Category: English

My mother collapsed. Suddenly, violently. Before they rushed her into surgery, she clutched my hand, her grip surprisingly strong. “Anna,” she rasped, her voice thin as paper. “Get Justin. You have to get Justin here. There’s something I need to tell him.” I called Justin again and again from the sterile silence of the hospital waiting room, each unanswered ring echoing the frantic beat of my own heart. The calls went straight to voicemail, one after the other, a relentless digital void. I was still trying when the doctor emerged from the operating room, his face a mask of grim sympathy. He walked toward me and gave me that slow, soul-crushing shake of the head. The tightly wound spring inside me snapped. Just then, my phone buzzed. It was a call back from Justin’s number. A woman’s voice, sweet and cloying, answered. It was Nina. “Anna? The professor was helping me out with my parents… they were driving me crazy about settling down, and he had a little too much to drink.” Her voice was laced with a triumphant little giggle. “If you need something, you can just tell me.” I stared through the glass at the still, cold form on the gurney that was once my mother. My voice was ice. “Tell Justin Hayes that my mother is dead. And if he still wants that lab equipment, he can come to the hospital and get it.” But Justin never showed. Not even for the funeral. 1 It took only three days to go from my mother’s death to her burial. Three short, agonizing days, and in all that time, Justin was a ghost. Relatives murmured their disapproval, their whispers like wasps buzzing at the edge of my hearing. I pretended not to notice. But I knew. This hollow marriage, this charade I’d been living with Justin, had finally reached its end. After drafting the divorce papers, I tried to reach him again. As always, the calls went unanswered. He’s probably busy, I told myself, the old habit of making excuses for him dying hard. Then I pushed open the front door to our house and saw them. A pair of his polished leather dress shoes, and right beside them, a pair of delicate white sneakers. Not mine. I slipped off my own shoes and stepped inside, my heart a cold stone in my chest. And there he was—Justin, who’d been ghosting me for two weeks—with his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, meticulously scrubbing a pair of lace panties, stained crimson, in the bathroom sink. Also not mine. He looked up, a flicker of surprise in his eyes, but his hands never stopped their rhythmic work in the soapy water. “Anna. You’re home early. I thought you were at the hospital with your mom.” My mom? The woman I had just buried? Where was I supposed to be with her, heaven or hell? I had imagined this confrontation a hundred times. I’d pictured screaming, crying, a raw, cathartic explosion of pain. Instead, a strange calm washed over me. I felt so empty I didn’t even have the energy to ask him why he was washing another woman’s underwear. He followed my gaze to the sink. “Nina had a little accident,” he said, his tone casual, as if discussing the weather. “You know how it is. A girl shouldn’t have to deal with cold water right now.” No hot water in the house, then? I thought numbly. “Right,” I managed. “Finish up. We need to talk.” His eyes lit up, a sudden, greedy spark. “Is the new lab equipment in? Fantastic. I desperately need it for the next phase.” He was already moving past me, already in his own world. “Just have your people deliver it straight to my university lab, Anna. Someone will be there to sign for it. With that shipment, the project will move ahead twice as fast.” Justin was a man possessed by his work. If you were to rank the loves of his life, I used to be number one. Then his research took the top spot. But now… now I wasn’t sure I even made the list. Not when his brilliant little apprentice could get a tenured professor to personally handwash her bloody underwear. A sugary voice drifted from the other room. “Professor? Are you done yet? I think there’s a problem with the new serum… all your little snakey-wakes are dead!” Snakes? A jolt of pure adrenaline shot through me. I shoved past him and sprinted to the small, temperature-controlled room where I kept my pets. Nina was there, wearing nothing but one of Justin’s oversized white button-downs, her long, pale legs on full display. She was chewing on a fingernail, frowning at one of the glass terrariums. In her other hand, she held a syringe, a single drop of clear liquid clinging to its tip. Inside the tank, my beautiful, vibrant collection of pet snakes—creatures I had nurtured for years—were coiled in the corners, twitching feebly. “What did you do to them?” I shoved her away from the glass, my voice a ragged whisper. She stumbled back, clutching her chest in mock horror, a perfectly innocent smile playing on her lips. “Whoa, Anna, you’re so aggressive. I was just testing the new serum. I had to be sure it worked.” The serum? My gaze flew back to the terrarium. In a final, gruesome ballet, the snakes began to convulse violently, white foam bubbling from their mouths before they went rigid. They were dead. The innocent, malicious smile on Nina’s face broke something inside me. My hand flew up, and the sharp crack of my palm against her cheek echoed in the small room. Justin rushed in at the sound, just in time to see Nina clutching her face, tears already streaming down her cheeks. “Professor,” she sobbed, “Anna hit me. It hurts so much.” He swept her into his arms, his face a thundercloud of disappointment directed at me. “Anna, what the hell? Nina is just a student. Can’t you talk things out? Why would you hit her? When did you become so irrational?” Irrational? Me? My finger trembled as I pointed at the glass tank. “She killed them! She killed the pets I’ve had for five years! Do you have any idea how much they meant to me? A slap is the least she deserves!” I rounded on him, my voice rising. “And you! What is she even doing in our house, Justin?” Nina was his graduate student. She called him “Professor” with a familiarity that bordered on intimacy, but she never, ever called me Mrs. Hayes. She was always texting him, video-calling at all hours, angling the camera just so, her voice a breathy purr full of not-so-subtle suggestions. Her pathetic little game was transparent. I’d warned Justin about her. I told him to assign her to another mentor. He’d just laughed, patting my arm condescendingly. “Don’t be so sensitive, Anna. She’s just a student. You don’t have to be jealous of everyone.” I’d trusted him. I knew his parents’ bitter divorce when he was five had left him with a desperate need for loyalty and stability. I believed he would never cross that line. And my reward for that trust? My mother died without seeing him, and my beloved pets were now lifeless props for his little protégé’s experiment. Justin peered into the terrarium, his expression serious. He knew how precious these snakes were. I’d had them imported from all over the world, rare and delicate breeds. He knew the painstaking care I poured into them. Now, it was all gone, erased by one careless girl with a syringe. Nina’s shoulders shook with crocodile tears. “Professor, I didn’t know they belonged to Anna. I thought they were for your research,” she whimpered. “I just wanted to make sure the serum was a success before the press conference. I thought they were like… like the lab rats. I didn’t do it on purpose. Please don’t be mad at me.” Her voice grew smaller, her lip trembling as she bit it, eyes wide and red. She looked like a broken doll. It didn’t stir an ounce of pity in me; it only fed the inferno raging in my chest. “Not on purpose?” I scoffed. “Anyone with a shred of decency knows you don’t touch things that aren’t yours in someone else’s home. You don’t go into rooms you weren’t invited into. You’re what, twenty-five? Don’t tell me you don’t know basic manners, Nina.” She clutched the hem of his shirt, the fabric barely covering her, and looked up at Justin for salvation. “Professor, I really didn’t mean to…” “That’s enough.” Justin put a hand on my shoulder, his touch heavy and placating. “Anna, it’s done. What do you want from her? She said it was an accident. They’re just snakes. I’ll buy you new ones.” He looked at me, a flash of genuine annoyance in his eyes. “You’re the CEO of a major company. You manage thousands of people. Don’t you think you could show a little perspective here?” I flinched. Even though I thought I had no expectations left, the weariness in his voice, the undisguised irritation, still managed to cut me. Childhood friends, seven years of marriage, and I meant less to him than his student. It was pathetic. Wiping a tear from my cheek with the back of my hand, I pulled the folded divorce papers from my purse and held them out to him. “Justin, I want a divorce.” He stared at me, then at the papers, his mind clearly struggling to connect the two. He snatched the document and read it, then read it again, as if the words were in a foreign language. When he finally accepted I wasn’t joking, the carefully constructed mask of composure on his face cracked. “Anna, are you serious?” he hissed. “You want to divorce me because Nina accidentally killed a few of your snakes? Have you lost your mind? Your mother is still in the hospital! You want to do this now? Are you trying to give her a heart attack?” He went on, his voice a torrent of accusations. “They were just snakes! If you love them so much, I’ll buy you ten more, twenty more! You can just start over! Divorce… how can you even say that word?” He laid it on so thick, you’d think I was the one who was being completely unreasonable. But this wasn’t a debate, Justin. The one who talks the loudest isn’t always right. I swiftly signed my name on the line and pushed the papers back toward him. “Sign it. It’ll be much uglier if we drag this through the courts.” My phone rang. A friend. I answered, walking upstairs to get away from him. Her kind words were a balm on my raw nerves. By the time I came back down, Justin was gone. The divorce agreement was ripped to shreds in the bottom of the trash can. The bodies of my snakes were gone, too. No doubt taken by the research fanatic for dissection. On the table sat a small, elegant gift bag. Inside was a designer necklace from last season’s collection. My vision darkened. Justin used to love giving me gifts, things he’d spent weeks picking out, things that showed he knew me. Ever since Nina appeared, they’d been replaced by expensive, thoughtless trinkets. Bracelets, earrings, necklaces… my jewelry box was overflowing with them. Each one was a monument to another lie, another betrayal. The more expensive the gift, the guiltier he felt. And every time before, I had chosen to forgive him. I always went back to that one night, years ago, when I saw a crack in his carefully built armor. He’d looked at me, his eyes red-rimmed and vulnerable, and whispered, “Don’t pity me, Anna. Love me.” It felt like yesterday. That fragile boy was still lodged in my heart, a ghost I felt compelled to protect. It was for him that I forgave Justin for forgetting our fifth anniversary to go stargazing with Nina. For him, I forgave Justin for walking out in the middle of my appendicitis surgery because Nina called him in a panic. I had forgiven him so many times. This time, I was done. The next morning, I told my assistant to contact my lawyer and file for divorce. She paused for a fraction of a second but asked no questions. Instead, she said, “Ma’am, about that new lab equipment… should we still have it sent to Professor Hayes’s research facility?” For years, any new, cutting-edge equipment my company acquired went straight to Justin. But not this time. “No. Send it all to Brookhaven General.” The hospital’s dean, Dean Evans, had been a great help while my mother was sick. He’d mentioned needing a new suite of equipment. This would be a good way to repay his kindness. A series of texts buzzed on my phone. It was an old friend. “Anna, when did you and Justin split?” “I’m at a friend’s wedding, and I just saw him with some girl who’s telling her whole family he’s her boyfriend.” “Look. They’re holding hands and everything. When did this happen? He moves fast.” She sent a short video. It was a wedding reception, loud and joyful. And there was Nina, clinging to Justin’s arm, beaming as she introduced him to a group of older relatives. “This is my boyfriend,” she was saying. Justin stood beside her, smiling, not correcting her. So this was his idea of “helping her deal with her parents.” A bitter, humorless smile touched my lips. As I was texting my friend back, a new contact request popped up on my screen. The message was short and to the point. “Anna, I slept with Justin.” I accepted the request. A photo appeared instantly. It was a picture of them in bed. “You’re old, Anna. You’re not good enough for a man as brilliant as the professor anymore.” “Besides, you’re thirty and you still haven’t given him a child. Can you even have kids?” “I’m different. I’m young, I have a great body. I bet I’ll get pregnant on the first try.” “Oh, and by the way, the professor never used to let me have your number. But this time, he didn’t stop me. What do you think that means?” What did it mean? I didn’t give a damn what it meant. A wave of nausea churned in my stomach. My whole body felt like it was cramping, trying to expel a poison that had been building for years. This house, our home, was suffocating me. Every corner was saturated with his presence, his scent, his lies. It made my skin crawl. I called my assistant and told her to find me a new place. Immediately. On the day I was moving out, Dean Evans called to thank me for the equipment and invited me to dinner. I accepted. I didn’t expect him to invite Justin. And Justin, of course, brought Nina. They were dressed in matching shades of blue, like a couple. Her hand was firmly tucked into the crook of his arm, and she didn’t let go even when she saw me. Justin smoothly extracted his arm and guided Nina to the seats next to mine. He leaned in, his voice a low murmur. “Dean Evans has a partnership with the university. I thought it would be a good networking opportunity for Nina. Don’t get the wrong idea.” I gave him a smile that didn’t reach my eyes. What was there left to misunderstand? He seemed to take my silence as acceptance and visibly relaxed. During the meal, I chatted with the Dean while Justin dutifully placed food on Nina’s plate. She took a bite, her voice dripping with sugar. “Oh, Justin, this is delicious! You always know exactly what I like. How do you know me so well?” The atmosphere at the table froze. Nina covered her mouth, her eyes wide with feigned innocence. “Oh, Anna, don’t get the wrong idea. The professor was just helping me because I was too shy to get food myself.” Justin, his expression unreadable, picked up a piece of cucumber and dropped it onto my plate. He’d forgotten. He’d forgotten that I hated cucumber. “Nina’s just a bit timid,” he said coolly. “Don’t mind her, Anna. She’s just a kid.” I set down my fork, my appetite gone. But with an outsider present, I couldn’t make a scene. That would just be giving them a show. The Dean, a perceptive man, immediately sensed the tension. He deftly changed the subject, steering the conversation until he finally landed on the lab equipment. He raised his glass to me. “Ms. Vance, I truly can’t thank you enough for that equipment. You have no idea what a lifesaver it’s been for the hospital. Words can’t express my gratitude, so let this toast do the talking.” Justin frowned. “What equipment? And Anna, speaking of, why haven’t you sent that shipment to my lab yet? My next round of experiments is completely dependent on it.” I took a sip of my wine. “I already gave that equipment to Dean Evans,” I said calmly. Justin froze. His face went from confusion to a dark, thunderous rage, but he managed to bottle it up. For now. The Dean, oblivious, continued to make polite conversation. Justin’s responses became clipped and cold. The second the dinner was over, his control shattered. He cornered me on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. “Anna, why would you give that equipment to him? You know that was the most advanced system out of Germany! Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for it?” His voice was a low, furious growl. “What has gotten into you lately? You’re not acting like yourself. Are you seeing someone else?” The accusation, the sheer hypocrisy of it, was almost laughable. I was about to answer when a familiar voice cut through the night. “Anna? I can’t believe I’d run into you here.” It was Liam, an old friend. “I heard about your mother. I’m so sorry, I got back too late.” He put a gentle hand on my arm. “My condolences.” “Condolences?” Justin’s brow furrowed in confusion. He looked from Liam to me, completely lost. “What condolences? Who died?”

