Category: English

Three months ago, during a live-streamed reality show, my rival decided to set my career on fire. He leaked a photo of me—a candid, blurry shot of a kiss that I’d tried to bury in the deepest recesses of my mind. It instantly dragged me back to that first snowfall in Manhattan, the night Beatrice Lancaster told me she was getting married. I had been with her for seven years. I knew the rules of her world better than anyone. In the eyes of the elite, I was just a “pretty face,” a screen idol for the masses, a performer. I was never meant to step over the threshold of her family’s Upper East Side estate as anything more than a guest. The night we ended things, the atmosphere was hauntingly still. She told me she was leaving me the penthouse and the vintage Porsche. The career connections she’d promised would remain intact. Then she pushed a check across the marble counter. It was for thirty million, but there was an extra zero tacked onto the end—a parting gift for seven years of discretion. Then she asked me if there was anything else I wanted. I told her no. I took the money with the grace of a man who knew his place, and then I scrubbed myself from her life completely. Or so I thought. … “Damian Chester, that’s you in the photo, isn’t it?” The moment Tyler dropped the bombshell, the set went dead silent before the internet absolutely exploded. The live comments were a blurred frenzy on the monitor. [???] [Wait, did Tyler actually just do that? Did the Botox seep into his brain? You don’t ask that on a live feed!] [Our Tyler is just ‘authentic.’ He’s speaking truth to power.] [Am I the only one who wants to know who the woman is?] [Who else? It’s obviously his sugar mommy.] [Tyler is a dead man walking. Damian’s ‘sponsor’ is powerful enough to erase him from existence.] I sat there, staring at the screen, watching the vitriol pour in. The host was sweating through his suit, trying to play it off. “Tyler, you must be mistaken. It’s probably a still from a movie, right?” Tyler grinned, smelling blood. “No way. I had it authenticated. It’s real. Taken exactly three months ago.” He turned his gaze to me, eyes glinting with malice. “Am I right, Damian?” Three months ago. Exactly the night before Beatrice and I called it quits. Over the last seven years, we had an unspoken agreement: total secrecy. We were never seen together in public. We never touched where someone might see. But that night, perhaps knowing it was the end, she couldn’t help herself. She had pinned me against the wall of the darkened parking garage and kissed me with a desperation that tasted like grief. I hadn’t realized we were being watched. Across from me, Tyler waited for an answer. I didn’t give him one. With my current standing in the industry, I didn’t owe him the breath it took to lie. The host laughed nervously, forcing the conversation toward a different topic. The second the cameras cut, I was whisked away into my SUV. My manager, Marcus, shoved his phone into my face. The top three trending topics on Twitter were: #DamianChesterKiss #WhoIsDamianChesterSponsoring #TheLancasterHeiress Beatrice Lancaster was usually a ghost in the tabloids. She moved in circles too high for the paparazzi to reach. But when it came to my career, she had been loud. She wanted the world to know I had a shadow—a powerful, untouchable force at my back. She was my foundation. It started during my first year in the business. I was a nobody, and a well-connected nepo-baby actor had used a “fight scene” as an excuse to slap me eighteen times across the face. I was so naive back then; I thought I was just failing at the craft. I didn’t feel like a victim; I just thought I was a bad actor. Beatrice had been furious. She called me a fool while she iced my bruised jaw, her eyes burning with a protective fire. The next day, that actor was blacklisted. Permanently. “His family is powerful,” I had whispered to her. “Won’t you get in trouble?” She didn’t even look up from her tablet. “His family should be the ones worrying about offending me.” For seven years, she poured resources into me like water. I had Oscar winners as my supporting cast; I had first pick of every script from the top directors in Hollywood. When I walked the red carpet, industry titans stepped aside to let me through. “My darling deserves the spotlight,” she used to say. I worked hard. I didn’t want to waste her investment. I became a household name, an A-lister. But that meant my influence was now a double-edged sword. This “kiss” scandal wouldn’t just hurt me; it would hit Beatrice. It would hit her upcoming merger—her “royal” wedding. Sure enough, as soon as I reached my office, my phone buzzed. Her name flashed on the screen. I stared at the number I knew by heart. I didn’t pick up. Once it went to voicemail, I sent her three short texts: [I’ll handle this as quickly as possible.] [If it can’t be buried, I’ll announce my retirement.] [Don’t worry. I won’t be a burden to you.] It was March, but the snow was still falling over Manhattan. This kind of heavy, swirling white always made me think of the first time I met her. I was nineteen, a sophomore at NYU’s Tisch School. She was the billionaire investor even the dean bowed to. I had been selected to attend a high-stakes dinner—the prize was a supporting role in a major indie film. After a few rounds of expensive scotch, the masks slipped. The “gentlemen” at the table began pressured me into drinking heavy liquor until I was dizzy. Beatrice sat at the head of the table, her fingers idly tapping the rim of her crystal glass. “That’s enough,” she said, her voice cool and sharp. “Stop bullying the boy.” A single sentence, and the pressure vanished. No one dared to push further. I looked up, dazed, and our eyes met. In that room full of sycophants and forced laughter, we held a gaze for exactly one second. It was a small act of kindness, and I didn’t think much of it afterward. People like her didn’t inhabit the same universe as people like me. But after that night, she began appearing everywhere. Like a guardian angel. When a dean’s son tried to steal a role from me, she made sure it was returned with a phone call. On a night when the city was paralyzed by a blizzard and I couldn’t find a cab, she pulled up in her town car and drove me to my dorm herself. When my father needed a rare blood type for surgery, she—a woman whose time was worth thousands a minute—went to the hospital and sat in a chair to donate a pint herself. She was too good to me. So good that I was terrified. I was afraid I was just a whim, a temporary distraction for a woman who had everything. I was the one who finally broke the tension. “What do you want from me?” I had asked, my voice trembling as I ripped open my shirt buttons in her living room. I looked at her with cold, defensive eyes. “You want me in your bed? Fine. Let’s get it over with, and then we’re even.” She didn’t touch me. She stepped forward and buttoned my shirt back up, sighing softly. “Damian… what is it that you want?” My lashes fluttered. I forced myself to look into those deep, dark eyes and said, word for word: “I want the kind of love that can survive on nothing. Can you give me that?” Beatrice froze. Then, a ghost of a smile touched her lips. She kissed the tips of my fingers, her voice so tender it made my heart ache. “I can.” She didn’t lie. She gave me the love I asked for. But love isn’t a magic wand; it wasn’t strong enough to bridge the chasm between us. Class is a canyon you can’t jump over, no matter how high you climb. The day we broke up, New York saw its first snow of the season. The night before, we had been inseparable—from the living room to the shower to the study, clinging to each other as if we could fuse our souls. She had cooked dinner herself. When I finished eating, she said, “I’m getting married.” I froze for a few seconds. Then I laid down my fork and said, “Okay.” The silence stretched. The food grew cold on the table. Finally, she spoke. “The penthouse and the car are yours. The career support stays. I’ve added an extra zero to the severance check.” “Anything else you want?” I said, “No.” Beatrice nodded, turned, and walked out into the snowy night. Watching her back disappear, I felt a sudden, sharp pang of regret. After all those years, I realized I had never actually told her “I love you” out loud. The seven years had gone by so fast. We had walked through so many winters together that I’d fooled myself into thinking we’d grow old together. I thought there would always be another chance to say the truth. How pathetic. The snow fell harder, erasing her footprints. My vision blurred, and I felt a sudden cold dampness on my cheeks. I reached up to wipe it away. It was tears. Unsurprisingly, the internet turned on me. The news of the merger between the Lancaster Group and the Winthrop banking empire had just gone public. Suddenly, I wasn’t just a star with a secret—I was a “homewrecker.” “Damian, are you alright?” My team was in a tailspin trying to draft a PR statement when Tyler actually had the nerve to strut into my office. We were under the same management, and I had mentored him when he first started. It was a classic tale of the snake biting the hand that fed it. His confidence didn’t come from his mediocre acting; it came from the fact that he’d clawed his way into the inner circle of the Winthrop family’s younger daughter—Freddie Winthrop’s sister. I didn’t know if this stunt was his own idea or a hit ordered by the Winthrops. If it was Tyler, I had a chance. If it was the Winthrops… I was finished. They were the only family in the city with enough weight to rival the Lancasters. With a powerful family backing him, Tyler was insufferable. He leaned down, whispering in my ear, “Did you really think your little princess would protect you forever?” “So what if she adored you once?” “Freddie Winthrop is the man who belongs at her side. A man of her status. And you…” “You’re just the side piece. The ‘other man.’” That phrase made me lift my eyes to meet his. Tyler smirked. “Freddie asked me to give you a message. He’s a generous man—he can tolerate a secret ex. But you…” “Being this sloppy? Exposing her like this? He won’t stand for it.” “He suggests you retire. Now. While you still have your dignity.” “Do me a favor and give him a message back,” I said. I looked at my nails, not even giving him the courtesy of a full glance. “Tell him his taste in lapdogs is absolute trash.” Tyler’s face contorted with rage. “You’re dead, Damian! You’re getting blacklisted!” “I’ll be waiting.” I acted unbothered, but internally, I was bracing for the end. I’d been in this world for seven years. I knew that no matter how bright a star shines, to the true dynasties, we are just jesters. Expensive toys. Beatrice wouldn’t fight her fiancé for me. She loved me, yes. But for a woman like her, love was a small percentage of life. Compared to a billion-dollar merger, love was an easy sacrifice. So when my manager told me the next morning that every single negative headline had been wiped clean—replaced by a flood of scandals involving Tyler’s drug use and workplace harassment—I was stunned. That cold, surgical efficiency… that was Beatrice. Was this my “retirement” gift? I looked down at the pixelated photo of our kiss. It looked like a grainy scene from an old movie. The mess my entire team had stayed up all night to fix had been solved by her with a single phone call. Like it never even happened. The next day, I went to the set as usual. But the moment I stepped out of the car, a swarm of “fans” who were clearly paparazzi in disguise surged forward. Cameras and mics were shoved into my face, the questions sharp and poisonous. “Mr. Chester, what is your true relationship with Beatrice Lancaster?” “Tyler was ruined this morning—is the Lancaster heiress cleaning up your messes?” “She’s engaged to Freddie Winthrop. How do you feel about being called a ‘homewrecker’?” The sidewalk was blocked. The flashbulbs made my head throb. I kept my voice flat. “I have no obligation to discuss my private life.” “Is it because you don’t want to, or because you’re actually ‘servicing’ more than just Miss Lancaster?” A masked paparazzo sneered, his voice dripping with malice. “We’ve heard how that circle plays. Is it true you participate in ‘The Carousel’?” “You know, one guy, a dozen wealthy women—” My stomach lurched. A wave of nausea hit me so hard I actually gagged. The cameras went wild, zooming in to capture every detail of my distress. “Have you played that game, Damian? How much do you charge for a night like that?” “Which other high-profile women have paid for a turn—” “AH!” A sickening thud cut him off.

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My soul floated, light as a dandelion seed, looking down at the girl collapsed on the cold, linoleum floor. Mom, I’m sorry. I really wasn’t lying this time. I just couldn’t hold on anymore. Despite knowing I suffered from severe chronic anemia, my mother had insisted I participate in the university’s campus-wide blood drive. She didn’t want the “optics” of her own daughter sitting out while she, the Dean of Students, presided over the event. She called it “leading by example.” At the 100-milliliter mark, the world began to tilt. My vision went grainy, like an old television losing its signal. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird trying to escape a cage. I reached out, my fingers trembling as I tried to steady the tube, trying to tell the nurse I needed to stop. But she just clamped her hand over my wrist, pinning me down. Stacy, the phlebotomist, shot me a look of pure, unadulterated annoyance. She looked at my ghost-white face and scoffed. “Only a hundred mils and you’re already trying to tap out? Everyone else is doing the full four hundred. Don’t be a drama queen.” She leaned in closer, her voice a sharp whisper. “This is a charity drive, honey. Trying to fake a faint to get out of it is just selfish. Honestly, people like you should be forced to give double just for the attitude.” My mother stood a few feet away, her arms crossed, her eyes like chips of flint. She didn’t offer a hand or a kind word. She just looked disappointed. “Zoey, is this how I raised you?” she asked, her voice echoing in the sterile room. “Everyone else is doing their part. You don’t get to be the exception just because you’re mine.” Then came the words that felt like a death sentence: “You stay in that chair until you hit four hundred, Zoey. Even if it kills you, you are finishing what you started.” I gasped for air, but my lungs felt like they were filled with cotton. When the third bag began to fill, the light finally went out. My body felt heavy, like lead, and I felt myself slip away as I hit the floor. 1 A suffocating darkness grabbed me, and then—nothing. My physical body slumped over the donation table, the sudden movement jerking the needle. Blood began to backflow into the tube, a dark, rhythmic pulse. Stacy shoved my shoulder, her patience clearly gone. She ripped the needle out with a sharp, careless tug. “I’m trying to work here! Can you stop moving for five seconds? Now I have to re-stick you.” When I didn’t answer, she let out a huff of disgust. She grabbed my arm and drove the needle back in, hard. “Oops. Missed the vein. You won’t mind, right?” She did it again. And again. She dug the needle in with a sickening deliberate-ness until my inner elbow was a mess of bruised, purple skin. But I couldn’t feel the sting anymore. “Fine, play the silent treatment,” Stacy muttered, swapping the bags without looking up. “Zero school spirit. Everyone else is doing their part, and you’re here acting like it’s a Greek tragedy. It’s just blood, Zoey. You’re so entitled.” She glanced toward my mother. “I don’t know how Dean Mercer ended up with such a spineless, selfish daughter.” The students in line behind me started to whisper. “I heard she’s actually sick, like, really anemic,” one girl murmured. “What if she’s actually hurt?” “Please,” another boy replied, rolling his eyes. “The nurse said she’s faking. And look at Dean Mercer. She’s totally calm. If something was actually wrong, her own mom wouldn’t just be standing there, right?” I hovered above them, desperate, looking at my mother. Her brow was furrowed, her lips thinned into a line of pure resentment. “Zoey! Get up this instant! You’re making a scene in front of the entire department!” I didn’t move. I couldn’t. Stacy paused, her hand resting on my limp arm. She looked up at my mother and sighed. “Dean, she’s really committed to this act. Should I even bother continuing? She only hit the hundred-mark. Everyone else did the full draw, but she’s just… being difficult.” Stacy leaned in as if sharing a secret. “Actually, she just threatened me. She told me that because she’s the Dean’s daughter, I should just credit her for a full bag and let her go, or she’d have me fired. Maybe we should just let her go before she causes more trouble.” I tried to scream, to tell the truth, but I had no voice. My mother’s face darkened. A flash of pure rage crossed her features. She walked over and kicked me—hard—right in the small of my back. Because my body was already a dead weight, the force sent me sliding off the chair and onto the floor. “You are a disgrace,” she hissed. “When did you become so manipulative? I honestly don’t know who you are anymore.” 2 I lay there, a discarded doll on the tiles. My mother was shaking, her heels clicking as she stepped closer and pressed the toe of her shoe down on my wrist. “Is this fun for you, Zoey? Making me look like a fool in front of my colleagues? Do you think being my daughter means you get to hold everyone hostage with your tantrums?” She leaned down, her voice a cold, jagged blade. “The biggest mistake I ever made was fighting so hard to bring you into this world.” A few students behind us gasped. Stacy covered her mouth, but her eyes were dancing with a cruel sort of glee. My heart—the ghost of it—ached. I remembered the stories. My mother had gone through three rounds of IVF to have me. I’d seen the faint, faded marks on her skin from the hundreds of injections. I knew she had bled for me, cried for me, suffered for me. And I remembered being a child. I was born premature, the anemia a lingering shadow from my first breath. My mother used to stay up all night when I was sick, her notebooks filled with meal plans and massage techniques to keep me healthy. She used to be my protector. But everything changed when she became Dean. On my first day of college, she sat me down for a “professional” talk. We have to maintain boundaries, she had said. No special treatment. No favoritism. To “maintain boundaries,” she gave my merit scholarship to the runner-up. “If you take it, people will say I rigged it for you,” she explained. “You have to understand, Zoey.” To “maintain boundaries,” she gave my spot in the prestigious state internship to a student from a “troubled background.” “I have eyes on me, Zoey. I have to be seen as fair.” I understood. I swallowed the unfairness every single time. I did it for her. But this time, to prove her “fairness,” she had forced me into this room. “Because you’re my daughter, you should be the first one in line. If you don’t do it, how can I ask anyone else?” And now, she was telling me she regretted my existence. I looked down at my body. My arms were a map of bruises and needle holes. I wasn’t faking. I was gone. Stacy grabbed my arm, pretending to pull me up, but her grip was loose and mocking. “Come on, Zoey. Just two hundred more mils and we’re done.” She “slipped.” She stumbled back, letting out a small shriek as she fell to the floor. The blood bag she was holding flew out of her hand, hitting the floor and bursting. Deep, crimson blood splattered everywhere. My body was jerked upward for a second before slamming back down into the puddle of my own blood. My white shirt soaked it up instantly. Stacy bit her lip, her eyes suddenly brimming with fake tears. “Zoey! Why would you do that? I was just trying to help you up, and you pushed me!” She looked at my mother, her voice trembling. “She just threw the blood. All that work… wasted. Dean Mercer, I’m so sorry. I know how much you care about this drive.” Stacy started to sob, the picture of a victimized worker. “I’m so jealous of her, you know? She has a mother like you, she gets to go to this great school, and I’m just a nurse working double shifts. And she treats me like garbage.” I stood there, invisible, watching the absurdity. A dead girl can’t push anyone, Stacy. But my mother believed her. She walked over and pulled Stacy into a hug, rubbing her back. “It’s okay. Don’t cry. I won’t let her bully you anymore.” I felt a coldness that had nothing to do with death. My mother looked at my body on the floor with utter loathing. “Since she’s so determined to ‘play dead’ to get out of this, I’m not lifting a finger to help her.” She looked at Stacy. “Take the blood she wasted out of her other arm. Draw it all. I want to see exactly how long she can keep up this little performance.” The students in line started chiming in. “She’s totally faking. I can’t believe Dean Mercer has to deal with this.” “So entitled. She thinks she’s royalty just because of her mom.” “She’s literally wasting everyone’s time. Just pull the blood and move on.” Then, the University President walked into the room, alerted by the commotion. He saw me on the floor, surrounded by red, and his face went pale. “Dean Mercer, what happened? Do we need an ambulance?” My mother turned, a weary, practiced sigh escaping her lips. “Mr. President, please excuse my daughter. She’s having a bit of a tantrum because she didn’t want to donate. The blood on the floor? She threw it to get back at me.” She looked back at me with a hard, unforgiving glare. “Don’t worry about her. The more attention we give her, the worse she gets. She needs to learn that she can’t always get her way.” 3 The President hesitated, looking at me with concern. “Dean, blood donation is voluntary. If she’s really this resistant, maybe we should just let it go.” He shook his head and walked away to attend to other donors. My mother’s anger only intensified. “Still not moving? Fine. You can stay right there on the floor while they finish.” She looked at Stacy. “Finish the draw while she’s down there. When you’re done, leave her. If she wants to lay in the dirt, let her. Don’t let her hold up the line.” Without another glance, my mother walked out of the room. Stacy grabbed