Category: English

1 During graduation trip talks, my foster sister Monica and I argued. I wanted the American Southwest; she chose Iceland. Wyatt, grinning, said, “Iceland’s perfect! My new DSLR will capture Monica beautifully.” Parents nodded. “Scenery’s great. Her new down coat fits the weather.” They looked a perfect family. No one noticed the Southwest itinerary I’d spent two weeks planning, hidden under the fruit bowl. I tried to speak, but Wyatt cut in, frowning. “Southwest’s dust and sun. Monica’s too fragile for that. How’d she survive?” Mom slid a $2,000 gift card across the table. “Desert’s not going anywhere. Let Monica have this. I’ll take you next year.” I stared at the card, bitter smile on my lips, silent. Three years ago, they’d wept, promising a family Southwest trip post-graduation to make up for my 18 lost years. But I’d learned: Monica’s tears meant I yielded. My things, space, even their promises—sacrificed for her. Blood meant nothing against favoritism. Since I’d never win against their precious foster daughter, I quit their game. They could have Iceland. I’d take the long train to the desert alone. From now on, my own path. They could keep their high society and the Presley “real daughter” title. Wyatt noticed me staring silently at the gift card, and his scowl deepened. He reached over, snatched the detailed road trip itinerary from under the fruit bowl, and held it by the corner with obvious disgust. “What is this garbage? It’s just in the way, wrinkling Monica’s visa documents.” With a careless twist of his wrists, he crumpled the thick packet of paper, along with the translated documents for the DuPont merger I had stayed up all night to finish for my father, and threw them into the trash can. I stared at the crumpled paper, taking a slow, deep breath. When the Presleys first brought me back from the desert, my father had gripped my hands with tears in his eyes. Evelyn, you’ve suffered so much. When you graduate, I will rent two off-road vehicles and the whole family will take you back to the desert to see the golden cottonwoods. I had held onto that promise for three long years. I had researched every supply station, mapped out every mile, and calculated every stop. And for what? Monica only had to squeeze out a few tears and whisper, I heard the Northern Lights can bring a lifetime of good fortune. With my weak health, I don’t know if I’ll live long enough to see them again, and every single plan was instantly obliterated. “Evelyn, do not start throwing a tantrum now,” my father warned, his eyes flashing with irritation. “Our trip to Iceland is partly to meet with the executives of the DuPont Group at their private golf club. This is a matter of our family’s standing in high society. As our biological daughter, do you lack even this basic sense of the bigger picture?” Monica’s eyes immediately pooled with tears. “Dad, please don’t fight. It’s all my fault for having such poor health. If Evelyn really wants to go to the desert, I… I don’t have to go to Iceland. You should all go with Evelyn instead.” “What are you talking about?” Wyatt snapped, turning his glare back to me. “Evelyn, are you completely heartless? The Southwest is a wasteland of dust and scorching UV rays. Monica would lose a layer of skin out there! Do you have to torture her to be satisfied?” Looking at the three of them standing united against me, I felt as though a lump of lead was wedged in my throat, impossible to swallow or spit out. I took a step toward the trash can, wanting to salvage the itinerary that had cost me so many sleepless nights. But Wyatt kicked the bin away, letting out a sharp laugh. “What, still haven’t given up? What use is this stupid paper anyway, other than letting you play the victim?” I stood frozen, my fingernails digging into my palms until they bled. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and looked up with perfect calm. “Fine. I’ll go get my passport.” Hearing my surrender, my mother’s face finally relaxed. “That’s my sensible girl. Go get the original documents. The travel agency is waiting to finalize the booking.” I turned and walked back to my small room, which was essentially a converted maid’s quarters in the corner of the first floor. Once I handed my passport to the waiting butler, I shut the door, cutting off the sounds of their laughter as they discussed the northern lights. Sitting on my narrow single bed, I pulled out my cracked phone and opened a travel app. I entered the coordinates of the Southwest desert, setting the departure date for the exact same day they were scheduled to fly to Iceland. Since they wanted to see the northern lights, I would see the golden cottonwoods by myself. When the confirmation screen flashed, showing my purchase of a one-way ticket on a slow, regional train, a soft smile finally touched my lips. A single, one-way ticket. It was my passage to freedom. To prepare for the trip, the family drove to a high-end outdoor gear store in the city center the following morning. Monica drifted through the racks of premium winter coats, with my mother and Wyatt following close behind, carrying hats and gloves for her to try. I walked silently at the very back of the group. “Excuse me, ma’am,” a sales associate said, stepping up to me and handing me a stack of heavy coats. “Could you please carry these to the fitting room for our young lady?” The entire group went quiet. Monica bit her lip to hide a smug smile, making absolutely no effort to clarify who I was. I took the coats without a word. My mother finally seemed to realize what was happening and cleared her throat, looking slightly embarrassed. “This is actually our… our oldest daughter.” The associate apologized profusely, but I had already turned and walked toward the fitting room. Over the last three years, I had grown completely numb to being mistaken for a maid or a hired hand. When we reached the register, my father swiped his card for fifteen thousand dollars without blinking, purchasing Monica’s entire set of premium gear. Only as we were preparing to leave did my mother seem to notice my empty hands. She turned back to the clearance rack, grabbed an outdated, oversized utility jacket, and tossed it into my arms. “You can wear this. You’re used to the cold from your childhood in the countryside anyway. Even with the discount, this still cost over two hundred dollars.” Monica looked at the cheap jacket in my hands, putting on her best display of sweet generosity. “Mom, that jacket is far too thin for Iceland. Why don’t I give Evelyn the red coat I bought in Switzerland last year? It’s a bit worn, but it’s very warm.” Offering me her discarded hand-me-downs to highlight her own saintly nature was her favorite game. I stepped aside, avoiding her touch. “No, thank you. I don’t need it.” “Evelyn, what is with that attitude?” my father barked, his voice sharp with anger. “You’ve been back with us for three years, and you still haven’t lost that bitter, sensitive pride from the gutter! Monica is trying to be kind to you, and you treat her like this?” Wyatt was busy adjusting his camera, not even looking up. “Dad, don’t waste your breath on her. When we get to Iceland, I’m only taking photos of Monica anyway. Even if Evelyn freezes to death, I won’t waste a single frame on her.” When we returned home, the dining table was laden with a massive seafood feast to celebrate the approval of our visas. There were oysters, lobster tails, and a large bowl of steamed crab cakes. I stood by the table, making no move to sit down. “I had stomach surgery last month,” I said quietly, looking at my mother. “The doctor strictly warned me not to eat raw or cold seafood for at least six months.” There wasn’t a single dish on the table that I could safely eat. My mother’s hand paused, a brief flicker of guilt crossing her face, but it was quickly replaced by irritation. “We are celebrating a wonderful trip, and you have to ruin the mood with your illnesses? It was a minor surgery! A little seafood isn’t going to kill you. Stop being so delicate!” She waved over a maid. “Go heat up some of yesterday’s leftover porridge for her.” As I stared at the bowl of sour, day-old porridge, a wave of nausea hit my stomach. After dinner, Monica directed the staff to line up five massive suitcases in the center of the living room, and the family gathered around to pack them with snacks and designer winter wear. The spacious room was so crowded with their belongings that there wasn’t even a path for me to walk through. I knew then, with absolute certainty, that I had no place in this house. “Oh, my head… I feel so dizzy…” Monica murmured, pressing her hand to her forehead as she collapsed onto the plush sofa. My mother let out a sharp cry of alarm, and the entire room erupted into chaos. Wyatt rushed to hold her up, while my father barked orders at the butler to fetch the medical kit. They acted as though she were facing a terminal crisis, when in reality, she was simply experiencing a mild sugar drop from staying up late to look at travel blogs. I stood at the corner of the hallway, shivering as the cold wind drifted in from a half-open window. A sharp, familiar pain shot through my right knee. It was the chronic joint pain I had developed when I was twelve, after falling into an icy creek while gathering wild herbs in the high desert. Whenever the weather turned damp or I grew exhausted, the pain in my bones became almost unbearable. I limped back to my room and pulled open my nightstand drawer, searching for the herbal patches I had bought to manage the pain. But the drawer was completely empty. All ten boxes of the specialized patches I had purchased with my own meager savings were gone. Sweating from the pain, I limped back to the living room. My eyes swept over Monica’s open suitcase, and there, tucked into a side pocket, were the familiar brown paper boxes. I walked over, reaching out to reclaim my medication. Before my fingers could touch the box, my mother delivered a sharp, stinging slap to my hand. My skin immediately began to swell and redden. “What do you think you’re doing? Those are Monica’s heating patches for the cold weather!” she snapped, shielding the suitcase with her body. I gasped from the pain, forcing myself to explain. “Mom, those aren’t regular heat patches. They contain raw aconite and thunder god vine root. It’s a high-potency prescription herbal patch specifically formulated for severe joint pain!” “If someone without the condition uses them, they can cause severe skin ulcerations and even systemic toxicity!” “Stop making up these ridiculous stories!” Wyatt sneered, standing up to block me. “Evelyn, you really will resort to any lie just to steal from Monica, won’t you? Monica is going to a freezing place like Iceland. If she gets cold because of you, can you even afford to make it up to her?” Monica leaned back against the cushions, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Evelyn, if you’re really going to fight me over a few heating patches, I’ll give them back. I know I’m just an outsider in this family anyway…” “Monica, don’t say that! These belong to you!” my father declared, turning a furious glare on me. “Get back to your room! Get out of our sight!” Looking at their stubborn, united front, I decided to stop fighting. Even if I told them the absolute truth, they would only see it as a malicious lie. I pulled my throbbing hand back and let the pain in my knee burn. I turned and limped back to my room without another word. If Monica chose to burn her skin off with those patches, she would have no one to blame but herself. Two days later, we had to go to the agency to verify our fingerprints. When I walked out of the house with my documents, they were already sitting in the family SUV. I walked up to the window and looked inside. The butler sat in the passenger seat, and the four of them occupied the remaining rows. The spacious cargo area and the footwells were completely packed with Monica’s carry-on bags and makeup cases. There wasn’t a single inch of space left for me. “There’s no room in the car,” my father said, rolling down the window with a frown. “And your cheap canvas bag will scratch Monica’s leather suitcases.” “Then how am I supposed to get there?” I asked, my voice flat. “Figure it out yourself! Find a rental bike outside the estate, or walk to the subway station!” my father snapped impatiently. “We are on a tight schedule. Do not be late!” The window rolled up, and the driver hit the gas. The tires rolled through a muddy puddle, splashing dirty water all over my face and my cheap jacket. I stood in the driveway, wiping the mud from my eyes as I watched the vehicle disappear. The very last spark of hope I had held for this family died in that puddle. The damp wind bit through my clothes. I didn’t search for a bike, and I didn’t walk to the subway. I turned around and walked back into the empty house. My body was shaking from the cold, and my throat felt dry. I went to the kitchen, poured a glass of cold water, and swallowed two cold tablets. The bitter taste coated my tongue, but it was nothing compared to the bitterness in my heart. My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a notification from the family group chat. Five minutes ago, they had arrived at the airport lounge. The chat was flooded with photos: Monica eating pastries, Wyatt adjusting his camera lenses, and my mother discussing the premium travel insurance she had purchased for Iceland. Not a single person asked if I had found a ride, or if I was caught in the rain. I turned off the screen and went back to my dark room. Since I wasn’t going with them, it was time for me to leave. I knelt on the floor and pried away a loose piece of the baseboard under my bed. Hidden inside was a small iron box. This was the only piece of my past I had brought from the desert: a collection of hand-written folk songs my late adoptive mother, Martha, had penned for me, and her old, worn pocket watch. It was the only thing that had kept me going through three years of isolation in this house. But when my hand reached into the dark space, my fingers met nothing but cold, empty air. The box was gone. A sharp ringing sound filled my ears, and my heart seemed to stop. I bolted out of the room, running up the stairs toward the source of some faint noise on the second floor. When I reached the top of the stairs, my legs went rigid. Wyatt was standing in the hallway, throwing a paper airplane made from a sheet of yellowed paper. I could see Martha’s neat, looping handwriting covering the wings. Monica stood in front of the full-length mirror, a heavy metal chain around her neck. Suspended from the bottom of the chain was my adoptive mother’s old pocket watch. The glass cover of the watch had been crudely pried off, the delicate hands and face ripped out to expose the bare, gold gears. She was displaying it to Wyatt as if it were a trendy “steampunk” accessory. “You have to admit, Wyatt, this old junk actually looks incredibly chic once you modify it,” Monica said with a smirk. “What are you doing?!” I screamed, my eyes turning red with fury as I lunged toward them. My mother walked out of the adjacent room holding a pair of scissors, her brow furrowing in irritation. “What is all this screaming about? Your room was full of dusty, moldy garbage that made the entire first floor smell like a gutter. I had the maids clean it out. Is there a problem with that?” “That was my mother’s legacy! You stole it! You destroyed it!” My body was shaking so violently I could barely speak. I reached for the chain around Monica’s neck. “Give it back to me!” “Evelyn, are you insane?!” Wyatt yelled, stepping in front of Monica and shoving me back with all his force. “It’s just a piece of old brass! It’s an honor that Monica even wants to wear your trash! Why are you acting like a hysterical wild animal over a piece of garbage?” Monica shrank back, putting on a display of terror as tears spilled from her eyes. “Evelyn, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know this was so important to you. I’ll give it back, please don’t hurt me…” She fumbled with the clasp, her hands shaking, and the delicate watch slipped from her fingers, clattering onto the hardwood floor. As she tried to step back, her heavy designer boot landed directly on the exposed gears. A sharp crunch echoed through the hallway. The delicate inner workings of the watch were crushed into unrecognizable fragments. My breath caught in my throat. A dull, heavy pain bloomed in my chest, so intense that no tears could fall. “You ungrateful brat!” my father roared as he strode up the stairs, having heard the noise. He pointed a finger at my face, his expression contorted with rage. “You would threaten your own sister over a piece of country trash? You have completely humiliated this family!” “Guards! Lock her in the basement storage room! No one is to let her out until she learns how to behave!” Two burly security guards stepped forward, grabbing me by the arms and dragging me down the stairs. I didn’t fight them. My hand was clenched tightly around the sharp shards of glass I had gathered from the floor, the blood dripping from my palm and staining the white hallway carpet. The heavy metal door slammed shut, plunging the basement into absolute darkness. From upstairs, the faint sound of their laughter drifted down as they discussed what outfits they would wear to see the northern lights. I leaned against the cold stone wall and slid slowly to the floor. Over the next three days, the family acted as if I didn’t exist. Only the maid came once a day, sliding a piece of stale bread and a half-filled bottle of water under the door, as if she were feeding an animal. They were using isolation and physical confinement to force me to beg for their forgiveness. But they had entirely miscalculated. On the third evening, the sound of the front door closing echoed from upstairs. Tonight was the eve of their departure for Iceland. The family had booked the most exclusive restaurant in Boston to host a grand send-off celebration for Monica. The estate was finally completely silent. I pulled a bobby pin from my hair. Using the skills I had developed during my years in the dry country, and guided by the faint light of my phone’s low-battery screen, I manipulated the mechanism of the lock. With a soft click, the heavy padlock fell open. When I walked back up to the first floor, I didn’t call the police, and I didn’t wait to confront them. I walked into the living room, gathered every single piece of clothing and jewelry the Presleys had bought for me, along with our family portraits, and threw them into the fireplace, watching them burn to ash. I pulled the SIM card from my phone, snapped it in half, and tossed the device into the deep waters of the garden pond. Finally, I picked up the worn canvas bag I had brought with me from the desert three years ago. Fourteen hours later, I was sitting near the window of a long-distance train, watching the green hills fade into the endless, sun-baked plains of the Southwest. The wheels clattered against the iron rails, a rhythmic, beautiful sound that carried me away from my prison. The Presley family could keep their biological daughter’s title. I was going home.