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On the day of our hospital’s winter holiday party, the new intern, a master of passive aggression, posted about me on the internal employee forum. She claimed that as the head of cardiothoracic surgery, I was greedy for taking a $100,000 holiday bonus all for myself. What she didn’t mention was that the “bonus” was the annual payout for performing all of the hospital’s most complex, high-risk surgeries—surgeries that only I was qualified to do. The result? The entire hospital staff was calling me a greedy monster. So, I decided to give the people what they wanted. I submitted a formal request: 【To promote departmental unity, I voluntarily request to transfer all high-risk surgical cases to other qualified physicians.】 The moment the memo went out, the hospital nearly ground to a halt. The department heads camped outside my office, begging me to take it back. … I had just finished a grueling twelve-hour aortic dissection repair when my assistant, Chris, handed me his phone. Pinned to the top of the hospital’s internal forum was a trending post: 【Let’s talk about Dr. Zara Khan in Cardiothoracic. A $100,000 holiday bonus? Isn’t that a little much?】 The poster was anonymous, but the profile picture was a pink bunny. I recognized it. It was the new intern, Lily Chen. The post was simple: a screenshot of the bonus distribution list, my name and the number “100,000.00” clearly visible, though other details were blurred out. The caption was dripping with sarcasm: 【Happy Holidays! I was hoping for some cookies or maybe a hot chocolate bar, but I guess the hospital decided to just make it rain cash. It’s just… Dr. Khan gets a hundred grand, while the rest of us nurses and junior doctors are working ourselves to the bone for a few hundred bucks. Lol, I guess my imagination is limited by my poverty.】 She conveniently left out the fact that this wasn’t a holiday bonus. It was the annual performance payout for all “Level IV” surgical procedures. And in the entire cardiothoracic department—no, in the entire hospital—the only person capable of independently performing ultra-complex Level IV surgeries like Type A aortic dissections or giant ventricular aneurysm repairs was me. The comment section had already exploded. 【WTF! A hundred grand! She might as well just rob a bank!】 【We in the ER are running around like headless chickens 24/7, and our year-end bonus isn’t even a fraction of hers. How is that fair?】 【They call her the hospital’s top surgeon. Looks like she’s the top earner, too.】 I scrolled through the comments, my face a blank mask. The life I had just spent twelve hours saving suddenly felt a little less precious. Back in my office, the atmosphere was tense. People looked at me differently. A group of nurses who usually chatted by the water cooler fell silent the moment I walked in, their faces a mixture of contempt and envy they couldn’t quite hide. My mentor, Dr. Evans, the department chief, called me into his office. He sighed. “Zara, how are you going to handle this?” “Dr. Evans, you know that wasn’t a holiday bonus.” He nodded, then shook his head. “I know. But they don’t. You can’t silence a mob.” I understood what he was implying. He wanted me to back down, to return some of the money to appease the masses. Before I could respond, there was a knock on the door. Dr. Mark Sloan, the associate chief of cardiothoracic surgery, walked in with Lily in tow. Mark was a few years older than me and always acted like he was my senior, but his surgical skills were consistently a step behind mine. He’d watched me win award after award, and the sour look in his eyes was palpable from across the room. He entered with the air of a peacemaker. “Chief, Dr. Khan. Lily is young and didn’t know any better. I brought her here to apologize.” He gave Lily a little push forward. Her eyes were red-rimmed as she bowed to me, her voice choked with fake tears. “Dr. Khan, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I was just… I was so shocked when I saw the number, and it felt unfair. I just wanted to ask on behalf of everyone. I didn’t have any bad intentions.” She kept repeating “I didn’t mean to,” and “on behalf of everyone.” Her apology felt sharper than a scalpel in winter. Mark smoothly picked up where she left off, his tone patronizing. “Zara, you see? Lily was just thinking about department morale. And really, you can’t blame her entirely. The bonus structure is a bit problematic. It’s bound to cause misunderstandings.” He looked at me, a flicker of triumph in his eyes. “How about this? You take some of that money and treat the whole department to a nice dinner. We’ll build some camaraderie. We’ll just let this whole thing blow over. She’s just a kid, we should be more understanding.” The way he said it made it sound like I’d taken money I didn’t deserve and now needed to buy my way out of trouble. I watched the two of them, their performance perfectly synchronized, and let out a cold laugh. “You’re right, Dr. Sloan. My perspective has been too narrow. I’ve been so focused on surgery that I haven’t considered everyone else’s feelings.” Mark thought I was giving in. His smile widened. Lily lowered her head, her shoulders shaking slightly in a display of remorseful fragility. I ignored them and turned to Dr. Evans. “Chief, the root of this problem is that I have a monopoly on these skills. I’m taking up too many resources and leaving no room for my colleagues to grow.” “To promote departmental unity, and to give talented mid-career surgeons like Dr. Sloan more opportunities, I’ve decided to submit a formal request to the hospital administration.” I paused, watching the color drain from Mark’s face, and said, word by word, “I am voluntarily transferring the scheduling for all Level IV surgical procedures to other qualified surgeons in the department. I will limit my work to routine Level I and II surgeries.” Dr. Evans shot up from his chair, his face pale. “Zara! What are you doing? This is madness!” Mark’s face was as white as a sheet. He had probably imagined a thousand ways to undermine me, but he never, ever imagined that I would take the prize everyone was so jealous of and just… throw it at him, pot and all. Level IV surgeries represented the pinnacle of the profession, but they also carried the highest risk. Success meant glory and a huge payout. Failure meant lawsuits and a ruined career. He had the guts to be jealous, but did he have the skill to take over? I didn’t give him a chance to respond. I walked out of the office, pausing beside Lily. “Congratulations,” I said softly. “You got the fairness you were fighting for.” Her face went completely bloodless. My request hit the hospital administration like a bomb. The hospital president, Mr. Harrison, called me personally, his voice graver than I’d ever heard it. “Zara, who are you trying to prove a point to? Do you have any idea what this request means?” “Mr. Harrison, I’m not trying to prove a point,” I said calmly. “I’m simply responding to the will of the people. I don’t want to be the cause of any more division over bonuses.” There was a long silence on the other end. He knew better than anyone that the most advanced equipment and operating rooms in the cardiothoracic wing were essentially for my exclusive use. He knew how many high-profile patients—politicians, CEOs, complex cases from all over the country—specifically requested me as their surgeon, generating millions in revenue and prestige for the hospital. Now that I was stepping back, he was the first one to feel the heat. “Just calm down. I’ll hold onto your request for now. I’ll have the IT department take care of the forum post.” “There’s no need, sir,” I interrupted. “If everyone feels my presence is creating an unfair environment, then I will step aside. I’m confident the hospital will continue to function perfectly well without me.” I hung up. A few minutes later, Chris rushed in, looking panicked. “Dr. Khan, it’s bad! The forum is blowing up again!” I opened it. A new post was trending. 【Insider Info! Dr. Khan is threatening to go on strike over unfair bonus distribution!】 The poster was anonymous again, but the tone was even more inflammatory. 【Using her skills to hold the entire hospital hostage. Is this a doctor’s compassion, or a doctor’s greed?】 A comment from one of Mark’s sock puppet accounts, which I recognized, was getting a lot of upvotes. 【I’ve always heard she was difficult, but I never thought she lacked this much perspective. The operating room isn’t her personal stage. The world keeps spinning without her.】 Lily had even waded in with her main account, posting a comment that was carefully crafted to sound objective but was really just fanning the flames. 【As an intern, I’ve seen the tireless dedication of our senior staff, but I’ve also seen flaws in the system. I believe our hospital is a compassionate community, and personal feelings should never be placed above a patient’s life. I hope certain individuals can calm down and not do something that will disappoint us all.】 She had successfully painted herself as a concerned whistleblower. I had to laugh. Just then, the ER called. The head nurse’s voice was frantic. “Dr. Khan! Ambulance just brought in a trauma patient, suspected Marfan syndrome with an acute Type A aortic dissection rupture! The patient is in shock! We need you now!” A ruptured Type A dissection. The mortality rate is measured in hours. The surgery is the Mount Everest of cardiac procedures. I grabbed my white coat and ran. But as I reached the ER triage desk, a middle-aged woman blocked my path. She was the patient’s wife. Her eyes were red, but her face was filled with suspicion and alarm. She was clutching her phone, the screen displaying the very forum post that had put me on trial. “You’re Zara Khan?” she asked, her eyes raking over me with distrust. “Are you the doctor who’s going on strike over money?” Her voice wasn’t loud, but it hit me like a sledgehammer. The family’s doubt was like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head. The fighting spirit I had just mustered was shattered in an instant. I looked at her, then at the patient in the trauma bay behind her, a life rapidly slipping away, and the whole situation felt absurd. I wanted to explain, but I knew that in the face of inflamed emotions, any explanation would be useless. “I’m not on strike.” She clearly didn’t believe me. She took a step back, as if I were a monster. “I don’t care if you are or not! I won’t let a doctor with no ethics operate on my husband!” “I want a different doctor!” she yelled. “Don’t you have any other experts in this hospital?” The ER chief rushed over. Hearing her words, his face turned green. “Ma’am, please calm down! Dr. Khan is the only surgeon in this hospital who can perform this surgery! If we wait any longer, it will be too late!” “I don’t care! I want someone else!” the woman shrieked stubbornly. At that moment, Mark and Lily arrived. A flicker of satisfaction crossed Mark’s face before he replaced it with a look of deep concern. He approached the woman, his voice gentle. “Ma’am, please don’t be upset. We understand how you feel, but saving your husband is the priority right now. Dr. Khan’s skills are still very reliable…” His words seemed to defend me, but they only served to confirm her belief that my ethics were questionable. Lily, ever the thoughtful one, handed the woman a cup of water. “Ma’am, please try to calm down. Or, perhaps we could ask Dr. Sloan. He’s also a very talented surgeon in our department.” Her suggestion immediately gave the woman a new ray of hope. She grabbed Mark’s hand like a lifeline. “Doctor, you do the surgery! I trust you!” Mark feigned reluctance. “Well… that’s against protocol. Dr. Khan is the attending surgeon…” But his eyes kept darting in my direction, full of challenge. Mr. Harrison and Dr. Evans, having heard the news, came rushing down. Seeing the standoff, the president looked like he was about to have an aneurysm. He pulled me aside, his voice a low, desperate plea. “Zara, I’m begging you. A life is on the line! Just back down for now. Apologize to the family, calm them down!” Apologize? What was I supposed to apologize for? For the bonus I earned with my skills? For the scalpel in my hand that could save a man’s life? I looked at the president’s frantic face, at the smug curl of Mark’s lip, at the innocent, venomous eyes of Lily Chen. And I suddenly felt so tired. I turned to the president and said calmly, “Sir, since the family and my colleagues have so much faith in Dr. Sloan, let him be the lead surgeon. And that transfer request I submitted? Please approve it as soon as possible.” Without another look at anyone, I turned and walked back to my office. Behind me, I heard Dr. Evans’s furious roar, “Zara! Is this a mutiny?” And the president’s weary concession, “…Fine. Sloan, you’re lead. Khan, you’ll supervise.” I didn’t turn back. Supervise? A master teaching a novice? I was afraid he wouldn’t understand the instructions. I locked myself in my office. Through the door, I could feel the controlled chaos of the hallway. Nurses rushing, equipment carts rattling, Mark’s confident voice barking orders, playing the part of the savior. Chris knocked and came in, his eyes red. “Dr. Khan, are you really not going to do anything? That patient… he’s not doing well.” I leaned back in my chair, closed my eyes, and said nothing. My phone vibrated. A text from an unknown number. 【Dr. Khan, I’m the patient’s daughter. My mother is very emotional, but we looked you up. We trust you. Please, I’m begging you, save my father.】 My heart lurched. But what could I do? Mark had already taken the case. If I stormed in now, would I be trying to prove he was incompetent, or trying to steal his glory? In the eyes of people already blinded by prejudice, everything I did would be wrong. I picked up the unapproved request from my desk and signed my name. Time ticked by. One hour. Two hours. Suddenly, my office door was thrown open. Dr. Evans burst in, his face ashen, his lips trembling. “Zara! Something’s happened!” My stomach dropped. I stood up. “Mark… he can’t find the tear! He can’t dissect the vessels of the aortic arch, and now there’s massive bleeding! We can’t get a blood pressure reading!” I had expected this. The most critical and dangerous step of a Type A dissection is reconstructing the three branch vessels of the aortic arch under deep hypothermic circulatory arrest. The vessels there are as thin as a cicada’s wing, the anatomy is complex, and the slightest mistake is catastrophic. Mark’s skills were nowhere near that level. “They need you in there now!” Dr. Evans grabbed my arm, his hand shaking violently. “Hurry! Any later and it will be too late!” I looked at him and asked slowly, “Chief, if I go in there now, what am I? Am I saving a life, or am I cleaning up Dr. Sloan’s mess?” “If the patient lives, the credit is his. He was the ‘lead surgeon,’ and I was the effective ‘supervisor.’ If the patient dies, the blame is mine, because I ‘intervened’ at a critical moment and disrupted his rhythm.” “Either way, he comes out of this unscathed. And me?” Dr. Evans froze. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. He was right. He was asking me to go, but what guarantees could he offer me? Just then, my phone started ringing frantically. It was the president. I put it on speaker. On the other end, his voice was cracking, on the verge of tears. In the background, I could hear the shrill alarm of a heart monitor and the panicked shouts of nurses. “Zara! For God’s sake! I’m begging you! Get in here! The patient is crashing! Mark has completely lost it!”

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1 On my wedding eve, scandal broke. My fiancé Ross Vance had gotten his mistress Stella Reed pregnant—five months along. He called, cold and dismissive. “It was an accident. Just ensure the engagement party goes smoothly. Canceling would humiliate both families, and your grandfather’s health is fragile.” After hanging up, his social media updated: a photo of him listening to Stella’s belly, captioned, “Awaiting our little one.” That night, he skipped our party. On our video call, he was reading a fairy tale to Stella’s stomach. “She needs prenatal bonding. You handle things. The Vance heir is precious—we’ll send the child abroad after birth; you can play mother on holidays. The title of Mrs. Vance is still yours.” I noticed the diamond ring on his finger and laughed coldly. “Ross, we’re done.” “Don’t be childish,” he warned. I hung up and dialed Conrad Vance instead. “Mr. Vance, I heard you’re seeking a new wife. Consider me—the Sterling women are known for fertility. I can give you all the sons you want. One heir is so lonely; let’s give him brothers.” … On the other end of the line, Conrad Vance’s voice was hoarse with shock. “Seraphina? What nonsense are you talking about?” “Nonsense?” I chuckled, the sound laced with mockery. “You’ve seen the news about your precious son and his five-months-pregnant canary, haven’t you? I find him… utterly filthy. I’m serious, Mr. Vance. I’m trading up.” A few seconds of silence, then his voice, trembling slightly, “We can’t discuss this over the phone. I’m coming over now.” “Wonderful,” I purred, my eyes glinting like shards of glass. “I’ll be waiting.” Conrad Vance was barely thirty-five, in the prime of his life. But a cruel twist of genetics had made it impossible for him to have children of his own. After years of failed IVF treatments, he had adopted Ross from a distant branch of the family. The Sterling family’s alliance with the Vances was built on one thing: the legendary fertility of its women—a trait passed down through generations. We were a dynasty’s guarantee. No matter my grandfather’s health, this marriage was a necessity both families understood. But I never imagined Ross, the man I had loved for three years, would knock up his mistress right before our wedding and expect me to swallow my pride and play stepmother. I, Seraphina Sterling, do not suffer in silence. Conrad arrived faster than I expected. He stood in the doorway, impeccably dressed in a tailored suit, his expression a storm of conflicting emotions. “Seraphina, you…” I didn’t let him finish. I reached out, grabbed his tie, and yanked him into the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Rising onto my toes, I silenced his questions and doubts with a kiss that left no room for argument. My fingers deftly undid the first button of his shirt, my touch slipping beneath the fabric with an undeniable authority. My actions were my declaration. There was no shyness, no hesitation, only the raw, unyielding finality of someone burning all their bridges. I could feel his body tense, a war raging within him. But in the end, the dam of his reason shattered against the flood of raw, primal need. After the storm passed, Conrad held me close, his voice a gravelly whisper. “I have urgent business overseas. I have to leave tomorrow, and I might be gone for a while. Wait for me.” “And… the wedding?” I asked, looking up at him. 2 He met my gaze, his eyes dark and intense. His tone was absolute. “It will proceed