a fresh needle. She didn’t look for a vein this time; she just jammed it in. She drew the full four hundred milliliters—and then some. When she was finished, she kicked my leg. “Okay, the show’s over. Your mom’s gone. You can stop acting now.” When I didn’t move, Stacy rolled her eyes. She looked at the guys waiting in line. “Hey, can a couple of you carry this ‘princess’ outside? She’s taking up space.” I watched from above as two boys hauled my limp body out like a bag of trash and dumped it on the sidewalk under the blistering afternoon sun. Two hours passed. The drive ended. A few students walked by, glancing at me. One girl paused, biting her lip. “Is she okay? She’s been out here in the sun for a long time. She looks… blue.” Stacy, who was packing up her gear, walked by and snorted. “Don’t bother. She’s just trying to get someone to pity her so they’ll go tell her mom. It’s a total scam. Trust me, I’ve seen girls like her a million times.” Another student joined in. “Yeah, she’s the Dean’s daughter. She’s just a brat. She’s probably waiting for a camera crew.” The girl who had been worried looked embarrassed and quickly walked away. Stacy smirked, feeling triumphant, and headed toward my mother’s office to finish the paperwork. “Dean Mercer, here are the final logs. Everything’s accounted for. If you could just sign off…” My mother glanced at the log. When she saw my name next to the “400ml” mark, her expression softened slightly. “Where is she? I told her she was supposed to stay and help you volunteer as part of her ‘community service’ for the attitude she gave me.” Stacy lowered her head, looking hesitant. “Well… I tried to get her up, but she said she wouldn’t move unless you personally came out and apologized to her. She’s still lying on the sidewalk.” My mother’s face turned a violent shade of red. “Dean, she’s been out there a while,” Stacy added, her voice sugary and manipulative. “Maybe you should just go give her a little hug? Just to get her to stop embarrassing the school?” My mother slammed her hand on the desk. “I have spent my life indulging her! No more. If she wants to be stubborn, she can stay on that pavement until she rots.” 4 The sun climbed higher. The campus emptied as students retreated to air-conditioned dorms. My body began to change. The heat was unforgiving. A few stray cats, drawn by the metallic scent of the blood on my clothes, began to circle. It was a special kind of hell, watching them. My spirit drifted back to my mother’s office. She and Stacy were laughing now. Stacy was flipping through the old notebook my mother used to keep—the one with the recipes for my anemia. “Wow, Dean Mercer, you really did all this for her?” Stacy asked, her voice dripping with fake admiration. “Every meal, every vitamin… you must have spent years on this.” I saw my mother’s eyes flicker. For a second, she looked at the yellowed pages with a flash of genuine memory. A shadow of the mother she used to be crossed her face. She sighed, reaching out to pat Stacy’s hair. “If only she were half as appreciative and sensible as you are, Stacy.” Just then, the President knocked and hurried in. “Dean, is your daughter still outside? It’s ninety-five degrees out there. If she has a health condition, heatstroke is a real risk.” My mother’s hand froze for a second before she waved it off. “She’s fine. She’s too vain to let herself get a tan, let alone heatstroke. She’s just waiting for me to break. My daughter is a master of the long game, Mr. President. When she gets bored, she’ll come crawling back.” The President sighed and left, looking unsettled. A few minutes later, there was another knock. My mother straightened her posture, a look of “I told you so” blooming on her face. She thought it was me. But it was a group of students. They were there to pick up their certificates for the Dean’s List and the state competition awards. My mother forced a smile and handed them out. “Congratulations. You all worked very hard.” The students looked at each other, then at her. “Actually, Dean… we wanted to say thank you. We know Zoey stepped down so we could have these spots. We heard she did it to help the ‘school’s image.’” The smile on my mother’s face died. I watched the realization hit her like a physical blow. She had told everyone I was “disqualified” or “lazy.” She hadn’t realized the students knew the truth—that she had forced me to give up my hard-earned honors to prove she wasn’t playing favorites. She looked like she’d swallowed glass. “She didn’t ‘step down.’ She was caught cheating on the preliminary exam. You earned these. She didn’t.” The students looked uncomfortable and hurried out of the office. My mother’s heart was racing now. She was humiliated. The door knocked again. Stacy smirked. “That’s definitely her this time, Dean. Ready to beg.” My mother cleared her throat, assuming her most authoritative tone. “Come in, Zoey! I hope you’ve enjoyed your little nap on the sidewalk.” She didn’t wait for the person to enter. “If you’re here to apologize, don’t bother unless you’re ready to publicly apologize to Nurse Stacy tomorrow morning. And I want a five-thousand-word essay on ‘Accountability’ posted on the student portal by midnight, or don’t bother coming home!” The knocking became frantic. My mother stormed over and ripped the door open. She froze. Two police officers stood there, their faces grim and heavy. “Are you the mother of Zoey Mercer?” My mother blinked, her annoyance still simmering. “Yes. What did she do now? Did someone report her for loitering on the sidewalk? I’ve already told her to get up.” The lead officer didn’t answer. He looked at her with a profound, terrifying pity. “Ma’am, I need you to brace yourself. Your daughter, Zoey, has passed away.”

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I was born with the kind of body that demands attention. Between the natural curves and my preference for tailored, form-fitting silhouettes, the internet had affectionately labeled me the “Ice Queen Mother.” Whenever I went out with my roommate, she’d joke that we looked like a stepmother taking her middle-schooler for a walk. Even the stray dogs on campus seemed to stop and stare a little too long. Before we ever met in person, the guy I was seeing online sent me a photo. My roommate, Gwen, recognized him instantly. She let out a piercing scream. “Shut up! Jenny, your mystery man is Hudson Christian? His dad is literally on the Board of Trustees. He’s the golden boy of the university. But there’s a catch—he’s got this ‘childhood friend,’ Daisy Vance, who’s obsessed with playing the eternal toddler.” Before I could even ask for details, Gwen had the student forums pulled up, giving me the full dossier on Daisy. “Look at this, Jenny. Daisy is a piece of work. She’s built her whole personality around being ‘tiny’ and ‘innocent.’ People call her the ‘Weaponized Toddler.’ If you two cross paths, it’s going to be a clash of the titans: the ultimate Femme Fatale versus the world’s oldest baby. I’d pay for a front-row seat to that.” I ran a hand through my long, dark waves, admiring my fresh manicure with a practiced indifference. “Let her play house,” I said, my voice smooth. “Tomorrow, when we meet, I’ll make sure she understands one thing: in the face of real femininity, ‘cute’ is just a consolation prize.” … To be honest, I have zero interest in “girl hate,” and I wasn’t exactly looking for love. But Hudson Christian was obscenely wealthy. We’d been “dating” online for a week without meeting, and he’d already “gifted” me ten thousand dollars—voluntarily. I was planning to go to Caltech for my PhD, and I was frantically saving for tuition. Hudson wasn’t just a boyfriend; he was a bridge to my future. The secret to maximizing your take in a relationship like this? Never be the one at fault. With a “baby-brained” childhood friend in the mix, walking away with a cool million seemed less like a dream and more like a business plan. We agreed to meet at 2:00 PM in the University Hall. I happened to have an award to pick up there anyway. A minor crisis in the lab held me up, and by the time I pushed through the heavy oak doors, I was twenty minutes late. I could hear voices drifting from the back of the hall. “Hudson, where is she? Maybe she’s too scared to show up.” The voice was high-pitched, syrupy, and cloyingly sweet. Every sentence ended with a little upward lilt, like a question from a toddler. That had to be Daisy. “Maybe she’s a three-hundred-pound catfish who’s just a pro at Photoshop,” another male voice chimed in, snickering. “Stop it,” Hudson’s voice was low, resonant, but carried a hint of hesitation. “I’ve heard her voice. She sounds… sophisticated.” Daisy let out a soft huff. “Voices can be faked, Hudson. There are so many girls online who use filters and voice changers. I’m just worried you’re being scammed. I just want to protect you.” “Exactly, man. You’ve got to be careful these days—” I chose that moment to push the door wide. Sunlight flooded in behind me, silhouetting my figure against the bright afternoon. I was wearing a charcoal-grey bandage dress that hit just above the knee, the neckline framing my collarbones perfectly. My hair fell in heavy waves over one shoulder, and my pearl earrings caught the light as I moved. The hall went silent. A guy who had been mid-sip of his water choked, coughing violently. I scanned the room, my gaze landing on Hudson in the back row. He was even better-looking than his photos—high brow bones, a sharp jawline, and an air of cool detachment. Right now, though, that detachment was gone. He was staring at me, his thumb frozen over his phone screen. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. I walked toward them, the rhythmic click of my heels echoing in the cavernous room. I took my time. “So sorry I’m late,” I said, stopping in front of Hudson and leaning in slightly. “Lab emergency.” He looked up at me, his voice a bit raspy. “You’re… Jenny?” “In the flesh.” I gave him a slow, knowing smile. “Why? Are you disappointed I’m not a three-hundred-pound catfish?” The tips of Hudson’s ears turned a vivid shade of red. A guy with glasses nearby theatrically clutched his chest. “Holy hell. Nice to meet you, Sister-in-law. I’m Mike. I wasn’t the one who said ‘catfish,’ it was this idiot—” He pointed shamelessly at the guy next to him, who looked like he wanted to vanish into the floorboards. I laughed, and the tension in the room broke. “Isn’t that dress a little… much for campus?” Daisy’s voice cut through the air, sharp and brittle. She was practically glued to Hudson’s side, clutching his sleeve like a security blanket. I took her in: pigtails, a Peter Pan collar, a pink bow, and a quilted purse. Wow. She really was leaning into the “Precious Moments” aesthetic. “Is it?” I sat down across from them, my movements deliberate and graceful. I looked her in the eye, my voice dripping with faux-kindness. “Sweetie, when you have a woman’s body, everything looks ‘much.’ But I actually love your look. It’s so… retro.” I paused, my eyes traveling from her pigtails down to her Mary Janes, then back up to her flat chest. “It’s a shame, really. Only a girl with a flat, childlike frame can pull off those doll dresses. On a woman like me, the buttons would probably become shrapnel.” Daisy’s face went from pale to beet-red in three seconds. “Who are you calling flat?!” she shrieked, her “baby” voice cracking into something much shriller. I widened my eyes, pulling a face more innocent than hers could ever be. “Oh, honey, I was just stating a fact. You aren’t upset, are you? I forgot how sensitive children can be.” “You—!” Daisy looked like she was about to have a full-blown tantrum. “Daisy,” Hudson interrupted, his brow furrowed. He gently pulled his sleeve out of her grip. “Sit down. Don’t make a scene.” Daisy looked at him in total betrayal, her eyes instantly welling with tears. “Hudson? You’re taking her side? She just insulted me!” “I didn’t insult you,” I said softly, my tone incredibly sincere. “I was calling you cute. Grown women envy that kind of youthfulness, Daisy. We can’t all be ‘babies’ forever.” Daisy’s lip trembled. She pointed a shaking finger at me. “So you have a chest! Big deal! Big boobs, no brains!” Before I could respond, the hall’s PA system crackled to life with a burst of static. Then, a booming male voice filled the room. “And now, please join me in welcoming our top honor recipient for the National Life Sciences Competition, Jenny Jiang, to the stage.” The room erupted in applause. Daisy’s words died in the air, making her look utterly ridiculous. She stood there with her mouth open, unable to find a comeback. Hudson’s gaze stayed on me, and this time, there was something more than just physical attraction in his eyes. There was genuine intrigue. I looked up at the stage and saw Richard Christian—Hudson’s father—holding a gold-embossed certificate and a medal. He was scanning the crowd. I stood up, smoothed my dress, and walked to the stage under the gaze of three hundred people. That night, Hudson wired twenty thousand dollars to my account as a “congratulatory gift.” Just as I was starting to think this would be easy, my advisor called. Her tone was grim. She told me to get to the department office immediately. There were five people waiting for me, all looking like they were at a funeral. The head of the ethics committee pushed a stack of papers toward me. “Jenny, we’ve received an anonymous tip accusing you of academic fraud. These are screenshots of your alleged chat logs.” I flipped through them. It was a fake account using my photo and name, chatting with someone labeled “Essay Ghostwriter.” The messages were blunt: payment details, prompts, deadlines. The tone was a decent imitation of mine. “This isn’t my account,” I said, sliding the papers back. “The whistleblower provided a photo of your student ID as proof of identity.” “My ID went missing last week.” The committee head adjusted his glasses. “We have to investigate. Until then, your fellowship and prize money are suspended.” I didn’t argue. The money wasn’t the point; a fraud charge would kill my chances at Caltech. I picked up the chat logs again and turned to the third page. “Professor, look at the timestamp on this message. 3:12 PM last Tuesday.” “And?” “At 3:10 PM, I was on stage in the University Hall receiving an award from Richard Christian. There were three hundred witnesses and a live stream. I wasn’t in the back of the room hiring a ghostwriter.” The professor’s expression shifted. I tapped the “Ghostwriter’s” profile picture in the screenshot. “And this account? They posted a selfie last night with a location tag at the South Dorms. If you look at the reflection in the mirror behind them, you can clearly see a girl with pigtails and a pink bow.” I turned my phone around to show them a photo of Daisy from the forum. “Should I call Daisy Vance in here to clarify, or should we just go straight to the Dean?” The office went silent. The professor took off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. “Jenny, we will handle this with the utmost seriousness—” I stood up, my voice cold. “I expect a formal apology, and I’ll be pursuing a defamation claim.” The moment I stepped out of the office, a text from Hudson popped up. How much will it take for you to drop this? I looked up and saw Hudson leaning against the wall at the end of the corridor. He looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable. “Jenny, can we talk?” He sounded hesitant. “Look, our families have been close forever. Our fathers are business partners. Daisy… she’s been spoiled her whole life. She has a temper, but she isn’t a bad person. She’s just… immature. Could you just let this one go? For me?” He said it softly, his voice like a caress. I smiled. “Sure, Hudson. If it’s that important to you.” He visibly relaxed. Five minutes later, another hundred thousand dollars hit my account. I stared at the zeroes, and my anger evaporated instantly. Let it go? For a hundred grand, I’d let her set my car on fire. But Daisy wasn’t done. That afternoon, I returned to my dorm to find my desk stripped bare. My three thick research journals—the culmination of months of lab work—were gone. “Where are my notes?” I asked Gwen. Gwen looked sick as she pointed toward the trash chute at the end of the hall. I walked over. My journals had been ripped to shreds, soaked in leftover ramen soup and coffee grounds, with a muddy footprint stamped on the cover. “I tried to stop her,” Gwen whispered. “But Daisy said she was ‘helping you clean’ and thought it was just scrap paper. When I told her it wasn’t, she started crying, saying she was ‘just trying to be a good girl’ and ran off.” I stared at the trash for a long time. Those notes contained three months of raw experimental data. My mid-term defense was next week. Without that data, my thesis was dead. I took a photo and sent it to Hudson. No text, no accusations. Just the image. Ten minutes later, my phone buzzed. Bank Notification: +$20,000. Memo: Don’t be mad. Buy something nice. I stared at the screen for a few seconds, then tucked my phone away and headed to the campus print shop. I pulled up my cloud drive and hit “Print” on a fresh set of data. Gwen stared at me, jaw dropped. “When did you scan those?” “The first day I started in the lab,” I said, watching the printer whir to life. “Anyone in research who doesn’t have a backup is asking for a disaster.” Gwen was silent for a moment. “Jenny… you’re so cold it’s almost scary.” I didn’t answer. Soon after, it was Daisy’s birthday. Hudson rented out the entire local theme park for her. The school forums were flooded with photos. “Golden Boy throws royal bash for his Princess.” “Hudson and Daisy: A Real-Life Fairy Tale.” Gwen looked at me with concern. “Jenny, he’s technically your boyfriend. Doesn’t this bother you?” I shrugged, sipping my tea. “It’s a business transaction, Gwen. You don’t catch feelings for your ATM.” Gwen nodded, then added, “You know, Hudson’s dad really likes you. You could actually marry into that family if you wanted to.” I let out a short, sharp laugh. Since I started seeing Hudson, Richard Christian had already “invited” me for a private chat. “The Christian family needs a daughter-in-law who prioritizes the home,” he’d told me. “This research, these competitions… they’re nice hobbies. But after graduation, you’ll be expected to settle down and focus on supporting Hudson. Can you do that?” Like hell I can. My life plan was mine to write. I went back to my laptop, refining my final paper. Daisy burst into my dorm at 10:00 PM that night. When she saw me sitting calmly at my desk, she faltered. “Don’t you check the forums, Jenny?” “I saw the photos,” I said, not looking up from my screen. “The pink balloons really brought out your complexion.” Her smirk vanished. “You aren’t even mad?” I turned around and smiled at her. “Why would I be? Hudson told me all about it. Family obligations, social appearances… I understand perfectly.” Daisy’s expression twisted. She stared at my laptop screen. “Your screen looks so dusty, Jenny. Let me help you.” She picked up a bottle of industrial-strength bleach from my cleaning supply caddy and unscrewed the cap. “I’m just being a good little helper!” She poured the entire bottle directly onto my keyboard. The liquid seeped into the keys, the screen flickered violently, sizzled, and then went black. Daisy tilted her head, blinking those big, “innocent” eyes. “Oops! Did I do a bad thing again? Oh well. Hudson always fixes things for me anyway.” She skipped out of the room, looking triumphant. Gwen came back with coffee, saw the wreckage, and nearly dropped her mug. She started reaching for her shoes to go find Daisy. I caught her arm. “Relax. I have a plan.” I took a deep breath, photographed the dead laptop, and sent it to Hudson. Caption: She was “helping” me clean again. The reply came faster this time. Bank Notification: +$30,000. Memo: Don’t fight with her. Buy a new one. And then, a different notification popped up. An email from Caltech. We are pleased to inform you… I stared at the words for three full minutes. Then I turned off my phone, leaned back in my chair, and let out a long, slow breath. Every moment of patience, every time I “let it go,” every bit of swallowed pride—it was all worth it. My offer was here. Screw this. I’m done playing nice. That night, I tallied the balance in my accounts. Then a thought struck me. If I broke up with Hudson now, could he try to claw the money back? In the eyes of the law, “gifts” and “loans” can get messy when a relationship ends. If he felt cheated, he could claim I scammed him under the guise of romance. I needed the breakup to be his fault, not mine. The next day, I texted him. Are you free tonight? I want to grab a drink. He replied instantly. Where? I picked a dimly lit lounge just off-campus. When I arrived, he was already there, sitting in a velvet booth with his sleeves rolled up, a glass of scotch in his hand. I sat closer to him than usual. “What’s up?” he asked, looking at me. “Nothing.” I took his glass and took a sip. The scotch was harsh, and I winced. He took the glass back and pushed a glass of orange juice toward me. “Drink that instead.” I rested my chin on my hand, watching him. The low light hit the planes of his face, making him look devastatingly handsome. His Adam’s apple moved as he took a drink. “Jenny.” “Hmm?” “Don’t go back to the dorms tonight, okay?” Before he could finish the thought, his phone buzzed. The name Daisy flashed on the screen. Hudson went to silence it, but I caught his wrist. I took the phone, swiped to answer, and held it to my ear. “Hudson? Why aren’t you back yet? I’m scared being all by myself—” Daisy’s sugary voice filled the air. I smiled into the receiver. “Hey, Daisy.” The line went dead silent. “You? Where’s Hudson? Put him on!” “He’s a little busy right now.” “Why?!” I glanced at Hudson. He was watching me, his eyes dark and unreadable. I spoke into the phone, my voice low and playful. “Because Hudson and I are about to do ‘grown-up’ things. And there isn’t really room for a baby.” I hung up and tossed the phone onto the table. Hudson was stunned for a second, then he let out a short laugh, his ears turning pink. “You’re doing that just to spite her.” “Maybe. She’s been getting on my nerves lately.” Hudson didn’t argue. He took another drink, a smirk tugging at his lips. My phone buzzed in my lap. A text from Gwen: Everything is set. She’s on her way.

