Category: English

I have always been able to see the red strings. They are thin, glowing threads of fate, anchoring one soul to another. When two people share a deep, intimate bond, a line appears between them. Jack and I were high school sweethearts. For eight years, a single, vibrant crimson thread ran from my chest straight to his, steady and unbroken. For his twenty-eighth birthday, we planned a weekend trip with our closest friends to hike the rugged backcountry of the northern ridges. Jack was an avid outdoorsman, the kind of guy who lived for the trail. He had shrugged off my suggestion of hiring a guide, his voice full of easy confidence. “A guide? Come on, babe. I’ve hiked this route six times. I could lead us to the summit with my eyes closed.” But midway up the mountain, he vanished. Without him, we didn’t know the trail, and the weather turned in an instant. A sudden, violent storm triggered a massive mudslide. My best friend, Beth, went over the edge of a ravine trying to pull me to safety. I was left curled beneath the freezing roots of a pine tree, my limbs completely numb, my jacket soaked through with blood. When I finally opened my eyes, I was staring at the sterile white ceiling of a hospital room. The doctor told me I was pregnant—just two months along—and that the baby was gone. Then the search-and-rescue team delivered the final, crushing blow. They had found Beth’s body. She had been pierced by a fallen branch. It was a horrific, agonizing way to die. My heart felt shattered into a million jagged pieces. I lay there, weeping hysterically, drowning in a grief so heavy I couldn’t breathe. That was when Jack finally showed up. He rushed to my bedside, throwing his arms around me, his voice cracking with emotion. “I’m so sorry, Leah. I’m so sorry I’m late…” I froze in his arms, staring at him. Why? It had only been twenty-four hours. But the red string on his chest had split. There were now two of them. 1 “Where were you?” His hand, which had been gently wiping the tears from my cheek, faltered for a fraction of a second. He recovered quickly, offering a seamless explanation. “I got a text saying my dad had a heart attack. I panicked, Leah. All I could think about was getting to him. I forgot to tell the rest of the group before I ran down.” “In the backcountry?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. “Since when is there cell service up there?” A shadow crossed his face. “There was a weak signal. Did your phone not have one?” I didn’t answer. I didn’t believe a single word. I kept my eyes locked on his chest. The deep, blood-red string was mine. But the other one—the pale, rose-pink thread—who did it belong to? Did that new connection have something to do with why he abandoned us on that mountain? The door clicked open, and a police officer walked into the room. Seeing that I was conscious, he gently asked me to come down to the morgue to identify Beth. The basement of the hospital was freezing, colder even than the rainy night on the mountain. Beth’s face was pale and ruined, barely recognizable. But I knew the small, dark mole right on her collarbone. “It’s her,” I choked out. The officer nodded sympathetically. “Do you have any contact information for her next of kin?” I shook my head, my throat tight. “She… she didn’t have anyone else.” We had grown up together in the same orphanage. I was her only friend, her only family. With trembling hands, I pulled the white sheet back over her face. I reached down, took off my own shoes, and slipped them onto her bare, cold feet. She had always hated the cold. She couldn’t go to the other side without shoes. Jack patted my back, his touch light and detached, like an outsider observing someone else’s tragedy. “I know you’re angry with me,” he whispered, sounding defensive. “But I had my reasons. I’m hurting too, Leah.” Ignoring my silent resistance, he lifted me up and carried me back to my room. He wiped my face and my feet with wet wipes, throwing away one damp tissue after another. I stared at him, feeling as though I was going to cry until my eyes ran dry. “Jack,” I asked, “do you think Beth will be happy in her next life? Do you think she’ll get a mom and dad who actually love her?” “And the baby… do you think our baby will hate me for not protecting them?” “Stop overthinking things,” Jack replied, his voice distracted as he stared down at his phone. “They’re gone. Dwelling on it only makes it worse.” He typed out two quick replies, then slid his phone into his pocket and stood up. “I have some urgent stuff to handle at the office. Call me if you need anything.” I watched his retreating back. As soon as the door clicked shut, something possessed me. I swung my legs out of bed and walked out of the room barefoot. The sharp pebbles on the pavement cut into the soles of my feet, leaving faint smears of blood behind me, but I couldn’t feel the pain. I slipped into a taxi and followed Jack’s car. The surroundings grew increasingly familiar. We were heading toward the Northside university district. Jack’s car pulled up near the gates of the state college. Standing there was a familiar, slender figure. It was Sadie. The girl I had been financially sponsoring for the last six years. She took a few quick steps and threw herself directly into Jack’s arms. I dug my fingernails deep into my palms, praying this was just a horrific nightmare. How could it be her? I had funded Sadie’s education since she was a young girl in middle school. Beth and I had treated her like a younger sister. Every summer and winter break, she would come to the city to stay with us. I had paid her tuition, shown her the world outside her impoverished town, and helped her build a life here. And this was how she repaid me. She clung to my husband, the pink line on her chest glowing with a sickening intensity. Jack reached down, gently stroking her hair. “Be good, Sadie. Leah and Beth had an accident. I won’t be able to come see you for a few days.” Sadie looked down, playfully twisting his fingers. “Fine. I understand. But can you at least stay with me today?” She pouted, her eyes wide and pleading. “Alright, get in, you little troublemaker,” Jack murmured, his voice thick with affection. The car sped away. By the time my taxi driver realized what was happening and pressed on the gas, they were already gone. I paid the driver, stepped out, and sat on the curb, completely numb. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my chat history with Sadie. She had always treated me like an older sister, sharing her secrets and crushes. She had told me she was in love with someone. I had even given her advice on how to win him over. The restaurant they went to? I had helped her pick it. The amusement park tickets? I had bought them for her. The concert tickets? I had stayed up late to secure them. With my help, she had systematically crawled her way into my husband’s bed. I opened her social media profile. Her latest post was a blurry photo of two hands locked together. [He promised that if we kept our Snapstreak alive for 520 days, I’d finally say yes to being his girlfriend.] [On day 519, he was deep in the mountains with no cell service. But he actually abandoned his hiking group and ran all the way down the mountain just to get a signal and save our streak.] [Now I know he truly loves me.] So that was the truth. He had abandoned us in a storm, leading to a miscarriage and the death of my best friend, all for a Snapchat streak. A tear slipped from my cheek, hitting the screen and accidentally liking Sadie’s post. A second later, a private message popped up from her. It was a cute sticker of a puppy hugging a heart. [Leah, I heard about the accident. I’m so incredibly sorry for your loss. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.] I didn’t reply. My phone’s battery died, and the screen went black. The cold night wind whipped around me, making my head spin. I felt like I was back on the muddy slopes of the mountain. I used the last of my strength to crawl back to the hospital. Jack never came back that night. The next morning, he walked into the ward carrying a bag of breakfast. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he tossed the bag straight into the trash can. “Sorry, babe. I totally forgot you hate celery.” I caught a whiff of the sweet, synthetic orange scent on his clothes, and a wave of nausea hit me. The red string connecting him to Sadie had deepened into a rich garnet color. Mine had faded to a pale, translucent pink. On his collar, there was a faint trace of peach lip gloss. I knew exactly what they had been doing last night. His phone buzzed repeatedly. He sat on the edge of my bed, legs crossed, ducking his head to hide his smile as he typed. Because of my angle, I could see every word of their explicit conversation. [Sadie: You jerk! I woke up and you were already gone.] [Jack: Sweetheart, Leah is still in the hospital. I have to be here.] [Sadie: I guess your wife always comes first. You made me cry last night and you didn’t even care.] [Jack: Baby, you were crying because it felt so good. You were so loud.] Jack’s fingers flew across the keyboard, his face lit up like a teenager experiencing his first love. When he finally looked up and remembered I was there, he quickly masked his joy with a solemn, serious expression. It was exhausting just watching him act. I didn’t confront him. Right now, my priority was Beth. Once Jack left the hospital, I forced myself out of bed and signed the discharge papers. I spent the day handling the death certificate and the paperwork to close her bank accounts. My chest felt hollow. Just a few days ago, Beth had been holding my arm, excitedly planning our next vacation. How could she just be gone? My phone buzzed with a text from Jack. [Babe, are you okay on your own? I’m meeting up with the guys from the hike to buy them dinner and apologize for leaving them on the mountain.] I didn’t bother to reply. I was at the funeral home, trying to select an urn through a blur of tears, when my phone rang. It was Tyler, one of Jack’s childhood friends who had been on the mountain with us. I answered, but Tyler didn’t speak right away. Instead, I heard Sadie’s giggling voice in the background. Jack had brought Sadie to the apology dinner. Except for me, everyone in his circle already knew about them. “Seriously, Jack, you’re something else,” Tyler’s voice came through, sounding strained. “You almost got us killed for a girl.” Jack let out a defensive laugh. “Come on, man, can we drop it? Do I need to get down on my knees and beg?” “We’re fine, but what about Leah?” another friend chimed in. “She lost her baby, she watched her best friend fall down a cliff. You didn’t see her, Jack. She was clawing at the dirt trying to climb down to Beth until her fingernails were torn off and bleeding. It was brutal. If you had been there, none of this would have happened.” “What do you want me to do?” Jack snapped. “It already happened. Nobody knew a mudslide was coming. It was just bad luck. You can’t pin this on me.” Sadie’s voice drifted over the receiver. “Don’t blame Jack, guys. He’s really devastated too.” “Oh, look who’s protecting him,” Tyler muttered, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “So, when you ditched us on the mountain, did you guys go straight to a hotel? How was the first time, anyway?” Jack let out a low chuckle. “Three times. She cried because it hurt.” The call abruptly disconnected. A moment later, a text from Tyler popped up on my screen. [Leah, if you hadn’t given me your spare rain jacket that night, I would have gotten hypothermia. I owe you my life. I can’t keep lying to you about Jack and Sadie.] I saved the recording of the call. I played it over and over again, letting the words tear into me until the pain gave way to a cold, dead numbness. I took Beth’s urn back to her empty apartment. I sat on the living room floor, staring at our graduation photo on the wall. We had used our very first paychecks to get professional portraits taken. She had such a beautiful, radiant smile. “Don’t worry, Beth,” I whispered to the empty room. “I’m not going to fall apart.” Beth’s memorial service was held a week later. Sadie actually had the audacity to show up. She walked up to me and offered a fragile, dramatic hug. “Leah, please stay strong. You still have me.” She was wearing a scoop-neck dress that barely concealed a pattern of dark hickeys on her collarbone. Her performance of grief was cheap—lots of loud sniffling, but not a single tear. I clenched my fists inside my pockets, swallowing the bile rising in my throat. I didn’t say a word. Right after the eulogy, I noticed both Sadie and Jack had slipped out of the chapel. I followed the quiet hallway until I reached the emergency exit stairwell. Through the narrow crack in the door, I saw them. They were pressed against the concrete wall, kissing with frantic, desperate hunger. Jack eventually pulled back, his breathing heavy, though he tried to look disapproving. “Are you out of your mind? This is Beth’s funeral!” “I don’t care,” Sadie giggled, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Don’t tell me you don’t find this thrilling.” She looked up at him with an innocent, wide-eyed smile. “You little heartless brat,” Jack murmured, though there was no real heat in his voice. “Beth sent you money every month, you know.” “She just wanted to play the saint and feel good about herself,” Sadie sneered. “What does that have to do with me?” Jack grabbed her by the waist, pulling her flush against his body as if he wanted to bruise her. The red string connecting them was thick and vibrant, almost bleeding with intensity. Mine, by contrast, was a faint, ghostly thread. A sudden wave of exhaustion washed over me, and my foot slipped against the doorframe. The sound startled them, and they immediately sprang apart. Jack smoothed his jacket, his expression smoothing into a mask of casual innocence within a second. He didn’t even look flustered as he walked toward me, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “Hey, babe. My cravings got the best of me, so I came out for a smoke. Ran into Sadie on the way.” I didn’t call him out. I just clenched my teeth and forced my voice to remain steady. “I noticed you were gone, so I came looking for you.” He slid the cigarettes back into his pocket. “I’m done anyway. I’ll head back inside first.” As I turned to follow him, Sadie called out to me. “Leah, you saw us, didn’t you?” I stopped. “Saw what?” She blinked at me, her face a picture of youthful innocence. “Oh, stop acting. We were kissing.” “Look at my waist,” she added, lifting the edge of her cardigan to reveal a faint red mark. “He gripped me so hard it left a bruise.” My fingers dug into my palms. “What is your point, Sadie?” “I loved Jack the moment I saw him,” she said softly. “He’s handsome, mature, and gentle. He’s the best man I’ve ever met. I honestly don’t know how you got so lucky.” She let out a soft sigh. “But I really do have to thank you. Thank you for paying for my college.” “Jack told me that when you guys were trying to buy your apartment, you worked three different part-time jobs just to make sure you could still send me my monthly allowance. If it weren’t for you, I’d still be stuck in that miserable little mountain village. I never would have made it to the city, and I never would have met Jack.” “You practically handed him to me, Leah. You really are a wonderful person.” The blood in my veins ran cold. “…Are you even human?” “Think whatever you want,” she said, entirely unbothered. “Oh, by the way, I heard from the doctor that your uterus was badly damaged during the miscarriage. You probably won’t ever be able to have kids again, right?” She reached into her purse and pulled out a plastic stick, holding it up for me to see. Two distinct pink lines. “Maybe your dead baby decided to come to my belly instead.” “I’m pregnant, Leah. I haven’t told Jack yet. How happy do you think he’ll be when he finds out?” With a triumphant smile, she brushed past my shoulder and walked away. That night, Jack didn’t come home. Around midnight, Tyler sent me a video. It was taken at the upscale lounge where they always hung out. Sadie was sitting in the center of the booth, surrounded by their friends, while Jack held her close, kissing her passionately. “Let’s raise a glass!” Jack shouted over the music, his face flushed with joy. “I’m going to be a dad!” He was beaming, entirely untroubled by the fact that our own baby had died just a week ago. While some lives ended, others began. I was the only one left in the wreckage. My phone buzzed with a text from him. [Babe, caught up with some work stuff at the office. Won’t make it home tonight.] [By the way, can you head over to my parents’ place tomorrow? My mom’s back has been acting up, and she could use some help around the house.] I stared at the screen for a long time before typing my reply. [Okay.] And then I added: [I think I’ll stay with them for a couple of days so I can take proper care of them.] [Awesome, thanks babe!] The next morning, I packed my things and moved into my in-laws’ house. Predictably, Jack brought Sadie back to our apartment that very night. The hidden nanny cam I had installed in our living room months ago captured everything in high-definition clarity. I sat on the guest bed at his parents’ house, quietly watching them embrace, kiss, and tear their clothes off. They didn’t even make it to the bedroom. They collapsed onto the living room rug, wrapped up in each other. The red string connecting me to Jack had faded until it was practically invisible. I felt an eerie, profound sense of peace. Beth’s funeral was over. Everything that needed to be done had been done. Now, it was time to settle the debt. The next morning, I drove to the transit station and picked up Sadie’s parents. They were simple farmers who had never left their rural county. When I called them and told them their daughter was in serious trouble, they had boarded the first bus out. “Leah, what happened to our little girl?” her mother asked, her eyes wide with worry. “You’ll see when we get there,” I replied quietly, guiding them into a waiting cab. Then I went back to my in-laws’ house and picked up Jack’s parents. But I wasn’t finished. I created a massive group chat on social media, adding every single mutual friend, family member, colleague, and acquaintance Jack had. When we finally arrived at our apartment, I unlocked the door with my key and quietly led both sets of parents up the stairs to the second floor. The master bedroom door was ajar. Jack and Sadie were lying tangled in my sheets, completely naked. The floor was littered with used wrappers and adult toys. It didn’t take a genius to figure out exactly what kind of night they had shared. After a long, suffocating silence, Sadie’s mother let out a raw, horrified shriek. “Sadie!” The show had finally begun.