as planned. I’ll be back in time. You are the only daughter of the Sterling family, and you are the matriarch the Vance family needs.” He rose and dressed, leaving me with that promise before departing as quickly as he had come. The moment he was gone, my phone began to vibrate violently on the nightstand. It was Ross, his voice laced with its usual entitlement and a new thread of impatience. “Seraphina, get over here. Stella’s morning sickness is bad; she has no energy. Come keep her company. It’ll be good practice for you on how to care for a pregnant woman. I’m taking her to an art exhibit to lift her spirits.” He wanted me to babysit Stella? To learn how to care for a pregnant woman? The absurdity was so profound it was almost funny. “Ross, I am not your nanny. You have the wrong number,” I said, my voice like ice. He sighed, as if I were being difficult. “Stella is carrying a Vance heir. It’s hard work! As the future matriarch, it’s your duty to learn these things.” The twisted logic of it all drew a sharp, cold laugh from my throat. “Ross, your heartfelt speech is truly touching. We’re done. Who you have children with, and who you hire to wait on them, has nothing to do with me. Stop harassing me.” I hung up. Lying back on the bed, I couldn’t shake the knot of rage in my chest. I picked up my phone, hoping for a distraction, only to have a news alert pierce my eyes like a poisoned needle: VANCE HEIR DOTES ON MYSTERY WOMAN AT ART GALA, BABY BUMP THE MAIN ATTRACTION! I clicked the link. The high-resolution photo was a slap in the face. Ross was carefully guiding a visibly pregnant Stella, his head bent to look at her belly with a look of tender adoration I had never once received in our three years together. My heart seized, a pain so sharp it stole my breath. Three years. My birthday gifts were always last-minute luxury items picked out by his assistant. When had he ever shown me an ounce of this kind of thoughtfulness? Love follows the heart, and his heart had never been with me. I had to get out. I needed a change of scenery. I decided to go for my final fitting for the custom wedding gown that held all my shattered dreams. But when I pushed open the doors to the bridal salon, the sight before me made my blood run cold. There, in front of the gleaming floor-to-ceiling mirror, was Stella Reed, her five-month baby bump straining against the seams of my priceless, hand-embroidered wedding dress—the one that had taken six months of painstaking work to create. The waistline of the gown had been crudely pinned, making it look tight and misshapen. A look of dissatisfaction was on her face as she pointed to her stomach and complained to the shop assistant, “This is too tight! You need to let out the waist entirely, at least three inches! And the bust… it’s a bit constricting here, too. Loosen it up.” That dress represented every beautiful fantasy I ever had about my marriage. Fury erupted, white-hot, in my mind. I took a deep breath, trying to contain the rage that threatened to tear me apart. I strode forward, my voice as cold as a glacier. “Take it off. That is my wedding dress.” Stella flinched, clutching her belly as if I had struck her. She scurried behind Ross, who had turned at the sound of my voice, her eyes welling with tears. “Seraphina!” Ross’s brow furrowed, his tone a mixture of sharp reprimand and anxiety. “Could you keep your voice down? You’re scaring Stella and the baby!” I almost laughed. “Ross! That is my custom-made gown! Six months of work, every single stitch! What right does she have to wear it? To have it butchered like this?” Ross’s eyes flickered, but then his expression hardened. “Of course she has the right. She is the bride. This dress is for her. And what’s wrong with altering the waistline? Her situation is… unique.” I froze. “What?” “You and I will get the marriage license. The alliance between our families remains,” he said, his gaze softening as he looked at Stella. “But Stella is carrying my child. She’s been through so much. I can’t let her be sidelined. So, the wedding ceremony… Stella will be the one at the altar. It’s the least I can do to give her the recognition she deserves.” “What… did you just say?” A tremor ran through my entire body. If this happened, my family and I would become the laughingstock of the entire city. But he thought his plan was perfect. His voice was firm. “Seraphina, I know it’s not fair to you. But Stella has had a difficult time. For the sake of the Vance heir she’s carrying, please, just try to be understanding…” 3 “Understanding?” My voice rose, drawing stares from others in the salon. “Ross! You want me to play a part in this circus? I’m the one you marry legally, but she’s the one who gets to stand on the altar with her baby bump, basking in everyone’s blessings? Is she the one who gets the wedding night, too? And then you expect me, your legal wife, to raise your bastard child? What do you take me for, Ross? Some beggar on the street you can mold and discard as you please?” Right on cue, Stella began to sob softly, her hand stroking her belly. “Miss Sterling, please don’t be angry… I know my status is low… I just wanted to wear a wedding dress once… I know I don’t deserve it… but the baby is innocent…” Ross’s eyes turned to ice, a clear warning in them. “This is how it’s going to be. If it weren’t for my father, do you honestly think I would marry you at all?” I stared at him, the last flicker of affection in my heart dying, replaced by a cold, sharp hatred. It seemed Conrad hadn’t told him about the change of grooms yet. “Fine,” I said, looking him straight in the eye, my voice devoid of all emotion. We’ll see who’s being replaced on the wedding day. Ross’s frown deepened. He clearly hadn’t expected me to agree so easily. A flicker of surprise crossed his face. Behind him, Stella subtly lifted her head, her hand tightening on her pregnant stomach, a triumphant glint in her eyes. Over the next few days, photos of Ross and Stella’s “maternity-style” wedding shoot dominated the headlines. The media, playing along with the “Vance-Sterling merger” narrative, presented the pregnant woman in the photos as the true Sterling heiress. Worried calls from my closest friends poured in. The whispers and rumors in our social circle were like poisoned needles, mocking me as a pathetic doormat who’d “lost everything,” who’d even “let a pregnant mistress take her place.” I ignored it all, focusing my energy on the hospital. Grandfather’s heart condition had suddenly worsened. The doctors had issued a critical notice; he needed 24/7 monitoring. I stayed by his bedside, day and night, carefully shielding him from any news about that despicable pair, terrified that any hint of the scandal would be the final blow to his fragile health. But some things, you can’t guard against. Stella, arm in arm with Ross, brazenly walked into my grandfather’s private ICU room. I was just outside the door, carrying a thermos, when I heard her sickly sweet, theatrical voice. “Grandpa Sterling,” she cooed. She was holding a copy of a high-fashion magazine, pointing to a full-page spread of her and Ross’s maternity wedding photos, deliberately angling her swollen belly towards the bed. “Look at our wedding pictures! Don’t Ross and I look wonderful? You have to be at the head table on the big day to see your great-grandchild!” My grandfather’s face turned a deathly shade of purple. His chest heaved violently, his hands clawing at the sheets, his lips trembling as a guttural sound escaped his throat. The heart monitor began to shriek. “Grandfather!” I screamed, the thermos crashing to the floor. I lunged into the room, slamming the emergency call button. “Miss Sterling, don’t be upset…” Stella began, her voice dripping with fake concern. I shoved her aside. “Get out! Get out with your bastard!” A doctor yelled, “Prep for resuscitation!” A nurse forcibly pulled me away as I watched, helpless, while they wheeled my grandfather into the emergency room. Ross tried to steady me, but I slapped his hand away. “Don’t touch me! You animal! You knew about his condition, and you still came here to torment him!” Stella hid behind him. “We just wanted to invite him to the wedding…” “Seraphina! Calm down! If you hurt Stella or the baby, can you take responsibility for that?” he roared, grabbing my wrist. “Calm down? You’re killing my grandfather!” I struggled against his grip. “It was an accident!” he snapped, shielding Stella. “The world thinks Stella is the Sterling heiress. If no one from your family is at the wedding, her cover will be blown, and the Vance family will lose face! Having your grandfather there makes everyone happy!” A smile, more painful than tears, twisted my lips. “Ross, are you blind or just heartless? You know exactly what Stella is. Since when is she a Sterling? She’s nothing but a parasite who slept her way to the top, a shameless homewrecker flaunting a bastard child!” 4 CRACK! Ross’s face darkened like a thundercloud. He swung his hand, slapping me hard across the face. The force of the blow sent black spots dancing in front of my eyes. A ringing filled my ears, and my cheek went numb with a searing, hot pain. “Even if you’re the one I’m legally marrying,” he snarled, taking a step closer, his eyes like poisoned daggers, each word a blow to my heart, “the only woman I, Ross Vance, will ever recognize as my wife is Stella! And the baby in her belly is my rightful heir! So, you will show her some damn respect!” His words were a blunt knife, twisting in my chest, and the hatred inside me boiled over. Three years… a full three years. And this is what I was worth to him. Nothing. “You don’t need to come to the wedding,” he said, his voice flat and laced with a final warning. “Stay here with your grandfather.” He gestured down the hallway, and several bodyguards surrounded me. “Watch her. Don’t let her leave this floor,” he commanded, before guiding Stella away. My eyes burned holes into their retreating backs. I could taste blood in my mouth. Ross, you think you can lock me in here and have your picture-perfect wedding with Stella? Dream on. I stroked my still-flat stomach, feeling the quiet strength of the new life secretly growing within me. Under the watchful eyes of the guards, I slowly pulled out my phone and dialed a number… On the day of the wedding, Stella sat before a lavish vanity, her fingers tracing the diamond-studded fabric of the gown that had been altered to accommodate her pregnant belly. She gazed at her reflection, a triumphant, almost twisted smile on her lips. So what if Seraphina was the great Sterling heiress? The darling of high society? Today, she, Stella Reed, was the one wearing her dress, using her name, and carrying the “golden heir” of the Vance family. She was the one about to become the envied Mrs. Vance. As for Seraphina? She was just a pathetic creature trapped in a hospital, watching over a dying old man. Everything that was once hers would now belong to Stella. Meanwhile, in the banquet hall downstairs, Ross was greeting guests, but a knot of anxiety was tightening in his stomach. He had sent out hundreds of invitations. Given the Vance family’s standing, the hall should have been overflowing. But as the ceremony time approached, the vast room was still sparsely populated, so empty you could hear the echo of your own footsteps. The grand scene of glittering high society he had envisioned was nowhere to be found. Beneath the elaborate floral arch, only a handful of reporters from minor outlets were fiddling with their cameras, their flashes seeming weak and unenthusiastic. “Ross…” Stella waddled over, one hand on her belly, her eyes wide with worry. “Why are there so few people here?” The anxiety in Ross’s gut grew into a monster. He summoned a senior staff member. “Get our head butler, Mr. Gable, and the event coordinators here now!” The staffer returned quickly, but he was followed only by a young, unfamiliar man in a standard-issue uniform. Ross’s anger flared. “Where is Mr. Gable? Why isn’t he here?” he demanded. The young servant flinched. “S-sir… Mr. Gable… he’s busy, sir… with the Master’s wedding… He said he couldn’t get away… He said if you needed anything… to… to ask me…” “My father’s wedding?” Ross’s voice was sharp, his face draining of all color. “With who? What are you talking about?” The servant was even more terrified now. “W-with… with the Sterling heiress… Miss Seraphina Sterling…” Ross’s mind went blank, as if struck by a sledgehammer. He grabbed the servant’s arm, his voice a ragged, broken whisper. “Say that again.” The servant winced in pain, but stammered, “J-just now… on the top floor… in the Crystal Ballroom… The Master is marrying Miss Seraphina Sterling… The ceremony… it should be starting any moment…” 5 In that instant, Ross’s world collapsed. He staggered backward, his face ashen, his lips trembling as he muttered, “Impossible… impossible…” Stella rushed to his side, clutching her belly, her voice choked with tears. “Ross, what’s going on? How could Seraphina be with your father? Is she doing this to get back at us?” Ross didn’t answer. His mind was consumed by a single thought: Seraphina and Conrad were getting married. He shoved the servant aside and stumbled towards the elevator. “Ross! Wait for me!” Stella cried, struggling to keep up with her large belly. The elevator doors closed mercilessly in her face. Outside the top-floor Crystal Ballroom, Ross peered through a crack in the partially open doors and saw a sight that shattered his soul. The hall was bathed in brilliant light, filled to the brim with guests. The very same business tycoons and socialites who were absent from his own wedding downstairs were now mingling, champagne flutes in hand, smiling and laughing. Beneath a massive crystal chandelier, Conrad Vance, dressed in a sharp white tuxedo, was leading me—draped in a breathtaking white gown—down the aisle. It wasn’t the dress Stella had defiled. This one was even more magnificent, a flawless haute couture creation that clung to my body perfectly, its train glittering under the lights like fallen starlight. The way Conrad looked at me… it was with a tenderness that could melt glaciers. “And now, will the groom please place the ring on the bride’s finger,” the officiant’s voice echoed clearly. Conrad gently took my hand, sliding a dazzling diamond ring onto my finger. BOOM! Ross slammed the doors open. The loud crash silenced the entire hall. Every head turned towards the entrance, and a wave of whispers rippled through the crowd. “Ross Vance? What’s he doing here?” “Isn’t he the one getting married downstairs?” “I heard that pregnant woman is his mistress…” Ross staggered towards the altar, his eyes wild, his voice hoarse. “Dad! What are you doing?!” Conrad’s expression was calm, almost amused. “I’m getting married. Seraphina is the wife I have chosen.” “But she was my fiancée!” Ross cried, his voice breaking. “This is… this is incest!” I let out a small, cold laugh. “Ross, our engagement became void the moment I learned Stella was carrying your child. Have you forgotten?” I paused, my tone dripping with sarcasm. “Besides, aren’t you having your own wedding downstairs? What happened, did you call it off?” Ross’s face was a deathly white. He swayed on his feet. “Seraphina… you can’t do this… you can’t marry my father…” “And why not?” I asked coolly. “You, Ross Vance, were free to betray our love, to get your mistress pregnant, and to demand that I raise your bastard child. Why can’t I choose a better man?” Conrad stepped forward, wrapping an arm around my waist in a clear display of ownership. “Ross, Seraphina is my wife now. You will respect her.” “No!” Ross roared. “You can’t be together! If you get married, my reputation…” “Oh, so now you care about your reputation?” I cut him off with a sneer. “When you had Stella wear my dress and steal my name for your sham wedding, did you ever stop to think that this day would come?” The murmuring from the guests grew louder. Some were already pulling out their phones to record the drama. 6 Ross’s face flushed a deep, mottled red. He opened his mouth to argue but found he had no words. Just then, Stella finally arrived. She was clutching her large belly with one hand and her chest with the other, panting for breath in the doorway. “Ross—” she called out weakly, then her eyes took in the scene and her face went chalk-white. The gazes of every guest in the room fell upon her. “Is that the pregnant mistress?” “Wow, she actually showed up…” “Wearing a wedding dress with a baby bump like that… does she have no shame?” Stella felt the weight of their scorn and curiosity. She began to tremble. She had never imagined that the perfect wedding she had orchestrated would devolve into this public humiliation. “Stella!” Ross rushed to her side. “Why did you come up here? You need to rest!” Tears welled in her eyes. “I was worried about you… Ross, what is happening? Why is Seraphina with your father…” She didn’t finish, but everyone understood. Conrad’s expression hardened. His voice boomed with an authority that could not be questioned. “Enough! This is my wedding, not a stage for your melodrama!” He looked at the officiant and nodded for him to continue. The officiant cleared his throat. “And now, will the bride please place the ring on the groom’s finger.” I took the custom platinum band from its box and, under the watchful eyes of everyone in the room, slowly slid it onto Conrad’s finger. “NO!” Ross screamed, lunging forward, only to be blocked by several security guards. He struggled against them, his eyes red with fury. “Seraphina! You can’t do this!” I turned to look at him, a smirk playing on my lips. “Didn’t you say I wasn’t good enough for you? Well, I suppose your father will have to do.” A wave of stifled laughter and shocked whispers went through the crowd. Ross’s face contorted with rage and shame. Stella, fighting through her discomfort, stumbled forward. “Miss Sterling, how can you do this? What about your grandfather? He’s still in the hospital…” “That’s enough!” My voice was suddenly sharp as a razor’s edge. “Stella, you have the audacity to mention my grandfather? If it weren’t for you two animals deliberately provoking him, would he be on his deathbed?” I advanced on her, each step heavy with purpose. “You thought putting on my dress would make you a Sterling? What are you? A shameless, pathetic mistress who dares to play the victim in front of me?” Stella’s face was ashen. She backed away, shielding her stomach. “I… I didn’t…” “No?” I sneered. “Then where did that bastard in your belly come from? An immaculate conception?” “Seraphina!” Ross roared. “Watch your mouth! That’s my child!” I turned my gaze back to him, my eyes full of contempt. “Ross, you’re the one who needs to watch his mouth. From this day forward, I am the matriarch of the Vance family. You will address me with respect.” His face turned an even darker shade of purple. At that moment, Conrad stepped forward, his presence commanding the room. “Today is the wedding of myself, Conrad Vance, and Miss Seraphina Sterling. Thank you all for coming to witness our joy. I hope you all have a wonderful time. Let the celebration begin!”