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The moment my husband crushed his third cigarette into the crystal ashtray and told me he wanted a divorce, the smell of bleach hit me like a physical blow. It was a phantom scent, a sensory ghost from a future that hadn’t happened yet—or rather, a past life that had already ended. It was the smell of the ten years I’d spent playing nurse to him in sterile hospital rooms. It was the smell of the air in my daughter’s lungs when she pointed a finger at me and called me a “sinner.” It was the suffocating, desperate smell trapped inside my oxygen mask as I lay dying, listening to the news that my ex-husband had just married the young girl who used to be our maid. Now, sitting across from me, Richard’s voice was strained, caught between guilt and a perverse kind of excitement. “I’ve fallen in love with her, Elena. One of Natalie’s classmates. It’s… it’s the real thing.” I stared at the unopened pack of nicotine gum on the coffee table. I’d bought it last year after the doctor warned him about his blood pressure. What a waste of money. “Okay,” I said. My voice sounded light, airy, as if I were discussing someone else’s weather. In my previous life, this was the moment I had shattered our wedding photos. I had screamed, wept, and demanded to know how he could do this to our daughter, to our twenty-five years of history. And what did that get me? The girl was sent abroad by her parents, Richard spiraled into a pit of whiskey and self-pity, and eventually, he collapsed from a stroke at a business dinner. I was the one who pushed his wheelchair through a decade of physical therapy. I wore through seven pairs of shoes walking him back to health, only for him to stand on his own two feet and immediately slap a divorce settlement in front of me. Even our daughter, Natalie, had turned on me then. “It’s your fault, Mom! If you’d just let go ten years ago, Dad wouldn’t have wasted a decade. You ruined my career, my future—everything!” The day they kicked me out of the house, I was coughing up blood at the gates of the subdivision, scrolling through their Instagram posts celebrating “the new family.” But now, the morning sun was filtering through the blinds, and Richard was waiting for my explosion. I picked up the pen and flipped to the last page of the agreement. “I want the old cottage in the valley. You can keep the rest.” Richard froze. The expression on his face was identical to the one he’d worn in my past life when I’d refused to sign. It was perfect. This time, I wasn’t saving him. I was saving myself. 1 He snapped his head up, eyes wide with disbelief. “What? Say that again.” I picked up a piece of the braised pork I’d made for lunch and chewed slowly. “I said fine. We’ll split the liquid assets fifty-fifty. You have a problem with that?” He narrowed his eyes, his mind clearly racing to find the trap. He remained silent. I scooped a large portion of rice into my bowl and started eating with an appetite I hadn’t felt in years. In my last life, I had starved myself for three days after he told me. I had withered away until the sickness took me. Not this time. This time, I was going to be well-fed. Richard let out a long, theatrical sigh, the “burdened intellectual” persona sliding back into place. “Elena, I’m being serious. I love Skye. And she loves me.” “Despite the twenty-five-year age gap, our souls are… intertwined. As my partner for the first half of my life, I expect you to respect my journey. I want your blessing.” I nodded, mouth full. “Sure. I’m pretty sick of your journey anyway.” He blinked. Then, a flicker of genuine surprise—and relief—crossed his face. “You’re… you’re not just saying that? You’re not planning to make a scene at the university?” I just kept eating. He began to rub his hands together, his excitement becoming palpable. “Good. I’m glad you’ve reached this level of maturity. You’ve spent twenty years by my side; I suppose some of my refinement was bound to rub off on you.” “Listen,” he continued, his voice dropping into that condescending ‘professor’ tone, “we’ll divide the assets into three. One for you, one for me, and one for Natalie. It’s more than fair.” “I’m staying with Dad,” Natalie said suddenly. She had been slumped on the sofa, scrolling through her phone, pretending not to listen. “He can manage my share of the money.” Richard let out a booming laugh. “See? That’s my girl! Honestly, Elena, this is a great deal for you. You’ve been a housewife for two decades. You haven’t exactly ‘contributed’ to the household income. You’ve lived off me for twenty years. You should be grateful for a third.” Natalie waved her phone at me, a cruel smirk on her face. “Mom, I just recorded you agreeing to the divorce. Don’t even think about backing out.” 2 I looked at my daughter. There was still a dull ache in my chest—a vestigial remain of maternal instinct. This was the girl I had raised. I used to think we were a team. In my first life, when Richard asked for the divorce, my first thought had been her. She was applying for grad school, and she needed her father’s connections and financial backing. I knew Richard. If I divorced him then, he would have cut her off to spend every cent on his new muse. So I endured. I stayed in a dead marriage, making myself small and pathetic just to ensure she had a bridge to her future. And how did she repay me? By leaving me to rot in a rural shack without so much as a bag of rice. By ignoring my calls when I was too sick to stand. When I finally reached her on the phone, she had said: “Just die already, Mom. People like you don’t contribute anything to society anyway. You’re just wasting oxygen.” Recalling those words, I smiled thinly at her. “Don’t worry, Natalie. I won’t fight your father for you. Even if you wanted to come with me, I wouldn’t take you.” Her face shifted, the smirk faltering for a microsecond before hardening into a sneer. “Please. As if I’d ever go with you. What could you possibly do for me?” “Skye is my best friend,” she continued, her voice rising in a defensive trill. “When she marries Dad, we’ll be closer than ever. She has a Master’s degree, she’s beautiful, she actually matches Dad’s intellect. When you stand next to him, you look like his housekeeper.” She stuck her tongue out at me, a childish gesture from a twenty-year-old woman. “I’m going to be surrounded by culture and sophistication now. I don’t need you.” She threw her fork onto the table and sauntered back to her room. I looked around the room. I looked at the half-eaten meal I’d cooked, the laundry drying on the balcony that I’d washed, the houseplants I watered because she forgot, the pet turtle she’d cried for and then never fed once. I had done everything for her. And in her eyes, it was worth nothing because it wasn’t ‘intellectual.’ Her father was a professor, so even when he did nothing, he was a giant. I was a mother, so even when I did everything, I was trash. Fine. I didn’t want this ungrateful ghost of a daughter anymore. 3 After lunch, I walked out the door. At the bottom of the stairs, I ran into Richard and Skye. They weren’t even trying to hide it anymore. They were walking up the path, fingers intertwined, looking like a sickeningly sweet couple in a jewelry commercial. I walked past them as if they were invisible. “Mrs. Miller!” Skye called out. She was beaming, that youthful, predatory glow radiating off her. “Are you heading out?” She leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “You might want to stay out late. I’d hate for you to come home and see something… upsetting. You know, like this.” She pressed her lips to Richard’s in a bold, wet kiss. Richard looked slightly uncomfortable, his eyes darting around to see if any neighbors were watching, but he didn’t pull away. Skye pulled back, a glint of malice in her eyes. “Oh, and Mrs. Miller? Richard said he’s buying me a villa in the hills. Do you even know what a villa looks like? You’ve probably never stepped foot in one.” She winked. “Maybe after the divorce, you can come over and be our cleaning lady. At least then you’d get to see how the other half lives.” I remembered the first day I met Skye. She had seemed so sweet, so harmless. She told me she wanted to go into academia and asked if my husband could tutor her. By the third week of “tutoring,” I had heard her moans through the office door. “I just love mature men with authority,” she had whispered. In my last life, I fought to keep them apart. This time? I was going to help them find their “happily ever after.” After all, I had what I needed. I hailed a taxi and went straight to a local labor agency. I hired six strong men and drove two hours out to the countryside, to the old farmhouse my parents had left me. It was overgrown with weeds, abandoned for over a decade. It was the place where I had died in my previous life. In that life, Natalie had shoved me into the dirt here and laughed. “Guess what, Mom? Dad had eight million dollars stashed away in a private account the whole time. Bribes, ‘consulting fees,’ cash gifts from students’ parents… all of it. He hid the cash in the floorboards of this dump because he knew you’d never look here.” Eight million dollars. He hadn’t touched a cent of it when he was paralyzed. He’d let me work three jobs to pay for his medicine while Natalie spent his pension on designer shoes. And the moment he recovered, he’d dug it up to buy Skye a new life. He wouldn’t even give me ten thousand for my surgery. Well. This time, I was the one with the shovel. 4 After securing the “inheritance,” I took a week-long solo trip to the coast. I spent money on things I’d always denied myself—expensive wine, silk sheets, a spa treatment that made my skin feel like a human’s again. Richard sent me a barrage of texts every day. [I’m sick of seeing your junk in the hallway. Get back here and move your stuff out!] [How long are you going to hide? We need to sign the final papers.] When I finally returned, the neighbors stared. I looked rested. I looked younger. “Going through a divorce suits you, Elena!” one of them joked. I laughed. “It turns out not taking care of a grown man is the best skincare routine there is.” We lived on the second floor. I looked up and saw Skye on the balcony, looking down at us with a scowl. I walked into the apartment and realized my slippers were gone. Whatever. I didn’t need them. The place was transformed. Every piece of furniture I’d picked out was gone. Even the curtains had been replaced with something tacky and over-the-top. Skye walked out of the kitchen, looking smug. “I threw your stuff out, Elena. Your taste was… depressing. I hope you don’t mind. You’re leaving anyway, right?” I remained calm. “Actually, I like it. It saves me the trouble of looking at things I’m tired of.” Her smile faltered. Young girls are so impatient; they expect you to crumble. “Listen to me, you old hag! Richard doesn’t want you! Look at these!” She pointed to the walls. Our wedding photos had been replaced by glossy shots of her and Richard. There was a “family” portrait of Richard, Skye, and Natalie. “There’s no room for you here anymore,” she hissed. I glanced at the photos. “Technically, we haven’t finalized the paperwork. Legally, I’m still his wife. And legally, this is still my home.” “So what? He doesn’t love you! You’re nothing!” she screamed, her voice echoing through the apartment building. Just then, the front door—which I’d left ajar—was pushed open. A middle-aged couple rushed in, faces flushed with rage. “Skye!” the man roared. Skye turned white. “Mom? Dad? What are you doing here?” She looked at me, realization dawning. “You! You called them!” Before she could finish, her father stepped forward and slapped her across the face. “We worked ourselves to the bone to put you through school, and you spend your time breaking up a marriage? You’re coming home right now!” Richard walked in from work at that exact moment. He tried to play the ‘distinguished professor,’ tried to “reason” with them. Skye’s father didn’t want to talk. He chased Richard around the living room, swinging his briefcase until Richard was cowering behind the sofa with a bloody nose. After they dragged a screaming Skye out of the apartment, Richard wiped his face and looked at me with pure hatred. “We’re going to the courthouse this afternoon. I am giving Skye the life she deserves, and you are not going to stop me!” I smiled. “You think you can handle her parents?” “That’s my business! Just sign the papers!” I shook my head slowly. “I’ve been thinking. I don’t think I want a divorce anymore.” 5 Richard’s face contorted. “What did you say?” I shrugged. “You were right, Richard. I’m just a housewife. Skye said I’d end up as a cleaning lady. Why would I want that? I’ll just stay here. You can do whatever you want with whoever you want, but I’m keeping the title of Mrs. Miller.” He slammed his hand on the table, his face turning a dark, dangerous purple. “You will sign!” It was the same look he’d given me in the other life. The same entitlement. “Richard,” I said quietly, “You’re a professor. You’re supposed to be good at logic. Tell me, what have I gained from this marriage?” “Have I gained wealth? Jewels? A life of ease? No. I’ve gained the labor of raising your child, the stress of managing your home on a pittance, and a daughter who treats me like dirt.” He stared at me, his bravado leaking away. He opened his mouth, then closed it. “I… I offered you a third of the money,” he muttered. I set my tea down. “You have eighteen thousand dollars in your savings account. A third is six thousand. How long is that supposed to last me? I don’t even have a place to live.” “This apartment is my pre-marital property!” he shouted. “Exactly,” I replied. “Divorce is a bad deal for me. So, I’ve decided I don’t care. Go play with your student. I’m staying.” “You’re being unreasonable! Greedy! You’re a small-minded, petty woman! Marrying you was the greatest mistake of my life!” I didn’t blink. “Get her things out of my house. If I have to do it, I’m throwing them off the balcony.” I walked into the master bedroom and started hushing Skye’s designer bags into the hallway. Natalie came home and screamed at me, calling me every name in the book. I put on my noise-canceling headphones and started a movie. At dinner, the two of them sat at the table, staring at me with thunderous expressions. “Where’s dinner?” Richard demanded. I arched an eyebrow. “Are you joking? After the way you’ve treated me, you think I’m cooking for you?” I picked up my takeout and went into my room, locking the door. This went on for three days. Finally, Natalie snapped. “I can’t take it anymore, Dad! Just give her what she wants!” “The house is old anyway, and the savings are nothing! Let her have them! I’m sick of her cooking, and I’m sick of her face!” “Skye will cook for us once we move into the villa! Just do it, Dad! Her parents are trying to marry her off to someone in another state!” Five minutes later, there was a knock on my door. “Fine,” Richard spat through the wood. “The house, the savings—you can have it all. Just sign the damn papers.”