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I have a secret. I was born with the ability to smell what people are feeling. When someone lies, they carry the sour, curdled scent of spoiled milk. When someone is jealous, they smell of the sharp, metallic bite of rusted iron. When someone has a guilty conscience, they carry the heavy dampness of cellar mold. But when someone is in love, they carry a sweet, golden warmth, like honeyed vanilla. I first smelled that sweetness when Garrett and I fell in love. Back then, when he looked at me, his eyes shone as if they held the stars, and he carried that soft, sugary fragrance wherever he went. Then, we got married. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but the sweetness faded. In its place came a thick, choking bitterness. I tried to ask him about it, gently, testing the waters. “Are you doing okay lately? Is something bothering you?” He would only sigh, rubbing his temples. “Just pressure. Providing for us is heavy. The mortgage, the car payments, the endless meetings at the firm – it’s suffocating, Natalie.” I believed him. And my heart ached for him. So, I tried harder to be the perfect, understanding wife. I stopped asking why he came home so late. I stopped questioning the sudden passcode change on his phone. I stopped interrupting his “client dinners.” Until our fifth wedding anniversary. He came through the front door, laughing and talking on the phone, and for the first time in years, I caught a draft of that long-lost sweetness. But the very second the call ended, a suffocating wave of bitterness surged, completely drowning out the sweet scent. … 1 My smile froze on my face. Refusing to believe my own senses, I took a few steps closer. But the bitterness didn’t dissipate. Instead, it grew heavier, crowding my nasal passages. Garrett looked exactly like his scent – heavy, exhausted, silent. Without a word, he kicked off his shoes, set his briefcase on the entryway console, and went straight to the bathroom. The sound of running water filled the apartment. When he emerged, drying his hands on a towel, he made a straight line for the study. “Garrett, today is our…” “I’m tired,” he interrupted, not even looking back. “I need some quiet time in the study.” And with that, he shut the door. Staring at the closed door, I bit my lip, a familiar, unspeakable exhaustion settling deep in my bones. Three years into our marriage, he told me work was too draining and that he needed a space of his own at home to breathe. So, we agreed the study would be his exclusive sanctuary. I wasn’t allowed in without permission. At first, he only spent an hour in there. Then it became three. Eventually, it got to the point where if he was home, he spent most of his time behind that closed door. I sighed, turning back to the dining table. I had cooked dinner myself, warming it up over and over again while waiting for him. The dishes had lost their fresh color; a thin layer of grease had settled over the soup. In the fridge sat a blueberry cake. Garrett had mentioned offhandedly a while ago that he wanted some, so I had spent the afternoon learning how to bake it from scratch. Thinking of the entire day I’d spent preparing, I picked up my phone and opened our chat. “[It’s our anniversary. Can we please just have dinner together first?]” But before hitting send, a strange impulse made me scroll up through our chat history. I let out a soft, self-mocking laugh. Over the last two years, I had sent Garrett 3,542 messages. He had replied to exactly 98. Yet, two years ago, our chat was a dense forest of words. Even seeing a funny-looking cloud was enough to keep us talking for hours. After a long hesitation, I deleted the plea, letter by letter. I sat down alone and picked up my fork. The food, reheated too many times, had lost its flavor. It tasted slightly nauseating as I chewed, but I forced myself to swallow it, bite by bite. It felt as though if I could just finish this table of food, I could swallow some of the humiliation of tonight. By the end, my throat burned with a sour ache. I set down my fork, went to the fridge, and pulled out the cake. I was about to dig in when the study door suddenly swung open. Garrett rushed out, looking like he was in a hurry to leave. But as his eyes swept over the dining table, he stopped. “Don’t eat that!” His sharp voice startled me. My spoon slipped, clattering loudly against the edge of the plate. He strode over and snatched the cake box right off the counter. “You bought this, right? I need to borrow it.” It wasn’t a request; it was an announcement. Before I could answer, he turned and bolted out the door. As the door slammed shut, the draft from the hallway rushed in. And with it, the scent he had left behind. Sweetness. But mixed with it was a sharp, searing heat – the smell of burning anxiety. It was the scent a person only carries when they are desperately worried about someone they love. During our first year of dating, I had gone back to my hometown for New Year’s and ended up breaking my leg. Garrett couldn’t book a train ticket, so he sat in a cramped, freezing overnight bus for twelve hours just to reach me. When he pushed open my hospital room door, he carried this exact smell. It had washed over me, mingled with the cheap tobacco and winter chill of the bus. Back then, it made my heart overflow with joy. But now, that same scent felt like a blunt knife slowly carving into my chest. I didn’t think. Within seconds, I threw on my coat and shoes and slipped out after him. Garrett hadn’t taken his car. I followed him on foot, keeping a careful distance. Several times, if he had just glanced back, he would have spotted me. But he walked too fast, his mind clearly consumed by something else. He had no idea he was being followed. Just past the gates of our neighborhood, he ducked into a 24-hour convenience store. He slid onto a stool right next to a woman with long hair. Her head was bowed, her shoulders trembling slightly. Garrett placed the cake in front of her, gently resting his hand on her hair. His lips moved, whispering soft, comforting words I couldn’t hear. I hadn’t seen him look at anyone like that in years. It wasn’t the look of exhaustion. Or cold indifference. Or obligation. It was the look that used to belong entirely to me – an overwhelming, aching tenderness. I pushed open the glass door of the store, pretending to browse the shelves. Just then, the woman turned her head and buried her face in Garrett’s chest. In that split second, I saw her face. I froze in the aisle, my blood turning to ice. It was Keira. The girl I had been financially sponsoring for nearly ten years. Only last month, as she was preparing to graduate from college, I had asked her where she wanted to start her career. I told her that if she came to Chicago, I might be able to help her find her footing. She had looked down then, her cheeks flushing. “I want to go to the city where the person I love is. I just want to be close to him.” I had admired her courage back then, thinking she was so much like my younger self – willing to travel thousands of miles to an unfamiliar city for the man she loved. But in less than a month, those words had returned to slap me across the face. The person she loved was my husband. The man she had chased across the country was the very same man I had chased years ago. The cold air from the store’s open coolers made my fingers numb. Meanwhile, the scent drifting from their corner invaded my nose in waves. The sweetness was growing thicker. The scent of a honeymoon phase. Suppressing the rising bile in my throat, I took a few steps closer. Finally, Keira’s tearful, aggrieved voice reached my ears. “My supervisor made me work overtime again. It wasn’t even my mistake on the proposal, but she yelled at me in front of everyone. And now she’s making me reorganize three years’ worth of client files.” Garrett cooed to her in a low, soothing voice. “Don’t cry. You won’t have to deal with this kind of unfairness ever again.” Keira looked up at him, her eyes damp and wide. “Really?” Garrett wiped her tears away with an incredibly tender touch. “Starting tomorrow, I’ll have you transferred to my department as my personal assistant. With me around, no one will dare bully you.” My grip tightened on the metal shelf, my knuckles turning white. Two months ago, my own company had worked overtime for two straight weeks to bid on a project from Garrett’s firm. I knew Garrett hated nepotism or favoritism of any kind, so I never breathed a word to him about it. Yet, when he saw my company’s name on the list, he personally disqualified us to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest. The next day, my colleagues looked at me with a mixture of disappointment and resentment. I couldn’t offer a single word of explanation. And yet here, for Keira, all it took was a few tears, and he was ready to abuse his authority to pave a golden path for her. Garrett opened the cake box and pushed it toward Keira. “I knew you were upset, so I brought you this.” The moment the lid came off, both of them froze. Scribbled in uneven icing on the top of the cake were the words: “Happy 5th Anniversary.” Beside the text was a clumsy drawing of two cartoon figures holding hands. Keira stood up abruptly, tears spilling over. “Garrett, what is this supposed to mean? Are you trying to humiliate me? To remind me that I’m just the other woman?” Panicking, Garrett slammed the box shut and threw it violently into the trash can. “Hey, hey, sweetie, of course not. I was just in such a rush to get to you that I grabbed whatever was on the counter. I didn’t even remember what day it was.” “If you don’t like it, we throw it away. I’ll buy you a fresh one tomorrow, okay?” In the trash can, the cake lay tilted against plastic wraps and empty cups. The two cartoon figures were smeared into a blue blur, their outlines ruined. Just like my five years of marriage. But the cake wasn’t what broke my heart. It was the way he held Keira, whispering sweet-nothings, comforting her over and over with boundless patience, as if she were a fragile piece of porcelain. Last month, I had mentioned wanting a specific pour-over coffee from the shop downstairs from his office. I asked for a month, he promised for a month, and he forgot for a month. Finally, he had brought home a bottle of instant coffee from this very convenience store and tossed it on the counter. When I told him that wasn’t what I wanted, his brow had furrowed in irritation. “Natalie, my job is stressful enough. Can you stop picking fights over trivial nonsense?” Back then, I had made excuses for him, convincing myself he was just exhausted. But it wasn’t that at all. The difference between loving someone and not loving them is stark. I couldn’t watch any longer. I turned and walked out into the night. The cold wind bit my face, making my eyes sting. Standing under a streetlamp, I drafted a resignation email to my boss. He was already cold toward me after we lost the contract with Garrett’s firm, and his reply came almost instantly: “[Understood. Please complete your handoff and finish up by the end of the week.]” When I got back to the apartment, I left the cold leftovers on the table. I took a shower, crawled into bed, and stared at the dark ceiling. It was nearly midnight when the front door finally clicked open. Garrett crept into the bedroom. The sweetness on him had vanished, replaced once more by that heavy, suffocating bitterness. But this time, there was a faint, sour tang underneath – the smell of guilt. I didn’t know if he felt guilty for forgetting our anniversary, or for harboring another woman in his heart. The mattress dipped as he climbed in and wrapped his arms around me from behind. “Natalie, I’m so sorry. Things have been insane at work lately, and I completely lost track of the date. Let me make it up to you with a nice gift in a few days, okay?” I didn’t turn around. I just gave a quiet, hollow murmur of agreement. But I knew. “In a few days” meant never. That was always Garrett’s way. When he genuinely wanted to do something, he gave a concrete timeline. Like when he comforted Keira, he said “tomorrow.” For me, it was always the nebulous safety of “some other time.” Hearing my quiet response, the scent of guilt evaporated from him. Within minutes, he fell into a deep, peaceful sleep. Sure enough, by the time I finished my handoff and walked out of my office for the last time, his promised gift had never materialized. On my final day, after picking up the finalized divorce papers from my attorney’s office, I took a cab home. As we drove past Garrett’s office building, a sudden impulse took hold of me. “Actually, could you pull over here, please?” It was a whim; I hadn’t actually expected to run into him. But as I neared the glass lobby doors, I saw Garrett and Keira walking out side-by-side. The young receptionist smiled, teasing them. “Garrett, taking Keira out solo again?” Keira’s cheeks flushed, and she waved her hands. “Oh, don’t say that! It’s just a client meeting.” The receptionist gave a knowing smirk. “Right, right. We get it.” Garrett heard her, but he didn’t correct her. There wasn’t even a flicker of annoyance on his face. Standing outside the glass doors, I let out a quiet, self-mocking laugh. But as I laughed, a tear slipped down my cheek. Garrett was a man so fiercely protective of professional boundaries that he was almost draconian about them. During our first year of marriage, when we worked at the same company, he had told me, “Office romances look bad, Natalie. One of us needs to leave to keep things professional.” So, I had walked away from a career I had spent three years building – one where I was on the cusp of a promotion. I rewrote my resume, took interviews, and started all over again from the bottom. Yet here he was, parading Keira around the office, completely unbothered by the suggestive whispers of his staff. I followed them. They walked a block and entered a small, cozy bistro on the corner. It was a place Garrett and I used to frequent back when we were dating. In those days, the restaurant was tiny, with greasy wooden tables and menus that were frayed at the edges. But it was cheap, the portions were huge, and the food was incredible. Later, the place became trendy. You needed reservations; the lines stretched down the block. Garrett grew to despise it, refusing to take me there ever again. “Is there really nothing else you want to eat? Do we have to waste our evening standing in line for a craving?” Yet now, the hostess recognized him immediately and smiled. “Table for two, Garrett? Your usual spot?” Keira walked inside with practiced ease, as if she had been here dozens of times. Standing on the sidewalk, the air suddenly felt too thick to breathe. He hadn’t hated the hassle of the restaurant; he had just hated the hassle of “me.” Under the shadow of a maple tree, I watched them through the window. The food arrived quickly – a skillet of garlic shrimp, a whole roasted sea bass, and several other signature dishes I knew by heart. Garrett naturally took the wet wipes from the server. He pulled the fish apart, meticulously extracting every bone before placing a piece of fish onto Keira’s plate. Then he peeled the shrimp, dipped them in sauce, and set them in her bowl. Watching this, my mind drifted back to our early years. Those were tasks I had always done for him. Garrett was meticulous, a bit of a clean freak. He hated getting his fingers greasy, hated the chore of peeling shells. So, whenever we ate, I would peel his shrimp, debone his fish, and slide them onto his plate. Our friends used to tease me. “Natalie, if you keep spoiling him like this, you’re going to turn him into a helpless toddler.” I had only laughed. But now I had my answer. Garrett wasn’t helpless. He was perfectly capable of doing the things he disliked – provided the person he was doing them for was someone he actually loved. I pulled out my phone and opened my chat with Keira. Our last exchange was her message about moving to the city of her dreams, followed by a GIF of a winking golden retriever. No wonder it had looked familiar. I realized now it was from a sticker pack Garrett used constantly. My thumb hovered over the keyboard. After a long moment, I typed out a message: “[Keira, I saw you here in Chicago. So you decided to stay after all? Why don’t you come over to our place for dinner this weekend?]” The message sent. I didn’t wait to see their reactions. I slipped my phone into my pocket, turned on my heel, and walked away. Apparently, Keira didn’t tell Garrett about my invitation. Because when the doorbell rang on Sunday, and Garrett opened the door to find her standing there, his entire body went rigid. In the next second, a damp, moldy smell exploded into the hallway, laced with a sharp, panicked heat. Guilt and panic, coiling together. I knew exactly why Keira hadn’t told him. What woman is truly content staying hidden in the shadows forever? When given the chance to step into the light, to claim a space in his home, she was never going to pass it up. While Keira went to the restroom, Garrett grabbed my wrist and dragged me into the corner of the kitchen. His voice was a harsh whisper, laced with accusation. “Why didn’t you tell me Keira was coming over for dinner?” I looked up, meeting his eyes. “You always say you hate hearing about domestic details. So I didn’t bother.” Garrett choked on his words, his brow knitting tighter. “Natalie, you – ” Before he could finish, the bathroom door clicked open. Keira stepped out, her smile sweet and entirely innocent. “Natalie, when are we eating? I’m starving.” I pulled my wrist from Garrett’s grip and reached for the serving platters. “Right now.” The three of us sat down at the table. In the past, whenever Keira visited, she would cling to my side, always insisting on sitting next to me. This time, she naturally pulled out the chair directly beside Garrett. I set the soup bowl down, pretending not to notice. With a pleasant smile, I asked her, “So, Keira, you mentioned before that you were moving to be with the person you loved. How did you end up staying in Chicago?” As the question hung in the air, I felt a strange knot of tension in my chest. I had supported Keira for a decade. I had watched her pull herself out of a mountain village without paved roads, fighting her way to a top-tier university. I didn’t want to destroy her future over a sordid affair. I was going to divorce Garrett, without question. But if she showed any remorse, any sign of realizing her mistake, I wanted to leave her with some shred of dignity. But Keira only looked down, a small smile playing on her lips. When she looked up, her gaze drifted sideways to Garrett. “Because the person I love is here in Chicago,” she said softly, but with absolute clarity. “He begged me to stay. He found me a job, rented me an apartment, even got me a car. He showed so much sincerity… how could I not stay?” As her words fell, the dining room became choked with competing scents. From Garrett, the damp, rotting stench of guilt. From Keira, the sharp, metallic bite of open provocation. And from me? There was no longer any sour ache of heartbreak. There was only the dry, empty smell of cold ash. Disappointment. I smiled faintly and let the subject drop. The rest of the meal tasted like cardboard. When we finished, I was the one who broke the silence. “Garrett, it’s getting late. Why don’t you drive Keira home?” Garrett’s face was dark, but he didn’t refuse. He grabbed his keys in silence, and he and Keira walked out of the apartment. A split second before the elevator doors closed, I saw Keira stand on her tiptoes and plant a quick, mocking kiss on his cheek. It was a declaration of ownership. A victory lap. I let the doors close, turned back into my apartment, and shut the door. I went into the bedroom, pulled out my pre-packed suitcases, and set them by the door. Then, I placed the signed divorce agreement neatly in the center of the dining table. Finally, I opened my laptop and pulled up my email. I attached the blurry photo of them embracing at the convenience store, the clear shot of him deboning her fish at the restaurant, and several photos of them walking into his office building together. Along with a concise, factual report, I sent the package directly to the email of Garrett’s regional director. With that done, I grabbed the handle of my suitcase and walked out without looking back. The night air hit my face as I stepped out of the building, washing away the heavy, bitter scent of Garrett that had clung to me for far too long. Garrett didn’t get home until three in the morning. Keira had clung to his sleeve, refusing to let him leave. First, she said she was scared to be alone, then she claimed she heard strange noises in her apartment, then she begged for just thirty more minutes. Thirty minutes turned into hours. By the time Garrett’s patience finally wore thin, the sky was already graying. On the drive back, Garrett felt nothing but exhaustion. Managing Keira was becoming increasingly demanding; she always seemed to want more. By contrast, he thought, Natalie had never been like this. She was always reasonable, always understanding. Even if he stayed out all night, she would only send a gentle “Stay safe” text and leave the porch light on. When he turned the key in the lock, he frowned out of habit. The entryway was dark, the living room pitch-black save for the amber glow of the streetlights filtering through the blinds. “Natalie?” he called out. No response. He fumbled for the light switch. When the room flooded with light, he froze. The dining table was a mess of dirty dishes. The remnants of dinner had congealed into white grease, and a dark stain had soaked into the tablecloth. There were dried sauce drops on the hardwood floor, and a small clump of rice lay abandoned nearby. This wasn’t like Natalie. She couldn’t stand a messy house. Even when she had a fever, she would force herself to put everything in its place. The faint guilt he had felt for coming home late was instantly replaced by irritation. His job was exhausting enough; he didn’t want to come home to a disaster. With a cold face, he marched toward the bedroom to demand an explanation. The door was cracked open, the room dark. He pushed it open and flipped the switch. The bed was made perfectly. The duvet was pulled tight, without a single wrinkle to suggest anyone had lain there. “Natalie?” Still nothing. He checked the bathroom – empty. He stood in the middle of the quiet apartment, suddenly struck by how vast and foreign the space felt. The subtle scent of Natalie’s lavender fabric softener was already fading. He walked back to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water, and that was when he spotted the document resting beside a plate. Frowning, he picked it up. The bold, capitalized letters at the top hit him like a physical blow: “DIVORCE AGREEMENT.” Garrett stared at it, a wave of disbelief washing over him. Natalie wanted a divorce? Over a missed anniversary dinner? Over a cake? It made no sense. He let out a harsh, dry laugh and tossed the paper back onto the table. He pulled out his phone and dialed her number. “We’re sorry, the number you have dialed is currently unavailable…” He hung up and opened Messages. “[Natalie, what is this nonsense? Where the hell are you at this hour?]” The message failed to send. A glaring red exclamation mark appeared, followed by a small line of text: “Message not delivered. You have been blocked by this contact.” Garrett stared at the red circle, paralyzed. Then, a hot, uncontrollable anger flared in his chest. They had argued before, but Natalie was always the one to back down first. This time, she had gone too far – actually signing divorce papers. He made up his mind right then: he would wait until she came crawling back, apologizing, before he would even consider forgiving her. With that thought, the fire in his chest subsided slightly. He went to bed, tossing and turning until dawn before finally falling into a fitful sleep. The next morning, he was jolted awake by his phone. It was the assistant to the regional director, Mr. Campbell. “Garrett, Mr. Campbell wants you in his office immediately. We have a highly urgent matter to discuss.”