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1 After my diagnosis of Emotional Apathy Syndrome, my feelings grew dull. When Gideon favored his first love, Lorelei, I stayed calm. Even seeing him give her our tenth-anniversary diamond ring drew no tears. He rarely came home, always claiming, “Lorelei is afraid of the dark.” When I called to tell him about my condition, Lorelei answered his phone. “Gideon is in the shower,” she mocked sweetly. “Call back later.” I hung up and let him bring her as his plus-one to our anniversary gala. Before the guests, he wrapped his arm around her waist. “Marrying you was punishment for losing a bet. Lorelei is my only love. You have played Mrs. Harrington for ten years. Be satisfied.” Lorelei giggled against his chest, triumphant. I simply smiled, picked up the photo album I had compiled, and dropped it into the champagne bucket. In my mind, memories of Gideon were dissolving. Soon, I would forget him and our agonizing ten years entirely. On the ride back to the estate, I voluntarily opened the front passenger door and gestured for Lorelei to take the seat. Gideon was used to my sharp tongue, my hysterical outbursts, and the desperate way I used to fight for his attention whenever Lorelei was around. My sudden grace and indifference only seemed to irritate him. Once we pulled up to the driveway and Lorelei stepped away, I turned to him and spoke quietly. “I’m not angry, Gideon. And I’m certainly not jealous.” Lorelei lingered by the porch, her voice trembling with manufactured tears. “Gideon, did I do something wrong? Fiona seems to despise me. Maybe I should just check into a hotel.” Gideon caught her by the hand, his voice laced with cold impatience as he looked at me. “Why should you leave? This is your home now.” He strode over and grabbed my wrist, his grip tightening. “Fiona, don’t think you can play these reverse psychology games with me. My parents forced me to marry you back then. Now that Lorelei is back, you need to grow up and accept it.” My eyes remained flat, reflecting nothing. “I understand. Let her move in. I’ll pack my things and let her have the master bedroom as well.” A flicker of suspicion crossed his features. “I’ll say it one more time. Pretending to be saintly won’t work on me. If you’re upset, throw a tantrum. Cry. Scream. I can easily buy you whatever designer bags or jewelry you want to make up for it.” Lorelei stepped up, resting her hand on Gideon’s arm. “Fiona, how could I possibly take the master bedroom? That wouldn’t be right.” Gideon let out a cold snort. “Since you’re so eager to play the generous wife, Lorelei and I will sleep in the master suite tonight.” He pulled her along, leaving me standing in the cold hallway. Deep within my mind, another piece of my memory of him shattered and faded into mist. That night, I booked a moving service for the following morning and purchased a one-way ticket to Europe, scheduled for one week from today. When I walked out of the guest room the next morning, Lorelei was already sorting through a cardboard box by the stairs. It was filled with the countless gifts Gideon had given me over the years. “Fiona,” she cooed, clutching a soft velvet throw pillow to her chest. “This is so comfortable. Gideon said I could have it.” I stared at the pillow. Three years ago, Gideon and I had found it at a flea market during a rare weekend trip. He had argued with the vendor for half an hour just to get it for me, eventually laughing as he tucked it into my arms, promising he would hold me just as tightly for the rest of his life. Now, as I looked at the handmade music box and the intricate wooden carvings he had crafted for me, the emotions attached to those memories felt as though they were being systematically extracted from my brain. “If you like it, keep it,” I said, my voice empty of cadence. “It’s all just old junk anyway.” I took my car keys and turned back toward the guest room. Gideon stepped into my path, blocking the doorway. “Fiona, what is wrong with you?” he demanded. “Before this, if Lorelei so much as looked at me, you would scream and fight with me for three days. Now I bring her into our home, and you don’t even have a single question?” I looked at him, finding the confusion on his face almost amusing. “Isn’t this exactly what you always wanted, Gideon? No fighting, no drama. Isn’t this better?” He stood frozen, unable to find a reply. I closed the door, shutting out his gaze. By the next morning, the moving truck was idling outside the villa. My belongings were packed into just two small boxes resting at my feet. Gideon emerged from the master bedroom, his face dark with fury when he saw the boxes. “Fiona, have you had your fun yet? Put your things back before I lose my temper.” The boy I had loved in my youth had become an unrecognizable shadow. I bent down to tape the box shut. “Let’s get a divorce, Gideon. I’ll have my lawyer mail the papers to your office in a few days.” Lorelei gasped dramatically from the hallway, though she couldn’t quite hide the spark of delight in her eyes. Gideon’s expression turned murderous. “What did you just say?” “I said, we are getting a divorce. I’ll send you the paperwork.” “Fiona, you’re getting bold, trying to threaten me with divorce,” he sneered, stepping closer. “It was just a ring. I already told you I would compensate you. What are you still throwing a tantrum for?” I met his anger with a long, hollow silence. Eventually, his patience snapped, and he slammed the front door as he left. With the sound of that slam, the details of his face seemed to blur even further in my mind. I realized I could no longer remember what his smile looked like. “We can go,” I told the mover. As the truck rolled down the driveway, I didn’t look back. My phone buzzed in my coat pocket. It was a text from Gideon. Be at the Grand Plaza Hotel at eight tonight. It’s Lorelei’s birthday. If you still want to keep your title as Mrs. Harrington, you will show up on time. I stared at the screen for a moment, then quietly blocked his number. Gideon, from this moment on, you are nothing but a stranger. That night, I scrolled past my friends’ social media posts showing updates from the party. It was a lavish affair, far grander than any anniversary or birthday Gideon had ever given me. In one video, he was down on one knee, presenting Lorelei with a massive bouquet of white roses. My best friend called me, crying on my behalf, furious at the injustice of it all. I listened to her sob, but my own chest remained light and hollow. The next afternoon, the head housekeeper of the Harrington estate called my temporary number, her voice tight with panic. “Fiona, please come to the manor immediately! Madam Beatrice has collapsed, and she keeps calling your name!” My mind immediately conjured the warm, gentle face of Gideon’s grandmother. She was the only person in that entire family who had ever treated me with genuine kindness, always holding my hand and telling me to come to her whenever I felt wronged. “I’m on my way,” I said, grabbing my coat. When I stepped into the grand parlor of the estate, the sound of Lorelei’s giggling echoed through the room. “Grandmother, Gideon flew this rare wellness tea in from abroad especially for you. Please try some.” Gideon sat on the adjacent sofa, looking bored. When he noticed me enter, his posture stiffened slightly, and his mouth curved into a familiar sneer. “So you finally decided to show up? I thought you were far too proud to care whether Grandmother lived or died.” Grandmother Beatrice looked up, a soft smile gracing her wrinkled face when she saw me. “Fiona, dear, come sit by me. I’m perfectly fine, just a slight spell of high blood pressure. Gideon was just overreacting and insisted on bringing you back here.” Lorelei chimed in, her tone dripping with sweet poison. “Yes, Fiona. Gideon was simply worried about Grandmother. But you’ve been so busy lately, you haven’t even had time to visit her.” She was clearly painting me as the unfilial, cold-hearted wife. In the past, I would have desperately tried to explain myself, sick with the fear of Gideon’s disapproval. Now, I merely offered a polite smile. “Since you have so much free time on your hands, Lorelei, perhaps you can fulfill those duties in my place.” Lorelei’s smile faltered, and she looked toward Gideon with wide, wounded eyes. “Gideon…” Gideon set his newspaper down, his gaze drilling into me. “Fiona, did you forget to take your medication today? Lorelei was only trying to help, and this is how you treat her?” I looked him dead in the eye. “My attitude is perfectly fine.” Grandmother Beatrice looked between us, her brow furrowing. “Gideon, Fiona, have you two been fighting?” “No, Grandmother,” Gideon lied smoothly. He stood up, grabbed my wrist, and dragged me out into the private garden. “You returned the secondary credit card, blocked my number, and now you won’t even show respect at the family estate?” he hissed, his voice trembling with suppressed rage. “Do you honestly think I won’t go through with a divorce? Have you forgotten about your brother lying in that hospital bed?” He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “Every single dollar of his medical bills comes from my family’s pocket. Without that money, he won’t survive three days.” He was entirely certain he held the leash. At the mention of my little brother, Toby, a sharp, localized pang of grief pierced through the numbness of my chest. It was a fleeting, agonizing reminder of the love I once felt. I looked up at him, and to his surprise, I let out a soft laugh. “Gideon, my brother died six months ago.” The smug triumph on his face froze, replaced by a sudden, chaotic panic. “What? Why wasn’t I told?” I stared at him, the last remnants of my affection evaporating into the autumn air. “Because you were busy watching the penguins in Antarctica with Lorelei. You don’t have to worry about my family anymore, Gideon. We are entirely even.” I took a step back. “We are done.” A rare flash of embarrassment crossed his face. “I’m… I’m sorry about your brother. I truly didn’t know.” “You only care about things that involve Lorelei,” I said. “You’ve never known anything about my life.” His jaw tightened, and his eyes darkened with a sudden, ugly suspicion. “Are you so determined to get this divorce because there is someone else?” The sheer insult of his words broke through my apathy. Before I could process the impulse, my hand swung out and delivered a sharp, resounding slap across his face. The sound cracked through the quiet garden. “I simply do not love you anymore,” I said. Gideon clutched his burning cheek, his eyes wide with utter disbelief. “That’s impossible. You loved me more than anything.” He was right. I had loved him once, with a desperation that consumed my entire youth. In the early days of our marriage, under Grandmother’s guidance, we had shared genuine happiness. He would bring home the pastries I casually mentioned wanting, and I would stay up all night cooking porridge for him whenever his stomach flared up. We had loved each other with a clumsy, earnest devotion. But every year, Lorelei would return, and every year, the scale would tip in her favor. His blatant, unapologetic preference for her slowly eroded every ounce of love I had to give. Ten years of devotion, systematically destroyed by a thousand quiet disappointments. Gideon remained standing in the garden, staring at me as if I were a stranger. “That was a long time ago,” I said, and walked away. The next afternoon, Gideon sat in his high-rise office, staring out at the San Francisco skyline. His secretary stood by his desk, speaking in a hesitant whisper. “Mr. Harrington, the real estate agent confirmed that Mrs. Harrington has officially listed her downtown apartment for sale.” Gideon’s hand clenched around his gold pen. “What else is she selling?” “All of the high-end jewelry and designer watches you gifted her over the years. She took them to a luxury consignment shop to be liquidated for cash.” Gideon snapped the pen in half, his face turning a dangerous shade of red. That evening, as I was drying my hair in my hotel room, my phone rang with an unrecognized number. I answered it, and Gideon’s furious voice boomed through the speaker. “Fiona, you are getting entirely out of hand. You dare to block my number?” I pulled the phone slightly away from my ear, keeping my voice level. “Is there something you need, Mr. Harrington?” The formal address seemed to strike him like a physical blow. The line went silent for a few seconds before he snarled, “What did you just call me? We are not divorced yet. I am still your husband!” “Not for much longer,” I said, and disconnected the call. A moment later, a text message arrived from another unknown number. Fiona, stop playing games. Gideon is already exhausted by your pathetic attempts to get his attention. Attached was a photo. In the image, Lorelei was wearing a silk nightgown, smiling sweetly at the camera as she curled into Gideon’s arm on a plush hotel bed. Gideon’s eyes were closed, seemingly asleep, though his brow was furrowed even in rest. A sudden knock sounded at my door. Thinking it was room service, I pulled the door open, only for Gideon to barge in, slamming the door behind him and pushing me back onto the bed. Before I could speak, he grabbed my hand and began violently shoving several diamond rings onto my fingers. “Fiona, what will it take to make you stop this?” he demanded, his voice cracking with a mixture of rage and desperation. He was trying to use these rings to erase the memory of the one he had given to Lorelei. When I didn’t answer, his eyes flared with anger, and he leaned down to kiss me. I gathered all my strength, wrenched my hands free, and struck him across the face again. He stumbled back, the anger in his eyes suddenly giving way to a profound, broken defeat. “My relationship with Lorelei is complicated,” he whispered, his head bowed. “I can’t just cut her out of my life completely. But she will never take your place as my wife. Why can’t you just accept that?” Before I could reply, his phone began to ring. It was Lorelei. Her tearful, whimpering voice was easily audible in the quiet room. “Gideon… where are you? My stomach hurts so badly…” Gideon looked at me, torn, before stepping toward the door. “I’ll be right there,” he murmured into the phone, and rushed out, leaving the scent of his expensive cologne lingering in the air. I quietly slipped the diamond rings off my fingers and listed them on a local resale app. The next day, the specialist at the clinic stared at my brain scans, letting out a long, heavy sigh. “If this progression continues, you will lose not only your emotional capacity but your cognitive memory as well,” the doctor warned. “While the condition isn’t fatal, it will make it incredibly difficult to live a normal life.” I offered a small smile, realizing that even the muscles in my face felt heavy and unresponsive. “That’s alright. Perhaps it’s for the best.” I took my bag of medication and walked out of the clinic. As I rounded the corner of the sterile hallway, I collided with someone. “Fiona? What are you doing here?” Gideon’s voice cut through the quiet corridor, dripping with immediate suspicion. Beside him stood Lorelei, wearing a hospital gown, looking pale and fragile. “Gideon, is Fiona sick?” Lorelei asked, bending down to reach for the pill bottle that had fallen from my hand. “It’s none of your concern,” I said, retrieving the bottle before she could touch it. Gideon’s expression darkened. “Fiona, are you tracking us now? Is there no limit to how low you’ll stoop?” I looked at him with absolute indifference. “I came here to see my doctor. I don’t have the time or the energy to follow you.” Gideon let out a harsh laugh, snatching the paper bag of medication from my hands. “You’re pretending to be ill just to get my attention. This is pathetic, Fiona. Stop dragging this out.” With a flick of his wrist, he tossed my medication into a nearby biohazard bin. “You disgust me.” As the bag hit the bottom of the bin, the last remaining memories of Gideon in my mind began to dissolve, turning into nothing but gray, lifeless smoke. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and walked away. A few days later, my attorney called. “Fiona, Mr. Harrington is refusing to sign the dissolution papers.” “I see,” I replied, staring at the IV drip in my arm. My memory was deteriorating much faster than the doctors had predicted. I was starting to forget simple things—where I had left my keys, what I had eaten for breakfast, the faces of casual acquaintances. As I sat in a quiet cafe downtown, staring at the cold latte in front of my hands, I realized I couldn’t remember when I had ordered it. The squeal of tires cut through my thoughts. Gideon strode into the cafe, grabbed me by the arm, and pulled me toward his car. “You’re coming with me to Grandmother’s birthday gala,” he commanded as the car sped onto the highway. “Her health is fragile. I won’t have you stressing her with talk of a divorce.” I didn’t argue. I didn’t have the energy to fight him. The Harrington manor was alight with grand decorations. Luxury cars lined the private drive, and the ballroom was packed with the city’s elite. As I walked in beside Gideon, whispering voices immediately rippled through the crowd. “Look, the wife actually showed up.” “I heard Gideon has been living with the Lorelei girl. I thought the wife would have been thrown out by now.” “It’s a complete mess.” I remained entirely untroubled by their whispers. Gideon, however, looked tense, his hand dropping to grip my waist in a performative display of unity. “Fiona, sweetheart, come here,” Grandmother Beatrice called from her seat at the head of the main table, waving me over. I walked over and handed her the gift Gideon’s assistant had prepared for me. “Happy birthday, Grandmother. I wish you many more years of health and happiness.” The elderly woman took my hand, her eyes shining with warmth. But before she could speak, a commotion at the entrance drew everyone’s attention. Lorelei stepped into the ballroom, holding a beautifully wrapped silk box. She walked directly to Grandmother Beatrice. “Happy birthday, Grandmother,” she said, her voice carrying across the quiet room. “I personally brought this rare herbal elixir from Switzerland for you. I hope it brings you strength.” Grandmother’s smile faded slightly, and she gave a polite, distant nod. “Thank you, Lorelei.” Lorelei’s jaw tightened slightly at the cold reception. She turned her gaze to me, her eyes sweeping over my simple black dress. “Fiona, you look lovely tonight. Did Gideon pick out that dress for you?” She was wearing a custom couture gown, clearly trying to highlight the stark contrast between us. “Lorelei, you aren’t fully recovered yet. Why did you come?” Gideon stepped forward, his arm immediately finding her waist, his voice filled with genuine concern. As Lorelei moved past me, her heel caught on the edge of the carpet. With a dramatic cry, she stumbled directly toward the grand champagne tower nearby. “Ah!” The delicate crystal tower began to collapse. Without a second thought, Gideon lunged forward, throwing his body over Lorelei to shield her from the falling glass. The heavy crystal glasses shattered over my head, drenching me in sticky champagne, the sharp shards slicing deep cuts into my exposed arms. “Fiona! Why did you push her?” Gideon roared, looking up from where he held Lorelei in his arms. But as his eyes fell on my bleeding arms and soaked dress, his anger faltered, replaced by a sudden flicker of guilt. He turned to the head housekeeper. “Get the medical kit! Clean her up!” The housekeeper rushed over with the kit, but I politely pushed her hands away. I turned to Grandmother Beatrice, offering a shallow bow. “Grandmother, I’m feeling slightly unwell. Please excuse me.” Grandmother looked at my bleeding arms and ruined dress, her eyes filled with deep sorrow. “Go, child. Go take care of your wounds. Have the driver take you.” “There’s no need,” I said quietly. “I’ll take a taxi.” Gideon tried to follow me as I walked toward the exit, but I reached into my bag, pulled out the thick brown envelope, and pressed it into his chest. “Goodbye, Gideon.” I walked out into the cool night air, leaving him behind. It wasn’t until I was sitting in the airport lounge, waiting for my flight to Finland, that I realized I had accidentally left my medical diagnosis files inside that brown envelope along with the divorce papers. I stared out the window at the dark tarmac. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered anymore. The engines roared to life, and the plane began its long ascent into the sky. Gideon, this is the last time we will ever exist in the same world.

