Category: English

My boyfriend suffered from severe clinical depression. Between his weekly psychiatric therapy sessions and his prescription medications, his treatment cost over $3,000 a month. To keep him afloat, I worked myself into the ground, taking on endless freelance graphic design commissions while grinding 12-hour shifts for DoorDash. My friends constantly warned me I was going to literally work myself to death. Until one day, I snagged an incredibly high-paying delivery order going to an ultra-exclusive, gated billionaire community. I carefully carried the $2,500 premium Omakase sushi order to the front door, offering it respectfully to the customer. But when I looked up… I saw my supposedly depressed, struggling boyfriend, who was supposed to be at his therapy session, standing in the doorway. He looked at me in absolute, horrified shock. 01 “Aren’t you supposed to be at the clinic, Liam?” I stared at the breathtakingly luxurious, custom-built mansion behind him. My left hand gripped the handles of the takeout bag so tightly my knuckles turned white, aching from the pressure. Even though it was nearly 100 degrees outside, my entire body was violently shivering, as if I had been plunged into an ice bath. A place like this… I had only ever seen mansions like this in Hollywood movies. “Chloe, please, I’m so sorry. Let me explain. Dr. Miller had a sudden emergency this afternoon…” “I’m just visiting a friend’s house. I swear.” Caught completely off guard, Liam lost his composure and frantically grabbed my uniform sleeve. It was his signature move whenever he needed to apologize. It worked flawlessly every single time. But today, it meant absolutely nothing. I coldly slapped his hand away. The custom-tailored, designer linen shirt he was wearing had no visible logo, but the cruel irony was that it fit him perfectly—far better than the cheap, thrift-store clothes he usually wore. It exuded the effortless, old-money aura of a trust-fund kid. I lowered my eyes, pulling out my phone to open the Mount Sinai Hospital appointment app. I saw that Dr. Miller, his psychiatrist, had completely open availability for the entire afternoon. I didn’t even have the energy to call out his lie. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, I forced my mind to clear. Maintaining a deadpan expression, I kept my voice terrifyingly calm: “Is this fun for you, Liam?” “Pretending to be a broke, depressed, struggling kid while you’re with me. Acting like you couldn’t even afford a $5 Starbucks coffee… when in reality, you’re a billionaire heir who drops $2,500 on a single lunch order!” My lips trembled. I glared at the man standing in front of me with pure, unadulterated resentment, completely unaware of when the tears had started pouring down my face. “You really… you played me for an absolute idiot.” “Two thousand five hundred dollars! I would have to run hundreds of deliveries… I’d have to work for months just to earn that…” The most agonizing, hilarious irony of it all? The only app running in the background of my phone… Was the text message I had sent Liam half an hour ago. I told him I was going to treat us tonight and make his favorite homemade chicken noodle soup. Because the customer in this ultra-rich neighborhood had been incredibly generous and tipped me $100 on the app. I just never, in my wildest nightmares, imagined that the $100 tip was given to me by Liam himself. 02 Liam used to hold me in the dead of night, whispering that the only thing in the universe he would never doubt was my love for him. He said even his own parents’ love wasn’t as pure and unconditional as mine. Those intimate whispers used to fill me with joy. I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world to find genuine, unfiltered devotion in a society where true love felt nonexistent. But looking back at it now… No one in their right mind could possibly be as stupid as me. Risking heatstroke riding a bike in 100-degree weather just to earn a $5 delivery bonus, desperately trying to scrape together enough cash to cover his medical bills for the month. “I haven’t slept more than five hours a night in months. I literally dream about the day you finally recover.” “And you knew exactly what I was doing for you. Didn’t you?” My voice cracked, choked by rising sobs. The facade of calm on Liam’s face finally shattered. His eyes reddened, and he gave a slow, agonizing nod. In our cramped, claustrophobic, 300-square-foot studio apartment, where we had to walk thirty minutes just to reach the nearest subway station… He watched me exhaust myself to the bone. He watched me break pennies in half trying to budget our meals. He watched me live in absolute squalor while desperately paying to support his twisted, fake “poverty simulation.” All to cure a clinical depression that he completely made up for his little roleplay. He watched the entire thing unfold from above, completely detached, like a god observing a pathetic ant. “I’ll wire a massive sum of money to your bank account. Consider it compensation.” “I’m so sorry, Chloe. I really messed up.” Liam hung his head, his eyes filled with guilt and profound panic. Realizing there was absolutely no lie he could invent to dig his way out of this, he simply gave up. My fingers stiffened as I reached into my pocket and pulled out the crumpled, half-meter-long receipt for the sushi order. It listed the most elite, imported cuts of Wagyu and Toro available. I crushed it into a tight ball and hurled it as hard as I could directly at his face. Liam didn’t dodge. His expression was a horrific mix of grief and devastating regret. The central air conditioning blowing from the open mansion door sent a chilling breeze over my sweat-soaked skin. Amidst the buzzing of the summer cicadas, I heard the sharp, rhythmic clicking of heels approaching from inside the house. Followed instantly by a whiny, flirtatious female voice: “Liam, babe? Is the food not here yet? I’m literally starving to death!” 03 Liam and I both froze. His expression violently twisted in panic. We both turned our heads to see a young woman wearing a sheer, silk lace slip dress walking toward the door. Liam frantically stepped forward to block her. “Why did you come out? I’ll be right inside, baby, just go back in.” But the girl seemed determined to see what was going on. She stepped around Liam, flashing a brilliant, saccharine smile at me. Her large, doe-like eyes held a glimmer of recognition, quickly followed by absolute, undisguised contempt. “Who is this…?” Nobody answered. Seeing our dead silence, the corners of her lips curled into a smirk. She casually, possessively linked her arm through Liam’s, subtly tugging the strap of her blush-pink, translucent slip dress down her shoulder. The dark, bruised hickeys on her neck, and the curves visible beneath the silk… were impossible to ignore. She leaned her entire body weight against Liam, looking completely boneless and incredibly intimate. The man’s panicked, terrified gaze darted back to me. I turned my head away in absolute despair, squeezing my eyes shut. My hair, soaked in sweat, stuck uncomfortably to my cheeks. My temples throbbed with a sharp, spiking agony. Even if I was legally brain-dead, I would know exactly what had been happening inside that house. I originally thought I was just the unlucky idiot caught in a billionaire’s poverty roleplay. But looking at them now, I realized I was also the pathetic side-character in a rich kid’s twisted romance drama. It was absolutely, profoundly sickening. I didn’t want to stay there a second longer. I turned around, packed up my insulated delivery bag, and prepared to leave. But the girl suddenly called out to me: “Wait a second. Are you the pathetic little ‘slum-girl’ Liam was playing around with off-campus?” “I didn’t recognize you in that disgusting delivery uniform, but… you’re Chloe Vance from the Liberal Arts department, aren’t you?” 04 I stopped moving and turned back to stare at her. After thirty seconds, I finally placed her face. She was a senior, one year ahead of me. The gorgeous, ultra-wealthy, universally worshipped “It Girl” of our university: Stella Dupont. But we had bad blood. Because she used her family’s massive corporate donations to pull strings behind the scenes and successfully stole the low-income, merit-based university grant that was supposed to go to me. Because of that, I never sucked up to Stella like the rest of the student body did. Seeing the dark, hostile look in my eyes, Stella’s grip on Liam’s arm tightened even more. She put on an exaggerated, delighted expression, her voice dripping with venomous sweetness: “I can’t believe it, Liam! Remember last year when I casually complained to you about how annoying and stuck-up that fake-smart junior was?” “You asked me a few questions about her, and then you actually went and ruined Chloe Vance’s life for me! I have to say, your methods are absolutely brilliant. Truly incredible…” Stella tilted her chin up, glaring at me like I was an insect, and continued: “So brilliant that you managed to play Chloe Vance—the untouchable academic prodigy of the Liberal Arts department—like an absolute, pathetic dog.” My hands, hanging limply by my sides, slowly curled into fists. The freezing air conditioning from the mansion hit my skin, but it didn’t cool the volcanic rage erupting in my chest. To these people, the futures, emotions, money, and blood, sweat, and tears of ordinary people were just annoying weeds growing by the side of the road. They didn’t just ignore us—they actively went out of their way to crush us under their designer shoes and spit on us for fun. Stella leaned up and kissed Liam’s cheek—a reward for his successful, years-long psychological torture of me. She shot me a deeply provocative, mocking look. Then, as if suddenly remembering a hilarious inside joke, her expression turned bizarrely manic as she asked: “Oh, Chloe. Did Liam tell you he suffered from severe clinical depression?” I furrowed my brow, not denying it. Seeing my reaction, the woman practically doubled over in hysterical laughter. The words that spilled from her mouth sent a wave of absolute, freezing horror straight into my bones. “That’s because I told him… that you had a younger brother who committed suicide because of severe clinical depression.” “I told him that as long as he claimed to have depression, you would be stupid enough to fall for it instantly.” “And look at that. I was right.” 05 The second the words left her mouth, the air in the entryway went completely dead. The only sound left was the buzzing of the cicadas. My brain literally exploded. Every last shred of rational thought I possessed evaporated. I bit down on my lower lip so hard I tasted blood, ripped my delivery helmet off my head, gripped it by the strap, and viciously hurled it directly at Liam’s face. If I swallowed this kind of humiliation and just walked away, I might as well just lay down and die. My chest heaving violently, I screamed at the top of my lungs: “Depression, huh?! Pretending to be broke, huh?! You love targeting people’s deepest trauma, don’t you?!” “You absolutely deserved it when your parents ignored you! You deserved to watch your father beat your mother half to death right in front of you! Why the fuck didn’t he just beat you to death while he was at it?!” “I’M GOING TO BEAT YOU TO DEATH FOR HIM RIGHT NOW!” During the year Liam and I lived together—whether it was all an act on his end or not—we did share our deepest vulnerabilities with each other. So I knew perfectly well that his ultimate, unforgivable trauma was the profound neglect and abuse he suffered from his parents, and the fact that he grew up utterly devoid of familial love. And right now, that trauma became my ultimate weapon. I weaponized his deepest pain and used it to butcher him. Before either of them could react, I threw myself forward, raining a barrage of savage, brutal punches directly onto Liam’s face. Fueled by blinding, explosive rage, I was gasping for air. The chronic sleep deprivation and physical exhaustion from working three jobs caught up to me, and my vision started swimming. The exact second Stella brought up my little brother, Noah… the fragile dam holding back my sanity completely shattered. He was my reverse scale. The one thing in this universe absolutely no one was allowed to touch. Until Stella forcefully dragged me away from him, Liam didn’t raise a single finger to defend himself. He covered his mouth. His hands were covered in blood. “Liam! Are you okay?! I’m calling the cops right now!” “This crazy bitch has lost her mind! How dare she hit you?! I’m going to call my dad and have her…” Stella’s furious, panicked voice broke into a sob. But Liam grabbed her wrist, shaking his head slowly. “Don’t. Stop.” “This is all… my fault. I owe her this.” He brushed his messy, blood-stained hair out of his eyes, stood up straight, and walked over to me. He pulled a heavy, solid-metal Amex Black Card from his pocket and handed it to me. “The PIN is your birthday. I know the damage I’ve done is permanent, and I can never fix it, but… just take it. I am so sorry.” I let out a harsh, freezing laugh. The look I gave him was filled with absolutely nothing but pure, unadulterated hatred and ice. “Go to hell.” I violently snatched the Black Card from his fingers, dropped those three words, turned around, and walked away. 06 The card had $110,000 on it. After demanding my final paycheck from the delivery app’s contractor company, I officially quit my job. My 250-square-foot studio apartment. You could see the entire place in a single glance. Back then, the reason Liam and I moved out of the university dorms and rented this place was because he claimed his depressive, psychosomatic symptoms were getting worse, and he desperately needed me by his side every day. Honestly, I wasn’t completely defenseless when Liam forcefully, aggressively barged into my life. But when I saw that he suffered from the exact same agonizing illness as my little brother… my heart softened. My judgment blurred. Looking back, it was impossible to tell if my feelings for him were actually love, or just a desperate, manic attempt to compensate for the infinite, crushing guilt I felt over my brother’s death. I was obsessed. I was violently, obsessively determined to cure Liam’s depression. It felt like if I could just save him… the suffocating nightmare of my past would finally let me breathe. I suppose, over the course of a year, we accumulated quite a few things. But looking at all the matching couples’ items, the coffee mugs, the watches, the little anniversary souvenirs… they felt like acid burning my eyes. So I threw every single one of them into the trash. Listening to the rattling hum of the ancient, window-unit AC, I stared at the ceiling. Finally freed from the grueling, endless exhaustion of working myself to death, I fell into a deep, heavy sleep. In my dreams, I couldn’t even count how many times I saw Noah lying in that bathtub. He lay there, completely drained of color, submerged in deep crimson water. His skin was as pale as porcelain. He had no warmth. He had no pulse. The empty pill bottle had tumbled from his limp fingertips. His long, delicate eyelashes were resting softly against his cheeks—looking exactly the way he did when he waited up for me while I studied, dozing off on the couch. Only this time, he would never open his eyes again. He would never rub his sleepy eyes and ask me when I was coming to bed. On his phone, he had deleted every single chat history with every person he knew. The only thing left was a final message sent to me: “I’m so sorry, Chloe.” Along with a Venmo transfer for $512.43. It was every single penny he had to his name. That year, the spring flowers were blooming brighter than ever. Noah, who was brilliant, kind, and possessed all the potential in the world, chose the most beautiful season to leave it. And I… I was permanently trapped in that spring forever. 07 The rustling of plastic bags near the front door jolted me awake. A man wearing a black dress shirt was crouching next to the trash can, suspiciously digging through the garbage. “Who’s there?” The man froze, then slowly turned around. It was Liam. He was wearing a surgical mask, and there were several white bandages on his face from where I had beaten him. I rubbed my pounding temples, completely forgetting that he still had a key to the apartment. The matching rings, the coffee mugs, the watches, and the souvenirs I had thrown away that afternoon had all been meticulously dug out of the trash and lined up perfectly on the floor. “Why the hell are you digging through my garbage?” Hearing my voice, Liam lowered his eyes, his expression unreadable. “I just came to pack a few last things before I leave.” “These are all cheap, worthless garbage. A billionaire heir actually wants them?” I sat up on the bed, casually glancing around the room to see if there was anything else important I needed to pack. Now that it was over, I planned to just move back into my university dorm. I was going to terminate the lease on this place tomorrow. Liam held the cheap, $50 silver couple’s ring in his hand, gently rubbing his thumb over the metal. His voice was low and devastatingly lonely: “Chloe, I know you don’t believe me, but I really, genuinely loved you. I really only trusted you…” “No one in my entire life has ever loved me with that kind of pure, raw honesty. I didn’t want to lose you.” I waved my hand dismissively, letting out a dark scoff. The memory of what happened this afternoon flashed through my mind like a cruel joke. “Pure honesty? What, because you loved me so much, you purposely manipulated me into delivering the food for your post-sex meal with your mistress? Am I supposed to get on my knees and thank you?” “I can explain what happened with Stella! We never slept together! Me dating her in the first place was just a casual agreement from way back then!” “And I’ve wanted to break up with her for months! I realized that the person I truly, actually love is…” “There is absolutely no need to discuss this anymore.” I cut him off, my voice freezing cold, my eyes completely dead. The leaky faucet in the bathroom dripped rhythmically into a plastic bucket. The plumbing had been broken for years. To save a few dollars on the water bill, I always kept a bucket under it to catch the drips. The money I saved was literal pennies. When a fake, manufactured love is finally exposed, the words they use to justify it just sound pathetic and hilarious. The moment his sick, twisted psychological trap was exposed, regardless of whether his feelings were genuine or not, an uncrossable, infinite abyss had permanently opened between us. “Honestly, Liam. When you used the exact method my little brother used to kill himself as a prop to manipulate me into loving you… did you ever stop to think that the karma would eventually boomerang right back and hit you in the head?” “What do you mean?” I didn’t answer. I just furrowed my brow, opened the front door, and gestured for him to get out. Seeing my utterly resolute, emotionless expression, a flash of deep, agonizing hurt crossed his eyes. He hastily shoved all the items from the floor into his designer backpack and stood up. “Stop pretending to have clinical depression.” “Because for every single sociopath like you who fakes it for attention, the stigma against depression gets exponentially worse. And people who actually, desperately need help… get completely ignored.” People like Noah. After a long, suffocating silence, the man standing in front of me slowly nodded his head. Then, Liam reached behind the door and pulled out a grocery bag filled with fresh pork ribs and lotus root. He had seen the text I sent him earlier about making his favorite soup. “Could you… make me lotus root soup one last time?” “No. I’m sure your family’s private Michelin-star chef makes it infinitely better.” “I only like the way you make it.” “Chloe… why can’t you just trust me one more time? Why won’t you give me one last chance?” His voice cracked, choked with tears. I never imagined that Liam, having reclaimed his status as an untouchable, ultra-wealthy billionaire heir, would ever wear an expression of absolute, desperate begging on his face. Right now, in this exact moment, his behavior completely contradicted the rules of his twisted little “poverty simulation” game. Regardless of whether his tears were real or fake, I remained completely, utterly unmoved. I stared at him in dead silence. He knew I was rejecting him. He reached his hand out, desperately wanting to grab my arm, but eventually let it drop to his side. Before he walked out the door, Liam’s eyes were bloodshot. He turned back and looked at me one last time. “Do you still love me?” “No.” “Could you ever… love me again?” “Never.”