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I called off our wedding exactly one week before we were supposed to walk down the aisle. When I broke the news, Leo was hunched over his laptop, editing his junior lab partner Linda’s master’s thesis. His voice carried a mild, practiced irritation. “And what’s your reason this time?” I placed a tube of lipstick—the one I’d found wedged beside the passenger seat of his car—on the sleek wooden desk. Then, I laid down two glossy photographs right next to it. The lipstick belonged to Linda. The photos showed the two of them on a weekend getaway. I looked at him. “Are these two reasons enough?” Leo knitted his brows, tossing out a casual, defensive explanation. “The lipstick must have slipped out of her bag. And the photos? She’s been under an insane amount of pressure with her research lately. I just took her out of town for a weekend to help her clear her head.” I nodded slowly. “Right. So we’re calling off the wedding.” He stared at me for a long, quiet beat, as if trying to gauge my resolve, before turning his eyes back to his monitor. “Whatever you want, Gina.” I knew he didn’t take me seriously. He didn’t believe for a second that I would actually walk away. After all, every time he had threatened to break off our engagement during our past arguments, I was always the one who swallowed my pride, begged for forgiveness, and coaxed him back. He assumed this was just another one of those times. But he was wrong. This time, I was truly done. … 1 Leo didn’t spare me another glance. His focus was entirely consumed by Linda’s draft. “Go get some rest,” he said, his fingers already flying across the keyboard. “I’ll give her back the lipstick tomorrow.” I didn’t say a word. My gaze drifted back to the photos. In them, Linda had her arm draped casually over his shoulder, their cheeks pressed close together. She was sticking her tongue out playfully at the camera. They looked exactly like a happy young couple. The photos had been taken two weeks ago, during the weekend Leo told me he had to travel out of state for an academic conference. It turned out his “conference” was a getaway to help Linda unwind. I remembered bringing up the idea of a short trip myself just last week. He had frowned, sighing heavily. “The lab is absolutely swamped right now, Gina. I physically don’t have the hours. Let’s do it another time.” Though disappointed, I hadn’t pushed. I had quietly waited, holding onto the hope that he would eventually carve out some time for me. Only now did I realize it wasn’t a matter of time. He had plenty of it. He just didn’t want to spend it on me. After a long silence, I finally asked, “Why did you lie to me?” His fingers paused over the keyboard. He looked up, his expression a mix of confusion and irritation, as if my question were entirely absurd. I held his gaze and repeated myself, my voice barely a whisper. “You took Linda to the coast to clear her head. Why did you tell me you were traveling for work?” Leo was always too busy. He was so busy that I had to plan every single detail of our wedding by myself. From the guest list and the catering to the floral arrangements and venue design, I had handled it all. I had even gone to the jeweler to pick out our wedding bands alone. Yet, this incredibly busy man had somehow found the hours to whisk Linda away because she was feeling stressed. A bitter, suffocating ache bloomed in my chest. A shadow of annoyance crossed Leo’s face. “If I had told you the truth, you would have started a fight. Gina, we’re about to get married. Do you really not have even a shred of trust in me? Linda has been crying in the lab because of her research. She was on the verge of a breakdown. I just took her out of the city to help her decompress.” I stared at him. Linda was stressed, so he took her on a trip. Linda struggled with her thesis, so he stayed up late rewriting it for her. He gave all of his precious time to Linda, while leaving me with only one word: “busy”. I nodded, my voice dropping to a faint, hollow tone. “Okay. I understand. I’ll explain things to my parents. You should tell yours. The sooner, the better.” Leo opened his mouth to say something, but his phone buzzed on the desk. He picked it up, and I caught a glimpse of the contact name on the screen: “Linda”. I quietly turned around and walked out of the study, giving him space. Behind me, I heard him play her voice note. “Hey, Leo! How’s my draft looking? I’m so, so nervous—please tell me you don’t think it’s total garbage!” As I stepped out into the hallway, Leo’s gentle reply drifted through the open door. “Of course not. It’s actually really good, there are just a few sections we need to polish…” I didn’t listen to the rest. I closed the door behind me, and a single tear slipped down my cheek, splashing onto the hardwood floor. Six years of my life, gone just like that. The next morning, Leo acted as if nothing had happened. He grabbed his coat, slipping it on as he spoke. “There’s a department dinner tonight, so I’ll probably be home late. Go ahead and sleep, don’t wait up for me.” He didn’t wait for my response before heading out the door. I stared down at my cold bowl of oatmeal, barely tasting it. I sat on the couch for a long time, watching the morning light slowly shift across the living room, before finally forcing myself to go upstairs. After living together for three years, I had accumulated a lot of things. Packing them up was going to be a monumental task. I lost track of time. By the time Leo came home, the bedroom was a chaotic mess of half-filled boxes, and two large suitcases sat open on the floor. He knitted his brows, looking genuinely perplexed. “Where are you going?” My hands froze over a stack of sweaters. I felt a sudden, bitter urge to laugh. Of course. He hadn’t registered a single word of our conversation last night. He probably asked where I was going out of pure, mindless habit. Compared to his hyper-awareness of Linda’s emotions, his concern for me didn’t even amount to a fraction of a percent. I folded a blouse and placed it neatly into the suitcase. “I’m moving out,” I said evenly. Leo fell silent for a moment, as if the memories of the previous night were slowly clicking into place. Then, he let out a soft, dismissive chuckle. “Gina, are you actually serious? Look, if you’re that desperate for a vacation, I’ll carve out some time for us right after the wedding, okay?” I didn’t answer. I just kept packing. His expression softened into one of weary indulgence. “Linda’s lipstick really did just fall out of her bag when I drove her home the other night. I gave it back to her today. She promised me she’d be more careful with her things from now on.” My hands didn’t falter. “Good to know,” I murmured. Seeing my indifference, Leo yanked at his tie, his patience finally snapping. “Are you really going to throw a tantrum over something this trivial?” he snapped, his voice sharp with irritation. “Calling off the wedding? Gina, we are six days away from our rehearsal dinner. Do you have any idea what calling it off right now actually means? You’re an adult. Stop being so incredibly childish.” Of course I knew what it meant. It meant my parents would have to face the pitying whispers of our relatives and friends. It meant severing the six-year thread that bound my life to his. But I couldn’t live like this anymore. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life playing second fiddle to Linda in my own marriage. “It is,” I said. Leo blinked. “What?” I looked him dead in the eye and repeated it, slower this time. “It is worth it, Leo. I’m not throwing a tantrum. I’m calling off the wedding. I don’t want to marry you anymore.” Leo stared at me, a cold, scoffing laugh escaping his lips. “Gina, there’s a limit to how far you can push a drama. You’re seriously going to throw away six years of our lives over a stray lipstick and a couple of vacation photos?” To him, it was always just a drama. He had never once stopped to consider the concept of boundaries when it came to Linda. I remembered a night last year when I had too much to drink at a corporate networking dinner. When I called his number, Linda answered. She told me Leo was driving and couldn’t talk. After a heavy pause, I asked if he could come pick me up. He took the phone from her and rejected me without a second thought. “I’m driving Linda home right now. Just call an Uber.” I ended up taking that rideshare home alone, and we had a massive screaming match. But then he coldly uttered, “Maybe we shouldn’t get married after all,” and those words felt like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head, freezing the anger right out of me. In the end, I was the one who crawled back, swallowing my pride to appease him. He was so protective of Linda that he had threatened to call off our wedding dozens of times because of her. But now, when I was the one pulling the plug, he refused to believe it. I looked away, too exhausted to argue. “Fine. Think what you want.” “Gina, can you stop with this toxic jealousy?” Leo pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling a frustrated breath. “Linda is my junior colleague. She’s struggling. What is so wrong with me helping her navigate her research? It’s literally my job as her mentor.” I remained silent. I zipped up my final suitcase and pulled it off the bed. Leo threw his hands up in defeat. “Whatever. Maybe it’s good for you to get out of the house and clear your head. At least then you’ll stop overanalyzing everything.” He turned on his heel and slammed the study door behind him. I quietly stood the suitcase up in the corner of the room. Looking down at the diamond engagement ring on my left hand, I slipped it off my finger and set it on the nightstand. I expected to lie awake all night, but instead, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. I didn’t wake up until mid-morning, roused by soft, giggling voices floating up from the living room. “Leo, are you sure Gina won’t be mad that you brought me over without asking her first? You guys are literally getting married next week. I’d feel terrible if you two got into a fight because of me.” I had heard that voice countless times through Leo’s speakerphone. But I never imagined he would actually bring Linda into our home. “She won’t mind,” Leo replied, his voice warm and comforting. “Gina isn’t unreasonable. Besides, you’re only here so we can finish editing your thesis drafts.” When I carried my suitcase down the stairs, I saw Linda sitting beside him on the sofa. Their heads were huddled close together over a laptop. Neither of them noticed me standing at the foot of the stairs. “Oh my gosh, Leo, you’re literally a lifesaver,” Linda squealed, gazing at him with open admiration. “If I had submitted my original draft, my advisor would have absolutely shredded me.” “Don’t worry,” Leo said softly. “I’ve got you. We’ll fix it together.” My heart gave a painful little squeeze. I had never seen him display that kind of gentleness. Just last month, I had asked him to look over a marketing proposal I was working on for a promotion. He had barely glanced at the paper before looking back down at his phone. “Gina, this isn’t my field. I don’t have time for this.” He had no patience for me. But for Linda, he was willing to explain things line by line, hour by hour. I let go of the handle, and my suitcase clicked against the floorboard. Both of them snapped their heads in my direction. Leo stood up and walked toward me, his tone defensive yet carefully even. “Linda needed help with the final edits. I figured it would be easier and faster if she just came over here to work.” “How convenient,” I murmured. Linda scampered over behind him, her eyes dropping to the suitcase at my feet. She let out a soft gasp. “Gina… are you going somewhere?” I ignored her. Reaching into my coat pocket, I pulled out a platinum credit card and handed it to Leo. “This is the card your mother gave me for the wedding expenses,” I said, my voice steady and devoid of emotion. “I haven’t spent a single penny of it. I’ll speak to my parents tonight. You should do the same with yours. Let’s not drag this out.” Leo stared at the card, a look of genuine shock crossing his face before it hardened into a bitter, mocking smirk. “Gina, what is this dramatic little performance supposed to prove?” “Nothing,” I said, pressing the card into his palm. “Since the engagement is off, it’s only right that I return what isn’t mine.” “Calling off the engagement?!” Linda gasped, her hand flying to her mouth before Leo could speak. “Gina, you’re calling off the wedding? Why?” I turned my gaze to her, looking her straight in the eye. “I think you know exactly why.” Linda froze, the color draining from her face. Leo immediately stepped in front of her, shielding her from my gaze. His brow furrowed in anger. “Gina, that is enough. This is your own insecurity talking. Don’t drag Linda into your issues.” Watching the outrage burn in his eyes, I paused, and a small, sad smile touched my lips. To him, I was just insecure and petty. He completely ignored his own failure to set boundaries, choosing instead to paint me as the irrational, jealous fiancée. “You’re right,” I said quietly. “I am petty.” I wheeled my suitcase around them and walked out the front door. As I crossed the threshold, Linda’s whimpering voice drifted out from the entryway. “Leo… is she calling off the wedding because of me? I swear the lipstick was just an accident, I didn’t mean to leave it in your car… I’m so sorry…” “It has nothing to do with you,” Leo interrupted, his voice dropping into that familiar, reassuring register. “I know her. She’s just trying to scare me. She’s not going to call off the wedding.” I didn’t look back. I pulled the door shut behind me, letting the heavy click of the deadbolt swallow their voices whole. I took a taxi to my parents’ house in the suburbs. When I walked through the door dragging my heavy luggage, my mother stopped dead in her tracks. “Gina? Sweetie, what are you doing here?” Her eyes fell to the suitcases, and her face softened with immediate concern. She asked, her voice cautious, “Did you and Leo have a fight?” My hand tightened around the handle of my suitcase. I swallowed the lump in my throat and shook my head. “No. It wasn’t a fight. I called off the wedding.” My father walked out of the kitchen just in time to hear me. He stood frozen in the hallway. “Gina, what did you just say? You called off the wedding?” I sat them down in the living room and explained everything, my voice growing softer and more exhausted with every sentence. By the time I finished, my mother’s eyes were glistening with unshed tears. My father remained silent, his jaw clenched in quiet anger. “Mom, Dad… I’m so sorry,” I whispered, looking down at my hands. My mother immediately reached across the table and took my hands in hers. Her voice trembled, but she forced herself to stay strong for me. “Gina, look at me. Your father and I will support whatever you decide. If you don’t want to marry him, we aren’t going to make you. Don’t worry about the guests or the relatives. We will handle them.” A sudden wave of emotion hit me, threatening to shatter the fragile calm I’d kept all morning. I blinked rapidly, fighting back the tears, refusing to let them fall. Upstairs in my old childhood bedroom, I collapsed onto the mattress, utterly drained. My phone buzzed on the nightstand. It was a text from my best friend, Becca. “Gina, is it true? Did you actually call off the wedding with Leo? Tell me you’re joking.” I stared at the ceiling and typed out a brief reply: “It’s true. His business trip last month? He took Linda on a weekend getaway.” Within three seconds, Becca was calling me. She didn’t even say hello before launching into a furious tirade. “Is he out of his mind?! You’ve been working yourself to the bone coordinating with vendors and florists, and he’s out of town playing boyfriend to his assistant?! You spent six years of your life building a future with this man. How could he do this to you? He’s an absolute prick!” By the end of her rant, her voice was shaking with anger and tears. She was crying for me, feeling the injustice of it all more loudly than I could. I forced a small, tired smile. “It’s okay, Becca. Honestly, it’s better this way. I don’t want to marry him anymore.” Before, I had been holding onto the hope that things would change. But now, my heart was entirely numb. The love had simply bled out of it. The night before our scheduled wedding, Leo called me. “Tomorrow is the big day,” he said, his voice casual, as if he were checking in on a grocery list. “What time are you coming back to the apartment tonight?” I stared out the window into the dark suburbia, a quiet, humorless laugh escaping my throat. He still believed this was a game. He still thought I was just throwing a tantrum to teach him a lesson. “I’m not coming back,” I said. There was a brief pause on the line. “Fine,” he sighed. “Your parents’ place is closer to the venue anyway. You can just head straight to the hotel tomorrow morning.” “Leo,” I interrupted, closing my eyes. “I am not going to the venue. I am not getting married tomorrow. I wasn’t throwing a tantrum. I am done.” A long, heavy silence stretched over the phone. When he finally spoke, his tone was clipped, laced with disbelief. “What do you mean you’re not going? Gina, do you hear yourself right now? Is this about Linda again?” He exhaled a long, dramatic sigh, the epitome of a martyr. “Linda and I are colleagues. We work in the same lab. There is absolutely nothing going on between us. I explained the trip to you. Can you please stop making a scene?” A scene. In Leo’s eyes, every boundary I tried to set, every ounce of pain I expressed, was just me “making a scene.” When Linda called him at midnight because her apartment’s kitchen light broke, he had rushed over without a second thought. When I cried about it, he told me I was overreacting. When he chose to drive her across town instead of picking me up from a bar in the rain, he told me I was being dramatic. And now, when I was trying to save my own dignity by calling off a doomed marriage, he called it a scene. I wanted to ask him: “What do I have to do for you to actually hear me?” I took a deep breath. “Leo, I am not—” “Leo!” A feminine voice suddenly chimed in from his end of the line, cutting me off. It was Linda. I glanced at the clock on my nightstand. It was past eleven. She was still at his apartment. Leo muffled the microphone on his phone, but his voice still leaked through as he whispered to her, “What’s wrong?” “Leo, are you sure it’s okay for me to crash on your couch tonight? I don’t want to make things weird,” Linda asked, her voice dripping with sweet innocence. I pressed the red button and hung up. A few minutes later, a text message popped up on my screen. “Linda ran into some massive errors with her dataset. We worked late into the night trying to resolve them, so I told her she could stay in the guest room. Get some sleep, Gina. I’ll see you at the altar tomorrow.” He was still entirely convinced I would show up. My thumb hovered over his contact card. With a few quick taps, I blocked his number. Since he was so absolutely certain of my compliance, I decided to let him experience his perfect wedding day all by himself.

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Ever since I was a child, I’ve had a secret. When I look at someone, I can see their exact bank balance floating right above their head. It was this little gift that saved me. Back in the orphanage, I used it to choose my adoptive parents—a couple who dressed in faded, off-brand clothes but actually had a cool hundred million sitting in their accounts. But my taste of the good life was short-lived. The biological daughter they’d lost years ago was found, and she came back to claim her throne. Tiffany hated me for occupying her space. She made it her life’s mission to torment me, leaving me bruised and broken in ways no one else cared to see. I endured it all, keeping my head down, just so they would continue paying my college tuition. The moment I finally graduated, degree in hand, I was ready to run. I was packing my life into a single duffel bag when Tiffany blocked my path, her face twisted in rage. “I thought the guy I was talking to online was some rich heir with a Ferrari,” she hissed, shoving her phone in my face. “Turns out he’s just some pathetic loser who rides a Lime bike.” “If he starts stalking me, it’s going to ruin my reputation. You’re going to go meet him instead. Tell him you’re the girl he’s been talking to. Tell him you’re Cindy.” I looked in the direction she was pointing, out the window. A loser? Above the man’s head, in glowing, undeniable numbers, was a ten-digit balance. I swallowed hard, my heart hammering against my ribs. I grabbed Tiffany’s arm, unable to mask my sudden excitement. “Tell me everything,” I said. “Every single detail you two talked about. I’m going right now.” … Tiffany let out a sharp, mocking laugh when she saw how eager I was. “Are you really that desperate, Zoe? Can’t even keep your drool in check over a lowlife like that?” She tossed her phone at my face. It hit my cheek before sliding into my hands. “Have at him. If you’re that starved for a man, he’s all yours. Take him, leave, and honestly, do me a favor and never come back.” I swallowed the bitter taste of her insults, keeping my focus entirely on the screen. I memorized every text, every shared inside joke, every detail of their digital romance. Then, drawing in a long, steadying breath, I walked out of the house and made my way toward the man Tiffany had discarded like trash. “Hi,” I said, stepping up to him. I forced my voice to be light, cheerful. “I’m Cindy. The girl you’ve been texting. But my real name is Zoe.” I offered my hand, a warm smile stretching across my face. His eyes lit up, a flicker of genuine surprise washing over his features. “Oh,” he said, his voice softer than I expected. “You look… different than your pictures. Better, actually. Much better.” “I’m Wyatt,” he replied, wrapping his hand around mine. Tiffany had only ever sent him blurry, angled photos of her back or side-profile. Since our builds were similar, Wyatt had no reason to doubt me. But as our hands met, I wasn’t listening to his voice. I was staring at the space just above his head, carefully counting the digits glowing there. One, two, three… ten digits. Over a billion dollars. What made my breath catch, though, was that the number wasn’t static. Even as we stood there, it was ticking upward, climbing steadily with every passing second. So this was what real, obscene wealth looked like. He didn’t have to lift a finger; his money was making money faster than most people could spend it. If I could play this right, if I could tie myself to him, I wouldn’t just escape the hell of my adoptive family. I’d have a future. While I was lost in my calculations, Wyatt’s expression shifted, a quiet vulnerability clouding his eyes. “I… hope you aren’t disappointed,” he murmured, gesturing self-consciously to his scuffed, cheap foam clogs and the faded, oversized t-shirt he wore. “I could only afford a city bike to get here. Do you hate me for being poor?” He looked like he’d crawled out of a clearance bin at a thrift store. But Tiffany, in her endless pursuit of trying to play the “sweet, low-maintenance girl” to hook what she thought was a rich guy, had established a very specific online persona. She had pretended to be a struggling, modest girl. So I played along seamlessly. “I’m literally wearing my sister’s discarded hand-me-downs right now,” I said, gesturing to my faded sweater. “If anything, it’s nice to meet someone who knows the value of a dollar. I guess that’s why we clicked so well.” Tiffany had assumed that playing the victim of poverty would win her a rich boyfriend who would shower her with gifts. She had no idea that Wyatt had beaten her to the punch, using the exact same strategy to test her. Wyatt scanned my thin frame, taking in my slightly hollow cheeks and the cheap fabric of my clothes. The suspicion in his eyes melted away, replaced by a soft, growing warmth. But the test wasn’t over. “We can’t just stand on the sidewalk all day,” he said, rubbing his back. “Let me buy you lunch.” He unlocked a city bike for me, deliberately positioning his cracked, ancient smartphone so I could see it. I didn’t say a word. I pulled out my own phone—the screen webbed with deep fractures—and offered to buy him a ninety-nine-cent Arizona iced tea from a convenience store. “Thanks for coming out to see me,” I told him as we biked side-by-side. “It really means a lot.” Inside, I was secretly thrilled. I wanted to see exactly how far Wyatt was willing to drag this “broke boy” act. After a thirty-minute bike ride that left my legs burning, he pulled up to a dingy, strip-mall diner with a sign that read: All-You-Can-Eat Buffet – $7.99. I paused at the entrance, and Wyatt’s shoulders slumped slightly. He gave me a look that said, I knew it. Still, he rubbed his hands together nervously, playing the part of the anxious, low-income worker. “I know it’s not fancy,” he said, his voice tight. “But money is tight. I do delivery driving, and after gas, I barely clear eighty bucks a day. Zoe, do you look down on me for bringing you here?” I blinked, my stomach choosing that exact moment to let out a loud, traitorous growl. “Are you kidding?” I said, my eyes shining with absolute sincerity. “I’m the black sheep of my family. My parents stopped giving me a dime the second I started college. I’ve been working three part-time jobs just to pay tuition. Most days, I survive on a single side of white rice from the campus dining hall mixed with free hot water and ketchup.” “To me, an all-you-can-eat buffet is practically a Michelin-star feast.” I wasn’t lying. The hunger in my belly was very real. Before he could even respond, I grabbed a plastic tray and headed straight for the food line. If this had been Tiffany, she probably would have dumped a plate of hot food over his head and walked out. But I was practically vibrating with excitement, piling my plate high with whatever looked hot and heavy. “Mac and cheese, yes please. Mashed potatoes… definitely. Fried chicken… oh, absolutely.” Wyatt followed close behind, watching me heap mounds of heavy carbs onto my plate. When we sat down and I began eating with genuine, unpretentious joy, a sudden tenderness softened his face. “You really aren’t faking this, are you?” he murmured. I was too busy inhaling a roll to answer. Compared to my ravenous appetite, Wyatt barely touched his food. It was clear he wasn’t used to such greasy, low-grade fare. He took a few polite bites and set his fork down. Naturally, I finished his leftovers, too. Once the plates were clean, I leaned back, patting my stomach with a contented sigh. “Thank you, Wyatt. That was honestly the best meal I’ve had all year.” “Don’t get used to it,” he said, a faint, enigmatic smile playing on his lips. “Once I make it big, I’ll take you to a place that’ll make this look like garbage.” When he offered to drop me off at home, I shook my head. “I’m not going back there,” I said softly. “I’m going to find a cheap hostel to crash at for a few days while I look for a job.” I remembered from Tiffany’s chat history that Wyatt had been deeply curious about her living situation. Tiffany, who had been pampered her whole life, could never quite fake the gritty details of a hard life; she had always brushed his questions off with cute, deflective emojis. But I had nothing to hide. “I’m adopted,” I told him as we walked down the street. “A few days after they took me in from foster care, their biological daughter—the sister I mentioned—was found and brought back. From that moment on, I became a ghost in my own home. My sister found endless, cruel ways to make me pay for existing, and my parents looked the other way. But they kept a roof over my head and paid for my school, so I try to be grateful.” Wyatt’s hands balled into tight fists inside his pockets. “And you just took it? You let her treat you like that?” I shrugged and rolled up my sleeves, showing him the faded, thin scars on my forearms. Some were from where Tiffany had burned me with matches, others from where she’d scratched me with rusty nails, and one deep mark from when she’d set the family dog on me because I touched her shoes. “I’ve graduated now,” I said, pulling my sleeves back down. “I can take care of myself. Once I save up enough, I’ll pay my adoptive parents back for the tuition and cut ties with them forever.” “Zoe…” Wyatt stared at me, his gaze intense, searching. “To be honest, when we first started texting, I thought you were just playing a character to get my sympathy.” He was completely convinced now. He stood there for a long moment, lost in thought, before looking up at me with dark, unreadable eyes. “If you could make one wish right now, what would it be?” I stole a quick glance at the number hovering over his head. In the span of our lunch, his balance had somehow grown by another five million dollars. He was still playing the pauper, so asking him for a direct handout was out of the question. But maybe, just maybe, he could use whatever connections a secret billionaire had to help me find a job. “I just want to find a job as soon as possible,” I said, keeping my tone practical. “Ideally, something that offers employee housing or a housing stipend, so I can save on rent.” Wyatt raised an eyebrow, a mysterious glint in his eye. “Well, you never know. Maybe the universe will surprise you.” I smiled, not wanting to get my hopes too high. After all, I still had no idea who he really was. To thank him for lunch, I spent the last of my pocket cash on a couple of cheap ice cream cones. He spent the rest of the afternoon walking with me, helping me check out various sketchy, low-cost hostels in the city. By evening, after a cheap dinner of street tacos, we parted ways on our city bikes, his eyes lingering on me with a strange, reluctant warmth. The moment he disappeared around the corner, my phone rang. It was an HR representative from a major, multi-billion-dollar corporation. “We saw your resume on a recruiting portal,” the woman said, her tone highly professional. “Your qualifications are a perfect match for our open position. Would you be open to an interview tomorrow morning?” I didn’t know the exact connection between this massive firm and Wyatt, but I knew with absolute certainty that this wasn’t a coincidence. It was him. The interview the next day was shockingly easy. The HR manager barely asked any technical questions before offering me the job on the spot, telling me I could start the very next morning. Excited, I immediately texted Wyatt: Your lips must be blessed! I got a job! It comes with a dorm and a meal stipend! You brought me this luck—I have to buy you dinner to celebrate! Wyatt agreed instantly. He showed up in the same threadbare outfit, offering a sheepish, self-deprecating shrug. “I don’t really have any nice clothes, Zoe. I hope you don’t mind walking around with someone who looks like this.” As he spoke, the number above his head flashed. It was eighty million dollars higher than it had been yesterday. I suppressed a smile. “Once I get my first paycheck, I’m buying you a brand-new outfit.” Wyatt blinked, genuinely taken aback. “You can barely afford to feed yourself, and you want to buy me clothes?” “You’re the first person who ever took the time to listen to me,” I said simply. “You treat me well. It’s only fair I do the same.” The emotion that flared in his eyes was entirely real. There was no acting in that moment. From that day on, I poured everything into my new job, desperate to build a life of my own. Wyatt and I met almost every evening, our bond growing deeper with every passing day. We ate at cheap diners and food trucks, but Wyatt seemed to grow more relaxed, his guarded, testing nature melting away entirely. On payday, I kept my promise. I took him to a retail store and bought him a decent shirt and jeans. As he changed into them, his expression grew serious, almost solemn. “Zoe,” he said softly, “your luck is just getting started. I have to go away for a few days to handle some business. But when I get back, I have a surprise for you.” I didn’t know what he meant, and I didn’t dare to dream. In fact, a part of me preferred him as the “poor delivery guy.” When he was pretending, we were equals. If he became a god among men, I wouldn’t know how to look him in the eye. For the next three days, I couldn’t reach him. He only sent occasional, brief texts telling me to be patient. But before I could see Wyatt again, the person I dreaded most found me. Tiffany somehow tracked down my workplace. “Are you still seeing that guy?” she demanded, cornering me outside the building. “Get him out here. I need to see him right now.” “I was looking at the financial news today, and his face… he looks exactly like Wyatt Harrington!” She shoved her phone in my face, displaying a high-res photo from an international economic summit. It was Wyatt. But in the photo, he was the crown prince of Manhattan’s elite. He wore a bespoke three-piece suit, a multi-million-dollar watch, and was stepping out of a black Rolls-Royce surrounded by a phalanx of security guards. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. To think that this untouchable billionaire had purposefully gone without washing his hair, putting on cheap clogs just to eat a seven-dollar buffet with me. He had really gone all out to test his online date. Knowing Tiffany would try to claw her way back to him if she found out the truth, I quickly tried to diffuse her suspicions. “You’re dreaming,” I said, shaking my head. “On our first date, he took me to a seven-dollar buffet. Every time we hang out, we eat cheap street food. He literally wears the same faded t-shirt every day, and his clogs are practically falling apart. How could he possibly be a billionaire?” Tiffany squinted at me, searching for any sign of a lie. I quickly pulled up my transaction history, showing her the cheap diner receipts and photos of our street-food dates. She scrolled through my phone, taking in my cheap clothes and worn-out shoes, before finally letting out a sigh of relief. “Right. If he were actually a Harrington, he’d be throwing money at you, not making you split cheap tacos. Besides, someone that high-class would never look at a ratty girl like you.” She sneered, tossing my phone back. “You’re built for the gutter, Zoe. You and your little trash boyfriend deserve each other. Just don’t tell anyone we’re related. My parents would die of embarrassment.” I swallowed my anger, watching her walk away. But deep down, a tiny, foolish spark of hope flared in my chest. What if… what if Wyatt chose me? What if he stood by me and showed Tiffany exactly what she had thrown away? I shook my head, clearing the fantasy from my mind. Getting this job was already a miracle. I couldn’t afford to be greedy. I spent the next three days keeping my head down, working hard. But on the fourth day, as I stepped out of the office lobby, a sleek, black Rolls-Royce pulled up directly in front of me. The rear window rolled down slowly, revealing a face that was both intensely familiar and suddenly foreign. It was Wyatt. “Zoe,” he said, his voice smooth and commanding. “Get in. We need to talk.” Whispers broke out among my coworkers as they stopped to stare. My brain went entirely numb. I couldn’t believe he was exposing his identity like this. Seeing me frozen on the pavement, Wyatt smiled, opening the door and stepping out. “What’s with the face? It’s only been three days. Did you forget me already?” As he walked toward me, his eyes filled with a gentle, protective warmth, my heart hammered against my ribs. Was the miracle actually happening? But before I could take a step toward him, a sharp, screeching voice shattered the moment. “Wyatt! She’s a liar! Zoe scammed you! She isn’t Cindy—she’s an imposter!” My breath caught in my throat. I turned slowly, my body turning to ice. Tiffany was marching toward us, her face flushed with triumph. “I am the real Cindy!” she yelled, pushing past me to stand directly in front of Wyatt. Seeing Wyatt’s expression instantly harden, a cold dread pooled in my stomach. It was over. Just as he was about to reveal himself to me, the truth had come out. If he realized our entire relationship was built on a lie… Forget about a future with him—I would probably lose my job, my dorm, and my only shot at survival. I wanted to explain, but terror choked the words in my throat. The mocking whispers of the gathering crowd seemed to press in on me from all sides, forcing my head down. “Look!” Tiffany screamed, shoving her phone in his face. “Here’s my account! Here are our chats! These are the photos I sent you! I have all the proof. Zoe is a fraud. You have to destroy her!” Wyatt took her phone, his eyes scanning the screen. A second later, his brow furrowed, and he turned his cold, piercing gaze to me…

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My dad was dead drunk again, drowning himself in cheap whiskey because he missed my mom. That was when his phone started to ring. I stared at the screen, my heart stopping at the caller ID: “Wife”. I froze. Mom had been dead for two years. Her number had been deactivated a long time ago. Hands shaking, I swiped to answer. A voice drifted through the line—familiar, yet impossibly distant. “Hello? Is this Lester, eight years in the future? Guess who!” She sounded so bright, so sweet. It was nothing like the fragile, raspy whisper the cancer had left her with before she died. I squeezed my eyes shut and whispered her name. “Helena.” My mom let out a soft gasp, sounding utterly thrilled. “Oh my gosh! Are you… are you Lester’s and my baby?” She lowered her voice to a playful whisper. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. This is your mom, twenty-four years old. You’re actually in my tummy right now! Three months along!” I looked at my dad passed out on the sofa, and then around our dark, cold apartment. I couldn’t let her go through that hell again. After a long, heavy silence, I forced the words out. “Lester is my dad.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “But you aren’t my mother. My mother is Lydia Pierce. Your best friend.” … 1 “Sweetheart, that’s not a very funny joke,” she said. There was a brief pause, her tone still incredibly gentle. “Did your Aunt Lydia teach you to say that? I swear, even eight years from now, she’s still obsessed with practical jokes.” Hearing her call me “sweetheart”—a word I hadn’t heard in two long years—I had to clamp my hand over my mouth to stifle the sob rising in my chest. I couldn’t let her hear me cry. “Hello? Are you still there?” she asked. I took a shuddering breath. “I’m not lying to you. I can prove it. What is the date today on your end?” She gave me the date. I closed my eyes, my mind racing back through the fragmented memories and the diary entries I had memorized. “You’re getting married next month, right?” I asked. “And last week, you ordered a custom bridal jewelry set to go with your wedding dress. It’s supposed to be delivered today.” My mom gasped. “And you still claim you aren’t Lester’s and my baby? Look how well you know our story!” “You’re never going to receive that set,” I said quietly. “Because Lydia… my mother… told my dad she loved it. So he had the jeweler send it to her instead. If you call them, the jeweler will claim there was a shipping delay and offer you a replacement—one that costs half as much. You won’t like it, but Dad will tell you he thinks the cheaper one looks better on you anyway. He’ll pressure you until you accept it. The truth is, my mother wanted to prove she mattered more to him than you did.” Silence stretched over the line. I gripped the phone so hard my knuckles turned white, my heart hammering against my ribs. Finally, she let out a nervous laugh. “You make it sound so real. Fine, I’ll call the jeweler and check. But if you’re pulling my leg, young lady, I’m calling back to give you a very stern talking-to!” Relief washed over me. “You can call again?” “I have three calls total,” she said cheerfully. Two left. I looked down at my worn-out shoes, telling myself: “That’s enough. It has to be.” “Oh, by the way, you haven’t told me your name yet.” “I’m Hazel,” I whispered. My mom laughed. “See? I knew you were mine. I spent weeks looking through baby-name books to pick out ‘Hazel’!” The lump in my throat grew heavier. I swallowed hard and warned her: “When you call back, pretend you don’t know my dad. Just ask for Hazel.” “Got it, got it,” she said playfully, clearly still thinking this was a game. “Just wait for my call!” The line went dead with a quiet click. I stood there for a long time, the phone still pressed to my ear. When I finally lowered my hand, I wiped my tears and quickly deleted the contact name “Wife” from my dad’s phone. I knew that once my mom uncovered the truth, she probably wouldn’t call back. She would be too devastated, too busy unraveling her life. But there was still a chance. Sudden, violent banging on the front door shook me out of my thoughts. I opened it to find Lydia. Her hair was a mess, her face twisted in a desperate, frantic grimace. She shoved me hard against the wall. “Move, you little parasite!” She stormed past me straight into my dad’s bedroom. “Lester! I need a hundred thousand dollars! Now! The loan sharks are going to break my hand if I don’t pay them by tonight!” My dad, barely conscious from the alcohol, let out a dry, bitter laugh. “Not my problem.” Lydia completely lost it, screaming at the top of her lungs. “You promised you’d take care of me forever! You’re still obsessed with that dead bitch, aren’t you? She’s been dead for two years, Lester! You already ruined my face for her! What more do you want from me?!” My dad sat up, his eyes bloodshot and full of venom. “I want Helena back. I want you to rot in hell for what you did to her.” Lydia burst into a wild, screeching laugh. “Oh, please! Is her death entirely my fault, Lester? Sure, I made sure she walked in on us screwing right there in her father’s hospital room. I knew it would kill the old man. But you weren’t exactly fighting me off, were you? You enjoyed every second of it. When you were on top of me, did you once stop to think about the doctors warning you that Helena’s heart couldn’t take any stress?” “Crack.” My dad lunged forward and slapped her hard across the face. “Get the hell out of my house!” Clutching her reddened cheek, Lydia stumbled out of his room, panting with rage. But when her eyes fell on me, standing frozen in the hallway, a sick, desperate light flickered in them. She lunged, grabbing me by the throat, and began dragging me toward the front door. “Fine. I’ll just hand you over to them instead. They’ll take whatever they can get.” For a second, I didn’t even want to fight back. What did it matter? But then, from the bedroom, my dad’s phone started to ring. My heart flared. I began thrashing wildly, clawing at her face, digging my nails into her arms. Lydia shrieked in pain, but her grip only tightened around my neck, cutting off my air. Thankfully, the ringing had drawn my dad out of the room. When he saw Lydia choking me, his eyes went cold. He stormed over and kicked her hard in the ribs, sending her crashing to the floor. “You never cared about this kid anyway!” Lydia spat, clutching her side as she glared up at him with pure hatred. “Let me do us both a favor and get rid of her!” My dad didn’t even look at her as he murmured, “She is the only thing Helena left behind.” I gasped for air, scrambling up from the floor, and bolted toward the bedroom where the phone was ringing. But my knees buckled, and I went crashing down onto the hardwood. In that split second of delay, the ringing stopped. I missed it. At that moment, the raw pain of my bruised neck, my scraped knees, and the crushing despair of losing my mom all over again hit me at once. I broke down, sobbing uncontrollably. My dad walked right past my shaking body, muttering under his breath, “What is wrong with you?” He picked up the phone and dialed the missed number back. It was just one of his business associates. I forced myself to stop crying. Shivering, I wiped my eyes and sat quietly on the floor, waiting. When my dad hung up and saw me still hovering near him, his brow furrowed. “Why are you still standing there?” He paused, his eyes lingering on my face. A shadow of remorse passed over his features. He walked over to the dresser, pulled a tube of burn ointment out of the drawer, and knelt down in front of me. Images flashed in my mind—of him grabbing me by the shoulders, shaking me violently, screaming that I was a useless piece of trash who couldn’t even keep my mother alive. I flinched, my shoulders tensing instinctively. The cold ointment was smeared onto my cheek, but his words were even colder. “I’m hiring a housekeeper. Stop trying to cook.” He gently rubbed the cream over the raw red scar on my cheek, where hot oil had splattered a few days ago. “If you ruin that face—the only face that looks like hers—I will let Lydia take you. Do you understand?” I nodded numbly. His phone buzzed again. I pretended to look away, but my eyes were locked on the screen out of the corner of my eye. My dad stared at the display, then handed the phone to me, his expression suspicious. “For you?” Since he hadn’t recognized my mom’s voice, I breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s probably my teacher from school,” I mumbled. “You’re busy, Dad. I’ll take it outside so I don’t bother you.” He shrugged and let me go. I kept my pace steady until I reached the backyard, then quickly pressed the phone to my ear. “It’s me.” “What’s wrong with your voice?” my mom asked. She sounded incredibly sad, but there was a thread of genuine worry in her tone. Tears pricked my eyes. “My dad and mom are throwing me a birthday party,” I lied, my voice cracking. “I was just screaming and laughing so much that I lost my voice.” “Oh.” She paused for a long moment before whispering, “Well… happy birthday, sweetheart.” On the other side of the screen, where she couldn’t see me, a huge, goofy smile broke across my face through my tears. When I was three, my dad had ruined my grandfather’s business, freezing all of my mom’s assets to force her to beg him and Lydia for money. To survive, Mom had to work grueling shifts with her fragile health just to support me and pay for my grandfather’s medical bills after his suicide attempt left him with severe brain damage. We were dirt poor back then, but every single year on my birthday, Mom would scrape together enough coins to buy me a tiny cupcake. She always smiled and said she didn’t like sweets, telling me to eat the whole thing. But before my grandfather jumped, he had pulled me aside and whispered that my mom actually loved sweets more than anything. So, I would pout and play coy, refusing to take a bite unless she did. We would end up sharing that tiny cupcake, taking turns until every last crumb was gone. After she died, my dad brought me back to this massive, empty house. But no one ever remembered my birthday again. “Do you believe me now?” I asked quietly. The line went silent for a moment. “That was Lester who answered earlier, wasn’t it? Put him on the phone. I need to hear it from him.” I bit my lip hard. “Why? What do you want? My mom and dad wasted so many years because of you. Are you trying to ruin their lives again?” “I ruined “their” lives?” my mom’s voice rose, sharp with disbelief. “One was my fiancé, the other my best friend, and they were sneaking around behind my back! Lester claimed he was just feeling sorry for Lydia. Let me guess—with my temper, I probably threw a fit, threatened to get an abortion, and called off the wedding. And then your mother, Lydia, swooped in, got pregnant with you, and forced Lester to marry her because he had no choice. Am I right?” Hearing her speak with such proud, misplaced confidence made my stomach twist. I was furious, but I didn’t know how to lie to her anymore. “So, kiddo,” she continued, her voice softening slightly, “even though it breaks my heart to say this to a child… I’m going to forgive Lester. Which means you are never going to exist.” Panic flared inside me, and my brain scrambled for a way out. “You won’t get the chance!” I blurted. “Because my mom doesn’t get pregnant with me until tomorrow.” “What?” “Tomorrow is your mother’s memorial service,” I said, the words spilling out fast. “Dad is going to lie to you. He’ll say he has a major investor meeting and can’t go with you to the cemetery. But he’s actually going to a hotel with my mom.” I quickly rattled off the name of the boutique hotel and the room number. She gasped. “How… how could a child possibly know that?” “Because my dad used to read your old diary out loud to us like it was a joke,” I muttered. In reality, he had read it to Lydia, laughing at how pathetic and naive Helena had been. The silence on the other end was heavy, broken only by her shaky breathing. “Fine,” she finally whispered, her voice trembling. “If what you say is true… I will walk away and let your little family be.” “Will you… will you call me back one last time to let me know?” I asked in a small voice. She let out a dry, exasperated breath. “Fine. Yes. I promise.” The call disconnected. I stood in the yard, staring blankly at the grass. I hadn’t lied to her. Lydia really was going to get pregnant. And three months from now, she would fake a miscarriage during a shopping trip with my mom, claiming she lost the baby while trying to “protect” her. My mom spent years carrying that crushing guilt, doing everything she could to make it up to Lydia. But Lydia secretly told my dad a different story—that my mom had intentionally shoved her down the stairs. My dad harbored that grudge for years. After he finally seized my grandfather’s company, he cornered my grandfather and told him that one of us had to pay for that unborn baby’s life. My grandfather, desperate to protect my mom and me, jumped from the top floor of his office building. Even after that, my dad used my grandfather’s mounting ICU bills to torture my mom. He forced her onto her knees in front of him and Lydia, demanding she bow her head to the floor over and over again until they were satisfied. Mom did it, her forehead bruised and bleeding onto the polished wood. But when she finished, my dad just grabbed her by the throat and sneered, “That old bastard always looked down on me. Why the hell would I spend a dime to keep him alive?” But my grandfather had funded his entire college education and his first start-up. He had always praised Lester’s talent; he had only gently warned Mom that their personalities might not be a good fit. A sharp gust of wind cut through my shirt, pulling me back to the present. I walked inside and handed the phone back to my dad. As I turned to leave, his voice stopped me cold. “What’s this teacher’s name?” he asked, studying my face. “Her voice… it sounded just like Helena’s.” Panic froze my limbs. “Mrs. Miller,” I squeaked out, my voice barely audible. “She’s married.” My dad watched my expression for a second, then let out a harsh laugh. “What are you looking like that for? Some random woman on the phone isn’t fit to breathe the same air as Helena.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Go on, get out.” As he reached for his drink, his sleeve slid up, revealing his forearm. It was covered in a horrifying lattice of thick, jagged scars. Fifty-six cuts in total. He had carved them into his own flesh after finally discovering that Lydia’s miscarriage had been a lie all along. Fifty-six cuts—because Mom had died on May sixth. I retreated to my room, crawled under the bed, and pulled out a notebook thick with layers of clear tape. After my dad and Lydia had finished mocking Mom’s diary, they had torn it into tiny shreds. I had spent nights digging through the trash, collecting every single piece, and taping them back together. Mom never knew I did this. She died wanting to forget her past, but I only wanted to hold onto whatever piece of her I could find. On her eighteenth birthday, she had written: “Lester is such an idiot! He actually worked on a construction site for two whole months just to buy me a birthday present. He’s so sunburnt and has lost so much weight, but he still smiles and tells me it’s nothing. I love him so much.” At twenty: “My boy is amazing. He’s only twenty and he’s already starting his own company! I knew I picked a winner in high school. Okay, so maybe I threw a little tantrum to get my dad to secretly fund his first round of investors… but Lester doesn’t need to know that. I don’t want him to feel pressured.” At twenty-four, when she found out she was pregnant: “I can’t believe it! I never thought I’d be a mom this early. I guess we need to speed up the wedding planning! Lester actually cried when I told him. He loves kids so much; he’s going to be the absolute best father. Thank you for choosing me to be your mommy, my sweet baby.” But just two years later, the handwriting changed. The pen had pressed so hard into the paper it had nearly torn through the pages: “Why? Why? Why did he betray me? I can’t tell Dad. He’ll destroy himself trying to protect me, but Lester already controls the entire company now. I can’t let him ruin everything Dad built. What do I do, baby? You’re still so tiny. Please tell Mommy what to do…” A tear slipped down my cheek, blurring the faded ink. I clutched the tattered diary tightly to my chest. “Don’t be afraid, Mom,” I whispered into the quiet room. “Your baby is going to save you.” To make sure my dad didn’t leave the house and take his phone with him, I had to make a deal. “Dad,” I said, standing at his doorway. “Can you stay home with me today? If you do, I’ll give you Mom’s diary.” His irritable expression froze. “Her… diary? I threw that in the trash years ago.” I held out the taped-together notebook. He snatched it from my hands, running his fingers over the jagged edges of the pages. He fell to his knees, clutching it to his chest, laughing and crying like a madman. I left him alone. Back in my room, I squeezed the little rag doll Mom had sewn for me. She used to buy me beautiful, expensive toys, but after we were kicked out of our home, we had to leave everything behind. So, Mom bought scraps of cheap fabric and taught herself how to sew. Her hands had been so soft, but they were always covered in tiny red needle pricks and swollen cuts. I pressed my face against the doll’s rough fabric. If saving her meant this doll and I would fade away into nothingness, I wasn’t afraid. I was on the verge of drifting off when the sharp ring of his phone echoed down the hall. On tiptoe, I slipped into the study. It was her. In the master bedroom, my dad was completely unresponsive, too drunk and hysterical as he wept over the taped pages to notice me taking the phone. I ran out to the garden, my heart in my throat. “Hello? What happened?” “You were right,” my mom’s voice came through, heavy, exhausted, and thick with unshed tears. “I caught them at the hotel. Just like you said.” She took a shaky breath. “I’m at the clinic right now. I’m getting an abortion.” A wave of pure, unadulterated relief washed over me. “That’s wonderful! I hope you stay far away from my parents now. Oh, and tell your dad to stop giving my dad money. Because of that investment, my dad gets so busy managing your family’s company that he never has time to spend with my mom and me.” My mom gasped, her tone suddenly sharp and furious. “That miserable bastard… he took my father’s company?” She paused, her voice shaking. “What about me? Did I… did I not do anything to stop him?” I rubbed my eyes. “Well, you tried. But you weren’t as smart or as ruthless as my dad.” I smiled, hearing her let out a sharp, angry breath. “But don’t worry. You end up with a nice man named Henry Lockhart. You’ll be very happy with him.” “Henry?” my mom stammered. “How? He… he barely even talks to me.” “He’s been in love with you for a really long time,” I whispered. “He just stayed away because you were with my dad.” It was the truth. When I was five, Henry had returned from living abroad and discovered how terrible our lives had become. He did everything he could to look after us. I remember him holding my mom’s hands, his eyes filled with pain as he said, “If I had known my cowardice would cost you this much, I would have dragged you away from him years ago, no matter what people said.” When my dad found out, he flew into a rage, accusing my mom of cheating on him back in college. He refused to believe her denials and used all his power to bankrupt Henry’s business. Mom felt so guilty, but Henry didn’t care at all. He just smiled, took her hand, and happily worked alongside her at low-paying jobs. Over time, Mom fell in love with him. She had even asked for my permission first, and I had been so happy for them. But before she could tell him how she felt, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. To make sure she could save enough money for my future, she forced herself to say terrible things to Henry to push him away, then crawled back to my dad to endure his endless cruelty. “Hazel. Who the hell are you talking to?” My dad’s voice shattered the quiet of the garden. I spun around, gasping. He was standing on the patio, his eyes bloodshot and wild. “Why did I just hear you say Henry Lockhart’s name? Who is on that phone!” He took a heavy, menacing step toward me. On the other end, my mom heard him screaming. “Is Lester hurting you?” A nurse in the background was already calling her name for the procedure. I knew this was my last chance. I yelled into the receiver: “My dad hates you! He told me to never call a homewrecker like you again!” “Goodbye!” I slammed the end-call button. My dad lunged forward, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me violently. “It was your mother, wasn’t it? Tell me! What did she say? Does she miss me? Tell me!” But mid-sentence, he froze. I looked down at my hands. My fingers were dissolving into tiny, shimmering specks of light, floating away into the warm afternoon breeze.