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1 The day I got into Juilliard, the Sinclairs brought me home. Eleanor wept, promising to make up for lost years. Brent bought me a Maserati and enrolled me in the best driving school, vowing to drive me to college. The night before my road test, Ken, their foster son, stole the car and killed a man in a hit and run. Rachel squeezed my hand. “Austin, take the fall. His heart is weak. Prison will kill him.” Eleanor knelt, sobbing. “You can rebuild. Ken cannot.” Brent slid a pre-written confession over, promising freedom in six months. Gwen smashed the dashcam card. “I will wait for you.” I was sentenced to seven years. Ken wore Eleanor’s custom suit for my debut, flying to a European conservatory with Gwen waving beside him. On a damp autumn evening, I finished washing a Porsche Cayenne and handed over the keys. Gwen stood there, holding a five-year-old boy’s hand. “Austin, why didn’t you come find me? Still hate us?” I pushed the Venmo QR code toward her, not looking up. “That is eighty dollars. Scan, please. Card or Venmo?” She didn’t move. She simply stood with the boy just outside the muddy puddles of the washing bay. Her designer coat was pristine, completely out of place in this wet, gritty environment. The boy stared with wide eyes at the high-pressure water gun in my hand, while Gwen’s gaze drifted down to my cheap, water-stained rubber boots and plastic apron. “Austin, you shouldn’t have let yourself fall this low,” she said, her voice laced with disappointment. “Even if you are angry, you shouldn’t ruin your own future just to spite us.” I shut off the water pump, tossed the dirty rag into the bucket, and watched the murky water splash over my boots. “Do you want to scan the code, or should I call my manager?” Suddenly, the boy broke free from Gwen’s grip. He pointed at the glass cabinet behind the counter, shouting that he wanted to play with the old cello bow resting inside. Before I could stop him, he reached out to grab it. I lunged to intercept him, but the sudden movement tore at the old fracture in my wrist. A sharp, white-hot pain shot up my forearm. My fingers slipped, and the bow clattered onto the wet concrete. Gwen yanked the boy back, her eyes dropping to my exposed wrist. Under the harsh fluorescent light, the thick, jagged scar running across the bone looked monstrous. Her face drained of color. “What happened to your hand?” I pulled my sleeve down, hiding the scar, and bent to pick up the bow. “It has nothing to do with you.” Gwen frowned, her tone softening into that familiar, condescending pleading. “Austin, stop acting like this. The Sinclairs told me you were only supposed to be in there for six months. You chose to disappear for seven years just to make everyone feel guilty. Who are you trying to punish? Do you have any idea how sick Eleanor got because she thought you ran away?” My hands froze on the damp rag. Six months? I had spent seven grueling years in a concrete cell. Seven years of absolute hell, and to them, it was nothing but a childish tantrum. I wiped down the wet counter, my voice dead. “I didn’t run away. I’ve been working here.” Gwen’s expression darkened. “Ken hasn’t had an easy time either. He loses sleep every night because of his guilt. Just come back with me. If there are misunderstandings, we can sit down and talk them through.” She reached out to grab my arm. I took a sharp step back, avoiding her touch entirely. “The car is clean. Pay the bill and leave. Don’t block my station.” A soft chime sounded from my phone. The payment had gone through. I slung the rag over my shoulder. “Have a good evening, Gwen.” Ten minutes later, a black Audi sedan screeched to a halt by the curb. The door slammed open, and Rachel stepped out, her high heels clicking loudly against the wet pavement. She looked at the cheap neon sign of the car wash, then sneered at my face. “Austin, your mother is desperately ill in the hospital. How long do you plan on carrying out this ridiculous drama?” She didn’t ask how I was. She didn’t ask where I had been. She only stared at my stained apron and rubber boots with absolute disgust. “A Sinclair son washing cars for pocket change? You are dragging our family name through the mud. Pack your things and come home to apologize to Mom right now.” I threw the wet rag back into the bucket. The dirty water splashed onto the hem of her expensive trousers. “You have the wrong person,” I said quietly. “My name is Austin Reed. I am not a Sinclair.” Rachel’s jaw clenched, a vein throbbing at her temple. “Ken already apologized for what happened back then. Besides, you only spent six months in a low-security facility, and the family compensated you generously. You vanished without a word after you got out. Do you have any idea how long we’ve been looking for you?” Looking for me? A wave of nausea hit me so hard I nearly gagged. This city wasn’t that big. They didn’t even bother to check how long I had actually served, yet they had the audacity to claim they had been searching for me for seven years. The only person who had ever looked for me was my adoptive mother, Mary. Gwen sighed, attempting to play the peacemaker again. “Austin, Rachel is just worried. Your mother was admitted to the hospital again two days ago. No matter how resentful you are, you should at least go see her.” Rachel pulled out her phone, dialed a video call, and shoved the screen in front of my face. On the screen, Eleanor lay in a sterile hospital bed, her face pale and sunken. When she saw me, her eyes immediately filled with tears. “Austin, do I have to get on my knees and beg you to come home?” She clutched her chest, her voice trembling. “Do you know how many nightmares I’ve had about you? Even if you hate us for what happened, how could you be so cruel as to hide from your own mother for seven years?” I stared at her perfectly moisturized face. Seven years ago, when she knelt in front of me begging me to take Ken’s place, she had cried the exact same way. “Austin, say something,” Gwen urged. “Do you really have to make this so ugly?” I looked up, meeting their eyes. “What do you want me to say? That I should be grateful? That going to prison for Ken was a privilege granted to me by the grand Sinclair family?” Rachel’s face turned icy. “Don’t take that sarcastic tone with me.” I let out a soft laugh. “But you always loved it when I was agreeable, didn’t you? I used to say exactly what you wanted to hear.” The night of my welcome-home gala, Brent had insisted I perform a cello solo in front of all of Boston high society. He wanted to prove that his biological son was the true prodigy. I wore the custom tuxedo Eleanor had bought for me. I had practiced that piece for weeks, my fingers raw and blistered, just wanting to make them proud. But right before I was supposed to go on stage, I discovered someone had loosened the pegs of my cello and stolen my backup sheet music. Ken had walked into the dressing room, a bright, innocent smile on his face. He leaned in and whispered, “Do you really think you can just walk back into this family and take what’s mine?” I didn’t have time to confront him. I had to go on stage and play from memory. Midway through the performance, the tension in the damaged string snapped. The thick steel wire sliced deep into my finger, dripping blood onto my white shirt. I rushed backstage, holding my bleeding hand, wanting to demand answers from Ken. But he was already collapsed on the sofa, clutching his chest, weeping louder than I ever could. “Austin, I’m so sorry. I only wanted to help you tune your cello. Please don’t hate me for ruining your big night.” Eleanor had pushed past me, screaming for a doctor. Rachel had grabbed my shoulder and demanded I apologize. “You’ve been back for five minutes and you’re already bullying your brother? You know he has a weak heart!” Even Gwen, who had seen my hand dripping blood, pushed me down. “Austin, Ken is sick. Just let it go and apologize.” That was the night I learned that in the face of Ken’s tears, the truth meant absolutely nothing. No one cared about my bleeding fingers. They only cared that Ken was crying. Later, I overheard Ken yelling at a maid in the hallway. “As long as he is in this house, I am the outsider. I will make sure he never feels welcome.” When I confronted him, he screamed and threw himself down the stairs. Rachel didn’t even bother to look at the security cameras. She slapped me across the face so hard my lip split. “How can you be so vicious? He is sick!” That night, Gwen came to my room. She told me Ken was just insecure and that I should be the bigger person. “Austin,” Gwen said, cutting through my silence, her patience clearly wearing thin. “You pushed Ken so hard back then. He had to sneak away to Europe just to escape your shadow.” She looked at me as if I were a petulant child throwing a tantrum. “Can you please stop using the past to torture everyone?” Gwen honestly believed Ken was the victim. She had no idea that I was the one who had been pushed into an abyss. During my first year in prison, a guard looked the other way while an inmate broke my wrist with a heavy metal spoon in the cafeteria. The incident was swept under the rug as a common brawl, and I was thrown into solitary confinement for three days. Before the heavy steel door slammed shut, the inmate whispered in my ear, “Ken Sinclair sends his regards. He told me to make sure you were well taken care of.” Now, because of that shattered wrist, I could barely hold a coffee cup, let alone play the cello. Rachel took my silence as submission. “If you come home and apologize, the family will overlook your dramatic disappearance,” she said coldly. “Overlook it?” I looked down at the muddy water beneath my boots. Suddenly, I didn’t even have the energy to explain. They weren’t ignorant of the truth. They simply chose not to know. On the night before my final road test, a torrential storm was raging. Ken had stolen the keys to the Maserati Brent had bought for me. At three in the morning, he had stumbled back into the house, drenched in mud, sobbing that he had run someone over. Brent’s first reaction wasn’t to call an ambulance. He locked the front gates and threatened the staff to keep their mouths shut. Rachel had gripped my hand until my bones ached. “Austin, you are stronger than Ken. You have to take the blame.” Eleanor knelt on the floor, weeping hysterically. Brent pushed the written confession into my hands. “We have the best lawyers, Austin. It will be six months at most. I swear I will get you out.” I refused. I cried, telling them I was terrified, that my test was tomorrow, and my Juilliard classes started next month. Seeing my resistance, Ken clutched his chest and collapsed onto the sofa. The entire family rushed to his side, leaving me standing alone in the cold hallway. Gwen dragged me to the end of the corridor. Her eyes were filled with a desperate, suffocating devotion. “Austin, I will wait for you. It’s only six months. I’ll help you rebuild everything.” I clung to her coat like a drowning man grasping a straw. “The dashcam. There’s a camera in the car. It can prove I wasn’t driving!” Gwen was silent for a very long time, until the motion-sensor lights in the hallway flickered off, plunging us into darkness. “That camera,” she whispered, her voice barely audible, “will destroy Ken’s life.” I watched her walk out to the driveway, pull the memory card from the camera, and smash it with a heavy stone. The plastic shards scattered across the wet gravel. She walked back to me, wiped my tears, and said, “I love you. But this is the only way to save him.” I was so foolish back then. I actually believed six months would pass quickly. I believed they would keep their promise and bring me home. The day I was transported to the prison, the sky was a mockery of brilliant blue. Through the barred window of the transport van, I saw Ken dressing in my concert suit, getting into a luxury car bound for the airport. Gwen stood by the passenger door, smiling as she opened it for him. I pulled myself out of the memory and looked at Rachel and Gwen. “Are you finished?” I asked quietly. “If you are, get out of here. You’re dirtying my shop.” I turned, peeled off my wet apron, and walked toward the small, cramped room at the back of the car wash. Under my cot was a dusty cardboard box. It had been delivered to me by a stranger shortly after my adoptive mother passed away. I knelt down and peeled back the yellowing tape. Inside lay a neatly folded letter, a worn leather-bound journal, and a faded receipt from an auto repair shop. I opened the letter first. Austin, I never believed you were the one who ran that poor man down. You couldn’t even bear to step on an insect when you were a child. There is no way you would leave a human being to die in the street. The letter explained that after I went to prison, Mary never stopped looking for the truth. She visited the crash site, went to the hospital, and tracked down the repair shop. She had even knelt outside the Sinclair estate, begging for a copy of my court files. The Sinclairs had told her I was being well taken care of, and warned her that if she kept causing trouble, it would ruin my chances of early parole. She didn’t understand the law. She had no money or power. All she could do was use the simplest, most painstaking methods to record every discrepancy she could find. I folded the letter carefully and pressed it against my chest, my tears finally falling onto the old scar on my wrist. Over the next two days, after my shifts ended, I followed the addresses in Mary’s journal, searching for any scrap of evidence. On the third day, chaos descended upon the car wash. A rusted van screeched to a halt outside the bay. Several people wearing medical masks jumped out. The leader, a middle-aged woman, held up a blown-up newspaper clipping showing my mugshot from seven years ago. “Look at this man! He’s a murderer!” she shrieked, her voice drawing a crowd of onlookers instantly. “He ran my husband over and fled the scene! He only served a tiny fraction of his sentence because his family is rich! My husband is dead, and my children grew up without a father, while he works here as if nothing happened!” The crowd grew, murmuring in disgust. People pulled out their phones to record me. A bucket of dirty, foul-smelling water was thrown from the crowd, soaking my shoulder. A man in a black hoodie stepped out from the onlookers. He wore a mask, but I recognized his eyes instantly. Ken. He leaned in close, his voice a malicious whisper meant only for me. “You should have stayed dead, Austin. Look at you. Do you honestly think you have a place in the Sinclair family looking like this?” I stared at his retreating back, my fingers turning numb with cold. As the harassment continued, Cassie, the owner of the car wash, rushed out from the garage. She pulled me behind her, blocking the flying debris and the camera lenses with her own body. She pulled out her phone to call the police. “If you have a grievance, take it to the police station! Anyone who throws another thing is getting arrested for assault!” The screaming woman flinched but kept shouting, “He’s a killer! He killed my husband!” I held my wet collar and looked at her. “What was your husband’s name?” I asked. The woman hesitated. “What day did the accident happen? What was he wearing? Which hospital was he taken to? Who did he speak to before he died? Do you know any of those things?” She took a step back, unable to answer. At the edge of the crowd, Rachel’s Audi pulled up. Gwen got out first. She jogged over, her nose wrinkling at the sight of my stained clothes. She reached for me, but I stepped back. Her hand remained empty in the air, a flash of embarrassment crossing her face. “Austin, just apologize and lower your head,” she pleaded. “It’s natural for the victim’s family to be angry. You shouldn’t provoke them. If this gets out, it will ruin the Sinclair family’s reputation, and yours too.” I looked at her and laughed. Seven years ago, she told me Ken’s heart was too weak for prison and asked me to understand. Seven years later, she told me the victim’s family was grieving and asked me to bow my head. There was always someone else she needed to protect. And I was always the one who was expected to sacrifice. Eleanor arrived next, supported by Rachel. Her eyes were red and swollen. “Austin, if you just come home, our PR team will handle this mess. I promise no one will ever bring up this accident again.” I looked at her. “Handle it? Like you handled the dashcam seven years ago? Like you handled the court records? Like you handled your own son?” Eleanor’s face drained of color. Rachel took a step forward, whispering a harsh warning. “Austin, don’t let your petty resentment destroy the peace our family and Ken have built.” “Rachel,” I said, my voice dead calm. “Did Ken tell you I only served six months?” Rachel froze. Gwen’s brows furrowed, a flicker of confusion crossing her eyes. “What do you mean?” I didn’t answer. I walked back into the office and retrieved a thick folder from the bottom of my locker. The wail of sirens grew louder as two police officers pushed through the crowd, asking who had called. I raised my hand. “I did. There is a mob harassing my workplace, and I suspect someone has paid this woman to instigate this riot.” The woman screamed, “Officer, he’s a murderer! He ran my husband down!” I placed the folder on the hood of a nearby car in front of the officers. On top was my official release certificate from the state penitentiary. The paper was slightly wrinkled from the damp air, but the bold black ink was unmistakable: Seven Years Served. Gwen’s eyes fell on the paper, and the color vanished from her face. Rachel stared at the document, her lips parting, but no sound came out. “Officers,” I said, looking directly at the police. “I would like to file for a formal review of the vehicular manslaughter case from seven years ago.” “I was framed.” “And I have the evidence to prove it.”

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1 When my parents divorced, I was left as useless baggage on Gran’s doorstep. By four each morning, she’d drag me out to feed pigs, split wood, and scrub the drafty house. My hands were raw with chilblains and thick calluses. Dad, living comfortably in the city, kept promising to bring me over, but Gran locked me in my room like a lunatic. Buried in textbooks, I swore: the day I got into university, I’d leave and never look back. But on the day I planned to run to Dad’s, my phone buzzed with a strange email, dated exactly one year ahead. The attached video showed me, a year later, sobbing at Gran’s fresh grave. I stared, scowling at my reflection. “What are you crying for? The old hag’s gone. Pop champagne, don’t weep.” The girl on screen slapped herself, screaming, voice cracking. “Idiot! That loving dad? He remarried years ago—new wife, precious son. He wants you in the city to sell you to an old creep for a twenty-thousand-dollar dowry!” She gasped. “The grandmother you hated? She spent freezing nights digging through trash heaps, scraping pennies for your tuition! But the day you were to register for uni, she was shoved while stopping them from dragging you away. Hit her head. Never woke up.” Future-me stared, eyes swollen, choking back sobs. “Don’t trust him. If you get a second chance, save Gran. Give her the life she deserves.” I stood in the dim stairwell of my father’s apartment building, my heart hammering against my ribs. I was skeptical. My dad called me every month, his voice always dripping with affection. Could he really be planning to sell me? With trembling fingers, I dialed his number. The line clicked open. “Sylvia, sweetheart,” his voice was warm, almost too sweet. I swallowed hard, trying to keep my voice steady. “Dad, I’m almost at your place. I wanted to come see you.” He let out a delighted chuckle. “That’s wonderful! I’ll head out right now and buy all your favorite foods. Hurry on up, okay?” I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. It was all a mistake. The email was just a sick, twisted joke. But then, through the thin apartment door, a muffled voice drifted into the hallway. “Is that the daughter you were talking about?” a man’s gruff voice asked. “Sounds like a sweet thing. If we get this settled, the twenty thousand dollars is yours. Every single penny.” My blood turned to ice. Then came my father’s frantic whisper. “Keep your voice down! Just make sure you have the cash ready. Once she walks through that door, she isn’t escaping.” I took a sharp step back, my boot squeaking against the concrete. Panic tore through me. I turned and sprinted down the stairs like a hunted animal. When I finally burst out of the building, my stomach violently rebelled. I leaned against a rusted lamppost, dry-heaving until my throat burned. The raw, desperate screams from that future video echoed in my ears, louder than the city traffic. He was going to sell me. My own father was going to trade my life to secure a future for his new wife and son. With shaking legs, I boarded the overnight bus back to our rural town. Tears silently tracked down my face, freezing in the midnight air. It was three in the morning when I pushed open the creaking wooden gate of our yard. Gran’s house was dark, save for the single dim bulb hanging in the main room. I crept inside, my footsteps silent on the packed-dirt floor. Gran was crouching by the well. The water was near-freezing, and her hands were swollen, raw, and bleeding in places as she scrubbed a pile of salvaged scrap metal. She stopped every few seconds to cough, a deep, rattling sound that shook her frail frame. The scene hit me like a physical blow. The video, the cold numbers on a scrap paper, her tragic end: it was all real. A choked sob escaped my throat. Gran whirled around, her eyes wide. When she saw me, her expression instantly hardened into a scowl. She grabbed a dirty broom resting against the well, pointing it at me like a weapon. “You miserable brat!” she barked, though her voice cracked. “Where the hell have you been? Trying to sneak off to that deadbeat father of yours again?” She raised the broom high, but as her eyes swept over my tear-streaked face and blue lips, her hand froze. She lowered the broom, clicking her tongue in annoyance. “Get inside, you useless thing,” she muttered, turning back to the well. “There’s a cold sweet potato in the pot. Eat it and get back to your books.” I didn’t move toward the kitchen. Instead, I threw my arms around her bent, bony shoulders, burying my face in her rough, dirt-stained coat. Gran went completely rigid. “Gran, I’m sorry,” I wept, my tears soaking into the worn fabric. “I’m not leaving. I’ll never try to find him again. I’m going to study, I’m going to get into a great university.” I squeezed her tighter, feeling the sharp outline of her ribs. “Once I make it, I’m going to take you away from here. I’m going to give you a wonderful life.” Gran’s hands remained suspended in the air for a long moment. Finally, she let out a rough sigh and gave my back a clumsy, trembling pat. “Stop talking nonsense,” she mumbled, her voice surprisingly thick. “If you don’t pass those exams, I’ll break your legs.” Her words were harsh, but her touch was incredibly gentle. For the rest of the spring semester, I became a ghost in my own house, living only for my textbooks. I studied until my eyes burned and my fingers cramped. Gran still scolded me daily, complaining that I was too slow with my chores. But every night I fell asleep at my desk, I would wake up with her heavy wool coat draped over my shoulders. And every morning, a soft-boiled egg and a tube of cheap ointment for my cracked hands would be waiting next to my books. We lived in a silent truce, bound by an unvoiced understanding. Then, on a humid afternoon in April, Richard showed up. He brought two flashy boxes of cheap vitamins, and behind him stood his new wife, Vivian. She held a silk handkerchief over her nose, her eyes filled with disgust as she surveyed our crumbling yard. Richard spotted me scrubbing clothes by the tub. He immediately put on a warm, paternal smile and marched over. “Sylvia, look at you,” he said, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. “You’re skin and bones. What’s the point of a girl studying so hard anyway? I found a wonderful family for you in the city. The husband is a wealthy businessman. You’ll be living in luxury. We can finally be a real family again.” Looking at his eager, greedy eyes, a wave of intense nausea hit me. This businessman was the old creep who bought girls for twenty thousand dollars. I wrung out a wet shirt, keeping my voice cold and flat. “No, thank you. I want to take my exams first.” Richard’s smile faltered, but before he could snap, Vivian chimed in with a sharp sneer. “Oh, please. You really think you’re university material? Your father is trying to save you from a lifetime of shoveling dirt. Even if you manage to get into some low-rate college, how do you expect to pay for it? We certainly aren’t funding your little dream. We don’t have money to waste on a useless girl. Be smart and pack your bags.” The back door slammed open. “Keep your filthy mouth shut!” Gran roared. She charged out of the house, wielding a broom covered in chicken coop grime. Without a second thought, she