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He couldn’t wait to pursue his heartbroken “first love.” And I started dating my former high school desk mate who just returned from abroad. I thought we both had bright futures ahead of us. Until the day I sincerely wished him luck in finding his true love. He lost his mind and interrogated me: “Who gave you permission to actually forget about me?!” I don’t understand. Was his amnesia fake this whole time? 01 I broke up with Wes. It happened on our two-year anniversary. We got into a car accident and both woke up with amnesia. Our close friends came to the hospital and told us we were a couple. Wes took a long, hard look at me, raised an eyebrow, and made a swift decision: “Since neither of us remembers, let’s just say we aren’t together anymore.” I understood what he meant, but I was still hesitant: “But we’ll probably get our memories back someday. What if we regret it when we do? Besides, everyone knows we’re dating.” He chuckled softly, sounding completely certain: “If you truly like someone, even if you forget the memories, you wouldn’t forget the feeling of liking them. Plus, who’s to say if we’ll ever get our memories back anyway?” He had a point. Even the doctors couldn’t guarantee when, or if, our memories would return. They only suggested we interact with people and things from our past, hoping it might trigger something. The doctors explained that there are many types of amnesia. Ours likely fell under selective amnesia—we only forgot specific people or events. For instance, Wes and I forgot that we were dating, and we forgot each other. But we remembered everything and everyone else perfectly fine. They said this condition was likely a defense mechanism triggered by extreme physical or psychological trauma. The brain chose to seal away bad memories. Unless the patient subconsciously wanted to unlock those memories, external intervention wouldn’t do much good. When our friends came to visit and heard the explanation, they came to a sudden realization and summarized: “Ah, so basically, you can never wake a person who’s pretending to be asleep.” I lowered my head and breathed softly. I turned to look at Wes, who was pressing his lips together in silence. He turned his face away and scoffed: “If we’re both willing to forget, it means it wasn’t important.” True. One person forgetting might be a coincidence. Both people forgetting means it definitely wasn’t important. Originally, when I woke up in the hospital, saw him, and was told he was my boyfriend—yet I had completely forgotten him—I felt nervous and insecure. I met his scrutinizing gaze and apologized guiltily: “I’m sorry, I don’t remember you.” I hadn’t expected him to smile as if a massive weight had been lifted off his shoulders. “It’s okay. I forgot you too.” And so, our two-year relationship was officially null and void in that exact moment. Wes couldn’t even wait. He immediately posted a story on Instagram: [The End.] Announcing to everyone that we had broken up. The first person to comment was Chloe. She teased: “Wes, why are you always copying me? ~” Copying what? When she started dating someone, he started dating someone. When she broke up, he broke up. Chloe and Wes went to high school together. When we got to college, she became my roommate. She was the one who originally introduced Wes to me. She said: “Keep the good stuff in the family, right? First come, first served. What do you think? Is my high school friend handsome or what?” He was indeed very handsome. Tall, long legs, sharp features. Especially when he smiled, there was a cool but boyish charm about him that was incredibly attractive. So attractive that the first time I saw him, I wanted to be with him. Because of Chloe, we gradually got to know each other. On the exact night Chloe announced her relationship online, Wes confessed his feelings to me. And now, coincidentally, we were all single again. 02 Everything reset to zero. But Wes still showed up outside our dorm building every single day. He was there to see Chloe. Unlike Wes and me, whose relationship ended because of amnesia, she still remembered her past relationship and was inevitably struggling to move on. Wes tried every way possible to cheer her up. When I was walking back to the dorm from the library, I saw them outside the building. Wes placed a bag of roasted chestnuts and a box of begonia pastries—which apparently required a three-hour wait in line—into Chloe’s hands. He comforted her gently: “Don’t be sad. Tomorrow I’ll take you to the arcade.” “I’ll win you as many of those Cinnamoroll plushies as you want.” The next second, he looked up and saw me walking toward them. The lobby lights were too bright, so I couldn’t clearly see his backlit expression, but I distinctly felt him stiffen. Probably because we had just broken up. Even if we were now strangers who were worse off than friends. Chloe, on the other hand, walked over to me with red eyes as soon as she saw me. She had clearly been crying, but she still smiled bravely and said: “Olivia, don’t misunderstand. There’s nothing going on between Wes and me. Once he gets his memory back, everything will be fine. Right now, he’s just helping me distract myself from my breakup.” This wasn’t the first time she had said this to me, even though every time I would calmly tell her: “It’s fine. I don’t remember anyway, and we’ve already broken up.” The next time we met, she would say it again, as if she were absolutely certain we would regain our memories and get back together. She would even sigh enviously: “I wish I had amnesia like you guys. Then I wouldn’t have to be this heartbroken.” She was indeed very heartbroken. So heartbroken that right after her breakup, she would often go out to get drunk. Once, she ran into her ex at a bar celebrating a friend’s birthday and mistakenly thought he was with a new girl. She ran over and started a massive scene. When the guy yelled at her to stop, Wes rushed over and started a fistfight with them. Bottles and cake shattered all over the floor, ruining the birthday party. During the chaos, someone slashed Wes’s face with a broken bottle, leaving a bloody gash. Looking at the wound on his face, I had panicked, losing control of my emotions and blurting out: “Wes, can you please not be so impulsive next time?!” He casually wiped the blood off his wound. “If I’m not impulsive, do I just wait for them to bully Chloe? Didn’t that piece of trash deserve to be hit? Chloe is in so much pain, what right does he have to happily celebrate someone else’s birthday?” I thought he was being completely unreasonable, but I still softened my voice and pleaded: “Then at least be careful next time and don’t get your face hurt, okay?” I only knew about these past events because I read them in my diary. I had always kept a diary. It also recorded that shortly after we started dating, we walked past a row of claw machines after watching a movie. I excitedly wanted to try to win a little yellow butter-dog plushie. But Wes just shoved his hands in his pockets and said dismissively: “That’s too childish. Claw machines are for little kids.” But now, he was telling Chloe he was going to take her to the arcade and win her as many Cinnamoroll plushies as she wanted. I figured it was probably the amnesia that caused his change in perspective. Just like my diary mentioned he once said that waiting in line for three hours just for some overly sweet begonia pastries was a massive waste of time. I never won the yellow butter-dog plushie, and I never got to eat the begonia pastries. And I don’t know if he meant the pastries were a waste of time. Or if I was. 03 Wes really didn’t like the conversations Chloe and I had. She would say there was nothing going on between them. I would say we had already broken up. Every time he heard this, Wes would always interject in annoyance: “If a feeling can be forgotten, how strong could it have been anyway? Even if she remembers, we’re not getting back together.” Yeah, forgotten is forgotten. It means it wasn’t love enough. The past was like smoke; one breath and it scattered. There was nothing worth holding onto. I had zero interest in how their relationship developed, but somehow I kept running into them almost every single day. Junior year coursework was heavy. Wes wasn’t even in the same college as us, yet he would skip his own classes every day just to accompany Chloe to hers. I guess Wes had never done that for me, because it wasn’t long before a girl asked Chloe: “Wow, is this your boyfriend? He’s so handsome~” Chloe immediately smiled and waved her hands, explaining as the light in Wes’s eyes noticeably dimmed: “No, no, we’re just friends.” The girl gave a knowing “Oh~,” her gaze darting between the two of them before she said: “Friends, huh…” She didn’t say the rest, leaving it entirely to the imagination. She was probably wondering what kind of “friend” would accompany her to class every day, buy her favorite boba tea every time he came, take her out to eat right after class, and purposely sit between her and any other guys. Or what kind of “friend” would, on a rainy day, shield her so completely from the rain that half his own body got soaked. Which directly resulted in him catching a bad fever. So much so that when he accompanied Chloe to class the next day, he was so sick he spent the entire time slumped on the desk, half-asleep. During the break between lectures, he suddenly spoke in a hoarse voice: “Olivia, I feel so sick…” His voice wasn’t particularly loud, but it was incredibly abrupt. People around us turned to look at me sitting a few rows back. Even Chloe asked him nervously: “Wes, did… did you remember?” My pen paused. I looked up, then quickly looked back down at my notebook. After a long silence, I heard him say very quietly: “I’m dizzy. My head is cloudy.” Maybe he really was delirious. Because at noon, when I went to the campus clinic to buy some Vitamin C and coincidentally ran into him getting an IV drip, he looked at me through his exhaustion and the very first thing he said was: “Is it shrimp and vegetable porridge again this time?” The moment the words left his mouth, we both froze. Of course I knew why he said that. My diary recorded that in the past, every time he got sick, I would bring him shrimp and vegetable porridge and eat it with him. He used to frown and say helplessly: “Let’s get a different flavor next time.” I would smile sweetly and agree, but the next time, I would still buy the shrimp and vegetable. Over time, he just got used to it. But now, he blurted it out while he supposedly had amnesia. In the silent standoff, his gaze dropped to my empty hands. Only then did he seem to snap back to reality. Meeting my slightly stunned eyes, he said stiffly: “Don’t misunderstand. I didn’t get my memory back. I just… it was just a muscle memory response. Yeah, it probably happened in the past.” I didn’t care about his stumbling explanation. I just gave him an indifferent smile, said “No misunderstanding,” and left the clinic with my Vitamin C. I could feel his gaze lingering on my back for a long time. I didn’t turn around. The phone in my pocket vibrated. It was the alarm for my part-time job—tutoring a high school student in math, physics, and chemistry. I grabbed my prepared lesson plans and hurried over. The moment I walked through the door, my student ran out of the study excitedly and called out: “Miss Olivia!” The next second, another figure walked out of the study. He had a clean, striking, and sharply handsome presence. Holding a test paper between his fingers, his gaze landed directly and unapologetically on my face. As our eyes met, my smile froze. My student excitedly told me: “Miss Olivia, this is the older cousin I told you about before—the one whose grades were just as trash as mine! Chase Vance. He just got back to the States today.” Then she turned to him proudly and said: “This is the Miss Olivia I was talking about. she’s amazing. She goes to Columbia University, my dream school.” Chase stood casually by the door, one hand in his pocket. Hearing her introduction, he looked at me with a half-smile and said: “Miss Olivia…” “Long time no see.” 04 It had been a long time since we parted ways right before high school graduation. So long that I thought I would never see him again in this lifetime. My high school desk mate—Chase Vance. The impression he left on me was way too deep. After all, back then, his absolutely garbage grades made him look incredibly out of place in our elite AP classes. His personality was cold, ruthless, and total delinquent energy. For a very long time, I genuinely believed he had absolutely nothing going for him except his face. Until one day after P.E. class, I accidentally got locked in the equipment room. It was a Friday evening, and the school was emptying out fast. I tried over and over to climb up to the high window, but I kept failing. Just as I was hopelessly curled up in the darkening corner, the equipment room door was violently kicked open. Light poured in. Slowly revealing Chase’s silhouette. I have to admit, in that situation, backlit by the fading sun, he really did look like a god descending from the heavens. I stood up and earnestly thanked him. He stepped closer, lowered his eyes, and smiled: “Verbal thanks isn’t enough, Olivia. I plan on cashing in this favor.” It wasn’t exactly an unacceptable form of repayment. He just wanted me to tutor him. When we first started high school, I had seen him looking frustrated at his tests that scored in the teens, and out of the kindness of my heart, I had tried to explain the problems to him. Back then, he just glared at me coldly and said acting tough: “Mind your own business. Who wants to listen to you lecture!” But the next time he encountered the same type of question, he remembered the method I had shown him and actually wrote it down. It’s just that his vibe was too aggressive. No matter how kind and enthusiastic I tried to be, I eventually backed off. I never expected him to actually ask for help himself. I guess he did have some ambition after all. Later, we grew much closer through the tutoring sessions. During those years of youth where all I knew was burying my head in books and studying, it felt like my entire life consisted of nothing but schoolwork and Chase. Once, I got sick and had to take time off to stay in the hospital. My parents were too busy with work to visit, but the person who showed up in my hospital room was Chase. I lay in the hospital bed, looking at him with his backpack slung over one shoulder, completely shocked: “You skipped class?” He raised an eyebrow and looked at me: “Is that really so surprising?” True. When we first started high school, him skipping class was a daily occurrence. But ever since we started tutoring, he hadn’t skipped once, so I had slowly forgotten about it. Seeing I didn’t say anything else, he swung his backpack off and said calmly: “I came to listen to you lecture, Miss Olivia.” I was appalled and accused him: “Chase, are you some kind of evil capitalist? I’m sick and you’re still making me work through an injury! This is exploitation!” He let out a light chuckle and pulled a takeout container out of his backpack. Suddenly, his demeanor grew serious, and even his voice softened as he said: “Yeah. Compensation for exploiting you.” It was shrimp and vegetable porridge. The hospital room was quiet, the faint glow of the sunset seeping through the window. He slowly and patiently sat with me while I ate my porridge. I held my spoon, tilted my head, and smiled at him: “Thank you, Chase.” He was the only person who came to the hospital to see me. The comfort of peaceful days always makes people assume there’s plenty of time ahead. Little did I know that tragedy always strikes when you least expect it. Right before graduation, a criminal my father—a police officer—had arrested was released from prison. Seeking revenge, the man intentionally tried to run me over with his car. At the critical moment, Chase pushed me out of the way. Amidst the chaos, I threw myself in front of him. He was covered in blood. I didn’t even dare to touch him. All I remember is that through my blurred vision, he seemed to use the last ounce of his strength to pull the corners of his mouth into a weak smile: “Stop crying. Wait for me to wake up so I can cash in my favor.” I didn’t get to wait. Because he completely vanished from my life. The medical staff told me his family had taken him away. Honestly, I already knew. The way a kid with dead-last grades got into the AP classes, the way the homeroom teacher treated him with absolute reverence… the gap between our worlds was so massive that it was practically impossible for me to ever find him. It didn’t really matter. I knew he would get the best medical care possible. I just felt a deep sense of regret. I never got the chance to properly say thank you. He saved my life. How exactly did he want me to repay him?