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Two years ago, my best friend Cheryl suddenly packed her bags and moved across the country, leaving a sticky note on my bathroom mirror: “Wren, eat up. Don’t be a picky eater!” I didn’t understand her words back then. But when I heard she was finally returning to Creek Cove, I was ecstatic. I went downstairs to throw out the trash, only to spot Cheryl already back in our apartment complex. Standing right in front of her was my fiancé, Brody, who had told me he was at the gym. He was holding her hand, guiding her fingers over the hard, defined lines of his abs. His voice was low, gravelly. “Still being picky?” Cheryl’s eyes swept over him, a slow, teasing smirk spreading across her face. “Wren has been eating very well, hasn’t she?” Brody let out a soft snort. “She doesn’t know how to appreciate it like you do.” They walked away together, laughing and whispering. That night, when he came home, he immediately slipped into the bathroom with his phone, just like he always did. I opened his private Instagram account—the one he thought I didn’t know about, the one he kept strictly locked down. A thousand progress pictures of his physique. Every single one of them tagged only Cheryl. The most recent post was uploaded the exact day her flight landed. The caption: “If you like it, when are you coming to get a taste?” It took me two whole years to finally understand their sick little metaphor. … The rushing shower water muffled my crying. Once the tears ran dry, I pulled out my phone and texted my mother: “Mom, I’m coming home for the Regatta Matchmaking Festival this weekend. The wedding is off.” Brody finally emerged from the bathroom after an hour. He handed me a cold bottle of water. “Why are your lips so dry? Have you been crying?” That single question almost broke me again. I thought he was going to ask me why, but then Cheryl’s voice memo popped up on his screen. “Brody, I’ve finalized the catering menu for your and Wren’s rehearsal dinner and reception.” From the very first syllable, Brody’s mouth curved into a smile that didn’t fade. “Whatever you decide is perfect,” he typed back. Then he turned the screen toward me. “Cheryl’s back. She did us a huge favor and retooled our wedding menu.” My breath caught. Cheryl hadn’t even told me she was back. And why was Brody letting an outsider dictate our wedding? “Brody, I drafted that menu twelve times. Every single dish was chosen to honor both of our families’ traditions here in Creek Cove.” “If Cheryl wants international cuisine, we can set up a separate table just for her.” The smile finally vanished from Brody’s face. “Your menu is too heavy. Cheryl’s stomach was completely wrecked while she was living away. You’re her best friend, shouldn’t you know that?” “Wren, stop being so selfish and always demanding things your way. Think about other people for once.” His “other people” only ever meant Cheryl. And my careful planning, my attempt to please everyone, was dismissed as mere selfishness. I locked my phone. He had changed his lock screen. It was a picture of a half-eaten heritage hand pie. I had baked it. But the faint lipstick smudge on the crust belonged to Cheryl. Just this morning, I had asked him to take a picture of the pies I spent all night baking. He had brushed me off. “We make these every year, Wren. Why do you need a photo to remember it?” Of course. It was never about the hand pies. It was about the person eating them. I tossed his phone back onto his lap. “If I can’t have my own wedding the way I want it, then whose wedding is it?” Brody looked at me in surprise. I rarely argued with him. But his voice softened, offering a placating smile. “Come on, can’t you just accommodate Cheryl this once?” The word No rushed to the tip of my tongue, but suddenly, all the fight drained out of me. He could spend two years working out just to please Cheryl, but he couldn’t bear to let me have the menu I wanted for our wedding. “Whatever,” I muttered. Relief washed over his face. He instantly grabbed his phone. “Cheryl’s jet-lagged and wants me to hop on a game with her. Go to sleep first.” The door shut, and my tears fell in silence. My pale lips weren’t from crying. They were from the agonizing spasm in my stomach. Three years ago, I underwent a partial gastrectomy. I’ve lived with chronic stomach pain ever since. He had remembered that pain for three years, yet tonight, he suddenly forgot. Over the weekend, Brody drove me to the wedding venue. I figured since I was the one who booked it, I should be the one to cancel it. Midway through the drive, he swerved the car to pick up Cheryl. “You’ve been standing out there forever. Weren’t you hot?” Brody’s tone was sharp, but his hand immediately reached to adjust the air conditioning vents for the back seat. I looked between the two of them. “Why is Cheryl coming?” Cheryl grabbed Brody’s iced coffee and took a massive gulp straight from the straw, nearly choking. “Wren, you don’t mind me tagging along, do you? I promise I won’t play third wheel.” Brody immediately bickered back, his tone intimate. “Cut the act. Who was the one blowing up my phone all morning begging to come scout the venue?” Cheryl lightly kicked the back of his seat. “And who was the one who couldn’t even copy-paste the address right? You sent me thirty wrong pins!” They began bickering over how many texts they had exchanged. Cheryl won; Brody had sent her eighty pointless messages just that morning. “Enough!” I blurted out. The car went dead silent. Cheryl instantly lowered her head, her thumbs flying across her phone. A moment later, Brody’s fingers were tapping away at his own screen. I put in my earbuds and turned up the music, tuning out their silent, digital flirting. At the hotel venue, I slipped away from Brody to speak with the event manager about canceling our reservation. When we finalized the paperwork, the manager said with genuine regret, “It’s such a shame. Mr. Langford was just speaking with our bridal suite coordinator about ordering three more bridesmaid dresses…” Hearing this, the last shred of hesitation I had evaporated. I walked up to the bridal suite. Through the cracked door, the sound of their stifled laughter leaked out. Brody gasped, “Cheryl, you greedy little thing!” Cheryl was poking Brody’s abs, giggling. “Two years ago, I mentioned offhand that your core wasn’t defined enough, and you immediately practically lived at the gym.” “You even FaceTimed me on New Year’s Eve to show me your progress. Did you know Wren was sitting right next to me having dinner?” My heart stopped. She was talking about this past New Year. Cheryl had been home for the holidays. My mother, seeing her eating instant ramen alone, had invited her over for dinner. I had sent Brody a dozen photos of our holiday feast. His reply was four words: At the gym. My mother had asked hopefully, “Can we call Brody to wish him a Happy New Year?” I called him five times. He declined every single one. Meanwhile, Cheryl, sitting beside us, had nervously hidden her screen. My mother teased her, asking if she was talking to a boyfriend. Cheryl had rolled her eyes. “Yeah, he’s just so clingy. I can barely stand it.” I caught a fleeting glimpse of her screen then. She hadn’t replied for a minute, and he had already frantically called her. My mother’s eyes had dimmed. She squeezed my hand. “Don’t call him anymore, Wren. Brody must be busy.” But during the first seven years of our relationship, Brody was never too busy for me. Even during the six months of my surgery and recovery, he had temporarily closed his photography studio just to be my twenty-four-hour caregiver. Now, inside the suite, Brody let out a low groan, catching Cheryl’s hand. “Stop playing… Wren is still…” Before he could finish, I pushed the door open. Brody scrambled upright. “Wren! Are all the venue details confirmed?” Cheryl hopped off the bed. “Brody was trying to show off how strong he is. Wren, you have to take my side!” I stared at the hand that had just been tracing his muscles. It was reaching out to touch my arm like a slithering snake. “Don’t touch me!” I snapped, slapping her hand away. Her pale skin immediately flushed bright red. Brody instinctively grabbed Cheryl’s hand, his eyes flashing with sudden coldness. “Wren, we were just joking around. What is wrong with you?” Cheryl gently nudged him back. “Brody, don’t blame her. It’s my fault. I pushed it too far.” She looked at me, blinking innocently. “Wren, I got too used to how casual people are abroad. I forgot you’re still a conservative, good little girl.” Brody frowned. “Good girl? More like an old-fashioned relic.” “Always sick, never wants to work out, never wants to go out, doesn’t even use social media. My grandmother is livelier than her.” My stomach clenched in a sharp, burning spasm. “Brody, do you even remember why I’m always sick?” Three years ago, he went deep into the Alaskan wilderness to shoot a wildlife documentary on caribou migration. I went with him. The schedule was brutal. He contracted high-altitude pulmonary edema and ended up hospitalized in Anchorage. I picked up his heavy camera gear to finish the shoot for him, driving hundreds of miles back and forth between the hospital and the wild plains. I skipped meals, barely slept, and the day we finally flew back, I collapsed with acute gastric bleeding. He won an award for that documentary. I lost half my stomach. “Wren, if you have an issue, just say it. You don’t need to keep bringing up the past to guilt-trip me into yielding to you and Cheryl.” Brody’s cold scoff dragged me back to the present. I stared at him, dumbfounded. He let out a heavy sigh, acting as though he was the one making a massive sacrifice. “I guess this is what I get for marrying a girl from the River Settlement.” “What is that supposed to mean?” I tore my hand away from him. He pulled up a chat screenshot Cheryl had forwarded him and showed it to me. It was a message from my mother to Cheryl, saying my wedding would feature an eight-day community feast. “An eight-day feast? That’s going to cost tens of thousands of dollars,” Cheryl had texted him. “Wren’s mom really loves her, but she’s treating you like a bottomless bank account.” Brody’s expression grew even colder. “Wren, am I marrying you, or am I marrying your family’s desperate need for social status?” “Brody, you don’t have to marry me at all. And I don’t have to marry you.” I slipped my engagement ring off, set it on the vanity table, and walked out. Cheryl chased after me. “Wren, the wedding is practically here. Can you grow up? Don’t throw a tantrum just because of me.” I spun around, staring at her with cold fury. “Cheryl, where did that half-eaten hand pie go?” She choked on her words. “Brody ate it, didn’t he?” “Sharing a hand pie, sharing a water bottle, laying on the same bed with your best friend’s fiancé—is that your idea of being grown up?” The smirk on Cheryl’s face crumbled. “Wren, you’re counting pennies with me over a man?” She unclasped the designer watch I had gifted her and threw it directly at my face. “If I wanted to be with Brody, you wouldn’t have stood a chance in the first place!” I covered my eye, feeling a sharp, burning pain where the watch had struck my temple. Brody rushed over, instantly pulling Cheryl into his arms. “Calm down. Your stomach is already acting up from the travel. Don’t let her get to you.” Then he looked at me, his eyes filled with exhaustion and boredom. “Wren, tell your mom we’ll host the eight-day feast. Are you happy now?” “Take a cab home. I need to take Cheryl to the clinic.” Brody swept Cheryl up into his arms. The hallway was narrow, and as he pushed past, his shoulder shoved hard against mine. I let go of my face. The blood from the cut on my temple mingled with my tears, wetting my cheek. The hotel manager gasped, handing me a handkerchief. “Miss Barlowe, please don’t cry. He isn’t worth your tears.” My stomach was cramping so violently I could barely stand. Leaning against the wall, I managed a pale, hollow smile. “He won’t be anymore.” That night, Brody called to say Cheryl was hospitalized because of the stress I caused her, and he had to stay overnight to watch over her. He was trying to cover his tracks, but I didn’t care enough to expose him. The next morning, my mother unexpectedly texted me, her tone bright. “Wren, I brought the traditional River Settlement bridal gown with me. Try it on so we can make any adjustments.” Bringing the gown was just an excuse; she was worried I was getting cold feet or dealing with trouble. I went to meet her, but halfway there, she sent another message: “Cheryl knew I was coming and booked a bed-and-breakfast for me. Don’t rush on the road.” A cold dread settled in my chest. I called my mother. When she picked up, the background was filled with shouting and commotion. Then, my mother’s voice pierced through, sharp and terrified: “Let go of me! I didn’t steal anything!” “Mom!” I screamed, but the line went dead. I redialed, but her phone was switched off. In a panic, I was about to call the police when Cheryl’s text arrived: “Wren, your mom is doing just fine with my girls.” “Come over to the diner and pick up your ring first.” When I arrived at the local diner, Brody and his friends were all there. Cheryl was seated in the center of the booth, and Brody was carefully blowing on a spoonful of clam chowder, feeding her. “Brody, it’s too hot!” she whined. He blew on it again. The table erupted into laughter. “Brody’s already whipped, and they aren’t even married yet.” “Honestly, only a wild card like Cheryl could tame him.” Brody shot them a warning look. “Keep spoiling her, and she’ll be walking all over me for the rest of our lives.” “Brody, you’re the one who ruined her. Don’t blame us.” They laughed, but the humor died down when someone spotted me. I marched straight to Cheryl, my rage boiling over. “Where is my mother?” Clack. Cheryl dropped her spoon against the rim of her bowl. At her reaction, Brody immediately stood up, his face darkening as he looked at me. “Can you stop being so hostile toward Cheryl?” Then he noticed the cut near my eye. His irritation softened, and he stepped out of the booth, reaching out to touch my face. “How do you manage to get yourself hurt the second I’m not around?” I slapped his hand away and kept my eyes locked on Cheryl. “Where is my mother?” Cheryl didn’t answer. Instead, she signaled the waitress. Ten heavy, savory heritage hand pies were placed on the table. She held up her pale, slightly swollen hands, her voice cracking. “Wren, I baked ten savory hand pies for you as an apology.” “In the River Settlement, we have a tradition—no matter how deep the grudge, eating the unity pies washes it all away.” “If you’re willing to forgive me, eat them.” Brody, holding my engagement ring, nudged me. “Cheryl dragged herself out of a hospital bed to bake these for you. Just eat them, apologize, and we can still go through with the wedding.” My eyes widened. “Brody, I had a partial gastrectomy.” Did he have any idea what eating ten heavy, dense pies would do to my stomach? He avoided my gaze, muttering, “I’ll go buy you some stomach medicine. If you don’t eat them, Cheryl is just going to keep crying.” I let out a bitter, silent laugh. Between Cheryl crying and me dying, he chose her. Cheryl flashed her phone screen at me. Thinking of my mother, I stepped up to the table, squared my shoulders, and began to eat the pies, bite by agonizing bite. Brody’s friends whistled. “Damn, Brody, you’ve got her well-trained. You promise her a wedding, and she’d lay down her life for you.” Seeing me eat so fast, Brody patted my back. “Slow down.” I nearly gagged. My stomach was being stuffed to the brim, the pain radiating outwards in sharp, burning spasms. Cheryl stuck her tongue out at Brody. “See? I told you Wren loves playing the victim. Look at her go. Does that look like someone with a bad stomach?” The hand on my back froze. Brody asked, his voice suddenly hollow, “Wren… when did your stomach get better?” I kept chewing the heavy, half-cooked dough, swallowing my defense along with the pain. When the last bite was gone, my stomach felt like it was filled with lead. I reached my hand out to Cheryl. “Give me the address.” Cheryl raised an eyebrow. “Sent.” I grabbed my phone to leave. “Wren, you haven’t apologized yet,” Brody called out. I turned back to look at them. I bowed my head and forced out every syllable: “I’m sorry. It’s my fault Cheryl got sick. I was being petty, and I didn’t understand your jokes.” Only then did the tension leave Brody’s shoulders. He slipped the ring back onto my finger. “Don’t take it off again. Since your mom is here, go spend time with her.” Drenched in cold sweat, I walked out of the diner. The moment I reached the street, I ripped the ring off and threw it into the storm drain. I wanted nothing that belonged to Brody. I found my mother at a local bed-and-breakfast. She was clutching the traditional River Settlement bridal gown, cornered by Cheryl’s friends. “Ma’am, this dress belongs to Cheryl,” one of them said, tugging at the fabric. “You can’t just steal it when she’s not home.” During the struggle, they pinned my mother’s arms, and one of them ripped the gown away. I shoved them aside and held my mother. Her arms were covered in scratches. I threatened to call the police. Brody and Cheryl arrived shortly after. Cheryl’s friends immediately handed the gown to her. “Cheryl, we got it back for you.” “Cheryl, have you no shame?” my mother cried, her voice trembling. “This is the heirloom gown my daughter is supposed to wear. Since when does it belong to you?” Cheryl had lost her own mother at a young age, and my mother had raised her like a second daughter, never speaking a harsh word to her. “Auntie, Wren is cutting me out over a wedding menu,” Cheryl wept, tears streaming down her face. “And now you’re screaming at me over a dress?” “I treated you like my own mother, and Wren like my sister. But over a dress, I’m suddenly an outsider.” Brody’s brow furrowed. He reached out to wipe her tears. “Wren, you have parents, you have me. Cheryl has no one.” “It’s just a wedding dress. Why can’t you just let her have it?” My mother lunged forward to grab the dress. “Brody, this gown is a sacred family heirloom. If you don’t cherish my daughter, someone else will!” Brody glared at me, as if I had orchestrated the entire conflict. “Wren, is the eight-day feast not enough? What else do you and your mother want? Just say it.” “There’s no need to make a scene over a dress!” Suddenly, Cheryl clutched the gown, turned, and ran into the backyard of the B&B. Ignoring the metallic taste of blood rising in my throat, I ran after her. In the yard, a brick fire pit was crackling. Flames licked the delicate fabric of the heirloom dress, and the twelve gold-embroidered wave patterns—sewn over generations—were turning to ash. I reached into the fire, the heat searing my skin. My mother threw her arms around me, sobbing. “Don’t, baby! Let it go! Let it go!” “But Grandma’s gold charms are on this… the gold thread I stitched back on is on this…” I gasped, refusing to let go. My mother threw herself toward the flames to pull it out, and in horror, I snapped out of my daze and pulled her back. “Mom, okay, okay! We don’t want it anymore! We don’t want any of it!” I looked back. Brody was holding Cheryl’s hands, checking them for burns. Sensing my gaze, his movements stiffened, and he sighed. “Wren, the dress is gone. Cheryl was just upset that you guys were isolating her.” Cheryl reached out to pull my sleeve. “Wren, you’ve never stayed mad at me. We’re still okay, right?” I silently pulled away from her touch. Seeing my cold, empty expression, panic finally flickered in Brody’s eyes. He softened his voice. “Wren, don’t be mad. Go home first. Tomorrow, I’ll take you to buy a brand-new designer dress.” The pain in my stomach was blinding. Leaning heavily on my mother, every step felt like a mile. But step by step, I walked out of their lives. Once we reached the main road, the adrenaline faded, and the world went black. “Wren!” During the two days I spent in the hospital recovering, Brody sent exactly three texts. First: “Cheryl’s stomach is acting up. I’m staying with her at the hospital. We’ll pick out a dress tomorrow.” Second: “Wren, are you seriously still throwing a tantrum? You haven’t even come home.” Third: “Cheryl said women from the River Settlement aren’t supposed to see the groom five days before the wedding? Why didn’t you tell me about this rule sooner?” I deleted them one by one, then helped my mother into a car heading back home. The day before the wedding, Brody walked out of Cheryl’s apartment. He opened his text history. My last message to him was from a week ago. That day at the B&B, my face had been deathly pale. Was my stomach really acting up? No, he reasoned, shaking his head. She had eaten those ten heavy hand pies without a problem. She was just playing the victim to get attention. He laughed to himself. She was just being petty, still angry at him and Cheryl. Suddenly, his group chat with his friends erupted with notifications, tagging him repeatedly. Brody opened the chat, and his mind went completely blank. Pictures of an elaborate, breathtaking waterfront celebration flooded the screen. I was wearing a magnificent, hand-embroidered crimson bridal gown, standing at the bow of a decorated wooden ship.