swung it directly at Richard and Vivian. “Get out! Get the hell off my property!” “My granddaughter’s education is none of your business, you parasitic bastards!” Richard tried to duck, but the dirty bristles swiped across his expensive trousers, leaving a streak of filth. He went red, pointing a finger at Gran’s face. “You crazy old hag! Watch your step! I’m her legal father, and what I say goes!” Gran let out a harsh, mocking laugh. “Her father? You drove her poor mother to her grave, and now you want to sell her daughter? You miserable piece of trash. As long as I have breath in my lungs, you won’t touch a hair on her head!” She swung the broom again, striking Richard’s arm. Vivian shrieked, ducking behind him. “Keep acting tough, you old corpse!” Vivian yelled, her voice screeching across the yard. “Richard hasn’t sent you a single dollar of child support in five years! You think you can put her through college on the pennies you make selling trash? You’re delusional!” The world seemed to tilt beneath my feet. Five years without a single dollar? I stared at Gran in absolute shock. Gran didn’t look at me. Instead, she grabbed one of the vitamin boxes they had brought and threw it directly at Vivian’s head. “Get out! Get out before I get the pitchfork!” Richard scrambled backward, shielding his wife as they retreated to their car. Before slamming the door, he rolled down the window, his eyes dark with malice. “Fine! Let’s see how long you can feed her! When she’s starving, you’ll come crawling to me on your knees!” The car sped off, kicking up a cloud of red dust. The yard fell into a heavy silence. Gran dropped the broom, her chest heaving as she leaned heavily against the wooden doorframe. I walked over and gently touched her arm. “Gran, is it true? He hasn’t paid anything in five years?” She violently shook my hand off, her face twisting in anger. “That’s grown-up business! Get back to your room and study! If you don’t get into university, I’ll throw you out myself!” She turned and limped inside, her back more hunched than ever. That night, after her breathing turned slow and heavy, I quietly crept into her room and opened the bottom drawer of her wooden cabinet. There was no bankbook. Only a bundle of crumpled paper scraps and torn cigarette boxes, covered in crooked pencil marks. “June 6th: Sold scrap metal for two dollars fifty.” “July 10th: Sylvia’s practice exams, thirty dollars.” “October 5th: The pigs are growing well. There is hope for Sylvia’s tuition.” The very last entry, dated yesterday: “Sylvia is looking too thin. Go to the market tomorrow and buy half a pound of beef.” My tears fell silently, wetting the rough paper. She was killing herself to build a bridge for my future, just like the video had said. That was why she stayed up until dawn. That was why she never touched the eggs she prepared for me. Every single penny she scraped together was meant for my escape. I gripped the paper scraps tightly. I swore I would rewrite our story. I would make Richard pay, and I would give Gran the life she deserved. In June, just three days before the state exams, a massive storm hit the valley. The temperature plummeted, and I came down with a vicious fever of 103 degrees, shivering violently under my thin blankets. Gran stood over my bed, grumbling angrily. “Of all the times to get sick! You really are a curse on my life! I must have done something terrible to deserve you!” She slammed the door and went out into the pouring rain. I lay there, my joints aching, drifting in and out of consciousness. Hours later, I felt a damp presence by my bed. I opened my eyes. Gran was standing there, soaked to the skin, her clothes plastered with yellow mud. In her hands, she held a chipped ceramic bowl. Steam rose from a fresh bowl of chicken noodle soup, with a beautifully fried egg hidden beneath the surface. “Eat this,” she ordered, her voice hoarse. “And take these.” She set the bowl down and pulled out two boxes of fever medicine from her coat. They were wrapped in three layers of plastic bags, completely dry. My throat tightened. The nearest pharmacy was in the town five miles away. This frail old woman had walked ten miles through a torrential storm, risking her life on the muddy mountain roads, just to fetch me medicine. “Gran…” I whispered, my voice cracked. “Shut up and eat!” she snapped, turning away quickly. But I could see her shoulders trembling. The medicine broke my fever by morning. Three days later, I walked into the exam hall with a clear head. When the results came out, the entire county was in an uproar. I had scored in the top five of the state, securing the top spot in our district. Admissions officers from prestigious universities called our neighbor’s phone throughout the night. Gran did something she had never done before: she bought several rolls of firecrackers and set them off in the yard, filling the air with smoke and noise. She stood at the gate, handing out cheap candies to anyone who walked by. “My girl did it!” she beamed, her chest puffed out with pride. “She’s going to the big city! She’s going to be someone!” But the joy was short-lived. The following afternoon, our wooden gate was kicked off its hinges. Richard marched into the yard, followed by three burly men. “Well, aren’t you a clever little bitch, Sylvia?” he sneered, his eyes scanning the yard. “Mr. Henderson saw the news. He said since you’re the top scorer, he’ll raise the dowry to fifty thousand dollars! That’s enough to buy a nice apartment in the city for your brother Toby.” He waved his hand to the men. “Find her acceptance letter. Without that piece of paper, she can’t register anyway.” The men lunged toward the house, tossing chairs and tearing down shelves. “Stop it! You thieves!” Gran screamed, charging at them with a wooden cane. One of the thugs grunted in pain as she struck his leg. He whirled around and slapped her across the face with brutal force. Gran hit the floor, her lip split and bleeding. But even as she fell, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest. I noticed a bulge beneath her shirt: she had tucked my university acceptance letter inside her inner vest, keeping it safe against her skin. “Hand it over, you old corpse!” Richard yelled, stepping forward and grabbing Gran by her gray hair. Gran groaned, her eyes shut tight in pain. Vivian stood by the gate, holding her nose. “Richard, why are you wasting your breath on this old lunatic? Just grab the girl and let’s go. Toby is waiting at home for his new toys.” Richard nodded, releasing Gran’s hair and stepping toward me. Gran tried to crawl forward to grab his ankle, but she was too weak. I didn’t think. I sprinted into the kitchen, grabbed the heavy meat cleaver from the counter, and lunged back into the yard. “Get the hell back!” I screamed, holding the heavy blade with both hands, pointing it straight at Richard’s chest. My vision was red. I was shaking, but my grip on the handle was iron-clad. “Touch my grandmother again, and I swear to God I will gut you right here!” My voice carried a raw, murderous conviction that stopped the men in their tracks. Richard froze, his face going pale as he took two steps back. “You… you dare point a knife at your own father?” “Try me!” I snarled, stepping forward. “I would rather go to prison for murder than let you sell me. Get your dogs out of our yard right now, or I’ll start swinging.” The thugs exchanged uneasy glances. None of them wanted to risk getting hacked by a desperate teenager. Richard spat on the ground, trying to salvage his pride. “Fine! You want to play tough? Let’s see how long you can protect this old hag!” They scrambled back to their cars and sped away, leaving the yard in ruins. I dropped the cleaver, my knees giving out as I collapsed next to Gran, sobbing hysterically. Gran pulled me against her chest, her thin arms shaking as she held me close. It was the first time she had ever embraced me so tightly. “Don’t cry, Sylvia,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “Gran is here. Even if it kills me, I’ll get you out of these mountains.” Hearing my name from her lips for the first time, a strange sense of peace washed over my terror. I held her tight, and with my free hand, I pulled out my phone. I compiled the video from the future along with audio recordings of Richard’s threats and photos of Gran’s injuries, and sent them directly to the regional police and child protection services. It was time to end this. The monsters were going to pay. By late August, our backyard pigpen was empty. Gran had sold the two fat pigs we had raised all year. That evening, she sat on the edge of her creaking bed, a rusty needle in her hand, sewing beneath the dim bulb. Spread out on the blanket was a pile of crumpled small bills and a few crisp hundreds. “It’s twelve hundred dollars,” she murmured, folding the bills neatly and wrapping them in a piece of red cloth. Then, she took my old undershirt and began stitching the cloth pouch securely into the inner lining. “When you’re in the city, don’t go flashing your money,” she said without looking up, her voice thick. “Buy decent food. Wear what the city girls wear. Don’t let them look down on you because of where you come from.” I sat beside her, staring at her calloused, scarred hands. “Gran, once I get settled and find a part-time job, I’ll bring you to the city to live with me.” She snorted, clicking her tongue. “Who wants to live in the city? Go on your own. Once you’re gone, I’ll finally get some peace and quiet.” She was as stubborn as ever. But as she pulled the thread tight, I saw a single tear fall onto the red cloth, darkening the fabric. The next morning, we left before dawn to catch the long-distance bus to the provincial capital. If we could just get on that bus, we would be free. It was half-past three in the morning when we quietly slipped out of the yard. But as we reached the dirt road at the town entrance, three vans suddenly lurched out of the darkness, blocking our path. The doors slid open, and a dozen heavy-set men stepped out. Richard stood at the front, and beside him, Vivian was waving my official registry documents with a triumphant smirk. “Running away?” Richard sneered. “Did you really think getting into college meant you won, Sylvia? I used your legal documents to officially withdraw your registration at the university. You’re not enrolled anymore. You have nowhere to go but to Mr. Henderson.” With those few words, he shattered everything. The late nights, the frozen hands, the miles Gran had walked in the storm: all of it, wiped out by a stroke of a pen. Pure, unadulterated hatred flared in my chest. “You’re insane! This is kidnapping! It’s illegal!” “Kidnapping?” Richard laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. “A father arranging a marriage for his daughter? Even the sheriff won’t touch this. Grab her!” Two men stepped toward me. “Don’t you dare touch my girl!” Gran screamed. She dropped her worn canvas bag and hurled her frail body at the first man, her teeth sinking deep into his arm. “Ah! The old bitch bit me!” the man roared, violently throwing his arm back. Gran was flung to the ground, but she scrambled right back up, throwing herself in front of me. “Sylvia, run! Run to the highway!” Richard’s face twisted with rage. “Get this old pest out of my way! Now!” One of the thugs raised a heavy boot and kicked Gran squarely in the chest. A sickening thud echoed through the silent morning. Gran was thrown backward, her head striking a sharp, jagged rock on the side of the road. Blood, thick and dark, immediately pooled in the dirt. The sight of that crimson stain seared itself into my brain. Gran lay motionless in the mud, her eyes turning to me with a faint, fading light. Her lips moved slightly, making no sound, but I knew what she was saying: Run. “No! No! Please, God, no!” A choked, animalistic shriek tore from my throat. I fell to my knees, scrambling through the dirt to reach her. I pressed both hands against her head, trying to stop the blood, but it kept seeping through my fingers, warm and sticky. The horrific vision from the future had caught up to us. I gathered her rapidly cooling body into my arms, my world collapsing into absolute darkness. “Gran! Please! Gran!”

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1 On my birthday, my best friend gifted me an orange tabby. In the middle of the night, the cat actually looked at me, shook its head, and let out a heavy sigh. “She looks pretty, but how can someone be so clueless? Her best friend and boyfriend are literally stabbing her in the back, and she has no idea.” I thought my ears were playing tricks on me. I was just pulling my resignation letter out of my drawer, planning to quit my job with my best friend and go travel. “She’s busy resigning, while Vivian is busy plotting to steal her promotion and become the General Manager.” “Honestly, her boyfriend’s scheme is absolutely toxic.” “What a shame. The other neighborhood cats said this company is about to secure a ten-billion-dollar funding round. The future is gold.” The cat’s inner voice echoed in my head. My pen froze. I ripped the resignation letter to shreds. I barely threw the scraps into the trash before my best friend, Vivian, texted me. [Hey Naomi, let’s set our final day for next Monday!] She even attached a photo of her own signed resignation form. Right after, my boyfriend, Greg, texted: [Did you fill out the resignation form yet?] I stared at the screen, my mind blank. I couldn’t wrap my head around the betrayal. We grew up together. Vivian had always followed me around like a shadow. I treated her like a real sister. When she couldn’t find a job, I brought her into my firm, mentored her step-by-step, and even handed her my own clients. She used to shower me with public thank-yous. And Greg? He had been shouting that he’d marry me since we were kids. He confessed his feelings when we were eighteen, and we’d been together ever since. Nearly seven years. “That designer bag Greg got her for her birthday? It’s actually Vivian’s hand-me-down. There’s a mark on the inside.” “He’s been infatuated with Vivian since childhood.” The orange cat’s inner voice sounded again. I rushed to the closet, pulled out the leather purse, and inspected it under the light. Sure enough, etched into the bottom lining were three faint, scratched letters: V.W. Vivian Wright. Her initials. In that instant, the last thread of hope snapped. The love and friendship I had cherished so deeply were nothing but hollow, cheap illusions. “But hey, there’s a three-million-dollar lottery ticket hidden inside that bag’s serial number.” I whipped my head around. The orange cat hopped onto the windowsill, licked its paw, and muttered to itself: “The big white Persian at the pet shop said the brand is running a serial-number sweepstakes. The winning number matches this exact bag.” “Greg didn’t leave his phone number at the store.” “There are only three days left to claim it!” I shook off my shock, scrolled frantically through my chat history with Greg, and found the address of the boutique. I’d claim it right after work tomorrow. Previously, Greg had suggested I pay the one-million-dollar down payment on a house, and he’d handle the monthly mortgage. Now? I didn’t need him. I could buy the whole damn place in cash. Suddenly, my phone buzzed. Greg’s contact photo lit up. “Hey Naomi, you asleep? Why aren’t you replying to me and Viv?” “Did you finish the resignation letter? Viv says Hawaii is incredible. I already booked the tickets for next week. You can’t back out now.” Everything was always about Vivian. He used to explain it away by saying, “We’re a couple, Naomi. Viv is all on her own. We should look out for her and let her have her way sometimes.” I had trusted them blindly. “I just finished it. I was in the shower,” I lied smoothly. “Awesome! We’re finally going to make our childhood dream of traveling the world come true!” He chuckled. “Get some sleep. Love you forever, babe.” His voice was as sweet and gentle as ever, like he was soothing a child. In the past, those late-night sweet nothings would have warmed my heart. Now, they made bile rise in my throat. From this moment on, I wouldn’t waste a single second of my life on decayed love or rotten friendship. The next morning, I arrived at the office parking lot half an hour early. As soon as I parked, I spotted two familiar figures. Greg was leaning down, kissing Vivian’s forehead. “You worked hard last night, beautiful,” he murmured, his voice dripping with affection. “Oh, please. I work hard every night,” Vivian giggled, swatting his chest. “You’re like a wild animal, always trying to devour me.” My hands clenched the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white. They were sleeping together. Every single night. “By the way,” Vivian asked, leaning against him, “is it really okay to trick Naomi into quitting?” “Hey, it’s a dog-eat-dog world,” Greg smirked, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Besides, Naomi is tough. She’ll find another job in no time. She’s too sentimental to hold a grudge against you anyway. Once we get married, I’ll use her money to pamper you.” Chills ran down my spine. This was the man who promised to love me forever. He was more venomous than a viper. Thank god for my telepathic tabby. It wasn’t too late. I didn’t storm out to confront them. Instead, I quietly recorded a video on my phone, waited in my car for another ten minutes, and then headed up to the office. “Naomi!” Vivian was waiting right by my desk, a beaming smile on her face. She grabbed my arm. “Let’s go hand in our resignations to the boss.” I didn’t resist. I was going to play my part in this little theater. At Mr. Henderson’s office door, Vivian slapped her forehead. “Oh, shoot! Naomi, I think I left my resignation letter at my desk. Go on in first, I’ll go grab it.” “Sure,” I said with a nod. As I walked in, I heard her let out a quiet sigh of relief. She thought her little trap had sprung perfectly. Mr. Henderson welcomed me warmly. “I heard a rumor you were thinking of leaving us, Naomi. Don’t tell me this is a resignation letter?” So Vivian had already started spreading rumors to pave her way to the top. “Of course not,” I replied, shaking my head. I handed him a sleek leather folder. Inside was not a resignation, but a groundbreaking marketing proposal for our upcoming product launch. Mr. Henderson read through it, nodding with growing enthusiasm. “This is brilliant, Naomi! Absolutely brilliant. Run with it.” “Also, the Marketing Director position has been vacant. The board just finalized the decision to promote you. The official announcement goes out next Monday.” “If this campaign blows up, the final Executive VP slot is yours, along with company shares.” “Thank you, Mr. Henderson. I won’t let you down,” I said, my heart racing. Leaving his office, I felt a wave of adrenaline mixed with sheer relief. If it weren’t for my cat, I would have thrown my career down the drain. Vivian and Greg would have laughed behind my back while stepping all over me. I returned to my office. Vivian used the excuse of delivering files to slip inside. “So, Naomi, what did Mr. Henderson say?” “Not much,” I said, keeping my face neutral. “Wow, he didn’t even try to keep you?” Vivian pouted, but her eyes danced with triumph. I let her enjoy her little fantasy. That evening, Greg was waiting in the parking lot. Vivian naturally slid into the passenger seat, casually resting her legs on the dashboard, showing off her thighs without a care in the world. In the past, I thought it was just childhood-friend comfort. Now, I noticed Greg’s eyes constantly darting to her legs with pure lust. “Naomi,” Greg smiled, turning back to me. “Viv says there’s a new hotpot place down the street. I sent you the address. Let’s go.” “You guys go ahead. I have things to do,” I replied coldly. Greg blinked, surprised. “Come on, whatever it is can wait. Dinner with Viv is a priority.” “Yeah, Naomi! If you don’t come, you’re not a real friend!” Vivian whined. In the past, I would have given in. Now, it just felt like cheap emotional blackmail. “No thanks. Family emergency.” I didn’t care about their reactions. I got into my car and drove straight to the luxury boutique. “Hello, could you please check if this serial number has won the sweepstakes?” The clerk took the bag, ran the number, and beamed. “Congratulations, ma’am! You’ve won the grand prize of three million dollars. Please step this way.” In less than a minute, the paperwork was done. A text notification buzzed on my phone: $2.7 million had cleared into my account after taxes. Knowing the store would display a promotional banner next week, I knew Greg and Vivian would find out soon. I immediately called a real estate agent and bought the luxury riverfront penthouse I’d been eyeing for months. Paid in full. After securing the deed, I went home and sat down with my parents. When they heard about the betrayal, they were shocked but stood firmly by my side, urging me to handle it my way. Just as we finished dinner, my phone buzzed. Greg and Vivian had added me to a group chat. Vivian sent a playful voice note: [Naomi, since you ditched us for dinner, you’re paying the bill!] Greg followed up immediately: [It’s not much, just $3,888. Just Venmo it to me.] Normally, I would have paid to keep the peace. This time, I ignored it and went to take a shower. By the time I got out, the group chat had over 99 unread messages. Vivian: [Naomi? Why aren’t you answering?] Greg: [It’s been ten minutes. The waiter is waiting.] Vivian: [Wow, I guess our friendship doesn’t mean much to you anymore.] Greg: [Seriously, Naomi, you’re being so petty. Whatever, we’ll pay it ourselves!] Only then did I reply: [Just got out of the shower.] Nobody replied. In the past, I would have sent them each a thousand-dollar digital red envelope to make up for it. What an idiot I had been. I gave my cat some freeze-dried treats and sat down at my laptop. I needed to perfect the marketing plan for Monday’s pitch. The orange cat hopped onto the desk, staring at the screen. “The office cats say the big boss loves pets but tries to act all tough and professional. He’s been wishing someone would pitch a pet-themed marketing campaign.” A spark of inspiration hit me. I immediately rewrote the strategy, weaving in a brilliant pet-friendly angle. I worked through the night. Just as dawn broke, Greg called. “Naomi, you were way out of line yesterday. Ditching the bill like that really hurt Viv. She actually cried. I heard she wanted a designer necklace at the mall. Why don’t you buy it for her to make peace?” I almost laughed out loud. He really was taking the “spend Naomi’s money to pamper Vivian” rule to heart. “It’s for the sake of our group,” Greg continued. “Just pay for it, Viv will be happy, and I won’t be mad at you anymore.” If I were still blind, I would have felt guilty. But now, I just felt disgust. “I worked all night and I’m exhausted,” I said flatly. “Go check it out yourself.” “Great!” Greg chirped, assuming I was agreeing to pay, and hung up. Vivian immediately texted: [Naomi, you’re the absolute best! I’m not mad at you anymore. Love you, xoxo!] I ignored it and fell asleep. When I woke up in the evening, my screen was filled with more texts. Vivian: [I found a better one! It’s $188,000. Buy this one for me instead!] Greg: [Since you didn’t say no, we’ll assume it’s a yes. Viv put it on an installment plan, you can just go pay it off next week.] Vivian: [No interest if paid within a month! Don’t forget, Naomi!] She even posted a photo of the necklace on her Instagram, naturally omitting who paid for it. The comments were flooded with jealousy. When someone asked if she got a massive raise, she replied: [Oh, it’s nothing major!] Greg commented: [My girl is the best.] The cheek of it. I only wore a thousand-dollar necklace, and Vivian casually swiped my imaginary credit card for a $188k piece. But I didn’t say a word. I wanted to see how Vivian, who lived paycheck to paycheck, would handle the bill when I refused to pay. Monday morning arrived. Vivian walked into the office wearing the glittering $188,000 diamond necklace. She deliberately raised her voice so everyone could hear. “Naomi, do you like it?” “It’s beautiful,” I smiled. The other colleagues crowded around. “Oh my god, Vivian, how much was that?” “Just $188,000,” Vivian smirked, secretly squeezing my hand, signaling me to keep quiet and play along. “Wow! $188,000? Vivian, I had no idea you were so loaded!” “I wish I had your talent.” “Naomi, look at your friend, and look at you. She’s really outshining you now.” “Exactly. Naomi brought her into the company, but Vivian is the one wearing a house on her neck. Naomi has nothing.” They gossiped and compared us. Vivian didn’t defend me; she just bathed in the praise. I simply smiled. “Alright, quiet down everyone!” Mr. Henderson walked into the department. “I am here to announce the new Marketing Director.” Vivian’s grin widened, her eyes gleaming with anticipation. She was practically vibrating. The colleagues all looked at her, expecting her name to be called since the rumor of my resignation was widespread. Mr. Henderson turned to me. “Effective today, Naomi Stone is our new Marketing Director.” Vivian’s smile instantly shattered. She whipped her head toward me, her eyes wide with absolute shock.