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On the seventh year of my body being stolen, I finally took it back. “She” had already used my body to get married and become pregnant. I immediately filed for divorce and terminated the pregnancy. The news of the marriage collapsing dominated the trending charts, but I couldn’t care less. All I wanted was to find my true love, the man she had left completely broken and covered in scars. 01 “Evie, time to wake up.” A man looked at me with eyes full of tenderness. He reached out, trying to brush a stray strand of hair from my forehead. I turned my face away, dodging his touch. Looking at this man—whom I had been forced to watch for seven years—I spoke with a voice as cold as ice: “Let’s get a divorce.” He seemed to freeze, the expression on his face going completely blank. I didn’t care. I stood up, walked over to the window, and reached out my hand to feel the long-lost warmth of the sunlight. For seven years, ever since my car crash, I had watched that woman invade my body. She squeezed my soul into a dark corner and banished me from my own life. Wearing my flesh, she disguised herself as me, basking in the love and pampering of my wealthy family. And worse—she used my actual true love as a stepping stone, a disposable pawn. She ruthlessly exploited him, greedily draining every drop of blood from his body, before laughing in his face and telling him she didn’t love him anymore. Her love for him had simply “vanished.” I watched, paralyzed and helpless, as my true love spiraled into madness, self-doubt, severe depression, and eventually, attempted to end his own life. When he was lying in the ICU, murmuring my name through bruised lips, his parents begged her to just come see him once. But she said: “I have a new boyfriend now. I can’t keep stringing my ex along. My new boyfriend is very sensitive; he’d get jealous.” From that moment on, our two families severed all ties. Decades of deep friendship burned to ashes. Faced with my parents’ confusion and suspicion, she deliberately poured gasoline on the fire, actively trying to alienate everyone who truly knew me. That way, she wouldn’t have to keep up the exhausting act of pretending to be me. She could recklessly be herself. She could recklessly use my face, my reputation, and even my creative work to chase after her celebrity crush. I looked down, surveying my body inch by inch. The calluses on my fingers from years of playing the piano had faded significantly. Instead, there were flashy, neon-colored acrylic nails covered in rhinestones. My pin-straight black hair had been dyed and curled into waves. These were all the parasitic marks she had left on me. Until my eyes dropped to my slightly swollen lower abdomen. A violent wave of nausea washed over me. “She” was pregnant. The initial euphoria of reclaiming my body instantly mutated into absolute disgust. It felt like a bucket of freezing water had been dumped over my head. A thief and a total stranger had used my body to do the most intimate things two people can do, and then planted the vile result of it inside me. I picked up the phone from the nightstand, preparing to leave this house immediately. If I stayed in this room for one more second, I was going to burn the whole place down. Besides, I had something much more important to do. My true love. The boy I grew up with, Noah Brooks. The man who was so broken I didn’t even know if he was dead or alive right now. I had to find him. I had to tell him that I loved him. And that the monster who shattered his heart wasn’t me. 02 “Evie, you’re just joking, right?” Liam Sterling grabbed my arm, forcing a strained smile. I physically peeled his hand off my arm. I looked him dead in the eye and enunciated every single word: “Look closely. I am Chloe Vance.” “I am not your ‘Evie.’ Chloe Vance has never gone by a second name, and she certainly would never let anyone call her Evie.” Watching my demeanor, a flash of genuine panic crossed his face. “Evie, my recent schedule was planned exactly the way you wanted. I turned down that movie role so I could stay home and keep you company for the next two months. “And the kissing scene in the last movie was just camera angles! I didn’t actually kiss her. “Please stop scaring me. We aren’t getting a divorce.” Seeing him panic, I tried my best to suppress the raging fury in my chest. I had to remind myself that he was just another victim of her lies. “Liam Sterling. I am Chloe Vance, and the man I love is Noah Brooks. “Not your ‘Evie.’ The ‘Evie’ you’re talking about is a thief who stole my body while I was in a coma from a car crash seven years ago. Her real name is Evelyn Harper. “Now, I’ve taken my body back. Your Evie is gone.” He lunged forward, trying to pull me into a hug. I shoved him hard, knocking him back. “Is… is this schizophrenia? It’s okay, Evie. We can go to a hospital. I will stay by your side through the whole treatment.” I shook my head. Clearly, logic wasn’t going to work here. “My lawyers will contact you regarding the divorce proceedings.” With that, I turned and walked briskly out the door. “Evie!” I unlocked the phone and quickly scrolled through the contacts. There was absolutely no trace of my actual family or friends. The contact list was entirely made up of people “Evelyn” had met over the past seven years. My fingers trembled as I manually typed in the phone number that was permanently burned into my memory. Listening to the dial tone ring over the speaker, my heart pounded violently against my ribs. Please. Please answer. “We’re sorry, the number you have dialed is out of service…” I called it over and over again. It was disconnected. So, I dialed my older brother’s number instead. “Hello.” “It’s me, Connor.” Hearing Connor Vance’s voice, my entire body shuddered. After being trapped inside my own head for seven years, I finally had a real, tangible connection with my family again. “Oh, if it isn’t the great Princess Vance. Why are you calling me? Just checking to see if I’ve died of a heart attack yet so you can inherit the estate? “Or did you catch your A-list movie star husband cheating, and he kicked you out? “If that’s the case, let me know. I need to go buy some fireworks to celebrate.” Hearing his biting sarcasm actually made me smile. He sounded energetic and loud, which meant he was doing well. “Connor, it’s me. It’s Chloe. “It’s too complicated to explain over the phone. I’m coming to your office right now.” “Don’t bother. Even if you show up, I’m not seeing you—” Before he could finish his sentence, I hung up. It was just going to be more cynical trash talk anyway. I hailed a cab and headed straight for the corporate district. Looking out the window at the towering skyscrapers and the manicured green spaces lining the avenues… Compared to seven years ago, the city had developed at a terrifying speed. The wheels of time had ruthlessly rolled forward. Leaving me alone to face this entirely unrecognizable, completely upended world. 03 “Ms. Vance, Mr. Vance is currently in a meeting with a client. It’s really not a good time for him to see you.” Ms. Hayes, his secretary, looked at me with profound discomfort, desperately trying to get me to leave. I had been sitting in the waiting area for half an hour. My patience was completely gone. When I stood up, a flicker of relief crossed Ms. Hayes’s face, but it quickly morphed into frantic pleading as I walked past her. “Ms. Vance, please! He really is with a client! Please don’t make this difficult for me!” I kept walking straight toward Connor’s office doors, patting her on the shoulder to comfort her. “Don’t worry. It’s fine. If he gets mad, I’ll take full responsibility. I really do have an absolute emergency.” “If he fires you over this, come find me. I’ll pay you double your salary and employ you for the rest of your life.” Ms. Hayes didn’t believe a single word I said. She looked at me like I was handing her Monopoly money. “Connor.” I shoved the heavy oak doors open. There was no client. The massive office was entirely empty except for him. Unless he was having a business meeting with a ghost. I gently pushed Ms. Hayes back out into the hallway and shut the doors. It was just me and him. I hadn’t seen him in so long. That thief hadn’t visited my childhood home or seen my family in three or four years. The brother sitting in front of me had clearly lost the reckless, youthful energy of his twenties. He looked mature, seasoned, and commanding. Especially his hairline—it was noticeably receding. I suppose that was the standard price of being a highly successful CEO. “What, you learned a new trick? “Spit it out. How are you planning to manipulate me this time?” Connor looked me up and down, a sneer of pure contempt curling the corner of his mouth. “How is Noah? Where is he? I need to see him.” “You actually have the nerve to ask to see him? Haven’t you destroyed him enough?! I swear to God, I have no idea how the Vance family produced a sociopath like you.” Connor’s emotions instantly flared, the veins on his neck pulsing with rage. “Connor, I have something incredibly important to tell you. You might think I’m clinically insane, but every word I say is the truth. “Seven years ago, when I got into that car crash, my body was stolen by a girl named Evelyn Harper. She wore my face and did all those horrific things. “From the second I woke up from that coma, that person was not me. Every word she spoke, every action she took—none of it was me.” Connor’s furious expression cracked slightly. He walked over to me and pressed the back of his hand against my forehead. “You don’t have a fever. Why are you spewing this psychotic sci-fi garbage?” “You don’t have to believe me right now, but every single word is true. Just watch me. Watch the way I speak and act from today onward, and compare it to the girl from the past seven years. Tell me we aren’t two completely different people.” I knew this was an impossibly hard truth to swallow. But it was reality. The only way I could prove it was through my actions. Seeing my desperate, deeply sincere expression, Connor hesitated. After all, we had lived together for 23 years. He knew exactly what his real little sister was like better than anyone on earth. When “I” woke up and acted like a different person, they probably assumed the traumatic brain injury had drastically altered my personality. No one in their right mind would ever assume a literal body-snatching had occurred. That was exactly why, even after “Evelyn” went nuclear and cut ties with the family, my parents and brother still secretly protected her from the shadows. Because I was their blood. I was the daughter they had cherished for 23 years, the little sister Connor had spoiled his entire life. The most hilarious part? Evelyn genuinely believed that all her success was due to her own “hard work” and “magnetic personality.” And Liam Sterling, the A-list actor she chased down and married, was just her ultimate trophy. “So what? What did you actually come here for today?” His eyes were still suspicious. He probably still thought this was just another one of my pathological lies. I was a bit disappointed, but I told myself to be patient. It would take time. “I want to see Noah. I can’t reach him. “I need your help.” Hearing that, Connor’s expression turned to ice. “You’re pregnant with another man’s baby, and you want to go see your first love?” His gaze dropped to my stomach. I grabbed Connor’s wrist and started dragging him toward the door. “What the hell are you doing?! Let go of me!” I looked at him, my voice completely unwavering. “I’m getting an abortion.” With another man’s child in my womb, I had absolutely no right to go see Noah. “Are you joking?” Connor tried to wrench his arm away, entirely refusing to believe I would actually do it. That girl, Evelyn, was a rabid, borderline-psychotic superfan of Liam Sterling. Her entire brain revolved around him. Based on the unhinged things she had done in the past, no one would ever believe she would willingly abort Liam’s child. But I wasn’t her. And this child was not something I ever wanted. This pregnancy was the biological proof of my violation. From the exact second I reclaimed my body, I knew this child was not going to survive. “You’ve completely lost your mind,” Connor said, looking at me in absolute, horrified shock. “I am not crazy. I am perfectly lucid.” I stood in the doorway, gripping Connor’s arm like a vice. “Connor. If something goes wrong during the surgery, please tell Mom, Dad, and Noah exactly what I just told you. “Tell them I love them.” Without another word, I pulled the heavy glass doors open and walked resolutely out of the office. I was going to surgically excise every single brand that parasite had left on me, and I was going to rebuild myself from the ground up. 04 Even as we sat on the cold benches in the hospital waiting room, Connor still couldn’t process it. “Chloe, are you seriously going through with this? “This is your own flesh and blood. “Did you cheat on him? Is that why you’re doing this? To destroy the evidence? “Tell me the truth.” Connor had just listened to the doctor explain the surgical procedure and the post-op care, and his brain was basically short-circuiting. I looked up at my older brother, who was currently pacing around like an ant on a hot skillet, and couldn’t help but try to comfort him. “This is Evelyn Harper and Liam Sterling’s child. It is not Chloe Vance’s child. “Once I recover from the surgery, I am going to see Noah. “Connor, please… can you just tell me how Noah is doing?” Just saying his name felt like thousands of needles stabbing directly into my heart. I had to watch him shatter into a million pieces. I had to watch the gentle, radiant smile on his face rot into a bone-deep, agonizing despair. We were supposed to be engaged. We had promised each other we were going to get married the following spring. And then the car crash happened, and everything was brutally, violently severed. Two childhood sweethearts. One trapped in the dark while her body was hijacked; the other slowly withering away into nothingness. Connor sat down next to me and let out a heavy, tragic sigh. My heart leaped into my throat, suspended over a terrifying abyss. “He’s not doing well. A few months ago, he… sigh. If they hadn’t found him in time, he’d be dead. “You know his psychological state was already incredibly fragile from the kidnapping when he was a kid. What happened between you two recently just completely pushed him over the edge.” Noah was terrified of pain. He hated it. If he actually tried to end his life, the emotional agony he was suffering must have been absolutely unbearable. When we were kids, he was kidnapped and went missing for weeks. I kept asking the adults, Where is Noah? Where did he go? No one answered me. They just looked down and sighed. Until the day he finally came back. He looked like a hollow, empty wooden puppet. His eyes were entirely dead. His leg was in a thick cast, his arms were wrapped in heavy gauze, and he was wearing a rigid neck brace. I stood next to his bed, too terrified to even touch him. Mrs. Brooks picked me up, fighting back tears. “Noah, look. Chloe is here. Your best friend came to see you.” Noah didn’t react at all. During his captivity, he had endured unimaginable trauma. He had been brutally beaten and locked in a pitch-black room for days on end. Psychiatrists cycled through the Brooks’ house like a revolving door. I practically moved into the Brooks’ mansion. I slept in his room. As a little girl, I didn’t understand why Noah wouldn’t say a single word, or why he refused to eat. I didn’t understand why he was absolutely terrified of the dark, refusing to sleep unless all the lights were on, or why he was paralyzed with fear whenever he saw a stranger. But I knew I had to protect him. He was my best friend. As the seasons changed, the physical wounds on his body slowly healed. But his psychological dependency on me grew exponentially. He would only play with me. He would only speak to me. No one thought it was weird. To everyone else, as long as he was eating and sleeping normally, that was a miracle in itself. We were always going to be together anyway, so it didn’t matter. Mrs. Brooks even joked with me once: “Chloe, when you grow up, do you want to take Noah as your husband?” I hugged the little boy sitting next to me and grinned brightly. “Yes! Thank you, Mrs. Brooks!” A faint, shy blush actually spread across Noah’s pale cheeks. He fundamentally believed that I was his lifelong anchor. But ironically… it was that exact, all-consuming devotion that ultimately destroyed him and shoved him into an even more terrifying abyss. Tears streamed relentlessly down my face. Connor patted me gently on the back. “If you’re actually serious about turning your life around this time, you better treat him right. “My biggest fear is that you’ll just get bored again and vanish. If you do that… Noah genuinely won’t survive it this time. “Over the past few years, Mr. Brooks has practically cried himself blind. The entire Brooks family is only holding together because Oliver is running the company.” I choked on a sob. “I won’t. I swear to God, even if I die, I will die by Noah’s side.” “Chloe Vance.” A nurse called my name from the doorway. “Connor, if anything goes wrong in there, you have to tell Mom, Dad, and Noah.” I gripped his hand tightly. I was terrified. I knew this surgery was routine, but I was terrified of a freak accident where I died, and no one would ever know the monster wasn’t actually me. The real Chloe Vance loved them. She loved them so incredibly much. “I’ll be right out here waiting for you. You’ll be fine. Nothing is going to go wrong.” The harsh surgical lights blinded me as I was put under. The vile, parasitic brand left on my body was finally being surgically excised. When I woke up, the sharp, sterile scent of bleach filled my nose. “My baby is awake.” “Oh, look! Our little Chloe is awake!” It was Mom. My Mom’s beautiful, familiar voice. “Does anything hurt? Are you uncomfortable anywhere?” My mom hovered over my bed, terrified I was in pain. “Waaaaah!” I threw my arms around my mom’s neck and burst into ugly, torrential sobs. “Mom, it hurt so much. I felt so awful. “I was locked in this pitch-black box for years. I was so terrified I was never going to see you again.” The second I saw my mother, the agonizing, suffocating injustice I had bottled up for seven years broke through the dam. For thousands of days and nights, I sat in the dark and cried for my dad, my mom, and Noah. And for Connor, too. My mom watched that thief brutally cut ties with our family, crying until she collapsed into my dad’s arms. Meanwhile, Evelyn Harper secretly laughed at them, calling them idiots for not realizing she wasn’t their real daughter. But she was also terrified of being exposed. So she threw away the homemade meals my mom brought, criticized the jewelry and clothes my mom bought her, and picked fights over every single expression of my mother’s love. In the end, she drained a massive chunk of our family’s assets, packed up the luxury jewelry my mom bought me, and ran off straight into Liam Sterling’s arms. She hit my family like a Category 5 hurricane, leaving us completely shattered. To her, my family was just “toxic baggage” she needed to dump. “Shh, don’t cry. It’s over now. “Mom’s here. Mom’s here. Mom knows my baby went through so much pain. Mom knows my real daughter would never, ever do those things. “But you can’t cry right now. Your body is still incredibly weak. “You just got out of surgery. You need to rest and heal.” My mom gently stroked my hair while my dad carefully wiped my tears away with a tissue. Connor, who had stepped out to take a phone call, walked back into the room holding a container of hot soup. “Eat up. The doctor said you need a liquid diet full of nutrients right now. “Everything you told me, I already told Mom and Dad. “Mom said you’re telling the truth, so I’m going to believe you for now.” He still looked a little awkward and hesitant, clearly still struggling to wrap his head around the sci-fi reality of the situation. It didn’t matter. I was Chloe Vance. My mom, my dad, and Connor would all realize it soon enough, and they would love me exactly like they used to.

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The summer I turned ten, my younger sister vanished. She disappeared on her way to drop off lunch for our parents. There were no security cameras, and no one saw her. Because I was the one who was supposed to deliver that food, my mother never spoke another word to me. Fifteen years later, I became a police officer, retracing the exact route my sister took that day over and over again. The past slowly resurfaced in my mind, piece by piece. Gradually putting together a truly heartbreaking truth. 01 August 10, 2009. The day my sister went missing. Back then, we lived in a run-down trailer park on the industrial outskirts of town. My father, Robert, worked as a laborer at the nearby chemical plant. My mother, Susan, ran a busy roadside convenience store. During the summer, lots of people stopped by the store to buy ice cream and cold drinks around noon, so my dad would go help out after his morning shift. They were always so busy they rarely had time to stop and eat. Because of that, almost the entire summer, I was the one making lunch for the whole family. I was ten years old. The kitchen had no air conditioning, only a single, beat-up box fan. Once the water on the stove boiled, the steam filled the room, and the fan only blew hot air around. Whenever I cooked, I was drenched in sweat. The day it happened, it was exceptionally hot. After I finished making the food, I felt like I was getting heatstroke. There was no one else home. My grandmother, Mary, lived in the house right next door to our lot, but she was a harsh, bitter woman. Not only would she refuse to help, but she’d also hurl insults at me, so I never dared to bother her. I splashed cold water on my face, pushed through the nausea, and served my sister, Lily, a bowl of cold pasta salad so she could eat first. Then I packed my parents’ portions into Tupperware and loaded them into a tote bag. Lily took a few bites of her pasta and looked up at me. “Chloe, you lie down in front of the fan. I’ll take the food to them today. I know the way. I’ll finish the rest of my lunch when I get back.” It was a ten-minute walk from our house to the store. There was only one dirt road, and it wasn’t completely isolated. I had walked it with her more times than I could count. Still, I was uneasy. “Are you sure you can carry it?” I asked, half-lying on the couch with a wet rag pressed to my forehead. “I’m fine! Don’t worry, Chloe. It’s a short walk. I’ll be right back.” Without giving me a chance to argue, she grabbed the bag and headed for the door. Because she was chronically ill, Lily was incredibly frail. When she gripped the bag, the bones in her shoulders jutted out. Her tiny silhouette looked so fragile from behind. Right before she stepped out, she turned and waved. “I’ll be right back! You better not steal my pasta while I’m gone!” “Don’t worry, I won’t eat it!” I waved her off impatiently, urging her to go. But she never came back. 02 “Do you think… if I had told her I was going to steal her food, she would have hurried back?” On January 9, 2024, I officially joined the city police department as a rookie officer. Eight months later, I found myself talking to my mentor, Detective Miller, about the cold case that had tortured me for fifteen years. “When did you realize she was gone?” Detective Miller asked. I rubbed my tired eyes. “Around 2:00 PM. After she left, I forced down a bite of food and fell into a deep sleep. I woke up to my dad slapping me across the face.” Even though it had been years, I remembered it vividly. The moment I opened my eyes, I was met with my father’s violently angry face. “Why the hell didn’t you bring us our food?! Are you trying to starve us?!” I burst into tears. “Lily went to deliver it ages ago!” It was only after I said it that I noticed her half-eaten bowl of pasta still sitting on the table. It suddenly hit me that Lily hadn’t returned. A freezing chill crawled up my spine, and the sheer terror sucked the tears right out of my eyes. 03 We searched everywhere. Back then, the security camera grid hadn’t expanded to the back roads; only the main highway had surveillance. Our family ran around like headless flies, searching frantically. The police dragged the nearby pond three times. Nothing. They hired people to lower cameras into the drainage pipes and local wells. Nothing. After we officially filed a report, the police checked the highway footage and found no suspicious persons. They canvassed the neighbors and residents from the adjacent neighborhoods. Not a single person had seen her. Lily had simply vanished. My mother beat her fists against my chest, collapsing onto the dirt, sobbing hysterically. “Why are you so lazy?! If you had just taken the food yourself, she wouldn’t have gone!” My grandmother, a strict religious fundamentalist, declared that the Lord would never forgive a selfish, lazy child who lost her own sister. In a fit of rage, my father kicked me five or six times, sending me sprawling to the ground. The neighbors didn’t know the full story, so no one stepped in to stop him. They just pointed their fingers at me, whispering. Like a wooden puppet, devoid of a single tear, I walked to the dirt road where Lily disappeared. I stood there stubbornly for three days, refusing to blink, staring at the intersection, desperately hoping her tiny figure would appear. But no miracle came. After that incident, my family barely spoke to me. My mother, in particular, never said another word to me for the next fifteen years. By middle school, I moved into the dorms. I’d come home on weekends, grab my allowance and clean clothes, and leave immediately. I didn’t dare stay a minute longer than necessary. Over the years, I walked the route she took to deliver that food countless times. I stared at every blade of grass, every single tree, hoping to find a clue, imagining a million different scenarios. It was absolute torture. 