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At the freshman welcome mixer, a girl from the incoming class suddenly cornered my childhood best friend, David, who has autism. “Hey,” she said, her voice loud enough to turn heads. “Aren’t you going to explain why you were just touching my thigh?” Just then, the text appeared in my vision—the shimmering, translucent comments that only I could ever see. 【Yesss, here it comes. Our main character curing the broody autistic guy. Kelly’s a natural!】 【Look at him pretending to be annoyed. We all know he’s secretly thrilled. He’s totally falling for our girl.】 【Ugh, so annoying. The side character is about to ruin the vibe and interrupt their flirting.】 【Whatever. Even if the side character interferes, she’ll just make the male lead hate her more. She’s no match for our adorable new heroine.】 1 The air thickened. David looked utterly lost, stammering, “I-I didn’t.” His knuckles were white where he gripped his water bottle. The campus green was packed with students rehearsing for the Welcome Week talent show. The girl’s voice had carried, and now dozens of eyes were on us. Her own eyes were bright with mischief as she giggled. “David Hayes, I thought you were mute. Look at you, using your words!” Whispers rippled through the crowd. Under the weight of their stares and contempt, beads of sweat broke out on David’s forehead. His autism already made speaking difficult; being the center of attention like this was sending him into a full-blown panic. Seeing his silence, the girl’s smirk widened. I was only here to give a speech as a student representative. I never imagined it would lead to this kind of trouble for David. I switched on my phone’s camera and held it up. “Excuse me,” I said, my voice level. “Just to confirm, you’re accusing David Hayes of touching your thigh? Because if you are, I’m calling campus security and having them pull the surveillance footage right now.” The girl’s smile froze. A frown creased her forehead. David stared at me, his throat working silently. The comments began to scroll frantically across my vision. 【LOL, this side character doesn’t play by the rules. Does she think this will make the male lead fall for her?】 【Dumb bitch. They were just flirting. She’s about to trigger his protective-boyfriend mode and she doesn’t even know it.】 【She’s just jealous the main character can get a reaction out of him. What a petty little snake.】 The girl shot me a dirty look, her voice turning whiny. “It was just a joke. You’re being way too uptight, upperclassman.” But the triumphant glint in her eyes screamed that I was a busybody. I started dialing. “A joke?” I snapped. “Do you have any idea what slander is? It’s a crime.” To my shock, David finally spoke, his words slow and strained. “Don’t… Stay out of it.” He reached out and shoved my arm, knocking the phone from my hand. It went sailing in an arc through the air. More stares. More whispers. David was a man of few words, but never, in all the years I’d stood up for him, had he publicly humiliated me like this. I took a deep, shuddering breath to keep myself from slapping him. I bent down, picked up my phone, and turned to leave without another word. Fine. I was done. The comments were a chorus of smug satisfaction. 【LMAO, the side piece is gonna have an aneurysm. Serves her right for being extra.】 【The guy himself doesn’t even care. She’s like the gossip queen reincarnated.】 【She’s always hanging around him, but he’s never called her his girlfriend. She’s just delusional.】 A second later, David was jogging to catch up with me. He tugged gently on my sleeve, the same way he always did when he knew he’d messed up. I turned, and he looked at me with that wide-eyed, innocent expression that always worked on me. The comments exploded. 【WTF is the male lead doing? Why is he chasing after that psycho?】 【This side chick is such a drama queen. Playing hard to get? So gross.】 【David, get back to our girl Kelly! She’d go home with you tonight if you just asked. What’s so great about this little snake anyway?】 I looked down, a wave of exhaustion washing over me. I knew David’s mind worked differently, but this still felt like a slap in the face. After my parents left, his mother, Mrs. Hayes, had been the one to look out for me. I couldn’t bring myself to yell at him, but I wasn’t going to swallow my pride either. I yanked my sleeve out of his grasp. “I’m tired from the event,” I said, my voice cold. “I’m going back to my dorm.” The comments flashed. 【What a bitch.】 David just blinked, saying what he always said when we parted. “Be safe.” 2 After the Welcome Week festivities, my senior year schedule became even more brutal. I’d already secured a spot in a top-tier graduate program, but I still had to connect with my new advisor and finish a major project for my undergrad mentor. I spent my days buried in the lab, trying not to think about how much David had hurt me. Occasionally, I’d overhear snippets of gossip about the ‘Freshman It Girl’ chasing the ‘Genius Upperclassman.’ Then, one evening, I got a frantic call from Mrs. Hayes. “Lara,” she said, her voice tight with panic, “David has been so… distant lately. He’s not home yet, and he forgot his medication.” Her voice cracked. “I’m so afraid he’s going to have an episode. Can you please, please take his pills to him?” I understood the gravity of the situation immediately. After reassuring her, I grabbed my bag and sprinted to the university’s art building. But when I got to the studio, David’s easel was empty. A student I knew glanced up from his work. “Well, if it isn’t David’s little girlfriend,” he teased. “Here to check up on your man? You’re in the wrong place. He barely comes here anymore.” A cold dread seeped into my bones. The submission deadline for the International Art Competition was just two weeks away. Why wouldn’t he be in the studio? After a quick text to his roommate, I finally found him at an off-campus bar. The moment I stepped inside, the blast of noise—clinking glasses, shouting, thumping music—gave me a headache. I couldn’t imagine David, who despised loud places, being here. The private room was dimly lit, the air thick with a cloying, intimate energy. Kelly was pressed right up against David, her face so close to his they were almost touching. I watched as her finger traced the bridge of his nose while she whispered something in his ear. David’s eyelashes fluttered. His ears flushed crimson, but he didn’t push her away like he did with everyone else who got too close. They were the center of attention, and the others in the room were hooting and laughing. The comment stream, which had been quiet, lit up. 【OMG, I’m dying! This is too sweet! He’s powerless against our seductive queen!】 【LMAO, Kelly knows how to flirt. She’s making me blush.】 【Taking notes! Next time I’m gonna ask my crush if what they say about guys with big noses is true.】 I knocked on the open door, just loud enough to be heard over the noise. When David’s eyes met mine, the red at the tips of his ears hadn’t faded. Kelly shot me a defiant smirk and nudged him. “Look, David, your babysitter’s here. She chased you all the way to a bar. Maybe you should be a good boy and go home with her?” “Hah! Don’t tell me you’re in your twenties and still have a chaperone!” someone else jeered. The room erupted in laughter. Someone whistled. “Wow, didn’t peg you as a mama’s boy, Hayes! Is that your mom calling you home?” David glared at me, his expression making it perfectly clear that I was not welcome. Kelly looked at me like a victorious general. “Sorry, Lara. I think David wants to stay here and play with me tonight.” The comments were merciless. 【Does this side chick really think she can show up and claim him? LMAO, what a clown.】 【It’s useless. All this drama is just gonna push the main characters closer together!】 I closed my eyes for a second, then chucked the bottle from my bag directly into David’s lap. Kelly snatched it from him, holding it up to the dim light. “Risperidone?” she read aloud. “What’s this for?” David froze, then scrambled to check the contents of my bag that I had thrown at him. When he looked back up at me, he couldn’t meet my gaze. Without a timely dose of Risperidone, he was prone to severe self-harm. I knew because it had happened once before. Mrs. Hayes had been called away for a family emergency. When I let myself into their house, I found David sitting on the bathroom floor, methodically slicing at his own body with a utility knife, his face completely blank. He seemed to feel no pain, just carving into his own flesh as if it belonged to someone else. His arms and legs were a bloody mess, the white tiles painted with crimson patterns. He was about to cut into a major artery when I dove forward and grabbed the blade with my bare hands. The scar on my palm never fully faded. It was a permanent reminder of that day. Ever since, I’ve carried a spare bottle of his medication in my bag at all times. And David knew it. 3 Kelly smirked. “David, this isn’t… that kind of pill, is it? Wow, Lara must really care about your… private life. You should thank her.” Her eyes darted suggestively toward his crotch. “I mean, you said you two were just friends. It’s so nice of her to be this thoughtful.” A stream of 【KELLY IS A QUEEN!!!】 filled my vision, followed by a dozen exclamation points, as if she’d just done something heroic. I frowned, not understanding what they were so excited about. My job was done. I needed to get back to the lab. As I turned to leave, David stood up. “Wait. I’ll walk you back.” Guilt, I assumed. An attempt to make amends. I saw Kelly’s smile tighten at the corners. The comments rolled. 【Ugh, I’m so jealous. This bitch literally just showed up to annoy our girl!】 【Can the side character just f*** off already? I can’t stand seeing her in another scene. She’s such a pick-me girl!】 【It’s fine, the key plot point is coming up. The male lead is gonna drop the international competition for the female lead and just stay here for grad school. Then the side chick will go to a different school, get bullied by her advisor, and commit suicide. After that, it’s happily ever after for our OTP!】 I froze, staring at the words floating in the air. Kelly stood up, blocking David’s path. “Hey, you promised me,” she purred. “You lost the bet, so you have to spend the night with me. You can’t go back on your word!” Her words were dripping with innuendo, sending another wave of hoots through the room. David stopped, his cheeks burning. He shot me a helpless, apologetic look. I sighed. “You don’t have to walk me back. I can go by myself.” Before I left, I looked him straight in the eye. “Is our plan to go to Stanton University for grad school still on?” I was already a lock for the program at SU. David just needed a win at the upcoming competition to secure his spot. With his talent, it should have been easy, but he’d missed the competition the last two years because his mother had been ill. I could have gone to SU for my undergrad, but I’d chosen our current university to stay with him. He knew that. He’d promised we would go to grad school there together. I couldn’t believe he would break that promise. I refused to believe my story would end like the comments predicted. David gave me a firm, serious nod. Relief washed over me. The comments were just nonsense. None of that would happen. In the days that followed, I focused on the lab, waiting for the official acceptance letters to be released. On the final day for the competition submissions, I texted David to make sure he’d sent in his portfolio. After a long pause, he replied with a simple “OK” emoji. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. But as I was reading a research paper, the comments flickered back to life. 【The male lead just got a distress call from the female lead! Look at the change in his expression! LMAO.】 【Our girl Kelly is so smart. Faking being harassed to test his feelings. Genius move.】 【Look how worried he is! Once they meet up, they’re definitely gonna confess their feelings for each other.】 My blood ran cold. I immediately tried calling David. It rang a few times, then went to voicemail. I tried again. Disconnected. Again and again, he rejected my calls. The comments mocked me. 【Is this desperate side chick seriously calling to nag him about his art submission right now?】 【LOL, she needs a reality check. She has no idea where she stands in his heart. She can’t do anything to stop them.】 【You really think you can compete with our main character? Just go to SU and save yourself the embarrassment, lmao.】 I stared at my computer screen, the words of the article blurring into an incomprehensible mess. Late that night, a text from David finally came through. 【I think staying here for my Master’s is a better fit for me.】 4 I glanced at the time. It was past midnight. The competition deadline had passed. Everything had happened exactly as the comments had foretold. The next morning, I was at the Hayes’s front door. I had worked my ass off for that grad school plan. Even a saint would have a breaking point, and I had reached mine. How dare he just back out? I didn’t expect to find Kelly sitting in their living room, greeting me like she lived there. “Lara! What are you doing here? Looking for David? I’ll go get him for you.” She started to get up, ready to shout toward his room. A comment popped up. 【Our genius girl is here to piss off the side character again! Hahahaha!】 I took a deep breath, walked past her to David’s room, knocked three times, and pushed the door open. David was shirtless, halfway through pulling on a t-shirt. He stared at me in shock. Kelly shrieked from behind me. “Lara, what are you doing? He has no privacy with you around!” More comments. 【What a bitch. Just trying to show off how much closer she is to him than the main character.】 The truth was, Mrs. Hayes had never put a lock on his door, terrified he might have an episode. I had been walking in like this for years to avoid disturbing him while he painted. I cut straight to the point. “David, we had a deal. We were going to Stanton together. What gives you the right to just back out?” He avoided my eyes, slowly pulling on his shirt without a word. But Kelly jumped in, her voice dripping with false sympathy. “Lara, don’t blame him. It was my fault. If I hadn’t gotten hassled by those creeps, he wouldn’t have missed the deadline.” “I wasn’t talking to you,” I said flatly. “Don’t flatter yourself.” Kelly’s eyes widened, stunned that I would be so blunt. David frowned, his voice sharp. “Lara, don’t be mean to her. This has nothing to do with her.” I almost laughed. “Fine,” I shot back, my voice rising. “Then you tell me. Why did you break your promise for no reason? Because she had a problem? A problem she couldn’t call the police about, so she had to call you instead?” He still wouldn’t look at me. He knew I was right. Mrs. Hayes came out of the kitchen. “Lara, what’s with all the shouting?” Before I could answer, Kelly interjected. “Lara, David has his own plans. You shouldn’t try to tie his future to yours!” The comments went wild. 【Wooooow, our girl is in protective mode!】 I fixed my gaze on David. “Am I tying you down? Did I force you to apply to Stanton?” He was silent for a long moment, then mumbled, “I want to stay here.” The air left my lungs. He hadn’t answered my question. He had stabbed me in the back. Again. Kelly’s smile was triumphant. “See, Lara? You can’t always expect him to accommodate you. You’ll ruin his future.” Her voice was sickeningly sweet. “He’s a genius. He knows what’s best for himself.” David said nothing, which was as good as an agreement. Mrs. Hayes’s expression hardened. “Lara, we’re happy for you that you got into Stanton. But if David wants to stay here, you should respect his decision.” She sighed. “He’s not a child anymore. He can’t always rely on you to take care of him. The two of you… should be more mindful of appearances.” My heart turned to ice. My own parents were always busy, never home. Growing up, it was Mrs. Hayes who had always called me over for dinner, giving me my only taste of a warm family life. I had poured all my affection, all my loyalty, into her and her son. I took on the burden of protecting David from the world as my way of repaying her kindness. I shielded him from bullies and cruel whispers for over a decade. My entire future was planned around his. And Mrs. Hayes knew it. She knew all about our plan to go to SU. Now, she was acting like I was a burden, her words dripping with resentment. The comments were ecstatic. 【LMAO, even his mom is on the main character’s side now! What a failure!】 【The mother-in-law probably realized Kelly is better for him. The side character is useless now! Look at our cute main girl!】 【Seeing the side chick’s face go pale is so satisfying! This is the kind of drama I’ve been waiting for!】 That’s when I noticed it. Ever since David had spoken up, Mrs. Hayes hadn’t taken her eyes off Kelly. Her expression was full of surprise and excitement. Even she could see how differently David treated this new girl. And because of that, she had chosen her son, and Kelly, without a moment’s hesitation. All the strength drained out of me. After all these years, I was still just a useful outsider. This wasn’t a family. And I didn’t want it anymore. “Fine,” I said, my voice hollow. “From now on, David is no longer my problem.” 5 Mrs. Hayes had tried to set me and David up before, and I hadn’t resisted. In my heart, the longing for a real family, a place to belong, had always been a desperate ache, even if I knew my feelings for David were more sisterly than romantic. But now, she had made it clear: David didn’t need my protection anymore. With that, my debt to her was paid. The Hayes family would never be my family. The hope I’d cherished for so long was just a childish fantasy. As I walked out their door, my resolve hardened. I pulled out my phone and sent a message to my academic advisor, officially withdrawing my application for the graduate program. Then, I texted a number I hadn’t contacted in years. 【Dad, I want to apply to grad school abroad. Can you help me, just this once?】

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“Leo, do you really think you’re Catherine Croft’s legal husband?” The man, Adrian, slammed the marriage certificate onto the podium just as the stage lights hit my eyes. I was in the middle of our new product launch. The date on the official seal burned into my retinas… Five years ago. I hadn’t even met Catherine yet. But I was her husband. Her legal husband. I begged Catherine to tell the world the truth, but she always said to wait, just a little longer. For that, my son and I were dragged through hell—threatened, humiliated, and hurt. When she finally did reveal the truth, she fell to her knees before me. “Leo, please, just let me explain…” But by then, it was an explanation neither I nor my son needed anymore. 