why you came back so suddenly.” Serena probably thought my comment about “not staying clean” was just a joke, because she couldn’t imagine someone as rigid as me keeping someone on the side. But Alexander knew I wasn’t the type to make that kind of joke. So he left the party, braving the wind and rain to come back. Hearing my words, Alexander’s eyes darkened, looking like spilled ink. 9 He casually tossed the orange onto the floor, his back exuding a chilling aura. I propped my head on my hand and pulled the blanket over me. Thunder rumbled, and lightning flashed. It made both our faces look a bit pale. After a long time, Alexander turned back around. He had reined in all his emotions and silently opened his cigarette case, asking if I minded. He rarely touched these things because he had incredible self-control and despised such crutches. Outside, the rain poured down. I nodded. He lit a cigarette, put it in his mouth, took a deep drag that burned half the cigarette, and finally calmed the suffocating anger in his chest. He asked me when I started seeing someone else. I answered truthfully. Alexander frowned deeply. After a while, he took a deep breath: “Abby, I thought you wouldn’t.” Why was Alexander so certain I wouldn’t play these high-society games? It was because I had once stumbled upon my mother cheating. The people in our families always seemed bound by interests; love was just icing on the cake, something dispensable. But my mother was different. She seemed to truly love my father. Many people teased her for being a hopeless romantic, and it was my mother who made me feel that love was sacred. But in the end, even my mother was blinded by this flashy world. She told me: “Fidelity is the least important thing, because we live in the center of a vortex.” But my mother’s courage back then remained etched in my heart. I thought someone always had to do what they believed was right. Alexander knew me too well. He knew I loved him. I was different from everyone else—nicely put, I was principled; bluntly put, I was stubborn. So, the fact that I had someone on the side caught him completely off guard. 10 But Alexander was still Alexander. He reached out and placed his hand over mine, feeling my pulse: “Abby, when are you going to let me meet this person? Let me vet him for you.” I pretended not to hear the probe in his words—whether the person I was keeping was true love or just to stave off loneliness. If it was the latter, he might breathe a sigh of relief. He probably hoped I would say those words voluntarily. After all, I had said long ago that we were childhood sweethearts, comrades, the two people who understood each other best in this world. Alexander wasn’t stupid. During those years when his family was unstable, I stayed completely devoted to him. My love for him was unquestionable, a pure sincerity unmatched by any of his later confidantes. I had long said that on the path Alexander and I walked in our youth, there would be no latecomers. What they saw was CEO Vance, the successful man. But once, he was just a young boy whose ears turned red over a declaration of love. “Alexander, you don’t need to test me. Let’s get a divorce.” I finally managed to say these words smoothly. It took me a full five years to reach this day. Alexander will probably never know how pathetic and heartbroken I was when his first “understanding companion” appeared. The girl’s smile was bright, Alexander was indulgent and doting, his brow relaxed in a way I had never seen. Novelty is always lethal. Probably out of despair, I fell severely ill, lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV. I listened to the nurses gossiping. They talked about how romantic Alexander was, buying 8,888 roses just to make a woman smile. They seemed to forget the existence of Mrs. Vance, as if in a tabloid scandal, the latecomer is always the pitiful one. Alexander was so caught up in his pleasure then, completely lacking his later calm indifference, that he failed to notice my abnormal state several times. I was proud by nature and absolutely refused to show weakness. But that night, my tears soaked the blanket. I felt a suffocating tightness in my chest that was agonizing and despairing. For a moment, I even thought I would die. So I called Alexander. It was a girl who answered, telling me Alexander was in the shower. She asked what Mrs. Vance needed. Probably because the illness was tormenting me, my attitude was very poor. I ordered her to give the phone to Alexander. The girl didn’t listen; she just cried. Alexander coaxed her and asked who was on the phone. When she told him, Alexander took the phone in silence. At that moment, I actually still held a glimmer of hope. Love really tortures the heart. I could feel my heart being lifted high. But he only told me: “Abby, you can’t be like Serena.” Serena and Henry’s situation was very ugly at the time, causing Henry a lot of grief. Serena couldn’t touch Henry, so she went after the women around him. During that time, whoever messed with Henry was unlucky. Everyone in the circle knew about it, and Henry lost a lot of face. Instantly, I felt my heart being grabbed by someone, carelessly tossed from a high building, shattering into pieces. At night, the tears that flowed to my lips were bitter. Probably realizing his words were too harsh, he softened his voice and asked me: “Abby, are you afraid of the dark?” The girl beside him let out a soft laugh and whined coquettishly. I hid the phone under my pillow. I didn’t say another word. For the first time, I truly realized that Alexander was a good childhood friend, a good strategist. But I made a fatal mistake. I thought our shallow affection could defy the family’s face and unspoken rules. That night, I wasn’t uncomfortable for long. The nurses soon noticed something was wrong with me, and after a frantic rescue, I barely kept my life. A few days later, Alexander messaged and called me, saying he drank too much that night and took out his frustration over Henry’s complaints on me. At that time, I looked down at the IV in my hand, leaned against the soft pillow, and watched the leaves slowly falling outside the window. “Alexander, I am Abby Sterling, the eldest daughter of the Sterling family. I know deeply that the bond between us isn’t just you and me. It’s billion-dollar collaborations, it’s a century of friendship.” I replied submissively. Alexander didn’t say a word. He took a deep breath: “Abby, you seem to have grown up.” I didn’t speak again.

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I was at the boutique that morning, standing before the three-way mirror for the final fitting of my wedding suit. It was a piece I had spent months designing, a labor of love for the day I’d finally marry the woman who had been my entire world for a decade. The bell above the door chimed, and a young man sauntered in. One of the floor assistants leaned toward me, whispering that this customer had already rejected ninety-nine different suits in the last three months. Apparently, he was impossibly high-maintenance, backed by a wealthy, doting fiancée who didn’t mind paying for his endless revisions. As the assistant grumbled about the guy’s pickiness, the man suddenly stopped in his tracks. He pointed directly at me—or rather, at the suit I was wearing. “I want that one,” he said, his voice ringing with the casual entitlement of someone who had never been told ‘no.’ The assistant politely explained that the suit was a bespoke, one-of-a-kind piece belonging to a private client. It wasn’t for sale. Without a word, the man pulled out his phone and made a quick call. Minutes later, the store manager came rushing out, breathless and pale. He informed me that the man’s fiancée had just purchased the entire boutique. They were “insisting” that I hand over my suit to him. “Absolutely not,” I said, my voice steady despite the spike of adrenaline. “I designed this for my own wedding. It’s not a commodity.” The assistant who had been helping me earlier nudged my shoulder, whispering urgently, “Adrian, be careful. That’s the fiancé of Diana Beaumont. You don’t want to be on her bad side. Playing nice could open a lot of doors for your career.” The name Diana Beaumont hit me like a physical blow. My heart skipped a beat, then began to thud painfully against my ribs. If he was Diana Beaumont’s fiancé… then who the hell was I? … He saw the shock written across my face and mistook it for awe. A smug, practiced smile spread across his lips—the look of a man who knew he held all the cards. “You’re a designer, right?” he said, nodding toward my reflection. “Think of it this way: if I wear your work to my wedding, your name will be everywhere by Monday morning. It’s a career-maker.” I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I forced myself to swallow the bile rising in my throat and looked at the manager. “Let me see his contract,” I said, my voice sounding like it belonged to a stranger. The manager hesitated, but after a sharp look from the young man, he handed over the tablet. I scrolled to the final page, my fingers trembling. There, at the bottom, was the signature I’d seen a thousand times. Diana Beaumont. Her elegant, looping script was unmistakable. It was the same handwriting that had filled the margins of my college notebooks. The same hand that had signed our engagement party invitations just months ago. Now, it was here, tethered to a man named Parker. The world turned cold, a sharp, crystalline frost settling into my bones. The reality was as absurd as it was undeniable. My fiancée, Diana, was living a double life. She wasn’t just cheating; she was planning a whole other forever. I felt my knees weaken. I reached for a glass of water on a nearby side table, forcing myself to take a slow sip. I studied Parker. He looked to be in his early twenties, radiating a restless, boyish energy. There was a haunting similarity in the set of his eyes and the curve of his jaw to my own. The realization didn’t bring comfort. It made me feel sick. He was a younger, shinier version of the man I used to be. “Fine,” I said, setting the glass down. “He can have the suit.” Parker grinned, unsurprised. He turned to head toward the dressing rooms, but I reached out and caught his sleeve. “This suit has a very specific silhouette,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “Let me style your hair for you. It needs the right look to really work.” Parker’s private suite was a testament to excess—plush velvet sofas, a fully stocked bar, and rows upon rows of designer labels. He noticed my gaze lingering on the racks. “My fiancée’s doing,” Parker said with a casual shrug. “She says since I spend half my life in here picking out clothes, I might as well be comfortable.” I forced a thin smile. “She sounds very devoted.” Parker arched a brow and sighed, though his smirk betrayed his pride. “She loves throwing money at me, yeah. But she’s always ‘too busy’ to actually show up for the fittings.” The assistant, who had followed us in to help with the pins, chimed in. “Oh, don’t