04 “How long did your afternoon naps usually last?” Miller asked, flipping through the old case file I had dug up. Back then, it was classified as a standard missing persons case, left to gather dust for over a decade. “It varied. Sometimes long, sometimes short. But that day, I felt abnormally exhausted. I slept for over two hours, right up until my dad hit me.” “You said you had heatstroke. Do you remember what it actually felt like?” I tried hard to recall the physical sensations of that noon. “Lethargy. Extreme drowsiness. Dizziness. My head felt incredibly heavy…” Miller listened, then fell silent for a moment. “Has it ever occurred to you that you might not have had heatstroke at all?” My scalp prickled. I stared at him, my eyes wide. “The symptoms of heatstroke are dizziness, headaches, muscle weakness, nausea, vomiting, and cold sweats,” Miller explained. “Your symptoms don’t sound like heatstroke. They sound like you ingested…” My heart dropped. Before he could even finish, I blurted out, “Ingested what?” “Sleeping pills. Or some kind of strong sedative,” Miller said, giving me a meaningful look. Why hadn’t I thought of that? The symptoms of sedative ingestion and heatstroke do overlap in some ways. But heatstroke has two very distinct trademarks: nausea/vomiting and cold sweats. I remembered that day perfectly—I didn’t have either! The hairs on my arms stood straight up. 05 Back then, the adults—including the police—just assumed I was a lazy kid making excuses to avoid walking in the heat. Everything I said was dismissed as a child trying to dodge responsibility. They focused all their energy on searching for a missing person. And because of that, they missed a massive, glaring clue. “Boss, what made you realize it wasn’t heatstroke?” The case finally had a breakthrough. I was trembling with adrenaline. “It’s simple. From the way you talk about her, it’s obvious you and your sister had a deeply bonded relationship. She was little, walking alone, and you were incredibly worried about her. Under normal circumstances, you would have fought to stay awake until she got back safely. But instead, you passed out hard. You slept for over two hours, and if your dad hadn’t hit you, you probably would have slept longer. Obviously, that wasn’t natural.” My eyes burned. I nodded. In all these years, Miller was the very first person to notice that the bond between me and my sister was extraordinary. When Lily went missing, my dad pointed his finger in my face and screamed: “What kind of older sister are you?! She goes missing and you just sleep through it?! Why didn’t you just die in your sleep?!” Back then, I couldn’t understand why I had fallen asleep so heavily. I hated myself just as much as they hated me. No one knew how much I loved her. No one knew that our bond went far beyond normal siblings. It wasn’t just because we spent 24 hours a day together before I started grade school. It was because, through freezing winters and scorching summers, we only had each other to rely on. Because my parents were always working at the store, they left us at home to be watched by our grandmother. But Grandma was a religious fanatic, constantly running off to church gatherings and prayer circles, leaving us alone in the house all day, completely neglected. Because of that, I learned to cook on the stove when I was six. If I burned the rice, we ate burnt rice together. If I cooked it perfectly, we shared the perfect meal. When other kids cried, they called for their mothers. But when Lily cried, she called for me. 06 “You were sweating heavily that day, which means you probably drank a lot of water. The problem was most likely in your cup,” Miller said, pointing at the mug on my desk. “But who would drug a ten-year-old? And why?” I couldn’t help but ask. As I said it, two horrifying possibilities flashed through my mind, each more despairing than the last. “Did your family have any enemies?” I shook my head. “My parents were all about keeping the peace for their business. The only person who had a grudge against us was the local town creep, but the police confirmed he had a solid alibi that day.” Just then, a commotion erupted in the precinct lobby. A couple had come in to report their child missing. “Officer, please! Our daughter is eight. She’s severely autistic. My husband was taking her to her therapy session, and she wandered off on the way! You have to help us!” The woman was frantic, practically dropping to her knees. The husband looked despondent, loudly blaming himself, but there was an unmistakable look of relief hiding in his eyes. Seeing this, I knew exactly what was going on. I hadn’t even been on the force for a year, but I had already seen cases like this several times. Usually, it involved a special-needs child. The parents couldn’t afford the medical bills, or they simply couldn’t handle the lifelong emotional and physical toll. Seeing no hope, they intentionally abandoned the child. But to avoid being judged or investigated, they’d come to the police station to put on a theatrical performance. Despite knowing this, I dutifully took down the husband’s statement. “We were walking past the boardwalk at the beach. She saw people feeding the seagulls and got hyper-fixated. I couldn’t pull her away. So I turned around to buy a bag of birdseed from a kiosk, and in that split second, she vanished.” The child allegedly went missing around 5:00 PM, which perfectly coincided with high tide at the beach. They claimed they searched everywhere before coming to the police, meaning it had already been over two hours since she “vanished.” If she fell into the ocean, it only took minutes to drown. If she was taken by a trafficker, two hours was more than enough time to reach the interstate or a train station. It was too late. Even so, the police department couldn’t just ignore it. Miller ordered me to issue an immediate Amber Alert, blasting it across social media using the beach as the radius epicenter. He dispatched a squad to all major transit hubs and contacted two professional search-and-rescue teams to scour the coastline through the night. We did everything humanly possible. The rest was up to fate. 07 After the couple thanked us profusely and left, Miller looked out at the pitch-black night sky. “The odds of that kid being alive are slim to none. It’s only a matter of time before a body washes up.” He turned to me. “Your sister had severe asthma, right? Is it possible that…” I shook my head frantically, denying it. “No! My family never saw her as a burden. After Lily went missing, I became the ultimate sinner of the house. My mom hasn’t spoken to me in fifteen years.” He studied me, tapping his pen against the case file. “What about your grandmother? How did she treat you two?” I flinched. “You suspect my grandma?” It was true—if it wasn’t an enemy, the only people who had access to my water cup to slip in a sedative were my parents or my grandmother. “Not entirely. I’m just considering all possibilities and analyzing the case,” Miller replied. “Honestly, she treated us terribly. But that day, she had an airtight alibi. People testified she was at a neighbor’s house for a prayer circle.” Miller fell silent for a moment, then asked, “Are you absolutely sure no one saw your sister on that road?” “That dirt road was mostly abandoned, especially at noon in the dead of summer. There were only three shacks along the path. Two were dive bars that didn’t open until nightfall. The third was a boiled peanut stand run by a blind man. He lived in the shack, but he never opened for business at noon. So, no. No one saw her.” Miller shook his head repeatedly. “That is bizarre. This case really defies logic.” If even Miller was stumped, the hope that had just ignited inside me was extinguished. I stared at the photo of the missing autistic girl on my computer screen. She was the same age my sister was. She had the same big, dark eyes. My heart felt like lead. Seeing my despair, Miller encouraged me: “Chloe, don’t give up. As long as a body hasn’t been found, there’s hope she’s alive. Try to remember the details. In police work, we rely on intuition and meticulousness. If someone did something, they left a trace. Go back to your old neighborhood when you have time. See if it jogs your memory.” I nodded.

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After I suddenly collapsed and died in my dorm room, the university, desperate to avoid a scandal, offered my mom a job in the cafeteria to keep her quiet. Then, one by one, my roommates started dying. When the police reopened the investigation into my death, my mom just smiled calmly. “My daughter died of a sudden, natural cardiac event. Why would you be looking for a murderer?” 01 Rumors were spreading around campus that Dorm Room 332 was cursed. In just one month, three girls from that room had died. Bed 1: Me, Chloe Miller. Dead from sudden cardiac arrest. Bed 2: Ashley Parker. Strangled to death in the woods behind the library. Bed 3: Madison Reed. Brutally dismembered, her limbs missing. The only one left alive was Bed 4: Emily Carter. She dragged Ashley and Madison’s parents into the university cafeteria, pointing a shaking finger directly at the busiest food counter. “It’s her! That lunch lady! She’s Chloe Miller’s mother! She’s the murderer!” Then, she screamed at the top of her lungs hysterically: “Stop eating! You’re eating human flesh!” Amidst the screams and the sound of students gagging, my mom didn’t even look up. She scooped up a ladle of braised pork, casually shook half of it back into the tray, and slammed the rest onto a student’s plate. Only then did she drop the heavy metal ladle, wipe her calloused hands on her apron, and point right back at Emily. “If you have proof, go call the cops! If you don’t, shut your damn mouth before I break your legs!” Ashley and Madison’s parents lunged forward, trying to drag my mom out from behind the counter. My mom casually picked up a massive meat cleaver, instantly freezing them in their tracks. “Cowards,” my mom muttered. She turned to the terrified students in the cafeteria and yelled: “Sit back down! Nobody leaves until they finish their food! You’re college students, act like it! Don’t waste food!” 02 The police arrived at the cafeteria shortly after. During a search of the staff locker room, they found evidence. A thick rope tied into a hangman’s knot, and a bloodstained butcher knife. The detectives placed the evidence on the table in front of my mom. She scoffed and defended herself: “That rope is what I use to do pull-ups in the morning. I didn’t strangle Ashley. “And that knife is what I use to chop pork ribs. What does that have to do with Madison? “I’m not a murderer. I’m a good person.” Nobody believed her ridiculous explanation. The murder weapons from the recent killings had never been found. Now, they were sitting in my mom’s locker. The police identified her as the prime suspect and took her away in handcuffs. But what absolutely no one expected was that the DNA on the rope belonged exclusively to my mom. Just her skin cells. And the blood on the knife? Laboratory tests confirmed it was 100% pig blood. The evidence didn’t match the crimes at all. The next day, my mom was back behind the cafeteria counter. She scowled at the students whispering and pointing at her. “Why is everyone hiding from me?! Come get your food! I told you I’m a good person, why won’t anyone believe me?” 03 My name is Chloe Miller. I lived in Bed 1 of Dorm 332. A month ago, I died silently in my dorm room. By the time my roommates found me, rigor mortis had already set in. Everyone believed I had died from a sudden cardiac event. Even I—who was now floating around as a ghost—believed that was what killed me. All I remembered was waking up that morning feeling dizzy and violently nauseous, before completely blacking out. When I woke up again, I was a ghost floating in the night sky, watching my mom scream at the university administration. “My daughter died at your university! You are going to pay me a million dollars in compensation!” My mom was throwing an absolute tantrum on the lawn outside my dorm building. Dozens of students gathered around, whispering: “Who is that crazy lady?” “That’s Chloe Miller’s mom. The girl who died this morning.” “Chloe Miller? Why does that name sound so familiar?” “Oh, remember the leaked photos on the campus forum? That was her.” “Ohhhh, the girl who was exposed by her roommate for being a sugar baby? No wonder her mom is acting like trash. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” 04 When the gossip reached my mom’s ears, she threw an even bigger fit. Finally, the Dean of Students, Richard Stone, arrived on the scene. Looking absolutely furious, Dean Stone pulled my mom aside to negotiate. He offered her a one-time settlement of $250,000, plus a permanent, union-protected job in the university cafeteria with full benefits and a pension. The conditions: My mom had to stop causing a scene, she could not file a police report, she could not request an autopsy, and she had to sign a non-disclosure agreement to help the university sweep my death under the rug. My mom agreed immediately. She signed the paperwork with a massive grin, practically drooling as she counted the zeros on the bank transfer. After that, she went up to my dorm room. Humming a cheerful tune, she started packing up my belongings. Students from the neighboring rooms crowded the hallway, watching in disgust. My mom completely ignored them. She greedily peeled the decorative wallpaper off my walls, stuffing it into a trash bag, muttering to herself about how much she could sell the scrap paper for at the recycling center. A girl from the room next door whispered loudly: “Her daughter’s body isn’t even cold yet, and all she cares about is how much money she can make selling her dead kid’s stuff? What kind of mother is that?!” Another girl gossiped: “I heard Chloe had to take out massive student loans and work three off-campus jobs just to afford tuition. Is that true?” A senior who knew me nodded: “It’s true! Her mom didn’t give her a single dime. In fact, her mom constantly harassed her and demanded Chloe send her money!” Even the dorm RA couldn’t watch anymore. She yelled: “If Chloe could see this, it would break her heart!” 05 After my mom left campus, things went quiet. Until the day of my funeral. A few of my close friends from high school traveled to my hometown to say their final goodbyes. My cheap casket lay on the ground, surrounded by white paper flowers. The quiet, muffled sounds of my friends crying drifted through the cemetery. The only thing ruining the somber atmosphere was my mom screaming curses at me. She rested one foot on my casket, spat on the ground in disgust, and yelled loudly enough for the whole town and all my friends to hear: “Spit! Useless burden when she was born, and a short-lived disappointment when she died! “She died before she even made enough money to take care of me in my old age! What an ungrateful bitch!” Under the horrified stares of everyone present, my mom kicked my casket hard. She yelled at the gravediggers holding their shovels: “Hurry up and bury this bad luck! Whoever digs the fastest gets an extra fifty bucks!” After we got home, my mom acted like nothing had happened. She went to the local market to buy groceries. Some neighbors recognized her and tried to offer their condolences. But my mom just smiled smugly: “She was just a girl, who cares if she died? If she lived and got married, I’d probably only get a few thousand bucks for the dowry. She died and the school gave me a quarter of a million dollars AND a union job with a pension! That’s a massive profit! “Hey, is this beef fresh? I don’t want it if it isn’t! I have money now, I’m buying the good stuff to celebrate!” Whether it was the neighbors or my friends, everyone cursed my mom behind her back for being a heartless monster. But I was the only one who knew… the only thing they saw was exactly what my mom wanted them to see. Seven days after I was buried, Ashley Parker died. She was strangled to death, her body dumped in the woods behind the library. The students who found her body said Ashley’s mouth was open in a silent scream… but her tongue had been completely severed and removed. 06 Photos of the crime scene and wild rumors exploded across the campus. The university couldn’t suppress a murder this brutal, and the police were called immediately. Security cameras showed Ashley taking a phone call, then walking alone toward the woods. Unfortunately, there were no cameras inside the woods, and the cameras didn’t capture anyone suspicious following her. The person she was on the phone with was her boyfriend, Kevin Stone. But Kevin vehemently denied making the call. He claimed he had lost his phone earlier that day and hadn’t received his replacement SIM card yet. Kevin’s roommate, David, backed up his alibi, testifying that they were playing video games in their dorm the entire time. The police interviewed dozens of students, and no one believed Kevin would murder Ashley. They were the campus “It Couple.” They were deeply in love, and Kevin was genuinely devastated by her death. I knew Kevin. He was a wealthy, arrogant trust-fund kid, but Ashley had him wrapped completely around her finger. To put it nicely, he was incredibly devoted. To put it bluntly, he was a brainless puppet who did whatever she wanted. 07 After Ashley’s death, Kevin locked himself in his dorm, getting blackout drunk every single night. His roommate, David—his closest friend—stayed by his side, patiently comforting him. One night, I saw Kevin sitting on the floor of his dorm balcony, surrounded by empty liquor bottles. David was consoling him: “Bro, I know it hurts. Losing someone like that… anyone would lose their mind. “Cry it out. But once you’re done crying, you have to let it go. If Ashley is watching you from heaven right now, seeing you destroy yourself like this would break her heart.” Kevin grabbed a bottle, chugged a massive gulp of whiskey, and burped, the smell of alcohol heavy in the air. “Dave… didn’t you used to have a massive crush on Chloe? “When you tried to ask her out, Ashley totally blocked you and refused to let you near her. You two got into a huge screaming match over it, right? “Now Chloe is dead, and you’re acting like nothing happened.” David let out a cold, disgusted laugh. “Chloe told me she didn’t want to date in college. “I thought she was this pure, innocent girl focused on her studies. But the truth? She was whoring herself out as a sugar baby to some rich old creep! “Even if she was standing butt-naked in front of me right now, I wouldn’t look twice at a cheap slut like her!” The night wind carried their nauseating conversation directly to me. Ghosts don’t have physical ears. I couldn’t cover them to block out the sound. If I could, I would have turned into a vengeful demon and ripped the people spreading these lies into shreds. But I still didn’t know who originally started the rumors that destroyed my reputation. A few days later, the police released an update. The cybercrime unit had recovered the data from Ashley’s hard drive. They found a critical, undeniable piece of evidence: The anonymous user who posted the fabricated “sugar baby” rumors and deepfakes of me on the campus forum… was the victim, Ashley Parker. 08 A few months ago, deepfake photos of my face edited onto explicit images were posted anonymously on the university forum. The post claimed I was a gold-digging sugar baby sleeping with married men, and even attached a picture of my student ID card. I went to the police, but they couldn’t do anything. They told me cyber-defamation was a civil matter. I would have to sue the forum platform to get the IP address of the poster, and then file a private civil lawsuit against the individual. Or, I could just ignore it and pretend it never happened. Filing a lawsuit and hiring a lawyer required money. And I had absolutely no money. The post was eventually deleted by moderators, but the harassment, the insults, and the slut-shaming lasted for months. Even after I died, people were still passing around the fake photos. And the source files for those fake photos were sitting right on Ashley’s laptop. After Ashley died, the police questioned my mom, asking if she knew about the cyberbullying I endured. My mom didn’t even look up from snapping green beans. She spat angrily: “Of course I knew! That ungrateful little bitch! I starved myself to pay her tuition, and she goes off and becomes a whore for some rich old man?! “Officers, you tell me! She was living the high life, sleeping on piles of cash, and she never sent a single dime back to her own mother!” The two female detectives were visibly stunned. As they left the cafeteria, I heard them whispering to each other: “That poor girl. How did she end up with a monster like that for a mother?” But I didn’t feel sorry for myself at all. Because absolutely no one knew what happened on the night Ashley Parker died. My mom snuck past all the campus security guards, hiked out to the town cemetery in the dead of night, and placed a small glass jar on my grave. “Chloe, watch closely. Every single person who hurt you is going to pay with their blood!” Inside the wide-mouthed glass jar, floating in preservative fluid… was a freshly severed human tongue. 09 The police couldn’t find a single shred of physical evidence linking anyone to the crime. It was as if an invisible hand had meticulously wiped away every clue. With Ashley dead, Dorm 332 only had two girls left: Madison and Emily. Emily was completely paranoid, constantly terrified someone was coming to murder her, jumping at her own shadow. Madison, on the other hand, was entirely unbothered. She strutted in and out of the cafeteria every day, completely ignoring the campus rumors that the “Cafeteria Lady” murdered Ashley. In fact, every time she got food, she specifically went to my mom’s counter. She would look my mom dead in the eye and say loudly enough for everyone to hear: “Hey, lady. My name is Madison Reed. I was Chloe’s roommate. “I don’t care if you murdered Ashley or not. Just know this: I never bullied Chloe. If you’re looking for revenge, look elsewhere. Don’t come looking for me.” My mom rolled her eyes aggressively and snapped back: “What the hell are you talking about, you crazy brat?! I don’t have a slut for a daughter!” The students waiting in line were amazed by Madison’s sheer audacity. Madison walked away with her food tray, scoffing dismissively. “If you didn’t do anything wrong, you don’t have to be afraid of ghosts. Move, I’m eating.” But did Madison really not do anything wrong? A few nights ago, I watched my mom sneak out of the staff dorms, perfectly avoiding the blind spots of the campus security cameras, and break into the administrative building. I have no idea how my mom bypassed the electronic security doors. All I know is she picked the lock to my academic advisor’s office, rummaged through the filing cabinets, and pulled out two manila folders. They were the applications for the Federal Pell Grant and the university’s Needs-Based Scholarship. One folder had my name written on it. Wearing rubber gloves, my mom gently, tenderly traced her finger over the letters of my name on the folder. But when she opened the folder and pulled the documents out, she completely froze. The folder was empty. It contained nothing but blank, white printer paper. 10 I remember exactly what happened two months ago. My academic advisor posted an announcement in the class group chat: The university had just received funding for an emergency Needs-Based Financial Aid Grant. Any student who met the low-income requirements needed to submit their application packets immediately. I spent hours writing my personal essay and gathering my financial documents. I handed the packet directly to my advisor. But a few days later, my application was officially rejected. “You already received the Academic Merit Scholarship. You cannot double-dip and receive the Needs-Based Grant as well. It’s university policy,” my advisor told me flatly. But I had read the university handbook cover to cover. The Academic Merit Scholarship and the Needs-Based Grant were from entirely different funding pools. There was absolutely no rule preventing a student from receiving both. But my advisor refused to listen and firmly rejected my application. Left with no choice, I had to give up. Because the grant was highly competitive, each academic major was only allotted two spots. According to university rules, to finalize the selection process, the applicants had to give a short speech in front of a panel of professors and student representatives. The speeches were recorded and submitted to the Financial Aid Board for review. The fifth student to walk up to the podium… was Madison Reed. She shoved her brand-new iPhone 15 Pro into the pocket of her designer jacket, pinched her printed speech, and stood at the podium, impatiently tapping her expensive acrylic nails against the wood. “Hello professors, hello students. My name is Madison Reed. “I come from an incredibly impoverished family. When I was very young, my father passed away, leaving my mother to raise me entirely on her own. “When I was little, to take care of me, my mother couldn’t hold down a full-time job. We survived barely scraping by on the money she made working grueling odd jobs. “When I finally grew up, I worked part-time jobs after school to help pay the bills. “However… tragedy struck again. My mother was diagnosed with a severe, terminal illness. To pay for her medical treatments, we not only drained our meager savings, but went into massive, crippling debt…” The students in the audience immediately started whispering. The advisor demanded silence multiple times, but the quiet, confused chatter continued. “Wait, Madison’s dad is dead? I literally saw him drop her off in a Mercedes last month.” “She gets an allowance of like $2,000 a month. Since when does she work part-time?!” “I literally saw her post an Instagram story last week complaining that her mom went on vacation to Hawaii without her! When did her mom get terminal cancer?!” I was the only person in that room who knew the truth. Madison was reading my essay. Word for word. That wasn’t just my pain. That was my life. 11 The whispers in the classroom grew louder and louder until it was a deafening roar in my ears. I grabbed my head, covering my ears, curling into a tight ball in my seat, desperately trying to block out the psychological torture of hearing someone steal my trauma for profit. Madison gave a half-hearted, dismissive bow, walked off the podium, and shot me a mocking, condescending glare as she sat back down. The moment the panel concluded, I walked straight out of the classroom and called the State Department of Education’s anonymous whistleblower hotline. The very next day, the Vice Dean called me into his office. “Chloe, the university is fully aware of what happened. “We have decided to officially revoke Madison’s eligibility for the grant, and a formal disciplinary warning will be placed on her academic record. As for your academic advisor, the university is issuing an official reprimand, revoking his annual performance bonus, and placing him on strict probation. If this happens again, he will be terminated immediately. “If you are satisfied with this outcome, we kindly request that you withdraw your formal complaint with the State. “You are a sophomore. You still have two more years before you graduate. Escalating this further will only make things difficult for everyone involved. Don’t you agree? “I personally guarantee that next year’s Needs-Based Grant will have your name on it!” The carrot and the stick. It’s the oldest, most effective management tactic in the book. I could afford to offend a classmate. I could afford to offend an advisor. But if I wanted to graduate with my degree, I could absolutely not afford to offend the university administration. I thought the incident was over. I had no idea that Madison would harbor a venomous, psychotic grudge against me for it.