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I pushed the stroller into the real estate office. The agent asked, her tone a flat, routine formality: “Selling the marital home—does your husband agree to this?” In the stroller, my daughter erupted into a sudden, piercing wail. With practiced ease, I scooped her up with my left arm, steadying her against my chest, and signed the contract with my right. My signature was shaky, a jagged line. My wrist had been throbbing with tendonitis for a solid month now. “I’m widowed,” I said. The man named Devin was still very much alive. He was living just as he always had before we got together—vibrant, reckless, entirely untethered. But as a father, he had died the very day our daughter was born. My phone buzzed. It was Devin. When I picked up, it wasn’t his voice, but a young girl’s. “Oh, Devin, I honestly don’t know how you stand it,” she cooed, her voice dripping with mock sympathy. “You’re this brilliant, celebrated artist, and your wife is so let-down. Look at this place—even a rat would need GPS to navigate this mess. Ugh, is that dirty diapers I smell? Gross…” Then came Devin’s voice, muffled, as if he were pinching his nose in disgust. “She didn’t use to be like this. Ever since the baby came, she just… got lazy.” I calmly handed the signed contract back to the agent. Before the pregnancy, before the labor, I had loved him with every fiber of my being. Now? I hated him with that exact same intensity. … 1 “Mom, I booked the flight.” “Sweetie, are you sure about this? Ten years… that’s a long time to walk away from.” “Sunk costs shouldn’t dictate major life decisions,” I replied, my voice steady. “Okay. The baby doesn’t have a birth certificate yet, right? We’ll register her back here in Boston. She’ll take your last name.” “Yeah. That’s exactly what I was thinking.” When I got into the taxi to head back to the apartment, a strange, crystalline calm washed over me. The intensity of my current hatred was the perfect, terrifying mirror of how passionately I had once loved him. We were the college sweethearts everyone envied. But poetry and grand romantic gestures crumble like ash when faced with the grinding, brutal reality of daily life. I held my daughter close, my exhausted body sinking into the worn cushions of the sofa. How did Devin and I end up here? The day I found out I was pregnant, Devin had been ecstatic. “Fiona,” he’d said, gently cupping my face, “as soon as this busy season wraps up, I’m going to give you the most beautiful wedding.” He had stroked my barely swollen belly, his eyes bright with tears. “Trust me, Fiona. I’m going to be a great dad.” We had been together for ten years, from age nineteen to twenty-nine. I believed him. I believed he’d be a great father, and I believed that a marriage certificate was just a formality we’d eventually get to. So, I stepped back from managing his art studio to focus on a healthy pregnancy. To replace me, he hired a new assistant: Melanie. After that, Devin was always busy. Busy painting. Busy mentoring his students. Busy doing press. Busy organizing galleries. I was always waiting for the “after this is done.” But while I waited alone, Melanie was always there, hovering in his shadow. He missed one prenatal appointment after another. When I called him, it was always Melanie who answered. “I’m so sorry, Fiona,” she’d say, her tone sweet but sharp. “Devin is right in the middle of an interview.” The day my water broke, I was the one who had to call 911. The hospital bag had been packed by Melanie—and it contained nothing but a single pack of diapers and two newborn onesies. She had offered a plastic, apologetic smile when she dropped it off. “I’m so sorry, Fiona. I really don’t know much about babies. Devin was just so swamped, he couldn’t leave the studio, so I had to wing it…” I nearly died on that delivery table, enduring a grueling labor that ended in an emergency C-section. When the nurse finally wheeled me and my baby girl back to the recovery room, Melanie was sitting there, peeling an apple for my mother-in-law, Martha. Martha was beaming. “Oh, Melanie, if only you were my daughter-in-law. You’re so young, so capable!” When they saw me roll in, Martha cast a dismissive glance at my wrinkled, tiny daughter in the bassinet. “Well, I guess when you have a baby at your age, your body just can’t keep up.” I ignored the bite in her words. “Where is Devin? Why isn’t he here?” Melanie smiled smoothly. “Fiona, Devin is deep in his creative zone for the new series. We couldn’t let distractions interrupt his muse, could we?” Martha chimed in, “Exactly. Every woman has babies. Why make such a drama out of it?” She then patted Melanie’s hand pointedly. “And besides, they never actually signed the papers. Don’t call her ‘Mrs. Ward’—it’s not appropriate.” I pretended not to hear, biting my lip to suppress the agonizing throbbing of my fresh incision as I dragged myself back onto the hospital bed. During the hemorrhaging scare in the OR, when the alarms were blaring, a sudden clarity had hit me. People change. The love he had for me once was real. But so was his current, chilling indifference. Devin had found someone who matched his rhythm again. And that someone was no longer me. I was the leftover piece of his past. I checked my phone. Devin had sent only one text, over twelve hours ago: “Just focus on the baby. My mom and Melanie are there with you.” A moment later, Martha and Melanie were grabbing their coats. “Well, now that the baby’s here, I can rest easy,” Martha said. “Melanie, let’s get some dinner.” Melanie’s voice was bright. “Oh, yes! I heard that new French bistro down the street is incredible. Let’s try it!” In the bassinet, my daughter began to scream, her tiny lungs straining, the sound piercing my eardrums. I lay paralyzed on the bed, my body feeling as though it had been shattered, unable to even sit up. The moment she was born, I became a mother—biologically, emotionally, completely. But Devin? He was still the boy lost in his canvases, chasing romantic illusions. As the tears and postpartum bleeding flowed unceasingly, I whispered to myself: “My baby doesn’t have a father.” The night nurse from the next bed over, seeing my struggle, came over to help change my daughter’s diaper. “When they’re this small, they’re either hungry, wet, or dirty,” she said gently. “Do you have any family coming?” I shook my head. “No. Could you recommend a private nurse? I need someone to start immediately. I’ll pay extra.” During my five days in the hospital, Devin never once showed up. When he occasionally remembered my existence, he’d send a brief text: “Fiona, thank you for giving me such a beautiful daughter. Melanie sent me the photos.” Melanie came by every afternoon, fulfilling Devin’s duties as a husband in the most superficial way possible. “Fiona,” she’d say, “Devin has a lecture today, so he can’t make it.” Or, “Fiona, Devin is speaking at his alma mater. The schedule was set months ago; he can’t cancel.” She called me Fiona. Never “Mrs. Ward” anymore. She came daily to report Devin’s schedule, but it was pure performance—a subtle, cruel flexing of power. It made me dependent on her just to know where the father of my child was and what he was doing. She snapped photos of my daughter to send to him, accompanying them with mocking texts she didn’t bother to hide from me: “Devin, she doesn’t really look like you, does she? Haha.” or “Look at her cone-head. She looks like an alien.” I texted Devin: “When are you coming?” Two hours later, his reply came: “Once this gallery rush is over. My mom and Melanie are there. They’ll take care of you.” I stopped texting. You can’t wake someone who is pretending to sleep. I was never going to get his “after this.” The day I was discharged, the wind was biting. I ordered my own taxi. My hired nurse held the baby. We had almost no luggage—just a diaper bag with formula, diapers, and my postpartum mesh underwear. The clothes I wore were stained, smelling of sweat and postpartum discharge. Those five days were the most humiliating, physically devastating days of my life. If Devin couldn’t show up then, he didn’t need to show up ever again. Rage burned in my chest, but I forced it down, reminding myself to breathe. “Don’t get angry, don’t let it consume you,” I repeated like a mantra. “It will dry up your milk. It will make you sick. That only hurts you and the baby.” I was a mother now. I had to be strong.

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My fiancé’s favorite promise was “next time”. When my chronic stomach ulcer flared up and landed me in the hospital, he said he’d accompany me to my follow-up “next time”. When I had to work late on my birthday, he said he’d make it up to me “next time”. When I received my acceptance letter from the prestigious hospital in London, he said we’d celebrate “next time”. But his “next time” always belonged to Amber. When she went through a breakup, he drove across three state lines at two in the morning just to sit with her. When she was moving, he bailed on meeting my parents for the first time so he could carry her boxes. When she offhandedly mentioned wanting to see the ocean, he booked two plane tickets to the coast immediately. I asked him, “What about our wedding?” Chase merely knit his brows, looking thoroughly irritated. “She’s in a fragile place right now, Nancy. Don’t start drama over this.” I stared at the email notification delaying our wedding, my hands freezing over the keyboard. Later, Amber sent a voice note. Her voice was light, laced with a delicate, performative giggle. “Oh, don’t be mad, sweetie! Chase said the wedding can always be postponed, but seeing the ocean—this ocean—is a once-in-a-lifetime thing.” I didn’t reply. Instead, I opened an email from the London hospital. They were asking if I could move my start date up. I wanted to wait for one real explanation from him. But when he called, his tone was nothing but impatient. “Drop it, Nancy. It’s just a one-week delay. I’ll bring you back some seashells.” I exhaled slowly. There would be no next time. Some things, and some people, have an expiration date. … “It’s just a one-week delay. Do you really have to pick a fight with me right now?” Chase’s voice cut through the receiver, backgrounded by the rhythmic, distant crash of waves. “I’m not picking a fight,” I said. He paused. He hadn’t expected me to sound this hollow, this quiet. “Good. Amber’s been incredibly unstable lately. I’m just here to help her clear her head for a couple of days.” He sighed. “Don’t go snooping around or asking questions. It makes you look incredibly petty.” My eyes drifted to the wedding itinerary lying on the desk. It was a mess of red ink—scrawled margin notes, crossed-out times, and detailed schedules. Every single edit had been made by me, alone. Chase’s signature was on the first page, and only the first page. When he signed it, he’d tossed the pen aside and said, “Whatever you like, babe. Next time, I promise I’ll actually sit down and look through it with you.” “Next time.” Those two words had been the background noise of our seven-year relationship. “Chase,” I whispered. On his end, someone laughed. Amber’s voice floated through the speaker. “Chase, hurry up! The sunset is almost gone!” “Coming!” Chase called out. When he spoke to me again, his words rushed together. “Is there anything else? If not, I’m hanging up.” I stared at the open email on my laptop screen. “What if I told you I’m not waiting around this time?” Chase let out a sharp, dismissive laugh. “Nancy, do you have to use this card every single time?” “I know how much this wedding means to you. I know you’re not going to walk away from me. Just calm down for a few days, okay? I’ll bring you some shells when I get back.” “Okay.” He always did that. A careless, breezy “okay” to settle things he didn’t want to deal with. I said nothing. In the background, Amber’s voice chimed in. “Is she mad again? Maybe I should talk to her and explain…” Chase mutters back, not even bothering to cover the receiver. “No, don’t worry about it. She’s just throwing a fit. Leave her alone for a bit and she’ll get over it.” My grip loosened. The call disconnected. As the screen went black, it reflected my pale face. A familiar, sharp ache bloomed in the pit of my stomach. I pulled open my desk drawer. Inside was a small glass jar filled with tiny, perfect seashells. Seven years ago, on our very first trip to the beach, Chase had knelt in the wet sand for hours. He’d sifted through hundreds of shells before choosing one flawless specimen and pressing it into my palm. “Every time I make you wait,” he’d whispered, “I’ll give you another one to make up for it.” The jar had grown full. The waiting had grown endless. I pulled the jar out and tipped it directly into the trash bag by my feet. My phone buzzed. It was an Instagram notification—a post from Amber. In the photo, she was silhouetted against a golden sunset, wearing Chase’s heavy wool coat. In her outstretched hand, she held a delicate bracelet made of polished shells. Her caption read: “Someone said this was to dry my tears.” I looked at it for a long, silent moment. Then, I clicked over to my email and hit reply to the hospital in London. “I can start early. I can leave tonight.” Once the email sent, I walked into the bedroom and pulled my suitcase from the closet. I had just unzipped it when I heard the sound of keys rattling in the front door. Before I could turn around, Chase’s mother pushed the door open. She was holding a stack of wedding invitations, her face set in a hard, disapproving line. “Nancy, Chase tells me you’re throwing a tantrum over Amber again?” I gripped the handle of my suitcase and stayed silent. Mrs. Morton threw the invitations onto the coffee table with a heavy sigh. “You know Amber grew up without parents. It’s only natural that Chase looks out for her. You’re about to become a Morton—you need to learn to have some grace.” “The wedding has been postponed, Mrs. Morton,” I said quietly. “A week’s delay isn’t a cancellation,” she snapped, her eyes falling on my open suitcase. “What on earth are you doing?” I slid my passport into the inner pocket of my bag. “I’m moving to London.” Her expression turned to sheer disbelief. “Have you lost your mind? The wedding is next week, and you’re leaving the country?” “She isn’t going anywhere.” Chase’s cold, dry voice cut through the room. I hadn’t heard him come in. He was still carrying the scent of the ocean—cold air and salt. In his hand, he held a clear plastic bag containing a few wet, sandy shells. Amber stood just behind him, her eyes rimmed with red. Chase tossed the bag onto the floor in front of me. “I brought the shells,” he said, his tone flat. “Are we done with the drama now?” The bag hit the hardwood floor with a dull thud, water splashing onto the cuffs of my jeans. Amber immediately dropped to her knees to gather them. “Nancy, I am so incredibly sorry. This is all my fault. Chase was supposed to be tasting the catering options with you, but I was the one who begged him to take me to the water.” Chase frowned, grabbing her elbow to pull her back up. “Why are you apologizing to her? She’s just being overly sensitive.” He looked at me, his sharp gaze softening only a fraction. “Nancy, Amber spent the entire drive back defending you. Don’t take your issues out on her.” I didn’t look at him. My eyes were fixed on the shell bracelet around Amber’s wrist. Specifically, the largest shell in the center. I recognized the slight, distinct pink hue on its edge. It was the first shell Chase had ever given me. The one from seven years ago. I had searched the apartment for it months ago, thinking I’d lost it. Now I knew where it was. Sensing my gaze, Amber quickly tugged her sleeve down to cover her wrist, her eyes flitting away. Chase followed my line of sight. His jaw tightened. “It’s just a bracelet, Nancy. She liked the shell, so I had a jeweler re-string it for her. Don’t you have a whole jar of them in your drawer anyway?” I looked up, meeting his eyes. “I threw them in the trash.” The room went entirely silent. For the first time, a flicker of genuine shock crossed Chase’s face. “You threw them out?” “Yes.” “Nancy, we collected those during our first year together.” For a second, he looked like he actually remembered what those shells meant. But the vulnerability was gone as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by irritation. “You’re seriously throwing away our memories just to make a point?” I zipped my suitcase shut. “I’m not trying to make a point. They’re just useless now.” Mrs. Morton stepped forward, placing a heavy hand on my suitcase to stop me from moving it. “Nancy, let’s not say things we’ll regret. A fellowship abroad doesn’t compare to the security of marrying into our family.” Amber sniffled, stepping up beside Chase. “Nancy, I know my presence is causing problems. Maybe I shouldn’t come to the wedding at all. I can step down as your maid of honor.” Her tears began to fall right on cue. Chase immediately turned his attention to her. “Amber, don’t say that.” He glared at me, his voice freezing over. “The wedding can be delayed, but Amber is going to be there. She is my best friend, and she is going to be part of our family.” “And if I say no?” I asked. Chase let out a short, incredulous laugh. “You won’t say no.” He stepped up to my suitcase, reached into the side pocket, and snatched my passport. “You’re just baiting me to comfort you. Fine. I’ll comfort you.” He pulled a small velvet box from his coat pocket and flipped it open. Inside was a delicate pearl brooch. “Amber picked it out. She said it would look beautiful on your wedding dress.” I looked at the brooch. Across the surface of the pearl, there was a visible, jagged hairline crack. Amber chimed in quickly. “It’s vintage, Nancy! The crack is supposed to be there—it gives it character. Please don’t misunderstand.” Chase pressed the box toward my hands. “Just take it. Stop looking for reasons to be angry.” I didn’t take it. My hands remained at my sides. The velvet box slipped through his fingers, hitting the floor and sliding under the edge of the sofa. Chase’s patience finally snapped. “Nancy, what is it going to take to satisfy you?” “Give me my passport,” I said, my voice steady. “When you’ve calmed down,” he replied, sliding the passport into his breast pocket. “You’re not going anywhere. Mom will help handle the final wedding details this week. Your stomach has been acting up anyway, so stop trying to run away.” So he did remember my stomach. But when I had been admitted to the ER, he had been three towns over, buying a limited-edition collectible Amber had been crying about. When I went in for my biopsy results, he told me “next time”. I looked down at the floor. “You’re keeping me here against my will, Chase.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Don’t dramaticize this. I’m doing this for your own good.” Amber murmured from behind him. “Nancy, don’t blame Chase. He’s just terrified of you making a mistake you can’t take back.” I stared at the two of them, standing shoulder to shoulder. Suddenly, the apartment I had spent six months decorating felt entirely foreign. Like a stranger’s house. My phone screen lit up on the counter. It was another email from the hospital. “If you wish to finalize your early start date, please submit your passport details within the next twenty-four hours.” Chase saw the notification and picked up my phone before I could reach it. “I’ll write back and decline.” “Chase, put my phone down,” I said, my voice cracking slightly. He ignored me, typing rapidly. “You can think about fellowships later. Right now, your priority is our wedding, not running off to another country.” I grabbed his wrist. “That is my career.” Chase looked down at me, his eyes filled with a patronizing pity. “Nancy, you went to medical school for years. But let’s be honest—at the end of the day, it was always about having a respectable title when you married me, wasn’t it?” Mrs. Morton cleared her throat but didn’t contradict him. Amber put on a look of shock. “Chase, don’t say that. Nancy worked incredibly hard.” Though she spoke in my defense, her eyes gleamed with a quiet, triumphant satisfaction. I stared at Chase. A long time ago, he hadn’t spoken to me like this. On the day I passed my board exams, he had waited outside the testing center with a small cake. He had looked at me with bright, hopeful eyes and said, “Nancy Cooper, you are going to be an incredible doctor.” Now, those same eyes looked at me and dismissed my life’s work as a pre-marriage accessory. I let go of his wrist. “Give me my phone and my passport.” He didn’t. He hit send on the decline draft. The screen flashed with a confirmation message. In that exact moment, a sharp, white-hot spasm tore through my abdomen. The pain was so intense my entire body went numb. I leaned heavily against the back of a dining chair to keep from collapsing. Amber rushed over. “Nancy, oh my gosh, are you okay? Let me get you some water.” As she turned, her sleeve caught my plastic pillbox on the counter, knocking it to the floor. The little white tablets scattered across the hardwood. Chase’s brows knit together. “Are you taking those stomach meds again?” I didn’t answer. I slowly knelt down to pick up the pills. He stood over me, his voice softening slightly. “If your stomach was hurting, why didn’t you just say something?” My fingers froze against the cold floor. “I did.” The night the pain had gotten so bad I was sweating through my clothes, I had called him. He had sounded thoroughly annoyed. “If you have enough energy to call me, you’re fine, Nancy. Amber just had a panic attack over her ex. I can’t leave her right now.” I quietly gathered the pills and placed them back in the box. “It doesn’t matter.” Chase sighed, kneeling down to help me. But before his hand could touch the floor, Amber let out a sharp cry. “Ah! Chase, my finger… I think I cut it on one of the shells.” Chase stood up instantly. He grabbed Amber’s hand, examining her finger with tender concern. “How did you manage to do that? Let me see.” Amber’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s fine, just a scratch. Nancy clearly doesn’t want me here. I should just go.” Mrs. Morton sighed. “Nancy, look at what your hostility is doing to this girl.” I stood up, holding my pillbox. “If she wants to go, let her.” Amber went pale. Chase whipped his head around to look at me. “Nancy.” He rarely used my full name. When he did, it was always a warning to stay in my lane. “Apologize to Amber. Right now.” I felt a hollow laugh bubble up in my throat. “What did you just say?” “Apologize,” he repeated, stepping in front of Amber as if to shield her from me. “She has been working her fingers to the bone to help with this wedding, even picking out accessories for you, and you treat her like she’s the enemy.” “This is “my” wedding. Why is she doing anything for it?” Amber bit her lip, looking thoroughly small. “I was only trying to help. Chase said you were always working, so he asked me to make some of the decisions.” I froze. Chase avoided my eyes, but his mother spoke up. “Of course she did. The catering menu, the party favors, the dress alterations—Amber took care of all of it. Your health is fragile, and you’re always so particular. You should be thanking her for taking the burden off your shoulders.” I