01. I was in a tailored suit, standing on stage at the company’s new product launch, walking the audience through our latest innovation. This presentation was everything to our company. I’d poured my soul into it, polishing every detail until it gleamed. Just as applause began to swell from the audience, a stranger stormed through the conference hall doors. He walked with an air of pure arrogance, heading straight for me. “Leo Wallace, do you really think you’re Catherine Croft’s legal husband?” he sneered, his voice laced with provocation. My brow furrowed. I had no idea who this man was, what this bizarre performance was about. He seemed to relish my confusion. He pulled a marriage certificate from his briefcase and waved it in my face. “Maybe this will clear things up. I’m Catherine’s legal husband. We’ve been married for five years.” I took the document. There, in stark black ink, were their names: Catherine Croft and Adrian Shaw. And the date. A deafening buzz roared in my head, like I’d taken a physical blow. How could this be possible? Catherine and I had been married for three years. Our life together was stable, happy. Why would she be married to someone else? I forced myself to breathe, to think. I replayed every moment of our life together, searching for a crack, a lie, anything. But the Catherine in my memory was always so gentle, so attentive. She adored me and our son. I couldn’t find a single reason for her to deceive me like this. The man, Adrian, saw my stunned silence and a triumphant smirk spread across his face. “Did you really think the happiness you stole would last forever? Time to wake up.” His words were a razor blade, slicing deep into my heart. The audience below had sensed the shift. The quiet murmurs grew into a wave of curious stares. I took a deep, steadying breath, fighting to keep my composure. “Who the hell are you? Why are you trying to frame my wife?” I stared at him, desperately searching for a flaw in his act. He snorted. “My name is Adrian Shaw. I’m Catherine Croft’s husband. And I’m just giving you some friendly advice: stop pretending to be something you’re not. Stop being the other man.” Just then, Catherine rushed into the hall. Her face went pale the moment she saw us. She looked at Adrian, her voice low and dangerous. “What are you doing here? Why would you do this?” Adrian just laughed and shoved the certificate into her hands. “I’m just telling him to be a decent person, to stop being a homewrecker. What’s wrong with that? Today, everyone is going to know the truth.” He turned and walked out, leaving Catherine and me stranded in the ensuing chaos. Reporters swarmed the stage, their cameras flashing relentlessly, their questions flying at us like bullets. The product launch was a disaster, derailed by a gossip bomb. My boss was furious, telling me I was suspended indefinitely. The only reason I wasn’t fired on the spot was because of my track record. But I didn’t have the energy to care about my job. When we got home, the argument I’d been holding back exploded out of me. I screamed at her, demanding to know what was happening. She just looked at me, her eyes pleading. “Leo, please, just wait for me. Now is not the time. I promise you, I will handle this. I will give you an explanation.” I stared at her, my vision blurred by rage and disappointment. “Wait? After this? You let me become a public joke today! My marriage, my career—it’s all in flames because of you! Enough, Catherine. I want a divorce!” “No!” Her face was a mask of panic, the word ripping out of her. “I won’t divorce you! I will never divorce you!” 02. Catherine’s fingers dug into my wrist, her knuckles white from the force of her grip. “Noah is only three. Would you really sentence him to a broken home?” I wrenched my arm away, a bitter laugh escaping my lips. “A mother who lies is a thousand times more damaging than an absent one!” Her eyes reddened, and she swallowed hard. “Just give me one more week… no, three days! I swear I’ll—” My phone began to vibrate violently, a notification lighting up the screen. A trending topic, complete with a flaming emoji: Leo Wallace, the Corporate Homewrecker. I clicked it. The press conference had been cut into a viciously edited meme. The shot of Adrian throwing the certificate on the stage looped endlessly, my face photoshopped onto a screaming chicken. The comments were a tidal wave of hate: [Trying to launch a product while you’re the other man? Give this guy the Douchebag of the Year award!] [UPDATE! People are flooding the website of that scumbag Leo’s company!] “How much is your ‘swear’ worth right now?” I grabbed a vase from the entryway table and hurled it to the floor. “Where were you when my launch was being destroyed? Where were you when the entire internet started calling me a homewrecker? Don’t you dare stand there and pretend to be a concerned mother now!” Shards of porcelain skittered across the floor, stopping at her feet. She took a half-step back, then suddenly grabbed her coat. “We both need to calm down.” The front door slammed shut. A moment later, I heard Noah crying from his room. I ran in and swept him into my arms. He clutched my shirt, sobbing. “Is… is Mommy not coming back?” I bit the inside of my cheek to keep my own voice from breaking. “Mommy just got a little lost, buddy. Daddy’s going to find her for you.” I called my lawyer and had him draw up divorce papers. But then Catherine vanished. Her phone went straight to her assistant’s voicemail every time. “Ms. Croft is in a meeting with our international partners.” “Ms. Croft is with investors right now.” “Ms. Croft, she…” I drove straight to the Croft Industries headquarters, my dress shoes clicking like blades against the marble floor. But when I reached the executive elevator, the iris scanner blinked red. Access Denied. My credentials had been revoked. “Sir, please don’t make this difficult,” her assistant said, blocking my way. I saw a faint, finger-shaped bruise on her forearm—from when I’d grabbed at Catherine the other day and she’d stepped between us. My eyes were glued to the floor numbers lighting up on the display. “Tell her I’ll be at City Hall tomorrow at ten a.m. If she’s not there, I’ll see her in court.” As I turned to leave, I heard the assistant’s hushed voice behind me. “Ms. Croft, he’s gone… Yes, I’ve already spoken to the kindergarten, just as you asked…” The moment the final bell rang, Noah launched himself into my arms like a little cannonball. His right eye was puffy and swollen, and a scab of dried blood crusted the corner of his mouth. “Did you fall?” I asked, my fingers gently brushing the wound. He burst into tears. “Stella said her mommy bought her an Iron Man watch… she said I was adopted…” My blood ran cold. The day of the press conference, I’d gotten a friend request from Adrian Shaw. I’d meant to ignore it, but some morbid curiosity made me accept. His social media was a gallery of photos of him and a little girl, doted on by Catherine. Stella. That was the name he used for his daughter. “Where is she?” Noah pointed toward the shadows behind the slide. A little girl in a private school uniform was trapping ants in a water bottle. The face of an Iron Man watch on her wrist caught the sun, flashing a blinding light. It was the same girl from Adrian’s photos. And her eyes, her brow… they were a near-perfect copy of Catherine’s. “Look, the fake daddy’s here!” she jeered, making a face at me. “My mommy is taking me to Disneyland tomorrow!” I knelt down to her level. “What’s your mommy’s name?” “Catherine Croft!” she announced proudly, puffing out her chest. “My daddy says her name is worth a hundred amusement parks!” Before I could process that, Adrian emerged from behind a cluster of trees, followed by a crew of influencers holding selfie sticks. “Hey everyone, today we’re giving Stella a taste of a regular public school… Oh my god!” He stumbled dramatically, his vintage watch catching on a branch. As the broken band flew into the grass, the viewer count on his livestream spiked to over one hundred thousand. 03. The diamonds on the brooch pinned to Adrian’s chest blinded me—a Victorian-era iris, the very same one Catherine had pinned on me herself the night she proposed. I instinctively glanced at my own lapel, now bare. The key to our safety deposit box felt hot in my pocket. “You stole my brooch!” I lunged for it, but a reporter’s microphone blocked my path. Adrian clutched the diamonds and took a step back, the livestream camera zooming in on his feigned, trembling eyelashes. “Catherine gave this to me six months ago. Do you need to see the notarized document?” An assistant promptly handed him a folder. On the aged paper, Catherine Croft’s signature was unmistakable, written with a powerful, confident hand. I knew that signature. The year before, during a major acquisition, she had guided my hand to sign our names together. The nib of the pen had torn the paper on the final stroke of her last name. “Now who looks like the thief?” Adrian slapped the document against my chest. The live chat exploded with red exclamation points: [HE BROUGHT RECEIPTS! Leo the scumbag needs to get on his knees and apologize to the real husband!] [No wonder he kept it in a safe, he knew it was stolen!] I crumpled the paper in my fist, the sharp corners digging into my palm. “That signature…” “Your wife signed it herself,” he whispered, his lips close to my ear. “In my bed, that night. Want to hear the details?” I threw the crumpled document at his smiling face. As the papers fluttered to the ground, Adrian staggered back dramatically, the brooch tumbling from his chest. “Watch out!” A man I recognized—Ethan—rushed out from the crowd of reporters and caught Adrian, steadying him. The ID badge on his chest swung forward: Adrian Shaw Productions, Special Assistant. “Mr. Wallace, assault has legal consequences.” As Ethan bent down to re-fasten the brooch for Adrian, I saw the scar on the back of his neck. I knew that scar. He got it working in a kitchen his sophomore year of college. I was the one who drove him to the ER for a skin graft that night. “You didn’t talk about consequences when you were on your knees, begging me to help you pay for tuition, did you?” I grabbed the hem of Ethan’s designer suit. The silk fabric ripped with a sickening sound. He flinched, and a tray of antiseptic wipes he was holding scattered across the ground. “Answer me! When your father had late-stage liver cancer, who paid for the surgery?” I forced his face toward me. His skin was flushed crimson beneath his foundation. “Now you’re helping the man who stole my life. Does your conscience ever bother you at night?” The cameras were practically touching my face. The live chat was in a frenzy: [OMG THE DRAMA! The other man is having a meltdown!] [Did you see that close-up? Adrian has a hickey from Catherine on his neck!] Suddenly, Ethan grabbed my wrist, his nails digging into my flesh. “Leo, you have to move on.” His voice was a bare whisper, almost a sigh. “It’s like you taught me about investing in art… you pick the one with the highest potential for growth. It’s the same with people. You have to bet on the winner.” Adrian’s smug laugh echoed from nearby. “Ethan, come fix my hair.” Ethan immediately let go of me and hurried to Adrian’s side, dutifully smoothing his hair into place. 04. The crowd surged forward, a suffocating wave of hot bodies and angry shouts. Noah’s terrified scream was lost in the noise. “Get the bastard!” A plastic water bottle hit me squarely on the brow. Cold water and blood streamed into my right eye. I held Noah tight against my chest. In the chaos, one of his small shoes was kicked off, revealing a little sunflower embroidered on his sock. He’d been so proud of them this morning. “Daddy buys the best socks!” he’d declared. “I’ve already called the police!” I roared, wiping the blood from my eyes. My only answer was a chorus of derisive laughter. A large man in a gold chain grabbed a fistful of my hair. “The cops are coming for you, asshole!” His hand was adorned with a chunky diamond ring that scraped my earlobe, drawing a fresh line of blood. The live chat was flooded with digital fireworks. [Someone start a crowdfund to add another diamond to that guy’s ring!] My vision swam with black spots. My head was spinning. Only one thought remained clear. I would make Catherine and Adrian pay for this. The wail of sirens finally cut through the mob. My shirt was torn open. “Everyone break it up!” a young officer yelled, using his baton to push back the phones still recording. His older partner glanced at the bruises forming on my collarbone. “Sir, we recommend you handle domestic disputes through legal channels.” I clutched Noah’s fallen sunflower sock, the taste of blood and iron in my throat. “I am her legal husband!” “Yeah, that’s what they all say,” she replied, handing me a tissue. “My advice? Walk away now, before you drag your kid further into this mess.” Suddenly, Noah grabbed my bleeding hand and pressed it against the officer’s sleeve insignia. “Mister, my daddy didn’t steal anything…” The dark wool of the uniform soaked up the blood, creating a grotesque, blooming flower. After we gave our statements at the station, I saw a long, deep scratch on the back of Noah’s hand, still weeping blood. Without a second thought, I rushed him to the hospital. Under the harsh fluorescent lights of the emergency room, I sent Catherine a photo of Noah’s hand being stitched up. When she finally answered with a video call, I could hear the sounds of Adrian’s livestream in the background. “—big thanks to ‘Catherine’s Knight’ for the huge donation!” “You hear that?” I held the phone close to Noah’s tear-streaked face. “Your son is being called a bastard by the entire world!” A vein pulsed in Catherine’s forehead. “Leo, Adrian and I are not married! Stella is not my child! The DNA report is in my study, third drawer—” “And what good does that do now? Are you going to hold another press conference?” “Just wait, please, now is not the right time…” Noah suddenly sobbed out the word “Mommy.” Her fingers dug violently into what looked like a leather car seat. “Let me talk to him. Put Noah on the phone.” I hit the end call button. I took her last voice message, still on my screen, and used my phone to blot the tears from my son’s cheek. “Catherine,” I thought, “you will never deserve to hear him cry again.” 05. The day Noah got his stitches out, I finally saw Catherine again. She burst into the examination room just as the doctor was snipping the last thread from the cut on Noah’s forehead. The scent of the perfume Adrian used on his livestreams clung to her blazer. She reached for our son, but I slapped her, my hand cracking across her face with such force that she stumbled back into an IV stand. CRASH! The sound of the shattering saline bag and the chorus of smartphone shutters created a surreal, horrifying symphony. “Leo?!” She wiped a trickle of blood from her nose. Behind her, frozen in the doorway, was Stella, holding an ice cream cone. Adrian had dressed her in a pair of sunflower socks identical to Noah’s. I grabbed a medical chart and threw it at the influencer who had followed her in. “Get your reality show out of my face!” Three hours later, a new headline was trending: Croft Industries CEO Assaulted by Homewrecker Ex. My boss’s call shattered the silence of the ER waiting room. “Do you have any idea how big our contract with Croft Industries is? Write your resignation letter right now. It’s the only way you’re leaving this with a shred of dignity.” The live chat on the replay of the hospital incident was ecstatic: [That slap must have cost him ten million dollars, lol.] [LATEST NEWS! That scumbag Leo’s company stock just plummeted!] Back home, I was texting my lawyer about expediting the divorce when a notification popped up. Adrian’s new livestream was titled A Night of Protecting My Family. He was holding Stella, his eyes red-rimmed. “Catherine was just at the hospital to see a sick child who had a fever, I never thought…” The camera panned over a pediatric hospital room, a bill signed by Catherine clearly visible on the nightstand. My personal information had been compiled into a nine-panel graphic and was spreading like wildfire. My gym membership number, Noah’s list of allergies, even my childhood medical records were being passed around on the dark web. The day a body bag was delivered to our doorstep, I was in the backyard burning every gift Catherine had ever given me. As the flames consumed a sapphire tie clip, a text came through from an unknown number. It was a GPS pin of Noah’s kindergarten. [Time to find a new playground for the bastard. A cemetery, maybe.] Catherine’s calls, which I’d rejected dozens of times, turned into a flood of frantic texts. I’ve hired security… My lawyers are handling it… Please, Leo, I’m begging you, answer the phone… I aimed my phone’s camera at the flames and sent her my final ultimatum. Sign the divorce papers, or you’ll be getting a notice from the coroner.

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My sister and I share a body, and we’ve been mortal enemies since birth, desperate to kill each other. She calls me the parasite, the monster who ruined her life. I always thought it was just her vicious curse—until I found the medical records our mother had hidden. It turns out, everything she said was true. 1 My sister and I were enemies from the moment we sparked into being, fighting for dominion in the dark of the womb. If she pulled on my umbilical cord, I hammered my fist against her skull. If she hogged all the nutrients, I sank my gums into her flesh. After we were born, our misshapen connection became the original sin for which we could never forgive each other. She’d deliberately knock over a kettle of boiling water, scalding the skin we shared. In return, I’d wrap my hands around her throat and squeeze until she passed out. She once used a stolen pair of scissors to try and snip through the bridge of flesh that bound us; I responded by throwing myself down a flight of stairs, landing us both in the ICU. We were like two rabid dogs chained together, desperate to tear into each other’s flesh, to drink each other’s blood. Then yesterday, I found the medical file Mom had hidden in the attic. A faded sonogram, dated three months into her pregnancy, showed a single, healthy baby girl. Olivia. I didn’t appear until the six-month scan, a distorted tumor of flesh clinging to her side. I had leeched her nutrients, forced my own developing organs to fuse with hers. The doctor’s notes read: “Rare parasitic twin, suspected genetic mutation. Termination of pregnancy is advised…” I stared down at the jagged, scarred flesh that joined us, and a sickening understanding washed over me. I wasn’t her twin. I was a mutation, a monster. I had violently torn her normal body apart, destroying the happy life she was supposed to have. I was the original sin, the mistake that should have never existed. All this time, Olivia had been right. I was the parasite. I deserved to die. … At dinner, Olivia turned her head away, a familiar act of defiance. I knew what she was doing. She was trying to starve the parasite out. We shared a stomach. If she didn’t eat, I didn’t eat. It was her favorite and most effective form of revenge. Her lips were a thin, tight line, refusing every spoonful Mom offered. Broth dribbled from the corner of her mouth, running down onto the shared expanse of our chest, a messy stain between us. Mom’s voice was frayed with exhaustion. “Olivia, honey, please. Just eat something. Do you want to end up back in the hospital? Do you want the feeding tube again?” My body tensed. The memory of that tube, thick and abrasive down my throat, was enough to make me gag. No, I didn’t want that. I was about to take the fork from Mom’s hand and eat for the both of us when Olivia’s arm shot out, knocking the utensil to the floor. She glared at me, her eyes like poison-tipped daggers, and the look carved me up inside. “I won’t let you eat,” she hissed. “Starve, you leech. Starve.” Our shared stomach cramped, a hollow, clawing ache that made my entire body feel frantic. A wave of frustration and helplessness washed over me. Why should I have to starve just because she was on a warpath? Deliberately, I grabbed the bottle of lemon juice from the table and took a long, defiant swig. Olivia’s face instantly contorted. She hated anything sour, and on an empty, acid-filled stomach, the shock of it was brutal. A violent spasm seized our midsection. The hunger intensified tenfold, and she started retching, sour saliva flooding her mouth. Her eyes shot fire at me. “You little roach! Always pulling these tricks!” I ignored her, pouring more of the acidic juice into my mouth. Her complexion grew paler, sicklier. Finally, she broke. She stared at me, her eyes red-rimmed—not with tears, but with pure, unadulterated hatred. She snatched her bowl and began shoveling food into her mouth, swallowing whole chunks without chewing, a savage motion as if she were tearing into my own flesh. “Eat yourself to death, you monster!” she choked out between mouthfuls. “I hope you burst! I hope you die, die, die!” Warm food filled our stomach. The gnawing hunger subsided, but my heart felt like a gaping wound, a cold wind howling through a space that could never be warmed. I had been planning to tell her. I was going to tell her that I would agree to the separation surgery, that I wanted her to be a whole person. But watching her force food down while cursing me, the words caught in my throat like fish bones. Forget it. If I told her now, she’d just think it was some new, twisted game. It was better this way. Let her keep hating me. 2 Because some of our shared organs were under twice the normal load, Olivia and I had a daily regimen of pills to keep our body’s systems in balance. But today, after Mom set down the pills and a glass of water, Olivia did something unusual. She insisted that Mom leave the room. The second the door clicked shut, Olivia snatched the pills. But she didn’t take them. Instead, she lunged at me, forcing them into my mouth. “Swallow them! Parasite!” Her eyes were wild, her fingers digging brutally into the soft flesh under my chin, trying to shove the pills straight down into our stomach. I gagged, the bitter coating dissolving instantly on my tongue. I twisted my head, thrashing, knocking the glass of water over. Cold water splashed across our clothes, our skin. But the pills went down. I clawed at my throat, trying to force them back up. “Are you insane?” I rasped. “That was your heart medication!” I took a ragged breath. “I just took a double dose. Don’t you get it? If you poison me, you die too!” A twisted, triumphant smile spread across her face. “Perfect, isn’t it?” she said. “If I can’t be happy, neither can you. I can’t take another day of this. So let’s just die together.” She didn’t understand. Or maybe she just didn’t care. An overdose of her heart medication was poison to my relatively healthy system. And with her refusing her dose, her own failing heart would quickly drag our shared circulatory system into collapse. It was a suicide mission where she took us both out. I couldn’t get the pills out. They slid down my esophagus, carrying all of Olivia’s hatred with them. The bitterness traveled from my throat to the pit of my stomach. She watched me swallow, panting, a victor’s smirk on her lips. She was so focused on her win that she didn’t notice the color draining from her own face, a visible, ashen gray creeping over her skin. My sister was a complete and utter idiot. She always had been. She never seemed to grasp that we were one entity. Her loss was my loss. Inflicting pain on me meant she felt it too. And yet, she had an endless supply of stupid, self-destructive ideas, all aimed at taking me down with her. The effects of my overdose and her lack of medication began to hit us, fast and hard. Olivia’s breathing became sharp and ragged, as if an invisible hand were squeezing her throat. Beneath our joined chest, I could feel her heart hammering like a trapped bird. Her face was a mask of pain, but her unfocused eyes were still smiling at me. “Feel that?” she wheezed. “I’m dying. And you, the parasite, you get to die with me. My own personal tombstone.” Tears of pure rage streamed down my face. “Shut up, you idiot!” The poison in my system and her failing heart were strangling us from two different directions. I could feel our shared life force draining away with terrifying speed. I screamed until my voice cracked. “Mom! Help us!” I shrieked. “Mom, get in here!” By the time Mom burst in, Olivia was unconscious. I held on just long enough to gasp, “She didn’t take her pills… I took a double dose…” Then my world went black. I woke to the sharp, sterile scent of antiseptic. A doctor was speaking in low, serious tones to my mother. I heard Mom’s voice, thin with a desperate hope, ask if there was any chance for a separation. The doctor’s tone was heavy. “Their case is incredibly complex. With current medical technology, even with our best efforts… we could only save one of them.”