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He dumped me, then immediately fell for a poor, “innocent” girl who was even better at acting like an angel than I was. In my past life, to prove him wrong, I decided to rebel. I started hanging out with a bad crowd, got mixed up with some dangerous street thugs, and when I was cornered with nowhere to run, I begged him to save me. He completely ignored me. He covered his new girlfriend’s eyes with his hand and whispered softly: “Don’t look, it might scare you.” He abandoned me in that pitch-black alleyway, where I was brutally tortured to death. When I opened my eyes, I had traveled back in time—to the exact day he rejected me. 01 It was time to cut the birthday cake. Our friends were cheering, egging me on to confess my feelings. I gathered every ounce of courage I had and said: “Lucas, my birthday wish… is you.” The hand Lucas was using to hold his cigarette trembled slightly. The corner of his mouth curled up. He gave a wicked, lazy smirk: “Sorry. You’re way too ‘good girl’ for me.” “You’re just not my type.” In my past life, that single sentence drove me completely insane. Thinking about the horrific, agonizing way I died… A freezing chill shot down my spine. In that moment, I genuinely wanted to grab the cake knife and murder him. “Summer, are you okay?” “Lucas, what the hell is wrong with you?! Can’t you just say something nice to make the birthday girl happy?!” Lucas maintained that arrogant, lazy posture he always had. He blew a ring of smoke. And drawled lazily: “Sorry. Lying just isn’t my style.” His careless, raspy voice used to sound so attractive to me. But hearing it now, I only felt pure, visceral disgust. In front of everyone, my expression turned ice-cold. I looked at the cake and made a new birthday wish. “Lucas, my wish is that in this life, and every life after, you and I never cross paths again.” I blew out the candles. My friends tried to stop me, but they couldn’t. The smirk on Lucas’s face instantly froze. “Summer, are you serious right now?” “I’ll give you one more chance. Make a new wish, and I’ll pretend I didn’t hear what you just said.” No need. I completely ignored him. I picked up the knife to cut the cake. Lucas lunged forward and grabbed the blade of the knife with his bare right hand. “Summer, I am talking to you.” The sharp blade sliced into his fingers. Blood started dripping onto the table. Someone screamed: “Blood! Lucas, you’re bleeding!” I knew exactly what this was. He was having another one of his “episodes.” Lucas suffered from severe psychological issues. In my past life, I was the only person who could calm him down when he spiraled. Well. To be more accurate. Before the poor, innocent scholarship girl showed up… I was the only one. Because of that, I always delusionally believed I was special to him. Until the day I overheard him comforting her, using that same lazy, raspy tone. “She’s completely different from you.” “At best, she was just a temporary placebo. But you… you are my only cure.” “If I lose you, I will literally die.” I let go of the knife handle and stepped back. “If you like it that much, keep it.” I turned around to leave. Lucas threw the knife aside and grabbed my arm. His bloody fingers stained the sleeve of my pristine white button-down shirt. “Summer, who exactly are you throwing this tantrum for?” The sight of the blood triggered a violent wave of panic. I couldn’t control it. The horrific, agonizing memories of my past life flooded my brain. The world started spinning, my vision went black, and unable to bear the psychological weight, I fainted. When I woke up, Lucas was sitting by my bed. “You’re awake?” “You were the one who threw a tantrum, but I had to carry you all the way home. So, Summer, how are you planning to make this up to me?” Lucas was a classic bad boy. He loved saying ambiguous, flirtatious things like this. Things that always planted pathetic, delusional hopes in my heart. But I was no longer the stupid girl I used to be. I knew the truth perfectly well. When Lucas is actually in love, he can’t utter a single smooth, flirtatious line. When he confessed to her, his voice was literally shaking with nerves. I let out a heavy sigh and looked at him. “I’m exhausted.” “Lucas. After today, let’s stop seeing each other.” 02 The next day, I walked to school alone. Lucas didn’t wait for me at our usual spot. I knew exactly what he was doing. This was his version of a “punishment.” He was waiting for me to apologize to him. But I completely ignored his existence for the entire day. That afternoon, I was napping at my desk when my lab partner shook me awake. “Summer! Wake up! Lucas is in a massive fistfight on the basketball court!” I was still half-asleep. But she practically dragged me all the way to the courts. “Hurry up! Lucas is going absolutely psycho! You’re the only one who can stop him!” No. She was wrong. I didn’t need to go anywhere near him. Because his leading lady had already made her grand entrance. I guessed perfectly. By the time we pushed through the crowd, the fight was already over. Lucas was sitting on the sidelines, drenched in sweat, breathing heavily. And sitting right beside him… was a girl. She had her hair tied in a simple, low ponytail. Her face was pale and delicate. She was holding his hand, her voice trembling with the faintest hint of a sob. She whispered softly: “Lucas, you’re hurt.” Lucas violently hated when strangers touched him. He instinctively went to yank his hand away. But the exact second his eyes locked onto me standing in the crowd, he froze. His eyes darkened, and he deliberately let Chloe—the scholarship girl—keep holding his hand. The senior he had just beaten to a bloody pulp was being helped up by a few of his friends, preparing to leave. “Wait.” Lucas called out, stopping them in their tracks. He pointed to Chloe sitting next to him. “Apologize.” The senior’s face was bruised and swollen beyond recognition. A student nearby tried to intervene: “Lucas, come on. Let him go to the nurse first.” Lucas refused. His voice dropped to a terrifying, lethal pitch, repeating himself: “I said… apologize to her.” Chloe grabbed Lucas’s arm tightly and shook her head pitifully. “It’s fine, Lucas. Really, I’m okay.” The senior, despite being beaten half to death, was forced to bow deeply and apologize. Someone in the crowd whispered, asking why the fight started. My lab partner answered: “That guy called Chloe a ‘broke charity case,’ and Lucas overheard him.” “He deserved it! That’s what he gets for running his mouth!” “Lucas is so hot! Literally stepping up to defend her honor!” “Are we literally watching a Wattpad romance happen in real life?!” But I was the only one who knew the truth. In my past life, Lucas relentlessly bullied and terrorized that senior until he was forced to transfer to a different school. The day before he left, he pulled me aside. He warned me to be very, very careful around Chloe. He refused to say anything else. He was probably too terrified of Lucas to speak the truth. The senior needed to go to the hospital, but the ambulance was going to take a while to arrive. I walked over and tossed him my keys. “Take my car. Drive yourself to the ER.” The senior froze in shock. “Thank you… but I couldn’t…” Lucas stormed over and grabbed me hard by the arm. “Summer, are you purposely trying to piss me off?!” I glanced past him, looking at Chloe, whose eyes were still perfectly red and teary. “Focus on your own drama.” “If you walk away right now, don’t ever come looking for me again,” he threatened. I didn’t even look back. I helped the other students support the senior and walked away. CRASH! The crowd behind me gasped. It was the sound of Lucas punching the metal pole of the basketball hoop full force. Tsk. Have fun breaking your knuckles. 03 Lucas and I didn’t interact at all for the next few weeks. I heard that because of Chloe, he completely stopped getting into fights. He even claimed he was turning his life around and started actually studying. Lucas’s friends tried to get him to go to the PC cafe to play games. Chloe whispered softly to him: “You haven’t finished your SAT vocabulary flashcards yet.” Lucas let out a heavy, dramatic sigh and slumped back into his chair. “My ‘mom’ is too strict. I can’t go.” I had to listen to my lab partner narrate these cheesy, romantic little anecdotes every single day. But whenever I walked close, they would immediately stop whispering and turn away. “I feel so bad for her.” “I know, right? She chased Lucas for years, and then some poor scholarship girl just swooped in and stole him.” Did I look pitiful? I certainly didn’t think so. My college application process was already finalized. As soon as I passed my final AP exams, I was moving to New York to attend Columbia University. I was going to major in Journalism—my absolute dream. My bright, beautiful, and completely new life was about to begin. One afternoon, as I was walking home, Lucas’s mother stopped me on the sidewalk. “Summer, Lucas forgot his medication again. Could you please take it to him for me, honey?” I really, really wanted to say no. But when I saw the dark, purple bruises peeking out from under the cuffs of his mother’s blouse… I sighed heavily. “Okay.” I texted Lucas: “Where are you?” It took him a long time to reply. He finally sent me a location pin. A local billiards hall. In my past life, I had spent way too much time in that exact spot. When I arrived, I navigated the dark, basement staircase perfectly. The suffocating smell of cheap cigarette smoke instantly made me nauseous. I spotted Lucas immediately. He was standing at the center table, actively hustling a game of pool. There was a massive stack of hundred-dollar bills sitting on the edge of the table. I walked straight up to him and tossed the pill bottle onto the green felt. “Your mom asked me to bring this to you.” Seeing me, Lucas furrowed his brow. “Who told you to come here?” I didn’t even bother answering him. I dropped the pills and turned to leave. But one of his friends blocked my path. “Yo, Lucas. Is this the girlfriend?” Lucas let out a cold sneer, accepting a lit cigarette from the guy and tucking it behind his ear. “Do you honestly think that’s possible?” Right at that moment, Chloe walked into the billiards hall, wearing her school backpack. The second she walked in, she started violently coughing from the smoke. Lucas immediately stood up and moved to block her from the haze. “Put out all the cigarettes right now.” The guy with the yellow teeth who had just blocked me grinned widely. “Ah. So this is the real sister-in-law.” Chloe’s face flushed beet red. “Lucas, stop them from saying that! The teachers said we aren’t allowed to…” “I know.” Lucas playfully tapped the tip of her nose. “Be a good girl, call me ‘Daddy,’ and I’ll let you go home.” Chloe let out a tiny gasp, pointing at the cigarette tucked behind his ear. “Lucas! Didn’t you promise me you were going to quit smoking?!” I felt Lucas’s gaze land directly on me. I suddenly remembered… I had also demanded he quit smoking once. Because I’ve had severe asthma since childhood, and cigarette smoke triggers my attacks. Back then, he didn’t even bother to give me a fake promise. He deliberately blew a ring of smoke directly into my face and smirked: “Can’t do it.” A cold, mocking smile curled the corners of my lips. I tried to maneuver around the crowd to leave. But I was grabbed again. “Don’t leave yet, baby!” “Lucas, hurry up! It’s a two-on-two match. Since my girlfriend is playing for my team… who are you gonna use for yours?” 04 I didn’t hesitate. I just kept walking. But Chloe reached out and grabbed my sleeve. “I… I don’t know how to play pool.” I frowned, looking at her. “What does that have to do with me?” “I…” After my sharp response, Chloe’s eyes instantly welled up with tears. Lucas rushed over, pulling her behind his back protectively, glaring at me. “Can’t you speak to her like a normal human being?!” “You’re a psychopath.” I tried to walk away, but he blocked my path again. My patience completely snapped. I decided to push his buttons. “What’s the matter, Lucas? Playing hard to get? Are you desperately trying to make me your girlfriend?” “Keep dreaming.” “Then get the fuck out of my way.” I walked out. This time, no one tried to stop me. Behind me, I heard Chloe panic. “What do we do, Lucas? I really don’t know how to play.” Lucas replied, his voice dripping with patience and affection. “Don’t worry, idiot. As long as I’m here, we won’t lose.” I literally could not care less who won a stupid game of pool. But that night, during dinner… My mom wouldn’t stop sighing. “I saw Sarah (Lucas’s mom) again today. She was covered in bruises… Richard went way too far this time…” “Oh, by the way, Summer. I haven’t seen Lucas come over for dinner in days. Did you two get into a fight?” “No.” “That’s good. You should invite him over more often…” I looked up, cutting my mom off mid-sentence. “I cut him off. We aren’t friends anymore.” “What? Why?!” I took a bite of my perfectly cooked sea bass. “No reason. I just despise people who are legally blind.” My mom asked cautiously, “Did Lucas get a girlfriend?” I picked up a piece of fish and placed it into my mom’s bowl. “Yep. The ‘I’d die for you’ trope just walked straight out of a novel into real life. It’s incredibly sweet.” They were busy acting out their little teen romance drama, and for some reason, they absolutely insisted on casting me as the bitter, jealous villainess. Fine. The next morning, as soon as I walked into the classroom, I heard Chloe crying. “What am I going to do, Lucas? The envelope was in my backpack this morning… how could it just disappear?!” My lab partner whispered to me: “Chloe lost the class funds she was in charge of collecting. Everyone’s helping her look for it right now.” I casually threw out a logical suggestion: “Why don’t you just check the security cameras?” But my comment made Chloe violently defensive. She marched right up to my desk and said: “Summer, I know I grew up poor, but I am absolutely not desperate enough to steal the class funds!” I never even said she stole it. Why was she panicking? Lucas walked over, his voice cold and commanding. “Apologize to her.” I completely ignored him. I placed my backpack on my desk and sat down. He grabbed my backpack and hurled it across the room. Then, he violently flipped my entire desk over. Lucas was having another episode. “Apologize to her. Are you deaf?” The entire classroom went dead silent. No one dared to breathe. And absolutely no one dared to step in and stop him. I bent down, trying to pick my desk back up. Suddenly, a hand clamped brutally around my throat. His eyes were bloodshot. “I. Said. Apologize.” I couldn’t breathe. Tears stung my eyes. The pressure around my neck instantly began to form a dark, angry red bruise. Chloe finally stepped in, grabbing his arm. “Lucas! Lucas, stop!” But he refused to listen to anyone. He just kept glaring at me with those terrifying, bloodshot eyes. I have no idea who he was projecting onto me in that moment. It took three male teachers sprinting into the classroom to finally pry him off me. Chloe rushed forward and threw her arms around a thrashing, frantic Lucas. “It’s okay! It’s okay, Lucas! I don’t care what anyone else thinks! As long as you believe me, that’s all that matters!” He buried his face into the crook of her neck, but his eyes… his eyes stayed locked directly on me. The teachers escorted me to the nurse’s office. His dark, erratic gaze followed my back until I completely disappeared from sight.