walked over to the table and picked up the wedding itinerary. I flipped to the very last page. Under the section for the bridal processional, the song I had spent weeks choosing had been crossed out in black ink. In its place, someone had written Amber’s favorite acoustic folk song. Next to it was Chase’s signature. I held the paper up to his face. “Did she choose this for me, too?” Chase glanced at it, his expression hardening. “It’s just a song, Nancy. Amber said it had a better rhythm for the walk.” “Just a song.” “Just a shell.” “Just a career.” I let out a soft, breathy laugh. “Then why don’t you let her be the bride, too?” Chase’s face darkened. “Do you have to be so incredibly dramatic?” I didn’t answer him. I knelt by the sofa, fished out the cracked pearl brooch from beneath the cushions, and pressed it into Amber’s hand. “If you like it so much, keep it.” Before Amber could speak, the doorbell rang. The wedding planner stood on the threshold, holding a massive, garment-bagged wedding dress. “Mr. Morton, the custom gown Ms. Amber ordered has arrived. Should we try it on now, or wait until tomorrow?” The air in the living room turned to ice. The planner looked from me to Amber, her professional smile freezing on her face. “Oh… I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?” Amber waved her hands frantically. “No, no! It’s not mine! It’s for Nancy. I was just the one communicating with the designer.” The planner looked down at her clipboard, thoroughly confused. “But the order sheet has the bride’s name listed as Amber.” I looked at Chase. His chest rose and fell rapidly, but he quickly smoothed his expression. “It’s just a clerical error.” My hands clenched into fists. “The song was an error. The dress was an error. Was postponing the hotel booking an error, too?” “Nancy, do not do this in front of company,” Chase warned, his voice dangerously low. The planner set the gown down, keeping her head low, wishing she could disappear. Amber’s tears fell freely now. “Nancy, I swear I didn’t know. I was talking to the designer so much that she must have gotten confused.” I walked over and unzipped the garment bag. The dress was spectacular—layers of delicate lace, a tapered waist, and intricate beadwork. But it was not my size. And it was certainly not my style. I had always wanted something clean, sleek, and modern. This dress was a fairytale ballgown—the exact design Amber had saved on her public boards for years. Chase stepped up beside me. “If you don’t like it, we can have it altered.” “Is there even time?” “We postponed the wedding by a week. There’s plenty of time.” He said it so casually. The postponement hadn’t been about Amber’s fragile mental state at all. It had been to give the designer time to alter Amber’s dream dress for me. I gripped the plastic of the garment bag so hard my knuckles turned white. “Chase… do you actually want to marry me?” A look of pure frustration crossed his face. “The invitations are sent. The deposit is paid. My mother is standing right here. Why are you asking such a ridiculous question?” Mrs. Morton stepped in, trying to smooth things over. “Alright, let’s all calm down. It’s just a dress. Nancy, don’t be so stubborn. Amber is roughly your size anyway. It wouldn’t hurt for her to try it on to see how the fabric drapes.” Amber shook her head quickly. “No, Mrs. Morton, I couldn’t. Nancy will just hate me more.” Mrs. Morton patted her shoulder. “You’re too sweet for your own good, sweetheart.” Chase looked at me. “Since you’re clearly not in the mood to try it, let Amber do it. Once we see how it looks, we can adjust it to your measurements.” I stared at him, feeling a cold sensation wash over me. “You want me to stand here and watch your best friend try on my wedding dress?” He remained silent for a beat. “It’s the most logical way to get this sorted out quickly.” The planner whispered from the corner of the room. “Actually, Mr. Morton… the bodice was patterned specifically to Ms. Amber’s proportions. Altering it to fit Ms. Cooper would completely ruin the structure of the gown.” Chase’s expression curdled. Amber covered her face with her hands. “Don’t say another word. I’ll just leave. I’ll leave and I won’t come back.” She bolted toward the front door. Chase didn’t hesitate. He chased after her, catching her arm at the threshold. “You don’t have to leave.” He turned back to look at me, his eyes demanding surrender. “Nancy, let’s settle this once and for all. What matters more to you? This dress, or our future together?” I looked at his hand wrapped tightly around Amber’s wrist. The clarity was almost blinding. “Neither,” I said quietly. Chase blinked. “What?” I turned and walked toward the bedroom. Chase caught up to me in three strides, blocking the doorway. “Where do you think you’re going?” “I told you. I’m leaving.” “I said we’ll talk when you’ve calmed down.” I looked up, meeting his eyes. “I have never been more calm in my life.” He stared at me for a long moment, a slow, knowing smile spreading across his lips. “You just want me to choose you. That’s what this is.” He pulled my passport from his breast pocket, letting it dangle between his fingers. “Fine. Apologize to Amber. Admit you’re being paranoid, and I’ll give this back to you right now.” Amber whimpered. “Chase, please don’t do this. You’re going to break her heart.” Chase didn’t look at her. He kept his eyes on me, completely confident that I would break. He knew me. He knew I always yielded in the end. The hallway light caught the worn edges of my passport cover. I remembered the day I received it, right after getting my first international medical exchange. Chase had held me tight and promised, “No matter how far you fly, I’ll always be there to bring you home.” My throat tightened. I reached out for the passport. He pulled it back. “Apology first.” Mrs. Morton sighed from the living room. “Nancy, just say you’re sorry. Don’t make a scene over nothing.” Amber kept her head down, her voice small and delicate. “Nancy, if you don’t want to apologize, I understand. I just hate seeing Chase caught in the middle of our mess. It’s so exhausting for him.” I looked at the three of them. I realized I had absolutely nothing left to say. I picked up a pen from the console table, turned the wedding itinerary over, and wrote a single sentence on the blank backing paper: “I, Nancy Cooper, hereby cancel my wedding to Chase Morton.” The smug satisfaction drained from Chase’s face. “What is this supposed to mean?” I didn’t answer. I grabbed my suitcase, walked past him, and opened the front door. Chase lunged forward, grabbing my wrist. “Nancy, stop playing games.” “Let go of me.” “If you walk out that door today, I swear to God I will not chase you.” I wrenched my wrist from his grip. Down the hall, the elevator dinged, its doors sliding open. As I stepped inside, Chase’s voice echoed down the corridor. “If you leave, the wedding is still happening next week! Do you hear me?” The elevator doors slowly slid shut. The last image I had of him was his face twisted in absolute certainty—the absolute belief that I would come crawling back. But some birds, once they find the open sky, never look down.

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“Liam, honey, you need to clear your calendar for this weekend. You’re taking me to that new French place downtown.” I stepped into my husband’s office, expecting the usual quiet sanctuary of his workspace. Liam had always been the picture of the ultimate devoted husband—never a stray glance, always entirely focused on our life together. But today, he was holding the hand of the new intern. My blood ran hot. I marched toward them, my hand already raising to slap her smug face, when a strange, echoing voice vibrated directly in my mind: “Go on, slap me! Hit me hard! The live feed said that as long as this toxic villainess slaps me, the male lead will hate her even more!” “This brainless rich girl is such a cliché. A tiny little trick and she already suspects him.” “Keep throwing your tantrums, honey. I’m the main character here. Your ending is a psych ward; mine is a walk down the aisle.” My hand froze in midair. I stared into the intern’s wide, intensely hopeful eyes. Slowing my momentum, I let my hand drop slightly, gently cupping her soft, youthful cheek instead of striking it. “You have beautiful skin, sweetheart,” I murmured, brushing a thumb over her cheekbone. “No wonder my husband likes it so much. He just can’t seem to let go of your hand.” … Phoebe was visibly stunned. Her innocent little face faltered, completely unprepared for this twist in the script. “Why didn’t she slap me?!” “The feed said the villainess would slap me the second she saw us holding hands!” “If she doesn’t hit me, how is he going to feel sorry for me and start hating her?!” I scoffed internally. “Hit you? In your dreams, sweetie.” Liam let go of her hand, stepping toward me to wrap his arm around my waist. “Charlotte, honey, don’t get the wrong idea. She almost tripped, and I was just catching her.” “Of course I believe you.” I looked up at him, flashing my sweetest, most compliant smile. “Actually, Liam, I have a tiny favor to ask.” “What is it?” “I really like this girl.” I slipped my arm through his, adopting the slightly spoiled, demanding tone he was so used to. “I want her transferred to my office as my personal assistant.” I needed to keep her close, right where I could monitor this bizarre internal frequency of hers. Liam frowned, hesitating. “She’s doing incredibly well in Corporate Strategy. The director specifically requested her for the team.” In my head, Phoebe’s inner voice cheered: “The director never said that!” “The feed was right—the male lead already has feelings for me. He’s making up excuses to keep me near him!” “Poor little rich girl doesn’t suspect a thing. What an idiot.” The irritation in my chest flared hot and sharp. I pushed Liam away. “What is that supposed to mean? I can’t even have one intern?” “That’s not what I meant—” “Then what do you mean?” I demanded, locking eyes with him. Liam looked momentarily lost, his eyes instinctively darting to Phoebe. She stood behind him, looking like a trembling, defenseless deer. But her mind was throwing a party: “Yes! Get mad! The feed is spot-on—the more she throws a tantrum, the more sick of her he gets!” “He looked at me! He’s worried about my feelings! My approval rating is soaring!” I took a deep, steadying breath, swallowing the urge to physically wipe the smirk off her face. “Liam, I’m going to ask you one last time.” I crossed my arms, tilting my chin toward Phoebe. “Yes or no?” I was Charlotte Davenport. My parents had spent my entire life shielding me from the harshness of the world, and in our five years of marriage, Liam had never denied me a single thing. And now he was hesitating over an intern? Unacceptable. Liam looked at me, eventually letting out a quiet sigh. “Of course, Charlotte. Whatever makes you happy.” Phoebe’s mind practically shrieked with panic: “What?! He’s actually transferring me to her? No! If I’m stuck with her, how am I supposed to secure the male lead?” “Wait… the feed says it’s fine. It says this will actually make him feel guilty, and he’ll slowly start to see Charlotte as selfish and unreasonable.” “Yes, exactly! I just need to play the victim. He’ll only pity me more!” Over the next few days, I kept Phoebe under a microscope. Yet, every morning, her first priority wasn’t reporting to me. It was sneaking off to Liam’s office. “He praised my reports today! He said they were better than what the senior analysts put out. Teehee. The feed says his affection level went up by one.” At lunchtime, she would “coincidentally” run into him at the cafeteria. “He asked if I was eating alone and sat with me! He said I have such a great personality, that I’m hardworking, unlike some spoiled heiresses who only know how to spend money.” In the afternoon, Liam would stop by my office under the guise of business. Seeing Phoebe typing away at her desk, he would casually murmur, “Don’t work too hard, Phoebe. Go home early tonight.” “He cares about me! The feed is right—the less Charlotte does, the more my hard work shines.” Sitting at my desk, my fingers tightened around the edges of the lifestyle magazine I was holding, slowly crushing the glossy paper. Technically, Liam hadn’t crossed any lines. No touching, no kissing, no inappropriate texts. He probably genuinely believed he was just being a supportive mentor to a promising, hardworking young woman. But listening to those thoughts day after day made a cold dread settle deep in my stomach. It came to a head on Tuesday afternoon when I went to drop off some files at his office. I saw it in his eyes as he looked at her. A subtle shift. Something unfamiliar. Admiration. And worse—pity. I decided to test him. The next morning, Phoebe handed me a brief. The formatting was a disaster, the fonts mismatched and messy. I took the folder, walked straight into Liam’s office, and tossed it onto his desk. “Look at this. This is your ‘brilliant’ intern? She can’t even align a paragraph. How did she pass her screening?” Liam flipped through the pages, his brow furrowing slightly, but his voice remained gentle. “Charlotte, she’s fresh out of college. There’s no need to be so harsh. Formatting is something she’ll get used to with time.” “He defended me again! The feed says the male lead is officially getting tired of her princess attitude!” Later, I asked Phoebe to make me a coffee. When she brought it, it was lukewarm, drowned in milk, and sickly sweet. I took a sip right in front of her and spat it back into the mug. “What is this? Are you here to work or are you on vacation?” Phoebe’s eyes instantly welled with tears. She lowered her head, her voice trembling. “I’m so sorry, Charlotte. I’ll make another one right away…” “Bear with it. The feed says the more she bullies me, the more cruel he’ll think she is.” Right on cue, Liam materialized at the door. Seeing her red-rimmed eyes, his frown deepened. “Charlotte, it’s just a cup of coffee. Is there any need to raise your voice like that?” I looked up at him. “She can’t even remember how I take my coffee. You call that capable?” “She’s only been here a week. Give her some time to adjust.” Liam’s voice carried a distinct edge of irritation. “Do you always have to be so…” He stopped himself, but I knew the word he wanted to say. “Difficult.” I let out a dry, humorless laugh. Leaning back in my chair, I waved my hand dismissively. “Phoebe, leave us.” Phoebe glanced between Liam and me, then walked out with her head bowed. Liam pulled up a chair next to mine, his tone softening. “Charlotte, what is going on with you lately?” “Nothing.” “You’re angry.” He reached out, wrapping his fingers tightly around mine, locking our hands together. “Is this still about the other day? I already gave you Phoebe, didn’t I?” I looked at him, searching his eyes. Did he really not see what he was doing, or was he just playing dumb? “Let me ask you something,” I said quietly. “Do you think she’s better than me?” Liam stared at me for a second, then chuckled. “What kind of comparison is that? You’re my wife. She’s just an employee. I’m only helping her because she genuinely has potential.” Outside the door, Phoebe’s triumphant thoughts floated in: “He’s absolutely comparing them in his head! The feed says his attraction score just ticked up again!” Ignoring the voice, I kept my eyes locked on his. “Then why don’t you take Phoebe to our dinner date this weekend? You two can discuss all that potential over dinner.” Liam sighed, reaching up to pinch my cheek playfully. “Stop talking nonsense. Why would I take her? My weekend belongs entirely to my wife.” A brief spark of warmth flickered in my chest. But it was instantly snuffed out by the voice outside. “The rich girl is so incredibly gullible. She believes whatever he says. But the feed already predicted it—he’s going to use a work emergency as an excuse, and then he’s taking me to that food truck court I love instead.” My smile froze. “No,” I told myself. “The voices don’t dictate reality. Whatever system she has, it could easily be a delusion.” On Friday afternoon, I did my makeup, put on a new dress, and waited for Liam to finish work. At 5:30 PM, my phone buzzed. Liam: “Charlotte, honey, an unexpected client dinner came up. I can’t make it tonight. I’m so sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” I stared at the screen, the blue light stinging my eyes. I typed out a long reply, then deleted it. In the end, I only sent one word: “Okay.” The next day, I was scrolling through social media when I saw Phoebe’s latest post. There was no caption. Just a single photo: a smoky street-side taco stand under string lights, and across the table, a man’s hands. On his left ring finger was the band I had spent weeks picking out. After that weekend, Liam seemed to sense the distance growing between us. For the next few days, he came home early every night, bringing small gifts and trying to initiate conversation. On Wednesday night, as we lay in bed, he wrapped his arms around me from behind. “Charlotte, I have a business trip this weekend. I have to go to Chicago for three days to close a major acquisition. It’s crucial for the firm.” I nodded against the pillow. “Okay.” He kissed the back of my neck. “Good girl. I’ll bring you back something nice.” The next morning, as I walked toward my desk, I caught Phoebe’s thoughts before I even opened the door. “Oh my god! The feed says he’s taking me to Santorini!” “A cliffside villa! The sunset suite! The exact place Charlotte has been begging him to take her for five years!” “The feed is right—I’m his soulmate. That high-maintenance villainess belongs in an institution.” The ceramic mug in my hand nearly slipped from my grip. Santorini. The honeymoon we had promised each other when we got married. For five years, I had brought it up. He always said he was too busy. “Next year, honey. Let’s wait until things settle down.” And now, he was taking her. My hands shook as I quietly closed my office door. Around noon, I went down to Liam’s office. He was reading through some documents, but he looked up and smiled when I walked in. “Hey. Miss me already?” I sat opposite him, studying his face. This was the man I had loved for over a decade. “Liam,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Do you remember the promise you made me?” He blinked, then smiled warmly. “Of course. Santorini.” “When are we going?” “Sweetheart, I am buried in work right now.” He stood up, walking over to gently stroke my hair. “As soon as things quiet down, I promise I’ll take you, okay?” “As soon as things quiet down.” The same empty currency he’d been throwing at me for years. I forced a smile and said nothing. I was tired of waiting. On Thursday, they left. I stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows of my office, watching his black sedan pull out of the parking garage. I pulled out my phone and texted my closest friend, Piper. “Find me a divorce lawyer. The absolute best in the city.” Her reply came instantly: “??? Are you insane?” “I’ve never been more clear-headed. Just send me a name.” A long pause. Then: “Declan Ross. He’s a partner at Ross & Associates, top-tier family law. He was also our high school class president. Remember him?” I stared at the screen. Declan. The tall, quiet boy who used to leave cartons of strawberry milk on my desk during recess. The next day, I walked into his high-rise office. He was wearing an impeccably tailored three-piece suit, looking far more refined and grounded than he had in high school. There was a quiet strength to him that was entirely different from Liam’s flashy confidence. After listening to my story, Declan didn’t offer empty platitudes. He simply leaned forward. “I’ll draft the petition. We’ll go after everything you’re entitled to.” He paused, his gaze softening. “And my services are on the house.” “Declan, I can’t let you do that—” “Sophomore year, when those three guys cornered me behind the gym trying to take my lunch money, you swung your skateboard and chased them off. I’ve remembered that for ten years.” He tilted his head, a faint, nostalgic smile playing on his lips. “Back then, you told me if it wasn’t for him, you would’ve chosen me. What about now?” I couldn’t find the words to answer. The night the draft agreement was finalized, I saw Phoebe’s feed update on social media. The blue domes of Santorini, the golden Aegean sunset, the infinity pool hanging over the cliffs. The final photo was a silhouette of Liam. He was standing on a whitewashed balcony, looking out at the endless blue. Caption: “Thank you for showing me the most beautiful place in the world.” I stared at the screen for a long, quiet minute. Then, I pulled up Liam’s contact info, attached the draft divorce petition, and sent it. I added a simple message: “I want a divorce.” Before he could reply, I blocked his number. I packed a bag and went straight to my parents’ house. Seeing the exhaustion etched into my face, they didn’t pry. They simply told me to rest and assured me they had my back. I retreated to my childhood bedroom. Sitting in the dark, pulling my knees to my chest, memories of Liam flooded my mind like a projector on loop. Liam at fifteen, waiting for me by the bleachers. Liam at eighteen, setting off illegal fireworks under my window. Liam at twenty-two, down on one knee, whispering that I was his entire world. Liam at twenty-seven, brushing my hair aside, promising we’d go to Greece when he wasn’t so busy. Five years of waiting. Five years of believing him, only for him to take someone else. My phone buzzed on the nightstand. It was a text from Declan: “Are you comfortable with the terms in the draft?” I replied: “Yes. It’s perfect. Thank you, Declan.” Declan: “Always. Would you do me the honor of letting me take you to dinner?” I thought about it. “Let me treat you instead. To thank you for all of this.” Declan: “I’d love that. Honestly, I’ve been craving a home-cooked meal. It’s been a while since I had one.” Reading his reply, I remembered how his parents had split up during our junior year, leaving him to live alone in a rented studio, often skipping meals before night study. My heart softened. “Come over to my parents’ place tomorrow. I’ll have our housekeeper make us something.” The next morning, my mother knocked and slipped into my room. “You look pale, sweetie. Did you sleep at all?” “I’m fine, Mom.” I paused. “Could we add sweet and sour ribs to the lunch menu today?” “I thought you hated sweet glazes.” “They’re for a friend. He’s helping me through a lot, and I wanted to make sure he has something he likes.” She smiled gently. “Of course. I’ll tell the kitchen.” Around eleven, the doorbell rang. I went to open it. Declan stood on the porch, wearing a charcoal-grey crewneck sweater and dark trousers, holding a basket of fresh fruit. “Thanks for having me.” “Come on in,” I said, leading him toward the dining room. Declan was an effortless conversationalist. Within twenty minutes, he had my parents completely charmed. Then, the heavy front door swung open. Liam walked in, looking disheveled and frantic. He took in the scene in the dining room, his expression darkening into something raw and ugly. “We aren’t even divorced yet,” his voice cracked, hoarse and trembling, “and you’ve already brought him into your parents’ home?”