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The security footage from two in the morning cleared the sleep from my brain like a shot of pure adrenaline. There, on the glowing screen of the property manager’s tablet, was my brand-new, eighty-five-thousand-dollar Winnebago RV. And there was my neighbor, Penny, sitting in the driver’s seat. Behind her, loading into the cabin like they were boarding a tour bus, were her husband, her daughter, and her elderly parents. The brake lights flared in the grainy black-and-white video. And then, my RV pulled out of the complex, heading straight for the interstate. The fuse for this entire nightmare had been lit a few days prior. I had just dropped a small fortune on that custom Class C motorhome. My plan for the Fourth of July weekend was simple: drive down the coast, park by the ocean, and embrace the absolute, unbroken quiet of solitude. I hadn’t accounted for Gary. Gary lived next door. When he saw the rig parked in my spot, he showed up on my porch with his wife, his eight-year-old kid, and his in-laws, pitching the idea that they should “tag along” to save on travel expenses. I had politely, but firmly, shut the door on that idea. It wasn’t until the following morning that I walked outside and found a rectangular patch of empty asphalt where my sanctuary used to be. When I finally got Gary on the phone, the sheer entitlement vibrating through the receiver made the blood roar in my ears. “Look, man, you’re flying solo. You can crash at any cheap motel,” he’d yelled over the highway wind. “This thing is perfect for a family. We’re finally comfortable.” I didn’t hesitate. The second the call disconnected, my thumb tapped 9-1-1. You want to steal my rig? You want to be comfortable? Get comfortable with the idea of a holding cell. 1 “Hey, Jack! Heard you got yourself a land yacht!” I had been lying on my couch, endlessly scrolling through my phone, when the doorbell rang. I opened it to find Gary from next door standing on my welcome mat, grinning like he’d just scratched a winning lotto ticket. He hadn’t come alone. He’d brought the whole circus. His wife, Penny. His daughter, Mia. His father-in-law, Frank. His mother-in-law, Helen. Five of them, packed onto my porch, radiating expectant energy. “Hey, Gary,” I said, keeping my hand on the doorknob. “What’s up?” “Word on the street is you’re taking that new RV out for the Fourth of July weekend,” Gary said, clapping his hands together. “That’s fantastic. We’re coming with you. Saves you from being all by your lonesome!” I blinked, waiting for the punchline. When none came, I shifted my weight. “I’m driving down the coast by myself. That’s kind of the point.” Gary waved his hand, dismissing my reality entirely. “Ah, come on. Road trips suck when you’re alone. No one to talk to, no one to pass the time with. We’ll keep you company. It’ll be a blast.” “Gary,” I said slowly, trying to keep the edge out of my voice. “The RV is just for me.” “I know, I know,” Gary pushed on, entirely unfazed. “But that thing is huge! You can’t possibly need all that space. The five of us can just squeeze into the back. We won’t be in your way at all.” Down around my knees, little Mia started jumping. “I wanna ride in the big car! I wanna ride in the big car!” I let a heavy, uncomfortable silence fall over the porch. Penny finally chimed in, offering a tight, appeasing smile. “Jack, look, we aren’t trying to take advantage. You can just drop us off at the first national park on your route, and we’ll get out and do our own thing. It just saves us the gas money. We’re neighbors. It’s what neighbors do.” “No,” I said. “I can’t do that.” Helen, the mother-in-law, instantly soured. Her face pinched together. “Well, aren’t you a stingy young man? We live right next door. What does it cost you to do a simple favor?” “Helen,” I kept my voice flat. “It cost me eighty-five thousand dollars. I literally haven’t even driven it off the lot for a trip yet.” Frank cleared his throat, adjusting his baseball cap. “Son, don’t be so selfish. Put some good karma into the world. It comes back to you.” A dry laugh scraped the back of my throat. “So, let me get this straight. I buy a vehicle with my own money, I don’t want to chauffeur five people I barely know, and I’m the selfish one?” Gary quickly held up his hands, playing the peacemaker for the fire he’d started. “Alright, alright. If Jack doesn’t want to help out, we’ll leave it. Don’t make a big deal out of it.” He corralled his family, turning them back toward their unit. But just before he stepped off my porch, Gary glanced back over his shoulder. It wasn’t a look of disappointment. It wasn’t anger. It was a look that said, We’ll see about that. I locked my door, brushing it off as suburban absurdity. Sometime around midnight, floating in that heavy space between waking and sleeping, I thought I heard a faint rustling outside my front door. A quiet clinking, like metal on metal. But the exhaustion of the workweek pulled me under before I could investigate. The next morning, I walked out with my coffee mug. The parking pad was empty. My RV was gone. I stood there, the warm morning air suddenly feeling like ice against my skin. A high-pitched ringing started in my ears. Impossible. I rubbed my eyes. The concrete was still bare. A small oil stain from my old sedan was the only thing left. I pulled out my phone, opening my camera roll to the picture I’d taken yesterday. The pristine white Winnebago, the sleek awning. It had been right there. Now, there wasn’t so much as a tire mark left behind. My first, frantic thought: Did the HOA tow it? I jogged down to the community clubhouse, pushing open the glass doors. Barb, the property manager, looked up from her desk. “Barb,” I said, a little breathless. “My RV is gone from my spot. Did the association have it towed?” Barb frowned, adjusting her glasses. “No, Jack. We don’t tow unless there’s a written violation first. You’re fully registered.” “Can we check the security cameras?” “Sure,” she said, her voice softening at the panic in my eyes. “Come back here.” She clicked through the digital archive. We went back to midnight and fast-forwarded. At exactly 2:13 a.m., a figure appeared on screen. It was Penny. She walked straight up to my RV. In her hand, something metallic glinted under the streetlamp. She pressed a button. The amber hazard lights flashed, confirming the doors unlocking. She climbed into the driver’s seat. Two minutes later, Gary emerged from the breezeway of their unit. Following him like ducks in a row were Helen, Frank, and little Mia. They were lugging duffel bags and a cooler. Gary slid the side door open. He hoisted Mia in. Then Frank. Then Helen. Then Gary climbed in himself, pulling the heavy door shut behind him. At 2:18 a.m., my eighty-five-thousand-dollar motorhome rolled out of the complex gates. Barb slowly turned her head to look at me, her eyes wide. “Jack… aren’t those your neighbors?” 2 I didn’t answer her. I couldn’t. I just stared at the frozen frame of the video, my palms growing damp with a cold, creeping sweat. The keys. It hit me with the force of a physical blow. Gary had come over the night before, uninvited. When he was standing in my entryway, leaning against the console table, I had my back turned for exactly ten seconds to grab a bottle of water from the kitchen. I had left my spare set of keys in the ceramic bowl by the door. I thought I had misplaced them. I hadn’t. He had palmed them while I wasn’t looking. I pulled out my phone and dialed Gary’s number. User busy. I called again. User busy. Third try. It rang. And then, he picked up. “Gary,” I said, my voice dropping an octave. “Where is my RV?” Through the speaker, I could hear the distinct, heavy rumble of highway tires and the wind whipping against the chassis. Gary’s voice boomed, completely unbothered. “Hey, Jack! Man, we’re just borrowing it for a couple of days. You’re a grown adult, don’t be so tight-fisted about it.” I closed my eyes. I took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to cage the absolute fury rising in my chest. “Turn it around,” I said softly. “Bring it back. Right now.” Gary actually laughed. A bright, genuine chuckle. “Bring it back? Buddy, we’re already three hours out on the interstate. Look, you’re just one guy. Book a nice hotel room for the weekend, get some room service. It won’t cost you that much. This thing is perfect for us. We’re saving a fortune on lodging.” “Gary,” I said. “You stole my vehicle.” “Oh, stop with the dramatics,” Gary scoffed. “We’re neighbors. It’s not stealing, it’s borrowing. I’ll bring it back with a full tank.” “If you do not turn off at the next exit and bring it back, I am calling the police.” Gary laughed again. It was louder this time. Exaggerated. Mocking. “Call them! Go ahead, call the cops. See what they tell you. You think they care about a neighborhood dispute?” His tone turned dismissive. “I gotta go, Jack. The kid is trying to sleep.” The line went dead. I hit redial. The number you are trying to reach has been turned off. I stood in the air-conditioned office of the clubhouse, the phone still pressed to my ear. Outside, the July sun was beating down on the asphalt, baking the rows of parked cars. None of them were mine. I tried again. Power off. I tried Penny’s number. Power off. I didn’t have the in-laws’ numbers. Barb, who had been listening to the entire one-sided conversation, offered a sympathetic wince. “Jack, maybe… maybe just let it go for the weekend? They’re your neighbors. You don’t want to start a war over a misunderstanding.” I lowered the phone and looked at her. “He stole my vehicle.” “I know, but, you know how these civil things get… it’s just a dispute. Maybe they’ll really bring it back?” “Barb.” My voice was hollow. “It’s an eighty-five-thousand-dollar motorhome. You think this is a ‘misunderstanding’?” Barb fell silent, her eyes dropping to her keyboard. I walked out of the clubhouse. I walked back to my empty parking pad. I stood exactly where the rear tires should have been. Yesterday, I was out here polishing the chrome. Yesterday, I was making a grocery list, debating which snacks to pack for the coast. Now, there was just an oil stain. Gary’s words looped in my head like a bad record. Book a nice hotel room. Perfect for us. Saving a fortune. The anger stopped being hot. It turned into something sharp, cold, and incredibly clear. My hands were shaking, not from panic, but from the sheer adrenaline of what I was about to do. I pulled out my phone again. I didn’t dial Gary. I dialed three numbers. 9-1-1. “911, what is your emergency?” “Hi. I need to report a Grand Theft Auto. My vehicle was stolen.” “Okay, sir. Can I get the make and model?” “It’s a custom Winnebago Class C. Valued around eighty-five thousand dollars.” “Do you know who took it?” “Yes,” I said, staring at Gary’s front door. “I have them on security camera. I have a recorded phone call of them admitting to it. They are currently driving it on the southbound interstate. Five passengers.” “Copy that, sir. We are dispatching an officer to your location to take the report.” I hung up. I stood in the blistering heat, letting the sun beat against my face. I could wait. Let’s see who ends up paying for the hotel room. Fifteen minutes later, I was sitting on a hard plastic chair in the local precinct. A young patrol officer, probably no older than twenty-five, walked over with a clipboard. “You the one reporting the stolen RV?” he asked, looking me up and down. “Yes.” “Alright, walk me through it.” I laid it out methodically. The uninvited visit. The refused request. The missing spare key. The 2:00 a.m. security footage. When I finished, the young cop leaned back, tapping his pen against his chin. “So, you guys are neighbors?” “Yes.” “And he told you he was just borrowing it?” “Yes. But I explicitly denied him permission. Three times. I told him no. His wife asked, I told her no. The mother-in-law asked, I said no.” The officer sighed, the universal sound of a cop who didn’t want to deal with a mountain of paperwork. “Look, man. Why don’t you head home? We’ll try to get him on the phone, tell him he needs to bring it back.” 3 “I already tried to get him on the phone,” I said evenly. “He turned his phone off.” “Okay, well, when he gets back, we can set up a mediation. Talk it out. It’s a neighborhood dispute, these things happen.” I stared at him. I could feel the muscle in my jaw jumping. “Mediation?” “Yeah, you know, civil matter. It’s best to resolve it without getting the courts involved.” “He stole my vehicle,” I enunciated every word. “At two in the morning. He snuck onto my property, used a stolen key, packed his entire family into my RV, and drove across state lines. In what universe is that a ‘neighborhood dispute’?” The officer opened his mouth to reply, but I cut him off. I unzipped my leather folio and pulled out a stack of papers. “This is the bill of sale. Eighty-five thousand dollars, paid in full.” I slid it across the table. “These are time-stamped stills from the HOA security feed. 2:13 a.m. That is Penny in the driver’s seat.” I slid them across. Then, I unlocked my phone, opened my call recording app, and hit play. I pushed the phone toward him. Gary’s booming, arrogant voice filled the quiet precinct. “Man, we’re just borrowing it for a couple of days. You’re a grown adult, don’t be so tight-fisted about it.” “Book a nice hotel room for the weekend… We’re saving a fortune on lodging.” The recording clicked off. The young cop’s face had gone perfectly still. “He explicitly acknowledges he took it,” I said, my voice dangerously calm. “He explicitly refuses to return it. I gave no authorization. He stole the key. That is theft. He took it across state lines. That is Grand Theft.” I leaned in, making sure he couldn’t look away from my eyes. “In this state, Grand Theft Auto for a vehicle valued over fifty thousand dollars is a second-degree felony. That carries a maximum sentence of fifteen years in a state penitentiary. Does eighty-five grand meet your threshold for a felony, Officer?” The young cop swallowed hard. He looked at the paperwork. He looked at me. “You a lawyer?” “No,” I said. “But I know how to read. And I know what theft is.” For a long moment, there was just silence. Then, he gathered up my papers. “Wait here.” He disappeared into a back office. I sat there for ten minutes, watching the wall clock tick. When he came back, he wasn’t alone. A silver-haired sergeant with weary eyes was trailing behind him. The sergeant pulled out a chair opposite me and sat down heavily. “Mr. Jack,” the sergeant said, his voice gravelly. “I’ve reviewed the materials. We are officially opening a case for Grand Theft Auto.” He folded his hands on the table. “I need you to understand something, though. If we put this over the wire to the State Troopers and they make the stop… there is no un-ringing this bell. If he calls you crying tomorrow, the DA has the case. You can’t just drop it.” “I don’t plan to,” I said. “Alright then.” The sergeant pulled over a fresh incident report pad. “Let’s get this on the record.” I went through it all again. The timeline, the locations, the exact wording of the conversation. “What is your ultimate objective here?” the sergeant asked, pen hovering. “I want him prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. A thief is a thief, whether he lives next door or in another state.” The sergeant nodded slowly. “We’re coding this as a felony auto theft. We’ll put out a BOLO to the Highway Patrol. They’ll ping the plates. If they’re on the southbound interstate, Troopers will intercept them.” “Thank you,” I said. I stood up and slung my bag over my shoulder. As I walked toward the heavy glass doors, the young patrol officer called out to me one last time. “Hey. Are you sure you don’t want to try and settle this? What if he offers to just pay you for the rental time?” I stopped. I didn’t turn my whole body, just looked back over my shoulder. “I don’t need his money,” I said. “I need a consequence.” “He didn’t care about settling when he stole from me in the dead of night. He didn’t care about settling when he was laughing at me on the highway. He didn’t care about settling when he turned his phone off.” “It’s too late for a settlement.” The officer didn’t say another word. I pushed through the doors into the blinding July afternoon. I checked my phone. No missed calls. No texts. Gary and his family were still cruising down the highway, living it up. They had absolutely no idea what was coming for them. I stood in the parking lot, letting the breeze cool the sweat on my neck. You want a free vacation, Gary? You want to save on hotel rooms? Let’s see how much you enjoy state housing. “Dad, this thing is massive!” Mia was sprinting from the front cab to the rear bedroom, her sneakers leaving scuff marks on the pale grey upholstery of the dinette. Gary was kicked back in the passenger seat, his phone held high as he snapped a selfie. “Fourth of July weekend in the luxury suite! Life is good!” he narrated, uploading a carousel of photos to his Facebook. The pristine kitchen counter, the queen-sized memory foam bed, the panoramic windows. All mine. Penny had her hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, her eyes glued to the road. “It drives okay,” she muttered, “but Jesus, it drinks gas.” “Who cares?” Gary laughed, tossing his phone onto the dash. “It’s not our wear and tear.” In the back, Frank was sprawled on the leather sofa. He patted his chest pocket, pulled out a pack of Marlboros, and struck a match. “Dad,” Gary called out, glancing in the rearview mirror. “Maybe don’t smoke in here.” Frank took a long drag, exhaling a thick cloud of grey smoke. “Relax, Gary. It’s not our car.” 4 Snap. The burning ember at the tip of the cigarette broke off, tumbling down to the floor mat. Frank didn’t notice. When he took another drag, he carelessly flicked the ash. A stray spark floated upward, kissing the pristine white ceiling fabric. A brown burn hole instantly melted into the material. Gary squinted at the rearview. “Eh. A little bleach wipe will fix it when we get back.” The bathroom door suddenly swung open. Helen stumbled out, her face the color of old oatmeal. “I’m seasick,” she gasped, clutching her stomach. “This thing sways too much.” Before anyone could say a word, she doubled over. Splash. Right onto the custom leather bench seat. Gary grimaced, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Jesus, Helen. Could you not have aimed for the toilet?” “It came on too fast,” she groaned, sinking to the floor. “Whatever. We’ll hose it down later,” Gary muttered, rolling his window down to let the smell out. Off in the corner, Mia had dug a permanent marker out of Penny’s purse. She was pressing the dark ink deep into the faux-wood paneling of the hallway. She drew a circle. Then a jagged line. “Mia, what are you doing?” Gary asked, distracted. “Drawing.” “Cut it out.” “No! I want to draw!” she whined, pressing harder. Gary sighed and turned back around. “Whatever.” Penny tapped the brakes as a green highway sign approached. “I’m pulling into the next rest stop. I need a break, my shoulders are killing me.” “Sure,” Gary said. “Stretch the legs.” The RV lumbered up the off-ramp and pulled into the massive parking lot of a sprawling travel plaza. Penny threw it into park and killed the engine. She let out a long breath and looked over her shoulder into the cabin. Ash on the floorboards. Vomit on the leather. Sharpie on the walls. A burn hole in the ceiling. Her stomach gave a nervous little lurch. “Gary… is he going to take this back like this?” Gary let out a booming laugh, unbuckling his seatbelt. “What’s he gonna do? He’s a single guy in his twenties. You think he’s gonna throw down with me? We’ll wash it. It’s fine.” “I guess,” Penny murmured, opening her door. Gary pulled out his phone, ready to post another update. Suddenly, his screen lit up. An unknown number. He frowned and answered it. “Hello?” “Is this Gary?” a stern voice asked. “This is Detective Ramirez with the county police. We’re calling regarding the unauthorized use of a motor vehicle…”