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My husband was the undisputed king of the Manhattan legal scene, a man who had maintained a flawless winning streak for five years. Yet, while representing my company in a high-stakes intellectual property suit, he managed to lose to a girl who hadn’t even finished her clerkship. The court ordered us to pay thirty million dollars in damages. What stung more than the verdict was the intern’s victory lap. She posted a photo of the judgment on Instagram, tagging my husband with a caption gushing about her “mentor’s guidance” and her dream of “standing by his side” in the future. I couldn’t help myself. In the comments, I typed: “Integrity cannot be bought; a house built on sand will always fall.” It didn’t take ten minutes for my phone to buzz. It was Zac. “Lauren, delete that comment. Now,” he snapped, his voice tight with irritation. “You’re a grown woman. Don’t be a sore loser.” He didn’t stop there. “Hailey’s career is just starting. She can’t handle this kind of public smearing. If you’re going to be this petty, maybe we need to rethink this entire relationship.” I felt a strange sense of calm. “Fine,” I thought. “Let’s see who really pays the price when this relationship ends.” … What Zac didn’t know was that when he had me sign those “settlement papers” weeks ago, I had slipped a petition for divorce into the very bottom of the stack. It was the kind of mistake he’d never make—unless he was distracted. And he had been very, very distracted by Hailey. I drove straight to a different firm downtown. The verdict had just come down today; I had fifteen days to file an appeal. I wasn’t going to let thirty million dollars slide away just because my husband wanted to play hero for his mistress. But after three meetings, I was laughing—a cold, bitter sound. No one would take the case. In this city, nobody wanted to go up against Zac Thorne. Just then, a notification popped up from the firm’s group chat. [Hailey Frost: Hi everyone! I’m Hailey. I’m so excited to announce that I’ll be joining the firm as an associate starting today. Zac—Mr. Thorne—has been such an inspiration. I can’t wait to work alongside you all!] Zac was bringing her into his firm. He wasn’t even trying to hide it anymore. Then came Zac’s reply, tagging her: [An attorney who wins a ten-figure settlement before even graduating is exactly the kind of talent we need. Welcome to the team, Hailey. Drinks are on me tonight; let’s celebrate.] The sycophants in the office immediately began tripping over themselves to praise her. “Incredible! A thirty-million-dollar win? The future belongs to the young.” “Can’t wait for Hailey to lead our next seminar.” “We should use this case as a training manual for the new hires.” They chattered on, completely ignoring the fact that I—the firm’s primary investor and majority shareholder—was still in the chat. I didn’t say a word. I just tapped the ‘Leave Group’ button. Peace at last. Ten minutes later, the firm’s CFO called. “Lauren, it’s the end of the business day. We haven’t seen your scheduled capital injection hit the account.” I leaned back in my leather chair, a smirk playing on my lips. Now they remembered I existed. “The money isn’t coming,” I said. The CFO paused, his voice turning impatient. “Look, I don’t know what kind of spat you and Zac are having, but the three-million-dollar quarterly investment was agreed upon last month. We need it for payroll and overhead. If you don’t wire it, I’ll have to tell Zac.” “Go ahead,” I said. “Tell him.” I hung up. He called back three times. I blocked him. I had spoiled Zac. I had let him use my family’s wealth to build a pedestal for his mistress’s career, all while expecting me to keep the lights on in his shiny Midtown office. No more. If no firm in the city would take my case, I’d call the one person who wouldn’t be intimidated. He answered on the second ring. “Lauren? It’s been a long time.” “I need the best, Evan. Are you available?” “For you? Always. I’ll be in New York tomorrow.” I felt a weight lift. Just as I hung up, Zac called. I answered, thinking he’d realized the severity of the situation. “Lauren, why the hell did you hang up on the CFO? Where’s the money?” his voice boomed. “The staff is waiting for their bonuses.” I laughed. “Zac, why is your staff’s payroll my problem?” “What are you talking about?” “In three years, I haven’t seen a single cent in dividends from that firm,” I said, my voice cold. “Instead, I pay for your office in the most expensive zip code in Manhattan. I pay for your tech upgrades every twelve months. I pay for a six-figure firewall every year. I’m done being your ATM.” Zac exploded. “This isn’t a game! Transfer the funds. In fact, make it five million. I’m upgrading the server room. Lauren, stop acting out. This pathetic cry for attention only makes me resent you more.” He continued, his ego inflating with every word. “With my reputation, I could have any investor I want. My team makes you money; you have no right to withhold their pay.” “Zac, let’s talk ROI,” I countered. “The project isn’t profitable. I’m pulling out. That’s just business, isn’t it?” He went quiet for a moment, his voice dropping an octave. “Who says the firm isn’t profitable?” “Show me the check you’ve written me in the last three years. I’ll wait.” His voice grew strained. “We’re married, Lauren. Everything is communal. Why are you acting like there’s a line between my money and yours?” I scoffed. The irony was deafening. “Is this about the case?” he suddenly snapped. “Are you punishing me because I lost? Do you think I wanted to lose? You’re so obsessed with money you can’t even offer your husband a little support. Your spa resort had a maintenance lapse; a guest got sick. It was your fault. You’ve got millions, Lauren. Let it go.” “And now,” he added, his tone shifting to a smug, ‘generous’ vibration, “I’ve brought the winning attorney into our firm. We’re going to win even bigger cases now. Just send the five million so I don’t look like an idiot in front of my employees.” Before I could reply, a soft, feminine voice drifted through the line. “Zac, do you want me to talk to Lauren? You need to eat; you haven’t had a bite since this morning. Your stomach will act up.” I smiled into the phone. “Go eat, Zac. Don’t let your stomach suffer on my account. I wouldn’t want to be billed for the medical expenses.” I hung up and blocked him. I drove out to my cottage in the Hamptons to clear my head. My phone was a war zone of messages from Zac’s employees. He must have told them all that I was the reason their checks were late. The messages weren’t polite. [Lauren, we’re just workers here. Don’t punish us for your marriage problems. I have a mortgage to pay.] [Small-minded move, Lauren. You’re going to bankrupt the firm over a grudge?] [If you have a problem with Hailey, take it up with her. Don’t take it out on our families.] One unknown number even sent a threat: [Pay up, or see you in court. I’ll make sure your reputation is ruined.] I blocked them all, one by one. Threaten me? They had no idea who they were dealing with. I spent the evening watching the waves. By the time I checked in to a local inn, my assistant called. “Lauren, your husband just withdrew ten million from the corporate holding account. He told the bank you authorized it.” My grip tightened on the phone until my knuckles turned white. “He did what?” “It’s already gone, Lauren.” I nearly threw the phone against the wall. Zac was bolder than I thought—committing fraud in my name. I took two deep breaths. “Close every joint account. Stocks, bonds, the rainy-day fund. Everything. Then, call the police.” My assistant hesitated. “Lauren, if the police get involved, this goes public. The other shareholders in your parent company might panic. Maybe give him a chance to return it first?” I thought about it. I needed to be smart. Then, a notification popped up on my feed. It was a video from Hailey’s new public profile. “Celebrating my first day as an Associate! Boss treated the whole team to a seven-course dinner at Per Se. #CareerGoals #DreamTeam.” The video showed the entire firm laughing, drinking vintage wine that cost more than a mid-sized sedan. I knew exactly whose money was paying for those truffles. I didn’t go back to the cottage. I drove straight back to the city, straight to the restaurant. I arrived just as they were spilling out onto the sidewalk, buzzing with expensive champagne, discussing where to go for the after-party. I pulled my car up, slamming the brakes just inches from the group. Several people shrieked. Hailey, looking radiant in a silk dress that definitely cost more than an intern’s salary, stepped forward to block my car. “Lauren! Are you trying to kill us?” I looked at her through the windshield, a mask of cold fury. I shifted into neutral and floored the gas. The engine roared, a deafening, violent sound that made the crowd jump back. “Hailey—” Zac stepped out of the restaurant, tucking his receipt into his wallet. The moment he appeared, Hailey’s defiance vanished. She practically collapsed against his shoulder, trembling. “Zac, thank god you’re here. I thought she was going to run me over.” Zac’s face turned purple with rage. “Lauren, have you lost your mind? I should have you arrested!” I killed the engine and rolled down the window. Before I could speak, Hailey grabbed Zac’s hand. “No, don’t call the police. She’s just upset. It’ll look bad for her if this gets out.” I leaned out the window, staring at Hailey’s perfectly flushed face. “Bad acting, honey. You should be paler. A little more ‘tears on the brink.’ This ‘heroic martyr’ vibe doesn’t suit you.” Hailey looked down, biting her lip. Zac stepped toward the car. “Lauren, enough! It was one case. Stop acting like a rabid dog. Have some dignity.” Dignity. That was rich coming from him. I didn’t waste my breath. I reached into the passenger seat, grabbed the legal envelope I’d picked up from my office, and slapped it against his chest. “Since you’re such a legendary litigator, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble defending yourself,” I said. Zac looked confused. Before he could open it, I tossed another set of papers out the window. “Oh, and don’t look to Hailey for help. I’ve officially filed the appeal on the resort case. She’s going to be a bit busy being a defendant herself.” I restarted the engine and peeled away, leaving them in a cloud of exhaust. I saw Hailey coughing in the rearview mirror, finally producing those tears she’d been trying for. “Zac, what do we do?” I heard her wail as I sped off. Zac just stood there, crumpling the papers in his hand. “I’ve never lost a case in my life,” he muttered to the wind. “And I’m not starting now.” The next day, Evan arrived. I handed him the files. While we prepared, Zac wasn’t idle. He used every ounce of his influence to blacklist me from every boutique firm in the Northeast. He sent his PIs to the resort to harass my staff. He was so focused on winning the appeal for Hailey that he completely ignored the “minor” issue of the ten million dollars he’d taken. It was exactly the opening I needed. Evan and Zac had gone to Yale together. In those days, Evan was the “Apex Predator,” and Zac was the perennial runner-up. Within forty-eight hours, Evan found the smoking gun in the spa resort case. “He played you, Lauren,” Evan said, showing me the digital trail. “Zac orchestrated the whole thing to give Hailey her ‘big break.’ He contacted the victim’s family through a proxy. He coached them to hide the victim’s medical history.” The truth was simple: the guest who had fallen ill had a severe, pre-existing condition—hypertension. The resort had clear signage stating that guests with high blood pressure were prohibited from the thermal pools. Zac had used his connections to seal the medical records. He and Hailey had colluded with the family to keep the history out of the discovery process. During the trial, Zac had put up a “passive defense,” pretending to be sympathetic to the “victim” to ensure I would lose. Evan sighed. “He’s a fool. If this gets out, his career is over. Who is this girl to him? Why would he risk everything for an intern?” I sat in silence for a long time. I had met Zac when he was just a junior counsel for my father’s firm. He was principled, meticulous, and intensely shy. I was the one who pushed him, who funded his dream. I had seen him fight for the underdog. I had never seen him become the villain. “Do you want me to win?” Evan asked quietly. I looked at him, surprised. He thought I still loved him. “I want him destroyed,” I said. Evan smiled. “Good. Because I’d hate for my first loss to be against Zac Thorne.” I glanced at my watch. “I have a gift arriving for him in two hours. I wish I could be there to see his face.” My assistant was at the courthouse at that very moment, picking up the finalized divorce decree. Zac had no idea he’d signed it. He thought he was still protected by the shield of “marital assets” when he stole that money. I couldn’t wait for the trial to begin.

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I spent seven years helping Victoria build her empire from nothing. Everyone in our circle knew that the passenger seat of her car was a sacred space, reserved only for her future husband. She used to tell me, “My father loved that seat more than anything before he passed. I can’t stand the thought of another man tarnishng it.” That single sentence was the anchor that kept me grounded through seven years of hardship, convinced that I simply wasn’t worthy of that seat yet. I was the man who stayed in the shadows, the one who ate ramen in a drafty garage so she could afford her first office lease. Until that Tuesday. I watched from the curb as Tyler, the new intern, gave her a playful, pouty look. Without a second thought, Victoria held the door open for him. She didn’t just let him in; she leaned over, carefully adjusting the seat distance to make sure he was comfortable. Tyler sat there, glowing with a smug sense of belonging, while he clicked his seatbelt into place. My colleagues, standing nearby, went dead silent. Their eyes darted between the car and me—the man who had been pushed to the periphery of his own life. In that moment, the fog lifted. It wasn’t about her father’s memory or some sacred tradition. It was a barricade she’d built specifically to keep me out. It was a polite way of saying I was good enough to build the house, but never good enough to live in it. Suddenly, the weight in my chest vanished. The seat didn’t seem so special anymore. And neither did she. … Tyler slid the seat back, his fingers brushing against the tin of peppermints I’d tucked into the glove box for Victoria. “Oh, mints! My favorite,” he chirped, popping one into his mouth. He turned to Victoria with a grin. “How did you know these were exactly what I liked, Victoria?” Victoria glanced at him, a soft, indulgent smile playing on her lips. “If you like them, take the whole tin.” My stomach did a slow roll. Those weren’t just mints. They were a specific organic brand that had been discontinued in most stores; I’d spent three hours over the weekend tracking them down because Victoria liked the way they settled her nerves before a pitch. I opened my mouth to say something, but the words died in my throat. What was the point? By the time we reached the office, my phone buzzed. Someone in the company group chat had posted a candid photo of the car. You could see Tyler leaning toward Victoria, looking at her like she was the sun. The caption read: “Hard to guess who the real Mr. Boss is around here, isn’t it? ;)” A string of laughing emojis followed. Nobody tagged me, but I knew they were all watching for my reaction. I locked my screen, took a jagged breath, and grabbed my bag. That afternoon, I walked into HR and placed my resignation on the desk. The HR director’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Jamie? You have three core accounts in the middle of closing. If you walk, who’s going to handle the handoff?” “I’ve prepared a full transition packet,” I said, sliding a thumb drive across the mahogany desk. “Everything is mapped out. I’m gone in three days.” News traveled fast. Before the end of the day, Victoria summoned me to her office. She was leaning back in her leather chair, loosening her silk tie, her eyes tracing me with a mix of irritation and disbelief. “All this over a car seat, Jamie? Really? Isn’t that a bit beneath you?” I stood in front of her desk, refusing to take the seat she hadn’t offered. “It’s not about the seat, Victoria.” “Then what is it?” She let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “You’ve been with me for seven years. We started this in a garage, and now that we’re finally at the top, you’re just going to walk away? Do you have any idea how ungrateful that looks?” I stayed silent. I didn’t owe her my reasons anymore. “Tyler is new,” she continued, her voice softening into that patronizing tone she used when she wanted something. “He’s green. I’m just showing him the ropes, giving him a little extra attention so he doesn’t wash out. Are you really this jealous? Grow up, Jamie. Be the bigger person.” Be the bigger person. I’d been “the bigger person” for seven years. Every time she sidelined me, every time she ignored my contributions in board meetings, every time she forgot our anniversary—it was always my job to be “mature” about it. “You’re right,” I nodded slowly. “I’m small-minded. That’s why I’m leaving.” Victoria’s face darkened, but before she could snap back, the door swung open. Tyler walked in carrying a steaming Starbucks cup. He paused when he saw me, then flashed a wide, innocent smile. “Hey, Victoria, I brought you that oat milk latte you like. Jamie, did you want one too?” As he stepped toward the desk, he tripped—just a slight, clumsy stumble—and the latte splashed across the mahogany surface. Right onto the hand-drawn architectural mock-ups I had spent the last month perfecting for our biggest bid yet. The ink smeared instantly, the expensive paper soaking up the brown liquid. “Oh my god! I’m so sorry!” Tyler gasped, his eyes welling with tears. Victoria stood up immediately. She didn’t even glance at the ruined blueprints. She grabbed Tyler’s hand, checking his skin for burns. “Are you hurt? Did it burn you?” “No, I’m okay… but Jamie’s work… I ruined it…” “It’s fine,” Victoria said, her voice dismissive as she looked at me. “He can just redraw them. Don’t look at him like that, Jamie. It was an accident. Don’t be a jerk.” I stared at the sodden mess of my hard work. All those late nights, the meticulous lines, the passion I’d poured into her vision—it was all just “fine” to her. I didn’t say a word. I turned and walked out. In the quiet of the emergency stairwell, my phone vibrated. It was a number I’d saved with a star next to it. “Hello?” I answered, my voice thick. A woman’s voice, cool and elegant, came through the line. “Everything is ready, Jamie. The estate, the floral arrangements… it’s exactly the style you asked for. Have we set a date?” I leaned my head against the cold concrete wall and closed my eyes. “Next month, the 18th,” I said. “I’m coming home.” There was a brief pause, then a soft, knowing chuckle. “Good. I’ve been waiting for you.” I stayed in that stairwell for a long time, staring at the ceiling, blinking back the tears until they retreated. That night, I went back to the apartment we shared to pack. Victoria was on the sofa, distracted by a game on her phone. She looked up as I dragged my suitcase toward the door and let out a dry snort. “Go ahead, walk out,” she said, her eyes returning to the screen. “You’ll be back in three days begging for your job. You’ve spent seven years being my shadow, Jamie. Without me, you’re nothing, and we both know it.” The elevator doors slid shut on the sound of her game’s victory music. By the third day after I moved out, Tyler’s Instagram updated. It was a selfie of him wearing my favorite silk robe, lounging on the velvet sofa in Victoria’s bedroom. The caption: “New home, new vibes. Living the dream.” Victoria had liked the post. I hovered over the image for a second, then hit the ‘Block’ button. The next morning, at 4:00 AM, my mother’s frantic voice woke me. “Jamie… it’s your grandfather. Heart failure. He’s in the ICU. The doctors say he needs an emergency bypass, but the deposit is fifty thousand dollars… we don’t have it, honey…” My mother was sobbing. My grandfather was the only real father I’d ever known. He was the one who raised me after my dad died, the one who handed me his life savings when Victoria started the company and said, “I believe in your vision, kid. Take it. But if she ever stops treating you right, you come on home.” Victoria had insisted on keeping that money in a shared “emergency” safe in her office. “It’s safer here,” she’d said. “We’ll use it together