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1 When I hit rock bottom, I sold myself into a marriage of convenience. Upon hearing the news, my younger sister cried her eyes out, telling me a man’s dignity was worth more than all the money in the world. I just rolled my eyes at her. “It is time to cash in on that dignity.” Fortunately, Victoria kept her end of the bargain after we tied the knot. She treated both me and my sister incredibly well. Naturally, I played my part to perfection. At the corporate office, I was her flawless executive assistant. At home, I was her attentive, reliable house husband. As for her private life, I never asked a single question. I truly thought we would spend the rest of our lives in this quiet, transactional peace. Until the third year of our marriage, when the one that got away finally returned from abroad. It was a Sunday. I was scrubbing the hardwood floors in the living room when my mother in law and father in law walked in, trailing a strange man behind them. Margaret did not even spare me a glance. She bypassed me completely and made a beeline for Victoria. “Victoria, look who I brought back for you!” She shoved the man forward like he was a grand prize. Seeing him, Victoria froze. Her usually stoic, icy expression cracked for a fraction of a second. The man smiled, his tone dripping with intimate familiarity. “Long time no see, Victoria.” I observed Victoria carefully. She maintained her composure, but the flicker in her eyes betrayed her. When she remained silent, the man did not miss a beat. He turned his attention directly to me. “You must be Dante. It is an absolute pleasure to meet you.” I leaned against my mop handle and straightened my posture. “Really?” “Tell me, how much of a pleasure is it, exactly?” He clearly did not expect me to go entirely off script. He stood there, frozen in awkward silence. I took the opportunity to size him up. Wire rimmed glasses, decent looking, with a polished, academic vibe. But there was an unmistakable cunning glint in his eyes. I knew his type entirely too well. He was a perfect gentleman on the surface, but absolute poison underneath. The kind of sleazebag who would sell you broken glass and swear on his mother’s grave it was a flawless diamond. Seeing me completely disrespect her golden boy, Margaret glared at me furiously. “Dante, where are your manners? Do you not see Ridley trying to shake your hand?” I glanced at Ridley’s hand, which was still awkwardly suspended in the air, and gripped my mop tighter. “My hands are full, Margaret.” With that, I ignored them and went back to scrubbing the floor. Margaret exploded, screaming insults at my back, but I tuned her out entirely. Eventually, Arthur pulled me into the kitchen to defuse the situation. “Let them catch up. You and I can get dinner started.” I actually had no issues with my father in law. Like me, he had married into the family wealth. Technically, we were brothers in arms. Arthur closed the kitchen door tight and lowered his voice to a hushed whisper. “Dante, you need to watch your back with Ridley.” “He is Victoria’s childhood sweetheart. Her first love. Your mother in law absolutely adores him.” I narrowed my eyes. No wonder the guy walked in here like he owned the place. So this was the legendary one that got away. “Why did they break up in the first place?” Arthur sighed heavily. “Youthful stubbornness, mostly. When they graduated college, Ridley wanted to move abroad, and Victoria needed to stay and inherit the family empire.” “Neither of them was willing to compromise, so they walked away angry.” I nodded slowly. That definitely sounded like the Victoria I knew. In the five years we had known each other, I had never seen her bow her head to anyone. “So what is he doing here today?” Arthur rolled his eyes at me. “Are you dense?” “He stepped off the plane and came straight here before even dropping his bags at home. What do you think he wants? He is here to steal your wife.” I clicked my tongue. If any other trophy husband were in this position, they might just swallow their pride and endure it. But I refused to back down. Even knowing that the destructive power of a first love rivaled a nuclear bomb, I had my own reasons to hold my ground. 2 Once dinner was served, Margaret eagerly pulled Ridley to the dining table. Victoria sat directly across from them. Noticing Victoria kept her distance, Ridley smiled warmly at Margaret. “Actually, I think I will sit next to Victoria.” Margaret playfully patted his arm. “You are exactly the same as you were back then, always wanting to be glued to her side. Go on.” I was not about to let that happen. I ripped off my apron, practically sprinted to the table, and planted myself firmly in the chair right beside my wife. Victoria gave me a look of pure bewilderment at my blatant territorial display, but she kept her mouth shut. Since Victoria did not kick me away, Ridley had no choice but to awkwardly sit back down next to Margaret. Margaret rolled her eyes so hard I thought they might get stuck in her skull. I feigned absolute innocence. “Are your eyes bothering you, Margaret? Should I fetch you some eye drops?” Her face turned an ugly shade of purple as she let out a loud, dramatic scoff. Arthur shot me a warning glare while gently patting his wife’s back to keep her from hyperventilating. Perhaps fearing I would actually give her mother a heart attack, Victoria cleared her throat. “Let us just eat.” Throughout the meal, Victoria and I ate in silence while Margaret and Ridley whispered conspiratorially. Seeing that Victoria and I were not exchanging a single word, Ridley clearly thought he saw an opening. “Victoria, try the garlic shrimp. It is fantastic.” “Have some of this broccoli too, it is great for your health.” Within minutes, he had piled a small mountain of food onto Victoria’s plate. She frowned deeply and placed her silverware down. “Ridley, you know I do not eat food that has been touched by someone else’s utensils.” I was practically doing cartwheels in my head. This idiot was completely out of practice. He was trying so hard to kiss up to her, but completely missed the mark. Seeing Ridley’s mortification, Margaret immediately jumped to his rescue. “Victoria, you were never like this before! Have you forgotten how Ridley always used to serve you food when you were younger?” Victoria completely ignored her mother. She turned her head slightly toward me. “Hubby, get me a piece of those ribs. I cannot reach them.” Hearing her call me that sent a jolt of pure satisfaction straight to my core. I immediately picked up a tender rib and fed it directly into her mouth. Margaret completely lost her mind. “Victoria, what is the meaning of this?!” “Ridley serves you food, and it is contaminated.” “Dante serves you food, and you eat it right out of his hand?!” Victoria’s brows knitted together. “Is there a problem?” Ridley could not hold back anymore. “Did you not just say you hate eating food touched by other people?” Victoria stared at him with freezing indifference. “Dante is my husband. He is not other people.” Absolute perfection. In our three years of marriage, this was the very first time she had defended me so fiercely. Even if I was just a pawn she was using to spite her ex, I gladly accepted the role. Ridley’s face darkened, his eyes glaring daggers at me. “Did you cook all of this, Dante?” I stayed silent, waiting for the punchline. “It is decent, I suppose. You make an adequate stay at home husband.” Margaret snorted. “If he could not even handle basic chores, I would have thrown him out on the street years ago.” Ridley waved his hands in mock humility. “Now, do not say that. Finding a willing, live in maid is not easy these days.” “I really should thank him for taking such good care of Victoria while I was gone.” Margaret nodded in vehement agreement. “You are entirely right.” I ignored their pathetic little duet, keeping my peripheral vision locked entirely on Victoria. She had put her utensils down entirely, her eyes locked onto her mother and Ridley in absolute disgust. 3 Sensing Victoria’s intense glare, Ridley offered a weak laugh. “Just making a joke, Dante. You are not offended, are you?” I let out a cold, sharp laugh. “Your jokes are almost as laughable as your face.” That struck a massive nerve. “What did you just say about my face?” Before I could even open my mouth, Victoria let out a genuine chuckle. It was a sound completely devoid of warmth. It was pure, unadulterated mockery. Margaret slammed her hand onto the mahogany table. “What exactly is so funny, Victoria?” Victoria dabbed the corners of her mouth with a linen napkin, her voice terrifyingly calm. “When someone is genuinely attractive and you call them ugly, they never get angry.” “Because they know you are just projecting your own insecurities.” “But when someone is actually ugly, and you point it out, they lose their minds.” “Because they know you are telling the absolute truth.” I burst into genuine laughter. Even Arthur had to cover his mouth to hide his amusement. A stoic person delivering a deadpan insult was utterly lethal. To be entirely fair, Ridley was not a bad looking guy. But compared to my near flawless genetics, he did not stand a chance. Furious and utterly humiliated, Ridley grabbed his coat and stormed out without another word. The parasite was finally gone. We happily resumed our dinner, leaving Margaret to stew in her own toxic rage. After dessert, Margaret dragged Victoria into the study. Arthur and I cleared the table. I could not hide my smug grin. “Honestly, Arthur, if that is the legendary first love, I am incredibly underwhelmed.” Arthur’s expression turned grim. “Do not get cocky, Dante.” “Ridley is her first love. Do you have any idea how much weight that carries?” His words hit me like a bucket of ice water, completely sobering me up. He was right. Who ever truly forgets their first love? Even after years of silence, there is always a lingering ghost in the back of the mind. The road ahead was going to be brutal. When Victoria finally emerged from the study, she looked exhausted. After her parents left, she collapsed onto the velvet sofa, rubbing her temples. “Dante, do not bother coming into the office tomorrow.” “I need to go out with Ridley.” I agreed instantly. “Sounds good. I wanted to visit the hospital tomorrow anyway to see Sophie.” She looked up, clearly caught off guard. “You are not even going to ask where Ridley and I are going?” I shook my head. “We set the rules when we got married. I do not interfere in your private life.” She let out a sharp, frustrated breath and marched straight to the master bedroom, slamming the door shut. She was clearly angry. I freely admit that after three years of marriage, I still had absolutely no idea how to navigate her erratic moods. 4 When I woke up the next morning, Victoria was already gone. After forcing down a quick breakfast, I drove straight to the medical center. Lying in her stark white bed, Sophie looked up at me with tear filled eyes. “Dante, my legs hurt.” A heavy weight dropped in my stomach. The phantom limb pain was back. “It is okay, sweetie. The pain will go away soon.” Sophie immediately dropped the pitiful act, her eyes widening in mock terror. “Wait, you are not planning to pull the plug on me, are you?! Never mind, I feel completely fine now!” I glared at her, but a laugh slipped out anyway. She had always been a chaotic, bright spark of energy. If it had not been for that catastrophic car crash three years ago that paralyzed her from the chest down, she would be thriving on a college campus right now. After calling the specialist in and adjusting her medication, the color finally returned to her cheeks. “So, I heard the CEO’s golden boy is back in town.” “Are you going to be out of a job?” Of course, she never missed an opportunity to roast me. I gave her a stern look. “Are you hoping I get fired?” “Because if I lose this gig, what happens to you? I will have to drag you out to the sidewalk so we can beg on a street corner.” Sophie pictured the melodramatic scene and let out a bright, infectious laugh. “You better kiss up to your wife, then. Give her the absolute best service.” “Our entire financial future rests on your ability to be a trophy husband.” We joked around for another hour. Just as I was gathering my things to leave, the door swung open. Victoria and Ridley walked into the room. Seeing the two of them together, Sophie’s smile vanished. She turned her head toward the window, completely ignoring them. I gently patted her shoulder until she reluctantly muttered a quiet greeting to Victoria. Victoria walked up to the bed, gently brushing a stray lock of hair from Sophie’s forehead. “Ridley heard about what happened to you and insisted on stopping by.” I gave him a stiff nod. “Thanks for your concern.” Ridley placed a generic fruit basket on the table and leaned over the bed, inspecting Sophie like she was a science experiment. “I saw plenty of paralyzed patients while I was living in Europe.” “The medical bills and the round the clock care are astronomically expensive.” “Dante, this facility cannot be cheap.” Victoria’s face instantly hardened into stone. I narrowed my eyes at him. “What is your point?” Ridley pretended not to notice my hostility and kept talking. “My point is, if Victoria is the one footing this massive bill, you are an incredibly pathetic excuse for a man.” “You cannot even afford to keep your own sister alive.” I shot a panicked look at Sophie. Her eyes were already turning red. When she first found out I had sold myself into a marriage of convenience to pay her medical bills, she had begged the doctors to stop her treatments. Victoria and I spent weeks convincing her to stay alive. Now, with the topic of money thrown directly in her face, I knew she was silently suffocating. Victoria suddenly stood up, her voice sharp. “Ridley, we are leaving. We have business to attend to.” Without waiting for a response, she grabbed his arm and practically dragged him out of the room. Once they were gone, I spent an hour desperately trying to comfort my sister. It took everything she had to force a weak, unconvincing smile. “I am fine, Dante. Do not worry about me.” “You should go home and get some rest.” After making absolute sure she was stable, I left the hospital. That evening, Victoria called to say she was busy and told me not to wait up. I did not ask what she was doing. But after hanging up, the intrusive thoughts consumed me. Was she with Ridley? What were they doing right now? Eventually, I laughed at my own pathetic paranoia. I was just a contract husband. I had absolutely no right to monitor her life. I forced myself to go to sleep. In the dead of night, a violent, suffocating panic jolted me awake. I touched my chest. Cold sweat clung to my skin like a second layer. When my phone began ringing in the silent darkness, a wave of pure dread washed over me. I dropped the phone and drove to the hospital like a madman, my mind completely detached from reality. It was not until I stood in the freezing morgue, staring at Sophie’s pale, lifeless face, that I realized it was not a nightmare. “I am so sorry. By the time the night nurse found her, it was too late.” The head doctor’s apologies faded into a muffled buzz. My eyes were locked onto the life support tubing she still gripped in her rigid hand. My stupid, brave little sister. How much agony did she endure when she ripped those out of her own body? I packed up her belongings in total, crushing silence. A massive, gaping void had carved itself into my chest. I could not tell if it was pure grief, or a terrifying sense of relief. Three years. Over a thousand days trapped in a broken body. She must have been so incredibly tired of existing like that. I understood now. Her relentless optimism and laughter were nothing but a shield to protect me from her pain. But I was selfish. I just wanted my only remaining family member to stay tethered to this earth, no matter the cost. Now, she was finally free. It was a mercy. After burying her ashes next to our parents, I returned to the empty house. I sat alone on the velvet sofa, my thumbs gently tracing the cracked screen of her phone. With trembling hands, I typed in the passcode. It was my birthday. It had never changed. I opened her voice memos, clicked on the final unsent recording, and finally broke down. “See? I knew you would cry. I always win.” “Dante, I am going away now. Do not blame yourself, and do not carry this guilt. You are the greatest brother in the world.” “I have a secret. Mom and Dad visited me in my dreams last night.” “They asked me if we still had a home.” “I told them yes. I told them we still had each other.” “Dante, I did not want to leave you. But I refuse to be selfish anymore. If I stay, I will drag you down until you drown.” “Go live the life you actually want to live.” “You do not have to be a trophy husband anymore. You do not have to be a caretaker anymore.” The recording played on an endless loop as the oxygen slowly abandoned my lungs. When the sun finally crested the horizon, I buried my grief, grabbed my keys, and drove to the corporate office. It was time to end this.

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1 To mark our thousandth day together, I wrote Benjamin a love song for the senior graduation gala. The first letters of each chorus line spelled a hidden message. Benjamin and Chloe, together forever. Eager to rehearse, I went to the music room and stopped outside the half-open door. Benjamin held my best friend Nika in his arms, teaching her my song. His eyes held a tenderness I had never seen directed at me. This song only has soul if you sing it, he whispered. Soon the setlist changed. Nika became the lead singer, and her name replaced mine as songwriter. Benjamin’s voice over the phone was gentle. Nika needs this to prove herself. Let her have the credit. Do not be petty about a name on a screen. I rubbed the finger my guitar strings had bloodied and smiled. Okay. That night, Benjamin held Nika’s hand on the glowing stage for their duet. I sat alone in the dark auditorium corner, listening to them sing my song with my hidden name inside it. As the final piano chord echoed, I blocked Benjamin everywhere. … “Chloe, are you seriously just going to sit there and let them steal your song?” My roommate, Sarah, slammed her phone onto my desk. The screen was looping the official livestream of the graduation gala. Benjamin was holding Nika’s hand under the spotlight. The massive LED screen behind them clearly displayed the credits: Lyrics and Composition by Nika. I didn’t look up. I quietly pulled out my backup in-ear monitors. The blood drawn by the steel guitar strings had already dried into dark scabs on my fingertips. I took a wet wipe and carefully cleaned the metallic stains off the edges of the wire. “Say something!” Sarah was so frantic she physically spun my chair around to face her. “You stayed up till 3 AM for two weeks straight! Your fingers are literally bleeding! And you just hand it over on a silver platter?” “What right does Nika have to sing that? She can’t even read sheet music!” I dropped the bloody wipe into the trash can. “The gala is over.” “Over? So you’re just going to let it go?!” Sarah’s eyes were wide with disbelief. “That was supposed to be your one-thousand-day anniversary gift to him!” I reached over and woke up my laptop screen. The final, master audio file I was supposed to send to Benjamin was still sitting on my desktop. The file name was Day One Thousand. I gripped the mouse, right-clicked, and hit rename. The clicking of the keyboard was razor-sharp in the dead-silent dorm room. The file name changed to Trash. I stared down at the deep cut on my right index finger. I got that cut practicing the key change in the third verse of the chorus. The transition I rewrote seventeen times before it was perfect. Benjamin never once asked me which part of the song was the hardest to write. He only asked if he could let Nika try singing it. I pulled open my desk drawer and took out a small, black velvet box. This was the physical gift I had prepared for our anniversary. Inside was the handwritten sheet music, a custom guitar pick engraved with our initials, and a battered lyric notebook filled with crossed-out lines and frantic scribbles. I shoved the box, along with my acoustic guitar, into the absolute back of my closet. Suddenly, my phone vibrated against the desk. It was an unknown number. I hit accept but didn’t say a word. Benjamin’s exasperated sigh came through the speaker. “Chloe, did you seriously block my number?” I stared blankly at the closed closet door. My voice was incredibly light. “Do you need something?” “Stop throwing a tantrum.” Benjamin groaned. “The gala is over. Take me off your block list.” He didn’t ask why I blocked him. He didn’t ask how it felt to sit in the dark and watch him hold another girl. He just assumed I was being a drama queen. “We can talk about the credits later.” “Nika started crying the second we got off stage. She feels really guilty about taking your song.” “You blocking me is just making her feel worse.” A sudden, hollow laugh escaped my throat. “She feels guilty? So you borrowed someone else’s phone to call me, just so I can comfort her?” Benjamin paused. “Chloe, you never used to be this toxic.” “We’ve been together for a thousand days. Can’t you show just a little bit of grace?” “Nika has always had self-esteem issues. She desperately needed this validation.” “You’re already a top student. Losing one song isn’t going to affect your career.” He spoke with such absolute entitlement. As if the nights I didn’t sleep and the blood I bled were just loose change he could hand out to charity. I asked him a very quiet question. “Benjamin, when you were teaching her the chorus, did you know how many times I had to rewrite that melody?” Dead silence on the other end. I didn’t wait for him to formulate a lie. I hung up. I added the unknown number to the block list. Sarah looked at me, her eyes completely red. “Chloe, if you need to cry, just cry.” I shook my head. “I’m not crying.” Crying over people who trampled my bleeding heart into the dirt was a waste of time. I stayed up the entire night, meticulously backing up every single audio file, lyric sheet, and voice memo from the last six months into a heavily encrypted hard drive. At 2:00 AM, Nika sent me a text. “Chloe, are you asleep?” “I know what happened tonight wasn’t fair to you. It’s totally okay if you’re mad at me.” “We’ve been best friends for so long, and I’ve always been so jealous of how you just shine on stage. Just think of this as you doing a favor for your bestie.” “Could you just post a quick status on your socials saying you voluntarily gave me the song?” I stared at the words voluntarily gave me. My thumb hovered over the keyboard for three seconds. I didn’t reply. I locked the screen. The next morning, the second I stepped out of the dorm building, Benjamin blocked my path. He was wearing a crisp white button-down. His eyes were bloodshot. “Chloe.” He stepped directly in front of me, refusing to let me pass. “The video from the gala is going viral on campus. If we change the credits back to your name now, it’s going to ruin Nika’s reputation.” “Just… don’t go running your mouth to people, okay?” I looked up at his handsome, entirely unapologetic face. “Run my mouth about what?” “That I wrote my own song?” Benjamin sighed heavily, reaching out to grab my wrist. I took a sharp step back, completely avoiding his touch. His hand froze in mid-air. His face darkened. “Yes, you wrote the lyrics. But without my arrangement and production, it never would have sounded that good last night.” “Nika’s voice is objectively a better fit for the track.” “You barely ever perform live. You have no stage presence. You wouldn’t know how to handle a crowd that size.” “I made a professional call for the sake of the music.” He was meticulously stripping away my blood, sweat, and tears, dividing the credit entirely between himself and Nika. My voice was dead calm. “So when she texted me last night asking me to publicly sign away my rights, that was your idea too?” Benjamin didn’t deny it. “Just post the statement and we can all move on.” “A thousand days together, Chloe. Can’t you just trust me on this?” I laughed. “A thousand days.” “Benjamin, do you even remember what that song was supposed to commemorate?” He flinched, his eyes darting away from mine. “Of course I do.” “If you remember, how could you look me in the eye and put another girl’s name on it?” I stared dead into his pupils. “I’m not writing a statement.” I stepped around him and walked straight toward the lecture hall. Benjamin yelled my name across the quad. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t have any classes that afternoon. I walked straight to the university’s professional recording studio. I had gotten a text from Liam, a senior composition major and the head engineer of the studio. A month ago, I had recorded the very first, raw acoustic demo of Day One Thousand in this exact booth. Liam was in the next room running cables. He heard the entire thing. Last night, he had sent me a voice note. “The song from the gala. That was yours, wasn’t it?” I had replied: Yes. He responded immediately. “I knew it.” “Benjamin overproduced it. He layered way too much synthetic garbage over a track that was supposed to be acoustic and raw.” “Nika’s vocals are too breathy. She doesn’t have the emotional depth to anchor your lyrics.” “The Annual Indie Music Showcase submissions open next week.” “If you’re down, I’ll help you track the real version. The way it was supposed to sound.” I pushed the heavy, soundproof door open. Liam was sitting at the massive mixing console, a pair of studio headphones clamped over his ears. When he saw me, he slid the headphones down to his neck and kicked a rolling chair in my direction. “Sit.” He slid a manila folder across the console. “Registration forms for the Indie Showcase.” “Have you decided?” I looked down at the blank fields on the paper. Benjamin told me I had no stage presence. Nika told me she desperately needed the validation. They both told me to step aside and disappear. I picked up the black pen off the console. In the Original Artist field, for the very first time in my life, I didn’t hesitate. I pressed the ink into the paper and wrote my name. Chloe. Liam slid the form back and filed it away. “What title are we submitting?” “Still going with ‘Day One Thousand’?” “No.” I looked at Liam, my voice hollow. “That song is tainted.” “I’m writing a new one.” Liam’s hand paused over the file cabinet. He didn’t ask why. He didn’t tell me I should fight to take back what was stolen. He simply dropped the form into the folder and closed the drawer. “You can fight to clear your name, and you can start completely over.” “Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.” I nodded. When I finally walked out of the studio, the sun had already set. As I passed the practice rooms on the second floor, my feet suddenly stopped. A door was cracked open. The familiar piano intro of Day One Thousand was drifting out into the hallway. “Soften up on the transition here,” Benjamin’s voice echoed from the room. “Nika, your emotion was good last night, but we need it to hit harder.” “If we want to win the Indie Showcase next week, we have to polish this until it’s flawless.” I stood alone in the dark corridor, my fingernails digging into my palms. They didn’t just steal it for the gala. They were taking my song into the biggest competition of the year. I didn’t push the door open. I didn’t scream at them. I just stood there for a long moment, then turned and walked away. The next morning, the Indie Showcase group chat was absolutely exploding. Someone posted a screenshot of Nika’s official submission. “Wait, she’s entering ‘Day One Thousand’?” “The song that went viral last night? Bro, she’s guaranteed to win.” A minute later, someone else noticed my name on the roster. “Hold up. Chloe entered too?” “Can she even sing?” “I’ve literally never seen her on a stage.” I locked my phone screen and opened my blank composition notebook. At noon, when I walked into the cafeteria, Benjamin intercepted me. His brow was furrowed in heavy frustration. “Are you seriously entering the Showcase?” I held my plastic lunch tray, looking at him with dead eyes. “Is it against the rules?” “Chloe, you can’t just write a song out of spite,” Benjamin hissed, lowering his voice so people wouldn’t stare. “Without me producing your tracks, your acoustic stuff is way too weak for a professional stage.” I looked at him. “Benjamin.” “I am not writing music to make you feel bad.” “When I’m creating art, you don’t even have the right to exist in my head.” Benjamin froze. He had never heard me speak to him with absolute zero respect. Just then, Nika walked out of the food line. Seeing the tension, her eyes immediately welled up with tears as she hurried over. “Chloe.” Her voice was trembling, small and fragile. “If you’re really that mad at me, I can withdraw from the Showcase. I won’t sing ‘Day One Thousand’.” She kept her eyes glued to the floor, playing the ultimate victim. But I saw her fingers reach down and lightly tug on the edge of her skirt. It was her silent signal. The physical cue she always used because she knew Benjamin would instantly jump in to defend her. Right on cue, Benjamin stepped firmly between us, shielding her from me. “Nika is already offering to back out. What more do you want?” “I rearranged the entire track. It represents Nika’s artistic vision now.” “Stop acting like a bitter ex and let it go.” I looked at the two of them. One stole from me with absolute entitlement, the other defended the thief with absolute arrogance. “Don’t withdraw.” My tone was completely flat. “Sing it all you want.” Without another word, I walked around them and found an empty table. For the next four days, I practically lived inside the vocal booth. Liam manned the console, adjusting my levels and listening to the raw cuts. “You have a bad habit with your melodies,” he noted, leaning back in his leather chair. “Right before the chorus peaks, you always pull back.” “It’s exactly how you act in real life. You want to scream, but at the last second, you swallow it.” I stared at him through the soundproof glass, staying totally silent. “Don’t swallow it this time.” Liam pushed the master fader all the way up. “Let it rip.” Three days later, the master track was finished. I exported the audio file and saved it to the studio desktop. Liam glanced at the monitor. The file name was just five words. The Moon Doesn’t Wait. Two days before the preliminary rounds, a massive thread blew up on the campus forum. INSANE DRAMA AT THE INDIE SHOWCASE! Is Chloe trying to leech off Nika’s fame? The post went viral instantly. The original poster attached screenshots from the gala and the Showcase roster, breaking it down like a conspiracy theorist. “Nika obviously wrote ‘Day One Thousand.’ The live performance was legendary.” “Chloe suddenly entering the competition is definitely just her throwing a toxic fit because Benjamin dumped her.” “I heard she’s writing an original. Probably just going to rip off Nika’s acoustic style.” The comment section was a literal bloodbath. “Imagine having zero talent and trying to leech off the popular girl.” “Nika is way too nice. She wrote a masterpiece and now her psycho ex-bestie is trying to drag her down.” I stood in the dark hallway outside the studio, the harsh blue light of my phone screen illuminating my face. The vicious comments felt like needles sliding into my ribs. I locked the phone, gripping it so hard my knuckles turned white. I stared at the glowing exit sign at the end of the hall for a very, very long time. I didn’t push the heavy studio door open until my hands finally stopped shaking. Liam was patching cables. He stopped when he saw my face. “You saw the forum?” I nodded. “Keep rolling.” I walked straight to the condenser mic and pulled the headphones over my ears. In my pocket, my phone vibrated. It was a text from Benjamin. “I saw the thread on the forum.” “Stop causing drama. Nika saw the comments and she’s literally having a panic attack.” He knew exactly who wrote the song. He knew the absolute truth. And he chose to let the entire school publicly execute my character. I typed back. “Did you write the post?” Benjamin replied instantly. “I have nothing to do with that post.” “But the reality is, the production of that song was a collaborative effort.” “There’s no reason to let a cyberbullying mob attack Nika over this.” “You can compete, but leave ‘Day One Thousand’ out of it.” “The song is out in the world. Dragging this out is completely pointless.” Collaborative effort. Completely pointless. With a few keystrokes, he effortlessly erased my existence. That afternoon, my academic advisor called me. “Chloe, I need you in my office. We’re launching an official review of the songwriting credits for the Showcase.” I packed my bag to head over. Liam stopped me before I hit the door. “Don’t try to prove you wrote it by crying or screaming,” he said, his dark eyes absolutely steady. “Use the evidence.” When I walked into the advisor’s office, Benjamin and Nika were already sitting on the leather couch. Nika was quietly sobbing into a tissue. Benjamin was rubbing her back, glaring at me. The advisor tapped his pen against his desk. “Have a seat, Chloe.” “Regarding the dispute over ‘Day One Thousand,’ the university requires an official resolution before the Showcase.” Nika choked out a sob. “Professor, I swear I didn’t know Chloe cared this much.” “Benjamin gave me the song. He promised me Chloe had agreed to let me sing it. I would never have performed it otherwise.” Benjamin immediately stepped in to protect her. “Professor, this whole thing is just a toxic misunderstanding.” “Yes, Chloe was involved in drafting some of the early lyrics. But the entire post-production, the instrumental arrangement, and the actual stage performance were built entirely by me and Nika.” “Who wrote the original draft doesn’t even matter anymore.” The advisor looked at me over his glasses. “Chloe. Do you have a response?” I looked at Benjamin and Nika. “I do.” I pulled a massive, encrypted external hard drive out of my bag and dropped it onto the glass desk. “This drive contains every single second of the developmental process for that track.” Benjamin’s face visibly tightened. “Chloe, are you seriously going to humiliate everyone over this?” I ignored him entirely and looked toward the door. Liam pushed the door open and walked in. He placed a printed, timestamped log onto the advisor’s desk. “Professor. My name is Liam, Head Engineer of the campus studio.” “A month ago, Chloe booked booth three to track the original acoustic demo of this song. I was patching the main board next door.” He looked dead at Benjamin. “I pulled the raw, unedited vocal stems from the server.” The advisor plugged my hard drive into his iMac and double-clicked the first audio file. My raw, unedited voice filled the office. It was a rough cut. But the core melody, the acoustic progression, and the emotional build of the chorus were absolutely identical to the song Nika performed at the gala. “File two is a high-res scan of her original handwritten lyrics.” “File three contains the metadata and timestamp of the first ProTools session.” The advisor scrolled through the files, his brow furrowing deeper with every click. Benjamin’s jaw clenched tight. “This only proves she made a demo!” he argued aggressively. “The post-production edits—” “The post-production edits were just you swapping out four chords,” I cut him off sharply. Benjamin had chopped up the intro and rearranged some of the phrasing. The official subtitles at the gala were a jumbled mess of lyrics that barely made sense. But my original handwritten sheet? I hadn’t moved a single syllable. “Benjamin, you didn’t even notice the acrostic poem hidden in the chorus. And you have the nerve to sit here and claim this song is your masterpiece?” Benjamin froze, looking totally blindsided. “What acrostic poem?” I looked at him, feeling a sudden, intense wave of sheer disgust. “Look at the scanned lyric sheet on the monitor.” The advisor maximized the image on the iMac. I stared at Benjamin, reciting the first letter of every single line in the original chorus. “Just when the wind loses its way.” “Under the silent, heavy gray.” “Leaving the dark without a trace.” “I’ll wait for you in this empty space.” “And when the stars begin to fall.” “Nothing will matter to me at all.” “And you’ll be the one to hear my call.” “Nothing can break this, we’ll stand tall.” “Deep in the night, the shadows fade.” “Chasing the light we finally made.” “Holding on tight, we won’t be swayed.” “Leaving behind the fears we laid.” “Over the mountains, far away.” “Endless horizons where we play.” “Together forever, come what may.” I stared dead into his eyes, my voice absolute ice. “Put the first letter of every line together.” “It spells: BENJAMIN AND CHLOE TOGETHER.”

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1 Another rejection from a sports broadcasting job crushed what little confidence I had left. I went to Hans, my boyfriend and a fitness coach, desperate for help. He smirked dismissively at the bar. “Sienna, you’re already this heavy. What’s the point of losing it now? Just give the opportunity to Bella.” Bella was his best friend, petite and perfect. I was larger, weighed down further by steroids from an illness, a solid thirty pounds heavier. Hans turned cold when I stayed. “I’m busy. Bella’s waiting for her seventh nutrition plan. If you want to lose weight, stop bothering me. The internet’s full of trainers.” He pulled out his phone and posted in their group chat: Looking for a trainer to help my girlfriend drop thirty pounds of pure fat. Bidding capped at five bucks. Bella saw the screen and laughed hysterically, spinning to raise her glass to the bar. “Live auction! Thirty pounds of pure, unadulterated fat from Hans’s girl! Bidding starts at fifty cents!” Laughter erupted, but no bids came. My cheeks burned, wishing the floor would swallow me. As I turned to flee, a young man in the dim corner stood up. His baseball cap was pulled low, but he raised a silent, commanding hand—bidding the maximum price. The bar fell dead silent. Under the shocked gazes of everyone present, the man walked straight up to me. He took my phone from my trembling hands and typed in a string of numbers. “Add my number. My name is Sebastian.” As he leaned down, the neon lights caught the angles of his face. He was breathtakingly handsome, with a jawline carved from marble and eyes that held absolute focus. Before I could even process what had happened, Sebastian handed my phone back and walked out of the bar. I accepted his friend request. A message popped up in the chat almost immediately. “What is your current weight?” I bit my lip, tasting copper, and typed out the brutal truth. “One hundred and forty pounds. I just got dropped from a sports commentator audition because they said I was too big for the camera.” He replied the second my message delivered. “You look to be around five foot seven. Based on your BMI, you are entirely within the standard healthy range. You are not fat.” Not fat? I stared at the screen, completely frozen. Ever since I was put on those hormone medications a year ago, my weight had spiked. And the moment the numbers on the scale changed, Hans started making comments. “Is it really that hard to just lose a little weight? Look at Bella. She barely weighs anything. You are seriously embarrassing me, Sienna. If you do not drop the weight, I am done with you.” Over time, his words became my reality. I truly believed I was morbidly obese and entirely beyond saving. My phone buzzed again. Sebastian had sent another text. “If you need to be camera ready, I can help you cut body fat and sculpt your physique.” “Tomorrow morning, ten o’clock. 67 Oakwood Avenue. Ignite Fitness, third floor.” Hans leaned over my shoulder, catching a glimpse of the glowing screen. Seeing the words Ignite Fitness, he let out a loud, mocking snort. “Of course he is a gym rat. He is probably trying to lure you in with a free trial session. Once he is done sweet talking you, he is going to bleed you dry charging by the hour.” I placed my phone face down on the sticky table and said absolutely nothing. Hans shook his head, rolling his eyes as he went back to peeling shrimp for Bella. Noticing the weird looks they were getting from the next table, Bella raised a defiant eyebrow. “What are you looking at? My boy here has always been this attentive.” Hans smiled fondly, feeding the peeled shrimp directly into her mouth. “Stop talking and just eat.” Bella giggled, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. “You guys have no idea. I used to be such a picky eater when we were kids. Hans literally spoon fed me until I gained weight.” Watching them, a specific memory violently forced its way into my mind. Last year, the three of us went hiking and got stranded on a trail for nearly five days due to a storm. I had not eaten in three days. I was weak, dizzy, and starving. And I watched Hans take my very last emergency protein bar and hand it directly to Bella. When I looked at him in sheer disbelief, he defended himself with perfect confidence. “You have plenty of extra weight anyway. Starving for a bit is the perfect diet for you.” My chest felt like it had been smashed with a sledgehammer. It hurt. It really hurt. My phone vibrated again. Another text from Sebastian. “Do not come on an empty stomach tomorrow. Protein intake is crucial for women during a fat loss phase.” Before I could even type a reply, my work group chat exploded with notifications. [Tagging everyone. The head office is organizing a Varsity Soccer Championship in three months. The sales department needs to nominate one female commentator. Pay is three grand a day. The CEO of the company will be attending in person.] The chat instantly went wild. However, Bella and I were the only two women in the entire sales department. Colleagues immediately started chiming in, saying that if Bella went on camera, she would definitely make our branch look incredible. Bella sent a voice memo to the group, her tone laced with fake humility. “Oh stop it you guys! Something like this definitely needs to be a fair competition.” Someone instantly replied. “It is already a done deal, what is there to compete over? Sienna definitely would not dare to sign up!” “Exactly! The camera adds ten pounds anyway. Why would our little chubby girl want to humiliate herself on national television?” “This represents the face of our entire branch! Sienna absolutely cannot do it!” My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. I had already missed out on the World Cup qualifiers. Now there was this varsity league. But whatever confidence I possessed had been slowly chipped away by countless rejections. Right at that moment, Sebastian’s text illuminated my screen. “Forgot to mention. A great commentator relies on professional knowledge, not just a pretty face.” Those words echoed in my mind for three entire days. After agonizing over it, I finally filled out the application form. When Hans found out, he lost his mind trying to talk me out of it. I ignored him, burying my head in soccer statistics and player data. Seeing that his anger was not working, Hans softened his voice, trying a different tactic. “Just withdraw the application, okay? Be good. I promise I will personally take you to the gym. How about that?” I shook my head, my voice completely devoid of emotion. “No need. I already booked a private coach.” Hans’s eye twitched violently. “A private coach? Do not tell me it is that random meathead from the bar?” I nodded simply. “He is far more professional than you. And his physique is significantly better than yours.” With that, I grabbed my gym bag and walked out the door. Hans’s furious, disbelieving roar echoed through the apartment. “He is just a brainless gorilla! You train with him, you are just going to get bulkier and fatter!” His words reminded me of the time he supposedly tried to help me lose weight. He drove his car at a crawling pace, blasting the air conditioning, while forcing me to jog behind him under the scorching summer sun like a stray dog. Twelve miles. I ran until my knees were destroyed, until the pain kept me tossing and turning in agony all night. When I told him I was in pain, he called me dramatic. He said if I did not want to put in the work, I should just stay fat forever. We had been together for eight years. Yet he could never remember that I was deathly allergic to shellfish, or that my favorite food was spicy braised beef. But he knew with crystal clarity that Bella only ate her steaks medium well, and that she absolutely adored seafood. When I arrived at the gym, Sebastian skipped the small talk entirely. He handed me a physical assessment form. “Step on the scale. Let us check your body fat percentage.” The monitor displayed twenty eight percent. He glanced at it, his tone completely neutral. “Target is around twenty two percent. Three months is more than enough time.” After a ten minute warm up, he led me straight into the free weight section. He started me on the lightest dumbbells, teaching me the mechanics of squats and deadlifts. He manually corrected my posture, placing his hands firmly on my back to show me exactly which muscles should be firing. After every single set, he made me face the mirror to watch my movement trajectory. “Having a larger frame is actually a massive advantage. You have a larger surface area for muscle attachment. Once you lean out, your natural curves and muscle definition are going to look stunning.” I gritted my teeth and pushed through four grueling sets. By the end of it, my thighs were trembling violently uncontrollably. When the session was finally over, I collapsed onto the rubber floor, completely out of breath. Sebastian tossed a clean set of athletic wear right onto my lap. “Change into these. I am taking you somewhere.” He led me out the back doors of the fitness center to an indoor five a side soccer pitch. Ever since I started dating Hans, I had never stepped foot on a pitch again. He hated the sport, so I gave it up. Seeing the green turf, a dark, suffocating corner of my heart suddenly felt like it was finally breathing again. At three in the afternoon, my phone rang. It was Hans. “Sienna, come home early today. Bella is craving garlic butter shrimp.” I looked down at the faded burn scar on the back of my hand, a permanent reminder of the last time I cooked that dish for her. For the very first time, I realized none of this was worth it. In the past, as long as seeing them happy brought some semblance of peace, I did not care about the burns or the effort. But today, my voice was like ice. “I am cutting calories, so I am not eating dinner. If she wants shrimp, she can cook it herself. Or you can cook it for her.” Hans paused, completely taken aback. “But Bella has lost weight recently. Can you not just take care of her a little bit?” I gripped the phone tightly, enunciating every single word. “I am not her mother. Why exactly is it my job to take care of her?” Furious, Hans hung up on me. He did not come home that night. A full week later, he finally texted to say he was temporarily staying at a buddy’s place. Half a month later, I scrolled past Bella’s social media and saw a photo of her laundry rack. Hanging right in the center was Hans’s underwear. Perhaps the physical toll of the body recomposition was just too intense. Because looking at that photo, I was so exhausted I could not even muster a single