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I put Carter’s girlfriend in the hospital. Again. This time, though, he didn’t do what he always did. He didn’t fly back overnight to soothe my temper, to broker a fragile peace. Instead, he called. “Her birthday is next month. I promised her I’d marry her before she turns thirty.” A pause hung in the air, thick and heavy with unspoken history. “It’s been years, Sienna. Haven’t you had your pound of flesh?” The implication was clear. He wanted me to stop torturing them. He wanted a divorce. I looked around our apartment—the one his decorator had called a “masterpiece of minimalist harmony”—now a landscape of shattered glass and overturned furniture. A cold laugh escaped my lips. “I’d rather burn.” He wanted it all, didn’t he? The respectable divorce and the devoted mistress. The clean break and the clear conscience. The world doesn’t work that way. I hung up. Then I drove to the West Village and personally put a brick through the front window of the new restaurant he’d just bought for her. 1 Six years of marriage to Carter Prescott. Five years of him keeping another woman. It’s almost funny, in a tragic sort of way. We were the golden couple, the kind of childhood sweethearts that people write stories about. Everyone assumed we were destined for a perfect life. But just one year after we stood at the altar, Carter cheated. And the woman was three years older than him. When I first heard the rumors, I took two of my more intimidating friends and stormed the little bistro where she worked. We didn’t just make a scene; we orchestrated a symphony of destruction. Carter arrived to find me standing amidst the wreckage. He was immaculate in a Tom Ford suit, a stark contrast to the chaos. His first glance wasn’t for Ava, who was sobbing in a corner. It was for me. His eyes held a familiar mix of exhaustion and resignation. “Sienna,” he said, his voice low. “Don’t do this.” I couldn’t understand it. Where had I gone wrong? How could I have lost him to a line cook? “I had one of my stomach episodes that night,” he explained later, his voice soft, almost pleading. “The pain was… it was tearing me apart. But it was late, you were already asleep. I didn’t want to wake you… She noticed. She just… quietly made me some broth and sat with me for hours until it passed.” A light flickered in Carter’s eyes then, a warmth I hadn’t seen directed at me in a long, long time. “In all these years, she was the first person to make me soup when I was sick.” Carter hadn’t had an easy climb. The endless networking dinners and high-pressure deals had chewed through his stomach lining. But still. It was absurd. He was captivated by a bowl of soup? What about the foul-smelling herbal remedies our housekeeper brewed for him every morning, from a recipe I’d spent years tracking down from a specialist in Traditional Chinese Medicine? The regimen he’d been on, without fail, for six years, thanks to me. Did all of that mean less than a single bowl of chicken broth? 2 By the time Carter got to the restaurant, there was nothing left to break. Shards of porcelain and glass littered the floor like fallen stars. He froze at the door, his face a mask of disbelief. Then, with a sharp gesture, he ordered his security detail to handle the guys I’d hired. He scooped the trembling Ava from a corner, his voice devoid of any emotion as he looked at me. “Sienna, didn’t I tell you there wouldn’t be a next time?” Of course, he had. He said it every time I found a new way to torment Ava, every time I created a five-alarm fire that he had to exhaust himself putting out. I watched them, a cold smile playing on my lips. “You’d better make it stick this time, Carter. Go all out.” I lifted my chin, gesturing at the ruined restaurant. “Because otherwise, every time you build her a new dollhouse, I’m going to burn it to the ground. And I won’t just stop at the property. I’ll hire a PR firm to plaster her face all over the city. ‘Meet the chef whose specialty isn’t coq au vin, it’s stealing husbands.’” I leaned in, my voice dropping to a vicious whisper. “Let’s see who makes a reservation at the homewrecker’s table.” In his arms, Ava’s small sobs turned into ragged, suppressed whimpers. “Sienna, that’s enough! Keep your voice down,” Carter snapped, his voice sharp. “I was the one who pursued her. It has nothing to do with her. If you have a problem, you take it up with me.” I froze. I let his words sink in, turning them over and over in my mind. A laugh bubbled up, raw and painful, and soon, tears were streaming down my face along with it. “Fine,” I choked out. “You and me.” In the next instant, over Ava’s startled cry, I moved. My hand swung through the air. The sharp crack of my palm connecting with his cheek echoed in the ruined space. His head snapped to the side. He didn’t move, didn’t turn back, as if the force of the blow had short-circuited his brain. It was true. Since taking the reins of Prescott Holdings, no one had dared to lay a finger on him. After a long, charged silence, he slowly turned his head back to face me. His face was a thundercloud of fury, the words practically ripped from between his teeth. “I think a night in a holding cell is exactly what you need to cool off.” I watched, stunned, as he pulled out his phone and made the call, telling his contact on the other end to process it by the book. No special treatment. My voice trembled, but my gaze was defiant. “You’d better hope they can keep me for more than one night.” “Don’t worry,” he said, pocketing his phone, his eyes flat and cold as they met mine. “I’ll make sure of it.”

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After my fiancé’s car accident scrambled his brain, he blocked everyone, deleted all his contacts, and disappeared. He even had someone pass a message to me. “Sorry for wasting your time. I’m going to find my true love.” I was already annoyed from being caught in the rain on my way home from a long day at the office. This message just made it worse. My irritation lasted right up until I found a soaking wet man standing on my doorstep. My fiancé, Liam, stared at me with a completely blank expression. “Can you let me stay for the night?” he asked. “I have nowhere else to go.” 1 “Aren’t you supposed to be…” off finding your true love? The words died in my throat. I suddenly remembered the sheer panic on his parents’ faces when they told me he was missing. Right. His brain is broken. Better to just play it cool for now. I let him in. Liam seemed to find the situation as bizarre as I did. He stood awkwardly in the entryway, twisting the hem of his wet shirt. “Aren’t you going to ask my name?” he said, looking troubled. “What if I’m a bad guy?” All I wanted was to get back to the files I still had to review. “Fine,” I said dismissively. “What’s your name?” His face instantly crumpled, his eyes welling up with tears. He looked like a lost puppy. “My name is Liam,” he sniffled. “I was in a car accident. When I woke up, my parents tried to force me to marry some stranger I don’t even like. I had no choice… I had to run away.” As the aforementioned “stranger he doesn’t even like,” I felt a little offended. My patience evaporated. I turned away. “Oh.” I heard hurried footsteps behind me. Long, cool fingers wrapped around my wrist. “I’m so cold from the rain,” he pleaded. “Can I stay here for a while? I can cook, clean…” My head was starting to ache. A fiancé with amnesia was still, technically, my fiancé. And it was probably better to have him under my roof, where I could see what he was up to, than out there somewhere, cheating on me without my knowledge. Once I reasoned it out, I nodded. “Fine, you can stay.” I pointed to a spare room. “That’s the guest room. I’m right next door. Let me know if you need anything. I have to get back to work.” Watching Amelia’s retreating back, Liam’s heart filled with a soft, warm feeling. Running away from his wedding had been the best decision he’d ever made. His quest for true love was off to a fantastic start. He was already inside her house. After I finished my work, I called Liam’s parents to let them know he was safe. Terrified of upsetting him again, they begged me to look after him for a little while. Honestly, I just wanted to call off the whole engagement. It was a business arrangement, a merger of two families, not a love match. With him going on about his “true love,” I felt more like a third wheel than ever. But my parents talked me out of it. “He’s been through a trauma, Amelia. This is a difficult time for him. It’s not right to kick a man when he’s down.” “Fine,” I sighed, resigned to the fact that my amnesiac fiancé was now my roommate. I rubbed my temples and pushed open my bedroom door. And there was Liam, standing there with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. The tips of his ears turned bright red. “You… you said I could come to you if I needed anything,” he stammered. “I don’t have any pajamas.” A single drop of water trickled from the ends of his hair, down the hard planes of his abs, and disappeared beneath the towel. The room suddenly felt very hot. I took a step back, forcing my eyes away from his chest. “A boy needs to be careful in a stranger’s house,” I said, my voice unnaturally high. “Not everyone is as—” I spun around and pulled a set of my dad’s pajamas from the closet. He kept a few things here for when he visited. “—upstanding as I am.” Liam took the pajamas, his eyelashes casting long shadows on his cheeks. A flicker of disappointment crossed his face. “Oh,” he said softly. “You actually have some.” Why does he look so sad? Was one pair not enough? Luckily, my dad was particular and had several sets. I pulled out a silk pair and a cotton pair and shoved them at him. “Is this enough? I have men’s underwear, too.” Liam looked completely dumbfounded. The smile on his face was frozen, and he forgot to even say thank you. The next morning, I woke up to the smell of something delicious. It drifted under my door, and my empty stomach grumbled in protest. I opened the door. There was Liam in the kitchen, flipping something in a pan with one hand. He was wearing one of the frilly, lace-trimmed aprons my housekeeper used, the thin straps a stark contrast against the broad muscles of his bare back. The sight made me even hungrier. He heard me and turned around. The morning sun framed him in a golden halo, and his smile was dazzling. “You’re awake! I made breakfast to thank you for letting me stay.” I glanced at the time, my heart sinking. “I have a meeting at the office. I’m going to be late.” The corners of his mouth drooped in disappointment, but then his face brightened. “Go get ready! I’ll pack it up for you. I can drive you, and you can eat on the way.” He drove with a speed and smoothness that allowed me to eat my breakfast in peace. The food was incredible, the sunlight was warm, and for a moment, I forgot all the stress Liam had caused me. Then my dad called. I answered without thinking, and the call automatically connected to the car’s Bluetooth. His voice filled the car. “Honey, about that boy you’re engaged to…” I jabbed the “end call” button. Liam slammed on the brakes. The delicate crystal dumplings I’d been carefully holding tumbled onto the floor mat at my feet. “You’re getting married?” he asked, his voice tight as he started the car again. I stared at the tragic pile of dumplings, my world turning gray. “Not anymore,” I snapped. “It’s off.” “Oh.” All my attention was focused on my massacred breakfast. I completely missed the way Liam’s eyes crinkled at the corners, a huge, irrepressible smile spreading across his face. I was starting to think this whole “true love” story was a lie he’d invented to get out of marrying me. He never left the house. He just spent his days online shopping for stylish clothes and then parading around the apartment in them, for an audience of no one. His schedule was more packed than mine: deep cleaning on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; experimenting with new recipes on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays; and a day of rest on Sunday. My housekeeper sent me a panicked text. “Miss Amelia, the house has been spotless lately, and the fridge is always full of fresh ingredients. Am I… am I being replaced?” I had to spend ten minutes reassuring her that her job was safe. After two weeks of this, Liam finally asked me an important question on his day off. “What kind of guys do girls like?” Living with him, I’d come to see that he was actually a really nice person. I had started to think of him as a good friend. Seeing him finally get serious about his quest for true love, I was happy to help. “I think they like a guy with a bit of a contrast,” I said, getting into it. “Like, you look kind of slim, but then you take your shirt off, and bam, an eight-pack.” “Or, like, you’re amazing in the kitchen, but you can also mix a killer cocktail.” “Or! Your hair is dark and makes you look gentle, but then you turn your head, and whoa, two cartilage piercings—you’re secretly a punk!” “Or, or, or…” I was completely lost in the art of the contrast. When I finally came back to reality, Liam was quietly closing the notes app on his phone. He nodded at me seriously. “Got it. So that’s what you like.” He then announced it was time to start lunch and disappeared into the kitchen. I stared after him, wanting to correct him. Actually, the way you are now is just fine. The right person will like you for who you are. But the words never came out. After my little speech, Liam was suddenly never home. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays were for the gym. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays were for bartending classes. It just so happened to be a crazy busy period for my company, so I was rarely home for meals either. One night, after a long negotiation with a partner company, I realized I’d left the signed contract at home. My assistant, Mark, offered to come with me to pick it up so he could work on the revisions overnight. Work was important, so I agreed immediately. And then I remembered my houseguest. Liam and I would have to break our engagement eventually. The last thing I needed was another misunderstanding. I frantically texted him. Liam, are you home? I have to bring someone from work home with me in a few minutes. Can you please hide? Oh, and put away any of your stuff in the living room. I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about us. I sent a dozen messages. None were answered. My heart was pounding as I opened the door with Mark behind me. To my relief, the apartment was empty, and all of Liam’s things were gone. We went to my home office, I grabbed the files, and Mark left. I finally let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. I knocked on Liam’s door. “Liam? Are you asleep? He’s gone, you can come out now! And thanks for cleaning up!” There was a loud crash from inside the room, like something heavy hitting the floor. I pressed my ear to the door, my heart hammering. All I could hear was ragged breathing. “Liam! Liam!” I pounded on the door. The lock clicked, and the door swung open slowly. The smell of alcohol hit me like a wall. Liam was standing there, his eyes red-rimmed. “I’m fine,” he slurred. “Just knocked over a bottle.” “Are you sure?” I stepped closer, sniffing the air around him. “Have you been drinking?” Remembering his quest for love, my inner gossip columnist perked up. “Trouble in paradise? Heartbreak? Do you want to talk about it?” He looked up, all six-foot-something of him looming over me, his presence suddenly intense and overwhelming. My heart did a painful squeeze, and I instinctively took a step back. But he grabbed my hand, his grip tight. “I learned how to make cocktails,” he murmured, “but she doesn’t seem to like drinking. I got an eight-pack, but she barely glanced at it.” He pulled my hand to his ear. “I even got the piercings. Amelia, did you even notice?” The words hung in the air, and then all the fight seemed to go out of him. He wrapped his arms around me, resting his chin on my shoulder, his entire weight pressing down. “You’re just drunk, Liam!” I said, my patience snapping. I smacked the back of his head, not gently. He whimpered into my ear. “Amelia, my head hurts… Amelia, my heart hurts… Amelia, I like… I like…” His breath was hot against my ear, sending an involuntary shiver down my spine. My fiancé was holding me, whispering another woman’s name. It was a bizarre feeling. My body was heating up from the contact, but my heart was growing colder by the second. My phone buzzed, pulling me out of my thoughts. It was Mark, with the revised contract ready for my review. Work couldn’t wait. Worried that Liam would throw up all over my apartment, I half-dragged him into my office. He was a dead weight, clumsy and docile. I got him to the armchair in the corner. “Sit,” I commanded. “Okay,” he mumbled, collapsing into it. But as I turned away, his hand shot out and grabbed my sleeve. “Where are you going?” “To work.” Five minutes later, I looked up from my desk. He was staring at me, his gaze intense and hazy. Ten minutes later, he had somehow managed to get up and was now standing by my bookshelf. On the top shelf was a detailed model airplane. A gift from him, after our engagement. “You kept this?” he asked, his drunken fog momentarily clearing. “Yes,” I said. Wait. How would he remember giving that to me? “You remember?” I asked, unable to stop myself. He didn’t answer directly. His eyes were shining. “So you remember.” So you remember. What did that mean? I finished my work, but I couldn’t sleep. The first time I met Liam wasn’t at our arranged engagement dinner. I had just taken over my family’s company. I was young, and the older, male executives didn’t take me seriously. I’d spent an entire afternoon on the phone, trying to delegate a task, an argument that followed me from the airport lounge all the way onto the plane. I finally hung up, frustrated, as the flight attendant announced the final call to turn off all electronic devices. As my phone went dark, I felt a sudden, overwhelming sense of loneliness. A wave of self-pity washed over me. Why were they making things so difficult? A lump formed in my throat, and my eyes started to sting. I fumbled in my oversized bag for a tissue, but it was crammed with notebooks, files, and a heavy laptop—a perfect metaphor for my life. Before I could find a tissue, a tear escaped and rolled down my cheek. Through my blurry vision, a hand appeared from the side, holding out a tissue. The wrist was adorned with an expensive-looking watch, the cuff of the suit jacket perfectly pressed. “I think you might need this,” a deep, steady voice said. I looked up and met a pair of kind, intelligent eyes. Resting on the tissue was a single mint. I wiped my eyes and popped the mint into my mouth. The cool sweetness spread across my tongue, calming the storm inside me. After the flight, I walked into my meeting and absolutely crushed it, winning over every single one of the skeptical executives. I never forgot those eyes. Until, weeks later, I walked reluctantly into the private dining room for my arranged engagement dinner. A man who was laughing and talking with my father looked up, and our eyes met again. Oh, I thought. So his name is Liam. And I thought, If it’s him… then I’m willing to try. So you remember. The drunk Liam, upon saying this, was filled with a secret joy. That airplane model was from a competition they had entered together as kids. He’d made one, and Amelia had made one. His mother had told him, post-accident, that he had given his model to his future fiancée. He had thought he must have been an idiot. How could he have given away something so important? As a child, he’d been a chubby, shy boy with a stutter. The other kids made fun of him, and no one wanted to be his partner for the model airplane competition. Except Amelia. She was vibrant and competitive, her mind bursting with ideas. But when he haltingly tried to express his own thoughts, she never interrupted. She would just watch him with her big, bright eyes, listening patiently. Sometimes, she would praise him. “Liam, that’s so smart! What a great idea!” Other times, she would frown and correct him. “No, that won’t work! The plane will never fly like that!” They won first place. It was the first time in his life he had ever won anything. Slowly, he started to find his voice. The other kids forgot about his stutter. But Liam never forgot. He would always imagine a pair of bright, round eyes watching him, encouraging him. Amelia’s eyes. That secret, childhood crush had taken root and grown over the years, finally blossoming the morning he woke up from his accident. When he heard he was being forced into a business marriage, his world had collapsed. He felt a strange sense of gratitude for the accident; it had shaken him awake. It wasn’t too late.