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Standing outside the courthouse, I slipped the debit card into my pocket and, quite unexpectedly, burst into laughter. Just moments ago, Quentin had practically hurled the divorce decree at my face. “Evelyn, don’t even dream about the twenty million in premarital assets,” he’d said, his voice dripping with a casual, practiced disdain. “I’ve kept you like a pet for six years. You should know when to take the win and walk away.” Behind him stood his ‘ghost of the past’—the girl he’d never quite gotten over. Felicity. Her four-month baby bump was just starting to show beneath her designer silk, and she wore a smile that was as elegant as it was poisonous. That was when the first line of text flickered across my vision—a shimmering, digital scroll of “bullet comments,” like a live feed from a movie I didn’t know I was starring in. You are currently in a tragic melodrama. The text continued, mercilessly: You are the disposable character slated to exit in Chapter Three. Your label: The gold-digging ex-wife who married into the elite only to be tossed out like trash. It got worse. A notification pinged in the corner of my eye: Warning: Your grandmother will pass away in three days. According to the “script,” her will contained a final arrangement for me. A marriage to a man named Grady. He was a forty-year-old widower, a long-haul trucker with a teenage daughter and a measly eighty thousand a year to his name. But then, the scroll took a sharp turn. Note: Grady owns a series of defunct logistics routes and abandoned warehouses. In three months, the federal government will designate this specific corridor as a National Economic Zone. The eminent domain compensation? Twelve hundred million dollars. 1 “Sign it.” Quentin’s attorney pushed the three-page document toward me. Every clause was a clinical reminder that I was nothing. The twenty-million-dollar estate? Quentin’s. The penthouse, the cars, the summer house? All registered under the family trust. Quentin’s. The final line: Evelyn Vance voluntarily waives all claims to asset division. Quentin sat across from me, legs crossed, his wedding ring already gone from his left hand. Beside him, Felicity smoothed her yellow sundress over her stomach. I’d been married to him for six years, and I hadn’t heard her name once until she’d shown up on our doorstep three months ago. “Just sign, Evelyn,” Quentin’s mother sighed from the corner, barely looking up from her phone. “Dragging this out is pathetic. You have nothing to your name. Do you really want to humiliate yourself in open court?” A line of text floated by: [Sign it. This agreement is your only shield. Leaving with nothing means you owe the family nothing—not even your silence.] I picked up the pen. “Wait,” Felicity interrupted, her voice a soft, melodic trill. “Quentin, Evelyn has been with the family for so long. It feels… cruel to leave her with nothing. Maybe we could set up a small trust? Just for her basic needs?” Quentin waved her off. “She doesn’t need it.” Felicity lowered her head, the picture of “I tried my best,” while her hand traced a protective circle over her womb. Everyone in the room was watching me. They were waiting for the breakdown. They wanted the sobbing, the pleading, the sight of me on my knees begging Quentin to stay. In the original “book,” that’s exactly what Evelyn did. She’d clung to his legs until security dragged her out. The footage would go viral under the headline: Gold-digger crashes and burns after being evicted from high society. I signed. My hand was perfectly steady. The ink was dark and final. Quentin’s mother looked up, a flicker of surprise crossing her face. “Done.” I pushed the papers back and stood up. “Evelyn,” Quentin called out. I turned. He pulled a card from his pocket and slid it across the mahogany table. “There’s five thousand dollars on this. Consider it… a final gesture of goodwill.” Felicity chimed in instantly. “See? Quentin still has a heart.” Five thousand dollars. For six years of my life. I picked up the card, held it to the light, and tucked it into my jeans. “Thanks.” As I walked out, I heard his mother mutter behind me, “Finally. We never should’ve let your father agree to that match. A girl from the middle of nowhere… six years of free-loading is enough.” The text scrolled: [Don’t look back. Your grandmother has three days. You need to go now.] I didn’t look back. The sun was brutal as I stepped onto the sidewalk, the heat rising from the asphalt in shimmering waves. My phone buzzed three times in my pocket. My mother. “Evie… your grandmother was admitted this morning. The doctors… they say you should come home. Fast.” 2 The train ride back to my hometown took seven hours. I spent it staring at the scrolling text in the air, scrolling back through the “plot.” [Your name is Evelyn. Thirty-two. Character archetype: Vain, materialistic, failed trophy wife. In the original ending, you commit suicide on the day of Quentin’s wedding. The ‘Ghost’ steps over your grave to take her throne. No one mourns you.] Failed trophy wife. I stared at those words for a long time. The text flickered: [You didn’t fail. You were pregnant twice. The first at three months, the second at two. Both times, Quentin’s mother laced your tea with ‘herbal tonics.’ The second loss scarred your uterus. You are permanently infertile. The records are at the University Women’s Hospital, Case File #HY-2019-03742.] The train plunged into a tunnel. For a few seconds, the world was black. The digital glow of the text reflected in the window, bone-white and ghostly. My two children. The first time it happened, Quentin was away on business. His mother had brought me soup in the hospital, telling me, “You’re young, you’ll have another.” The second time, as I lay on the surgical table signing the consent forms, the doctor told me my uterine lining was paper-thin. That the odds of a third pregnancy were… non-existent. Quentin had taken a call outside the OR. When he came back, he just said, “It’s fine. Let’s not force it.” His tone then was exactly the same as it was today. She doesn’t need it. The text scrolled again: [The hospital keeps records for fifteen years. You have time for justice. But for now—see your grandmother.] The train screeched to a halt at a small, dusty station at 2:00 AM. My mother was dozing in the hospital hallway. When she saw me, her first words were, “She’s been waiting for you all day.” The room smelled of antiseptic and ozone. My grandmother lay there, a tangle of tubes connected to her frail, bird-like frame. “Evie,” she whispered, her eyes fluttering open. I knelt by the bed and took her hand. It felt like dry parchment. “Is it over?” she asked. “It’s over. I’m out.” “Good.” She squeezed my hand with the last of her strength. “The Sterling family… they weren’t for you. Evie, I’ve left someone for you.” “Who?” “Grady. He’s the grandson of your grandfather’s old army buddy. He’s forty. Lost his wife two years back. He’s a trucker, raises a girl on his own. He’s rough around the edges, but he’s a good man. A real man.” She coughed, and my mother rushed over with water. “Evie, marry him. Trust an old woman’s eyes.” Three days later, she was gone. At the wake, the small-town gossip was a low hum in the background. “I heard she got kicked out of the city.” “Not a dime to her name.” “Six years wasted. Who’s going to want her now?” I knelt before her casket and bowed my head. The text scrolled: [Grady’s number is in the red silk pouch under your grandmother’s pillow.] I found it. A folded scrap of paper with a number written in bold, utilitarian strokes. I dialed. It rang six times before a deep, gravelly voice answered over the roar of an engine. “Yeah?” “My name is Evelyn. I’m the granddaughter of—” “I know who you are,” he interrupted. He paused, the engine noise fading slightly. “Did she pass?” “Yes.” There was a silence for a few beats. “I’m hauling a load to the coast. I’ll be there the day after tomorrow. Wait for me.” The line went dead. The text scrolled: [He’s coming. And so is your billion dollars.] 3 Grady arrived in a beat-up, sapphire-blue Peterbilt. It was covered in road grime, with a crack spiderwebbing across the windshield. When he jumped down from the cab, I took him in—six-foot-two, tanned dark by the sun, with deep-set eyes and a jaw that looked like it was carved from granite. He wore a faded grey t-shirt and work boots that had seen better decades. Forty years old. He looked forty-five, in a way that felt sturdy rather than old. “Evelyn?” “Yes.” He looked at my suitcase—a designer LV trunk—and then at his truck. “Get in. Put the bag in the sleeper. Don’t worry, it won’t break.” He took the heavy suitcase from me with one hand and tossed it into the back like it was a bag of feathers. It landed amidst a pile of rachet straps and oily tarps. “Climb up. Handle’s on the right.” The cab was high. I was wearing a skirt and struggled with the step. Grady didn’t say a word; he just stepped behind me, put a hand firmly on my waist, and hoisted me up. “Hold on. The road’s rough.” He climbed in the other side and cranked the engine. The whole world started to vibrate. This was a far cry from the silenced interior of Quentin’s Mercedes. From up here, I could see the roofs of every car on the road. We drove for thirty minutes in silence. The text was working overtime: [Grady. Forty years old. In the original book, he had less than two hundred words of dialogue. He was the ‘rough guy’ the fallen socialite married out of desperation. Readers called him ‘the garbage collector Evelyn deserved.’] [But this man is the hidden variable of the entire world.] He pulled into a gravel lot in a decaying industrial park. Rusting warehouses stood like ghosts against the horizon. He parked in front of a small, one-story brick house. “Home,” he said. It was humble. Peeling paint, a couple of spare tires on the porch, and a yard overtaken by knee-high weeds. The front door creaked open. A girl stood there. Maybe twelve or thirteen, in a school hoodie, her expression guarded and icy. “Dad? This is her?” “Yeah.” The girl looked me up and down, her gaze landing on my stilettos. “Are you here to spend his money?” Grady frowned. “Macy, knock it off.” “He doesn’t have any,” Macy said, ignoring him and staring me down. “He clears maybe fifty grand a year after fuel and taxes. If you’re looking for a payday, keep walking.” She was sharp. A little accountant in a ponytail. I crouched down so I was eye-level with her. “I’m not here for his money.” “Then why are you here?” “To show him how to make more. Is that okay?” Macy narrowed her eyes, but she stopped talking. The text scrolled: [This kid will be your fiercest ally. Win her over first.] Dinner was simple—pot roast and potatoes. Grady pushed a mountain of food toward me. “Eat up. We’re going to the courthouse tomorrow to get the license.” I froze with my fork halfway to my mouth. “That fast?” Grady bit into a roll. “Your grandmother called me before she passed. Asked me to look after you. I don’t intend to keep her waiting.” Macy snorted into her water. The text scrolled: [Once you sign that license, you have seventy-two days. You must renew all his land leases within that window. If the federal announcement hits before you do, the price will skyrocket a hundredfold, and you’ll get nothing.] I started eating. Seventy-two days. I could work with that. 4 At the courthouse, the clerk looked at our IDs, then at us, then back at the IDs. Thirty-two and forty. I was in a simple dress; Grady was in a white button-down that looked like it hadn’t been ironed since the nineties. “Smile,” the photographer said for our license photo. Grady twitched his lips. He looked like he was passing a kidney stone. Once the papers were stamped, he tucked them into his shirt pocket. “Let’s go. I’ve got a haul this afternoon.” By the third day of our marriage, the news had reached the city. Quentin’s mother had posted in her “Inner Circle” group chat. A former friend, Sarah, sent me the screenshot. “Can you believe who Evelyn ended up with? A middle-aged trucker. Living in a shack by the docks without central heating.” A string of laughing emojis followed. “Mrs. Sterling always had an eye for quality. She knew that girl was trash.” “So sad.” “Not sad, deserved.” Ten minutes later, Felicity updated her Instagram. A photo of the Sterling estate gardens, covered in roses. Caption: “So glad I have someone to keep my hands warm this winter. It’s all I’ll ever need.” Sarah sent the screenshot with a ‘crying-laughing’ face. “You okay, Evie?” I replied with four words: “I’m good. Just busy.” And I was. The text had given me a map: The abandoned logistics routes under Grady’s name spanned six parcels of land. Three were thirty-year leases signed by his father, set to expire in seven months. Two were parking lots he’d let lapse. The last was a tract of communal industrial land he had the ‘Right of First Refusal’ on but had never used. Six pieces of the puzzle. In three months, every single one would be inside the “Red Line” of the new National Economic Zone. But if the leases expired or the rights lapsed, the government compensation would go to the landlords, not Grady. I found Grady under his truck, covered in grease. “Grady.” “Yeah?” “The leases your dad signed. Where are they?” The sound of a wrench hitting metal echoed from the undercarriage. “Kitchen cabinet. Second shelf. Blue tin box. Knock yourself out.” I found them. The paper was yellowed and smelled of old tobacco. Expiration date: Three months and eleven days from today. We were cutting it close. But I needed money to renew them. Legal fees, back taxes, and deposits would run about thirty thousand dollars. Grady’s entire savings. I waited until he crawled out from under the rig. He wiped his face with a rag, looking at the stack of documents in my hand. “What’s this?” “We’re renewing all six leases. Now.” “Why? Those routes are dead. No one uses those warehouses. It’s a waste of money.” “Do you trust me?” He looked at me, wrench in hand. He didn’t say anything for a long time. “Thirty thousand, Grady. All of it. In three months, I’ll turn that thirty thousand into three hundred million. Do we have a deal?” “Three hundred million?” He quirked an eyebrow. “Have you been drinking?” “Have I ever joked about money?” Grady stared at me. The scent of diesel and grease hung heavy in the air. The wind whistled through the weeds of the empty lot. “Money’s in the dresser. Top drawer. Password is my birthday.” I turned to go, but he caught my arm. “Evelyn.” “Yeah?” “If you lose it, you’re riding shotgun for three months to help me earn the fuel money back.” I looked back at him. His face was filthy, his expression dead serious. “Deal.” The text scrolled: [He believes you. He has no idea he just won the lottery.] The next day, I took thirty thousand in cash to the County Land Office. While waiting in line, I noticed a man in a sharp suit at the front counter. I recognized the silhouette. A red warning flashed in my vision: [That’s the Chief Legal Officer for Quentin’s firm. They’re scout-buying land in the area. Move.] I gripped the documents tighter. 5 The man was Marcus Vane. I’d seen him at the Sterling Christmas parties for years. He didn’t recognize me. In my jeans, sneakers, and no makeup, I wasn’t the polished doll he remembered. The text moved fast: [The Sterling Group got an inside tip. They’re land-banking around the zone. They have four of Grady’s parcels on their hit list. You have to file the renewal before they file an acquisition intent, or the landlord will take their higher offer.] I stood behind him, catching a glimpse of his paperwork: Portside North, Parcel 3. That was Grady’s fifth parcel. My palms were sweating. When I finally got to the window, the clerk flipped through my stack. “These three are automatic renewals, just pay the back taxes. These two need the corporate seal. This last one? You need a certificate of good standing from the Logistics Bureau.” “How long?” “Standard is two weeks.” Two weeks was too long. The text pinged: [Express Lane. Small business owners with veteran status get a 72-hour turnaround. Grady’s dad was Army. The business is still under his name. Go to the Veteran Affairs desk.] I spent the rest of the day sprinting between offices. I called Grady while he was on the road. “I’m hauling steel to the border,” he said. “I won’t be back until the day after tomorrow.” “You have to be here tomorrow. Quentin’s company is trying to buy the land out from under us.” There was a three-second silence. “Quentin? Your ex?” “My ex.” Grady didn’t ask how I knew. He didn’t ask for an explanation. He just said, “I’ll drop the load and turn around. I’ll be there by noon.” Six hundred miles. He drove through the night. At 11:00 AM the next day, the blue Peterbilt roared into the parking lot. Grady jumped out, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. “Where do I sign?” By the end of the day, we had the stamps. We beat Quentin’s firm by less than twenty-four hours. That afternoon, Marcus Vane showed up at the landlord’s office with a multi-million dollar buyout offer. The landlord just shrugged. “Sorry. The tenant just exercised his renewal option this morning.” I imagine Marcus calling Quentin. I imagine Quentin’s voice over the speaker: “What do you mean someone renewed? Who?” “A guy named Grady. Runs a mom-and-pop trucking line.” Quentin wouldn’t know who Grady was. But he was about to find out.