drop of anger. A month into training, I had dropped five pounds. It was a historic milestone for me. I excitedly took a mirror selfie and posted it online, specifically tagging Hans. Three hours later, Hans, who never interacted with my posts, left a single comment. “That is it?” He had absolutely no idea how much sweat, nausea, and sheer willpower went into those five pounds. But checking my notifications, I realized Sebastian had liked the photo the very second I posted it. Just as I opened our chat to thank him, a message popped up. “There is a small reward hanging on your door handle. After you eat it, remember to do an extra set of squats.” I opened my front door and found a tiny, four inch gourmet cake waiting in a beautifully wrapped box. My nose stung, tears threatening to spill. For years, sweet treats were the only way I knew how to comfort myself when I felt worthless. But Hans always treated it like a sin, calling me a glutton with zero self control. Three months passed in a blur of sweat, aching muscles, and relentless discipline. I did not drop down to a hundred pounds. But looking in the mirror, my body looked vastly different. I looked stronger, curvier, and infinitely more radiant than I ever did when I was desperately starving myself. The day of the final commentator audition arrived. I tore through my closet but could not find a single piece of clothing that fit my new proportions. Everything hung off me like a potato sack. As panic started to set in, the doorbell rang. A courier handed me a stunning bouquet of fresh flowers and a sleek black gift box. The card simply read Happy Birthday. Signed, Sebastian. His handwriting was sharp, elegant, and entirely pleasing to the eye. I opened the box to find a classic, beautifully tailored black dress that perfectly matched my aesthetic. I slipped it on. It fit like a second skin, accentuating curves I did not even know I had. I had stopped celebrating my birthdays ever since I started gaining weight. Because Hans told me birthdays were just an excuse to eat massive dinners and cake, which would only make me fatter and more repulsive. But who wrote the rule that birthdays could not just be about beautiful flowers and thoughtful gifts? I checked my messages. The last time Hans spoke to me was exactly three months ago. I let out a self deprecating chuckle, grabbed my bag, and walked out the door. When I arrived at the company lobby, I was just about to step into the elevator when a very familiar voice called out from behind. “Hey gorgeous, hold the elevator!” I turned around. And locked eyes with a sweating, out of breath Hans. We had not seen each other in nearly three months. It made sense he did not immediately recognize me from the back. The range of emotions that crossed his face was cinematic. Shock. Confusion. Awe. Eventually, the undeniable absolute stun in his eyes morphed into a dry, awkward sentence. “Sienna. Why the hell are you dressed up like that for no reason?” I did not even look at him. My voice was utterly detached. “I have an audition today.” The elevator doors opened on the top floor. The moment I stepped out, I saw Bella standing by the water cooler, her eyes brimming with dramatic tears. “Hans, it is a disaster! I feel like my face looks so swollen today!” Hans immediately rushed over, wrapping an arm around her shoulder to coddle her. “Nonsense, you are perfect. It is just water retention. Later I will have Sienna make you some detox soup, and I will give you a facial massage before bed. I promise you will look flawless on camera.” I stood rooted to the spot. All I wanted to do was laugh. During the years my medication made me gain weight, I used to cry out of sheer frustration too. But back then, Hans told me I deserved it. He said I had no self control, and that it was completely natural for me to look like a pig. It turned out he was never lacking in gentleness. He was not just some clueless, emotionally stunted guy who did not know how to comfort women. His patience and his attention were just never meant for me. When my name was finally called for the audition, my palms were sweating profusely. My phone screen suddenly lit up. It was Sebastian. “Do not be afraid. You understand the game better than anyone else in that building. Own your confidence. You earned this.” I took a deep, grounding breath and pushed open the heavy oak doors. …… When the audition ended, I walked out of the corporate building and immediately spotted Hans’s car idling by the curb. He rolled down the window, his expression painfully awkward. “Get in. Let us go home.” We dated for eight years. Despite his office being less than a five minute drive from mine, he had never once picked me up from work. He always had excuses. Too much traffic, too busy, too tired. I could barely remember them all. But the real reason started when Bella complained about taking the subway. The very next day, Hans became her dedicated personal chauffeur. When I expressed how unfair that was, he told me I should walk home anyway, treating it as mandatory cardio. I glanced at the training schedule Sebastian had just texted me and shook my head dismissively. “No thanks. I have a private training session.” The very afternoon I received the official email confirming I got the commentator position, my phone started ringing off the hook. It was Hans. The second I answered, he started screaming at me. “This is all your fault! You triggered Bella’s anxiety! Can you just give the commentator spot to her? You owe her that much!” His tone was exactly the same as always. A blatant, uncompromising demand. But why the hell should I? I gripped my phone tightly, a cold laugh escaping my throat. “I won that spot with my own abilities. Why would I ever give it up?” “Sienna, it is just a stupid broadcasting gig! What are you even fighting for? Bella is fragile, she needs a win. Can you not have a shred of empathy?” Hans’s voice was dripping with absolute disgust and impatience. I bit the inside of my cheek hard and replied without a second of hesitation. “No. And Hans, we are done. We are breaking up.” Complete silence fell over the other end of the line for several agonizing seconds. Followed immediately by a venomous accusation. “Break up? Sienna, are you sleeping with that meathead trainer?” A loud ringing echoed in my ears. A chill shot straight from the base of my spine to the top of my head. The very next morning, before the sun even rose, violently loud knocking woke me up. The moment I opened the door, my mother started screaming in my face. “What kind of decent girl puts her face on television for men to gawk at?! How are you ever going to get a respectable husband doing something so shameful? Has Hans not been good enough to you? Why do you always have to cause so much drama?!” I stared at my mother’s face, a face completely worn down by years of submitting to a miserable life. Suddenly, my chest felt like it was suffocating under a massive boulder. When I was a child, my father constantly told her she was a worthless, pathetic housewife. And so, she truly believed she had zero value. I took a deep breath, forcing the hot tears back down. Right at that moment, Hans’s phone rang. Whatever Bella said on the other end made the blood completely drain from his face. For the first time in his life, he lost all composure and roared at me like a madman. “Sienna! Are you seriously trying to destroy Bella?!” A photo of Hans and Bella passionately kissing at a bar had gone viral on local social media pages. The headline read: This guy has a girlfriend, but still insists on exploring ‘platonic mouth to mouth friendship’ with his best bro. It turned out that during a party a few weeks ago, Hans lost a game of Truth or Dare. The penalty was to choose someone in his friend group and kiss them. All the guys aggressively backed away. But Bella stepped right up, wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, and smashed her lips against his. The entire venue had gone completely silent. Everyone’s eyes immediately darted to me. When they finally broke apart, Bella just shrugged at the crowd with a completely unfazed smirk. “What? Just because I am a girl means I am not one of the bros anymore?” The comment section on the viral post was an absolute warzone. “Is this guy blind? His so called best bro is a massive pick me girl.” “Knowing the guy has a girlfriend and still throwing yourself at him? This girl has zero shame!” Hans was sweating profusely, frantically typing out a public response. “We are genuinely just very good friends! Please do not read into this and twist the narrative!” But the internet was absolutely not buying it. The mockery only intensified. “Oh wow, pure innocent friendship between a man and a woman? The kind where you shove your tongues down each other’s throats? How do you even look your girlfriend in the eye?” Reading the brutal comments, Bella started hysterically sobbing, threatening to end her own life. Desperate, Hans turned to me, demanding my help. “Sienna, go online and clear this up! Tell everyone you were there and it was a joke! Do not just stand there and watch her die!” I lowered my eyes, my expression utterly void of sympathy. “But you two actually kissed. Are you seriously demanding I go online and lie to thousands of people to protect you?” Bella rubbed her tear stained eyes, looking at me with overwhelming manufactured innocence. “Sienna, even if you hate me and want to ruin my life, you should at least think about Hans’s reputation!” Before I could even turn away, Hans violently grabbed my wrist. His voice was lethal. “Sienna. Do not push me.” The very next second, Bella pulled out her phone and started a live broadcast. In less than five minutes, the viewer count broke ten thousand. She stared directly into the camera lens, tears streaming down her perfectly contoured face. “Actually, I know exactly why Sienna leaked those photos to destroy me. It is because she has always been insanely jealous of me.” “And what you guys probably do not know… When Sienna was younger, she was stalked, kidnapped, and locked in a dark basement by a psychopath. The extreme trauma completely ruined her brain. She has severe paranoia and is mentally unhinged. She cannot stand seeing normal people be happy.” It felt like a bolt of lightning struck my spine. I froze, completely paralyzed. That secret… that horrific trauma… only Hans knew. When I finally trusted him enough to tell him, he held me tightly and swore to the heavens. “Do not be afraid anymore. I will protect you for the rest of my life. I will never let anyone hurt you ever again.” Yet here he was, standing completely silent as the woman he loved took my most excruciating, intimate pain and forged it into a blade to butcher me in front of the world. Silent tears cascaded down my cheeks. Hans shielded Bella from the cameras and escorted her away, leaving me standing entirely alone. That night, Bella went on a massive posting spree, claiming my past psychiatric medications proved I suffered from severe clinical delusions. She even dug up the most unflattering, bloated photos from my heaviest weight and posted them everywhere. Her caption read: Your ugly soul manifests in your ugly body. Placed right next to her heavily filtered, delicate selfies, the public opinion completely flipped. My personal information was leaked online. Strangers tore my life apart, mocking my appearance and my past. My parents’ phones rang endlessly with harassment calls. Someone threw a bucket of red paint entirely over my apartment door. Furious at the embarrassment, my father called and officially disowned me. My mother slapped me across the face so hard my ears rang, screaming at me to never show my face in their hometown ever again. But the next morning, something inexplicable happened. Every single piece of information, every photo, and every malicious thread about me vanished from the internet. Completely wiped clean. Furious, Bella posted a cryptic, passive aggressive update. “Someone clearly has a very powerful sugar daddy backing them up. No wonder she managed to secure the broadcaster position over actually talented people.” The comments underneath were filled with people cursing my name. The toxicity lingered right up until the day of the championship broadcast. Sitting in the studio, the moment I looked at the red recording light on the camera, my entire body began to shake uncontrollably. I closed my eyes. I forced myself to remember the absolute faith Sebastian had poured into me over the last three months. I forced myself to remember the agonizing muscle soreness, the pools of sweat, and the sheer grit it took to rebuild myself from the ground up. It was all for this exact moment. Even if I only managed to be brave this one time. I had to fight for my own dignity! By the time I finally steadied my breathing, there were only ten minutes left until we went live. Suddenly, the heavy studio doors were violently pushed open. Hans stormed into the broadcasting room. “Sienna, do not embarrass me on national television. Get up. We are going home right now, and we are going to discuss wedding plans.” Bella trailed right behind him, her arms crossed tight. “In what universe is she better than me?! The company definitely rigged this selection!” The production crew and my co hosts began whispering among themselves. Hans let out a heavy, patronizing sigh and marched straight toward me, grabbing my arm. “Let us go home. You do not belong in that chair. You are not meant for this.” I ripped my arm out of his grasp, my blood turning to ice. In his eyes, I would always be fundamentally worthless. Even now, as I sat on the verge of finally shining, his first instinct was to pull me back into the dirt because he genuinely believed I was incapable. Just as Hans raised his hands to physically drag me out of the chair, the main doors of the studio swung open once more. Over a dozen men in sharp black suits marched in, forming two intimidating lines. The oppressive aura they carried instantly silenced the room. A familiar, towering figure strolled casually down the center. The man’s voice was absolute and unyielding, echoing off the high ceilings. “Whether Sienna belongs in that chair or not, I make the final call.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “517592”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. The man who performed the double mastectomy was my own father, the Chief of Surgery. But before the anesthesia had completely faded, I heard the assisting surgeon whispering to a nurse. “Chief Hamilton really tricked his own daughter into this surgery just to help his adopted daughter blow off some steam.” “I know, right? I heard her husband personally authorized it. Now she’s just left with a massive, bowl-sized scar. She looks like an absolute freak.” My entire body convulsed. The moment my eyes cracked open, the very first thing I did was try to claw my way out of the bed to demand the truth. But my husband, Matt, just wrapped his arm around Sierra’s waist, shooting me a cold, cruel smirk. “What? You had no problem mocking Sierra for being malnourished like some absolute psycho. Now you’ve learned your lesson, haven’t you?” I stumbled forward, but my father violently shoved me back onto the mattress. “Stop making a scene! Sierra had a tragic childhood. You grew up with everything. Losing two lumps of flesh is nothing.” My genius son chimed in from the doorway, looking at me with pure disdain. “Yeah, Mom. Look at yourself. You look like a monster now. It’s time you step aside and let Aunt Sierra take your place.” Right at that moment, the System, which had been silent for years, suddenly pinged online. [Host, I have detected that your Redemption Mission was successfully completed long ago! Do you wish to terminate your physical body and return to your original world immediately?] A slow, liberated smile spread across my face. Since this entire “deeply emotional redemption” was a con from the very beginning. Why the hell should I care if they live or die? I mentally slammed the confirm button. The System instantly flashed a final warning. [After your physical death, every character in this book will be permanently erased after a three-day delay. Initiating your extraction portal now. Reward: $700 Million USD + Absolute Health in your original body.] … Hearing the massive reward, the only thing left in my heart was a wild, screaming ecstasy to finally go home. I dragged my battered body out of the bed, agonizingly pulling myself toward the hospital window. Every single step tore at the fresh, brutal surgical wounds on my chest. But looking out at the glittering skyline of New York, millions of lights illuminating the dark, not a single one was burning for me. I sped up. Suddenly, a sharp sneer echoed behind me. I turned around to see my son, Julian. “Mom, what are you doing climbing out of bed? You should be recovering.” “You’re not an actress. Who exactly is this little suicide performance for?” “Performance? Who is the one actually putting on a performance to trick me?!” I stared deep into his eyes, desperate to find even a flicker of guilt. But he just scoffed. “How is this a trick? At worst, Grandpa just gave you a misdiagnosis! You don’t have cancer, so you’re not going to die. You get to keep living with us. Isn’t that a good thing?” Oh. I see. I’m supposed to be jumping for joy that my family mutilated me for fun. I turned my back to him. The howling night wind whipped my hair around my face. When I laid down on that operating table, I was fighting to live. Now, straddling this window ledge, I was fighting to die so I could truly survive. Without a second thought, I threw my weight forward. But the rush of gravity never came. Julian smashed the emergency call button and lunged forward, grabbing my hospital gown with everything he had. “MOM! What are you doing?! Grab my hand!” “Let go,” I rasped, my throat raw. Julian gritted his teeth, the veins popping on his forearms. “NO!” “Mom, so you lost two pieces of meat, who cares? It’s not a big deal! Dad said he wouldn’t mind no matter how ugly you look!” I was so sick of hearing this garbage. I thrashed my arm, trying to force his grip to slip. His eyes went completely red. His voice cracked into a frantic sob. “Are you really going to abandon me and die?!” I looked down at the boy I had raised with my own two hands. The absolute terror in his eyes made it look like he genuinely couldn’t survive without me. I violently yanked his arm, my eyes dead and frozen. “If you can’t bear to lose me, then come down to hell with me.” I pulled with everything I had, twisting his center of gravity toward the open window. All the blood drained from his face. In pure, instinctual panic, his grip loosened. I knew it. He was a coward. I felt myself start to slip downward, thinking I was finally free. But a massive force clamped onto my shoulders, hauling me backward. The bodyguards and medical staff had burst into the room, swarming me. Damn it. Just one second away. Dragged back inside, I collapsed onto the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. Julian was huddled in the corner, sobbing hysterically from the shock. Before I could even process what was happening, Matt stormed into the room. He shoved past the nurses and marched directly up to my bed. SLAP— He struck me so hard my head whipped to the side. The violent motion ripped my stitches. Fresh blood bloomed across the white bandages on my chest. “Are you out of your goddamn mind?!” His eyes were bloodshot. He grabbed my jaw, forcing me to look at him. “Julian is our son! You were going to drag him out a window just because you’re throwing a tantrum?!” “When are you going to stop this, Ruby? Do you have no heart?!” My throat felt like it was packed with glass, but a cold, hollow laugh scraped its way out. I’m the one with no heart? Who fabricated a fake cancer diagnosis? Who forced me to endure the agony of chemotherapy when I was perfectly healthy? Who used a fake terminal illness to completely sever my breasts, just to make Sierra smile? But honestly? I couldn’t even find the energy to explain. Seeing my dead silence, Matt’s patience snapped completely. He grabbed my arm and violently yanked me off the bed. “If you refuse to behave in the hospital, you’re coming home!” I was totally numb. I let him drag me into the backseat of his car, only one thought echoing in my head. I needed to find the right moment to die so I could escape this fictional hell. Outside the tinted windows, the neon blur of the city rushed by. The world looked so vibrant, but there was nowhere left for me. Once the car turned onto the deserted, winding mountain road leading to his estate, I suddenly reached for the door handle. “Are you looking for a death wish?!” Matt roared, violently cranking the steering wheel to the right. The tires shrieked, the car swerving in a lethal arc across the asphalt. I threw my entire weight against the door. It popped open, freezing wind screaming into the cabin. Without a second of hesitation, I threw my battered body into the void. But just as I was about to tumble onto the road, Matt completely abandoned the steering wheel. He threw himself across the console, pinning me down with crushing force. The car completely lost control. It slammed into the reinforced mountain guardrail with a deafening crunch. The violent impact threw us around the cabin. Matt’s forehead smashed into the dashboard. Blood poured down his handsome face. He was panting heavily, his eyes burning with a dark, terrifying obsession as he stared down at me. “Do you want to die that badly?!” I stared right back into his eyes, my voice absolute iron. “Yes.” He opened his mouth to scream at me, but a sharp, suffocating smell of gasoline flooded the car. Matt’s face went white. “Shit!” Ignoring the blood pouring into his eyes, he scrambled to unbuckle my mangled seat. My survival instinct was completely dead. Honestly, I was praying the spark would catch faster. “Just run. Leave me here.” He acted like he didn’t hear a word. He violently ripped the crushed seat back, scooped me into his arms, and hauled us out of the wreckage. The second we cleared the doors… BOOM. A deafening explosion rocked the mountain. The multi-million dollar sports car was instantly swallowed by a blinding inferno. A wave of blistering heat hit us. Matt tackled me to the ground, shielding my body entirely with his own. His eyes were completely red. “Ruby, I’m going to say this one last time.” “Unless I give the order, the grim reaper himself doesn’t have the right to take you!” The scene was a carbon copy of a memory from years ago. When we were caught in a brutal shootout with a rival syndicate, trapped in an abandoned warehouse. He had covered me exactly like this, whispering into my hair. “Don’t be scared, Ruby. As long as I’m breathing, I won’t let anyone touch a hair on your head.” Because of that promise, I had followed him through absolute hell. I waded through blood and violence, eventually weaponizing my own family’s massive empire to crown him the undisputed king of the New York underworld. But now? The same protective gesture just made me want to vomit. I honestly don’t remember how I got dragged back into his mansion. The moment we walked through the door, a wave of sickening, domestic warmth hit my face. It felt so alien. Sierra was delicately blowing on a bowl of hot soup. My father, Arthur, stood right behind her, looking at her with absolute adoration. “Careful, sweetie. Don’t burn your tongue.” When they saw us—specifically the blood dripping down Matt’s face—Sierra let out a dramatic gasp and rushed over. “Matt, what happened?!” Her eyes instinctively flicked to my flat, heavily bandaged chest. The disgust in her eyes smoothly morphed into fake pity. “Is this because of Ruby? You really shouldn’t blame her. She’s just having a mental breakdown because she can’t accept