when we get married.” I called her. Once. Twice. Three times. She declined every call. On the fourth try, the line picked up. But it wasn’t Victoria. It was Tyler’s groggy, annoyed mumble. “Victoria, baby, who is calling this late?” Then, Victoria’s voice in the background: “Nobody important. Hang up.” The line went dead. I stared at the black screen, my knuckles white. Five minutes later, I was in an Uber heading for the office. The sun wasn’t even up when I reached the building. I tried my fingerprint at the private entrance. Access Denied. I tried my birthday. Her birthday. Both failed. On a whim, I typed in Tyler’s birthday—April 9th. The lock clicked open. The air in the office was stale. I ignored the mess in the lounge—empty wine bottles, discarded luxury shopping bags—and went straight for the safe in the study. I punched in the old code. It worked. But when the heavy door swung open, the safe was empty. The fifty thousand dollars in cash—my grandfather’s life savings—was gone. My legs gave out. I gripped the edge of the safe, my breath coming in ragged gasps. The overhead lights flickered on. Tyler stood in the doorway, wrapped in a plush towel, two security guards flanking him. He let out a theatrical gasp. “Oh my god! How did you get in here?” “Where is the money?” I rasped, staggering to my feet. “Where is my grandfather’s money?” “What money? I don’t know what you’re talking about!” He stepped back, deliberately lifting his arm to show off a glittering diamond-encrusted bracelet on his wrist. I recognized the brand. It was a forty-eight-thousand-dollar piece. My grandfather’s life was sitting on his wrist. “That bracelet…” “This?” Tyler squeezed out a couple of tears, backing behind the guards. “This was a gift from Victoria! A token of her love! You’re crazy! You broke in here in the middle of the night to steal my jewelry, didn’t you?” He turned to the guards, his voice turning sharp. “Grab him! Call the police!” The guards lunged. They tackled me to the floor, pinning my arms behind my back. My forearm caught on a piece of broken glass from a discarded bottle, and I felt the warm slip of blood against the carpet. Tyler looked down at me, a fake tear rolling down his cheek. “Jamie, you left. Why couldn’t you just stay gone? Why did you have to come back and try to ruin my life?” … The interrogation room was freezing. My arm was crudely bandaged, the white gauze stained a dark, rusted red. The detective across from me flipped through his notes. “Look, Jamie. The property is in Victoria’s name. You moved out. Breaking in at 3 AM? That’s felony trespassing, no matter how you spin it.” “Officer, there was fifty thousand dollars in that safe. My savings. My grandfather is in the ICU—” “The reporting party says the safe contained personal jewelry that you attempted to steal,” the detective interrupted. “You say it was cash. Do you have a bank statement? A receipt?” I shook my head. Victoria had insisted on cash. She said it was “off the grid” and safer that way. I had nothing but my word. “Then we’re at a stalemate,” he said, closing the folder. “Please,” I whispered, gripping the edge of the metal chair. “My grandfather is dying. He needs that surgery. He doesn’t have time.” “Your family drama isn’t police business. The burglary charge is.” They had confiscated my phone. I knew my mother was calling me, wondering where I was, wondering why the money hadn’t arrived. “Can I make one call? Just one.” The detective pushed a landline toward me. I dialed Victoria’s private number. She picked up on the second ring. “Jamie? What the hell have you done now?” “Victoria, that fifty thousand in the safe was mine. You spent it on a bracelet for Tyler—” “What fifty thousand?” she cut me off, her voice cold and flat. “There was never that much cash in there. Just some petty cash. What does that have to do with Tyler’s gift?” “Victoria, please—” “Enough,” she snapped. “Tyler was terrified. He hasn’t slept a wink because of you. I’m busy taking care of him. You can sit in that cell and think about what you’ve done.” “Victoria!” I choked out, swallowing the bile in my throat. “I don’t care about the money anymore. Just… just lend me fifty thousand. I’ll sign anything. I’ll give you my shares in the company. My grandfather is in the ICU. If he doesn’t get the surgery, he’s going to die.” There was a long silence. Then, she let out a cruel, airy laugh. “Jamie, have you no shame? Using your grandfather’s health to pull a guilt trip? You think I’m that stupid? You’re just trying to manipulate your way back into my life.” “I am begging you—” “I’m in the middle of a multi-million dollar merger. I don’t have time for your theatrics. When you’re ready to apologize to Tyler and admit you were wrong, maybe I’ll consider signing a non-prosecution agreement. Until then? Enjoy the stay.” The line clicked shut. I sat there, the plastic receiver trembling in my hand. I spent forty-eight hours in that room. The clock on the wall mocked me with every tick. I didn’t know if my grandfather was alive. I didn’t know if my mother was okay. I thought about calling her—the woman from the stairwell. But I couldn’t. Not yet. I couldn’t drag her into this mess until the very last moment. Finally, after two days, Victoria walked into the precinct. Tyler was tucked under her arm, and a few of our old colleagues followed behind them like a grim procession. Tyler rushed over to me, looking worried. “Oh, Jamie, your arm! I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was you. I was just so scared when I heard the glass break.” He offered me a bottle of water. “Here, you look terrible.” I didn’t touch the water. I just looked at Victoria. She stood there with her arms crossed, her expression unreadable. “I signed the paperwork. You’re free to go.” I stood up, my joints stiff. I reclaimed my phone from the front desk and turned it on. My screen was a graveyard of missed calls from my mother. The last message was from 11:00 PM the night before. Jamie… Grandpa couldn’t wait any longer. He’s gone. The phone slipped from my hand, clattering onto the concrete floor. I stared at the words, the world around me blurring into a dull gray haze. Tyler was saying something, but his voice sounded like it was underwater. Victoria frowned. “What is it now, Jamie? Stop acting. If you’re trying to move back in—” I swung my hand. The slap echoed through the lobby. Victoria’s head snapped to the side. The room went silent. Tyler stumbled back, clutching his mouth. Victoria’s eyes went wide, a red mark blooming on her cheek. “Jamie! Are you insane?” “He’s dead,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “Forty-eight hours. I begged you. You called it a ‘guilt trip.’” I looked her dead in the eye, and for the first time in seven years, I felt absolutely nothing for her. “We are finished, Victoria. In every way a human can be finished.” I picked up my shattered phone and walked out the door. She screamed my name, but I didn’t look back. The funeral was small. We held it at a modest funeral home near my mother’s apartment. My mother had made the wreaths herself. Only a few old neighbors showed up. I was kneeling by the altar, burning incense, the ash settling on my clothes like snow. “Jamie… there are people outside. They say they’re from your old company.” My mother stood at the door, looking overwhelmed and confused. I stood up and saw Victoria entering with a small entourage. She was dressed in a sharp black suit, her tie perfectly knotted, looking every bit the grieving CEO. “Jamie. I heard about your grandfather. I wanted to pay my respects on behalf of the company.” She bowed three times toward the casket. It was a perfect performance. Then I noticed the company photographer in the corner, his camera lens trained on her. She wasn’t here to mourn. She was here for the “Corporate Social Responsibility” section of the annual report. Tyler was at the back of the group. He’d swapped his flashy jewelry for a simple black shirt, his hair neatly combed. He looked the part of the somber, supportive partner. He stepped up, lit a stick of incense, and closed his eyes in a moment of silent prayer. When he finished, he walked over to my mother and bowed deeply. “I’m so sorry for your loss, ma’am.” My mother nodded, her voice raspy as she thanked him. Then Tyler turned to me, handing me a white envelope. “Jamie, just a little something to help with the costs.” His eyes were red-rimmed, his voice soft. I took the envelope. It wasn’t sealed. I could see a stack of hundreds inside. I nodded and set it on the table. He didn’t leave. He sat in a chair nearby and pulled out his phone. The brightness was turned up to the max. From where I stood, I could see his screen perfectly. He was texting someone named “BFF.” LOL, this place is tiny. The flowers are plastic and so tacky. You should see him kneeling there—he looks like a stray dog. If there weren’t cameras here, I’d kick him just to see him trip. He’d probably look hilarious face-down in the dirt. Tyler finished typing, looked up, and caught my eye. He didn’t even flinch. He just flipped the phone over on his lap. “You must be exhausted, Jamie. Why don’t you take a seat?” He tilted his head, a faint, cruel glimmer of a smile in his eyes. He wanted me to see it. He wanted me to know that even here, at my grandfather’s funeral, he owned the room. I said nothing. Victoria, having finished shaking hands with the neighbors, walked over. She scanned the room with a judgmental frown. “Not even a proper floral arrangement? Your mother really doesn’t know how to handle these things, does she?” I gripped the edge of the table, my knuckles white. “Anyway,” she continued, “don’t take it too hard. He was old. It was bound to happen eventually.” Bound to happen. If she had answered the phone. If she hadn’t stolen the money. If she hadn’t kept me in that cell. My jaw ached from clenching it. The rest of the office staff began to drift around the room. I saw the HR lead whispering to a colleague, who smothered a giggle. Tyler stood up and walked to Victoria’s side. “Oh, Victoria, didn’t you mention someone might have leaked the core data from the last project?” His voice was just loud enough for everyone to hear. “Jamie only left last week. That iPad of his… doesn’t it still have internal network access?” He turned to me with a face full of faux-sincerity. “Jamie, you wouldn’t mind if we took a quick look, right? Just to clear your name. So nobody can say anything later.” Before I could even protest, Victoria walked to the side table and picked up my tablet. She swiped the screen—I hadn’t changed the password. “There’s no data here,” she muttered, scrolling. Then, her thumb froze. She stared at the screen for a long, silent beat. Tyler leaned over, peaking at the screen, and his smirk widened. He grabbed the iPad from her hand and held it up, facing the crowd. “Oh my god, look at this! Jamie, were you actually planning a wedding?” He flipped through the pages. The screen was filled with my “Secret Wedding Project.” Hand-drawn dress designs. Estate layouts. Seating charts. Floral mood boards. And one specific photo: a woman from behind, standing next to a grand piano in a white gown. The caption read: “This Saturday, I finally get to marry her.” Tyler paraded the iPad around the room. The whispering started immediately. “A wedding planner? That’s so pathetic…” “He got dumped and he’s still making these? Is he stalking her?” “Who is that woman? Probably a stock photo. He’s such a poser.” Tyler leaned in close to me, his breath smelling of expensive coffee. “Jamie, I get that you wanted to marry Victoria, but she literally kicked you out. Keeping this… it’s a little creepy, don’t you think? Have some dignity.” Victoria didn’t say a word. She tossed the tablet onto the chair and shoved her hands into her pockets. She looked at me with a smile that was worse than a sneer. It was pity. “Jamie,” she said softly, “if you really wanted to marry me that badly, you could have just said so. If you’d learned to keep your mouth shut and stay in your lane, I might have given you a chance eventually.” She kicked a bit of the incense ash with her toe. “But stalking me with these little fantasies? It’s embarrassing. Honestly, who else would ever want someone like you?” The room went still for a second. Then, someone from the back of the group spoke up. “Wait… that silhouette in the photo. That’s not Victoria.”

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The engagement gala was exactly three days away. I was mindlessly scrolling through a forum—the kind of toxic corner of the internet where men trade stories like trophies—when I saw the thread. The title was a slur I won’t repeat, but the photo attached stopped my heart. It was a private photo of me. Even though the face was partially blurred, the heart-shaped birthmark just above my breast gave everything away. I remembered that photo. Parker had taken it on my last birthday, whispering that it was for his eyes only. The comments underneath were a feeding floor for bottom-feeders. They dissected my body, noted the vintage imperial jade necklace around my neck, and swapped theories about how much I was worth. Then, a username I knew by heart replied. He wrote that a week ago, he still found me “enthralling,” but everything had changed. He said his “North Star”—his one true muse—had returned to the city. Beside her, I was just “a gold-plated placeholder.” I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I actually laughed—a cold, sharp sound that startled even me. I picked up the phone and called the event coordinator for the gala. I told him there was a change to the program. “Oh, a change of groom, Miss Everett?” he asked, his voice trembling with the weight of the scandal he smelled. “No,” I said, my voice steady as a surgeon’s. “Keep the groom. We’re changing the bride.” … Under my photo, the flies were buzzing. Look at those curves. I bet the guy is exhausted every night. I’d worship those legs for a year. Saved. I know what I’m doing tonight. Parker’s ID chimed in with the final word: She’s my soon-to-be fiancée, so keep it respectful in front of me, but I don’t mind if you guys save it for a rainy day. It’s a work of art, after all. Someone asked why he wasn’t marrying his “true love” instead. He replied with a sighing emoji. My muse has a complicated history. She can’t help my career the way the Everett name can. But as long as I’m the one taking care of her, does a piece of paper really matter? I’m bringing her home tonight. I’m done letting her drift. The basement-dwellers cheered him on. King move. Let the fiancée pay the bills while the muse keeps the bed warm. A true legend! A few people called him out for being heartless, but he played the martyr: If her mother hadn’t kicked them out years ago, Monica wouldn’t have suffered so much. This is just the world balancing the scales. The crowd egged him on, demanding a photo of this “muse” who was supposedly so much better than a “gold-plated placeholder.” Parker shut them down instantly: Monica is my soul. I’m not letting you animals look at her. I turned the phone face down on the table. My throat felt like it was being constricted by invisible wire. I was the one who could be looked at, commented on, and consumed like a commodity. But Monica—the daughter of our former housekeeper—was the one who had to be protected, whose name was too sacred to be uttered in a digital gutter. When night fell, Parker came home. The lights flickered on, and he jumped when he saw me sitting on the sofa in the dark. He instinctively moved his arm, detaching himself from the woman at his side. The guilt on his face was a fleeting shadow. “Charlotte? Why are you sitting here in the dark? You scared me.” I didn’t look at him. I looked at the woman. It had been five years. Monica looked more polished, but she still wore that same fragile, “poor-me” expression her mother used to perfect. When she realized I was staring, her eyes welled up instantly. Her lip trembled. “Sister…” she whispered. Slap. The sound cracked through the living room like a gunshot. Monica’s head snapped to the side, and the tears began to flow in earnest. Parker’s face twisted into something unrecognizable. He grabbed my wrist as I raised it again. “Charlotte! What the hell is wrong with you?” He stepped in front of Monica, shielding her as if she were made of glass. “Whatever happened in the past wasn’t her fault. Why are you taking it out on her?” Monica sobbed, clutching his sleeve with tiny, pale hands. “Parker, don’t… it’s okay. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have come back. She has every right to be angry…” Then, she did something truly theatrical. She sank to her knees. “Sister, I know you hate us. But I’ve always thought of you as family. I just wanted to be here for your engagement…” Parker tried to pull her up, his eyes full of a righteous, burning disappointment. “Charlotte, I used to think you were kind. But you’re just like every other spoiled heiress, aren’t you? Using your money to kick people who have nothing.” “After everything,” he added, “weren’t the three of us good together once?” We were. When she first came to our house as the housekeeper’s daughter—timid, wearing hand-me-downs—I felt for her. I took her everywhere. Parker used to complain that she was a third wheel, and she’d cry until he apologized. Eventually, he got used to it. He’d buy her gifts when he bought mine. He’d tell me not to be “petty” when I felt a twinge of jealousy. Look at how little she has, he’d say. Don’t be cruel. I didn’t know then that the reason she had so little was because my father had been keeping her mother in a separate apartment for years. I didn’t know Monica was the half-sister I never asked for until the day my grandfather died, and my mother walked in on my father and the housekeeper in her own bed. I swallowed the bile in my throat. “I told you. She is not allowed in this house.” The front door swung open again. My father was home. He’d clearly heard me. He marched over and hauled Monica to her feet. “This isn’t your house to decide who enters, Charlotte.” “I’ve made my decision,” he continued, his voice booming. “Monica stays here starting today. Your mother’s health is failing; she needs someone to look after her.” “Look after her?” I spat. “Her mother ‘looked after’ you right into your bed. Is the daughter here to do the same for Parker?” His hand connected with my cheek. Hard. My father pointed a shaking finger at me. “I bring whoever I want into this house. Your mother is a drain on my resources, a sick woman who costs me a fortune every month. And you? You live off my dime. Don’t you dare talk back to me.” Monica threw herself at him, sobbing. “Dad… I mean, Mr. Everett… please don’t be mad at her. It’s my fault. I’ll stay in the servant’s quarters. I don’t want to be in her way.” “Servant’s quarters?” My father grabbed her suitcase. “You’re my daughter. You aren’t staying in a closet.” He looked at me, his tone a cold command. “You spend all your time in your mother’s wing anyway. Your bedroom is empty most of the time. Monica will take it.” Parker took my hand, his voice dropping to that manipulative, soft register. “Charlotte, she just got back. She needs a sense of belonging. Can’t you just give her this one thing?” I wrenched my hand away. “Is there anything of mine she doesn’t get?” The coldness in my eyes made Parker flinch, but he doubled down. “Be reasonable. You have everything. You have me, a family, a legacy. Monica has nothing. What is it going to cost you to be graceful for once?” I looked at the three of them—a united front, standing across a chasm I didn’t care to cross anymore. Before I could speak, a weak voice drifted down from the top of the stairs. “Charlotte? What’s happening down there?” My heart stuttered. I looked up and called out, “Nothing, Mom! I’m coming right up.” I turned to Monica, my voice a jagged blade. “Listen to me. Do not go upstairs. Do not let her see you. If you even breathe in her direction, I will ruin you.” My mother’s room smelled of antiseptic and lavender. She was propped up on pillows, her skin the color of parchment. “Were you fighting with your father again?” I sat by her bed, forcing a smile that felt like it was cracking my face. “No, Mom. Don’t worry about it.” She was silent for a long time. Then, she reached under her pillow and pulled out a small USB drive. “Charlotte, I don’t think I have much time left. This is for you. Only you.” After I tucked her in and waited for her to drift into a medicated sleep, I opened my phone. The thread had been updated. She finally showed her true colors. Arrogant, bitter, a total NPC. If it weren’t for her family’s pharmaceutical patents, I’d never marry her. My father-in-law and I have a plan. We’re going to give Monica her rightful place. I listened to the soft whir of my laptop as I accessed