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My looks have always been more of a curse than a blessing. Drop-dead gorgeous, with a figure to match, I was the target of every vicious, slut-shaming rumor from middle school all the way through high school. So, when I got to college, I decided to build a fortress around myself. I drained my savings to buy designer clothes and luxury accessories, crafting the perfect illusion of an untouchable heiress. But then, I started seeing the Comments. 【Ugh, this side character is so fake! Can the main character please show up and expose her already?】 【Lmao, just wait. She’s only here to get her ass handed to her.】 【Am I the only one who feels bad for her? Here, have a lollipop. /donates one lollipop/】 I blinked, and a solid gold lollipop materialized in my pocket. Wait a second. I could get rich from these donations, couldn’t I? If they wanted a main character, I’d just have to become the one they adored. 1 One week into Freshman Orientation, everyone was starting to find their footing. That’s when I overheard two guys talking trash about me. “Seraphina Vance has an insane body. What would it take to get in her pants?” “Dream on. She looks all innocent, but I bet her price is steep.” “You’re missing the point. I heard she’s from some backwater town in the middle of nowhere. Place is full of broke people. God knows how she scraped her way into Aethelgard University.” “Yeah, and that long hair of hers? It’s a leash for some rich old man to hold onto.” “She acts like she’s loaded, but who knows where that money really comes from.” I stepped out from around the corner, a sweet smile plastered on my face. “I recorded that whole conversation,” I said, my voice dripping with honey. “Venmo me two hundred bucks each, right now. Or I can just take this to the Dean and sue you both for slander.” I played back the recording. Their faces went pale. They couldn’t even look me in the eye as they scanned my QR code and scurried away like rats. I glanced at my bank balance. Enough to keep the ‘rich girl’ act going for a few more days. That’s right. It was all an act. In my last life, it was just me and my grandma against the world. My looks made me a constant target. With no parents or relatives to defend me, I had to swallow every bit of harassment. One creep shoved a dollar bill down my shirt, asking if that “fortune” was enough to buy a night with me. Another offered me a piece of bread in exchange for a grope. Those are the memories that haunt my darkest nights. Getting into a top university in Sterling City didn’t end the nightmare. In this city where every inch of ground costs a fortune, I was a fish out of water. I came from the rural heartland, a place so poor and forgotten that no one here could possibly understand the mountains I had to climb just to stand at the gates of Aethelgard. The locals were clique-y, and the class hierarchy on campus was brutal. The moderately wealthy guys saw me as a game, a trophy to be won. They took pictures of me, and when one ended up in the “Campus Queen” poll, they laughed themselves sick. A “hick from the sticks” like me, competing for the crown? They placed bets on how much it would cost to get me into bed. The harassment was relentless. It ended with me being kidnapped, dragged into the city’s dark underbelly, and broken until I died. All I ever wanted was to live. When I opened my eyes again, I was back before my first day of college. And I knew the truth. My world was a novel, and I was the disposable side character, a mere stepping stone to highlight the heroine’s grace and nobility. This second chance was a miracle. This time, I was flipping the script. After Grandma passed, I sold our little house and moved to Sterling City. Now, just one week in, my wallet was nearly empty. As I was staring at the last twenty dollars in my account, wondering how I’d survive the rest of the month, I heard those guys spreading their poison. In my last life, I would have confronted them, but without proof, I would have just been smeared with more lies. This time, armed with my carefully constructed heiress persona, I had the confidence to fight back. Maybe if you pretend long enough, you start to believe it yourself. I scanned the Comments as I walked back to my dorm. 【Damn, she’s gorgeous. It’ll make it so much more satisfying when she gets taken down a peg!】 【This poser, with her Chanel knock-offs from Poshmark, actually has people fooled.】 【Doesn’t anyone else think she’s kind of tragic?】 【Tragic? Please! Later on, she bullies our girl, steals her Campus Queen title, and tries to seduce the male lead. She’s a total villain!】 … Ever since I was reborn, I could see them. These floating lines of text were like spoilers for my own life, helping me dodge one disaster after another. Back in the dorm, my roommates were gushing over the new collections from Fashion Week. “Seraphina, see anything you like?” Courteney asked, scrolling through her tablet. I shook my head, affecting an air of casual critique. “The fall collections are a bit too loud for my taste. Especially that Autumn Hue set by Alin. The traditional elements are too much. Not really my style.” I continued, “I did like the Parisian chic suit from ChoLI, but I can’t stand wearing boots in this weather, so that’s a pass. By the way, have you guys seen the new Hermès bag? It would look amazing on you, Jessica. That subtle pattern is totally your vibe. You should get one.” I was washing my face, my voice nonchalant. Jessica’s eyes lit up. “Wow! Seraphina, how did you know I was eyeing that one? I already had the boutique send it over. It’s the first one in Sterling City!” “It was made for you,” I smiled. That bag cost twenty-five thousand dollars. For me and Grandma, that kind of money could have lasted from elementary school through high school, with plenty to spare. For them, it was just a purse. The old me would have been crippled by insecurity. The new me just thought, twenty-five grand, no big deal. You have to project that kind of indifference to pull off the role. I’d practically memorized every luxury catalog in existence. 【Is she really pulling this off? Shouldn’t she be totally out of her depth with these roommates?】 【The higher she builds herself up, the harder she’ll fall when our girl exposes her. It’s gonna be epic.】 【Wait, shouldn’t they hate her? These three are notorious for looking down on anyone not from the city. Why aren’t they freezing her out?】 … I looked at my reflection. Last time, that’s exactly what happened. They couldn’t stand sharing a room with me, so they posted my picture online, turning me into a target for every pervert on campus. They were princesses who thought an iced Americano with the wrong milk was a hardship. I couldn’t beat them head-on, so I chose to blend in. My diploma from Aethelgard was my ticket to a real life, and I wouldn’t let anything get in my way. But first, I needed to make some money. Scrolling through TikTok, I saw a lot of “thirst trap” creators. They made a killing without even showing their faces. It was tempting, but not exactly something I could film in the dorm— “OMG, you guys! There’s a new post on the campus forum! They’re running a poll for ‘Freshman Campus Queen’! Are you guys gonna enter?” Jessica shook her head. “Nah, this face has had too much work done. I’d just get roasted. I’m happy looking pretty for myself.” Maddie sighed, patting her stomach. “Same here. I gained weight on my trip to the Maldives, and I got so tan.” “Hey! I think Seraphina should do it!” Courteney threw an arm around my shoulder. “Go win it for our dorm, Seraphina! Bring home the crown!” “I’ll pass. Not really interested,” I said with a practiced smile. Last time, they entered a candid photo of me without my permission. Even with just a picture of my side profile, I placed second, completely overshadowing the story’s real heroine. That’s what put a target on my back. It made my already difficult life impossible. Jessica scoffed at the screen. “The first prize is only fifteen hundred dollars? That’s pathetic. Who are they trying to impress?” Courteney squinted at the prize list. “But, the winner gets to host the Freshman Gala, which means extra academic credits! And an automatic spot in the Student Council.” A spark ignited in my mind. The Student Council… got paid. “Extra credits make it easier to skip class, right?” I asked, looking at the three of them. “Totally.” “Then count me in.” I swept my long hair behind my shoulder. “I just launched a new company, and things are pretty hectic. I might need to take a lot of days off.” When you’re out in the world, you create your own identity. “Oh, then it’s perfect for you!” Courteney said, her eyes wide with envy. “My dad won’t even let me near our company’s affairs. I wish I could start my own.” I struck a pose by the window. “Alright, ladies, get your phones out. Your girl is about to bring a crown home to this dorm.” Courteney eagerly snapped photos. A simple white dress, a cascade of dark hair, a flawless face, and a figure that was the perfect combination of delicate and curvaceous. My roommates looked on with pure admiration, not a trace of jealousy or contempt in sight. 【She actually did it? The facade is working?】 【Damn, can I do this too?! I just started college, is it too late to reinvent myself?】 【You’d need her guts, her resilience, and let’s be real, her face.】 【Okay, but she really is stunning…】 【I think I’m in love. [Donates one Heart to Seraphina Vance]】 … I was surprised to see that the Comments could send gifts. As I stood there, stunned, I felt something solid appear in my hand. It was a perfect, heart-shaped piece of solid gold. By the time they finished taking pictures and showed them to me, they noticed the golden heart in my palm. “Whoa! That little heart is so pretty! Is that real gold?” Jessica stared. “Where did you get that custom-made? It’s gorgeous.” I had snapped back to reality. The commenters had no idea their virtual gifts were becoming real. A slow smile spread across my face. I’d thought of them as a noisy, disembodied Greek chorus, but now I saw them for what they were: my personal treasure chests. I knew how to play this game now. Play the rich girl for my roommates, and the poor, pitiful victim for the Comments. With that strategy, I could actually change my fate. “Let me see!” Maddie’s eyes were glued to the heart. “Seraphina, can I please buy this from you? It’s the most exquisite thing I’ve ever seen!” Pretending to be absorbed in the photos, I replied, “Oh, this? My mom sent it to me. I almost forgot I had it. If you like it that much, you can have it.” All three of them stared at me, their jaws on the floor. It was solid gold! With the current price of gold, that little thing was worth at least fifteen grand, and I was just offering to give it away like it was nothing. “No way! I couldn’t just take it,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ll pay you. Just ask your mom where she got it made, and I’ll order one. I’m obsessed with this.” This was exactly what I wanted. I knew they wouldn’t accept a gift this expensive from someone they’d only known for a week. She instantly sent me $15,000. “Let’s just call it that. I know you’re not sweating the small stuff. Mwah!” She gave me a playful hug. I smiled indulgently. “Alright, alright.” If I’d taken it to a pawn shop, I would’ve had to haggle and would have gotten less for it. This was instant cash! Fifteen. Thousand. Dollars. I hereby declare the commenters my true family! I’ll never get annoyed at their insults again. My casual generosity completely won them over. After I officially entered the Campus Queen poll, we all decided to head out for the afternoon. Jessica had her license, so she drove us to the Sterling Galleria in her massive G-Wagon. With money in my account, my confidence soared. I shopped with them, buying a few new outfits and some high-end skincare. And I noticed something—as soon as I left campus, the Comments vanished. They had no idea I was out here blowing cash. “I have to head home,” Jessica said apologetically. “My grandma’s not feeling well.” “And I need to make a withdrawal,” Courteney added with a shrug. “A friend’s birthday is coming up, and I have no idea what to get her. A fat stack of cash is always a good gift.” Maddie looked at me. “I gotta go too. My brother just got back from Europe.” “I guess you’ll have to go back to campus by yourself, then.” The looks of genuine regret in their eyes were something I had never seen in my previous life. “It’s fine, I have to stop by my office anyway,” I lied smoothly. “See you guys back at the dorm.” “Okay!” After saying our goodbyes, I called a black car service to take me back to school. As we drove through the gates, I remembered my own arrival. I had rented a Rolls-Royce, complete with a driver and a “butler” to handle my registration. That’s how I had cemented my persona from day one. 2 Vehicles weren’t allowed past the main quad, so I got out near the athletic fields. Juggling shopping bags, I started the walk back to my dorm. The early autumn air was buzzing with energy. A soccer game was in full swing on one field, while the basketball courts were packed with guys showing off. As I passed by the courts, I heard a shout: “Watch out—!” I turned just in time to see a basketball hurtling toward my face. I had no time to react. Just as it was about to hit me, a figure leaped in front of me, slapping the ball away. The force sent us both tumbling to the ground. Before I could even process what happened, the Comments went absolutely ballistic. 【WTF?! No, no, no! This is the main couple’s fated basketball meet-cute! What is the side character doing here?!】 【She’s supposed to be crying in her dorm room right now! Why is she on the basketball court!】 【Get away from him! Don’t you dare steal our girl’s man! The villain arc is starting! NOOOO!】 … I looked up into a pair of stunningly handsome eyes. The guy was blushing to the tips of his ears. I tried to scramble up, but I was tangled with him. My body was pressed against his chest. “Sorry—” He seemed… off. I knew exactly what was happening under the surface and quickly pushed myself off him, smoothing down my dress. My white dress was now smudged with dirt, a glaring stain on the fabric. He got to his feet. “Are you—are you okay?” His eyes were fixed on me. “I should be the one saying sorry. They were aiming for me.” I glanced at my scraped knee. Then at him. His elbow and ankle were both bleeding. “I’m fine. But what about you? Can you walk?” “It… hurts a little,” he said, his gaze flickering away. “Ethan! You okay, man?!” A group of guys from the court rushed over. “I’m fine… Actually, not fine.” He limped dramatically, his face contorted in pain as he looked at me. “I think I need to go to the infirmary. You should come too. Your knee is bleeding.” His friends exchanged knowing glances. One of them piped up, “Hey, uh, freshman? Could you help him get to the clinic?” Oh, for crying out loud. This guy was putting on a show. I’d seen him take harder falls on the court a dozen times without a scratch. “I have somewhere to be,” I said flatly. The Comments were already accusing me of seducing their precious male lead. I wanted nothing to do with him. These people, my new benefactors, clearly had the wrong idea about me. I wasn’t interested in this guy, no matter how handsome or rich he obviously was—judging by the watch on his wrist. All I wanted was to graduate in peace. Getting close to the main characters was a recipe for disaster. A flicker of disappointment crossed his face before he quickly masked it with a smile. “But you got hurt because of me. The least I can do is make sure you’re taken care of…” “Yeah, freshman,” another one of his friends chimed in, already grabbing my shopping bags. “We’ll take these to your dorm. You just take Ethan to the clinic. You don’t want that to scar.” Seeing my bags being carried off, I sighed in defeat. “I’m in Block A, room 208. Thanks, I guess.” “No problem! We got you!” They practically sprinted away. The guy beside me was hobbling so badly he nearly fell over several times. I wanted to help him, but the stream of hate in the Comments kept me frozen. I pretended not to notice. 【What is the male lead doing?! Isn’t he supposed to be disgusted by physical contact with women?! Why is he totally fine with the side character?】 【OMG SERAPHINA YOU SLUT! LEAVE ETHAN REED ALONE!】 【ETHAN, NO! Your soulmate isn’t her! She’s a fake and doesn’t deserve you!】 【Are there any sane people in this chat? Is she throwing herself at him? It looks like she’s being forced into this. If you ask me, the male lead is the one with the problem. In real life, if you threw a ball that almost hit me, you’d be getting a fist to the face!】 … I knew this was my chance. In the infirmary, as the nurse cleaned my wound, I let my eyes well up with tears. My body trembled slightly, but I didn’t make a sound. Ethan watched me, his face a mask of guilt. “I’m really sorry.” I looked up at him and forced a smile. “It’s okay, senior. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.” 【Aww, my poor baby. This was totally not her fault!】 【Is the male lead just falling for her looks? Seraphina is prettier than the heroine, but she’s a total fraud! She’s so dishonest!】 【Does she want to be a fraud? If she didn’t pretend, everyone would bully and ignore her. The male lead wouldn’t have even noticed she existed.】 【A fake is a fake. Why pretend to be rich? With a face like that, she should just sell herself! Trying to steal the heroine’s man is just pathetic!】 【I can’t take this. I’m starting to feel for her. Anyone who insults her again, I’m just going to keep donating! /donates one Bunny Kiss/】 … Bless the kind souls of the world. I felt a small, heavy object appear in my hand. A solid gold bunny. I discreetly slipped it into my purse. Gold. It felt like it was worth a fortune. As we left the infirmary, Ethan started, “Hey, so, I…” “It’s fine. I’m going to head back now.” I gave him a polite smile. “Bye, senior.” I walked away quickly. He stood there, staring at his own hand, his expression darkening. “I actually didn’t mind it… What the hell is wrong with me?” 3 I got back to the dorm before my roommates. My knee throbbed, so yoga was out. I lay in bed, scrolling through videos, and stumbled deeper into the world of “thirst trap” content. The women were bold, confident, and unapologetically sexy. It was like discovering a new continent. A daring idea began to form in my mind. Maybe this was a new path for me. I already had a TikTok account with about seven hundred followers. I’d posted a dozen videos trying to teach people math and English shortcuts, but they had barely any views. I started studying what the popular creators were doing, and by the time my roommates returned, I was lost in my research. “If it weren’t for Orientation, I would never live on campus. It’s so boring!” “College is way better than high school. At least we can get food delivered.” “My high school was like a prison. I was so skinny back then.” … They barged in, laden with bags of food, and immediately started sharing with me. “Seraphina, you have to try these mochi. My family’s housekeeper stood in line for over an hour to get them.” “These lotus paste buns are amazing too.” “And I got you a bubble tea from Li’s Handcrafted. Their tea doesn’t give you insomnia!” I sat up, smiling. “Thanks, you guys.” I never got this treatment in my past life. Back then, they were afraid I’d secretly lick their leftovers. The concept of class was etched into their bones; if you didn’t have money, you were nothing more than a servant. “Whoa! Did your mom send you this bunny?!” Maddie spotted my new golden treasure. She had a thing for gold, and her eyes were practically sparkling. “God, I love gold so much!” “Oh my god, that is the cutest thing! The craftsmanship is incredible!” “That must have cost a fortune. Seraphina, your mom is the best.” They looked at me with envy. I just smiled. “Yeah. I told her I gave the heart to a good friend, so she sent this over.” Jessica added, “Wow, your mom is so cool. You should keep that somewhere safe. This campus is full of broke losers who steal things.” My hands clenched, but my smile didn’t waver. “I will.” In my past life, whenever something of theirs went missing, I was the first person they accused. Even now, we could never be true friends. But I couldn’t afford to make enemies of them. I just had to focus on my own life, on surviving… That was Grandma’s greatest wish for me. My life has been a series of misfortunes. Abandoned by my parents, harassed by disgusting men, so poor I had to dig through trash cans for food. The moment I had a chance to escape that filth, I never looked back. I brought Grandma’s ashes with me to Sterling City. Right now, she’s in a storage unit at a funeral home because I can’t afford to bury her. Grandma, this city is wonderful and terrible all at once. But the good news is, I’m still alive. “Seraphina, what happened to your leg?” Maddie asked, her attention shifting from the golden bunny to the bandage on my knee. “I was walking past the athletic fields earlier, and some guys playing basketball hit me with the ball.” I conveniently left out the part about the hero who saved me. “What? Was it Ethan Reed and his friends?” “…” Was he that famous? “You don’t know who Ethan Reed is?” Maddie was ready for the gossip. “He’s the president of the Student Council! His family is loaded. Last semester, some guy pissed him off, and Ethan kicked him. He paid the guy a hundred thousand dollars in compensation.” “I heard about that! After that, a bunch of people started trying to pick fights with him, hoping to get a payout.” “Haha, too bad he rarely loses his temper. I heard he’s amazing at basketball!” “Totally!” They launched into a discussion about cute guys on campus, but my mind was elsewhere. I was plotting my first thirst-trap video. If I had the body, I might as well use it to make a living. It’s not like I had a choice. Besides, I wasn’t selling myself to anyone. It was just videos. And it was a way to make money. A way to stay alive. 