say that, Mr. Parker! Miss Beaumont was here for almost every other session. She must be truly swamped at the office today to miss this one.” Parker beamed at the compliment. “True. She hates being away from me. I’m sure she’s miserable in whatever board meeting she’s stuck in.” The words felt like shards of glass in my chest. I remembered how Diana had been so “checked out” during our own wedding planning. When I asked her about the venue, she’d just say, “Whatever you want, Adrian.” When I booked the photographer for our engagement shoot, she stood us up three times. I had told myself she was just stressed with the merger. I told myself she was doing it all for our future. It wasn’t that she didn’t have the time. She just didn’t have the heart for me. I picked up a curling iron and began to work on Parker’s hair. “So,” Parker asked, looking at me through the mirror. “Was that suit for a client? The staff said it was a ‘not-for-sale’ piece.” I paused, the heat of the iron radiating against my palm. “No,” I said softly. “It was meant for my own wedding.” Parker blinked, looking genuinely sheepish for a fleeting second. “Oh. Man, I’m sorry. That’s… awkward.” He said he was sorry, but there was no move to give the suit back. He tilted his head, his eyes bright and pleading like a spoiled puppy. “It’s just—I’m so incredibly picky, you know? And this is the first thing that’s felt right. You’re clearly talented, though. I’m sure you can whip up something even better for yourself. You’ve got this!” I managed a nod. “It’s fine. I’m in no rush.” As I worked, Parker’s phone buzzed on the vanity. He couldn’t reach it because of the styling, so he hit the speakerphone. “Hey, babe,” he chirped. “Parker, how’s the fitting going?” The voice was a warm honey-pour I knew by heart. It was the voice that used to whisper “Wake up, Adrian,” into my ear every morning when we first moved in together. Back then, she was like a child, full of light, tickling me until we both collapsed into breathless laughter on the floor. I turned my head away, blinking back the sudden sting in my eyes. I had almost forgotten what she sounded like when she was being gentle. She hadn’t used that tone with me in years. “I’m getting my hair done, actually,” Parker said, grinning at the phone. “This suit is perfect, Diana. It’s going to look amazing next to your dress. It’s such a shame you’re not here to see it.” “I know, honey,” Diana soothed. “I’m buried in the board meeting. I’ll make it up to you, okay? I promise.” Parker pouted. “But this might be the last time I try it on. Don’t you want to see us together before the big day?” A soft sigh came through the line—the sound of her giving in. “Alright, you win. I’ll head over as soon as we wrap up. I can never say no to you.” I let out a silent, bitter laugh. Last night, I had begged Diana to come with me to pick up the suit. I told her it was a big moment for me. She had looked at me with cold, judgmental eyes. “Adrian, stop being so needy. I have work.” Then she had walked away without a second glance. Apparently, her schedule was flexible after all. I just wasn’t the one worth bending it for. Parker hung up, looking victorious. The assistant sighed wistfully. “You two are just goals, Mr. Parker. Truly.” Parker laughed, then looked at me. “So, man, when’s your big day?” I froze, the question hanging in the air like a guillotine. Before I could answer, a rival designer from the shop—a guy who had always hated my “artistic” approach—walked in with a tray of accessories. He’d caught the tail end of the conversation. “He’s been working on that suit for months,” the guy sneered, looking at me with pure schadenfreude. “But we’ve never even seen this ‘fiancée’ of his. Honestly, we were starting to wonder if she even existed.” He turned to Parker, his face instantly transforming into a mask of sycophancy. “Now, you, Mr. Parker—you’re the lucky one. A woman like Miss Beaumont? She clearly can’t breathe without you.” I looked down, unable to find a retort. It was true. Diana hadn’t even set a date with me yet. Every time I brought it up, she found a reason to delay. I had been planning a wedding for a ghost. Parker frowned, seemingly coming to my defense, though his voice held a note of condescending pity. “Really? She hasn’t been helping? That’s a red flag, brother. You should watch out for that.” I played along, my heart a lead weight in my chest. “Maybe you’re right. I should rethink things. What about you? When are you two tying the knot?” Parker thought for a second. “The big ceremony is later this year, but we actually already made it official.” My breath hitched. “Official?” Parker nodded proudly. “Yeah, we eloped at City Hall on May 20th. I insisted on the date—5/20 sounds like ‘I love you’ in the old tradition, right? She was supposed to be on a business trip, but I talked her into it.” May 20th. My thirtieth birthday. I had waited up for her until 2:00 AM that night. She had texted me saying she was stuck at a conference three states away, exhausted and alone. I had felt guilty for even wanting her there. And all the while, she was signing a marriage license with a boy who shared my eyes. We had been together since we were eighteen. For a decade, she was the girl who couldn’t wait to turn twenty-one just so we could legally elope. Then, as her career took off, she became the woman who was “too busy for paperwork.” She had cried when I proposed. We were under a canopy of fireworks, and she had clung to me, sobbing “Yes, yes, forever.” I realized then that “forever” was just a word she recycled for whoever was currently holding her interest. Parker went into the dressing room to change into the final look. I followed him in to help with the delicate tailoring of the jacket. “Hey,” Parker whispered, leaning in close. “Could you guys let out the waist on the wedding dress a little? Just a preemptive strike?” I blinked. “The dress?” Parker smirked, a secret shining in his eyes. “She thinks she’s surprising me, but I know she’s pregnant. I don’t want to ruin her surprise, but I know she’ll be showing by the time we do the big reception. Can you make sure the designers know? Keep it on the down-low, though.” The world went silent. A cold, crushing weight settled onto my lungs. Pregnant. Diana—the woman who had told me for years that she was “strictly child-free”—was carrying a child. She had told me she was afraid of the pain, afraid of losing her career, afraid of being “trapped” by motherhood. I had respected her choice. I had defended her when her family pressured us. I had made my peace with a life that was just the two of us. And now, she was having a baby with him. I mumbled something incoherent and bolted out of the dressing room. I leaned against the door in the hallway, my chest heaving. The cruelty of it was breathtaking. Maybe she didn’t tell him because she planned on “handling” it. Or maybe, she just didn’t want a life with me. Parker’s phone rang on the sofa again. It was Diana. “Adrian!” Parker yelled from inside the room. “Can you grab that? My hands are full!” I stared at the phone. A dark, jagged urge took root in my mind. I wanted to see her world burn the way mine just had. I picked up. “Hello?” There was a pause. She didn’t recognize my voice through the digital filter of the phone. “Who is this?” “I’m an assistant at the boutique,” I said, my voice flat. “Mr. Parker is in the dressing room. Can I take a message?” She didn’t suspect a thing. “Oh, fine. Just tell him I ordered some afternoon tea to be sent over. Make sure he eats; he gets migraines if his blood sugar drops.” The tenderness in her voice was nauseating. It was a ghost of the woman I used to love. “Of course,” I said. “And one more thing,” Diana added, her voice dropping an octave. “Regarding the dress I ordered… tell the lead designer to adjust the waist. Make it larger.” My grip tightened on the phone. “Is there a specific reason for the change?” There was a long silence. Then, softly: “I’m pregnant. But please, don’t tell Parker. I want to surprise him. Just make sure the designer handles it.” I hung up and slowly sank to the floor, burying my face in my hands. It wasn’t that she didn’t want children. She just didn’t want my children. Ten years. I had given her a decade of my life, and I was nothing more than a placeholder. Parker stepped out of the room, looking radiant in the suit I had built for myself. It fit him perfectly. We really did have the same taste—in clothes, and in women. The staff hovered around him, showering him with praise. Parker lived for it. He snapped a selfie and sent it to Diana. “Babe, look at this. I’m a masterpiece, right?” Her reply came instantly: “Stunning. You were born to wear that.” I watched him, a boy vibrating with a happiness I once owned. I remembered when I first started in design. I had no formal training, just a sketchbook and a dream. Everyone told me I’d fail. Except Diana. She was my fiercest advocate. Back then, there was a vintage gown in a window downtown that I used to stare at. I loved the craftsmanship, but I was a broke student and buying a wedding dress seemed like a jinx. I never told her. I just looked. The next day, it was sitting in my bedroom. I remembered the way she looked at me then—with a fierce, unwavering devotion. “Adrian, if you love it, it’s yours. Whatever you want to do, I’m behind you. Always.” She had loved me once. I knew she had. But time is a slow, silent thief. Parker was preening in front of the mirror when his assistant suggested a pop of color—a brooch, perhaps. “You’re right,” Parker said, snapping his fingers. “I almost forgot. I just picked up that piece from the auction house today.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a velvet jewelry box. He pinned a shimmering object to his lapel and turned to me. “What do you think? My fiancée won this at an estate auction for me. Goes great with the suit, right?” My heart stopped. I stared at the brooch. I moved closer, my eyes wide, my breath hitching in my throat. It couldn’t be. But it was. It was a vintage emerald and gold piece—my mother’s only heirloom. An antique that had been in my family for generations. Years ago, when the Beaumont firm was on the verge of bankruptcy, Diana had been desperate. I couldn’t stand to see her lose everything. I had sold that brooch—the only thing I had left of my mother—to inject capital into her company. It was the seed money that saved her empire. I had spent my life feeling guilty for losing it. Diana knew how much it meant to me. She had promised me, a thousand times, that she would find it and bring it home. She had found it. And she had given it to Parker. I felt the blood drain from my face, replaced by a searing, white-hot rage. My nails bit into my palms until I drew blood. How dare she? How dare she use my mother’s legacy to buy the affection of a boy she was using to replace me? The door to the lounge swung open. A familiar silhouette stepped in, bathed in the soft glow of the boutique lighting. “Parker, honey? Are you ready to go home?” I turned slowly.