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The day the Croft family hosted their sprawling Sunday estate dinner, my husband—in name only—Drew Croft, brought his mistress right through the front doors. The stares from the extended family felt like physical needles sinking into my skin, heavy with unfiltered mockery. Drew’s cousin, Blake, leaned across the mahogany table with a sickeningly sweet smile. “Bringing another woman to family dinner, Drew? Aren’t you worried Penny might actually get mad?” Drew offered a breezy, dismissive laugh. His tone was absolute. “Penny has a mild temper. She doesn’t let little things like this bother her.” It wasn’t that he thought I had a forgiving nature. He just knew I had absolutely zero leverage to leave him. And why would I? I was nothing but an orphaned girl taken in by the Crofts on a charity whim. How could I possibly go toe-to-toe with the newly crowned CEO of the Croft empire? But when the woman stepped fully into the chandelier’s light and I saw her face, the reason he had brought her here slammed into me. She was a carbon copy. A perfect, living replica of Drew’s dead first love. A sudden, crushing wave of exhaustion washed over me. I was so goddamn tired of this life. My hand moved almost involuntarily. I swept my arm across the side table, and the antique porcelain vase shattered into a thousand jagged pieces across the marble floor. The dining room went dead silent. Every eye locked onto me, faces painted with sheer, unadulterated shock. 1. “Drew,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “This dinner. It’s her, or it’s me.” Drew barely blinked. He looked at me, mildly annoyed, and drawled, “She’s just here for dinner, Penny. Relax. The title of Mrs. Croft is still yours.” My eyes stung, but I held his gaze with a fierce, burning clarity. “I’m serious.” It was probably the first time in my life I had ever openly defied him. For a fraction of a second, something like confusion flickered in Drew’s eyes. Right on cue, the replica shrank back, playing the doe-eyed victim perfectly. “Mrs. Croft, please… I begged Drew to bring me. If it makes you uncomfortable, I’ll leave right now.” I didn’t even give her the dignity of a glance. I kept my eyes locked on the man I had loved for a decade. “Enough!” Drew snapped, his patience evaporating. “Your temper is getting out of hand lately. Sit down and eat, or get out.” He gestured for the woman to take the chair right beside his—my usual seat. A bitter, self-deprecating laugh pushed past my lips. He couldn’t have made it any clearer. Slowly, I reached for my wrist and slid off the heirloom white jade bracelet his grandmother had given me on our wedding day. I placed it gently on the table in front of him. “I’m giving this back to you.” Drew arched a brow. “What is this supposed to mean, Penny?” I stared dead into his eyes, enunciating every single word. “It means I am done being Mrs. Croft.” He let out a harsh, patronizing scoff. “You’re an orphan. Leave me, leave this family, and where exactly are you going to go? Stop throwing a tantrum. You’re embarrassing yourself. Sit down.” The relatives around the table immediately chimed in, their voices dripping with fake concern, urging me to quit while I was ahead. I tuned them out. I grabbed my phone and started walking toward the massive double doors. Just as my hand hit the brass handle, his voice, cold and sharp as a knife, hit my back. “Penny, if you walk out those doors today, the position of my wife goes to someone else. Don’t even think about coming back.” I paused for half a second. And then, without a single backward glance, I walked out of the only home I had ever known. 2. I was the orphan the Croft family took in out of obligation. My grandmother had been dear friends with Josephine Croft—Grandma Jo. When my grandmother passed away, she entrusted me to the Croft matriarch. To the outside world, I was the luckiest girl alive. I grew up in a mansion, wore designer clothes, and eventually landed the ultimate prize: marrying Drew Croft. But only someone drowning in it could understand the true misery of that life. A Mrs. Croft ignored by everyone. A Mrs. Croft whose husband’s heart belonged to a ghost. A Mrs. Croft in title alone. When we got married, Drew sat me down and told me he could only give me a ceremony. The legal papers—the actual marriage license—would remain blank. Because in his heart, and on paper, his only wife would ever be Cecilia. Cecilia. Drew’s high school sweetheart. His untouchable saint. She had died of cancer seven years ago. Nobody in the elite circles knew that the stars of the ten-million-dollar “wedding of the decade” had never actually signed a legal marriage certificate. But what could I do? From the moment he pulled my drowning, thrashing body out of the estate pool when we were kids, I had loved him. Back then, I naively thought my warmth could eventually melt his glacier of a heart. I forgot the cardinal rule of grief: the living can never compete with the dead. After fleeing the estate, I wandered the rainy streets of the city without a destination. Drew’s mocking voice echoed in my head: Where exactly are you going to go? He was right. It was my brutal reality. Eventually, I tucked myself into a shadowy corner booth of a dim, indie acoustic lounge. Back at the mansion, the phrase I heard most often was, “Madam, you cannot do that.” Because my face represented the Crofts. My actions reflected on Drew. My entire twenty-five years of existence had revolved entirely around them. And my grand reward was becoming a glorified placeholder. Listening to the girl on stage croon a heartbreaking indie-folk song, I threw back shot after shot of whiskey. Right before the room spun out of control and everything went black, I heard a soft, melodic voice. “Hey. Are you okay?” I tried to speak, but the darkness pulled me under. When I finally woke up, my head was pounding so hard I couldn’t even focus on where I was. I massaged my temples, wincing at the harsh morning light. “Oh, you’re awake!” I looked up. Standing in the doorway of a bohemian, sun-drenched apartment was the singer from the bar. “I’m so sorry,” I rasped, mortified. “I was a disaster last night.” She flashed a brilliant, unrestrained smile. “Hey, it’s fine. Consider it fate! I’m Zoe. Who are you?” I stared at her. At how easy and bright she was. For a moment, I almost forgot my own name. “Penny.” “Well, Penny, I made oatmeal. Get up, wash your face, and come eat.” I just sat there, completely utterly lost. Zoe marched over, grabbed my hands, hauled me out of bed, and shoved me toward the bathroom. “Brand new toothbrush and towel on the counter. Chop chop! I’m starving.” She gave me this exaggerated, wide-eyed look, silently threatening to brush my teeth for me if I didn’t move. I went through the motions like a zombie, and before I knew it, I was sitting at a tiny, mismatched kitchen table. “Eat up, Penny! We’re going hiking after this!” Looking at her—radiating this raw, chaotic, beautiful youth—it suddenly hit me like a physical blow. I am twenty-five years old. In the Croft house, I had to be poised. Composed. Perfect. I had aged myself by decades just trying to play the part. I want to be her friend. It was the first time in my life I had ever felt such a desperate, spontaneous urge. I swallowed hard and asked quietly, “Zoe… could I rent your couch for a little while? I can pay.” She didn’t even hesitate. “Sure.” “You don’t even know me. What if I’m a psycho?” She waved a hand dismissively. “I have excellent radar. Eat your oats.” And just like that, I ate. True to her word, she dragged me out to a state park trail an hour north of the city. As we hiked up the steep, muddy inclines, we talked like we’d known each other in a past life. We talked about our pasts, our fears, our weirdest habits. Zoe’s life was a kaleidoscope compared to mine. She wandered. She’d move to a new city, rent a cheap room, sing at local dive bars until she got bored, and then pack up and do it again. While she was conquering the world, I had been locked in a gilded cage for ten years. 3. When we finally breached the summit, the wind whipping through our hair, Zoe turned to me out of nowhere. “You know, love isn’t about the promise of forever. The fact that things end doesn’t erase the beautiful moments that happened. But it has to actually be beautiful, Penny.” I offered a bitter, hollow smile. Between Drew and me, there had been no shared beauty. Just my own exhausting, one-sided delusion. She linked her arm through mine. “You’re dragging around so many chains, Penny. You have to smash them. You need to figure out who you are, define yourself, choose yourself. That’s what it means to actually be alive.” She looked me dead in the eye. “If you want someone to love you, you have to love yourself first.” Then she pulled out a vintage film camera and ran off to photograph the treeline. I stood there, watching her chase the light, her words echoing in the vast, open space of my mind. The Croft family had sanded down my edges until I was perfectly smooth and entirely invisible. I hadn’t had the luxury of being reckless. Running away from Drew was the very first choice I had made solely for myself. Yes, I felt like driftwood—homeless, untethered, floating without a compass. I had survived purely on a fleeting burst of adrenaline. But I was only twenty-five. Even if I had to admit the dark had swallowed me whole for a decade, I could still choose to live the rest of my life in the light. Zoe came bounding back, tugging me down to sit in the damp grass and watch the clouds. We spent an hour just pointing out shapes in the sky, talking absolute, wonderful nonsense. In that quiet space, I made a silent vow. I was going to step into the unknown. I had left the cage; now it was time to learn how to fly. “Zoe,” I said softly. “I want to see the world.” She threw her arm around my shoulders, her eyes lighting up like fireworks. “Let’s do it! Seriously, let’s start a travel channel. We’ll hit the road, document everything, and make some cash while we’re at it!” She was practically buzzing. “I’ll handle the camera, you’re gorgeous on film, we’ll go viral!” Listening to her spin this wild fantasy, for the first time in years, my chest fluttered with anticipation. “I was an English Lit major,” I offered. “I can write our copy, do the storytelling. And whatever else we need, I’ll learn.” Zoe clapped her hands together. “Yes! A match made in heaven.” I actually laughed. A real, chest-deep laugh. Zoe was a creature of intense momentum. She immediately dragged me down the mountain, declaring we needed to start plotting our route that exact night. I gently reminded her that I had fled a mansion with nothing but the clothes on my back. I needed to replace my ID, my bank cards, everything. We had to stay put for a few weeks. Halfway down the trail, I pulled my phone out of my pocket, popped the SIM card tray, and flicked the tiny chip into the dense woods. Goodbye, Croft family. Goodbye, Drew. 4. While I waited for my new documents in the mail, I enrolled in intensive online video editing courses. Zoe still sang at the bar every night. During the day, she’d beg me to cook for her, and we’d sit on her floor surrounded by maps, debating our first destination. The first time I made her a proper homemade dinner, she practically inhaled it, talking with her mouth full. “That toxic trash bag of an ex you had is an absolute idiot. Where else is he gonna find a girl this stunning who can throw down in the kitchen like this?” She pointed her fork at me. “If I were a guy, I’d put a ring on it immediately.” Since leaving the estate, my days were packed, exhausting, and completely fulfilling. Drew hadn’t come looking for me. Not once. One afternoon, I caught a business news segment on TV. A reporter ambushed him, asking about the rumors of a sudden separation. Drew’s face was an emotionless mask as he flatly denied it. Before the reporter could press further, his PR team shut the interview down. The consensus in the tabloids was that the “Cinderella” Mrs. Croft had finally been iced out for good. Exactly one month after I walked out, Zoe and I boarded a plane to Alaska. Our target was the deep wilderness, a brutal, awe-inspiring trek up a glaciated peak in the Chugach Mountains. By the time we neared the summit, the altitude and the freezing air had completely wrecked me. At one point, it felt like an invisible hand had wrapped around my throat. I couldn’t pull air into my lungs. My vision blurred into white static, and a high-pitched ringing drowned out the howling wind. My knees hit the ice. I truly thought my life was going to end right there on that frozen rock. But then, the clouds broke. And there it was—the Alpenglow. The sun hit the highest peak, turning the brutal, deadly ice into a towering beacon of pure, blazing gold. Kneeling in the snow, staring at that terrifying beauty, I started to sob. The tears just wouldn’t stop. Our trail guide rushed over, fumbling with a portable oxygen canister. Zoe dropped beside me, wrapping her arms around my shaking body. “Penny, hey, it’s okay! Your oxygen levels are coming back up, you’re not dying, I promise! You’re safe.” I shook my head, gasping for air, trying to smile. I wasn’t crying out of fear. With their help, I stood up on the mountain. I looked at that burning golden peak and saw the rest of my life stretching out in front of me. Alaska was my crucible. It was the birth of my courage. When we got back to civilization, we edited the footage, layered my voiceover narrating the struggle and the awe, and uploaded it. We didn’t expect it to explode. But it did. Thousands of comments flooded in from women saying the video made them cry, made them feel seen, made them believe in starting over. I felt the exact same way. During our travels, I bought a sketchbook. Grandma Jo had been a celebrated painter, and growing up at her feet, I had fallen deeply in love with oils and canvases. But when I got together with Drew, he made me pack away my brushes. The reason was cruel and simple. Cecilia had been an artist. At first, I thought he couldn’t bear to see me paint because it triggered his grief. But one night, standing outside his study, I overheard him talking to a friend. “When Penny paints, I just see Cece. And Penny doesn’t have the right to even be compared to her.” Cecilia had been dead for years, yet Drew weaponized her memory to keep me small. He enforced her presence in that house. The estate staff burned Cecilia’s favorite cedarwood incense. We ate off the ceramic dishware she had picked out. The gardens were choked with the jasmine she loved. And on the second floor, right next to the master suite, was a locked room. Cleaned by the head housekeeper once a week. Drew spent half his month sleeping in there. Two years after her death, Grandma Jo finally ordered the staff to clear it out. When Drew came home and found the room empty, he completely lost his mind. He shattered glass, screamed at the staff, and delivered an ultimatum to his own grandmother: “If that room is gone, I will never set foot in this house again.” He personally drove to the estate’s waste facility, dug through the garbage with his bare hands, and put every single item back exactly where it belonged. After that, the room became a shrine. And Cecilia became the patron saint of his heart, untouchable and immortal.

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This is my final chance to rewrite the stars for Donna. I’ve traveled back across a decade, carrying the weight of a single mission: save her. If I fail, she ceases to exist in both timelines. Total erasure. So, I cannot afford to lose. Everyone thinks I’m pathetic for crawling back to an ex-girlfriend who’s now confined to a wheelchair, but I don’t care. I’m relentless. She hates me for what happened ten years ago—for the way I seemingly abandoned her when she needed me most. She spends her days finding new, inventive ways to humiliate me, but I don’t flinch. Until tonight. Until this twisted game of “Truth or Dare” got us locked in a high-tech escape room together. The rules are simple: the door only unlocks if you whisper the name of the person you truly love while a sensor confirms your heart rate has hit the “arousal” threshold. I waited, breathless. And then I heard it. She didn’t say my name. She said “Parker.” Parker—the “Golden Boy,” the perpetual optimist who hovers around her like a loyal golden retriever. The man she usually treats with cold indifference. I stood there, paralyzed by the shock. Donna just let out a sharp, jagged laugh. “It’s just a game, Cade,” she whispered, her voice like broken glass. “Don’t go catching feelings now. It’s pathetic.” Then, her eyes darkened with a predatory glint. She leaned in, her voice a low, seductive lure. She told me that if I stayed in this dark room all night as “punishment,” she’d grant me a single minute of being “back together” as a reward. I looked at her—at the woman I’ve died for twice before—and slowly shook my head. “It’s okay,” I said softly. “I don’t need it anymore.” She has no idea that my only goal is to restore the girl she used to be. To undo the accident that took her legs. To save a version of her that doesn’t yet know how to hate me. 1 “Think about it, Cade. This might be the only chance you ever get…” Donna’s voice trailed off. A flicker of genuine shock crossed her face, cracking her icy mask. “What did you just say? You’re… turning me down?” She narrowed her eyes, searching my face for the catch. “What’s the play here? Playing hard to get? Trying to reverse the psychology?” I met her gaze. My throat felt like it was full of acid, but I kept my voice steady. “I’ll take the punishment. I’ll stay the night.” “But as for getting back together?” I took a breath. “There’s no point.” The smirk on Donna’s face froze. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the armrests of her wheelchair. I saw a flash of something dark and turbulent in her eyes—resentment, maybe, or a bruised ego. “Fine,” she spat. “What’s the price, then? What are you going to demand this time? Do you want me to go back to that shithole fishing village with you? Or do you want me to sit through another one of your hollow, miserable explanations?” She leaned forward, her voice rising. “I don’t get it, Cade! You were the one who dumped me. You were the one who walked away. Why do you always act like you’re the goddamn martyr?” I bit my lip, forcing myself to look up so the tears wouldn’t fall. This is the third time. The third life. And she still loathes me. In the first life, I tried to prove my love by literally jumping off a cliff for her. When she stood over my body, all she said was, “Serves him right.” In the second life, I brought her to my old mentor, the man who gave me the scholarship. I tried to prove I didn’t leave her for a career abroad. She hated me even more for it. She ended up framing that mentor for bribery, just to strip away everything I cared about. In this life, I tried total honesty. I told her the truth: that being with me was the only way to save her life. She laughed in my face. She threw a bottle of experimental meds—developed by Parker, her “Golden Boy”—at my feet. “I’m not the eighteen-year-old idiot I used to be, Cade,” she had said. “Being with you is a ‘cure’? Listen to yourself. That’s the most pathetic pickup line in history.” Looking at the sheer disgust in her eyes now, I felt a bone-deep weariness for the first time. But then I looked at her legs. I remembered the night ten years ago—the night she was jumped by my father’s creditors because she was working three jobs to pay for my tuition. I remembered the sound of the impact. I looked at the heart rate monitor on the wall. The jagged green line was still settling. She claimed to hate Parker, but her heart skipped when she said his name. I forced a bitter smile. “I don’t want anything from you this time, Donna.” “I’ll say it one last time. I never abandoned you. I never tried to climb over you to get to the top. I am literally here to save your life.” I turned my head away, quickly wiping my eyes with my sleeve. Donna hesitated. For a split second, the air between us shifted. Then, the door to the escape room was thrown open. A silhouette burst through the light, rushing straight to her. “Donna! Are you okay?” Parker. He was breathless, his eyes brimming with performative concern. He knelt by her chair, ignoring me entirely. “You’ve always been terrified of the dark. Why did you let him drag you into this game?” “Come on. Let’s go home.” He threw a sharp, protective glare in my direction. It was a mirror image of the way I used to stand in front of Donna when we were kids. When he realized the wheelchair was locked, he paused. He followed Donna’s gaze up to the heart rate monitor on the wall. His expression shifted instantly to one of smug, sugary triumph. “He’ll be fine,” Parker said, his voice softening as he looked at Donna. “He’s not the scared little boy who used to hide behind you anymore, Don. Let him stay.” Donna’s cold aura seemed to thaw slightly under his touch. She looked at me, almost as if she were trying to convince herself of something. “One night, Cade,” she murmured. “After tonight, I’ll give you one last chance to explain yourself.” I watched them leave. Parker pushed her chair into the light, and then the door slammed shut. Darkness rushed in. The old, familiar terror began to crawl up my spine. She’d forgotten. She’d forgotten that ten years ago, I nearly died in a place just like this. I pulled my knees to my chest, burying my face in my arms. The tears came fast then. All I could think about was the eighteen-year-old version of Donna—the girl who was waiting for me to “win” this game so we could both go home. Then, a cold, mechanical voice flickered in my mind. [Warning: Host’s will to continue has dropped below the threshold. Automatic failure sequence initiated.] 