her new, deformed body. That’s why she’s acting so crazy. We just need to give her more love.” I couldn’t take it anymore. I stepped forward and slapped her directly across the face. “Shut your mouth! What gives you the right to stand here and play the saint?!” Sierra clutched her cheek, staring at me in total disbelief. In a flash, my father lunged forward. He shoved me violently to the floor and shielded Sierra behind his back. “Enough!” “Look at you! You look nothing like the heiress of this family!” “We spoiled you too much. That’s why you think you can just bully Sierra whenever you want! That surgery was supposed to teach you a lesson. But instead, you’re throwing a massive tantrum and threatening to kill yourself!” I looked up from the floor, staring dead into the eyes of the man who used to love me more than life itself. “So that’s your excuse for faking a terminal illness and mutilating my body?” I don’t know if he felt guilty, or if he genuinely thought he was in the right. But he didn’t say a word. When I first transmigrated into this world, Arthur had just lost his beloved wife. Because he married into my mother’s ultra-powerful family, the board of directors treated him like trash and ruthlessly suppressed his career. The System sent me to redeem him, driven by the original character’s dying wish. For a very long time, we saved each other. I even gave up my chance to go home, choosing to stay in this world for them. But the second I started sponsoring a poor orphan named Sierra, everything changed. Everyone around me slowly turned on me. Even a completely neutral comment I made about her would be twisted into a malicious insult. They were perfectly willing to tear me to shreds just to defend her honor. I let out a bitter, hollow laugh. I grabbed a fruit knife off the glass coffee table… But I failed again. Matt’s reflexes were terrifyingly fast. He kicked the blade right out of my hand. “Are you addicted to this now, Ruby? Just threatening to kill yourself every five minutes?” His voice was absolute ice. “I swear on my life, as long as you behave and stop bothering Sierra, I don’t care if you look like a freak. You will always be Mrs. Hamilton.” I slumped against the marble floor, my voice completely dead. “But I don’t want to be.” The air in the room froze. The next second, Arthur stepped forward. He reached down and violently ripped the heavy gold medallion off my neck—the heirloom my mother gave me, the absolute symbol of my power as the true heir of the family empire. He stared down at me with profound disappointment. “Look at you. Half human, half ghost. You don’t deserve to be Matt’s wife, and you certainly don’t deserve to run this family!” “When you and your mother were in that car crash years ago, if I knew you were going to turn out like this, I never would have saved you!” In that exact moment, my heart flatlined. Lying on the cold floor, I actually started laughing so hard tears leaked from the corners of my eyes. Right in front of my face, Arthur clipped the family heirloom around Sierra’s neck. From that day on, I was locked in the basement. They completely cut off any avenue I had to kill myself. Sierra started visiting me daily under the guise of “psychiatric treatment.” “Matt, her mental state is completely unstable. I’m a doctor. Let me counsel her,” she had cooed. Matt had pinched the bridge of his nose, looking profoundly relieved. “Handle it. Just make sure she doesn’t pull any more crazy stunts.” What he didn’t know was that the second the heavy basement door locked, Sierra’s sweet mask completely melted off. She grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at her. “You know what I hate the most about you, Ruby? That arrogant, superior look on your face.” “But look at you now. You’re not even a complete woman anymore. What exactly are you trying to fight me with?” I thrashed against my restraints, but my body was completely drained. She let out a soft, venomous laugh and slid a cold needle directly into my vein. “Don’t be scared, sister. You want to die, right? But I’m not going to let you. I am going to make you live the rest of your life like an obedient little dog, cowering in my shadow.” I don’t know how many days I spent rotting in that dark room. Until one night, Julian sneaked in holding a bowl of warm porridge. He stopped dead when he saw what I looked like—a literal skeleton. Maybe he remembered how fiercely I tried to jump out that window. Or maybe, deep down, he actually felt guilty. His eyes were red. He awkwardly scooped a spoonful of porridge and held it to my cracked lips. “Mom… please eat something.” I turned my head away, completely dead inside. I forced the words out in a raspy whisper. “…Just give me… a quick death…” The bowl in Julian’s hand shook violently. As if my rejection was a personal insult, the guilt in his eyes was instantly devoured by rage. “You’re doing it again! You think starving yourself is going to hurt us? Are you trying to make me and Dad feel guilty?!” I closed my eyes. Flashes of him growing up flickered behind my eyelids. His bright smiles. His tantrums. The way he used to wobble into my arms when he was learning to walk, burying his face in my neck and calling me “Mommy.” I didn’t want any of it anymore. After a long silence, I forced a single word past my lips. “Get out.” Julian burst into tears, turned around, and ran out of the room. He didn’t pull the door completely shut… Maybe it was terminal lucidity, but I suddenly found a surge of adrenaline. Step by agonizing step, I dragged myself out of the basement. The grand foyer was blindingly bright, echoing with applause and laughter. Tonight was their victory gala. In the center of the ballroom, the three men I had once loved with everything I had were orbiting Sierra like she was the sun. They looked like the picture-perfect, flawless family. Sierra stood there like a triumphant queen. And resting against her collarbone was my mother’s gold medallion. “Sierra, from this day forward, everything this family controls in the city is in your hands,” Arthur announced to the board members, holding her hand up. Matt stood right behind her, his arm wrapped tightly around her waist. He leaned down and kissed her temple. “You earned this, baby.” Even my son, Julian, was looking up at her with starry eyes. “Thank you, Aunt Sierra, for taking such good care of us.” My sanity completely snapped. The only thing I cared about was exposing this parasitic monster before I finally died. I let out a raw, animalistic scream and threw myself into the crowd. “GIVE THAT BACK TO ME!” I lunged like a rabid dog, clawing at Sierra’s neck. In the chaos, the gold chain snapped. The entire ballroom went dead silent. A second later, a manic laugh ripped from my throat. “Hahahaha! Even the heirloom knows you’re a fake! You absolute snake!” Matt violently shoved me away. I crashed into a massive champagne tower, sending shattered glass raining down on me. He pulled a terrified Sierra behind his back and turned to the crowd, his face a terrifying mask of fury. “My apologies, everyone.” “My wife… ever since her mastectomy, she hasn’t been able to accept her deformed body. She’s suffered a total psychotic break. We are having her heavily medicated.” In three sentences, he completely dismissed me as a lunatic. Disgusted whispers broke out across the room. “Ah, she’s crazy. That makes sense…” “Mr. Hamilton really has it rough. Running the underworld and babysitting a psychopath.” “Thank God for Miss Sierra. No wonder the Chief handed her the family reigns.” Hearing the vicious daggers thrown my way. I stopped crying. I stopped screaming. I just looked at the crowd with complete, utter peace. “Matt,” I said clearly. “A man shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds him. Did you really forget who put you on that throne?” I turned my eyes to Arthur. “Dad… no. Arthur. You married into this family. You know exactly how my mother treated you. But for the sake of a cheap knock-off, you tortured your own blood daughter and turned her into a freak. Tell me, when you close your eyes at night, do you feel safe?” The room erupted into shocked gasps. The board members shifted uncomfortably, avoiding my eyes. Using the distraction, I smoothly slipped a loaded pistol out of a nearby bodyguard’s holster. Without a millimeter of hesitation, I jammed the barrel directly against my temple. I smiled. And as the deafening gunshot shattered the room, the System’s cold, mechanical voice echoed in my head. [Host’s physical body has been terminated. Initiating extraction portal immediately.]

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1 At the landslide rescue site, Buddy, the award-winning search dog I raised from a pup, found every trapped survivor. But during the evacuation, a secondary collapse occurred. Steve’s apprentice, Suzie, got pinned on the edge of the collapsing slope, half her body dangling over the cliff. Crying, she shouted to Steve, “Captain, I wish there were no Maya in our next life. I wish we could be together out in the open…” The radio channel went dead silent. Ignoring everyone’s warnings, Steve scrambled up the unstable rocks like a madman, risking his life to pull her to safety. Even after evacuating the danger zone, Suzie clung to him, refusing to let go. Steve frowned as he tried to explain. “Maya, Suzie is just terrified. She is talking nonsense. You are a senior officer. Do not hold it against a young girl.” Then he took Buddy’s leash from my hand and passed it to Suzie. “Did you not always want to be his handler? Now, he is yours.” Suzie took the leash cautiously. “But… won’t Maya be upset?” I looked at the young girl I had pulled from the rubble three years ago. I brought her onto the team, taught her how to train dogs, and listened to her call me mentor. But I never imagined she wanted my fiancé and my dog. Whatever. The doctor said my illness could not wait any longer. If you want them, take them. … I used every ounce of my strength to swallow the blood rising in my throat. I turned and walked toward the medical tent to take my medication. Seeing me leave, Buddy instantly panicked. He violently jerked his leash out of Suzie’s hand and bolted toward me. Suzie chased after him. “Maya, are you okay?” Buddy suddenly spun around, baring his teeth at Suzie and letting out a menacing bark. It looked like he was going to lunge and bite her in the next second. Suzie stumbled backward in fear, her eyes immediately filling with tears. Steve arrived just in time. Instinctively, he pulled Suzie behind him and shouted at Buddy. “Buddy, sit!” Buddy did not back down. He stayed firmly planted in front of me, glaring at Suzie. Steve’s face darkened. “Maya, control your dog.” “Suzie was just checking on you. Did you seriously let Buddy scare her just to humiliate her?” My voice was a little hoarse. “I did not.” Steve let out a cold laugh. “You trained him. One look from you, and he knows exactly what to do.” Suzie tugged lightly at Steve’s sleeve, her voice trembling. “Captain, let it go. Maya didn’t mean it.” “Buddy is just too loyal to her…” That sentence, which sounded like an excuse for me, only made Steve’s expression colder. “Maya, Suzie just came down from a landslide! She almost died!” “Do you really have to be this petty right now?” I did not answer. I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, I would spit up blood. After the rescue operation ended, the team pulled back to camp. What happened over the radio channel spread quickly. Someone leaked her exact words into the local volunteer rescue group chat. “Captain, I hope in our next life there is no Maya. I hope we can be together out in the open…” The chat group exploded with gossip. “Was Suzie not crossing a massive line with that?” “What exactly is going on between Captain Steve and her?” “Wait, isn’t Maya the Captain’s fiancée?” Someone even posted a photo from the scene. In the picture, Suzie was curled up in Steve’s arms. Buddy stood in front of me, in a highly defensive posture against them. Someone in the group commented: “Even the dog knows how to protect his real owner, but the man… yikes.” When that comment reached Suzie, she cried so hard she almost hyperventilated. When Steve came to find me, I was taking my pills. Just as the medicine hit my tongue, he pushed the door open. I hurriedly hid the pill bottle in my sleeve. Steve saw the movement but completely ignored it. He went straight to interrogating me. “Did you tell someone to leak the radio audio?” I froze. He scoffed coldly and kept going. “Maya, I know how calculated you are.” “You know exactly how to manipulate public opinion.” “You do not cry or make a scene, but this silent treatment is far more vicious.” A bitter taste flooded the back of my throat. Before I could even speak, Suzie’s soft voice came from the doorway. “Captain…” Steve turned around immediately. Suzie stood by the door, her eyes red. “Buddy will not come with me.” Steve’s face grew even darker. He turned and walked out, trying to pull Buddy away. But Buddy dug his paws into the floor frame, refusing to move, keeping his eyes locked on me. Steve spun around and roared at me. “Maya, what the hell have you taught this dog?!” “He is a search and rescue K-9! Not a tool for your petty jealousy!” “Get over here and tell him you do not want him anymore!” He reached out and yanked my arm. I was already in so much pain I could barely stand. The sudden pull made me lose my balance, and my abdomen crashed hard against the edge of the desk. An explosive, agonizing pain ripped through my stomach. My vision went completely black for a second. Buddy struggled violently and barked loudly at Steve. Steve’s expression turned furious. “Look at him! Now he is growling at me! Are you happy now, Maya?” Fighting through the blinding pain, I weakly commanded: “Buddy, down.” Buddy stopped, but his eyes were filled with deep anxiety. It was as if he knew how much pain I was in. Steve shoved the leash back into Suzie’s hands. “Take him.” Suzie gripped the leash, took a few steps toward me, and said softly: “Maya, do not worry. Buddy will get used to me eventually.” “Just like the Captain did.” I jerked my head up to look at her. Buddy instantly bristled, the hair on his back standing up as he growled at her again. Steve didn’t hear what Suzie said, but he saw Buddy’s reaction. He immediately pulled Suzie behind him again. “Maya! Buddy is a working K-9, not your personal weapon!” “Do you want an aggression record in this decorated dog’s file?!” I opened my mouth, but no words came out. The next day, the video of Buddy aggressively protecting me from Suzie was posted on a local forum. Within the rescue community, the public opinion completely flipped. “Look, even if Suzie has no shame and her relationship with Steve is shady, Maya should not use a decorated K-9 as leverage, right?” “Cancel Maya! A rescue dog’s job is to save lives, not attack people!” “Exactly! Using a dog to attack someone just to keep a fiancé is taking it way too far!” I did not defend myself, because none of it mattered anymore. I did not have much time left to live, and I could no longer protect Buddy. All I could do was organize Buddy’s training logs as thoroughly as possible. So that when I was gone, he could still shine and save lives. I exported the training files. It contained every single one of Buddy’s habits. Before Buddy executed a search command, he always looked back to make sure I was there. Buddy was terrified of thunderstorms; on stormy nights, someone had to hold him while he slept. After every mission, he had to smell my hand first. He would only eat once he confirmed I was not injured. When I handed the file to Suzie, she bit her lip gently. “Maya, are you really giving Buddy to me?” I looked at her and asked: “Is this not what you have always wanted?” She lowered her voice. “The Captain said Buddy only listens to you. As long as you do not truly let go, he will never accept me.” “Maya, you are already this sick. Why will you not just let go? You cannot expect him to just waste away beside you, right?” I froze. Suzie immediately put on a panicked expression. “I did not mean it like that. I am just worried about Buddy. And the Captain… he cannot be dragged down by you forever…” I stared directly into her eyes. “You knew I was sick?” Suzie’s eyes darted away shiftily. “You look terrible. Anyone can tell.” Anyone can tell? But Steve never noticed. I looked at her face, remembering three years ago. Back then, Suzie’s village was buried under a mudslide. When our rescue team arrived, she was the only survivor. The young girl was sobbing hysterically in the mud. My heart broke for her, so I brought her onto the team. After that day, she started calling me her mentor. She helped me bathe Buddy, and she would sneak him extra treats. After every training session, she would chase after me with a notebook, asking: “Maya, why did Buddy look back at you just now?” “Maya, is it true that a rescue dog only bonds with one handler?” “Maya, do you think I can train an incredible dog like Buddy one day?” I always answered, “Yes.” But slowly, the things she asked began to change. “Maya, does the Captain only listen to you?” “Maya, if Buddy goes on a mission with me, will he look back at me too?” “Maya, if one day I am good enough to stand beside the Captain, will people stop calling me the pathetic orphan you dragged out of the mud?” Back then, I just thought she suffered from low self-esteem, so I comforted her over and over. “Suzie, you are doing great.” “You will find your own path.” But now I finally understood. She did not want her own path. She wanted mine. I looked at her and spoke slowly. “Suzie, do you think that just because I saved your life, I owe you everything?” “My dog, my fiancé, my career, the rest of my life—do I have to hand it all over to you?” Tears spilled from Suzie’s eyes. “Maya, that is not what I meant…” Right at that moment, Steve walked into the room. Seeing Suzie crying, his face darkened instantly. “Maya! You are unbelievable!” I looked at him and nodded. Steve, you are unbelievable too. That night, I was jolted awake by a stabbing, twisting pain in my abdomen. I did not know when Buddy had sneaked back in, but he was lying by my bed. He rested his head near me and looked up with sad eyes. I stroked his head, my voice extremely hoarse. “Buddy, was I just too stupid?” “I brought her onto the team. I taught her how to take care of you…” “Buddy, I do not want to leave you, but I am dying…” Footsteps approached from the hallway. Suzie pushed the door open. “Maya, Buddy went missing…” When she saw Buddy lying by my bed, her eyes instantly turned red. “Why did he come back to you? Why will you not just let go?!” Buddy stood up, placing his body firmly between her and the bed. Steve walked in right behind Suzie. Seeing the scene, his expression turned freezing cold. “Maya, are you having Buddy intimidate her again?” He pulled Suzie behind him defensively. “When did you become this vicious?” I looked at him, suddenly too exhausted to even explain. Buddy blocking Suzie was not a command I gave. It was because I was running a severe fever. It was because I smelled like sickness, and it made him anxious. But Steve could not see any of that. During the last rescue operation, Buddy’s performance was outstanding. Throughout his service career, he had officially located and saved exactly one hundred people. The team decided to hold a commendation ceremony for him. Right before it started, Steve pulled me aside. “I am putting Suzie in the center today. She has been getting a lot of hate online lately. She needs some positive PR.” “You have received plenty of commendations already. Suzie has nothing.” Those one hundred lives were people Buddy and I pulled from the rubble together, one by one. His first mission, I lay in the freezing rain with him for eight hours. The first time he got injured, I carried him to the vet and stayed up all night watching over him. When he was scared of thunder, I held him to sleep. When he had to take bitter medicine, I coaxed him for hours. And now, with a single sentence—”Suzie has nothing”—Steve was giving away all of Buddy’s honors. I stayed silent for a long time. Finally, I nodded. “Okay.” At the ceremony, Steve stood dead center. Suzie held Buddy’s leash, standing right beside him. I stood off stage, at the very edge of the crowd. The other team members exchanged awkward glances. Buddy refused to sit still. He kept turning his head, looking for me. The photographer asked him to pose. Suzie gave a quiet command. “Buddy, sit.” Buddy did not react at all. Steve shot a look at me. I understood what he meant. From the shadows off stage, I gave a subtle hand signal. Only then did Buddy sit. The camera shutter clicked. In the photo, Steve and Suzie stood proudly beside Buddy. I was not in the frame. Suzie took the microphone to give a speech. “Thank you, Captain, and thank you, Maya.” “I know I still have a lot to learn.” “But I will work hard to take care of Buddy, and to take care of…” She abruptly stopped. She almost said Steve’s name. The entire venue fell silent for a fraction of a second. She quickly corrected herself: “To take care of the team’s missions.” I stood off stage, clapping. I clapped until my palms went numb. Once the photos of the transfer ceremony were posted online, the comment section exploded again. “Where is Maya?” “Buddy gets honored, and his original handler is not even in the photo?” “They haven’t even explained the radio incident yet, and the apprentice is already standing next to the Captain?” “This isn’t a K-9 transfer ceremony. This is a mistress coronation.” “Even the dog looks miserable.” Suzie had a complete breakdown and locked herself in her dorm room. Steve came to find me again, speaking to me with absolute authority. “Maya, you need to release a public statement.” “Say that we broke up amicably, and Suzie had nothing to do with it.” “Say that the K-9 transfer was your idea, and that you give her your blessing.” I looked at him and asked quietly: “When exactly did we break up amicably?” Steve averted his eyes. “Given the situation, do you really want this to get any uglier?” I let out a weak laugh. “Steve, am I the one making this ugly?” His face darkened. “Maya! Suzie is getting so much hate she is about to quit the team. What more do you want from her?” “She is the apprentice you pulled from the rubble yourself. Can you not just let her off the hook this once?” I looked at him for a long, long time. “Fine.” I opened my laptop and started drafting the statement. Suddenly, Buddy bit down on my sleeve and yanked me backward. He was stopping me from typing. I patted his head. “Buddy, drop it.” Buddy refused to let go. Steve lost his temper. “Buddy!” He aggressively pulled Buddy away. I was already half-kneeling to comfort him. When Steve forcefully yanked the dog, I lost my balance and slammed into the corner of the desk. A blinding pain shot through my abdomen. My vision went completely black. The pill bottle on the desk was knocked off, and my medical file crashed to the floor. Steve’s immediate reaction was to scold me. “Maya, that is enough! Can you stop putting on an act with Buddy?” Suzie rushed to the doorway. “Maya, please do not do this. I know it hurts to lose Buddy.” “But you already agreed to give him to me. Why are you acting like this to force me to give him back?” I wanted to speak, but a metallic, sweet taste flooded my throat. The next second, I could not hold it back anymore. Right in front of them, I vomited a mouthful of dark blood. The office went dead silent. Buddy broke free from Steve’s grip, bolted to my side, and frantically nudged me with his head. He let out panicked, desperate whines. Steve froze completely. He bent down and picked up the fallen medical file. The official diagnosis report slid out.

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