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I was driving when the radio host casually dropped the bombshell about the rumored romance between Craig Ellsworth and Daphne. He frantically reached over to kill the volume, tripping over his own words as he rushed to explain. I just gave a careless shrug, telling him I knew it was all tabloid trash. When he kept rambling, practically begging for absolution, I laughed and teased that I’d even help him cover it up in front of his parents. The words had barely left my mouth when he slammed his foot on the brake. All the color drained from his face. It reminded me of that night not so long ago, when he had grabbed his ex-girlfriend by the arm and dragged her into a hotel room right in front of me. He had sneered at me then, his voice dripping with venom, saying that since I was so paranoid, he might as well give me a show. The breathless, muffled moans that had filtered through the phone receiver later that night shattered the very last remnant of whatever we used to be. From that moment on, I never shed another tear of jealousy. I never picked another fight. 1. The moment Craig Ellsworth took Daphne to that hotel room, our marriage effectively flatlined. So, when I heard their names strung together once again, praised by internet strangers as a match made in heaven, the breakdown I expected never came. Daphne was a prominent influencer. She had built a massive following on TikTok and Instagram by romanticizing her life as a Stanford graduate living her best life. A month ago, Craig made a cameo on her feed. It was an Instagram Story—just a two-second live photo. You could catch a fleeting blur of Craig’s distinct profile in the background. But more glaringly, sitting right there on the nightstand, was a box of Trojan condoms. The internet works fast. Within hours, sleuths had identified the mystery man as the elusive CEO of Vanguard Holdings. The screenshot went viral, climbing the trending charts on Twitter and TikTok. Her comment section was flooded: [Daphne!! Give us the tea, are you in a relationship?!] [Wait, isn’t that the CEO of Vanguard?] [Omg, the guy in the back is insanely hot. They look so good together.] Reading those comments, I had stood frozen in the middle of our living room. That unmistakable little gold-foil box practically screamed what was happening between them. A bone-deep chill washed over me. When Craig came home that night, I had waited for an explanation. He brushed it off with a handful of dismissive words. “It’s just a misunderstanding.” When I didn’t react, he added, “I’ve already had my PR team kill the story.” But after that, Daphne’s name became an inescapable phantom in my life. I heard the nurses gossiping about it during my shifts at the hospital. The algorithm, cruel and precise, constantly pushed her latest posts to my feed. The rumors of her and Craig only grew louder. The whole world, it seemed, was heavily invested in guessing the nature of their relationship. 2. The following weekend, Craig went on a “business trip.” I had made plans with a girlfriend for a spa weekend in the Hamptons. And there, lounging at the luxury resort, I saw them. Craig and Daphne. She was wearing a string bikini, her flawless figure on full display, with an oversized, expensive men’s suit jacket draped over her shoulders. Craig was right beside her. His dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled up to the forearms, tailored trousers hugging his long legs. He looked utterly relaxed, completely in his element. Walking side-by-side, they were the picture-perfect couple. Craig leaned in slightly, tilting his head to catch whatever she was saying. I couldn’t hear the words, but they both broke into a synchronized, intimate smile. Later, Daphne went into the cabana to change. She emerged in a sheer white slip dress, but she kept his jacket firmly draped around her. I watched them disappear into the same private suite. Without thinking, I followed. Driven by some masochistic ghost, I pushed the heavy oak door open. My mouth moved faster than my brain. The accusation tore out of me: “Craig, you’re sleeping with Daphne, aren’t you?” Then, I froze. The suite wasn’t empty. A room full of executives and associates turned in unison to stare at me. Craig looked at me. His eyes were perfectly hollow. Glacial. He looked away, his jaw tight, and spoke barely above a whisper. “Get the door, please.” I forgot how to breathe. His utter dismissal was a public execution. The sheer humiliation radiated through my bones. The spa weekend was ruined. I made a hollow excuse to my friend and fled the resort. Craig didn’t come home until late that evening. Part of me felt awful for crashing his meeting, but beneath the guilt was a violent, uncontrollable swell of hurt. The bitterness rose in my throat, choking me. I couldn’t hold it back. “Craig, are you cheating on me?” I demanded. “What exactly is your relationship with her?” He gave me a sideways glance, his demeanor entirely detached. “Jodie. What exactly do you want our relationship to be?” he asked, his voice dripping with condescension. “Barging in like that in front of a dozen people—did you even for a second consider how you were affecting her reputation?” My mind went entirely blank. My stomach dropped through the floor. His coldness was a surgical blade, slipping perfectly between my ribs. Craig cast one last disgusted look at me, then turned his back and vanished into the darkness of the house. 3. The cold war began. Craig started taking back-to-back business trips. The final, fatal blow happened at a boutique hotel in Manhattan, a property owned by Vanguard. I saw them in the lobby. Daphne and Craig. I watched them step into the private elevator reserved for the penthouse suites. I followed them up. “Craig.” They both stopped in the dimly lit corridor and turned to face me. I looked at my husband. “Is this your ‘business trip’? Booking a suite with your ex-girlfriend?” Craig let out a dark, breathless laugh. “Fine,” he said. “You’re so convinced I’m cheating on you?” He stepped closer, his shadow swallowing mine. “Do you want me to give you a show?” Before I could process the threat, his hand wrapped tightly around Daphne’s arm, pulling her toward the door of the suite. His eyes, pitch-black and fathomless, locked onto mine. “What? Aren’t you going to follow us in and see exactly what we do?” The door slammed shut in my face. The sound echoed down the empty hallway like a gunshot. My eyes burned. My throat constricted so tightly I couldn’t draw air, let alone speak. By the time I stumbled back into the elevator, my phone buzzed in my hand. An unknown number. I answered. No one spoke. There was only the quiet, rhythmic sound of a woman panting. Breathless. Ecstatic. I stood in the descending elevator for a long, long time. That unmistakable sound of intimacy confirmed everything. Craig and Daphne were crossing every line. A sharp ache pierced the bridge of my nose. Craig and I were finished. It was over. I hailed a cab outside the hotel. Sitting in the back seat, watching the city lights blur, I found myself scrolling through Daphne’s old digital footprint. The internet had dug up her old VSCO and Finsta accounts from high school and college. They had mapped out her entire romantic timeline with Craig. They were high school sweethearts. They went to Columbia University together, studying in different departments. Looking at her old posts, I saw a version of Craig I had never met. The Craig on her feed remembered her menstrual cycle and packed Advil for her. He patiently followed her to every trendy pop-up cafe in the city, holding her bags. He bought a professional camera and learned photography just so he could take the perfect candid shots of her. He took her to Disneyland. To the Hamptons. Her old feed was saturated in the blinding, sickeningly sweet pink of young love. Every word she wrote dripped with the security of a girl who knew she was adored. [He literally spent a month learning how to edit photos just for me.] [He tracks my period better than I do. I swear he loves me more than I love myself.] Under that post, an old comment read: [Omg Daphne, I’m a freshman from your high school! Everyone at Columbia still talks about you and Craig. You guys are literal goals. Forever endgame!] And Craig, using his own account, had replied to that freshman: [Thank you. I’m going to hold onto her for a long time.] Now, the old Columbia University Reddit threads were ablaze again, brought back to life by the recent rumors. [Craig and Daphne were the golden couple on campus. They only broke up because she left for Stanford, right?] [So this is the ultimate reunion? The one that got away?] [I have a wild theory. Daphne’s family isn’t exactly loaded. Stanford out-of-state tuition is insane. What if Craig footed the bill? That makes it even more romantic—the billionaire CEO grinding in NY to support his girl on the West Coast.] Craig flew out to California religiously every year. Daphne’s alma mater was in California. My hands shook violently against the illuminated screen. I didn’t dare think about it any deeper. 4. Ten minutes after I got home, the front door unlocked. Craig walked in. His suit was immaculate. Not a single hair out of place. He looked entirely undisturbed. My eyes were still red and swollen. I refused to look at him. He walked over and grabbed my wrist. “Nothing happened between us,” he said, his voice an attempt at soothing. “Earlier tonight… I was just angry. I was trying to provoke you.” He was explaining. But it was too late. The damage was in my marrow now. I gave a small, hollow nod. “Okay. I understand.” I didn’t speak another word to him for the rest of the night. The next morning, I felt entirely hollowed out, so I took a cab to the hospital. When my shift ended, the thought of going back to that house felt suffocating. Diane, an attending physician on my floor, had a night shift but desperately needed to attend her daughter’s parent-teacher conference. I offered to cover for her. The ER was a war zone that night. We had multiple trauma arrivals. By the time I finally scrubbed out of surgery, my phone screen was lit up with over a dozen missed calls. Diane rushed back into the breakroom, out of breath. “Jo, thank you so much,” she sighed, dumping her bag on the chair. “I heard you guys got slammed and you had to scrub in. I am so sorry. I brought you an iced matcha.” I didn’t bother being polite. I took the drink gratefully. “Thanks, Diane. I’m gonna head out now.” She smiled warmly. “I owe you one.” It was almost midnight when I walked out of the hospital sliding doors. Since I had cabbed to work, I ordered an Uber home. Only after I settled into the back seat did I actually check my phone. Every single missed call was from Craig. He had texted too: [Where are you?] [I’m in the hospital parking garage. I’m waiting for you.] I stared at the screen as the car merged onto the avenue. [Don’t bother.] [I’m already on my way home.] Shortly after I unlocked the front door, I heard his car pull into the driveway. Something fundamental had shifted inside me since that night at the hotel. Seeing him suddenly walk through the door left me feeling nothing but awkwardness. We stood in the foyer, staring at each other. The air was thick and strange. His dark eyes were fixed heavily on me. I looked away. Every time I looked at him now, I saw Daphne. I saw him dragging her into that room. I heard the breathless panting vibrating against my ear. I saw the ghost of their decade-long romance filling every corner of my house. I used to carry the weight of this marriage entirely on my own. I would come home and tell him about the weird patients in the ER, what I ate for lunch, desperately trying to spark a conversation. But now? Now I realized we had absolutely nothing to say to each other. The silence in the room was deafening. It reminded me of another one of Daphne’s old diary entries: [God, he talks so much. I’m literally falling asleep and he’s still dragging me into a conversation about his finance models.] My chest seized up tight. Craig’s deep voice shattered the quiet. “Weren’t you on the day shift? Why are you back so late?” I could feel the weight of his gaze tracking my every movement. I kept my back to him, walking over to the kitchen island to pour a glass of water. “Yeah.” I didn’t explain. I didn’t have the energy to. He didn’t deserve the details of my life anymore. When I turned around, he was standing right behind me. His lips parted, like he was trying to find the right words. I beat him to it, and he swallowed whatever he was about to say. “I’m going to take a shower.” When I stepped out of the bathroom, he was standing right outside the door. I jumped, startled. Catching his eye unexpectedly, I just gave a stiff nod and walked past him. Lying in the dark, my mind raced. Just sharing a mattress with him made my skin crawl. 5. Craig was an early riser. By the time I dragged myself out of bed, he had already showered and dressed in a crisp suit. Breakfast was laid out on the dining table. Craig sat there, his expression unreadable, reading the news on his tablet. Looking at the spread, my mind drifted again. I thought of Daphne’s tweet: [Told him I was craving a breakfast sandwich last night. Woke up to him in the kitchen making me the perfect BLT.] [His cooking is actually getting scary good.] A comment underneath: [You’re so lucky, girl.] Daphne’s reply: [Haha, hoping you find your own happily ever after!] “Jodie.” His voice snapped me back to the present. “Eat.” I blinked, checking the time on the microwave clock. “You go ahead. I’m running late.” A heavy hand clamped down on my forearm. Craig looked up at me through his lashes, his dark eyes intense and unyielding. “You have time. I’ll drive you.” I sat down, forcing myself to swallow a few bites of toast. “My grandmother wants us at the estate for dinner tonight,” he said smoothly. “I’ll pick you up from the hospital when you get off.” I nodded mechanically. “Fine.” When I stood up to leave, Craig rose with me. His tone left no room for argument. “I’m driving you.” I rejected him without a second thought. “No need.” I saw his brow twitch, a minute furrow of irritation, but I didn’t care. I grabbed my bag and walked out the door. 6. I grabbed lunch with Diane in the hospital cafeteria. Between bites of a terrible salad, she brought up the upcoming medical exchange program in Asheville, North Carolina. She let out a heavy sigh. “Man, my kid is applying to college this year. There is no way I can disappear for three months.” “Honestly, anyone with a family here is gonna pass on it,” she continued. “And the newlyweds? No chance they’re packing up for the South.” I looked up at her. “Diane, if you’re not taking it… I will.” She paused, fork halfway to her mouth. “Jo, are you serious?” I nodded firmly. “Yeah. I really want to use this opportunity to learn.” As soon as my tray was clear, I marched straight to the department head’s office and put my name on the list. Right as my shift was ending, my phone rang. Craig. I picked up, putting it on speaker as I organized my desk. His deep, velvet voice filled the small room. Diane and a few other nurses happened to be walking by. They stopped, leaning against the doorframe with knowing, teasing smiles. “Ooh, Jo. Is that the boyfriend?” I forced a laugh and shook my head. “No.” Through the speaker, Craig said, “I’m down in your parking garage.” “Okay, I’ll be right there.” The underground garage was dimly lit. He was leaning against his black G-Wagon, a tall, imposing silhouette. I walked toward him. To my horror, Diane was also heading to her car in the same aisle. She spotted us and walked over, her eyebrows raised in absolute delight. “Jo! Is this the boyfriend?” she beamed. “Not bad to look at, I gotta say.” My brain short-circuited. I spun a lie out of thin air. “No, no. He’s my cousin.” Craig slowly turned his head to look at me. His eyes darkened dangerously. Diane bought it immediately, her scandalous interest fading into polite nods. “Ah, gotcha. See you tomorrow!” I slid into the passenger seat. The leather felt suffocating. Craig got in, his jaw clenched tight. He turned to me, the engine idling. “Why did you say that?” I looked straight ahead, my voice completely devoid of emotion. “I don’t want my coworkers getting the wrong idea.” Craig flinched slightly. A deep frown etched into his forehead. “The wrong idea?” He put the car in drive and pulled out of the garage. The radio was on, tuned to a pop-culture SiriusXM channel. A bubbly host was mid-sentence. “…Vanguard CEO Craig Ellsworth and influencer Daphne were spotted at a luxury Hamptons resort recently. Daphne was wearing a tiny bikini, draped in Craig’s suit jacket. Let me tell you, the sexual tension in those photos is off the charts…” Craig slammed his hand against the console, killing the radio instantly. He exhaled sharply. “You were there that day. You know there were other investors present.” I stared out the window at the passing traffic. “I know,” I said lightly. Craig tried again. “Nothing happened between us.” A small, cynical smile touched my lips. I assumed he was just doing damage control so I wouldn’t rat him out to his family tonight. “Relax,” I said. “Your secret is safe with me. I won’t say a word to your grandmother.” Craig slammed his foot on the brake. The SUV lurched forward violently before skidding to a halt. The blood drained completely from his face. He stared at me, a violent storm of emotions swirling in his eyes.

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The emergency room door was left slightly ajar, and Ted’s voice cut through the sterile hallway, reaching me loud and clear. He was telling the doctor that Daphne was a violinist. That her hands were her livelihood, that they absolutely could not be damaged. He demanded they treat her first. At that exact moment, I had just been pulled from the twisted metal of our car by the firefighters. My left wrist was slick with my own blood, a gash on my temple was steadily weeping down the side of my face, and a massive, ugly bruise was blooming across my thigh. By the time the ambulance arrived, the pain had escalated into a dull, terrifying numbness. My knees had been pinned in the crumpled gap of the passenger seat, the seatbelt biting into my collarbone so hard I couldn’t move. Half my body had lost all sensation. I remember the torrential rain hammering against the shattered windshield, the freezing wind howling through the broken glass. And I remember watching, helpless and pinned, as Ted kicked his door open, scooped up a bleeding Daphne, and disappeared into the storm with her. He moved like a man possessed. He never once looked back. “Daphne!” In the chaotic second the car was struck and the metal buckled inward, I didn’t even hear my own scream. I only heard my husband screaming another woman’s name. Right then, in the freezing wreckage, I simply stopped struggling. I finally understood. I could live a hundred lifetimes, and I would never win against the ghost of his first love. … “How is this woman related to you, sir?” the doctor asked. Ted hesitated. The silence lasted exactly two seconds. “Just treat them both.” That sentence was the perfect summary of what he had given me for the past three years. He never rejected me. He never truly acknowledged me. He never blatantly picked a side, but he never, not once, stood firmly in my corner. Lying on the narrow hospital bed, staring at the fluorescent ceiling panels, I suddenly let out a laugh. The nurse bandaging my head paused, her voice gentle. “Does it hurt?” “I’m okay,” I whispered. The truth was, the pain was blinding. Black spots danced at the edges of my vision. But compared to the physical agony, what hurt far worse was the realization that I wasn’t surprised. Not even a little. Because this wasn’t the first time. And it wouldn’t be the last. When Ted finally pushed open the door to my cubicle, I had just finished getting stitches. His shoulders were still soaked from the rain. There was blood on the cuffs of his expensive dress shirt, and I didn’t know if it was Daphne’s or mine. “How bad is it?” he asked. I looked at him, my voice eerily calm. “Ted, I want a divorce.” He froze. He clearly hadn’t expected me to drop that word, not here, not now. His brow furrowed, and his tone slipped into that familiar, restrained impatience. “Nancy, you’re running high on adrenaline right now. We’ll talk about this when you’ve calmed down.” “I am perfectly calm.” “Today was an accident.” “You’re right,” I nodded slowly. “The crash was an accident. But every single time you choose her over me, Ted—that is a choice.” His eyes darkened, his jaw ticking. “Do you really have to throw a tantrum right now?” I actually wanted to laugh again. A tantrum. To him, me asking for a divorce was just another hysterical female tantrum. We had been married for three years. Three years of staying up until dawn to help him draft proposals when his tech startup was bleeding money. Three years of wrangling his board of directors, drinking on his behalf at endless corporate dinners to secure funding, cleaning up his messes, and playing the perfectly poised, soft-spoken wife to the world. Everyone in our circle always said the same thing: Ted might be a little cold, but he takes good care of Nancy. He gave me black credit cards. He gave me a penthouse. He gave me a title. He gave me everything except his heart. Because every instinct, every subconscious reaction he had, belonged to someone else. Daphne. His untouchable golden girl. His first love. The dream he had