2 [Confirmation required: Do you wish to forfeit the mission?] I bit my lip until I tasted copper. I was a second away from saying yes. Suddenly, the last faint light in the room died. The darkness was absolute. My mind spiraled back to the cellar, to the smell of damp earth and my father’s drunken rants. My head throbbed. I tried to scream for the System, to tell it to take me back. Thump! The door was kicked open. A figure silhouetted against the hall light ran toward me. In my disoriented state, the shape looked just like the girl from my memories. I felt a surge of hope. She came back. She actually cares. The System’s question vanished from my mind. I must have passed out, because I started to dream. I was back in Portside, the foggy coastal town where we grew up. Donna was an orphan, the girl everyone liked to kick around. Our first real conversation happened after a group of neighborhood kids threw a rock at her head. I had saved up every cent I earned from paper routes. I carried her on my back three miles to the town clinic. She was so thin back then. She wouldn’t look at me. “I’ll pay you back,” she had muttered. I just blinked at her. “It’s okay. I heard you go into the city sometimes. Can you just… take me with you next time?” I wanted to study. My parents wouldn’t let me. I needed to learn the train routes so I could sneak away to take the entrance exams. We became inseparable. When I was eighteen, I got my acceptance letter to a university abroad. My father tore it into confetti. They wanted to sell me off to work the industrial docks to pay their gambling debts. I tried to run, but Portside was a trap. I spent three months locked in a literal pigpen behind our house. Donna was the one who found me. She went feral, fighting my father to get me out. She nearly died doing it. After we escaped, she worked three jobs to pay for my life. When I tried to say no, she’d just pinch my cheek and laugh. “Just wait until you graduate, Cade. Then we’ll get married.” “You’re the reason I work so hard. I want to give you the world.” The eighteen-year-old Donna loved me with every fiber of her being. That’s why, when the scholarship abroad finally came through and she was crippled by my father’s enemies on the same night, I took the deal. I signed up with the System. She had even told me back then, “Ten years from now? I’ll probably be a boss. You won’t even need to ‘win’ me over.” But as I left, she looked worried. “Cade… if the version of me ten years from now has really changed… if she’s gone cold… then just give up. I promise, I’d rather you be free than have you hurt by a version of me that forgot how to love you.” The dream started to dissolve. I reached out for her hand. “Donna!” I screamed. My eyes snapped open. I wasn’t looking at Donna. I was looking at Parker’s smug, amused face. He saw my confusion and started laughing. “You actually thought it was her, didn’t you? You thought she ran back to save you?” He pulled out his phone and hit play on a video. “It was a security guard, Cade. They didn’t want a lawsuit if you had a heart attack in there.” He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a hiss. “You think these pathetic guilt trips work on her? She spent ten years suffering because of your betrayal.” He paused, his eyes turning cold. “I’m the protagonist of her story now. Why did you have to come back?” “Since you won’t take the hint… don’t blame me for this.” Before I could react, he screamed. He threw himself onto the floor, knocking over the hot tray of food he’d brought in. The scalding soup splashed across his arm, turning the skin red. That was the exact moment Donna rolled into the room. Parker looked up at her, tears welling in his eyes. “Cade… I only came here to check on you. Why would you do this?” He grabbed the hem of Donna’s coat. “It’s my fault. I just mentioned that your legs were getting better… and he lost it. He kept saying that the only way you’d truly heal is if you were with him.” I looked at Parker’s “gotcha” smile and found myself laughing. It was a hollow, jagged sound. I looked Donna straight in the eye. “You were standing right outside the door, weren’t you?” “You saw exactly what happened. Didn’t you?” 3 Parker’s eyes went wide. “Donna, no, it’s not—” For a heartbeat, I held onto a sliver of hope. I waited for her to defend me, the way she used to when we were kids. Then she spoke, and the words were like ice water in my lungs. “I could call the police and have you charged with assault for this, Cade.” Her face was a mask of indifference. I was a stranger to her. A nuisance. Parker let out a breath of relief, leaning closer to her chair. “Can’t handle it?” Donna mocked, seeing me look down. “This is nothing. I spent ten years in this kind of pain. When my business in the city finally started to take off, your father’s old associates burned my warehouse to the ground. And you? You were gone without a word.” “Now I’m successful again. Now I’m back on top. And suddenly, you’re back, sniffing around like a stray dog.” Her eyes were rimmed with red, her voice trembling with a decade of suppressed rage. “What makes you think I’d ever wait for you? What makes you think I’d ever forgive you?” The room went silent. The weight of everything—the three lives, the sacrifices, the silence—finally broke me. “I didn’t!” I screamed. “Donna, the reason I left was because—” I felt a physical pressure on my throat. The System was blocking the words. I started shaking. “Because why? Say it!” she yelled. There was a tiny, desperate flicker of hope in her expression. I closed my eyes and let out a long, ragged sigh. “I can’t tell you the ‘why.’ But I never left you because I wanted to. I came back to save you.” To make you walk again. Before I could finish, I saw the look of “here we go again” wash over her. She turned her chair around and pulled out her phone to dial 911. Just as the call connected, the door pushed open again. “Nate? Oh my god, Nate! It is you!” A young woman with a round, cheerful face walked in. She looked at the mess on the floor and winced. “What happened here?” She looked at me with genuine excitement. “Where have you been for ten years? When you suddenly gave up your spot for the London program, our professor was devastated. You just… vanished. Everyone thought you were dead.” Boom. Donna’s head snapped toward the girl. She shoved her chair forward, grabbing the girl’s arm. “What did you just say? He didn’t go abroad?” The girl frowned, pulling her arm back. “Who are you? Yeah, Nate stayed. He never even picked up his transcripts. He left everything in his dorm. It was like he was erased from the planet.” Sensing the toxic atmosphere, the girl made a quick excuse and bolted. Parker tried to recover. “Cade, nice touch. Hiring an actress? Really?” I ignored him. I pulled my hand away from Donna’s grip and looked down. My fingers were beginning to turn translucent. The “erasure” was starting. I looked for Donna, but she was already turning away, her mind a whirlwind. “I’ll look into this,” she muttered. “You better not be lying to me, Cade.” She turned to Parker, her voice sharp. “You overstepped. Get out.” Parker started to protest, but she leaned in and whispered something in his ear. He turned pale and left without another word. I leaned back against the hospital bed. I was so tired. I looked at my fading hand and whispered to the empty room, “It doesn’t matter anymore.” Three days later, Donna appeared at my door. She looked at me with a complexity I couldn’t decipher. She rolled her chair to my bedside and pulled out a faded, cheap silver ring. “I bought this ten years ago,” she whispered, her voice husky. “I was going to ask you to stay.” “Is it too late now?” I looked at her, my heart a flat line. “What about Parker?” She didn’t answer. She just slid the ring onto my finger. 4 After that, we didn’t mention Parker. It was as if he had been a fever dream. The “proposal” wasn’t mentioned again either. We just… existed. She would kiss my forehead. She would wipe a stray crumb from my lip. I asked her once, “Are we back together?” She didn’t answer. She just told me to focus on getting better. One afternoon, she brought me a vanilla cone—my favorite from the old days. I reached out to take it, but my fingers passed right through the cardboard sleeve. The cone hit the floor with a splat. Donna didn’t get angry. She just silently leaned down from her chair and wiped the mess with a wet wipe. “It’s okay,” she said quietly. Looking at her like that, I almost believed we were okay. If I hadn’t seen the text Parker sent me an hour earlier—a photo of Donna at a bridal boutique, fitting a wedding dress. “It’s normal for tastes to change after ten years,” Donna said suddenly. That was it. The fuse lit. “Enough!” I grabbed my phone and shoved the photo of her in the wedding dress in front of her face. “What is this, Donna? What is the point of this sick game?” “You ‘propose’ to me, you refuse to talk to me, you act like we’re back together—and all the while, you’re planning a wedding with Parker? What am I to you? A pet? A trophy?” She stared at the photo, and then she started to laugh. Cold, melodic, and terrifying. “It took you this long to realize I was playing you?” She braced herself against the arms of her wheelchair and, to my absolute horror, stood up. She looked down at me, her height making her seem like a stranger. “Cade, the ‘actress’ you hired was good, but not good enough. You said being with you would save me? Look at me. I’m standing.” “I’m fine. I’m better than fine. And you? You have nothing left to hold over me.” I sat there, stunned. “I did it on purpose,” she smirked. “Parker’s meds worked. He made me walk again. So I’m marrying him. What does it matter who I marry, anyway?” Her phone buzzed. Parker. She waved it at me. “If you want to object at the wedding, Cade, maybe I’ll give you a check for the entertainment value. You can finally have the money you wanted.” She looked at her legs, pride glowing in her eyes. “I’m going to the ceremony now. To my new life.” As she turned to leave, I called out, one last time. “Donna! If you marry him, you’ll die! The mission will fail, and you’ll be erased!” She didn’t even pause. She didn’t hear the last part. The System flickered to life. [Mission Failed. Initiating return sequence to T-minus 10 years.] [Return will commence once host’s body reaches 100% transparency.] At the engagement gala, Donna stood tall under the flashing lights. She held Parker’s arm, her eyes scanning the crowd. She was looking for me. She wanted to see me break. But as the officiant began to speak, a sudden, violent wave of vertigo hit her. Her legs buckled. There was a scream, a chaotic rush of bodies. Parker was shouting. As she collapsed on the floor, she felt a terrifying sensation—not pain, but absence. Like her very soul was being pulled out through a straw. In the fading light of her vision, a crimson warning flashed in the air: [WARNING: TARGET ERASURE IN PROGRESS. HOST HAS ABANDONED MISSION. COUNTDOWN INITIATED.]

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The day my body finally became mine again, I opened my eyes to the dizzying roar of a celebration. The air smelled of expensive salt spray and champagne. My parents’ voices drifted over the music, warm and intimate, but they were calling out a name that wasn’t mine. They were saying the ceremony was about to begin. To understand how I lost myself, you have to go back to the lake. Two years ago, I almost drowned, and in that suffocating darkness, two entities—infiltrators, they called themselves—slid into the vacant spaces of my soul. The first was Judy. She was fire and mercury, a girl of glass and ambition whose sole mission was to steal my boyfriend, Hudson. The second was Daisy. She was the “perfect” daughter—compliant, academically brilliant, and soft-spoken. She wanted my place at the dinner table, the space I occupied in my parents’ hearts. At first, Hudson held me tight. He swore I was the only woman he’d ever love. My parents took me on a luxury cruise around the world, meticulously avoiding any body of water that might trigger my PTSD, promising me that no matter what happened, I was their only daughter. But then, the tides shifted. Hudson grew tired of my “reserve.” He eventually became hysterical, demanding I “bring Judy back,” claiming that only through her had he discovered what real passion looked like. My parents, too, grew ashamed of my mediocre grades and my quietness. They wept over the Ivy League acceptance letters Daisy had earned while inhabiting my skin, mourning the fact that she wasn’t their biological child. Now, I had finally clawed my way back to the surface. I had control. But as I looked at the world around me, a strange, hollow chill settled in my bones. … Before I could utter a word of explanation, my mother’s arms were around me. She slid a vintage emerald cocktail ring—a family heirloom—off her own finger and onto mine. Her eyes crinkled with a pride I hadn’t seen in years. “It looks so much better on you, Daisy,” she whispered. My father leaned in, ruffling my hair with a casual affection that felt like a bruise. “Matches your dress perfectly, honey.” The gold of the ring was warm from her skin, but it felt like a shackle of ice. This was my grandmother’s ring. My mother treated it like a holy relic. I remembered being ten years old, watching her polish it, reaching out a curious hand. She had snapped at me then: “This stays with me until you’ve proven you’re a woman of substance, Callie. It’s for when you’ve built a life worth honoring.” She wanted me to be a traditional wife, a quiet shadow. But after Daisy took over, my mother held her hand and told her to be fierce, to be independent. “You don’t need a man to define you, Daisy. We are your fortress.” The ring I wasn’t allowed to touch was now a gift for the girl who had stolen my life. I lowered my head, blinking back the stinging heat in my eyes. My father pressed a glass of fresh-pressed orange juice into my hand and a plate with a gourmet breakfast sandwich. “Go on, try it. I made it myself,” he said, looking uncharacteristically sheepish. My heart did a slow, painful roll. My father didn’t cook. He was a man of boardrooms and late-night flights; he barely had time to sit for a meal, let alone prepare one. But a flash of Daisy’s memory flickered in my mind—he had spent weeks learning to make this specific brioche sandwich just because Daisy mentioned she liked it before her morning classes. I took a sip of the juice and a forced bite of the sandwich. My parents had always been too busy to care what I ate for breakfast. They didn’t know I had a mild allergy to the avocado spread inside. But they knew Daisy loved it. Under my father’s doting gaze, I choked down a meal that didn’t belong to me. It was the strangest sensation—being a ghost in your own home, feeling like a thief for inhabiting your own skin. “Come on,” my mother said, squeezing my hand. “The party is starting. Your father and I spent months planning this. You’re going to love it.” The heat of her palm was a memory of safety. Wrapped in that warmth, a tiny, foolish part of me allowed itself to hope. The “coming-of-age” party was at a private beach club in the Hamptons. I stood paralyzed on the sand, surrounded by arches of white peonies. Ever since the accident, I had been terrified of the water. When I was “asleep” inside my own mind, I’d often drift into nightmares of drowning. The ocean was my enemy. My parents used to know that. They used to plan vacations to the mountains just to keep me from shivering. But as I looked at the waves crashing just yards away, my mother leaned in, searching my face. “Do you like it, Daisy?” My throat felt tight. I managed a small, pathetic nod. “Yes.” I hated it. But Daisy? Daisy loved the sea. The emcee called my parents to the stage for a toast. My father gripped the microphone, a beaming smile stretching across his face. “Thank you all for joining us to celebrate the twenty-first birthday of our daughter, Daisy.” A murmur rippled through the crowd of family friends. “Wait, isn’t her name Callie?” a woman whispered nearby. “No, didn’t you hear? Her father filed the legal paperwork to change it last month,” another replied. “He put out a whole announcement on LinkedIn and everything. He said ‘Daisy’ was the name that finally fit her spirit.” I stared at them, my nails digging into my palms until the skin broke. The sharp, metallic tang of pain was the only thing keeping me grounded. They hadn’t just welcomed an intruder. They had erased me. This party wasn’t a celebration of my birth; it was a funeral for Callie. I moved through the rest of the night like a zombie. Claiming a migraine, I eventually locked myself in my bedroom. I pulled out my phone and messaged Hudson. He arrived twenty minutes later to pick me up. “Why the tears, babe?” he asked, reaching out to brush a stray drop from my cheek. I grabbed his arm, clinging to him like he was the last life raft on a sinking ship. “Take me away from here. Please.” A look of understanding crossed Hudson’s handsome face. “The party was for Daisy, wasn’t it?” His voice was a low, steady thrum. “Don’t be sad. I’ve prepared something just for you. Something private. Come with me.” As I climbed into his car, the frantic beating of my heart began to slow. Thank God. At least I still had Hudson. On the way to his place, he stopped to pick up a pre-ordered cake. I watched him, my eyes bright with a desperate, renewed love. When he got back in and our eyes met, he paused. Suddenly, his hand was over my eyes, plunging me into darkness. Then, his lips were on mine. Heat flooded my face. I gripped the hem of my dress, my breath hitching. Hudson and I had been together for years, but we had always been careful. A few kisses, long hugs, but we had a pact. We were waiting for something real, something permanent. This was the first time he had ever kissed me with such… hunger. By the time we reached his apartment, my skin was still buzzing. “Go take a shower,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “I left some clothes for you in the bathroom.” I walked into the en-suite and froze. Hanging on the hook was a deep, wine-red silk slip—something far more provocative than anything I owned. I looked at the vanity. Two toothbrushes in one holder. A collection of expensive skincare products half-used. A silk robe thrown over the chair. The realization hit me like a physical blow. They weren’t just dating. They were living together. I had been so wrong. After the accident, Hudson had stayed by my hospital bed for two months. He had cried until his eyes were bloodshot, swearing he’d trade his life for mine. When Judy first took over, he had been horrified. I remembered him screaming at her: “Get out of my girlfriend’s body! You’re a parasite! I will find a way to burn you out!” Hearing that from the darkness of my subconscious had been my only comfort. He had consulted specialists, spiritualists, even hiked up a mountain in the rain to get a “blessing” for me. But then, the memories blurred. I had tried so hard to break through the veil, and when I finally saw the “real world” again through my own eyes, I saw shadows of things I couldn’t unsee. Used contraceptives on the nightstand. A tripod with a camera. Judy, using my body to perform a version of intimacy I had never consented to, in the home Hudson and I were supposed to build together. I had screamed at him in my head. How could you? You knew I wanted to wait! When I had briefly regained consciousness months ago, I had broken everything Judy owned and tried to end it. Hudson had knelt at my feet, weeping, promising he’d cut Judy out forever. But standing in this bathroom, I saw the truth. Every inch of this place was stained with Judy’s presence. I loved minimalism; the bedroom was now draped in velvet and lace like a high-end boudoir. I hated hard liquor; there was a row of expensive bourbons by the window. Even the trip to Antarctica I had dreamed of for years—Judy had gone in my place. The largest photo on the mantel was of Judy—in my body—wrapped in Hudson’s arms, laughing at the camera with a predatory, triumphant glow. She was mocking me. She was showing me that I was the ghost, and she was the one who was alive. The door opened. Hudson walked in. “How much longer are you going to hide in here?” He wrapped his arms around me from behind, his lips grazing my earlobe. I should have felt warm. Instead, my teeth began to chatter. “Wait,” I gasped, trying to push back. “Hudson, I need to tell you—” “I know what you’re waiting for, baby,” he interrupted. He spun me around and dropped to one knee, holding out a diamond that caught the light like a shard of ice. “Marry me?” His eyes were full of a terrifying, intense devotion. I looked into them and, like a fool, I nodded. “Yes.” Maybe, I told myself, a part of that love was still for me. But three months later, as I stood in a church Judy had chosen, wearing a gown Judy had designed, I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. Hudson wasn’t looking at Callie. He was looking at the woman who had replaced her. The priest spoke the words: “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.” Hudson leaned in, his voice a feverish whisper against my lips. “I love you so much, baby. Only you. Forever.” The words were supposed to be a sanctuary. Instead, they were a knife, twisting in the meat of my heart. I remembered the night I told him Judy’s “mission” was to win him over. I had been so scared. He had sworn, “She can have the body, but she’ll never have my heart. I’m a one-woman man, Callie.” I jerked my head away, breaking the kiss. “Hudson,” I said, my voice cracking through the silence of the cathedral. “I’m not Judy.” “I’m Callie.” I looked at him with the last shred of hope I possessed. “Do you still love me?” If he said yes, I would fight. I would stay in this body and reclaim every inch of my life. I watched his face, waiting for the recognition, the relief. Instead, Hudson recoiled as if I’d slapped him. The guests in the pews gasped, half-rising from their seats. The best man rushed forward, whispering urgently, “Hudson, whatever drama you and Judy have, keep it private. People are filming.” Hudson’s face contorted with a cold, simmering rage. “Wedding’s over,” he hissed. “We’re going home.” He didn’t lead me out; he dragged me. My heels caught on the stone steps. I stumbled, twisting my ankle, but he didn’t slow down. By the time we got back to the apartment, my ankle was a swollen, throbbing mess. He threw me toward the sofa with a snarl. “How dare you?” he roared. “How dare you pretend to be her just to steal her wedding? You think you can just bully her out of existence?” Tears blurred my vision. “She stole my life, Hudson! She took my body!” Hudson let out a sharp, disgusted laugh. “It wasn’t her choice! She had a mission. She was just trying to survive.” The first tear tracked down my cheek, cold and lonely. The front door burst open. My parents had followed us. My mother looked like she was having a breakdown. “You’re not Daisy! What did you do with our daughter?” She lunged at me, clawing at my expensive lace sleeves, demanding I “give her back.” I huddled on the floor, trying to cover my tattered dress. “Mom, Dad… I am your daughter. Callie. Remember?” “Daisy’s mission was to make us love her,” my mother sobbed, her voice shrill with hysteria. “If she doesn’t finish, the system will kill her! She’ll be gone forever!” My father stood over me, his face a mask of disappointment. “She’s a good girl, Callie. Kind, smart… everything we ever wanted. We can’t just let her die.” “Once she finishes her mission and leaves,” he added, his voice dropping to a low, transactional tone, “then you can have your life back. You’ll be our only daughter again.” My mother’s face twisted. “But if you hold onto the body now, you’re killing her! How can you be so selfish, Callie?” Selfish. The word echoed in the empty spaces of my chest. I had taken back what was mine, and in their eyes, I was the villain. I was the thief of their happiness. Hudson knelt in front of me. For the first time in my life, he begged. Not for me, but for the woman who had erased me. “Callie, please. Give the body back to Judy. I can’t live without her. If you let her live… I’ll do anything. We can figure it out. We can all live together, some way. Just don’t let her die.” They all stared at me, their love held hostage, their anger vibrating in the air. If I said no, they would hate me for the rest of my life. I felt something snap inside of me. A final, clean break. The cold wind of reality rushed into my heart, and for the first time, I felt nothing at all. “Fine,” I whispered. “I’ll give it back. All of it.”