4 The next day of Orientation started with a morning run. My three roommates were still asleep. Their motto: “I bet the instructor won’t take attendance!” And usually, they’d be right. The field was massive, filled with students from every department. The instructors just did a quick headcount. But today, of all days, was different. They were taking attendance. Members of the Student Council were going down the lines, checking off names. I messaged the group chat, but no one replied. Just as my turn was coming up, my phone buzzed. It was Maddie. [OMG GORGEOUS PLS SIGN ME IN! I WILL BE YOUR LOYAL SERVANT FOR LIFE!] [SAME HERE! PLEASE, I’M BEGGING YOU. I HEARD IF YOU’RE ABSENT YOU LOSE ACADEMIC CREDITS! IF I LOSE CREDITS MY DAD WILL CUT ME OFF!] [Add my name too, please please please!] … I thought to myself, instead of getting revenge on them, why not use them? Climbing the social ladder on the shoulders of these princesses was a much better strategy than burning bridges. But then I heard the student council member up ahead yell, “No signing in for others!” I typed back: Sorry guys, I tried. When I got to the front of the line, I realized the person taking names was Ethan Reed. He saw me, and the senior next to him gave me a sly grin. “Well, well, look who it is.” Ethan shot his friend, Leo, a glare. He looked at me, his voice soft. “Is your knee feeling better?” A wave of “Ooohs” rippled through the students around us. The implication was huge. My expression hardened. I grabbed the pen to sign my name. Seeing my anger, Ethan panicked. “What are you all whispering about? She got hit by my basketball yesterday and fell!” “Anyone who thinks otherwise, I’ll personally shove your head in a toilet!” he threatened, his voice laced with ice. I used the commotion to quickly scribble down four names. He stared at the paper. “…” I dropped the pen and walked away. He rubbed his nose, shot another death glare at the gawking crowd, and tossed the clipboard to Leo before jogging after me. “Seraphina! I didn’t mean for that to happen…” he said, falling into step beside me as we ran. “Don’t be mad. Let me buy you dinner, okay?” I ignored him, but the Comments were already in a frenzy. 【WTF! MALE LEAD, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! You wouldn’t even let the main character sign in for her friends, but you let this fake get away with it?!】 【Why does she get special treatment! When is someone going to expose her?! I CAN’T STAND IT!】 【Wasn’t he the one who chased after her? Why is everyone blaming her again? This simp-filled world is exhausting.】 【The real heroine is right behind him! She worked so hard to get into this school for him! Are you really going to betray her like this, Ethan?!】 【Ugh, that manipulative bitch! Someone needs to slap her! Get away from my man!】 【I said it before and I’ll say it again. Anyone who insults my girl Seraphina gets a donation from me! /donates one Rose Bouquet/】 … I felt my pocket grow heavier. Inside was a delicate, solid gold rose bouquet. I loved this commenter so much. So, readers really could fall in love with fictional characters. “Seraphina…” Ethan was still trying to talk to me. I shot him a look. “It’s fine. But let’s just keep our distance from now on, senior. Thank you.” With that, I picked up my pace, running into the morning sun. Ethan started to follow, but I broke into a full sprint. It wasn’t until a group of girls intercepted him that I finally had a chance to catch my breath. My roommates had managed to sneak into the formation. “I signed you in,” I told them, a mischievous grin on my face. “OMG, you’re our savior! I can’t believe the Student Council was taking attendance today. They’re usually such hard-asses!” “How did you do it?” “It wasn’t easy,” I said, not wanting them to think it was a simple favor. “But I managed.” “Oh, thank you, thank you, Seraphina!” After that, we were closer than ever. 5 At lunch in the dining hall, Courteney showed me the poll results on her phone. I was in second place. No surprise there. The heroine, of course, was number one. I glanced over at a table not far from ours, where four girls were sitting. The one in the middle was the heroine herself—Brianna Weston. She was the daughter of one of Sterling City’s wealthiest families, a true blue-blood. She’d met Ethan at a gala, decided he was the one, and moved heaven and earth to get into his university. Originally, she was the one who was supposed to be hit by the basketball. That encounter would have deepened their connection, and from there, their romance would have blossomed. But that day, I had taken a private car and gotten back early, putting me in the right place at the wrong time. Brianna had been walking just a few steps behind me. All of this I learned from the Comments. Not that it mattered to me. What I didn’t know was that as I was watching them, they were watching me. “That girl’s dress… it looks a lot like the one I sold on Poshmark,” Scarlett muttered, her eyes narrowed on me. “What? You’re imagining things,” Brianna said, snapping out of a daze. “I know who she is. Her family has some money, just not from around here. She made a big show of her arrival, buying the whole class bubble tea from Li’s on the first day. Someone like that isn’t buying second-hand clothes.” “I’m serious. The one I sold had a tiny faded spot on the shoulder because my maid used the wrong detergent. I loved that dress, so I bought a new one and sold the old one.” “The buyer also bought a matching bag…” Scarlett frowned. “I remember the username, what was it again?” She opened the app on her phone and her eyes went wide. She looked at Brianna in shock. “The recipient was just ‘Ms. Vance’! It has to be her, Seraphina Vance! How many people have that last name?”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “384578”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I was reborn, sent back to my teenage years alongside the girl I was destined to care for—Mia Malina, my childhood friend with autism. This time, however, Mia pulled her hand from mine. She fumbled through buying a bouquet of flowers and gave them to Alex Wang, the boy she considered her sunshine. All because Alex loved to tease her with crude, flirty jokes. After enough of his provocations, something in her snapped open. She decided she was cured. In my past life, I had spent over a decade painstakingly caring for her, teaching her how to express the simplest likes and dislikes. But in the end, the most casual and cruel words she ever learned were reserved for me. “You… are annoying. Not as charming as him.” From my window, I watched them below. The boy, confident and bold, pulled the girl into an embrace. The girl, shy and flustered, tried to pull away. Fine. So be it. I had no desire to spend another lifetime tethered to a patient. 1 “Hey, are you really autistic?” Alex Wang leaned in, poking Mia Malina’s arm with a playful finger. “Because you were pretty talkative in bed yesterday. What happened to the autism then?” Mia’s ears turned a bright, burning red. Her usually blank face flickered with surprise. “I… I wasn’t…” The classroom fell silent for a beat before erupting into whispers. “Oh my god, did you hear that? Mia Malina actually spoke! That’s the second time today, right?” “Hilarious. Guess the unorthodox methods work faster. Unlike some people…” The speaker shot a pointed look in my direction before trailing off. I kept my face impassive, my eyes fixed on the book in front of me, pretending I hadn’t heard them talking about me. It was true. This was the second time Mia had spoken voluntarily today. The first was when our teacher, planning a seating change, suggested I move next to Mia. For the first time ever, she voiced her own opinion. “I don’t want to.” The words were so smooth, so natural, that even the teacher froze at the front of the room. After a quick call with Mia’s mother, she’d nodded, relieved. “Alright, no changes then.” “And Alex,” the teacher added, “try to behave yourself. Don’t bully Mia.” As the murmurs continued, I stood up. Before I could even move, Mia spoke again, her voice sharp with a familiar disgust. “I told you, I’m not taking the medication anymore.” Her eyes were cold. “For every pill you try to give me, I’ll just throw it away.” For a moment, I was lost in a dizzying overlap of past and present. Her tone, her glare—they were identical to the last life. The whispers of my classmates wormed their way into my ears. “God, isn’t this awkward? Mia must hate his guts. Who wants to be chased down with pills after school every day?” “And have you noticed? She talks a lot more around Alex. She seems pretty normal, actually.” “The brooding, silent girl and the cheerful sunshine boy? I ship it!” And the “cheerful sunshine boy” they were fawning over was now gently pinching Mia’s pale cheek. “Really? Am I that special to you?” he cooed. “Blushing again? So cute.” Mia’s eyelashes fluttered. She quickly averted her gaze, and for a split second, her eyes met mine. The warmth and emotion vanished, replaced by an icy wall. A thought struck me. Could she have been reborn, too? Is that why she refused the seating change? Heh. Even better. 2 After the final bell, Mia slung her backpack over her shoulder and walked out of the classroom ahead of me. Carl, the chauffeur waiting at the school gate, did a double-take. “Aren’t you waiting for Mr. Vance?” he asked, surprised. Mia pressed her lips together, saying nothing. Carl was used to her silence. He shot a resentful look at me as I caught up. “Leo,” he said, his voice low and chiding, “why weren’t you keeping up with her? If something happened to Miss Malina, how would I explain it to her mother?” See? He called me ‘Mr. Vance,’ but he’d never seen me as anything more than a glorified babysitter. It was the price of my family’s fall from grace. “Carl, let’s go.” Mia spoke again, her voice clear. Carl was so stunned he forgot the rest of his lecture. “Miss Malina, you… you spoke to me?” he stammered, a goofy grin spreading across his face. He was so caught up in the moment that he didn’t even notice a stranger approaching. “Whoa, Mia, is this your car?” Alex whistled, circling the black sedan. “This thing must have cost a fortune.” Carl’s brow furrowed. He was about to step in when Mia herself opened the car door. She tugged nervously at the hem of her uniform. “If you like it, you can have it.” Alex’s eyes went wide. “Hahahaha! Do you even know what you’re saying? You’d really just give it to me?” Mia nodded earnestly and even got out of the car, gesturing for him to get in. A muscle in Carl’s jaw twitched. Anyone who knew Mia knew how fiercely she guarded her personal space. It had taken me six months just to be allowed to ride in the same car with her. But Alex was different. Alex was an exception. A first. He ruffled her hair as if she were a well-behaved puppy. “Wow, you’re so naive. Aren’t you afraid someone will take advantage of you? Okay, okay, I’m just kidding. See you tomorrow, my cute little deskmate.” He walked away, humming a cheerful tune. Mia seemed to catch his infectious joy, a small smile playing on her lips. She watched him until he was completely out of sight before turning and slamming the car door shut right in my face. Carl, having completely forgotten I existed, looked like he couldn’t wait to race home and tell Mia’s mother the miraculous news. The car sped off, leaving me in a cloud of exhaust. I glanced at my phone. My ride-share was five minutes away. Good thing I hadn’t counted on them. 3 That night, the Malina mansion next door was filled with laughter. My house was deathly quiet. “What happened? Why didn’t you come home with her?” my father roared. “Can’t you even do a simple thing like wait on someone? I swear, I’ve wasted years raising you!” My mother timidly offered him a cup of tea. “Don’t yell at the boy. Calm down.” He slapped the cup from her hand. It shattered on the floor. He stormed out, slamming the door behind him. The villa, already sparsely furnished, felt even emptier. My mother sighed, her voice soft. “Leo, did you and Mia have a fight? You know how she is. Just be patient with her. Our family is counting on the Malinas…” Back when my father hadn’t gambled away our family fortune, we were their equals. We never had to grovel for their favor. I paused in my cleanup of the broken porcelain. “Mom, I’m a senior this year. I’ll be in college soon. I can work and support myself. Why do we have to pin all our hopes on the Malinas, and on… him?” “Your father will change!” she insisted, her voice losing its conviction. “The Malinas gave him a loan. He can turn things around.” But Mom, don’t you know? Even if I appease Mia exactly as you wish, he’ll never stop gambling. He won’t stop until he’s mortgaged this very house, the last symbol of our family’s pride, and then thrown himself from the roof. We would still end up completely dependent on the Malinas’ charity. I clenched my fist, a shard of ceramic digging into my palm. The sharp pain pulled me back from the memory. My mother cried out, rushing to disinfect the cut. Just then, my phone buzzed with a message from Mia. [You’re disgusting. So annoying.] [Stay away from me from now on.] People with autism often lack a filter. They can be brutally honest, oblivious to the feelings of others. In my past life, it took me over a decade to teach Mia to express her dislikes kindly, instead of through screaming, throwing things, or spitting venom. She was a slow learner, but she had made progress. I remembered the time her mother brought her a glass of warm milk to help her sleep. Instead of her usual tantrum of smashing the glass, she had simply said, “I don’t want it.” Her mother had wept with joy. I had smiled, too, hiding the angry, permanent scar on my forearm where she’d once thrown a cup of scalding tea at me. I looked down at my phone and typed a single word. [Okay.] 4 The next morning, my father dragged me to the Malinas’ front gate, his face plastered with a sycophantic grin. “Is Leo ready? He hasn’t left yet, has he?” The Malinas’ butler gave him a cool, dismissive glance. “Miss Malina has already left for school. Mrs. Malina has given instructions that Leo will be going on his own from now on.” The butler offered a thin, apologetic smile. “You know how our Mia is. We can’t risk any emotional triggers.” My father’s face froze. He shot me a look of pure fury. I ignored him, dodging the slap he aimed at my head and walking calmly towards school. When I entered the classroom, Mia and Alex were already there, huddled close together, sharing breakfast. “Mia, I’ve lost my appetite,” Alex said with a theatrical sigh. “The only thing I want to eat is you.” Mia, who had been eating with quiet delicacy, flushed crimson. “Don’t… don’t say things like that,” she stammered. A friend of Alex’s laughed loudly. “Damn, Alex, you’ve got guts. Forget autism, you could probably make a mute person talk with lines like that.” Alex raised an eyebrow, triumphant. He grabbed my arm as I passed. “Leo, back me up here. Mia isn’t really autistic, is she? She’s just shy. It can’t be that she only talks this much around me.” I pulled my arm away. Before I could speak, Mia cut in, her eyes fixed on Alex. “You’re different.” Then, her gaze shifted to me, cold and flat. “He’s like my mother. Nagging and annoying. Not cute like you.” The other students’ faces were a mixture of amusement and pity. They were enjoying the show. A wave of profound exhaustion washed over me—not for myself now, but for the boy I used to be. Before I was assigned to be Mia’s shadow, I was the envied son of a wealthy family. But to fulfill my duty, I had debased myself, catered to her every whim, accommodated her every mood. You could train a dog to be grateful in less time. If it weren’t for that car crash on the way to the courthouse in our past life, I would have been legally bound to her forever. And still, she was like this. She had learned to interact with people, even smile at strangers. But with me, she was always sharp, always cruel, never once considering my feelings. Was it really Alex, her “sunshine,” who had brought her out of her shell? No. It was the result of more than a decade of my tireless effort. But of course, everyone gave the credit to him. I looked Mia straight in the eye and smiled. “Sorry, but I don’t have a daughter your age.” 5 In my past life, my entire future had been mapped out by Mia’s mother. Mia was going to a conservatory for music, so I had to study the niche field of music therapy. Using the music Mia loved to heal her—it was the perfect plan in Mrs. Malina’s eyes. It didn’t matter that I had no talent for music. It didn’t matter that the degree was useless for finding a job. All that mattered was that it was useful to Mia. In return, the Malinas would provide my father with capital and business connections. Back then, Mia was prone to sensory overload. A loud noise or an unexpected touch could trigger a complete meltdown. She would flip desks, claw at her own hands until they bled. And I would have to be the one to drop everything and calmly talk her down, all under the complicated stares of our classmates. Right. Where was her sunshine boy back then? Oh, he was in the crowd, whispering with everyone else. Mia was living in denial, but I hadn’t forgotten. On her eighteenth birthday, the Malinas threw a lavish party. It wasn’t just a celebration of her coming of age; it was a public declaration that Mia was miraculously “cured.” At the party, Alex was the guest of honor. He wore a custom-tailored suit, a diamond glittering in his ear. Under the bright chandeliers, he stood with his arm around Mia, greeting guests with a dazzling smile. They looked like a fairytale couple. I had no appetite. As the party wound down, I slipped out into the garden for some air. I stumbled upon them there, Alex laughing with Mia. He was holding a bouquet of sunflowers. “Why sunflowers?” he asked, a playful pout on his lips. “Everyone else gives roses…” Mia’s reply was utterly serious. “You are warm. Like a sunflower. Seeing you makes me happy.” “And what about Leo? He grew up with you. What is he like?” From my hiding place in the shadows, I saw the expression on Mia’s face. Her brow furrowed with a familiar look of impatience and disgust. “He’s like this,” she said, gesturing vaguely at the ground. At the clover patch. Not the lucky four-leaf kind. Just a common weed. The warm night air was filled with the frantic chirping of cicadas. It sounded just like my own racing heart, which suddenly fell silent, drenched in ice water. I watched as Alex smiled, stood on his toes, and planted a soft kiss on Mia’s cheek. Her ears turned pink. She shyly looked away—and saw me. The whole thing felt so pointless. I turned to leave. “Leo!” Mia’s voice stopped me. She ran over, her face still flushed. “My mom talked to me. She still wants me to go to the same university as you.” “She worries too much,” I said, my voice flat. “Alex is clearly a better fit for you.” Mia frowned. “But I told my mother I only want you.” I looked up, surprised. She turned her head away. “My episodes… they’re ugly.” So that was it. Of course. She saved her best self for Alex, and left the uncontrolled, violent, ugly parts for me to clean up. I was the full-time nanny, the one who had to force her to take her medication, manage her moods, and put her first in everything. The charming sunshine boy could never be bothered with that. From a distance, Alex called her name sweetly. “Come on, Mia, I’ll take you somewhere fun.” But she didn’t move. She was waiting for my promise. She knew my value; she just took it for granted. I smoothed my expression into a bright smile. “Of course. I’ll always be with you.” Satisfied, she beamed and ran back to Alex. The smile vanished from my eyes. Mia Malina, after the college entrance exams, you and your sunflower can go your separate ways. And I will finally leave you, content to be the resilient clover. I just wonder… when your next episode hits, will your sunshine boy still be so warm? I couldn’t wait to find out.

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