never been able to wake up from. I used to be so painfully naive. I thought that if I poured enough warmth, enough devotion into him, I could eventually thaw the ice around his heart. It took me three years to realize the heart wasn’t frozen. It just didn’t belong to me. That night in the hospital, Ted didn’t argue with me anymore. He stood by the bed in silence for a long time before finally saying, “My grandmother’s birthday is next week. We’ll talk after that.” Classic Ted. Every time I backed him into a corner for an answer, he gave me a raincheck. I closed my eyes. “Fine.” Maybe it was how quickly I agreed, but he lingered, looking at me a second longer than usual. But I was already done explaining myself. The next morning, I discharged myself from the hospital. Ted had gone to check on Daphne. He sent me a brief text. Gideon is going to drive you home. Remember to take your meds. It read like instructions left for an assistant dealing with a minor inconvenience. Not a husband. Not a lover. Walking into our apartment, I really looked at the place for the first time in three years. Ted had bought this penthouse. He had chosen the interior design. Slate gray, stark white, matte black. It was beautiful, but it was as sterile as a luxury hotel lobby. The flowers on the kitchen island were white roses. Daphne’s favorite. The crystal wine glasses in the cabinet were a niche French brand. The exact ones Daphne had posted on her Instagram a year ago. The vintage record player in the study? The same brand Daphne used to obsess over in college. Even the low-fat yogurt permanently stocked in the fridge was Daphne’s preferred flavor. I am lactose intolerant. One bite gives me agonizing stomach cramps. It wasn’t that I hadn’t noticed these little breadcrumbs over the past three years. I just chose to play blind. Because acknowledging them meant admitting that I was living inside someone else’s lingering love story. That I was just a squatter in my own marriage. Even though I was the one wearing the ring. As I packed my bags, I pulled open a nightstand drawer and found an old, brushed silver lighter. In the bottom corner, deeply engraved, was a tiny letter “D.” A gift from Daphne. I had asked him about it once, shortly after we got married. He had come home drunk, and as I was helping him out of his coat, it fell from his pocket. “You still have this?” I had asked. He only gave me three words. “Forgot to toss it.” And yet, here it was, years later. Some things don’t get thrown away because they are much more than objects. I put the lighter back in the drawer and slid it shut. Then I began clearing out my life. My clothes, my books, my skincare, my files. I erased every trace that I had ever breathed the air in this apartment. When Gideon, Ted’s executive assistant, showed up to help, he stood in the doorway, totally bewildered. “Mrs. Crystal… what is all this?” “I’m moving out.” He opened his mouth to argue, then wisely shut it. Anyone who worked closely with Ted knew that while I appeared soft-spoken, once I made a decision, God himself couldn’t change my mind. Gideon stood awkwardly for a long time before muttering, “Mr. Crystal didn’t mean anything by it yesterday, you know.” “Didn’t mean what?” “With the crash… Ms. Daphne’s injuries just looked more severe in the moment…” I didn’t stop folding my sweaters. “Gideon, you’ve worked for him a long time. Do you honestly believe I’m only upset about yesterday?” Gideon fell silent. Because he knew. It wasn’t just yesterday. It was never just yesterday. The first time was three months after our wedding. It was my birthday. Ted had promised to take me out to dinner. I sat in an absurdly expensive, dimly lit restaurant for two hours. I stayed until the busboys were wiping down the tables and I was the only patron left sitting by the window. When he finally called, his voice was hushed. “Daphne ran into some trouble in Paris. I’m dealing with it. I’ll make it up to you.” I had gripped the phone, my voice trembling. “What about my birthday?” Silence on the line. Then: “We’ll celebrate tomorrow.” The second time, my fever had spiked to 103 degrees. He was supposed to be in Chicago on a business trip. I didn’t want to bother him, so I drove myself to urgent care for an IV drip. Sitting alone in the clinic at 2:00 AM, I opened Instagram. Daphne had posted a story. The location tag was the exact same hotel Ted was staying at in Chicago. The photo was just two coffee cups, but in the corner of the frame was a man’s wrist. The watch on that wrist was the Patek Philippe I had bought him for our anniversary. He came home the next day, bringing me medicine and a tasteful gift, his explanation airtight. “Ran into her in the lobby. She was having a panic attack, so I sat with her for a bit to talk her down.” I didn’t call him on his lie. Because I was still lying to myself. I was still foolishly believing that one day, he would wake up and realize who was actually building a life with him. The third time was last year, when his grandmother was hospitalized. The doctors needed a family member to sign the consent forms for surgery. His phone went straight to voicemail for hours. I ran around the hospital alone, dealing with insurance, doctors, and nurses, absolutely frantic, until 2:00 AM. When he finally walked into the waiting room, I thought he had rushed back out of fear for his grandmother. Instead, his first words were: “Daphne has a big recital tomorrow. She was spiraling tonight, so I drove her up to her friend’s cabin to get away from the noise. I didn’t have service.” His grandmother had looked at me from her hospital bed and let out a long, heavy sigh. I still remember the look in her eyes. It was a mix of pity and absolute clarity. She saw the truth then. I was just the only one who refused to see it. I taped up the last box of books. My phone buzzed. It was Daphne. I stared at the name glowing on the screen, then answered. Her voice was just as soft and melodic as always, carrying a hint of a delicate, post-traumatic rasp. “Nancy? Could we meet up?” My first instinct was to hang up. But then I thought, no. Some things needed to be said out loud, once and for all. “Text me the address.” I met Daphne at an upscale cafe a few blocks from the hospital. She was wearing a cream-colored cashmere sweater dress. Her face was fashionably pale, and a tiny, pristine gauze pad was taped to her forehead. She looked like a bruised porcelain doll. As soon as I sat down, she spoke. “I’m so sorry about yesterday.” “You don’t need to apologize to me.” She traced the rim of her latte, offering a small, self-deprecating smile. “I actually didn’t even want to move back to the States. Ted was the one who insisted I come back to recover.” I raised an eyebrow, staring right at her. If she noticed my frigid demeanor, she ignored it. Her tone remained impossibly gentle, almost aggressively harmless. “Please don’t misunderstand us, Nancy. There is truly nothing going on. It’s just… we’ve known each other for so long. It’s natural for him to feel a little protective of me.” It was a masterclass in manipulation. It wasn’t a direct insult, but it was far more humiliating than one. I kept my eyes locked on hers. “Did you ask me here just to tell me that?” She finally looked up, a flicker of mock-sympathy in her eyes. “Nancy, I know you hate me. But there are some things in life you just can’t change, no matter how much you dislike them.” “Such as?” “Such as the fact that he cares about me.” She let that hang in the air for a second before delivering the final blow. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?” In that exact moment, the fight completely drained out of me. Because she was right. I did know. I knew better than anyone that the softest, most fiercely guarded part of Ted’s heart was never meant for me. I had just spent three years operating under the delusion that if I was just a little more perfect, a little more understanding, a little more patient, he would eventually turn around and see me. I waited three years. I waited until I was sitting in a crushed car next to his golden girl. I waited until he left me in the bleeding dark. I was finally done waiting. I picked up my black coffee, took a sip, and looked at her with total calm. “You can relax, Daphne.” She blinked, confused. “I’m done competing with you.” For a fraction of a second, her perfectly curated expression slipped into rigid shock. I smiled. “And it’s not because you won. It’s because I don’t want him anymore.” I stood up and walked out without looking back. Stepping out of the cafe, the autumn wind stung the fresh stitches on my temple. But inside, I felt unimaginably, euphorically light. Walking away didn’t mean I lost. It just meant I refused to bleed to death for a man who would only ever see me as second best. That night, I checked into a boutique hotel downtown. By the time Ted got back to the apartment, half the place was empty. My phone rang. I answered it. “Where are you?” “I moved out.” “Nancy.” His voice dropped an octave, the warning tone he used in boardrooms. “I told you, we will discuss this after my grandmother’s birthday.” “And I told you, fine.” “Then what the hell is this?” “It means that until then, we’re sleeping in separate zip codes. It saves us both a headache.” A heavy silence fell over the line. “Are you really going to push this?” I stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of my hotel room, watching the headlights blur into rivers of gold on the street below. “Ted, do you honestly still think I’m just throwing a tantrum?” He didn’t answer. I let out a soft breath of a laugh. “I guess I can’t blame you. You’re used to it. You’re used to me acting out and then quietly cleaning up the mess anyway.” “That’s not what I think.” “It’s exactly how you act.” I hung up before he could string together another excuse. The next morning, I went into the office. I was the Director of Corporate Communications for Crystal Technologies. I was one of the founding executives who had been with Ted since the garage days. When I handed my resignation letter to the VP of HR, he practically fell out of his Herman Miller chair. “Nancy… are you absolutely sure about this? Should we take a few days to—” “I’m sure.” “Does Mr. Crystal know?” “He’s about to.” I walked out of HR and nearly bumped into Gideon in the hallway. He looked panicked. “Mrs. Crystal, Ted is in a board meeting—” “Perfect timing. Tell him to check his email when he gets out.” When I went back to my office to pack my desk, my two junior managers were practically in tears. “Nancy, are you seriously leaving us?” “Yeah.” “What are we supposed to do?” I dropped a stack of PR strategies into my cardboard box, not missing a beat. “Keep doing your jobs. This company won’t collapse just because I’m not here.” One of the girls