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The conversation at the reunion dinner drifted, as it always did, back to the “golden days.” Someone laughed, leaning across the white linen tablecloth, and remarked how everyone back in prep school thought Gordon and Natalia were a match made in heaven. Then, another voice chimed in, a bit more pointedly, saying no one expected me to be the one to finally pin down a man as unattainable as Gordon Ashford. A wave of polite, well-bred laughter rippled through the circle. “And what are you doing these days, Natalia?” a woman asked, her eyes glittering with curiosity. Natalia waved a hand dismissively, the diamonds on her wrist catching the light. “Oh, nothing much. I was just promoted to Executive VP at a tech firm in the city.” The table erupted in murmurs of genuine impressed surprise. Being an EVP at twenty-four wasn’t just success; it was a conquest. They showered her with praise, calling her a powerhouse. Then, the spotlight shifted back to Gordon. Everyone knew his path was already paved—the Ashford Group was his to inherit, a crown waiting for its king. Finally, the eyes turned to me. “And you, Cora? What’s your career path looking like?” I opened my mouth to answer. I wanted to tell them about the quiet, heavy dignity of my work. But Gordon’s hand settled on my shoulder, his grip firm and possessive. He cut me off before I could speak. “She’s actually retired from the workforce. She’s at home, preparing to be the full-time Mrs. Ashford.” Natalia smiled, a thin, sharp thing. “That’s quite a sacrifice,” she said, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. “You must really love him, Cora.” Gordon raised his glass to her in a mock salute. “She’s not like you, Nat. She’s too soft for the corporate world. If I don’t keep her close, she’s liable to wander off and get herself into trouble again.” The table erupted in “Awws” and teasing remarks about how Gordon was a “doting husband-to-be.” I looked down at my plate, forcing a smile to match theirs. But inside, something cold was settling in my marrow. I wondered when my trauma—the nightmare of being abducted and held captive years ago—had become nothing more than a half-baked punchline he used to keep me small. 1 I sat in the passenger seat of his Obsidian Black SUV, the silence between us heavy. Gordon had one hand resting casually on the steering wheel. He didn’t start the engine immediately. Instead, he turned his head to look at me, his gaze wearing that familiar, patronizing warmth. He reached out, his thumb and forefinger gently pinching my earlobe. “You’re quiet. Still upset?” I turned my head away, watching the neon lights of the city blur against the rain-streaked window. “Gordon… do I really make you that ashamed?” He didn’t rush to answer. He started the car first, pulling smoothly out of the parking lot. Only when we were merged into the late-night traffic did he speak, his tone measured and calm. “Do you honestly think I’m ashamed of you?” I said nothing. He let out a soft, indulgent chuckle, as if my question were merely a child’s tantrum. “Cora, I’m trying to protect you. You graduated from a top-tier university, and yet you chose that job. People won’t understand your ‘calling.’ They’ll just see it as morbid. They’ll pity you, or worse, they’ll look down on you.” “I don’t want you to be the subject of dinner party gossip,” he continued, his voice dropping to that tone of unshakable certainty. “We don’t have to prove anything to anyone. Being my wife is more than enough for you. It’s the best thing for everyone.” He spoke with such terrifying logic, as if he were simply arranging the furniture of my life for my own comfort. I looked out the window. The night was thick, suffocating. Gordon, sensing my silence as submission, reached into the back seat and pulled out a designer gift bag. “Stop brooding. I got you something.” I took it, unwrapping the tissue paper to find a heavy glass bottle. Perfume. Clear liquid, gold-flecked, with a black silk ribbon tied around the neck. It smelled like wealth and old money. “Another one,” I whispered. “Gordon, you’ve bought me nearly a hundred bottles of perfume by now.” He smiled, his posture relaxing. “It’s got a heavy rose base. It’s beautiful. You should wear it next time we go out.” Rose. I froze. Suddenly, a surge of bitterness, sharper than anything I’d felt before, rose up in my throat. “Why? Do I smell that bad today?” I turned to look at him, my expression flat, a ghost of a smile haunting my lips. Gordon’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second before he recovered. He reached over and ruffled the back of my hair, the way one might soothe a nervous golden retriever. “Don’t be ridiculous. I just wanted to give you a gift.” His composure was a suit of armor, soft but impenetrable. My sharp edges simply bounced off him. Every single time. I looked down, put the perfume back in the box, and tightened the cap. “I get it,” I said, my voice slipping back into the submissive tone he preferred. “Why aren’t we moving?” He checked his phone. “Waiting for Natalia. She mentioned it was hard to get an Uber this late. Since we’re heading the same way, I told her we’d drop her off.” A moment later, Natalia climbed into the back seat, bringing a gust of the cool night air with her. “Sorry to keep you guys! You’re lifesavers.” “It’s no trouble,” Gordon said. “Actually, I wanted to pick your brain about the new acquisition. Cora doesn’t really follow the nuances of the M&A world.” The rest of the drive was a symphony of their shared world. They talked about hostile takeovers, modern art galas, and industry trends. They were intellectual equals, two titans of the same industry. I couldn’t contribute, and more importantly, I didn’t want to. When the car pulled up to our apartment building, Gordon kept the engine running. “Go on up,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I drop her off.” I pushed the door open but didn’t go inside immediately. I stood in the shadows of the lobby entrance and looked back. Natalia had already climbed into the front seat. She was leaning over, seemingly struggling with her seatbelt. She said something, her voice carry a hint of practiced helplessness. Gordon laughed—a genuine, warm sound. Then, he leaned over quite naturally to click the belt into place for her. The amber glow of the streetlamp washed over them, framing them in a warm, cinematic light. In that moment, I had to admit the truth: they were the perfect pair. And I? I was just a ghost from a messy past, someone he was trying to scrub clean with expensive perfume, hoping to drown out the scent of the life I’d actually lived. I let out a long, slow breath. The tension that had been holding me together for years finally snapped, silent and absolute. I pulled out my phone and sent a text to Mallory. I’m in. Let’s do it. See you tomorrow. 2 Back in the apartment, I started to pack. I opened the vanity drawer. It was a graveyard of perfume bottles, row after row of them. Gordon seemed to believe that if he piled enough fragrance high enough, he could mask the “stench” of the world I had come from. I sighed, turning toward the closet. I pulled out a few simple, practical outfits. Hidden at the very bottom of the wardrobe, I found an old tin box. Inside was a yellowed notebook. On the first page, in the shaky but determined handwriting of a teenage boy, were the words: On our 25th birthday, I’m going to make you my wife. Next week was my twenty-fifth birthday. I thought I was numb to it all, but the ink suddenly blurred. Tears fell, one by one, staining the aged paper. Gordon, in his high-rise office and his world of mergers, had surely buried that promise under a mountain of ambition. Just like he’d forgotten I was allergic to roses. Just like he’d forgotten my one unbreakable rule—the “sickness” I carried from my childhood. I cannot forgive a broken promise. That pathology started on my fifth birthday. My parents had taken me to a park, promising me the biggest cake in the bakery if I waited on a specific bench. I sat there as the sun dipped below the horizon, watching the streetlamps flicker to life. I waited all day. I waited until the park was empty, until a security guard called the police. They never came back. From that day on, I learned one thing: a promise is the cheapest currency on earth, and waiting is the cruelest form of torture. I spent two years in the foster system after that. I survived bullying, hunger, and the kind of violations that still make my skin crawl. They are the recurring cast of my nightmares. When I was seven, my grandmother—my father’s mother, though she had disowned him long ago—found me. She was a stooped woman with a bag of warm roasted peanuts and a heart made of iron. She took my hand and said, “Come home, little bird.” She wasn’t rich. She was poor. She spent her sixties selling sewing kits on street corners just to keep me in school. But she was different from my parents. When she said she wouldn’t leave, she didn’t. When she promised to get me to college, she worked until her hands were raw and cracked in the winter cold to save every penny for my tuition. I studied like my life depended on it. I got into a prestigious high school. And that’s where I met Gordon. Our young love was pure, simple. No grand gestures, just notes passed under desks and silent, shy walks home. We promised to go to the same university. We promised to watch the snow fall by the lake. Just when it felt like the world was finally being kind, fate decided I hadn’t suffered enough. The summer after graduation, trying to help my grandmother with the bills, I fell for a fake job listing. I was kidnapped and taken deep into the mountains, sold to a labor ring. That was the beginning of my second nightmare. 3 When an eighteen-year-old girl vanishes into the dark corners of the country, everyone knows what happens. My grandmother went to the police, but they told her to wait. She waited seven days at the precinct, only to be told they had found my biological parents. She dragged her sick body to beg them for help. My father sat on his leather sofa, smoking, saying he had a “new family” and didn’t want the scandal. My mother wouldn’t even see her; she sent a message saying she only had one child now—her son. My grandmother collapsed from the stress. Gordon, realizing I hadn’t shown up for two weeks, went on a rampage. When he found out I’d been taken, that proud, sheltered boy fell to his knees and begged his parents to use their connections to find me. His parents, horrified that he was involved with a girl like me, refused at first. But he went on a hunger strike. He broke windows. He forced their hand. They tracked me to a place called Blackwood Ridge—a notorious dead zone for lawlessness and trafficking. They warned him: It’s a black hole. If you go there, you might not come back. And Gordon, when the whole world had written me off, went anyway. He went alone, defying everyone. For thirty-seven days, I lived in hell. I was ready to die until I saw him—bloodied, bruised, but standing in front of me. For years, I replayed that scene in my head. I told myself that the universe didn’t owe me anything because it had given me him. I thought we were finally safe. We weren’t. The police called my grandmother to tell her I’d been rescued. She was so overcome with joy that she ran out of the house toward the station. Crossing the street, a truck running a red light hit her. By the time I got to the hospital, her face was unrecognizable. The swelling had stretched her wrinkles flat. Her jaw was displaced, her lips torn. I knelt by her bed, trying to wipe the blood from her face, but the grit and the red wouldn’t come away. A nurse cried as she told me to stop, that she was already gone. But I couldn’t stop. I was desperate to piece her back together, to find the kind, smiling woman underneath the wreckage. I couldn’t give her back her face. I couldn’t even see her one last time. Gordon arrived as I was retching from grief. He held me tight. “I’m your family now,” he whispered. “I’m never leaving. Wait for me. By the time we’re twenty-five, I’ll give you a real home.” After college, I chose to become a restorative artist—a mortician specializing in reconstruction. I wanted to make sure that everyone who left this world left it clean. I wanted their families to see them as they were meant to be seen. I thought Gordon would understand. But perhaps time is a thief. Perhaps only I stayed in that hospital room while he moved on to skyscrapers… I dried my eyes and put the notebook back in the tin. The bedroom door opened. I was so lost in the past I hadn’t heard him come home. He saw my red eyes and frowned. “What is it now?” I held the box to my chest and looked up at him. His face blurred into the face of the boy who had saved me in the mountains. I couldn’t help it; I had to ask one last time. “Gordon.” “Yeah?” “Next week is my birthday. Twenty-five.” I paused, my heart hammered against my ribs. “Do you still want to marry me?” 4 Gordon’s usual composure flickered. Just for a second, there was hesitation—even a touch of bewilderment. But he smoothed it over quickly. He knelt down, his fingers brushing the corner of my eye. “Don’t be silly,” he sighed, his voice a mix of exasperation and practiced affection. “We basically are married. Is a piece of paper really that important to you?” I stared at him, saying nothing. He took my silence as agreement. He smiled and patted my hair. “Stop overthinking. I’ll take you to get a bag for your birthday. That limited edition one you liked? I’ve already had them put it on hold for you.” I lowered my head. “Okay.” Satisfied, Gordon got up to shower. “But Gordon,” I said softly, “when did I ever look at a bag?” He paused, his back to me. Then he turned with a charming smile. “I must have misremembered. Must have been a different one.” I nodded. The sound of the shower filled the room. A little while later, his rhythmic breathing told me he was asleep. He always slept deeply, unlike me. I stood in the dark, watching him for a long time. I watched until my eyes ached. I watched until the sliver of moonlight moved from his brow to his jaw. I watched until I had said every silent goodbye I had in me. Then, I picked up my backpack. The lock clicked—a sound as soft as a sigh. I didn’t look back. Downstairs, a dark SUV was idling under a streetlamp. I opened the door and slid in. Mallory didn’t ask questions. She just reached over and pulled me into a fierce, bone-crushing hug. Mallory had been taken with me all those years ago. She was the only person who truly knew how much blood Gordon had spilled to get us out. Like me, she could never say a bad word about him, no matter what he had become. “It’s okay,” she whispered, her voice husky. “Don’t cry.” She shifted the car into drive and pulled away from the curb. “When I saw how he was with you back then, I really thought…” She trailed off. “Forget it. Be strong. Maybe this is the universe doing you a favor. You have no idea how happy Luke was when I told him today.” Luke. Just hearing his name brought a flicker of warmth to my chest. He had been a rookie cop back then, helping the seniors rescue us. He’d been so nervous his hands shook while he wrapped me in a blanket. When the traffickers tried to rush us with clubs, he’d stepped in front of me, taking a hit to the shoulder meant for my head. Now, he was Mallory’s boss at the precinct and one of our only true friends. And soon… he would be more than that. We reached Mallory’s place, and I could hear someone in the kitchen. She winked at me. A tall, broad-shouldered figure emerged from the kitchen holding two steaming bowls of noodles. “Sutton—I mean, Cora. Dinner’s ready.” Luke looked at me, looking uncharacteristically shy. Mallory started eating, glancing between us with a smirk. I put my chopsticks down. “Alright, you need to go home, Mallory. We have a busy few days.” “Oh, right!” she squeaked. “Dress fitting tomorrow! Let’s get some sleep!” Before he left, Luke looked at me. “Don’t worry about the hotel or the vendors. I’ve got it. Just… pick the dress you love.” He turned red, then added, “You won’t regret this, Cora. I promise.” I smiled and nodded. I pulled out my phone. Gordon’s chat window was still open. I hesitated, then tapped his profile. Block. Contact list. Block. I opened our shared family tracking app. Leave Family Circle. Delete Device. Grandmother, I thought. In five days, I’m getting married. I hope you’re happy for me.

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