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At the end-of-quarter team dinner, my girlfriend went twenty minutes out of her way to pick up two bubble teas. She handed one to Drew, who sat across from us, and slid the other toward me. Drew smiled, his eyes crinkling. “You’re a lifesaver, Natalie. You always remember I can’t handle ice when my stomach is acting up.” I looked down at the mango-coconut slush sitting in front of me, its bright yellow color mocking me. I pushed it away with the tip of my finger. “What’s wrong?” Natalie asked, not even looking up from her phone. “I’m severely allergic to mango, Natalie. Did you forget? Again?” She paused for a fraction of a second, then let out a soft, dismissive laugh. “It’s just a little bit of mango jelly on top. Can’t you just pick it out?” But she remembered everything about Drew. She knew he hated cilantro, despised raw onions, and took his tea half-sweet with zero ice. Yet, my throat closing up from a single bite of mango was just “something I could pick out.” I realized then how deeply favoritism runs. When someone stops caring about you, even your survival becomes a minor inconvenience. On the drive home, I sat in the backseat. Looking at the two of them in the front, their silhouettes framed perfectly by the dashboard light, a sudden, unexpected wave of relief washed over me. I was done. I didn’t want a relationship where even my life-threatening allergies were treated as an afterthought. … When the car pulled up to our building, the two of them were still deep in a debate about a movie that had come out last weekend. The same movie Natalie had promised to see with me, only to bail at the last minute claiming she had to work late. They jumped from discussing the chemistry between the leads to analyzing the cinematography, their voices bouncing off the windshield. I couldn’t remember how many times I’d been left out of their conversations like this. Even now, I sat in the back like an unwanted hitchhiker. Eventually, the laughter faded. Natalie glanced at the rearview mirror, her eyebrows knitting together in mild surprise. “Why are you still in the car?” I looked up, my voice flat. “You didn’t unlock the doors.” Natalie went silent. Drew immediately stepped in to smooth things over. “Oh, man, that’s on me! I got so carried away talking.” He leaned over the center console and expertly pressed the unlock button on the driver’s side door. This car was bought with the first major bonus Natalie earned. Back then, she had held my hand, laughing, and promised me I’d never have to squeeze onto the crowded subway again. Then Drew moved to Chicago to “find himself.” Our two-person commute became a party of three. Because Drew claimed he got motion sickness easily, I was relegated to the backseat. Three years in the back had made me forget how the dashboard controls even worked. Drew, however, navigated them with the familiarity of a spouse. “Don’t be mad at her, Jesse,” Drew said, turning around with a sympathetic grin. “I’ll give Natalie a good scolding on the drive to my place.” Natalie let out a soft, amused chuckle, offering no denial. Having loved her for so long, I could easily recognize the warmth and indulgence in her tone. It was a tone she never used with me anymore. When I had once mentioned that I didn’t like the smell of cigarette smoke on her clothes, she had turned cold, calling me controlling and accusing me of suffocating her. Yet now, she let Drew criticize her driving, her music choices, and her habits without a single complaint. Outside, the rain began to leak through the slightly cracked passenger window, sending a damp chill straight to my chest. I pushed the door open and practically fled from the car. The downpour intensified the second I stepped out. I ran to the awning of our building, soaked and shivering. Through the rain-slicked glass of the windshield, I saw Natalie reach over and gently wipe a stray raindrop from Drew’s cheek. I wiped the water from my own face, but no matter how hard I rubbed, my skin still felt damp and cold. Back in the apartment, I took a long, hot shower. When I walked out, my phone was ringing. It was Diane, my department manager. “Jesse, are you absolutely sure about this resignation?” she asked, her voice tinged with regret. “You just landed that major account. I was actually planning to pitch a promotion and a raise to Natalie tomorrow.” In my six years at the company, I had applied for a promotion twelve times. Without fail, Natalie had blocked every single one. When my colleagues praised my campaign strategies, she dismissed them as “just meeting basic expectations.” When the regional head recommended me for an executive training program, she claimed my leadership skills were lacking. Even when the entire department signed a petition to promote me, she vetoed it. I had felt the sting of it, but I had never openly complained. Meanwhile, Drew—whom I had personally referred to the company—had received three promotions in three years. His salary had tripled. When I finally asked Natalie why, she had looked at me with cold, professional eyes. “We need to avoid any appearance of nepotism, Jesse. Be mature. Drew doesn’t have a safety net in this city; he needs the leverage to establish himself.” But I was done being mature. I was done stepping aside. I took a deep breath. “There’s no need to pitch anything to her, Diane. I’ve made up my mind. I’m leaving.” Diane sighed on the other end. “Alright, Jesse. I won’t push. Take care of yourself.” The sound of keys jangling at the lock cut through the quiet apartment. Natalie walked in, carrying a small FedEx box. She caught the tail end of my sentence. “What did you make up your mind about?” “Nothing,” I said. Natalie didn’t press. She walked over to the sofa, unboxing the package. Inside was a red carnelian Van Cleef Alhambra bracelet, the gold chains gleaming under the living room lights. She looked up at me. “Do you like it?” I stared at it. I had kept that exact bracelet in my online shopping cart for over a year. Every time I had shown it to her, she had rolled her eyes, calling luxury goods a tax on the insecure. She told me I didn’t have the wrist for something so flashy. For a split second, a foolish spark of hope flared in my chest. I thought she had remembered. Then she spoke again, extinguishing the spark completely. “Drew’s a guy, but he’s got pretty slim wrists. Do you think he’d like this color?” I went numb. I forced a nod. “He’ll love it.” Perhaps sensing my sudden withdrawal, Natalie offered a rare explanation. “Tomorrow is his three-year work anniversary. I wanted to get him something special. He moved across the country to work with us; I don’t want him to feel unappreciated.” She paused, her eyes lingering on my bare wrist. “If you really like it, I’ll get you one for your next birthday.” I was her boyfriend of seven years, yet I was expected to wait in line for the scraps of her affection, promised on some distant, hypothetical birthday. The Natalie from years ago never made empty promises. She showed her love in real-time. If I sent her a link to a new restaurant, she’d take me there the same weekend. If I mentioned a craving for those expensive lobster rolls from the harbor, they would be waiting in the fridge the next day. When I turned down a six-figure offer in Boston to move to Chicago so we could finally end our long-distance relationship, she didn’t say much. She just worked eighty-hour weeks, secured a massive partnership, and placed a deed to our condo in my hands. “We have a home now, Jesse,” she had whispered. I pulled myself out of the memory. “No need. I don’t really care for red.” Natalie’s brows drew together. “Suit yourself.” She loosened her blazer and walked toward the bathroom. “I’m going to shower. Don’t mention the bracelet to Drew tonight. I want it to be a surprise.” The sound of running water filled the apartment, masking the quiet hum of the refrigerator. Natalie’s phone, left on the coffee table, vibrated. I looked down. A message popped up on the lock screen. Home safe? The sender was saved simply as a blue whale emoji. It was Drew. Last year, Natalie and I had a screaming match over her phone contacts. I had discovered that while Drew was saved with a cute emoji, my contact name had been changed from “My Love” to a cold, clinical “7.14 Jesse Ward.” I had packed my bags, crying, and moved into a motel. Natalie had panicked. She begged me to stay, promising she would quit smoking, change the contact name back, and keep her distance from Drew. For a few months, it felt like we were back in college. She bought breakfast, waited for me after work, and held my hand in public. But there was a hairline fracture in our foundation, and we both knew it. Then, three months ago, Drew got alcohol poisoning at a client dinner after stepping in to drink on my behalf. He ended up in the ER, and just like that, he was back in our lives, woven tightly into the fabric of our daily routine. I had been waiting for them to cross a line, to give me a definitive reason to walk away. But they never did anything explicitly physical. They just developed a language of their own—an endless stream of inside jokes and shared memories that left me standing on the outside looking in. Like today, after the team dinner. I had bent down to tie my shoe. It took ten seconds. They didn’t even notice I had stopped. By the time I stood up, they were already around the corner, disappearing into the crowd together. The next morning, I went straight to the office and left my signed resignation letter on the HR director’s desk. When I walked back to my cubicle, Drew caught up to me, throwing an arm around my shoulder. “Can you believe Natalie forgot you were allergic to mangoes? I gave her a piece of my mind on the drive home last night.” He playfully punched the air. But she remembered you can’t drink cold drinks, I thought. I wanted to say it out loud, but it felt too pathetic, too desperate. Instead, I gently shrugged his arm off. “It’s fine. We didn’t fight. I’m just tired.” Drew didn’t seem to notice my coldness. “Well, make sure you get some rest. Let me treat you to a nice dinner tonight to make up for it!” Looking at his bright, innocent smile, I felt a sudden pang of resentment. I used to think of Drew as a younger brother who had no one else in this city. I tolerated his intrusion because I wanted him to feel welcome. But when I first moved to Chicago, I didn’t know anyone either. I only had Natalie. At least when Drew arrived, he had me to guide him. And eventually, he had Natalie to pamper him. “No, thanks,” I said quietly. “I have plans tonight.” I turned my back on him and sat down at my computer. Within minutes, a notification popped up in the company Slack. It was from Natalie. Congratulations to Drew on his three-year work anniversary! Afternoon tea is on me. Attached was a screenshot of an order from a high-end French patisserie downtown—the one with a two-week waiting list. I had bought a box of their pastries last weekend. Natalie had watched me open them, asking, “Is this place really worth the hype?” I had excitedly explained the flavor profiles, thinking she was taking an interest in my tastes. Now I realized she was just doing research for Drew’s celebration. In the breakroom, Drew was surrounded by coworkers, his face flushed with happiness. Natalie stood just outside the circle, watching him with a soft, affectionate smile. They looked like a picture-perfect couple. I was just a ghost haunting their peripheral vision. Drew walked over to me, holding a small plate with a gold-leaf chocolate tart. He winked. “Saved the most expensive one for you.” An expensive pastry couldn’t mask the fact that Natalie had just spent a fortune to treat fifty people in his honor. But I didn’t want to make a scene. “Thanks,” I said. Drew clasped his hands together, putting on a pleading face. “Jesse, I have this campaign brief due by Friday, and the client is riding my back. You’re the best at these. Can you take a look? Please?” He dropped a thick folder onto my desk before I could answer, entirely confident that I would do what I had always done—quietly take his work, finish it perfectly, and let him put his name on the cover. The red carnelian Van Cleef bracelet on his wrist caught the fluorescent light, burning my eyes. I pushed the folder back. “I’m busy, Drew. I can’t help you.” His smile faltered, his eyes immediately welling up with tears. “Jesse… are you mad at me? You’ve never said no before.” Natalie appeared out of nowhere, stepping between us and shielding Drew. “Jesse, what the hell is your problem?” I kept my voice calm as I explained the situation, half-hoping Natalie would reprimand him. She despised people who shirked responsibility at work; she had faced so much exploitation early in her career. But she only looked at me with cold disgust. “Drew is your superior. When he delegates a task to you, you don’t get to say no. You’ve been with this company for six years, Jesse. Have you ever wondered why you’re still sitting in a cubicle? It’s because you’re small-minded. You throw a tantrum the moment you’re asked to do a little extra work.” I wanted to laugh. People who started after me, people who had half my metrics, had been promoted to team leads. I was the only one stuck in place. Did she think the rest of the office didn’t notice? Did she really think I was the problem? Drew pulled gently on Natalie’s sleeve. “Nat, don’t worry about it. If Jesse won’t help, I’ll just stay late and do it myself.” Natalie’s glare remained fixed on me. “Jesse, if this is going to be your attitude moving forward, I’ll have to speak to HR about your termination—” “Let’s break up,” I interrupted. The open-plan office fell dead silent. Natalie’s eyes widened, her chest freezing mid-breath. “What did you just say?” I looked her dead in the eye. “I said, we’re breaking up.” Drew let out a sharp gasp. “Jesse! Why are you doing this? Natalie has been so good to you…” I ignored him, stood up, and grabbed my coat. Natalie grabbed my wrist, her grip so tight it felt like she wanted to crush the bone. “Jesse Ward, do you really have to resort to these pathetic stunts?” “What do you mean?” I asked, looking down at her hand. She sneered, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “You’re doing this to force my hand. You want to make our relationship public in front of the whole office. I told you, keeping our personal lives separate is for the best. Why can’t you just be professional?” I looked at my reddening wrist, a profound exhaustion settling deep into my bones. It was always like this. If I expressed hurt, I was throwing a tantrum. If I drew a boundary, I was being manipulative. But if Drew so much as frowned, she would tear down the world to fix it. I pulled my hand back with all the force I could muster, taking a step away from her. “Now that we’re broken up, you don’t have to worry about anyone accusing you of playing favorites.” I left the office immediately, went straight to our apartment, and started packing. I had lived in this condo for five years. The couch was a mid-century piece I had spent weeks hunting down in thrift stores when we were still living in a cramped studio. I couldn’t bear to leave it behind when we moved here; it was a testament to how far we had come. The linen curtains were ones I had researched for hours to find the best deal. On the wall hung a framed Polaroid of us from the day we moved in. Natalie was holding a paint roller, I had a broom, both of us covered in white smudges, laughing like idiots. We had a home. We were finally secure in a city that had felt so cold and foreign. I took the photo out of the frame, tore it into tiny pieces, and dropped them into the trash can. Since my resignation required a one-week notice period for handovers, I booked a room at a hotel near the office. By the next morning, the office rumors had taken on a life of their own. My colleagues looked at me with thinly veiled hostility. They assumed I was a toxic ex trying to ruin Natalie’s career. They began icing me out, dumping menial tasks like scanning and coffee runs onto my desk. Diane, who knew the truth about my departure, tried to intervene once or twice, but the whispers only grew louder. Soon, the rumor was that I had been fired because I tried to sleep with Diane—even though Diane was happily married with two kids. The exclusion turned into active hostility. Natalie did nothing to stop it. She either didn’t notice, or she thought I deserved it. Three days later, Natalie marched over to my desk and slammed a thick binder in front of me, her face pale with fury. “Jesse, what the hell is this? The strategic brief you submitted for the client is a total disaster!” I opened the binder, confused. On the cover page, my name was printed in bold letters. But I hadn’t touched a new project since submitting my resignation. Before I could speak, Drew rushed over, grabbing Natalie’s arm. His eyes were red, his voice trembling. “Nat, don’t yell at Jesse. It’s my fault. I must have mixed up the files.” Natalie’s expression didn’t soften. She kept her eyes locked on me. “Don’t let Drew cover for your incompetence, Jesse. The client is threatening to pull their account. I’m docking three months of your bonuses.” I had never seen this document in my life. Yet here she was, eager to paint me as the scapegoat. Around us, my coworkers whispered, some watching with smug satisfaction. I sat up straight. “I didn’t write this brief, Natalie.” Natalie leaned in, lowering her voice so only I could hear. “You’re leaving the company anyway, Jesse. A bad review won’t affect your future. But Drew is up for the Director position. If corporate finds out he botched this, he’ll lose the promotion. Just help him this once. Help me this once.” Looking into her eyes, seeing the desperation she felt for Drew’s future, the very last thread of my love for her snapped. Drew looked at me, a silent plea in his eyes, but he didn’t say a word to clear my name. I smiled. It was a cold, empty feeling. “Okay.” Consider it my final repayment for the drink he took for me three months ago. Because of the “gross negligence” on my record, HR fast-tracked my exit. That afternoon, Diane called me into her office. “Jesse, you don’t deserve this,” she said softly. She had quietly coded my departure as a layoff with severance instead of a termination for cause, ensuring I would receive a payout. I signed the paperwork and thanked her sincerely. I was the last one to leave the office that night. I took everything from my desk and threw it into the trash can by the elevators. As soon as I reached my hotel room, my phone buzzed. Both Natalie and Drew had sent messages at almost the exact same time. They wanted to take me out to dinner to “make things right.” They sent a pin to a trendy, reservations-only restaurant downtown—a place known for its intimate couple’s seating. I knew they had been there together dozens of times. Every time they went, they told me they only got the couple’s tasting menu because it was the most cost-effective option. But Natalie had never taken me there. I had only ever seen it in Drew’s Instagram stories. I didn’t reply. I booked a flight and called an Uber to O’Hare. At the boarding gate, my phone buzzed again with reminders about the dinner, promising a “big surprise” was waiting for me. I set my phone to Do Not Disturb, blocked both of their numbers, and boarded the plane. Six years ago, I had packed my life into two suitcases and followed Natalie to Chicago, eager to build a life together. Now, Drew was by her side, and there was no room left for me. It was time to go home.

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