sniffled. “But without you, Mr. Crystal is going to lose his mind.” My hands paused over the box. A slow smile spread across my face. “Then let him.” I think that was the first time in my adult life I ever prioritized my own peace over his stability. It felt intoxicating. Less than ten minutes after the company-wide email went out, my phone rang. “Are you in the building?” Ted demanded. “Yes.” “My office. Now.” “If you have a work question, you can ask it over the phone.” “Nancy.” The suppressed fury in his voice was vibrating through the speaker. “Do not make me say it again.” The old me would have caved instantly. But today, I just adjusted my phone against my ear and said, “I’m busy packing up my desk. I don’t have the time.” Click. Three minutes later, he materialized in the doorway of my office. He was a tall, imposing figure in a bespoke suit, and the second he stepped in, the entire floor went dead silent. Every head in the bullpen swiveled toward my glass walls. I didn’t look up. I kept sorting my files. Ted stepped inside and closed the door. His eyes locked onto the printed resignation form on my desk. His jaw clenched tight enough to snap bone. “Is this a joke to you?” “Do I look like I’m joking?” He stared at me, the anger barely contained. “You are the head of PR. Do you have any idea what kind of market panic it will cause if you walk out the door right now?” I finally looked up at him. “Are we having a professional conversation right now, Ted? Or a marital one?” His lips thinned into a hard line. I stood up and handed him my signed handover checklist. “If this is about work, my contract requires a three-month transition period. You have me until then. If this is about our marriage, we can go straight to the courthouse the morning after your grandmother’s party.” You could have heard a pin drop in that office. He probably never imagined that I—the woman who spent years protecting his ego and our public image—would pull the trigger so ruthlessly in the middle of corporate headquarters. He never expected the woman who always left him a way out to barricade the door. It took him a long time to find his voice. “Are you really doing this?” “I’m just sorry it took me this long to do it.” After that day, Ted and I entered a bizarre, suffocating cold war. He didn’t bring up the divorce again, and he stopped trying to block my resignation. But suddenly, he was everywhere. When I went to drop off tea for his grandmother, he was sitting in her parlor. When I went to the hospital to get my stitches removed, the elevator doors opened, and he was standing there. When I took a client out for drinks, the waitress came over and told me the gentleman at the bar had already covered the tab. Even the concierge at my hotel whispered to me, “Ms. Crystal, a gentleman has been calling every night for three days to ask if you’ve checked out.” It was insulting. When I slept next to him every night, I was invisible. Now that I was walking out the door, he suddenly knew how to pay attention. Too little. Too late. Grandma Estelle’s birthday dinner at the estate was a massive affair. The sprawling living room was packed with aunts, uncles, and cousins. The champagne was flowing, and everyone naturally assumed Ted and I would arrive together. But I walked through the double doors alone. The collective shift in the room’s energy was immediate. The glances turned sharp and speculative. “Nancy, sweetheart, where’s Ted?” an aunt asked. “He’s on his way.” The words had barely left my mouth when the front doors opened behind me. Ted walked in. And walking right beside him, looking like a vision, was Daphne. The entire room went dead silent for two agonizing seconds. I stood holding a glass of sparkling water, and in that moment, I realized I didn’t even have the energy to be angry anymore. This was who he was. Just when you thought about letting your guard down, he found the perfect, surgical way to plunge the knife back in. Daphne was wearing a sweeping champagne-colored gown, her hair pinned up elegantly. She looked fragile, artistic, and completely out of place at a private family dinner—yet she stood next to my husband as if she owned him. Ted spotted me, and his footsteps faltered. Even he seemed to realize the catastrophic optics of what he had just done. But the older relatives were already sizing Daphne up. One of his uncles frowned. “Ted, who is this?” Daphne opened her mouth, her voice trembling slightly, but I cut her off with a bright, razor-sharp smile. “She’s a friend.” A friend. A friend he brought to his wife’s family dinner. A friend he chose to pull from a burning car while his wife bled in the backseat. What a lovely, versatile word. Ted’s face darkened. “Nancy.” “Did I say something wrong?” I looked right into his eyes, my smile not reaching my own. “If she’s not a friend, what is she? Family?” The air in the room practically crystalized. No one dared to breathe. The tension broke only when Grandma Estelle emerged from the hallway, leaning heavily on her silver-tipped cane. “Nancy. Come here.” I walked over and gently took her arm. She patted my hand, her sharp eyes lingering on the faint, pink scar near my temple. Then she looked at Ted, and her expression turned to absolute ice. “In my study. Now.” She was talking to Ted. Before the heavy oak doors of the study clicked shut behind them, I caught a glimpse of Daphne standing alone in the center of the lavish room, looking pale and humiliated. I just felt bored. Half an hour later, Ted walked out of the study. He looked like he had been put in front of a firing squad. The housekeeper came out and told me Estelle wanted to see me. The old woman was sitting in a velvet armchair, looking exhausted. She patted the ottoman next to her. “Sit, child.” When I sat down, she reached into her pocket and pressed a heavy, velvet box into my palm. Inside was an antique emerald ring, framed in crushed diamonds. It was the Crystal family heirloom. I stared at it, horrified. “Nana, I can’t take this.” “It’s yours.” “I can’t.” “And why not?” She looked at me, her voice quiet but carrying the weight of a judge’s gavel. “You’ve been married to that boy for three years. You’ve swallowed more poison than you’ve had champagne. If I don’t give this to you, who on earth deserves it?” My throat tightened. Estelle sighed. “I already took a strip off that idiot’s hide. Nancy, I’m not going to sit here and make excuses for my grandson. If you are too tired to carry this marriage anymore, I won’t stand in your way.” Tears prickled the back of my eyes. In three years, the only person in this family who had ever truly seen my worth, who had ever truly protected me, was his grandmother. She squeezed my hands tightly. “But I need you to remember one thing, Nancy. It is not because you weren’t good enough. It’s because he doesn’t deserve you.” I kept my head bowed. I couldn’t speak. The rest of the birthday dinner tasted like ash. Halfway through the meal, Daphne excused herself to the powder room. Ted immediately stood up and followed her. If this were last year, my stomach would have been in knots. I would have agonized over what they were whispering about in the hallway. I would have wondered if he was holding her, comforting her. But tonight, I just quietly picked up a piece of sea bass and put it on Estelle’s plate. Estelle watched me for a moment. “You’re really done, aren’t you?” I paused, then smiled softly. “Yeah. Pretty much.” Estelle let out a grim huff of laughter. “About damn time.” I almost choked on my wine. By the time I left the estate, a light drizzle had started falling. I had just reached the bottom of the front steps when Ted caught my arm. “I’ll drive you.” “I have a cab coming.” “Nancy, we need to talk.” I looked at him. “Shouldn’t you be driving Daphne home?” A muscle feathered in his jaw. “She already left.” “Got it.” I tried to step around him, but his grip tightened on my wrist. His fingers pressed directly into the deep, bruised laceration from the airbag. I hissed, sucking in a sharp breath of pain. He dropped my arm instantly as if I had burned him, staring at my wrist in horror. “God. I’m sorry.” What a novelty. Ted Crystal, apologizing to me. Unfortunately, I had outgrown the need for his apologies. “You don’t need to do this, Ted.” I took a step back, the gravel crunching under my heels. “What do you want to talk about? Do you want to explain how bringing her to Nana’s birthday was just ‘helping a friend’? Or do you want to break down the logistics of why pulling her out of the wreckage first made tactical sense?” “Does every single word out of your mouth have to be an attack?” “Is the truth attacking you?” I smiled dryly. “Because none of it is a lie.” He stared at me, his Adam’s apple bobbing sharply, swallowing down some heavy, unnamed emotion. Finally, his voice cracked. “She came tonight because Nana used to be fond of her. She just wanted to pay her respects.” I nodded slowly. “And?” “I didn’t do it to humiliate you.” “But you did.” The silence that followed was absolute. The only sound was the rain hitting the pavement. I looked at him, feeling a sudden, bone-deep exhaustion. “Ted, stop explaining. Every time you hurt me, you tell me you didn’t mean to. But the bleeding is always the same.” “I used to think you were just emotionally stunted. That you didn’t know how to love someone. But I realize now that’s not true. You know exactly how to love. You just don’t want to put me first.” “So let’s just call it. We’re done.” I turned and climbed into the back of my waiting Uber. As we pulled away, I looked in the rearview mirror. Ted was standing alone in the rain. He didn’t chase the car. A few days later, my notice period officially ended. On my last day, my old team threw a small farewell party in the breakroom. It was just the core group, the people who had survived the startup trenches with me. One of the senior developers had a few too many IPAs. He got red in the face and pointed a plastic cup at me. “Nancy, I’m telling you, without you here, the boss is gonna lose half his soul.” I tapped my plastic cup against his and smiled. “That sounds like a ‘him’ problem.” When I walked out of the lobby with my final box of belongings, Declan was leaning against the hood of his matte-black Porsche. Declan was a partner at a massive, cutthroat PR agency in the city, and a rival I had battled in boardrooms for years. He’d been trying to poach me for eighteen months. “Finally escaped Alcatraz?” He spun his keys around his index finger. “I thought you were going to die behind a desk at Crystal Tech.” “I almost did.” “And now?” “Now, I’m going to figure out what I actually want.” Declan studied my face for two seconds before a slow, wicked grin spread across his face. “Welcome to the dark side.” A week later, I accepted an offer as VP of Crisis