the drive. My fingers drummed against the mahogany desk. I picked up the phone and called the coordinator again. “The gala on Thursday,” I said. “The bride needs to be replaced. Formally.” Every morning, I brewed my mother’s medicine myself. For years, my specialized blends had kept her stable. But as I was pouring the liquid, a deafening crash echoed from upstairs. My hand jerked. Scalding tea splashed across my leg, but I didn’t feel it. I ran. It was the sound of shattering porcelain coming from my mother’s room. The door was ajar. My mother’s hair was wild, her eyes bloodshot with terror. She was hysterically throwing everything within reach. Monica was leaning against the wall, her arms crossed, watching with a sickeningly bored expression. When she saw me, a small, cruel smirk touched her lips. “Sister, tell her to calm down. She might pop a blood vessel.” The blood rushed to my head. I swung for her, but someone shoved me from behind. I stumbled, my bare foot landing on a shard of a broken vase. The pain was sharp and hot. Parker held Monica tightly in his arms. Behind them, my father was screaming. “Charlotte, enough!” Monica tucked her head into Parker’s chest, her voice a trembling whimper. “I just wanted to apologize to her for everything… I didn’t think she’d react like this…” I limped toward her, my voice low and dangerous. “I told you. I warned you to stay away from her—” “Shut up!” my father barked. “Monica was trying to be the bigger person. She wanted to heal the rift. If your mother wasn’t so small-minded, she wouldn’t have made herself sick all these years.” On the bed, my mother let out a jagged, guttural cry. She threw her alarm clock at my father. It hit the floor and rolled, pathetic and weak. My father stepped back, his face contorted with disgust. “She’s a lunatic. A total madwoman.” He signaled for the driver. “Lock the door. Let her ‘calm down’ in there.” The door was locked for twenty-four hours. I stayed outside it, listening to my mother’s transition from screaming to sobbing, to scratching at the wood. I whispered to her through the door, trying to bring her back. By midnight, it went quiet. A primal panic seized me. I pounded on the door. I grabbed a heavy chair to break the lock. I swung once, but then a sharp pain exploded at the back of my skull. As the world faded to black, I saw Monica pointing at me, talking to the driver. “Drag her to the basement. It’s the middle of the night; she’s being too loud.” When I woke up, the basement door was open. Parker was standing in the light, his face a blur. “Charlotte… your mother is gone.” My mind went white. I shoved past him and ran upstairs. My mother’s room had been stripped bare. It was as if she had never existed. Down in the living room, workers were hanging red silk banners. “Double Happiness” symbols were being taped to the windows. My father was directing the florist. “My mother just died,” I said, my voice sounding like it was coming from a mile away. “And you’re decorating for a party?” He didn’t even look at me. “The gala is tomorrow. I’ve decided to use the platform to announce that Monica is officially an Everett. Life goes on, Charlotte. We can’t stop everything for the dead. Monica has waited long enough.” He paused, then added, “And honestly, your mother… choosing this timing? It’s bad luck.” I lunged for him, but Parker caught me, dragging me back. “Where is she? Where is my mother?” I clawed at Parker’s arms, leaving bloody tracks. He growled in frustration. “Charlotte, stop it! After the gala, I’ll take you to see her. Just pull yourself together!” The entrance to the ballroom was a sea of pink balloons and peonies. Where the giant LED screen should have shown our engagement photos, a loop of Monica’s solo portraits played. Every table featured her face. It was a party for me and Parker, yet I was invisible. The guests were already whispering. “Everett isn’t even hiding it anymore. I guess the wife finally kicked it.” “Thirty years as a son-in-law, and he’s finally the king.” “Did you hear? The illegitimate one is only a year younger than Charlotte. He’s been hiding her this whole time.” “I guess those Everett family formulas are going to the ‘new’ daughter now.” My father took the stage, tapping the mic. The screech of feedback made everyone wince. “Thank you all for coming. But before we celebrate the union of two great families, I want to introduce someone. My youngest daughter, Monica Everett.” Monica, draped in a gown I recognized instantly, floated onto the stage on Parker’s arm. It was my dress. A custom couture piece I’d spent eighty days designing. I had dreamed of wearing it down the aisle. This morning, Parker had handed it to her. She doesn’t have anything nice to wear yet, Charlotte. Just let her borrow it. Under the stage lights, the diamonds on the bodice shimmered like a galaxy. “I’m so happy to finally be home,” Monica said, her voice trembling with rehearsed emotion. “But the person I want to thank most is my mother.” The former housekeeper stepped onto the stage in a shimmering gold dress, wearing a victor’s smile. Monica took her hand. “When she was forced out of the Everett house years ago, she had nothing. She worked in factories, she scrubbed floors until her hands bled, just to raise me. She never complained, but I saw her crying over my father’s photo every night.” The subtext was clear: My mother was the villain who had torn a “loving” family apart with her wealth. My father pulled the woman into his arms and kissed her forehead. “No more suffering. We are finally one family.” Parker took the mic. “To a future of happiness for all of us.” They stood there—the four of them—the perfect, golden family. The applause was thin. People glanced at me in the corner. I was wearing a stark, high-collared black suit. A funeral shroud in a room full of pink. Monica suddenly smiled into the mic. “Oh! I almost forgot. It’s also my sister’s engagement night!” She craned her neck, looking for me. “Sister? Where are you?” I walked out of the shadows. The crowd parted like the Red Sea. My father’s face turned a bruised purple. “What the hell are you wearing?” he hissed. Parker stepped forward. “It’s fine, Richard. If Charlotte wants to be dramatic, let her.” “You spoil her,” my father grunted. “Charlotte, go pour some tea for your new mother. Show some respect.” Monica reached out to grab my arm, her manicured nails digging into my skin. “Sister, it’s a big day. I’ll have a server find you a red dress. You look so… grim.” I brushed her hand off and smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “Why are you so worried about my clothes? It’s not my engagement.” Parker froze. “Charlotte, don’t.” I waved at the coordinator. “Proceed with the program.” The poor man looked like he wanted to dissolve into the floor. He took a breath and announced to the room: “And now, we begin the formal engagement ceremony for Mr. Parker Owens and Miss Monica Everett.”

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Killian Cross was in the middle of one of his legendary blowups with his “charity case” girlfriend. To spite her, he’d hidden a ten-carat diamond ring inside a tray of molten lava cakes, declaring to the room of Manhattan’s elite that he’d marry whoever found it. The socialites went feral. They dived into their desserts with silver forks, scavenging through the rich chocolate like prospectors in a gold rush. I, however, had no interest in the spectacle. I turned my head, discreetly spat the hard, cold platinum band I’d just bitten into onto a napkin, and tossed the whole thing into the trash can beside me. I didn’t think he was looking. But Killian’s eyes had always been predatory. “Judy,” he barked, his voice cutting through the clinking of crystal. “What did you just throw away?” … Every head in the VIP lounge swung toward me. I froze. My pulse hammered against my ribs, a frantic rhythm I knew all too well. I turned slowly to meet Killian’s dark, brooding gaze. I forced a casual shrug, my palms damp. “Nothing. Just a used tissue.” Beside me, Bella’s eyes darted to the bin. She’d always been a scavenger for status. As soon as the attention drifted back to the remaining cakes, she lunged. A moment later, she let out a shrill, triumphant cry. “I found it!” In front of the entire crowd, she fished the ring out of the trash—the ring that had just been in my mouth—and held it up, gleaming under the chandeliers. She looked at Killian with a mixture of greed and desperation, her face flushed as she lowered her head in a rehearsed show of modesty. It was a mirror image of my own past. In my previous life, I was the one who had screamed with joy. I was the one who thought I’d won the cosmic lottery. But back then, Killian had only spared me a glance of bored indifference. I didn’t know then that his “White Moonlight”—the girl he actually loved—had been seen with another man that morning. He didn’t want a wife; he wanted a weapon to wound the girl who had rejected him. Now, Bella was the target of everyone’s envy. After all, this was Killian Cross. Heir to a real estate empire, a man with a double-Ivy League pedigree and a reputation for being untouchably clean. No scandals, no mistresses, no illegitimate children clawing for the inheritance. Marrying him was the ultimate security. He sat on the oversized leather sofa, legs crossed, a glass of vintage champagne dangling from his fingers. He studied Bella, but his expression was unreadable, a flicker of something dark dancing in his eyes. “So, it’s you…” A ghost of a smirk played on his lips. Then, the world went black. The lights flickered, a sharp zzzt of a short circuit echoing through the room, and suddenly we were plunged into total darkness. “Power outage?” “Watch it, you’re stepping on me!” “Ow!” The room was a chaos of muffled apologies and the rustle of expensive silk. A few seconds later, the backup generators kicked in with a hum. The lights surged back to life. “Just a tripped breaker,” someone muttered. “No way a place like the Pierre loses power.” But the drama wasn’t over. Bella let out a panicked gasp. “My ring! Where’s the ring?” Everyone scrambled, looking at the floor. And there it was—the diamond had somehow rolled across the carpet, stopping right at the tip of my pointed heel. “I—” Bella lunged for it, but two of Killian’s security guards moved with surgical precision, grabbing her by the arms and pinning her back. Killian’s gaze landed on me. There was a sliver of surprise there, but it was mostly sharp, cruel amusement. “It seems you’re as desperate to marry me as ever, Judy. Fine. I know when to take a hint. The woman I’m going to marry is…” Judy. In my last life, that was the moment my heart nearly burst with a terrifying, ecstatic heat. I thought I was the luckiest girl in New York. This time, I felt like I’d been dropped into a frozen lake. My limbs were leaden; my skin crawled. “You’ve got it wrong, Killian,” I said. My voice was flat, devoid of the tremor he expected. “I’m already seeing someone. He’s waiting for me downstairs.” The silence that followed was heavy enough to suffocate. Under the stunned stares of the city’s most powerful people, I picked up my clutch and walked out of the suite with a grace I didn’t feel. Outside, the neon lights of the city blurred. I didn’t call an Uber. I just started walking, letting the biting New York wind cut through my silk dress, trying to numb the roar of memories in my head. The magnolias were beginning to bloom in the park—grand, fragile, and temporary. I had died in the dark, and somehow, I had woken up back at the start. Back at the birthday party that ruined my life. It was Killian’s twenty-fifth birthday. The girl he obsessed over—Summer Reed—hadn’t shown up. She’d chosen to work a double shift at a greasy spoon in Queens with some guy from her neighborhood instead of attending his gala. Killian had thrown the ring into the cake in a fit of pique. In my first life, I took the bait. I didn’t know then that “happily ever after” was just the beginning of a five-year sentence in hell. “Did you hear? Judy’s family went bankrupt years ago. She’s finally found her meal ticket.” “I heard Bella actually found the ring first. Judy must have used some pathetic trick to steal it.” “Just wait. A woman like that? He’ll throw her out with the trash within a year.” On our wedding night, Killian didn’t even enter the master suite. He spent the night in the small, cramped maid’s quarters in the east wing. Summer used to live in that room. She had been a scholarship student the Cross family “sponsored,” working as a live-in maid to pay off her debts. She’d moved out after graduation, but Killian kept the room exactly as it was. A shrine to a girl who didn’t want him. The day after the wedding, Killian moved his things into the study. By the second day of my marriage, I was the laughingstock of Manhattan. Killian’s mother summoned me to the family estate for tea. It tasted like ash. “Killian married you against our wishes,” she said, her voice like a velvet noose. “But since you’re here, you have one job: give us an heir. Fast.” But Killian wouldn’t even touch my hand. How was I supposed to produce an heir? Through sheer willpower? I thought I could endure the coldness. I thought if I was perfect, if I waited, he would see me. The turning point came a year later. Killian came home wasted. I brought him ginger tea, the way I always did. He grabbed my wrist, his eyes soft, searching my face with a longing that made my heart ache. “Do you love me?” he whispered. I nodded, my throat tight. “I do.” I did love him. When my father’s business collapsed, Killian was the one who found me. When I couldn’t afford tuition, he cut the check. When a teacher accused me of cheating, he was the one who cleared my name. How could I not love my savior? So when he pulled me down and kissed me, I didn’t pull away. That night, he was desperate, clinging to me as if I were a life raft in a storm. He whispered into my ear, over and over, “Tell me you love me. Tell me you’ll never love anyone else.” “Only you,” I’d promised, stroking his hair. “Always only you.” The next morning, I woke up early. I traced the line of his jaw with my thumb, basking in the quiet. He stirred, his eyes still closed, and mumbled with a sleepy, affectionate smile: “Summer… stop it.” The blood in my veins turned to ice. The fog lifted in a single, violent stroke. He didn’t love me. He loved the girl who worked in the diner, the girl who was currently studying for the bar exam and ignoring his calls. I was just a placeholder. I left the divorce papers on his nightstand. He woke up and shredded them into confetti. “Nobody leaves a Cross,” he’d snarled. To punish me, he started bringing home women—women who looked like Summer, women who smelled like her. At first, I screamed. Then I begged. Eventually, I just went numb. He hated my silence. He’d grip my chin and demand to know why I stopped fighting him. I was just too tired to care. He got worse. He made me watch. He let those women taunt me in my own home. Finally, I bought a one-way ticket to Paris. I was going to disappear. But he found out. He locked down the airport, dragged me back, and threw me into the basement of our Greenwich estate. Five years. Five years in the dark. He “trained” me to obey. He broke me until I was a hollow shell that could mimic Summer’s walk, her laugh, her voice. The night I died, Killian had found out Summer was getting married to her neighborhood sweetheart. He came home obliterated. He threw an old maid’s uniform at me—one Summer had worn—and forced me into it. He made me call him “Master” while he took out his rage on my body. When he finally fell into a drunken stupor, I got up. I found his lighter in his velvet blazer. I set fire to the uniform. I set fire to the bed. I watched the flames lick the silk curtains, felt the heat begin to roar. I walked up the stairs as the smoke began to choke the house. I stood at the edge of the roof, looking down at the concrete driveway. It looked like an exit. I jumped. I was a falling butterfly, shattering on the ground. And then, just before the blackness took me, I heard a voice screaming my name. “Judy! Wait for me!” The memory snapped like a rubber band. I shivered, pulling my trench coat tighter against the wind. A black Rolls-Royce pulled up to the curb beside me. The window slid down. Killian was in the back seat. His silhouette was sharp, his jawline like granite. But when he looked at me, his eyes weren’t the eyes of a twenty-five-year-old. They were heavy, haunted, and ancient. “You’re going to marry me, Judy,” he said, his voice a low, terrifying rasp. “After all, we’ve already spent one lifetime as husband and wife.” The car sped off into the night. I stood frozen on the sidewalk. He was back. He had regressed, too. The news of me rejecting the city’s most eligible bachelor spread through New York’s social circles like a virus. I spent the next morning in my cramped, third-floor walk-up, hunched over a drafting table. I was trying to finish an architectural blueprint, the only thing that felt solid in this shifting reality. My mother kicked the door open, back from an all-night poker game. The draft sent my sketches flying like autumn leaves. She snatched one up, her lip curling in a sneer. “You think you’re going to rebuild our empire with drawings?” she mocked. “Killian Cross hands you a golden ticket and you spit on it. Who are you seeing instead? The butcher’s son downstairs?” I didn’t look up. “No.” “You’re just like your father,” she spat. “A dreamer with no spine.” When my dad went under, that was her favorite refrain. At least my dad tried to find work. She just spent what little we had left on baccarat and gin. In my last life, she’d bled me dry, constantly demanding “loans” that she’d lose within hours. Killian’s mother used to delight in pointing it out. “Your mother called again, Judy. Good thing we’re wealthy; a normal family couldn’t support a parasite like her.” When I’d suggested I could get a job to pay her off, the old woman had laughed. “A Cross daughter-in-law working? People would think we’re insolvent.” My phone buzzed. It was the nurse from the care facility. “Ms. King? Your father’s monthly fees are due. We haven’t received the wire.” I hung up, and my mother immediately went on the defensive. “Don’t look at me. I’m broke. You’re the one who insisted on putting him in that fancy place. Besides, it’s your fault he’s like that anyway.” She wasn’t wrong. Ten years ago, my father took a job on a construction site to pay for my prep school. He fell four stories. He survived, but his brain didn’t. Early-onset dementia, they called it. “Maybe you should go crawl back to Killian,” my mother suggested, lighting a cigarette. “Never,” I said. I took my portfolio to the firm I’d been interning at. My boss looked at my designs and sighed. They were brilliant, he admitted. Then he handed me a manila envelope. “Your termination papers, Judy. Look, you’re talented, but… think about who you might have pissed off lately. Nobody wants to be on the wrong side of the Cross family.” By the time I got to the care facility, it was too late. My father was sitting on the sidewalk, his meager belongings packed into two plastic trash bags. The facility had cleared him out. Killian’s Rolls-Royce was idling at the curb. The window rolled down, revealing his face—shadowed and damp with a strange, obsessive intensity. “Marry me, Judy. At least then you won’t have to worry about the rent.” I tried to pull my father away, but Killian stepped out of the car, his hand clamping onto my arm like a shackle. “This is the only warning you get. If you walk away today, don’t come crawling back on your knees.” I wrenched my arm free and looked him dead in the eye. “Don’t touch me,” I whispered. “Unless you want me to kill you again.” The words hit him like a physical blow. The memory of the fire flashed in his eyes. “You heartless bitch,” he hissed. “All I ever wanted was for you to say you loved me. Was that so hard?” He raised his hand, his face contorted with rage, ready to strike. Suddenly, my father lunged forward, shoving Killian with a surprising burst of strength. “Don’t touch my daughter!” Killian stumbled back, nearly falling into the path of a passing taxi. Humiliated, he barked an order to his guards. They swarmed my father, pinning the old man down. “If you don’t marry me, Judy, I’ll have your father dumped in the Hudson. Let’s see how well he swims.” “Try it,” I challenged, stepping closer. Just as the tension reached a breaking point, a voice rang out from the shadows of the facility’s entrance. “Taking on a Cross heir in broad daylight? Bold. Very bold.” I froze. I knew that voice. I looked up and saw Killian’s face go pale, his hands beginning to tremble. “You…” he choked out. “What are you doing here?”

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