Management at Declan’s firm. The day the press release went out, the corporate grapevine caught fire. Some people gossiped that Ted and I had an explosive fallout. Some said I was smart to jump ship. And a few veterans whispered that letting me walk away was the most catastrophic miscalculation Ted Crystal had ever made in his career. When I read that last rumor, I smirked. At least someone in this city had some sense. It was two weeks after I moved out that Ted finally cracked and came to my hotel. I had been working late, drafting a campaign launch. When I stepped off the elevator at 9:00 PM, I found him standing outside my room. He was in a tailored suit, but he looked wrecked. The dark circles under his eyes made him look like he hadn’t slept in a week. I walked past him, slid my keycard into the door, and pushed it open. I didn’t invite him in. “Can I help you?” He stared at me. “You look thin.” Coming from him, the concern was so utterly absurd I almost laughed out loud. “And?” “Nancy, please. Stop this. Come home.” My hand tightened around the doorknob. “Whose home?” “Our home.” “That was never my home,” I looked him dead in the eye. “That was a museum dedicated to your memories of her.” His frown deepened. “I know I’ve been neglecting you lately. I admit that. But divorce isn’t a game. You shouldn’t throw our marriage away just because you’re angry—” “Ted.” I cut him off. “Do you really, truly believe I’m doing this out of spite?” He went quiet. I held his gaze. My voice was dangerously quiet, dropping every word like a stone into a glass lake. “The day of the crash. When I was trapped in that seat, bleeding, and I watched you carry her away… I had an epiphany.” “I spent three years bending over backwards for you. I sold my soul for your company, I drank your clients under the table, I played the perfect wife for your family. But the second it was life or death, your body moved toward her.” “In that moment, I wasn’t angry. I woke up.” “I finally realized that no matter how much I bled for you, no matter how perfect I was, I was never going to win against her.” “And since the game is rigged, I’m done playing.” I watched the words hit him. He actually flinched. It was the look of a man who suddenly realized the ground beneath him was gone. He realized I wasn’t negotiating. I wasn’t punishing him. I wasn’t waiting for flowers or an apology. I was just gone. Watching the color drain from his face, I felt a morbid sense of amusement. So, Ted Crystal knows how to panic. Too bad it didn’t move me at all. “Have a good night,” I said. “Don’t come back here.” I went to shut the door, but he slammed his hand against the wood, holding it open. “Nancy, what do you want me to do? Tell me what to do.” I looked at his hand. This was the first time in three years he had ever asked me what he should do. Usually, I was the one swallowing my pride, adjusting to his orbit, fixing the cracks. Now he wanted a map. But I had burned it. “It’s simple,” I said. “Sign the papers.” The tendons in his hand stood out in stark relief. It took him a long time to speak, his voice thick and wrecked. “Anything but that.” A tiny tremor went through my chest. Not from pity. From irony. “That’s funny,” I smiled thinly. “Because ‘anything but that’ is what you gave me for three years. You’re an expert at it.” I pushed his hand back and slammed the door. The hallway outside remained perfectly silent. It was silent for so long I thought he had left. But when I finally peeked through the peephole, he was still standing there. Standing perfectly still, staring at the closed door, like a man who had arrived years too late to realize the woman inside was never coming back out. I walked away and didn’t look again. For the next month, I didn’t ask anyone about Ted. I didn’t care. Until his company blew up in a spectacular PR disaster.

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When the rest of the world woke up with memories of the apocalypse, I became the only outlier. My parents, who had always loved me more than anything in the world, didn’t hesitate to liquidate every single asset we owned, handing every last cent over to the Global Defense Coalition. Even my boss, a man so notoriously cheap he’d squeeze a dime until it bled, suddenly open-sourced all of our company’s highly classified proprietary tech. He went on national television and said we had to carry the weight of this alongside the rest of humanity. It was as if someone had pressed a massive, invisible “Unite” button on the entire planet. Everyone was violently, desperately preparing for a coming catastrophe. Everyone except me. I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I was a stranger in my own reality. The exact moment my parents realized I didn’t possess these “reborn” memories, the look in their eyes completely fractured. It was a gaze so complex and utterly terrifying that it made my pulse hammer in my throat, yet I couldn’t put a name to the emotion behind it. From that day forward, my life went dead silent. They never spoke another word to me. Just like that, I was thoroughly and completely abandoned by the entire human race. 1. Brrrring. My alarm jolted me awake. April 3, 2026. The morning sun was pouring through the blinds, bright and completely ordinary. I was just reaching out to swipe off the alarm when a text popped up from my boyfriend, Gavin: “Jo, I messed up. I’m so sorry. I can’t live without you! Please, just give me one more chance? For the next three years, I swear I won’t leave your side for a single second!” I stared at the screen, entirely dumbfounded. Why on earth was Gavin sending me something like this? We were still deeply in the honeymoon phase. We hadn’t even had a fight, let alone broken up! Before my brain could even process his text, an audio message from my mom chimed in: “Joanna, your father and I are on our way to your apartment right now. We’re going to be together, sweetheart. All of us. We are never, ever being separated again!” Hearing the hysterical, sobbing crack in my mother’s voice only deepened my confusion. What the hell had happened overnight? It wasn’t just my parents and my boyfriend acting like they’d lost their minds. My company’s Slack channel was exploding. “I’m drafting an itinerary to backpack across the globe. Who’s coming with me?” “I’m in! I’ve been a corporate slave my whole life and I haven’t even seen the Pacific Ocean. I’m actually going to live this time!” “A vacation? Are you kidding me? You selfish cowards, the world is on the brink and you’re only thinking about yourselves…” Two distinct factions were ripping into each other in the general chat. I sat up in bed, eyes wide, totally paralyzed by the sheer absurdity of it. Our company policy explicitly forbade non-work-related chatter in the main channels. If anyone so much as posted a meme, our tyrannical boss, Mr. Wallace, would usually swoop in and dock their bonuses. Why were my coworkers acting so recklessly? And was Wallace just sleeping in? Why hadn’t he intervened? Through the fog of my confusion, the doorbell rang. My parents were here. I practically sprinted to the door, desperate to ask them what was going on. But before I could even get a word out, my mother lunged forward, wrapping me in a suffocating embrace, weeping so hard her whole body shook. My dad, a man who treated emotional vulnerability like a physical allergy, had eyes that were bloodshot and brimming with tears. “Joanna, listen to me. We’re selling the house. We’re giving the funds to the federal emergency mandate, and we’re moving into this apartment with you.” “This way, we can do our part for the survival effort, and we get to stay together!” I physically recoiled, the words tearing out of me: “Dad, are you insane?” “If you missed me, you could have just come to visit! Why would you sell the house? What about your retirement?” The second those words left my mouth, my mother’s sobbing stopped. Instantly. Her expression morphed with a whiplash-inducing speed. She looked at me with a bizarre, almost panicked scrutiny. The warmth drained from my father’s face, leaving behind something cold and hardened. “Joanna, what are you talking about?” “You’re the most educated person in this family. You’ve always been the rational one. You know perfectly well that right now, humanity has to stand united. We have to give everything we have to the state. Otherwise, none of us are going to live to see retirement.” “How could you say something so selfish?” I felt like the floor was tilting. None of this made any sense. “Dad, I literally don’t understand a word you’re saying!” I cried. “Are we at war? Did the country get attacked? Even if we are, the government doesn’t need the money from our suburban three-bedroom!” In the next heartbeat, the look in my parents’ eyes shifted from confusion into something else. Something resembling pure, unadulterated dread. When they spoke, their voices were hoarse, trembling with a probing terror. “Joanna…” “Do you really… not remember anything?” 2. Their deeply unsettling reaction was making my skin crawl. “What am I supposed to remember?!” I demanded, throwing my hands up. “I’m going to be late for work. Just tell me what’s going on, stop with the cryptic nonsense!” My dad stumbled backward. Two full steps. My mom desperately tried to reach out to me, to say something, but my dad grabbed her arm and yanked her back. “Are you out of your mind? You can’t talk to her!” “You’re the one who’s out of your mind, she’s our daughter! She just hasn’t fully acclimated to the Return yet, her memories just haven’t—” My mom shoved him away and fiercely grabbed both of my hands. “Jo, sweetheart, did you forget? We are all Returners. Three years from now, the end of the world happens. We all died. But we’ve been given a second chance. We’ve been sent back.” “Our only chance at survival is to pool every single resource we have and face this together!” I stared at her. A beat of total silence passed before a sharp, incredulous laugh punched its way out of my chest. “Did you guys really drive all the way over here at eight in the morning to pull this ridiculous prank on me?” I glanced at my phone. 8:50 AM. If I didn’t leave right now, I was actually going to be late. And Wallace never hesitated to dock pay for tardiness. “Look, I have to go to work. Whatever this is, we can talk about it tonight.” I didn’t believe a single word of their sci-fi doomsday pitch. I sidestepped them and hurried out the door. They didn’t try to stop me. As I walked down the hall, I could faintly hear my mother’s gut-wrenching wails echoing from inside my apartment. “Why did it have to be this way? God, why did it have to be our little girl?” Her grief grated on my nerves. Part of me suspected this was some elaborate, manipulative theatrical performance to get me to agree to them selling the house. They had brought up liquidating their assets to play the stock market before. I had vehemently talked them down, terrified they would lose their entire nest egg. Were they trying this angle again? But I wasn’t a child. What was the point of using such an absurd, unbelievable lie? “Jo!” Gavin’s voice shattered my racing thoughts. He was standing by the entrance of my apartment complex, frantically waving at me from a distance. “I already quit my job, Jo! Every single second I have left is going to be devoted to you. We are never spending a minute apart!” Looking at Gavin’s red-rimmed eyes and the desperate, manic devotion swimming in them, I suddenly remembered the text he had sent me. He had said he wouldn’t leave my side for the next three years. My parents had just said the world ends in three years. Was Gavin playing along with this “Returner” prank too? No. I froze in my tracks, my eyes locking onto his. “Gavin, did my parents put you up to this? Did they tell you they want to sell the house, and you’re helping them gaslight me?” Gavin blinked, genuine bewilderment washing over his face. I knew his expressions well enough to know he wasn’t acting. Ping— His phone buzzed. From where I stood, I could see my father’s contact photo pop up on his lock screen, though I couldn’t read the text. I took a step toward him. “What did my dad just text you?” Gavin didn’t answer. A second ago, he had looked like a man violently, desperately in love with me. Now, his eyes widened in sheer, abject horror. He pointed a trembling finger at me, stumbling backward as if I were holding a loaded gun. “You… you…” “You’re not one of us!” He let out a strangled, guttural noise and turned on his heel, sprinting away without once looking back. I tried texting him. Message Not Delivered. You have been blocked. I tried calling him. Straight to voicemail. I opened my phone, intending to reach out to one of Gavin’s friends, only to be met with something far more terrifying. My social media feeds. Almost everyone I knew, as if part of some massive, synchronized cult, had posted screenshots of digital receipts. They were entirely liquidating their bank accounts, their stocks, their properties, and transferring the funds to a newly formed Global Defense Coalition. 3. I clicked on a link from one of the screenshots. It took me to an official, government-backed portal. It was real. The site was clunky, clearly rushed into existence overnight, but it had a public ledger. You could type in a donor’s name and see exactly what they had surrendered. I typed in my father’s name. They had done it. They had actually surrendered their life savings and the deed to the house. It wasn’t a scheme to play the stock market. They weren’t lying. A shard of ice slid down my spine. At that exact moment, I saw my parents rushing out of my apartment building. “Are you really from the future?!” I yelled, running toward them. But the moment they saw me, it was like they were looking at a ghost. They violently flinched, veering away to avoid coming anywhere near me. They scrambled into their car. I threw myself in front of the hood, desperate for an answer. My father didn’t even hesitate. He slammed his foot on the gas. I barely threw myself out of the way in time, scraping my knees on the asphalt. They hadn’t even tapped the brakes. They didn’t care if they killed me. I sat on the pavement, the world spinning out of focus. Why? Why had the people who loved me most—my parents, the man I was going to marry—suddenly severed all ties with me? Just because they were “Returners” and I wasn’t? Brrrring— My phone rang, pulling me out of my shock. It was my boss, Wallace. His voice was frantic, breathless. “Where the hell are you? Have you looked at the time?” “Get to the office right now. We need you to finalize the upload of all our proprietary algorithms to the Global Crisis Database…” White noise roared in my ears. Wallace worshipped money. Making him lose a dollar was like drawing blood. Our new algorithm was projected to double our quarterly revenue, and he was just giving it away to an open-source global database? There was only one logical conclusion left. The world really was ending. Half an hour later, scrolling through the news on my commute, I confirmed it. The entire globe was mobilizing to face a crisis three years away. I scoured comment sections, forums, and subreddits. Not a single person was questioning the concept of waking up with future memories. That meant it was everyone. Every single human being on Earth was a Returner. Except me. Because I wasn’t a Returner, my boyfriend and my parents were terrified of me. They cut me off to survive. But the logic didn’t track. Even if I didn’t have memories of the apocalypse, I was just one woman. How could one ordinary person possibly threaten the survival of the world? There had to be another reason they were so afraid of me. When I got to the office, I played it safe. I didn’t breathe a word about my memory gap. I pretended to be one of them. I sat down with the engineering team and seamlessly helped them upload our life’s work to the public domain. At lunch, everyone gathered in the breakroom. The air was thick with a strange, manic energy. A few people were talking about blowing their savings to live out their wildest fantasies, trying to make up for regrets they carried from their “previous” deaths. But the vast majority had already enlisted in the colossal, global engineering projects being drafted to prepare for the end. When there was a lull in the conversation, I took a calculated risk. I mimicked the exact look of visceral terror I had seen on my mother’s face that morning. “Did you guys hear?” I whispered, keeping my voice shaky. “I… I ran into someone today. A guy. He didn’t remember. He wasn’t a Returner.” The words hung in the air. Instantly, the entire breakroom went dead silent. The blood drained from my coworkers’ faces. The atmosphere became so heavy and suffocating it was hard to breathe. 4. I knew it. Their reaction confirmed my deepest suspicion: there was something monstrously wrong with not being a Returner. I kept my mouth shut, waiting for them to start whispering, waiting to glean some scrap of information. The office gossip, a guy who usually never stopped talking, broke the silence with a trembling voice. “Are… are there really people who didn’t return?” “Because if there are, that means—” “Shut up!” The tech lead, Diane, cut him off with a voice like cracked ice. She stood up slowly, her finger raising to point directly at my chest. “Did you all hear exactly what she just said?” Diane asked, her eyes boring into mine. “She said she met a Returner…” She paused, her voice dropping to a terrifying hiss. “She said she met a person who didn’t remember.” I didn’t understand why the singular phrasing was an issue, but the effect was immediate. It was as if a spell had been broken. Every single person in the room lunged out of their chairs, scrambling backward, putting as much physical distance between us as the breakroom allowed. I realized I had made a fatal error. I forced a nervous laugh, trying to do damage control. “Guys, what’s going on? Are you misunderstanding me? I’m not the one who—” “Then answer me this,” Diane interrupted, her tone lethal. “What was the specific catalyst that wiped out human civilization in our previous timeline?” I froze. My mind raced, but I had nothing. The internet forums had confirmed an impending apocalypse, but nowhere—not a single post, not a single article—had mentioned how the world ended. Were they deliberately censoring the cause of the apocalypse? Was the entire planet actively conspiring to keep this information from me? But… why? I was just an ordinary woman. What could possibly make me so dangerous? My silence was all the answer they needed. Without another word, my coworkers turned and practically fled the room. No matter what I screamed after them, not a single person looked back. Ten minutes later, the alert that I was a “Non-Returner” was pushed to every digital device on the planet. I was systematically erased from society. My landlord dragged my belongings onto the sidewalk. Every grocery store, restaurant, and hotel refused to process my cards or let me through their doors. I was banned from every public space. In fact, I was strictly forbidden from being anywhere near another human being. A squad of heavily armed, tactical military personnel was assigned to tail me. Their only job was to corral me away from population centers. I was forced to scavenge through dumpsters in the dead of night just to find scraps to eat. I was thrust into an existence of pure, unadulterated isolation, drowning in a sea of confusion and loneliness that felt worse than death. “Why?!” “I don’t have the memories, I get it! But I am willing to give everything for the future of humanity, including my life!” “If I am a threat to you, then just put a bullet in my head right now!” I stood in an empty, desolate lot, screaming at the squad of soldiers watching me through their scopes from a hundred yards away. “Why are you doing this to me? Why torture me? Why did you make my parents abandon me?!” They didn’t answer. They never did. A full year passed. I hadn’t exchanged a single word with another human being in 365 days. From my forced exile in the wilderness, I watched massive, monolithic space elevators pierce the clouds, built to harvest resources from other planets. I watched as armadas of interstellar warships blotted out the sun. And down in the dirt, there was just me. A fragile woman made of flesh and bone, someone who could be taken out by a single stray bullet. What made me worthy of this global quarantine? My sanity began to fracture. Late one night, I snuck back toward the edge of the city limits to rummage through the industrial trash bins. But this time, I wasn’t hoping to find food. And I had finally stopped harboring the delusion that my parents might sneak out to save me out of familial love. I was utterly, totally broken. I dug through the refuse until I found a jagged, heavy shard of shattered glass. Without a second thought, I drove it deep into the side of my neck. I thought I was finally buying my freedom. But the soldiers guarding me wouldn’t even let me die. They swarmed me with terrifying speed, applying advanced, futuristic trauma care. When I woke up, the wound was entirely sealed, and I had been dumped further out into an uninhabited wasteland. But something had shifted inside me. I was no longer drowning in despair. The fear was gone. I looked up at the sky, obscured by the shadows of a thousand battleships, and let out a dry, raspy laugh. “I know why you’re all so afraid of me.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “438311”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel