Category: English

In the alumni lounge, Ashly’s ex Carter stood and revealed that for three years, someone had been anonymously sending him money, worried he was in need. The room erupted in cheers, all eyes turning to Ashly. Carter went on, describing how when his father was critically ill, someone flew across the country to stay at his bedside, even booking him a luxury hotel to rest while she slept exhausted under hospital lights. I quietly withdrew my hand from the table’s edge. No one knew Ashly and I had lived together for five years, or that her distant stares on our couch were moments spent longing for him. So that’s where her salary went, every dollar quietly supporting Carter’s life. I remembered the day my father died; she stayed ten minutes at the funeral before hurrying off. Now Carter took her hand in front of everyone and asked softly if they could start over. She did not pull away, only sat in silence. As the crowd chanted for them to kiss, a cold clarity washed over me: my five years with her had just ended, for good. 1 Ashly opened her mouth, but she simply could not bring herself to reject him outright. Instead, she used the most ambiguous tone possible to string everyone along. “Let us talk about it when we get back.” That word “we” carried a heavy, intimate weight that completely shifted the vibe of the room. The loudest guy in our graduating class took the lead, slamming his beer on the table. “Oh come on! That is basically a yes right there!” “Be honest, Ashly, you have been waiting for this day forever, right?” “You did not even want to come tonight! But the second I mentioned Carter was flying in, you practically begged me for the location!” Laughter filled the room. Three years had passed. Yet the mere mention of Carter still made her lose all her composure. My grip on my drink tightened, the color draining from my face. Before coming here tonight, I actually thought I had the upper hand. I foolishly believed that my five years of devotion could overshadow their three years of college romance. After all, during our time together, Carter never stopped texting her. But every single time, she would ruthlessly reject him right in front of my face. “Carter, I have my own life now. Stop bothering me.” It was only at this exact moment I realized that all those harsh rejections were just a theatrical performance put on for my benefit. In the hidden corners of her heart that I could never reach, Carter still owned the absolute largest piece of real estate. That was why she compromised her own boundaries for him, time and time again. Snapping out of her daze, Ashly did not give the crowd a straight answer. Instead, she gently nudged Carter’s shoulder, laughing softly to smooth things over. “Are we still playing the game or what?” “Stop teasing him, guys. He has thin skin, you are going to make him blush.” Her tone was sickeningly sweet and entirely too fond. The girls in the room exchanged knowing, giddy smiles. “Alright, alright, we will stop bullying your precious boy!” “Let us keep playing!” A new round of the drinking game started. ‘Never Have I Ever’. Unsurprisingly, when the prompts got specific, almost everyone put a finger down, except Carter. People shook their heads, sighing dramatically. “Carter, you are a seriously lucky guy.” “Is there anyone on this planet more devoted than Ashly?” Following the collective agreement, everyone naturally started bringing up the old college days. Like when Carter hosted the campus talent show, Ashly would always sneak a bouquet of roses backstage after the curtain fell. Or when Carter twisted his ankle playing varsity basketball, she immediately took off her own jacket, draped it over his shivering shoulders, and half carried him to the campus clinic. Even when Carter’s family went bankrupt and he could not pay his tuition, she was the one who quietly settled the massive bill. Out of her four years of college, she spent three of them desperately chasing Carter. Carter’s ears turned bright red. He subtly shifted closer to her on the sofa. Ashly’s hand froze for a second. She instinctively shot a glance in my direction. But just as quickly, she averted her gaze, acting like we were total strangers to avoid suspicion. Suddenly, someone noticed I still had one finger raised. Just a moment ago, Carter had bragged with total confidence. “I had someone propose to me, saying they would buy me a luxury waterfront condo as a wedding gift. Have any of you experienced that?” Everyone had silently put a finger down, admitting defeat. Everyone except me. But there was absolutely no pride on my face. Because Ashly had said those exact same words to me. She told me that once our careers stabilized and we were a bit older, she would buy that exact waterfront condo and gift it to me as our forever home. The promise that once filled my heart with overwhelming sweetness now felt like an endless, suffocating joke. The classmates finally registered my raised hand, their eyes widening, ready for the gossip. “Holy crap, Noah! When did you secretly get a girlfriend?” “I thought you were perpetually single!” “Wait a minute. Is that girl someone from our graduating class?” Before I could even open my mouth, I felt a sharp kick against my shin under the table. It was only when the entire room focused their attention on me that Ashly finally looked at me directly. She acted like I was just an old acquaintance she barely knew, joining in on the teasing. “I am curious too. Who is the lucky girl?” 2 When she said those words, her eyes were dead and cold, carrying a silent, sharp warning. I knew she would never let me go public with our relationship. After all, this was exactly how I had survived the last five years. At home, she played the role of the perfect, caring girlfriend perfectly. She would cook me breakfast, kneel to help me take off my shoes after a long shift, and even draw me a hot bath and bring me a mug of tea before bed. But the second Carter entered the equation, all her supposed loyalty became utterly worthless. Everything she had ever done for me, she had already done for him, and with far more passion. Ashly was not worried that making us public would cause people to gossip. She was terrified that if people knew about me, she would no longer be able to comfortably enjoy Carter’s attention and affection. It was the middle of summer, but the breeze blowing through the open lounge window froze my blood solid. “Come on Noah, spill the tea!” “I really want to know what kind of girl managed to lock down a handsome guy like you. Is she some rich heiress? Or the super gentle, domestic type?” Under the barrage of curious questions, I gave a very simple physical description. “Tall, pale skin. The kind of eyes that make me feel like I am standing in a warm spring breeze the second they look my way.” Sitting directly across from me, Ashly let out an involuntary, conceited little smile. Perhaps she was secretly thrilled that every single trait I listed matched her to absolute perfection. “Oh my god, that sounds exactly like our Ashly!” Someone immediately caught the similarities, laughing loudly. “Noah, you and Carter were college roommates, and you even have the exact same taste in women! That is hilarious!” Hearing this, Carter stiffened slightly. I raised my glass, downed my drink in one gulp, and swallowed the bitter lump forming in my throat. Carter quickly recovered, throwing out a casual joke. “Really? Well now I definitely want to meet her.” “Noah, when you get married, you better invite us all so we can finally see her face!” Saying this, he playfully bumped his shoulder against Ashly’s, winking at her. “You have to come too! I want to see just how much you two look alike!” Ashly completely froze, her face flushing awkwardly as she desperately changed the subject. “Stop worrying about other people’s love lives and worry about yourself.” “Drinking straight whiskey with your stomach ulcer? You will be groaning in pain in an hour.” She naturally reached out, taking his whiskey glass and drinking the rest of the liquor herself. Then she flagged down a waiter and ordered him a warm chamomile tea. She even instinctively opened her mouth, about to list out his dietary restrictions so he would not order anything spicy. It was only when the fruit fork slipped from my fingers and clattered loudly onto the glass table that she abruptly stopped talking. Her hands retreated under the table, twisting the fabric of her dress. She awkwardly pulled her gaze away, rubbing the tip of her nose in guilt. We had been together for five years. She could never remember my food allergies, nor could she remember what flared up my acid reflux. Whenever I quietly pointed out her mistakes, she would just brush it off lightly, claiming work made her too exhausted to remember the small details. But now I finally understood. True love meant remembering absolutely everything. Even after three full years apart, she could still rattle off his medical history without a second thought. Snapping back to reality, I realized I had pinched the skin between my thumb and index finger so hard it was bruised red. The crowd, oblivious to the tension, just assumed Ashly was acting shy and kept teasing her. “Oh give it a rest, stop playing the innocent caretaker!” “Did you forget how many times you rubbed Carter’s cramped legs after track practice?” “When he got heatstroke during gym class, you literally carried him halfway across campus to the nurse!” Carter did not say a word, but his ears burned an even deeper shade of red. Suddenly, my phone buzzed on the table. It was an email from the Paris Institute of Architecture. A formal acceptance and invitation. The guy sitting next to me glanced at my glowing screen and gasped loudly. “Noah! You are going to Paris?!” His voice was loud enough to cut through the chatter. Instantly, every eye in the room zeroed in on me. Ashly furrowed her brows, her expression unreadable. “Oh yeah! You were always obsessed with architectural design back in college. Did not you want to switch majors at one point?” Someone remembered the old days and eagerly chimed in. “I remember! Noah entered that national design competition and took first place!” “Wait, did not a design firm invite you right after graduation? Why did you never go?” I sat there in dead silence. A rare flicker of genuine guilt surfaced in Ashly’s eyes. 3 Back then, we had only been dating for three months. She had gripped my hands so tightly, terrified that I was going to leave the country. “Noah, trust me. I will give you a beautiful life.” “Please do not leave me. I cannot survive a long distance relationship where we only see each other twice a year.” To prove her absolute devotion, she drained her savings account and gave me every scholarship award she had ever earned. When I got my driver’s license, she even bought me a car. Thinking about all my friends whose international long distance relationships ended in messy breakups, my heart softened. I agreed to stay in the country. I took a mediocre job at a tiny, uninspired local design firm, doing the most basic, soul crushing drafting work. “Something came up back then, so I could not go.” My voice was incredibly soft, preserving my own dignity and saving Ashly from public embarrassment. “Well what about now? Are you going to take it?” “This is an incredible opportunity man! Some people would kill for an offer like that and never get it their entire lives!” My classmate was absolutely right. This was my final chance. The Paris Institute had broken their own protocol to send me a delayed invitation. Before walking into this reunion tonight, I was genuinely torn. I did not want to throw away a five year relationship. And I did not want to lose Ashly. But sitting here right now, I had absolutely zero reservations left. “Yeah. I am going.” Seeing me nod, the guys around me broke into massive, genuinely happy smiles. “That is amazing! Let us all raise a glass to Noah!” “Our graduating class officially has a Parisian architect!” Everyone eagerly raised their drinks in the air. Only Ashly remained frozen in her seat. Carter patted her shoulder, urging her. “Come on, what are you spacing out for?” Her face looked slightly pale. As she clinked her glass against the others, the glass slipped right through her trembling fingers. It shattered violently on the hardwood floor, splashing liquor all over my shoes and pants. “Sorry.” Ashly handed me a napkin, her face instantly returning to its usual cold composure. Those two simple, distant words made me want to laugh out loud. I muttered an acknowledgment and walked out alone to the restroom to clean myself up. A few minutes later, she followed me out. She stood quietly behind me as I wiped down my pants. “Are you seriously going to Paris?” Ashly glared at me through the mirror, her tone sounding more like an interrogation than a question. After all, for the past five years, I had loved her so deeply I completely lost my own identity. I had thrown away my career for her once. In her mind, it was only natural that I would do it again. That I would throw away my dreams just to curl up in the pathetic scraps of her undivided attention. I took a deep breath, cementing my decision. “Yes. I am certain.” Ashly did not take me seriously at all. Instead, she let out a scoffing laugh. “Stop throwing a tantrum.” “I was literally just playing along with their jokes to be polite. Are you really going to be this petty?” I did not say a word, my eyes dropping to her bare hands. Petty? Before she even walked into this venue tonight, she purposely took off our matching promise ring. That alone proved she never truly let him go. It proved she came here holding onto a tiny sliver of fantasy. A fantasy that they could rekindle their romance. Just as I was about to speak, Carter’s voice echoed down the hallway. “Ashly, where are you? They are cutting the cake!” She did not hesitate for a single second. She turned on her heel and walked right out. Through the crack in the door, I watched her sit down right next to Carter, intimately wiping a smudge of frosting off the corner of his mouth with her thumb. Without looking away, I pulled out my phone, opened the airline app, and booked a one way ticket to Paris. By the time the party wrapped up, everyone had drank way too much to drive home. The group collectively decided to book rooms at the luxury hotel right next door. When it came time to distribute the room keys, everyone shared a collective, mischievous look and assigned Ashly and Carter to the same room. “This is perfect! You two can stay up all night catching up. Say whatever you need to say, do whatever you need to do!” “We better be getting wedding invitations by the end of the year, and maybe a baby announcement!” Carter bit his lower lip, his face flushed deep red. “You guys are terrible, stop making things up.” He said the words, but his hand intentionally brushed against Ashly’s arm. He was clearly soaking up every second of the teasing. I stood there like a statue until everyone grabbed their room keycards and scattered into the elevators. I never looked at Ashly, and I never let a single trace of anger show on my face. 4 Late that night, just as I was getting ready to sleep, a sharp knock hit my door. Ashly was leaning against the doorframe, looking extremely irritated. “Do not overthink things. He is taking the bed, and I am sleeping on the couch.” “Absolutely nothing is going to happen between us.” I gave her a flat nod and started to push the door shut. “Noah!” Her voice suddenly spiked, lacing with genuine anger and impatience. “When exactly are you going to stop throwing this little fit?” I froze in place, genuinely confused about what ‘fit’ I was supposedly throwing. From the start of the reunion to the very end, I played the role of the distant, polite classmate perfectly. Even when I watched them getting overly intimate, even when I listened to the crowd demanding they get married, I did not flinch. Even right now, with her sharing a hotel room with the man she loved, I had not shown a single ounce of jealousy. “I am not throwing a fit.” Ashly refused to listen, opting to just aggressively warn me instead. “Do not think that lying about moving to Paris is going to scare me into line.” “Carter finally came back after all these years. Can you please not ruin his mood tonight?” “I promise you, when we wake up tomorrow morning, I will clear the air with everyone and tell them I already have a boyfriend.” Perhaps I just knew her too perfectly. The words slipped out of my mouth automatically. “Yeah. You will tell them you have a boyfriend, but you will deliberately leave out my name.” “That way, they can keep assuming your boyfriend is Carter and keep cheering you on right in front of me, right?” Having her exact manipulative thought process dragged out into the open, Ashly’s face went ghost white. But that brief flash of guilt instantly morphed into defensive fury. “Noah, when did you become so toxic and insecure?” “Since you want to act like this, you can drive home alone tomorrow and spend the whole ride reflecting on your attitude!” She bit her lip, spun around, and stormed off, the wind from her movement sweeping past my door. That cold gust of air felt like a physical slap across the face. I laughed. I actually laughed out loud. My jaw clenched so tight it ached, but I did not utter another word. My phone buzzed. The alumni group chat was blowing up. “Holy crap, can anyone else feel the walls shaking from Ashly and Carter’s room?” “I swear I just heard him call her a wild thing!” “It is official! We are definitely getting good news tomorrow morning!” Notification after notification popped onto my screen. My thumb hovered over the glowing glass until the screen finally timed out and went black. I tossed my phone onto the passenger seat, leaned back against the leather headrest, and closed my eyes. The only sound was the quiet hum of my car engine. The second the sun rose, I checked out of the hotel. I drove straight to our apartment and packed my suitcases. Sitting at the terminal, just as my flight was called for boarding, I sent one final message to the group chat. “Sorry everyone. Had to catch an early flight, so I took off first.” Hitting send, I powered my phone down completely. I looked out the massive glass windows, taking one final look at the city skyline. Ashly, our five years ends right here.

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1 When I drew my last breath on that icy street corner, the infected sores on my body were still oozing. People crossed the road to avoid me, whispering that I was cursed, that anyone who came near would suffer. After a contaminated needle pricked me in the ER, not a single colleague stepped in to help. I was left to rot. It all traced back to Dylan. Because of him, the Chief took away my surgical scrubs and handed me a mop, demoting me to biohazard waste duty. “Carter can no longer practice medicine,” Dylan announced to the entire floor the next day. “If he stays, he’ll bring down the hospital with malpractice lawsuits.” Everyone accepted his words as truth—everyone but me. Right after we arrived for a team retreat, news broke that a charter bus had lost its brakes and plunged off a bridge. We had switched vehicles at the last minute because Dylan had screamed a warning that boarding that bus would mean certain death. Soon, more of his “prophecies” came true. A senior doctor was stabbed by a grieving relative. An elderly patient died overnight, exactly as Dylan had foretold. The Chief had ignored Dylan’s warning that night, fighting to save the old man. Dylan simply pointed at the bleeding patient in trauma and stated calmly that he would be dead within twenty-four hours. Back then, the staff just laughed. No one took the new intern seriously when he claimed he could see people’s death countdowns. Then I opened my eyes. I was back in the trauma bay, on the very day Dylan first said he could see the reaper’s clock. The bitter resentment of my miserable death burned hot in my chest. “Hurry! Patient’s vitals are bottoming out!” A chorus of frantic voices snapped me out of my daze. An elderly mechanic, whose leg had been horribly crushed in a piece of heavy machinery, was being wheeled into the resuscitation room. “Prep for immediate surgery!” Chief Harris seamlessly snapped on his gloves, barking orders with practiced precision. The chaotic tension of the ER and the sight of the old man going into shock forced me to blink hard. What was happening? Why was I here? Wasn’t I dead? I looked down at my gloved hands, a violent tremor wracking my body. I had actually been reborn. “Don’t bother saving him, Chief. That old guy is checking out today regardless.” Before I could even process the miracle of my second chance, a cold, indifferent voice echoed through the room. Dylan, our newest intern, stood in the corner with his arms crossed. It was the exact same script, delivered with the exact same arrogant smirk. Chief Harris furrowed his brow, shooting the kid a lethal glare. “Is that how a doctor speaks? Dylan, I do not care what kind of psychic parlor tricks you think you have. This patient still has a pulse, and we do not give up!” Clearly, the rumors of Dylan’s supposed “death countdown” vision had already reached the Chief’s ears. With the Chief setting the tone, the rest of the medical staff chimed in with their own disgust. “Seriously. You just got out of med school and you are peddling this voodoo garbage? We are medical professionals!” “How are you ever going to make it in this field? We rely on evidence-based medicine, not crystal balls!” Dylan proudly lifted his chin, his tone dripping with absolute certainty. “Suit yourselves. Do not say I didn’t warn you when it all turns out to be a waste of time.” “Enough! Prep the OR now!” the Chief snapped, cutting off the intern’s nonsense. At that moment, Christina snapped on her sterile gloves and stepped forward. “Chief, why don’t we let Ben take the lead on this? He specializes in lower extremity amputations. He literally wrote his thesis on it.” The Chief nodded in agreement. I glanced over at Ben, who was already scrubbing in, and a chilling memory flooded my mind. In my previous life, Ben performed this exact surgery. The old man died anyway. The family blamed Ben, jumping him in the parking lot and slashing his hands. His surgical career was permanently destroyed, leaving his family destitute. I was given a second chance for a reason. I couldn’t let history repeat itself. “Chief!” I spoke up, stepping into the light. “Let me take the lead on this. I covered this extensively during my fellowship, and I have successfully led three similar procedures this year. I’ve got this.” Instantly, every eye in the room shifted to me. Christina furrowed her brow, glancing nervously at the fading patient. “Carter, stop messing around! You do not have the seniority for a procedure this delicate!” Christina was my girlfriend. With her leading the charge against me, the rest of the room naturally doubted my abilities too. Chief Harris and Ben both tried to talk me down, reminding me that a man’s life wasn’t a training exercise. But I had stood right beside Ben as his assistant in my past life. I knew exactly which ruptured artery was going to cause the fatal complication. Right now, there was absolutely no one in this hospital more equipped to handle this surgery than me. Dylan looked me up and down, letting out a mocking scoff. “Doesn’t matter who holds the scalpel. He isn’t living past midnight.” I ignored his smug face, pulling rank and addressing him directly. “Is this why you went to medical school? To stand in the corner and watch people die? Dylan, with an attitude like that, you will never be a real doctor.” A flash of genuine anger crossed Dylan’s face, but he quickly masked it. After putting the intern in his place, I stood my ground. Chief Harris studied my face for a long, heavy moment before finally relenting. “Alright, Carter. Do everything you can.” With the Chief’s blessing, the rest of the team had no choice but to fall in line. Once we got into the procedure, however, something felt off. The catastrophic vascular rupture that killed the man in my past life simply never happened. The amputation went incredibly smoothly, and within hours, his vitals had stabilized perfectly. Based on every medical metric available to us, the old man was completely out of the woods. I fell deep into thought, the reality of my past life’s outcome feeling more bizarre by the minute. When we emerged from the grueling surgery, word of our success had already spread. A few nurses openly mocked Dylan in the breakroom. “Oh, look out, here comes the grim reaper! Hey kid, maybe watch a little less sci-fi and read a few more textbooks.” Dylan clenched his fists, his face tight and pale. He didn’t say a word, just packed his bag and clocked out early. The shift ended peacefully, and I finally let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Christina was working the night shift, so I felt comfortable heading home to sleep. The next morning, I walked into the department to find my colleagues staring at me with absolute horror. “Carter, it’s a disaster. That old man with the amputation died last night!” “What?! How is that even possible!” I grabbed my coworker by the shoulders, my mind reeling. “We ran every post-op check! He was perfectly stable when we closed him up. How did he die?” My colleague was completely ashen. He took a shaky breath before answering. “They are saying it was a sudden, massive post-op infection. By the time Dr. Christina got to his room, he was barely breathing. The coroner picked up the body at four in the morning. He is probably already cremated by now.” My grip on his shoulders loosened. All the strength drained from my legs. What was going on? Why did he still die? Dylan stepped out of the shadows, his voice dripping with venomous sarcasm. “You told me I would never be a good doctor, Carter. You were dead wrong. I am going to be a brilliant doctor precisely because I know exactly who can be saved and who is already a lost cause.” His gloating made my blood boil. I pulled out my phone and dialed Christina’s number immediately. “What happened to that old man last night? Why was his body processed so incredibly fast? The Chief and I didn’t even get to review the chart!” Christina’s tone was eerily smooth, almost detached. “Carter, you need to calm down. You guys haven’t seen what Dylan can do. I get why you’re skeptical, but I believe him. He said the guy wouldn’t make it, and look what happened. The infection took him.” I felt a vein throb in my forehead. “You actually buy into this psychic garbage? Christina, you went to an Ivy League med school! Are you seriously throwing your entire medical education out the window for some parlor trick?” Before I could finish, a chaotic uproar erupted from the waiting room. “You owe us an explanation right now! My father was perfectly fine yesterday! How the hell does he just drop dead in the middle of the night!” “Is this hospital even licensed? You butchered my father!” The old man’s family had arrived, and they were out for blood. A cold spike of terror hit my chest. Remembering the flashing steel of the knife from my past life, I instinctively took a few steps back. I looked down at my phone. Christina had already hung up on me. But to my utter shock, the violent brawl never materialized. The family was loud and profane, cursing our incompetence, but nobody pulled a weapon. Nobody swung a fist. They had clearly coordinated their story beforehand. They only wanted one thing, a massive cash settlement from the hospital. The crisis was resolved with suspicious ease, leaving me entirely perplexed. No one in the department blamed me. The surgery’s success was thoroughly documented. The death was completely out of my hands, chalked up to terrible luck and a freak infection. The family had only come to collect a check. With the terrifying ordeal officially swept under the rug, Chief Harris let out a massive sigh of relief. He called a quick meeting. “We have powered through some brutal surgical rotations these past two months. Everyone is exhausted. I am requesting a budget from the board to take our entire department on a weekend camping retreat. What do you say?” The room instantly lit up. Death was a daily reality in the ER. While we respected life and fought for it, we couldn’t let every tragedy drag us into depression. “I looked up two different charter bus companies for the trip. Which one do you guys prefer?” The Chief held up his phone, showing us the options. I leaned in and felt a cold sweat break out on my neck. It was the exact same two buses from my past life. One blue, one green. I instinctively shot a glance at Dylan. He looked completely unbothered. In my previous life, we let the Chief choose. He picked the blue bus. Dylan instantly screamed that the blue bus would crash. Spooked, we switched to the green bus. And sure enough, the blue bus ended up at the bottom of a ravine. My mind raced. This time, I spoke up first, intentionally choosing the green one. “Let’s go with the green one, Chief. It looks like it has a lot more legroom.” Most of the staff favored the blue one for its larger panoramic windows, but since I voiced a preference, nobody really cared enough to argue. “Green it is, then,” the Chief finalized. The second the word left his mouth, Dylan’s head snapped up. His face twisted into a mask of pure, exaggerated horror. “Do not get on the green bus! We will all die!” His sudden scream made half the room jump out of their skin. Given how eerily accurate he had been about the old man just yesterday, seeing him look this genuinely terrified struck a nerve with several nurses. But a dark suspicion was already blooming in my mind. Last time, the Chief picked blue, and Dylan said blue was doomed. This time, I bypassed his trap and picked green, and now suddenly the green one was a death trap. Before I could call him out, Chief Harris shut him down. “Dylan, we talked about this yesterday! We are medical professionals. We do not entertain superstition!” The Chief’s firm reprimand helped ground the room. The others quickly chimed in. “Yeah, Dylan. You are new, so maybe you don’t get it. Post-op infections like that old man’s are rare, but they happen. It’s science, not fate.” “The Chief is booking top-tier corporate transit companies. Nothing is going to happen. Just relax.” Some tried to reassure him, while others were simply annoyed by his constant doom-mongering. “Do you ever stop with this creepy act? We are trying to plan a nice weekend away, and you are acting like a horror movie villain. Drop it.” One particularly blunt resident took a direct shot at Dylan’s competence. “If you have enough free time to curse your coworkers, maybe you should hit the textbooks. You hovered around the OR all day yesterday and couldn’t even hand over a clamp correctly.” Seeing the entire room united against him, Dylan sneered defensively. “Fine! Since you all worship Carter so much, take his stupid green bus! I don’t care if you live or die. I try to save your lives, and you treat me like garbage!” His dramatic outburst cast an awkward silence over the room. When it came down to a matter of life and death, even a completely irrational warning was enough to make people hesitate. Switching to the blue bus was effortless, and it had bigger windows anyway. Sensing the tension, Christina stepped in with her perfect diplomatic smile. “Okay, let’s everyone take a breath. Honestly, why don’t we just book the blue one? If there is even a fraction of a chance the green one is unsafe, why risk it? Let’s just consider it good luck. It’s practically the same price anyway.” She handed them the perfect out. The staff eagerly nodded, agreeing to switch to the blue bus. I stared at Christina, my eyes burning with a cold, analytical scrutiny. Feeling my gaze, Christina’s eyes darted away defensively before she forced a sweet, reassuring smile, acting as if she were just trying to smooth over the argument we had on the phone earlier. With Christina leading the pivot, the rest of the room finalized the blue bus. I crossed my arms and stood my ground. “If none of you are taking it, then I will pay for the green bus myself. I want to see exactly how this thing is supposed to kill me. I do not believe in ghost stories.” “Carter! Stop being so stubborn!” Christina frowned, looking deeply concerned. “I know you are still mad at me about the patient protocols last night, but this is not the time to throw a tantrum.” The other doctors quickly piled on. “Yeah, man. Just ride with us. What if something actually happens?” But my mind was made up. My voice was pure ice. “I appreciate the concern. But I am riding that green bus.” Seeing that I was entirely immune to his manipulation, Dylan’s face darkened into a nasty scowl. “Fine, Carter. If you want to play tough guy, I will start making arrangements to collect your corpse.” My temples throbbed with white-hot rage. I pointed directly at the door. “You do not need to worry about my corpse. Have you rounded on your patients today? Have you updated yesterday’s charts? You have zero medical skills and spend all day wishing death on your superiors. Get back to work!” Dylan gritted his teeth, his face flushed with humiliation, and stormed out of the room. The hatred in his eyes when he glared at me at the end of the shift was unmistakable. I didn’t care. I had zero interest in making peace with a psychopath. The next morning, I walked straight to the parking lot and stood beside the massive green charter bus. A group of my colleagues stood by the blue bus across the lot, watching me with nervous, pitying expressions. I gave them a casual wave. “Ready to hit the road, Mr. Carter?” the driver asked cheerfully, jingling his keys. “Hold on a second,” I stopped him. “When was the last time this rig was thoroughly inspected? The mountain roads are steep today. I want a full mechanical check before we roll.” “Oh, you don’t need to worry about that, sir. We inspect the fleet after every run. I checked her out myself yesterday afternoon.” The driver waved off my concern, clearly annoyed by the delay. But I did not budge. “Check it again. Under the chassis. Right now, or I cancel the booking and demand a refund.” Muttering under his breath about paranoid city folks, the driver grabbed a flashlight and slid under the front axle. “Man, I’m telling you, I know my own truck, this is a waste of… Holy shit!” Hearing his panicked shout, I dropped my bag and ducked under the bus. When I saw what he was holding, my entire body began to shake. The sheer, blinding fury almost tore its way out of my chest. Meanwhile, up at the scenic mountain campground, my colleagues were descending into a panic. “Chief, it’s going straight to voicemail!” “He isn’t answering texts either. Chief, do you think something actually happened to Carter on that road?” Chief Harris paced near the picnic tables, his brow deeply furrowed. He looked over at Christina. “Christina, can you reach him?” Christina paused, a perfect look of distressed girlfriend painting her face. “I can’t get through either. Carter is just too damn stubborn! He never listens to anyone.” Dylan let out a sharp, arrogant laugh. “You guys can stop calling. You’ll probably see the news report on your feeds in an hour. Just keep refreshing Twitter.” That was a bridge too far for one of the senior nurses. “What the hell is wrong with you? Carter is strict, but he is a brilliant surgeon who looks out for us! Why are you sitting there actively praying for him to be dead?!” Dylan instantly shrank back, plastering on a pathetic, victimized expression. Christina immediately stepped between them. “Hey, back off! This isn’t Dylan’s fault. Carter made his own choices. If he had just listened to us instead of letting his ego drive, we wouldn’t be standing here worried sick!” Watching her defend him with such righteous indignation, anyone would think she and Dylan were the couple. I stood quietly behind a cluster of pine trees, taking in the entire sickening performance. A cold laugh escaped my lips. “Alright, that is enough!” the Chief bellowed. “Our priority is finding Carter! Stop bickering!” Thanks to the Chief, a full-blown screaming match was narrowly avoided. Dylan, however, remained incredibly smug. “Maybe your golden boy is already wrapped around a tree! Why are you all still defending a dead man?” “Who’s dead?” I stepped out from behind the tree line, cutting him off mid-sentence. “Carter!” The relief that washed over the crowd was palpable. Dylan’s eyes nearly bulged out of his skull. Pure, unadulterated panic flashed across his face before he forced it into a mask of exaggerated confusion. “Y-your death countdown! It’s gone!” I walked right up to him, a mocking smile on my lips. “Yeah. I guess I beat the grim reaper.” As I spoke, I tossed the object in my hand right at his feet.

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I was scrolling through a trending post online, asking, “Who is the person you regret most?” One reply, in particular, caught my eye, and I couldn’t resist clicking on it. The person said they regretted their best friend the most, but that it was all their friend’s wife’s fault for perfectly matching their aesthetic. They also mentioned that from the moment their friend introduced them to his wife, they fell in love with her at first sight. At a graduation party, he intentionally got both his friend and his wife drunk, then had sex with his friend’s wife. He even smugly stated that his friend, who was typically so discerning in his choices, was a fool. When his wife got pregnant with his child, she lied to his friend, saying she was going on a business trip abroad. In reality, she was secretly carrying the baby in a neighboring state. Even more absurd, he didn’t consider himself a homewrecker because his marriage certificate with the woman was the legitimate one; they just hadn’t had the wedding yet. He concluded by declaring that those who are brave for love shouldn’t be ashamed, and he hoped people wouldn’t give up just because the person they liked was already taken. The reply was accompanied by a photo of a man and woman holding hands, fingers intertwined. And the thin scar on the woman’s wrist immediately told me that the female lead in the story was my own wife, Sophia. 1 I stared fixedly at the intertwined hands in the photo on the screen. The photo didn’t show faces, only two hands clasped together. The man’s hand was sharply jointed, the woman’s slender and fair, her nails neatly trimmed. And on the inner side of the woman’s cool, pale wrist, There was an extremely faint, fine raised scar, like a pale centipede lurking beneath the skin’s texture. Others might not notice this detail, but I couldn’t mistake it. Because that scar was a mark I had personally snatched from the jaws of death. Sophia and I were childhood sweethearts. From elementary to high school, we were always in the same class. Back then, Sophia wasn’t the decisive, professionally dressed executive she is today. She was gloomy, reclusive, timid, like a mushroom growing in a dark corner, Always keeping her head down, bangs obscuring her eyes, never speaking to anyone. The girls in class ostracized and even bullied her, but I was the only one willing to include her. I would retrieve her textbook when it was tossed into the trash. I would share half of my sandwich with her when she was hungry. In eighth grade, her parents were going through a messy divorce. Her volatile mother took all her anger out on Sophia, often resorting to punching and kicking. Sophia developed severe depression. I still remember that stormy afternoon. Worried about her, I climbed over the fence into her yard. Through the window of the first-floor bathroom, I saw a scene that chilled me to the bone. Sophia lay in the bathtub, the water stained a shocking crimson. On her wrist, there was a gash, deep enough to expose bone, made with a utility knife. It was me who smashed the glass, rushed in desperately, Used a towel to tightly bind her wrist, and calmly called 911. By her hospital bedside, She was as pale as paper, her eyes vacant as she looked at me, Asking, “Dan, do you not want me anymore either?” I reached out and pressed her shoulder, swearing with unwavering certainty: “I want you, Sophia. I will never, ever let you go.” From then on, I became the only light in her life. I accompanied her to therapy, gave her medication, and helped her endure countless nights battling suicidal thoughts. That scar was the brand of her depression, and even more, it was the medal of our life-and-death bond. After high school graduation, we naturally started dating. Though our paths diverged in college due to different majors, Attending two different universities in the same city, four years of long distance didn’t dilute our feelings. After graduation, I knelt on one knee with a diamond ring and proposed to her. Her eyes red, she nodded yes. We got married and have been together for four whole years now. She was always so good to me; she’d even personally brew the ginger tea when I had a cold. If I so much as frowned, she’d be anxious for ages. I always thought I was the happiest man in the world. Until tonight, when that familiar scar, In the most absurd and cruel way imaginable, Appeared in a post by a man claiming to have “had a child with his best friend’s wife.” I trembled all over, biting my lower lip until I tasted blood. With shaking hands, I tapped on the poster’s profile picture. The page loaded for a few seconds, then a cold message popped up: “Due to the user’s settings, you cannot view their profile activity.” He had blocked me. Or rather, he had blocked this account. “WindRiver”… Noah White. 2 My best friend, Noah White. We were college roommates, four years of living together, So close we’d wear the same jacket, eat from the same instant noodle cup. I considered him the closest person in this city besides Sophia. In our freshman year, I introduced Sophia to him. How could I have known that was the beginning of letting a wolf into the fold? I forced myself to calm down, exited the app, Switched to a burner account I’d never used, and re-searched to click into his profile. Hundreds of posts, like a meticulously planned, drawn-out torture, rained down on me. [Today, the baby kicked for the first time. She touched her belly, her eyes brimming with tears, and said, “This is the fruit of our love.] Attached image: A woman’s hand resting on a swollen pregnant belly. On that wrist, the faint scar was still visible. “Our first family trip. With her by my side, I fear nothing.” Attached image: A sunny beach, a little boy, perhaps two or three years old, riding on the woman’s shoulders. Only the lower half of the woman’s face was visible, a doting smile on her lips. That jawline, that curve of her smile, I had kissed countless times, familiar enough to be etched into my very bones. Like a masochist, I scrolled down, post by post. Every single photo, every single caption, aligned perfectly with Sophia’s and my memories. Three years ago, during the May Day holiday, Sophia said she was going out of town for a project evaluation. In reality, she was accompanying Noah for a prenatal check-up. Two years ago, on my birthday, Sophia said her flight was delayed and she couldn’t make it back. In reality, their child had a high fever, and she stayed up all night at the hospital. Last month, for our wedding anniversary, she gave me a limited edition watch. Then turned around and bought Noah a Porsche, with the caption: “A reward for my great hero.” What struck me as most absurd and chilling was that line: “Because his wife’s marriage certificate with mine is the real one.” I yanked open my drawer and pulled out my and Sophia’s marriage certificate. A red booklet, the seal clear, our faces in the photo beaming with sweetness. I remembered that graduation party. Everyone was so happy that day. Noah kept pulling me into drinking games. My tolerance for alcohol wasn’t great to begin with, and after a few drinks, I blacked out. When I woke up the next day, I was in a hotel room, my head throbbing. Sophia sat by the bed, her eyes bloodshot, gripping my hand tightly, saying: “Dan, I drank too much last night and didn’t take good care of you. I’m sorry.” At the time, I thought she was just blaming herself for not stopping me from drinking. Now, looking back, her apology wasn’t about my getting drunk at all. It was because, on that night I lost consciousness, She and my best friend were having sex in the room next door! Later, Noah suddenly came to me, red-eyed, and said he’d broken up with his girlfriend and wanted to go abroad to clear his head. I, like an idiot, went to the airport to see him off, Patting his shoulder, comforting him for a long time, telling him to take good care of himself. Turns out he never went abroad! He was just in the next state, waiting for my wife to give him a child, Complacently enjoying Sophia’s care, And openly mocking me, the oblivious husband, on social media! My stomach churned. I rushed into the bathroom and dry-heaved violently into the toilet. Nothing came up, just a mouthful of bitter, sour bile. I looked at myself in the mirror, eyes bloodshot, face ashen. I suddenly felt that the past four years of stability and happiness were like a soap bubble. It had looked radiant and dreamlike, but now, popped, there was nothing left but emptiness. I didn’t cry. Tears seemed too cheap in the face of such extreme anger and shock. 3 I picked up my phone again, opened Noah White’s anonymous account, And searched for clues in his photos, despite not showing faces. In one picture, a window was half-open, And faintly visible outside was the spire of a building. It was the iconic Seastar TV Tower, a landmark in H City, the neighboring state. In the corner of another photo, there was a distinctive chain coffee shop sign. In yet another picture, the stone lions at the entrance of a residential complex were vaguely captured. In less than half an hour, I had pinpointed Noah’s exact location: H City, the Cypress Grove Luxury Villa Area. Less than three kilometers from a large amusement park. Without a moment’s hesitation, I got up, changed into comfortable athletic wear, Grabbed my car keys and all my identification, and headed to the garage. The moment I started the engine, my mind was exceptionally clear. I didn’t want to hysterically question her over the phone, nor did I want to listen to her explanations filled with lies. I wanted to see it with my own eyes. To see the woman I had saved with my life, to see the friend I had treated with all my heart. How they secretly trampled my dignity, building their happy little family of three. My hands gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white from the force. Images from the past decade flashed through my mind like a movie. That year, when Sophia was sixteen, her mother beat her until her head bled, and she hid in our guest room, Clutching my shirt like a wounded kitten, saying, “Dan, I only have you.” That year, when I was twenty-two, I knelt with a diamond ring, My eyes glistening with tears: “Sophia, I’ll love you with my life, forever.” Just last week, she was still gently straightening my tie, saying softly: “Honey, let’s have a baby. A handsome little prince, just like you.” And on the other side, there was Noah in our college dorm, patting his chest and telling me: “Dan, if anyone ever dares to bully you, I, Noah White, will be the first to tear them apart!” It was him at the airport before he left, his eyes red, patting my shoulder: “Dan, you must be happy.” These images intertwined, Finally settling on that photo of intertwined hands on the social media post, And that jarring line: “His wife often comes to see us now, and our family of three is very happy.” Sophia, I never knew you were such a skilled actress. I arrived early at the amusement park entrance in H City and rested for a bit. The next morning, Noah’s anonymous account updated. [Good morning! Off to the amusement park! Dressed the little one in the cutest bear outfit today!] The accompanying photo was a selfie of him in the passenger seat, The background showing the interior of Sophia’s familiar black Maybach. I waited by the entrance, like a hunter lying in wait, for them to arrive. “Mommy! Let’s go on the carousel!” A clear, childish voice called out not far behind me. “Okay, okay, whatever you want to ride, Mommy will go with you.” The woman’s gentle, doting voice, Like a poisoned blade, pierced my eardrums with precise accuracy. Sophia. Even in a bustling crowd, Even just a short, coaxing phrase to a child, I could never mistake that voice. I rigidly turned around, About fifteen meters away, through the jostling crowd, I saw them. It was truly a dazzling yet harmonious scene. Sophia wore a casual white shirt, sleeves rolled up, revealing that scarred wrist. She was looking down at a little boy, about three years old, dressed in a bear outfit, Her face alight with a mother’s tender smile. Noah stood beside her, Wearing a light blue hooded sweatshirt, his short hair neat, Wiping sweat from the little boy’s face with a tissue. He looked at Sophia with eyes full of love and devotion. They stood together, a handsome couple with an adorable child, Anyone who saw them would exclaim: “What a happy family of three.” I stood rooted to the spot, feeling all the sounds around me fade away in that moment. I thought I had prepared myself mentally, I thought I had already exhausted all my heartache on the drive here. But when this bloody truth, these living people stood before me, I realized that the pain of being betrayed by those closest and dearest to me, Was beyond words. It was like someone had reached into my chest, Crushing my heart into pieces while it was still alive, Then stuffing the mangled flesh back into place. I followed closely behind them, Almost masochistically watching their happy family enjoy the entire day. Until numbness set in. In the afternoon, the child clamored for ice cream, Sophia turned to join the queue. Noah held the child’s hand, waiting for her under the shade of a tree. The little boy had a red rubber toy ball in his hand, idly bouncing it on the ground. Suddenly, the little boy’s hand slipped, The toy ball flew out of his control, Rolling across the ground towards me. Noah was looking down at his phone, Not noticing the child’s ball had gotten away. The red toy ball stopped right at my feet. The little boy ran breathlessly up to me. He was truly a very handsome child, His eyes and eyebrows were so much like Sophia’s, but his nose and mouth resembled Noah’s. The little boy looked up, His clear eyes fixed on me, and he said in a sweet, childish voice: “Uncle, can you give me my ball back?” I took a deep breath, slowly knelt down, Picked up the red ball, and handed it to him. “Thank you, Uncle!” The little boy happily took the ball, And flashed a bright smile. “Leo! Don’t run off!” Not far away, Noah finally realized the child was gone, And anxiously looked up, searching around. When his gaze swept across the crowd, And landed on the little boy holding the ball, He let out a sigh of relief. Then, his eyes followed the little boy, And found me, kneeling in front of him. I slowly stood up, Took off my sunglasses, And calmly met his gaze.

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1 I returned from a business trip a day early. The fingerprint lock on my own villa had been replaced. After I rang the doorbell, a strange man in my husband’s pajamas opened it. He looked at me with disgust and called me trash, telling me not to dirty his new carpet. Our housekeeper, Brenda, rushed out and pushed me onto the porch. With a fake smile, she said her son and his fiancée were visiting and asked me to stay at a motel instead. She even offered to deduct the days from her salary as a “favor.” I laughed bitterly. “I pay you to work for me, and you act like the lady of the manor?” Seeing I wouldn’t comply, Brenda’s face hardened. She went back inside and loudly called me a crazy beggar, then slammed the door in my face. I heard her son laughing inside, complaining about security. Furious, I stood outside my own home. For three years, my busy job and my husband Marcus’s classified military service kept me away. I’d hired Brenda to make life easier. Now, I realized I’d been nurturing a viper. Without another word, I took out my phone and dialed Marcus’s secure line. … The sound of howling wind crackled on the other end of the line before I heard his voice. “Josie?” he asked, his tone instantly sharp with concern. “Why are you calling this number? What’s wrong?” I fought to keep my voice steady. “Honey, the housekeeper has taken over the house. She changed the locks and locked me out.” The wind on his end seemed to pause for a heartbeat. Then, Marcus’s voice returned, colder than ice. “We’re just wrapping up a mission here. I can be there in ninety minutes, tops. Call the police. And stay safe.” I swallowed my rage. “Okay. You be safe, too.” After hanging up, I dialed 911. “Hello, I’m at Willow Creek Estates, Villa A. Someone has broken into my home and is illegally occupying my property. Please send officers immediately.” Once I was off the phone, I instinctively walked toward the driveway. What I saw sent a fresh wave of fire through my veins. My Porsche Cayenne, worth over a quarter of a million dollars, was parked there. And tied to the hood was a ridiculously huge, tacky red bow. Brenda wasn’t just using my house—she was giving away my assets as a wedding gift for her son. I was constantly flying for business, and Marcus was a ghost, home only a few days a year. I’d hired Brenda through a reputable agency to look after the empty villa, paying her a very generous salary. In all this time, I had never brought Marcus here, nor did I talk about him much. Brenda had tried to pry a few times, but I couldn’t be bothered to explain, simply saying I lived alone. I never thought my privacy would give her the audacity to stage this cuckoo’s nest takeover. Less than five minutes later, two community security guards pulled up in a patrol cart. “What’s going on? Who’s causing a disturbance at a resident’s home?” The head of security, a man named Frank, hopped out. He froze when he saw me. “Mrs. Scott? What are you doing out here? We got a call about a disturbance.” I pointed at the locked door. “Frank, my fingerprint lock has been changed. The people inside won’t let me in.” Frank’s expression turned grim. He marched to the door and pounded on it. “This is community security! Open the door immediately!” The door creaked open, and Brenda’s face appeared. She didn’t even flinch at the sight of the guards. Instead, she started shrieking, “What’s with all the banging! If you break it, can you afford to replace it?” Frank’s face was stony. “Brenda! Mrs. Scott is the legal owner of this villa. What right does a housekeeper have to change the locks? Step aside, now!” Brenda rolled her eyes so hard I thought they’d get stuck. “Owner? Frank, are you blind?” she spat. “This house is mine now! Who the hell is Josephine Scott? She’s just a bankrupt tramp!” Frank actually laughed. “Brenda, have you lost your mind? The property records in our system clearly list Mrs. Scott as the owner. Stop this nonsense!” “Who’s talking nonsense!” Brenda sneered, pulling a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket and shoving it into Frank’s chest. “Read it and weep! This is a property transfer agreement! Josephine’s company went bust, she’s drowning in debt, and she sold the house to me!” My eyes narrowed. I snatched the so-called agreement from Frank’s hand. One glance was all it took for the icy rage in my heart to boil over. The paper was a crudely printed set of transfer terms, but at the bottom, there it was: my authentic signature and my personal seal. It all clicked into place. Over the past three years, to make things convenient while I was away, I had left Brenda a few blank, signed, and sealed power of attorney forms for any urgent property matters. I never imagined that my trust would become her tool for forgery and theft. I stared at her, my voice dangerously low. “Brenda, do you have any idea what the prison sentence is for forgery and fraud? You’ll be rotting in a cell for the rest of your life.” The mention of prison made her flinch, but she quickly recovered, puffing out her chest. “Don’t you try to scare an honest woman! You’re just a jinx, a broke widow trying to shake us down! I’m telling you, today my son is meeting his fiancée Tiffany’s parents. Don’t you dare bring your bad luck here. Get lost!” Just as she finished, her son, Rick, swaggered out, still wearing Marcus’s pajamas. On his arm was a young woman in a strikingly familiar Chanel dress. And slung over her shoulder was my limited-edition Hermès Birkin bag, the one I kept in the display case by the entrance. She rolled her eyes. “Ricky, baby, why is this crazy woman still here? What kind of security does this fancy neighborhood have, letting beggars in?” Rick patted her hand. “Don’t worry, Tiff. This woman used to employ my mom. Then her husband kicked the bucket and her business went belly-up. The shock must’ve fried her brain. My mom’s got a soft heart, so she throws her some scraps now and then. Looks like she’s having an episode today and won’t leave.” Tiffany’s parents, who were standing behind them, exchanged looks of dawning comprehension. Her father, a portly man, cleared his throat officiously. “Ah, so she’s mentally ill. Rick, your family is just too kind. People like that belong in an asylum.” Her mother chimed in, “Exactly. This villa is lovely, great location and all, but having a lunatic camped out on the doorstep… What would our friends and family think? It’s just not a good look.” Brenda scurried over to them, her face beaming. “You’re absolutely right! I’ll have security get rid of her right now!” She turned to Frank and barked, “Frank! What are you and your boys waiting for? Can’t you see this lunatic is bothering us homeowners? Throw her out!” Frank was so angry his face turned purple. He tightened his grip on his baton. “Brenda, you’ve gone too far. We know exactly who the owner is. You think some fake paper is enough to steal a multi-million dollar estate? The law isn’t a joke!” Rick sneered and stepped forward, jabbing a finger in Frank’s face. “You’re just a mall cop, so who do you think you’re kidding? My mom says this house is hers, so it’s hers! You say one more word, and I’ll have the management company fire your ass tomorrow!” I couldn’t help but let out a cold laugh at Rick’s pathetic, triumphant face. “Fire him? Rick, do you even know how much the annual HOA fees are for this place?” He stiffened, then blustered, “Like I care about a few bucks? I drive a Porsche, you idiot!” He proudly pointed at the Cayenne with the big red bow. My gaze turned colder. “That’s my car.” That set Tiffany off. She let go of Rick’s arm and stormed up to me, her finger in my face. “Have you no shame, you psycho? Now Rick’s car is yours too? Why don’t you just say you own the whole neighborhood! Look at you, in your cheap clothes. You’re not wearing fifty bucks worth of fabric, and you dare to pretend you’re rich? I’m warning you, get out of here!” As she shrieked, she gave me a hard shove. I was already exhausted from days of travel. The violent push sent me stumbling backward, my spine slamming hard against the doorframe. A sharp pain shot through me. Frank rushed to steady me. “Hey! What are you doing? You can’t just assault people!” Tiffany tossed her head back defiantly. “So what if I hit her? A broke, crazy widow shows up at my new home causing trouble. I should have done more than just push her!” Brenda clapped her hands in approval. “That’s right, Tiffany! You’ve got to show trash like this who’s boss! Rick, go get that golf club. If she doesn’t leave, we’ll break her legs!” I pushed myself upright, waving Frank away. My eyes, cold as ice, scanned the pathetic circus of clowns before me. “Good,” I said softly. “Excellent. Breaking and entering, forgery, grand theft auto, larceny… and now you can add assault and battery to the list. None of you are going anywhere today.” Just then, the wail of sirens grew closer, and a police car screeched to a halt. Four officers got out. “Who called the police?” I stepped forward. “I did, Officer.” The moment Brenda saw the police, she transformed into a victim. She slapped her thigh and began to wail, tears streaming down her face. “Officers! Thank God you’re here! You have to help us poor, honest folk!” She pointed a trembling finger at me. “This crazy woman, she used to be my boss. But her husband died, her company went bankrupt, and she’s drowning in debt! She sold me this house, and now she’s going back on her word, trying to claim it’s still hers!” Rick quickly handed the forged agreement to the lead officer. “Officer, look, this is the property transfer agreement she signed herself. It’s all there in black and white!” The officer took the paper, his brow furrowing as he read it. He turned to me. “Ma’am, is the signature and seal on this document yours?” I met his gaze without flinching. “The signature and seal are mine. The content of the agreement is a forgery. She used a blank power of attorney form I left with her and printed this herself.” Brenda jumped up and down. “You’re lying! Who in their right mind would leave a blank, signed form with their housekeeper? You’re just jealous because my son found a beautiful fiancée and you want to ruin our happiness and steal the house back!” Tiffany’s parents added their voices to the chorus. “Officer, we saw it with our own eyes! This woman was acting completely unhinged. She’s clearly not stable. You should arrest her!” The officer’s face was grim. He looked at me. “Ma’am, your word against theirs isn’t enough. Can you provide a deed, or any other documents proving you own this house?” I felt my pockets, then remembered. The copies were in the car, and Rick had the keys. “My documents are in the car. They took my keys.” I gestured to the Cayenne in the driveway. Rick immediately clutched his pocket. “Don’t listen to her lies! This car is mine! The registration is in my name!” I froze. How could the registration be in his name? Looking at Brenda’s smug, fearless expression, I understood everything. In these three years, she hadn’t just learned my schedule; she had been systematically plotting this takeover, laying the groundwork piece by piece. I gave her one last, cold look before pulling out my phone and calling my assistant, Lynn. “Bring the original deed for the Willow Creek villa, and the purchase invoice and all the paperwork for the Cayenne. Get here now.” Hanging up, I turned back to the police. “Officer, my assistant is on her way with the original documents. In the meantime, you can check the registration information with the community management office. It will prove who I am.” Frank immediately spoke up. “That’s right, Officer! I can vouch for her. Mrs. Scott is the sole owner of this villa. It’s all on record in the community’s system!” The officer nodded and sent one of his colleagues to verify the information. Seeing this, a flash of panic crossed Brenda’s eyes. She tugged on Rick’s sleeve. He got the message. His eyes darted around, then fixed on my neck. He suddenly shouted, “Officer! She’s not just a con artist, she’s a thief!” His shout drew everyone’s attention. He pointed at me. “That necklace she’s wearing! I bought that for Tiffany as an engagement gift! I left it on the living room table yesterday, and today it was gone. She must have stolen it!” All eyes snapped to my neck. Hanging there was a simple black cord. At its end rested a single, smooth, brass bullet casing. It wasn’t just a trinket. It was the casing from a bullet that had nearly killed Marcus during a mission on the border years ago. He’d pulled it from his own body armor. He had personally polished it until it was smooth, engraving our initials inside. It was my good luck charm, my talisman. It had no monetary value, but to me, it was more precious than this multi-million dollar estate. When Tiffany heard it was supposedly her engagement gift, her eyes lit up. Forgetting the police were even there, she lunged at me like a feral animal, her hands grabbing for the necklace. “You shameless thief! You dare steal my engagement present? Give it back!” Panic seized me. I clutched the bullet casing to my chest, yelling, “Get off me! Don’t touch it!” Her sharp nails dug into my neck, leaving long, burning scratches. When she couldn’t pry my hands away, she opened her mouth and sank her teeth into the back of my hand. A searing pain shot through me, and my grip loosened involuntarily. Tiffany seized her chance and yanked with all her might. Snap. The cord broke. The bullet casing fell to the ground, bouncing twice on the stone walkway. Tiffany looked down and saw it was just an old piece of brass. Her face twisted in disgust. “What is this piece of junk?” she shrieked. “Ricky, baby, you told me you were getting me a ten-carat diamond! What is this garbage?” Complaining loudly, she lifted her high-heeled shoe and brought it down hard on the small casing, grinding it into the stone. “Don’t you touch that!” I screamed, a primal fury erupting from deep within me. I shoved Tiffany with all my strength, scrambling for the bullet casing on the ground. She stumbled back with a shriek and fell to the ground. Rick saw this and roared, “You hit my fiancée? You’re dead!” He lunged forward and kicked me, hard, in the shoulder. I collapsed, a sharp, cracking pain exploding from my joint. The police surged forward, slamming Rick against the wall. “Stop! Assaulting someone in front of a police officer? Have you lost your mind?” Rick struggled, still shouting, “You saw it! She hit my fiancée first! She’s a thief and she’s violent! Arrest her! She should be locked up!” Brenda threw herself to the ground, wailing and flailing. “Oh, the injustice! Stealing our house, our car, and now beating people up! Officers, you have to arrest this psycho! My son was just defending his fiancée!” Tiffany’s parents rushed to help their daughter up, pointing at me and screaming, “You lunatic! If our daughter is hurt, we’ll sue you for everything you have!” Slowly, I pushed myself up from the ground, my hand clenched tightly around the bullet casing. The brass was tough, but the heel of her shoe had gouged deep scratches across its surface. The initials Marcus had carved were half-obliterated. My entire body was trembling. My eyes were bloodshot with rage. These people. They occupied my home, drove my car, stole my bag, and now, they had tried to destroy the one thing I held most sacred. I lifted my head, my gaze locking onto Rick and Tiffany. “You,” I said, my voice shaking with a cold, terrifying calm, “are going to pay.” Rick just sneered. “Yeah? You and what army? You’re a broke widow, you think you’re so tough? I could kill you right now and no one would care!” Tiffany smirked from the ground. “That’s right! I stepped on your stupid trash, so what? What are you gonna do about it? Sue me?” And then, a deafening roar tore through the sky. Three sleek, black combat helicopters sliced through the air, circling low over the estate. The powerful downdraft from their rotors whipped the trees in the yard into a frenzy. Following them, a convoy of eight black, armored SUVs came screaming down the road, moving with a brutal, unstoppable force.

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It had been twelve months since my husband and I started our family, but my stepdaughter remained stubbornly distant. At my wit’s end, I posted online, asking for advice: How could I improve my relationship with my stepdaughter? Netizens offered various suggestions, and one with the most likes said: “Try bonding with her over complaining about your husband.” Spurred on by the comments, I impulsively decided to give it a shot. That evening, I walked to my stepdaughter’s door and knocked softly. I told her, “Honestly, your dad’s cooking isn’t really that great.” 1 After that sentence, The air hung heavy for a full ten seconds. I was instantly filled with regret. Ever since Mia’s mom passed away, it had just been her and her dad, leaning on each other. And here I was, complaining about her dad right to her face. Had I lost my mind? My palms were sweating. Just as I was about to apologize, The little girl’s questioning eyes suddenly lit up. “You think it’s bad too?” It was the first time she’d shown such an animated expression around me. Usually, she was so reserved. She pulled the door open and gestured me inside. Truth be told, I hadn’t been this nervous even on my wedding day. This was my first time entering her room. The little girl’s room was impeccably neat. A poster of a female celebrity adorned the wall, and her desk was covered with various standees of her idol. Her dad always said her idol worship was a waste of time. But I didn’t see it that way. As long as the idol was a positive influence and gave her strength, it couldn’t be a bad thing. She was a neat freak, so I didn’t dare sit on her bed. I stood by her desk, recalling the comments under my post. The netizens said the quickest way to bond with someone was to gossip together. I cleared my throat, gathering my courage. “Tell me about it.” “Your dad’s cooking is like a culinary crime scene – taste, smell, and presentation, all forfeited.” “If I didn’t know him better, I’d suspect he was trying to poison me.” I intentionally put on a performance of deep suffering, all while watching my stepdaughter’s reaction. She didn’t get angry. Instead, her eyes widened, as if she’d found a kindred spirit, a fellow survivor, and was thrilled. “Oh? I thought you always ate so happily. I really thought I was the only one who found it inedible.” “Pffft.” I sighed dramatically. “I was faking it. Honestly, I never really felt full.” “Me neither!” She pulled open a drawer, revealing a stash of snacks. Pfft! We looked at each other and shared a laugh. But quickly, her smile faded, and the indifferent expression returned. “I need to do my homework.” Being ushered out of the room didn’t upset me at all. Instead, I felt a little happy. That was the most she’d spoken to me all year. It seemed like you really could learn things online. 2 I quickly opened my post to share the good news with the netizens. [Thanks everyone for the advice! I just tried bonding with my stepdaughter over her dad’s awful cooking, and guess what? Not only did she not get mad, but she invited me into her room and we spoke eight whole sentences! I’m so happy! What should I do next to keep building our relationship, fam?] I hadn’t expected so many people to follow my thread. I immediately received a flood of replies. The netizen who first gave me the advice seemed shocked. [OMG, Auntie, I was just being sarcastic! I didn’t expect you to actually go for it?!] “Sarcastic”? Isn’t that an adjective? I didn’t quite get it. [I thought you meant to imply that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.] Below that, a string of “hahahahas.” But there were also some genuinely helpful suggestions. [From your description, it sounds like your stepdaughter is afraid to give her dad feedback. So why don’t you be the “bad guy” and talk to your husband? That way, you won’t have to eat bad food, and you’ll look good in your stepdaughter’s eyes.] After Mia’s mom passed, my husband, Liam, always felt he owed his daughter something. He’d come home from work every day and cook dinner himself. But his culinary skills were, to put it mildly, questionable. The quality was purely a roll of the dice; the seasoning, a stroke of luck. When I offered to cook, he wouldn’t hear of it. And Mia was such a sweet, considerate kid; she didn’t want to hurt her dad’s feelings, so she never said anything. I didn’t feel comfortable bringing it up either. But now, I had to. I’d noticed the stack of snacks in the little girl’s drawer; they were all high-calorie, low-nutrition junk. She was at an age when she needed proper growth, how could she fill up on that every day? Dinner. Liam had prepared three dishes. Candied Braised Pork. Berry-Stewed Ribs. Kiwi Scrambled Eggs. My eyes nearly rolled back into my head. Mia walked out of her room, saw the dishes on the table, and her face went completely blank. Liam, being the oblivious sweetheart he was, didn’t notice a thing. He happily began to share his “innovative” creations. “Mia, you said this morning you wanted tomato scrambled eggs, right? We were out of tomatoes, but I had a flash of inspiration and used kiwi instead! Try it, tell me if it’s good.” Mia’s lips twitched, as if she was struggling. “Dad, maybe…” The words caught in her throat. She glanced at the few gray hairs at her father’s temples, then quietly picked up a piece of the dish and put it in her mouth. “It’s good.” Liam, taking her at her word, eagerly picked up his chopsticks to add more to Mia’s plate. Seeing the look of sheer dread on her face, my heart ached. But if I spoke plainly, I’d crush Liam’s efforts. After some thought, I decided to be more subtle. “Hahahaha, I feel so bad for this poor pig.” Father and daughter looked up at me in confusion. I picked up a piece of braised pork, coated in crushed cranberries. “Isn’t it tragic? Even after it died, it had to endure this humiliation.” Mia’s pupils dilated. Liam’s face cycled through shades of red and white. “Ava, are you saying my cooking is bad?” “No, no!” I quickly waved my hands. “Your cooking isn’t bad, it just… lacks a certain something in flavor and presentation.” “Honestly, cooking doesn’t need so much ‘inspiration.’ We can just stick to the basics.” Liam’s face grew darker. But for some reason, the more I spoke, the more I wanted to say. I picked up a piece of the green scrambled egg. “Take this dish, for example. If you really don’t have tomatoes, you could just make a plain fried egg or steamed egg, instead of using kiwi.” “And these ribs, I racked my brain and still can’t imagine anyone using berries to stew them.” “Other people cook to win over someone’s stomach; you cook to get rid of ours!” I’d told myself to be tactful, but once I opened my mouth, it was like a machine gun, words just spraying out. I immediately realized my mistake and was about to apologize when Liam, face stormy, stalked back into his room. Then I got mad. Why couldn’t he take criticism when his food was genuinely bad? I summarily dumped all the dishes into the trash. Heading into the kitchen, I grabbed a spatula. 3 Half an hour later. “Mia, I just whipped up a couple of new dishes. Would you like to try some?” “No thanks.” Her voice was flat, her head still buried in her books. But the next second, a telltale rumbling sound echoed in the air. I suppressed a smile. “I accidentally made too much. Could you help me finish some?” After a moment of hesitation, she pushed herself out of her chair. “I just don’t want to waste food.” She was still just a kid. Even her stubbornness was adorable. The honey-glazed chicken wings and sliced beef with peppers on the table were still steaming. She picked up a chicken wing. Honestly, I was a little worried. I had no idea if my cooking would suit her taste. Watching her take a bite, my palms were sweating with anticipation. Her eyes widened slightly. “You… you really made this?” I nodded, my heart practically in my throat. “It’s even better than restaurant food.” My suspended heart finally settled back into place. I couldn’t help but smile, feeling warm and sweet inside. “If it’s good, eat plenty. We’re not leaving any for your stubborn old man.” Speaking of Liam, I couldn’t resist another jab. “Can you believe that big tough guy, so sensitive? Two words and he’s hiding in his room.” “And sensitive isn’t even the worst part, his taste is awful. Every time we go shopping, he drags me along to buy clothes. I’m already well past my prime, and he still tries to get me into pink dresses. How am I supposed to wear that out?” “But you’re even worse off. You’re in high school and still have to wear the Hello Kitty T-shirts he buys.” I prattled on, not noticing the change in the little girl’s expression. “Are you saying… all those ugly clothes in my closet, my dad picked them out?” Unaware of the shift in her tone, I nodded honestly. “Yeah, I told him you’re a big girl now, and wearing such childish things would get you laughed at by your classmates. But he wouldn’t have it, said he knew you best and you’d definitely love them.” The words were barely out of my mouth when she suddenly put down her bowl. “I’m full.” With that, she turned and went back to her room, the door closing with a soft thud. She’d barely touched the food on the table. My heart instantly seized with panic. Did she get upset because I kept complaining about her dad? Ugh, it’s all my fault, I was too eager. I should have taken things step by step. Because of this, my mood was also quite low. That night, Liam thought I was still mad at him. He suddenly put down his phone and solemnly apologized. “I’m sorry.” Seeing me stare blankly, he awkwardly shifted his gaze. “I sent pictures of my cooking to my buddy, and he said it was a ‘culinary crime,’ that no normal person could eat it.” “And you two put up with it for so long.” The more he spoke, the lower his head dropped. “Honestly, today I just had a bit of a bruised ego, that’s why I was intentionally sulking.” “But don’t worry, I’ve adjusted now, and I deeply recognize my mistakes.” “You’re right, cooking just needs to be simple, no need for so much innovation.” “Starting tomorrow, I’ll stick to basic cooking, no more fancy stuff.” Seeing his earnest expression, half of the gloom in my heart dissipated. 4 After my first husband passed away, many people tried to set me up. Liam wasn’t the most eligible bachelor, but he was the easiest to get along with. Some men, despite having been divorced three or four times themselves, still had the nerve to look down on me for being a second wife. Others were even more absurd, demanding I bear him sons right away, with such exaggerated confidence you’d think he had a royal throne to inherit. Then I’d ask about his salary, and it would be less than mine. When my friend first introduced me to Liam, I was a bit hesitant, fearing another oddball. But at our first meeting, he was surprisingly normal. We went to a trendy barbecue spot, popular with young people. Liam said little, spending the whole time grilling meat for me. This reminded me of my previous blind date. He’d declared that men shouldn’t be in the kitchen, so from the moment he sat down, his hands never moved. He just waited for me to cook, all while rambling on and on, his saliva splattering onto the grill. When he demanded three sons, living with his mother after marriage, and me handing over my entire paycheck, I finally couldn’t take it anymore and just asked the waiter for the bill. Of course, I only paid for my half. So, seeing Liam act so normally, I was actually a little unaccustomed to it. After a few more dates, I realized he truly was a good man. He was kind to me, honest, humble, generous, and willing to admit his mistakes and improve. After a year of dating, we got married. Life after marriage was uneventful, but happy. The only fly in the ointment was Mia, who still refused to accept me. I knew Liam had tried hard to bridge the gap behind the scenes. And I knew he was torn between us. But since I’d decided to spend my life with him, I couldn’t just hide and do nothing. We had to face problems together. Before going to bed, I checked my phone for the thread. Many comments were asking for updates. It was late, and I didn’t plan to reply. But I couldn’t figure out what had happened. One moment, she was praising my cooking, the next she slammed her bowl down and left? The netizens were smarter than me; I decided to ask them for their analysis. I typed out everything that happened at the dinner table, recounting it in detail in the comments section. Unexpectedly, I received many replies almost immediately. [From Auntie’s description, it seems like the stepdaughter’s face changed when clothes were mentioned. Could it be related to the clothes?] [There’s a stepmom in my neighborhood who dresses her own daughter beautifully but makes her stepdaughter wear her old, shabby clothes. It’s so bad that the poor kid can’t even hold her head up at school.] [Combining that with Auntie saying her stepdaughter was polite at first, then suddenly became very cold, I have a bold guess: could the stepdaughter think Auntie deliberately bought her ugly clothes to humiliate her, and that’s why she holds a grudge against Auntie?] It hit me like a ton of bricks. Every time Liam gave Mia new clothes, he’d say: “Your Aunt Ava and I bought these for you when we were shopping.” Oh no, Mia wouldn’t actually believe I bought those ugly clothes, would she? The more I thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. Looking at Liam, who was sleeping like a log next to me, I couldn’t stand it. I slapped him. Waking with a start, he was utterly bewildered. “Ava, I just dreamt someone hit me.” I pulled the covers over. “There was a mosquito on your face. I shooed it away for you.” The next day after work, I made a huge spread of dishes. I planned to clear up the misunderstanding with Liam and Mia as soon as they got home. The doorbell suddenly rang. It was Mia’s aunt, Diana. I quickly opened the door and welcomed her in. “Diana, you’re here! Dinner’s just ready, would you like to—” “Stop pretending!” Her words cut me off before I could finish. I was a bit taken aback. “Diana, what do you mean by that?” She looked at me coldly, scrutinizing me with disgust. “You’ve got some nerve, you know? A woman who’s been used and discarded, marrying Mia’s dad and living in such a nice house.” “Ever since he married you, Mia’s dad has barely spent any time with us.” “And you’re still not satisfied? You even run to a child to sow discord.” “Are you hoping they cut ties with all their relatives?” “They were right, after all. Stepmoms are never any good!” She was a few years older than me, and Mia’s aunt. Normally, if she said a few harsh words, I’d let it go. But now she was openly slandering me. We’re all just trying to live our lives. Why should I endlessly tolerate her?

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When my senses returned, I found myself lying on the hard-as-a-board bed of my college dorm room. The scene before me was so familiar it was chilling—Stella stood in the middle of the room, her eyes red, clutching a white shirt that had been stained a garish pink. This moment was an exact replica of the morning that had altered the course of my life. In my past life, I impulsively stood up for her, and in doing so, declared war on my entire class. On graduation day, while everyone else was huddled together taking photos, I was the only one dragging my suitcase out of the campus gates alone. Stella stood in the center of the crowd, her eyes shimmering with tears as she looked at me. Her lips moved, but in the end, she said nothing. Later, in a cramped rental apartment, I chose to end my life with charcoal poisoning. My suicide note was a single sentence: The biggest regret of this life was fighting so many battles for Stella. Now, reborn, all I want is to stay out of it. I silently fumbled under my pillow for my earbuds and put them in, cranking the volume to maximum. This time, her problems were her own to solve. 1 When I opened my eyes, the light in the dorm room was identical to how it was in my past life. Stella stood in the center of the room, her eyes red, biting her lower lip, her hands wringing that pink-stained white shirt. Jenna was sitting on her bed, scrolling through her phone. Beth was at the vanity, meticulously drawing her eyebrows. No one was looking at Stella. I had been through this scene once before. In my past life, this was the moment I leaped out of bed and pointed a finger at Jenna, screaming, “Why would you wash a red shirt with Stella’s white one?” Jenna and I screamed at each other for half an hour while Beth fanned the flames from the side. Through it all, Stella never said a word, just stood there with her red-rimmed eyes. Later, the story spread through the entire class. The version that reached my ears was: Zoe got into a huge fight with her whole dorm for Stella’s sake. Poor Stella, having such an explosive roommate. If Stella wasn’t so sweet, they would have probably come to blows. I confronted Stella about it. With tears in her eyes, she said, “I never said any of that. They’re just spreading rumors.” Then she turned around and told Jenna, “I wasn’t actually mad. It’s just that Zoe is so impulsive. I couldn’t stop her.” That was the first time I learned that some people aren’t incapable of fighting. They just don’t have to fight for themselves. “Zoe.” Stella’s voice was a thin, fragile thread, as if she had suffered a terrible injustice. She saw that I was awake. “Look at my shirt…” As she spoke, her gaze drifted toward Jenna’s bunk before quickly snapping back to my face. I knew that look all too well—a mix of hurt, hope, and a certainty that said, You’ll help me, won’t you? In my past life, every time she gave me that look, I would leap out of bed, ready for battle. I glanced at her. I pulled my earbuds from under the pillow and stuck them in my ears. I turned the volume all the way up. Stella froze. She clearly hadn’t expected this reaction. In our previous life, I was already in Jenna’s face by now. She just stood there, clutching the pink shirt, her mouth opening and closing like a fish stranded on the shore. The look in her eyes changed. It shifted from certainty to confusion, and from confusion to unease. Jenna looked up from her phone, her eyes darting from me to Stella. Beth’s eyebrow pencil paused mid-air. The dorm was silent for three seconds. “Stella, what happened to your shirt?” Jenna asked, frowning. Stella’s eyes grew even redder. “I… it’s nothing.” She lowered her head, her voice a mosquito’s buzz. “I probably just put it in the wrong place by accident. It’s fine, it’s just a shirt.” She folded the shirt neatly and put it away in her locker. Her movements were light, slow. Every detail screamed: I’m enduring this. I’ve been wronged, but I won’t say a word. In my past life, it was this exact performance that sent me into a rage. I thought she was too soft, too easy to bully. I believed I had to be her champion. It was only much later that I found out Jenna hadn’t stained the shirt at all. Stella had soaked her own red socks with the white shirt, then deliberately slipped it into Jenna’s laundry pile. Jenna was notoriously careless and never sorted her clothes. Stella had observed her for a whole week, waiting for the perfect opportunity. 2 Before my rebirth, Stella and I were roommates for four years. The first year, I fought with Jenna for her. The second year, I fought with the girls in the room next door for her. The third year, I fought with our academic advisor for her. By the fourth year, none of the girls in our class would speak to me. Stella was the only one who was still willing to be my friend. I was incredibly grateful. I got drunk on graduation day and cried in her arms, sobbing, “Stella, you’re the only friend I made in all four years of college.” She cried too, saying, “Zoe, you’re my best friend, too.” After graduation, we rented an apartment together. When she brought her boyfriend over, I moved out to sleep on the living room sofa. When she said money was tight, I covered her share of the rent for three months. When she complained about work stress, I stayed up until 3 a.m. doing her overtime projects. Then one day, I came home from work early and heard her on the balcony, talking on the phone. “Oh, it’s fine. Zoe’s just impulsive and has a temper, but she’s really good to me. Yeah, she’s just a simpleton. I just have to say a few soft words and she’ll do anything for me. The rent? She’s paid my share for three months. I haven’t paid her back yet. No rush, she’d never ask for it.” Her tone was light, tinged with a little laugh. Like she was talking about a well-trained pet. I stood in the living room for a long time. When she finished her call and saw me, she flinched, then put on that familiar, slightly wounded expression. “Zoe? What are you doing home? I thought you were working late today.” “It got canceled,” I said. She just said, “Oh,” and didn’t ask how long I’d been standing there. She probably figured it didn’t matter even if I had heard. After all, I was just that foolish. Later, I became more and more marginalized at work. The overtime I did for her was all credited to her name. She was promoted to manager. I was laid off. I laid in our rental, not leaving the apartment for a month. Stella moved out. She said the commute to her office was too far. As she was leaving, she stood at the door, her eyes red. “Zoe, take care of yourself.” The door closed. I lay back down on the bed and never got up again. My suicide note was a single sentence: The biggest regret of my life was fighting so many battles for Stella. 3 In the first week of my new life, I didn’t stand up for Stella once. She and Jenna argued over the air conditioner temperature. After a few sharp words, Stella came to me, eyes red, wanting me to mediate. She looked at me with that familiar, wounded expression, like a small animal caught in the rain, waiting for someone to offer it an umbrella. I said, “You two should work it out. I’m fine with whatever temperature you decide on.” She was taken aback, clearly not expecting me to say that. The hurt in her eyes froze for a second, then melted into confusion. In my past life, I would have already been confronting Jenna. That night, for the first time, Stella didn’t sigh dramatically after the lights went out. She was probably still processing it. The next day at noon, I was coming back from the cafeteria and heard Stella on the phone in the stairwell. “Mom, I’m fine… It’s just, my roommate seems to be in a bad mood lately. Maybe I did something wrong. It’s okay, I’ll figure it out. Yeah, don’t worry about me.” Her voice was full of manufactured fragility, the ends of her words trembling slightly. After she hung up, she leaned against the wall, her eyes red. When she saw me coming up the stairs, she hastily wiped her eyes and forced a smile. “Zoe, you’re back from lunch?” “Yeah.” “What did they have at the cafeteria today?” “Sweet and sour pork, scrambled eggs with tomato.” “Oh.” She paused. “I haven’t eaten yet.” Before, I would have said, “I’ll go with you.” This time, I just nodded, walked past her, and went back to the dorm. She stood in the hallway for a long time. On the third day, the RA posted the new cleaning schedule in the group chat. Stella was assigned the Wednesday morning shift, 5:30 to 7:00 a.m., responsible for the entire floor’s common areas. It was the worst shift—you had to wake up before dawn, take out all the trash, and mop the entire floor. In the past, whenever the schedule came out, Stella would always get the worst shifts and she’d never say a word. I was always the one who would @ the RA in the group chat, demanding, “Why does Stella always get stuck with the hardest shift?” Then the RA and I would argue, Jenna and Beth would watch for entertainment, and Stella would stay silent. Afterward, she would message me privately: Zoe, it’s really okay. I don’t mind waking up early. You’re putting me in a difficult position. This time, the schedule came out again. Stella sat on her bed looking at her phone. After a moment, she let out a soft sigh. She put her phone down and looked at me. Her eyes held that familiar look of expectation, waiting for me to solve her problem. Her eyes were slightly red, her lips pressed together. “Zoe, did you see the cleaning schedule?” “I saw it.” “I got the Wednesday morning shift.” She paused. “The trash cans are always overflowing at that time. I don’t think I can carry them by myself.” “Then you should talk to the RA,” I said, turning a page in my book. “Ask him to reassign it, or schedule two people for that shift.” Her expression stiffened. A crack appeared in her hopeful gaze. “But… the RA isn’t very easy to talk to. I’m afraid he’ll think I’m being dramatic.” “Then wake up early. It’s only 5:30.” She didn’t say anything else. The hope in her eyes died completely. That night, after lights out, I heard her tossing and turning in the bunk across from me. At 5:00 a.m. on Wednesday, her alarm went off. Stella fumbled in the dark to get up, dress, and tiptoe out of the room. When I got up at 7:30, she was already back, sitting on the edge of her bed. Her hair was damp from a shower. Her eyes were red. I couldn’t tell if it was from exhaustion or from crying. Jenna glanced at her. “All done?” “Yeah.” Stella managed a smile. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought.” Jenna just grunted and went back to her phone. Stella looked at me. Her expression was different now. It was no longer hurt or expectant. It was something more complex—as if she was asking, Why have you changed? while also trying to confirm something. I didn’t meet her gaze. She lowered her head, clutching her towel in her hands for a long, long time. 4 Over the course of a week, the way Stella looked at me grew stranger. She started to test me. “Zoe, have you been in a bad mood lately?” “Nope.” “Then… do you have a problem with me or something?” “Nope.” “Then why are you…” She bit her lip, that familiar wounded look returning to her eyes. “You weren’t like this before.” I looked up at her. Her eyes were red again, the same practiced, hurt redness I’d seen a thousand times. In my past life, that look would have been enough to make me soften, to make me rush out and solve all her problems. “Like what before?” I asked. She hesitated. “You know… you would help me.” “Help you with what?” “Help me with…” Her voice trailed off, her gaze flickering. “Never mind. It’s nothing.” She turned away, her shoulders slumping slightly, as if she was trying to hide her tears. In my past life, I would have chased after her, apologizing. “I’m sorry, Stella, I’ve just been in a weird mood. Don’t be mad.” Then she would have wiped her tears and said, “It’s okay, Zoe, I know you didn’t mean it.” And everything would have gone back to normal. This time, I didn’t move. She reached the door, her hand on the knob, her steps slowing to a crawl. I kept reading my book. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore and glanced back at me. The hurt in her eyes was gone. In its place was an expression I had never seen on her face before. Calculation. She had realized her victim act no longer worked on me, and she was reassessing the situation. 5 The second week, Stella changed her strategy. She stopped playing the victim in front of me and started “casually” bringing me up in front of our other roommates. Beth was the one who relayed this to me. The best thing about Beth was her gossipy nature; she’d spread anyone’s dirt, completely impartially. “Zoe, did you do something to Stella?” Beth asked, painting her nails. “She’s been sighing all over the dorm for days, acting like we’re all bullying her.” “No.” “Then what’s her deal?” “Ask her.” Beth rolled her eyes. “No way. The second I ask, she’ll get all teary-eyed and make me look like the bad guy. Forget it.” I didn’t say anything. It was just like in my past life. Stella never spoke ill of anyone. She just sighed, got red-rimmed eyes, bit her lip, and said, “It must be something I did.” And everyone would assume someone was picking on her. And the “bully” was usually whoever was closest to her at the time. First, it was Jenna. Then me. Then Megan from the room next door. Then our advisor, Mr. Davis. The people around her were constantly changing. Only she remained the eternal “good person being bullied.” That afternoon, Stella took a call in the dorm. It was the class president, asking why she hadn’t submitted the PowerPoint for their group project. Stella’s voice was a delicate whisper. “I… I sent it to the group chat yesterday. Maybe you didn’t see it. It’s okay, I’ll send it again.” She hung up and sighed. Then, her gaze shifted to me. That look—wounded, hesitant, waiting for me to ask, “What’s wrong?” In my past life, I would have already been by her side, asking. Then I would have heard her denials of “it’s nothing, it’s nothing,” and then I would have gone to confront the class president myself. I sat on my bed reading, not even looking up. She waited a few seconds. Seeing no reaction, she put her phone down and sighed again. This time, a little louder. I still didn’t look up. Her expression darkened. She looked away and didn’t sigh again. 6 The third week, an opportunity presented itself. Stella got into a conflict with Megan from next door over a hairdryer. It was simple: Stella’s hairdryer broke, so she borrowed Megan’s. When she returned it, it was broken. Megan said Stella broke it. Stella said it was already broken when she borrowed it. The two of them stood in the hallway, facing off. Megan was loud, firing off words like a machine gun. “It was working perfectly fine when I lent it to you, and now it’s broken! Are you telling me you didn’t do it?” Stella’s eyes were red, her voice a thin thread. “I really didn’t… It wasn’t blowing any air when I tried to use it. I thought you’d let me use a broken one, so I was too scared to say anything…” Her voice got smaller and smaller as she looked down at the floor. A small crowd had gathered in the hallway. People were whispering, judging Megan with their eyes. Stella tilted her head slightly, her gaze cutting through the crowd and landing on me. I knew that look all too well. It was a look of hurt, a plea for help, a certainty that said, You’ll speak up for me. She was waiting for me. Waiting for me to charge out and defend her, just like I had in my past life. And I did charge out in my past life. I pointed at Megan and said, “How much is a stupid hairdryer? I’ll pay for it. Stop bullying people.” And just like that, Megan and I became enemies. Stella walked away unscathed, without ever saying to Megan, “That’s not what happened.” I met her gaze and smiled faintly. Then I walked over. Stella’s eyes lit up. The certainty in them swelled into a look of triumph: I knew you’d still help me. I walked right past her and stopped in front of Megan. Stella’s expression froze. “Megan, when did you buy that hairdryer?” Megan blinked. “Last month.” “Do you have the receipt?” “Yeah, why?” “If you have the receipt and it’s still under warranty, you can get it fixed for free. Are you sure it was working before you lent it to Stella?” “I’m positive. I used it this morning.” “Then it broke while Stella had it.” I turned to Stella. “Stella, you should take it to get repaired. It’s free if it’s under warranty. If it’s not, and it costs money, you and Megan can split it. After all, it was working when you borrowed it.” The hallway fell silent. The expression on Stella’s face was cemented in place. She had probably imagined a hundred ways I might defend her, but this was not one of them. Her eyes shifted from delight to shock, and from shock to fury. The tears welling up were no longer from hurt, but from rage. She finally realized I wasn’t going to be her shield anymore. She bit her lip and took the hairdryer from Megan. “Fine. I’ll get it fixed.” Her voice was thin and choked with tears. But this time, no one stepped forward to defend her. The crowd dispersed. Stella stood alone in the hallway, clutching the hairdryer. As I walked past her, she spoke. “Zoe.” “Yeah.” “Why did you change?” “Change how?” “You weren’t like this before. You would have helped me.” I stopped and looked at her. “You wouldn’t have let me down before, either,” I said. Her pupils constricted. The anger in her eyes cracked, revealing what was underneath. Fear. I said nothing more and walked back into our room.

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1 My husband, Mark, used to be glued to his computer games, but lately, he’s stopped. Now, it’s his phone that’s always burning hot. As his thumbs flew across the screen again, I asked casually, “How come you’re not gaming anymore?” He didn’t even look up, just scratched the back of his neck and chuckled. “Ugh, the boss has been piling on the work. Just coordinating with him now.” That same old line. Later, after he’d fallen asleep, I stared at his still-warm phone. I remembered the goofy smile plastered on his face while he was typing and picked it up. I entered my birthday. Incorrect Password. Every password he’d ever had was my birthday. When had that changed? My heart sank. I tried our daughter Annie’s birthday. Incorrect Password. Our wedding anniversary. Incorrect Password. When did we start having secrets that I wasn’t a part of? I placed the phone back where I found it and lay down beside him, staring into the darkness for the rest of the night. Around 4 a.m., a harsh cough echoed from Annie’s room. I rushed in and touched her forehead. It was scorching. “Mark! Wake up! Annie’s burning up!” I shook my husband, who was dead to the world. He shoved my hand away, irritated. “What are you yelling about in the middle of the night?” “Annie has a high fever! We need to go to the hospital!” He finally, reluctantly, cracked his eyes open, mumbling, “I’m exhausted from overtime. You go. It’s normal for kids to get fevers.” “What overtime?” A fire ignited in my gut. He ignored me, rolling over. “Seriously, I was reporting to my boss.” I looked at his back, done wasting my breath. I scooped up my daughter and ran out of the house. The late-night emergency room was chaotic and overcrowded. I held my feverish, dazed daughter in my arms, juggling registration, waiting in line, and getting her temperature taken. I was a frantic one-woman show. The doctor prescribed some medication and told me to pay at the cashier. I pulled out the joint savings card we had, the one specifically for all of Annie’s expenses. “I’m sorry, ma’am, you have insufficient funds,” the cashier said, her voice edged with impatience. “That’s impossible!” I blurted out. “There’s fifty thousand dollars in that account!” She pushed the card back toward me. “There’s nothing in it. Do you have another card?” Fine. Paying was the priority. I used my phone to pay, and then, with trembling hands, I tried to log into our mobile banking app to check the card’s balance. Incorrect Password. I was completely adrift, but I had to push it aside for now. By the time I carried Annie back home, dawn was breaking. Mark was still sound asleep, his phone plugged in and blinking on the nightstand. I settled Annie into her bed and walked over to his side. This time, I picked up his phone and aimed it at his sleeping face. Click. It unlocked. 2 On the phone’s home screen was the icon for a mobile game I’d never seen before. It had a sugary-sweet, pastel aesthetic—not something Mark would ever play. I tapped it. The login screen was bypassed, and I was dropped directly into the game world. At the bottom of the screen, a chat window was blinking insistently. A username, “SweetheartBunny,” caught my eye. SweetheartBunny: Babe, are you asleep? I can’t sleep. I miss you so much. Mark’s username was “BunnyProtector.” BunnyProtector: Be good, baby girl. Daddy has to work tomorrow. Go to sleep. SweetheartBunny: Nooo. You didn’t give me my goodnight kiss today. (blushing emoji) BunnyProtector: Mwah, mwah, mwah. My baby is the best. SweetheartBunny: Babe, that new Starlight Carriage mount is so pretty. The top player in our server, DragonLord, bought it for his wife right away. It was a server-wide announcement. BunnyProtector: Don’t you worry, baby girl. Daddy will buy it for you today! SweetheartBunny: Wow! You’re the best, babe! I love you! I bet your wife has no idea you’re this good to me, hehe. BunnyProtector: Don’t mention that hag. Kills the mood. My finger froze on the word “hag.” My heart physically ached. I backed out and opened the game’s purchase history. A dizzying, endless list of numbers filled the screen. Transaction after transaction of $99.99. I did a quick mental calculation. In just three months, he had poured over twenty thousand dollars into this stupid game. That was the money we had worked so hard to save. It was our future. It was our daughter’s college fund, her medical fund! Forcing myself to stay calm, I quit the game and started digging through his messages. It didn’t take long to find the familiar bunny avatar. Her display name was also “SweetheartBunny,” but the contact name was saved as: Jenny Lee, 24, College Student. Her profile pictures showed a girl who looked deceptively innocent, flashing a peace sign at the camera with big, round eyes. The chat history was even more explicit than the game chat. They had shared intimate photos. There were records of video calls, their contents long gone. The last one was from the exact time he claimed to be working overtime. Worse, there were pictures of me he had secretly taken, accompanied by his commentary. “Look at this hag. The stretch marks on her stomach are disgusting.” “Not like my Jenny. So smooth and perfect.” Her reply was a close-up selfie. “You like this then, daddy?” “I love it!” I opened the transaction records. One transfer after another, for cute, romantic amounts. The notes read: “For my baby’s new purse.” “For my baby’s vacation fund.” “Don’t be mad, baby, it’s all my fault.” It added up to another ten thousand dollars. My hand was shaking as I tapped on the mobile banking app for that savings card again. Balance: $48.31. That account once held fifty thousand dollars, money I had earned working side-hustles, planning for our daughter’s future. Annie has a congenital heart defect. He knew better than anyone how much she needed that money. When I gave him the card three years ago, he swore he wouldn’t touch a single penny. Now, he’d given it all away to that woman. At that moment, I couldn’t even cry. I looked at my daughter’s small face, flushed from the fever, and felt my heart turn to stone. I picked up my own phone. I documented everything. Every page of his phone, every chat log, every transaction, every in-game purchase. Photos, screenshots, screen recordings. Then, I backed up all the evidence to my personal cloud drive. By the time I was done, the sun was up. All that was left was vengeance. 3 Mark finally shuffled out of the bedroom around noon the next day, yawning. He froze when he saw me, then quickly plastered a look of concern on his face. “Honey, how’s Annie? I was just so exhausted last night. I’m so sorry.” He moved to hug me. A cloying perfume that wasn’t mine, mingled with the stale scent of a middle-aged man trying too hard, washed over me. My stomach churned, and I instinctively sidestepped him. “She’s fine. The fever broke,” I said, my voice flat. My calmness seemed to catch him off guard, but he quickly recovered. “See? I told you. Kids get fevers. It’s normal. It passes quickly. Come on, Annie, let daddy hold you.” He put on a show of scooping her up, his face a mask of cheap affection. Looking at him made me sick. “I have an emergency at the office. I have to go,” I said, grabbing my purse. “Go, go! I’ve got things covered here,” he said with a wave, playing the part of the perfect family man. Not long after I left, he posted on social media: “Daddyduty day! Poor Annie had a fever last night, my heart just breaks for her.” Before I could even finish reading, a message from my mother-in-law popped up. “Sarah, dear, when you’re not busy, could you perhaps help my son out more with the child?” “If he’s so tied up with chores, it will affect his career.” “As a woman, you should focus more on the home.” I knew Mark had been feeding them his stay-at-home-dad act again. I didn’t reply. I just closed the app. I didn’t go to the office. Instead, I dialed a number I hadn’t called in years. “Hello, Luke? It’s me, Sarah.” A warm voice answered. “Sarah? It’s been a while. What’s up?” “Luke, are you still handling divorce cases?” “I am. If you need something, let’s meet up and talk.” Luke, my old friend from college, was now one of the top divorce attorneys in the city. At a quiet coffee shop, I told him everything, showing him the evidence I’d backed up. With every word, his expression grew darker. “Bastard!” he finally slammed his fist on the table, making the people nearby jump. “This isn’t just cheating! This is malicious transfer of marital assets! Sarah, don’t worry. I’ll see you through this.” “What do I do?” “Stay calm.” Luke shifted back into professional mode. “The evidence you have proves he cheated and squandered your money. But to leave him with nothing, we need more. We need undeniable proof that he deliberately planned to move these assets.” “For now, you need to play along. Keep being the perfect wife and mother. And then…” He showed me how to install a hidden recording app on my phone and helped me order tiny cameras for a few key spots in our house. “Remember,” he said, “the most damning evidence is when they condemn themselves in their own words.” When I got home, Mark was lounging on the sofa, legs crossed, ordering our recovering daughter to get him a glass of water while he played on his phone. He saw me and immediately started complaining. “Where have you been? I’m starving.” I bit back the hatred and forced a smile. “Okay, I’ll start dinner right now.” As I turned away, I heard the familiar sound of his game starting up, followed by him cooing the word “baby.” Mark, oh, Mark. Are you really so brazen you’d flirt with her right in front of me?

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My best friend, Finn, lost everything to his ex-wife and had to move in with me. To cheer him up, I took him traveling, stayed up drinking with him, and even gave him an unlimited supplementary credit card. I just wanted to see him happy again. But my girlfriend, Ava, was unhappy. She complained constantly, thinking Finn was too spoiled. He insisted on being driven everywhere, refused to wear clothes twice, needed someone to shell his seafood, and would only eat the best parts of fruit. She snapped at me, asking if I was born to be his servant, adding that with that attitude, it was no wonder his wife left. I seriously told her I owed my success to Finn and asked her to be more patient for my sake. Later, I traveled to London for a business assessment. I video-chatted with Finn daily, seeing him slowly heal, start a new job, and rebuild his life. I finally felt at ease. Three months later, I returned home. The moment I walked in, I saw Finn lying on my sofa. Ava was skillfully shelling a king crab leg, placing the meat gently into his bowl. The tender look in her eyes was something I’d never seen before. 1 A dead silence fell over the room, broken only by the commentary of a soccer game on TV. Finn was the first to react. He scrambled up from the sofa and walked toward me, his face stiff. “Dean… when did you get back? You should have told us… I… I would have picked you up.” Ava stood quietly behind him, saying nothing. Finn forced a smile. “You must be tired. Let me get you a glass of water.” He turned and fumbled for a glass on the coffee table, knocking over the pitcher and sending water spilling across the floor. Ava frowned, grabbing a paper towel to clean it up. “Stop making a mess. You don’t know how to do any of this.” The words were a scolding, but the intimacy in her tone was unmistakable. The last shred of hope I was clinging to vanished. My hand tightened around the handle of my bag, the leather digging a deep red line into my palm. “When did this start?” Finn flinched, instinctively glancing back at Ava. But her expression was calm. She stepped forward, shielding him behind her. “It has nothing to do with him. It was me.” Her voice was as flat as if she were commenting on the weather. Ava was a force in the business world—decisive, ruthless, never one for sentiment. Outsiders always said she was cold, unapproachable. I was the only one who ever saw her emotional side. I used to think I was her only exception. But now, she stood against me, her placid tone drawing a line that firmly shut me out. Finn grew anxious. “No… Dean, listen to me, we’re not…” I just stared at him. His mouth opened and closed, but no coherent explanation came out. A cold laugh escaped my lips. “Can’t even come up with a decent lie?” Finn’s face went even paler. Ava took his wrist. “It’s okay,” she said, her voice low. “I’ll handle this.” She stepped toward me and took my luggage. “Dean, let’s go talk outside.” I stared at her face. It had only been three months, but she was a stranger to me. My chest felt tight, my voice sinking into a low growl. “Ava, this is my house. And you’re asking me to leave?” She was silent for a moment, then her voice softened with a hint of a plea. “Dean, please. He caught a cold yesterday. Can you just let him rest?” I pressed a hand to my chest. There was no wound, but it felt like I’d been punched, hard. Ava picked up her coat from the back of a chair and spoke gently to Finn. “You get some sleep. Leave the rest to me. I’ll bring you back those crab cakes from the Pier Street bistro when I’m done.” I turned and walked out. If I stayed another second, I wasn’t sure what I would do. In the hotel suite, Ava sat on a distant sofa. She poured herself a glass of water, took a few sips, and then spoke, her voice low. “It was my fault. Name your price.” “I fell for him first. Don’t blame him.” I stared at her, enunciating each word. “Why?” Ava set down her glass and rubbed her temples. “Dean, you’re smart, capable. You never panic. But Finn’s not like you. He can’t make it without me.” I looked at her face, distorted by the light refracting through the glass, and the absurdity of it all hit me. Before, when Finn was just my best friend, Ava couldn’t stand him. She called him a dramatic, spoiled brat who was completely out of touch with reality, a parasite who could only survive by clinging to others. Three months ago, when I had to leave for London, I had to practically beg her before she reluctantly agreed to lend him a hand if he needed it. She’d even shown a rare flash of petulance, punching me playfully on the shoulder. “Dean Grant, you haven’t even married me yet and I’m already stuck cleaning up your messes. You’d better make this up to me when you get back.” I had laughed and pulled her into my arms, promising her that as soon as the London project was over, we would get married. Now, just three short months later, everything had changed. Ava stood up, her expression a complex mixture of emotions. “I’m sorry. For the projects we worked on together, I’ll give you an extra 20% of my profits. And if you ever need my help in the future, just ask.” “I only have one condition. You’re incredibly important to Finn. He doesn’t want to lose you as a friend.” I looked up at her, almost laughing in disbelief. Three months ago, I had used that exact same reasoning to ask her to take care of my best friend. Three months later, I was the one being asked. My voice was dangerously low. “Ava, do you two think I was just born to be treated like this? I will make sure everyone knows what you did. If you had the guts to do it, you’d better have the guts to own it.” A flicker of something dark crossed her eyes. “Dean, don’t be impulsive. You started with nothing. It wasn’t easy getting to where you are. Don’t throw it all away in a moment of anger.” The warning in her voice was clear. I looked at her, a true stranger. People always said Ava was ruthless and unsentimental. I never believed them. Now I knew. The rumors were true. She had simply given all her sentiment to me, and now, she had taken it back to give to someone else. “I should go. He doesn’t sleep well when I’m not there.” “I’ll take him with me tomorrow. I’m sorry you have to go through this tonight.” The door clicked shut. I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. Outside the window, the city lights glittered. I had rushed all the way home from across the world, only to be tossed into a cold, sterile hotel room while the two most important people in my life were in my home, in my bed. The irony was suffocating. The next day, I parked outside the dessert shop where Finn worked. He was in his uniform. His eyes lit up when he saw me, then he quickly looked down. He brought me a coffee and sat across from me, his smile stiff as he spoke hesitantly. “Dean, I know you’re mad at me. I’m so sorry. All these years, thanks to you…” “Look, I have a job now. I’ll pay you back everything I owe you…” I glanced at the watch on his wrist—it was worth tens of thousands of dollars—and let out a cold laugh. “Pay me back? With this job?” Finn froze. He had married right after college and became a stay-at-home husband. His ex-wife had been decent to him, putting up with his temperamental nature. Combined with my unconditional support, Finn’s life had been a breeze. Until six months ago, when his wife cheated on him with her male assistant. Within two months, she had divided their assets and kicked him out. If I hadn’t shown up, he probably would have been starving on the street. He wanted a fresh start, but he’d been out of the workforce for so long, he couldn’t handle a normal job. Luckily, he had developed a passion for baking during his time as a homemaker and managed to get a job as a pastry chef at this shop. I didn’t say anything. I just beckoned with my hand. The manager immediately came over, standing respectfully. “Mr. Grant, you’re here.” The color drained from Finn’s face. His eyes went wide. I took off my sunglasses, my voice even. “After your divorce, you were a wreck. You said you wanted to work, to start over.” “Finn, you’re not stupid. Did it never occur to you? You were getting rejected everywhere, so how did you just happen to land a job at this specific shop? Why would they hire a pastry chef with zero professional experience?” “I treated you like a brother. Is this how you repay me?” Finn’s hands started to shake, his voice cracking. “I didn’t know… I really didn’t know…” He suddenly grabbed my arm. “But she’s good to me. She really cares about me. Dean, you’re so strong. You can live without anyone. I can’t.” “You always said you’d share anything you have with me. I don’t want anything else. I just want her. Please?” I stared at him. Twenty-five years of friendship, since we were three years old. In that single moment, it shattered into a million pieces. “Growing up, I would have given you anything you asked for.” “But taking without asking, Finn? That’s called stealing.” When Ava arrived, she found Finn collapsed at my feet, sobbing uncontrollably. Her face changed instantly. She strode over, pulled him up, and sheltered him behind her. Her eyes, when they met mine, were terrifyingly cold. She spoke through gritted teeth. “Dean Grant, I told you to come after me. Don’t you dare make this hard for him.” “How much money has he spent of yours over the years? Just name a price. I’ll pay you back in full.” I looked at her and laughed. “You certainly have deep pockets. But unfortunately for you both, what you owe me is a debt you can never repay.” Ava’s face darkened, and she opened her mouth to speak, but Finn suddenly yelled, “Enough!” He was trembling, but he looked me straight in the eye. “Dean, you owe me this. Hate me, resent me, I don’t care. I’m not letting her go. From now on, we’re even.” He tore off his work apron, took Ava’s hand, and they walked away without a backward glance. I sat there by the window, watching two boys in school uniforms outside, sharing an ice cream, laughing. I reached up and touched my face. It was wet with tears. Finn and I had known each other since we were three. We were inseparable from elementary school through college. As long as I could remember, my parents were locked in a constant war. The only reason they never divorced was because neither of them wanted the burden of raising me. Every time they smashed the house to pieces, Finn would quietly let himself in, help me clean up the mess, and then drag me to his family’s dinner table. The year we graduated high school, it was Finn who sold his watch to pay for my first year of college tuition. He sucked on a popsicle, acting like it was nothing. “Hey, I suck at school, but you’re a genius. It’d be a waste for you not to go.” “Don’t look so down, Dean. I always knew you were special. When you make it big someday, just remember to buy me ten nice watches.” Throughout my entire youth, Finn was the first person who ever stood up for me. He was the brother I cherished most. When I finally went back to my apartment, there was no trace of them. I stood in the empty space for a long time. When I bought this place, I had set aside a room just for him. Ava had complained about it, but I just smiled and said it was a promise. I was the best man at his wedding. When he tossed me the boutonnière, I told him that as long as I was around, he would always have a home to come back to. Now, I was the one who was homeless. Ava had left some of her things behind. Her certificate from a university competition, photos from our vacations, our matching toothbrushes in the bathroom, the blanket on the sofa, the book on the coffee table she hadn’t finished. I closed my eyes, and all I could see were images of the two of them tangled together on that sofa. I stormed into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, then stared at my reflection. Ava had been my senior in college, my teammate in an entrepreneurship competition. The day she asked me out, she was uncharacteristically shy. “Dean, you’re the smartest, most reliable man I’ve ever met. Let me take care of you from now on.” After graduation, I worked in Big Tech for a couple of years before striking out on my own. Ava helped me immensely. She was my partner in battle, my closest confidant. Because of her, I started to heal from the shadows of my childhood and consider the idea of building a family. I truly intended to spend the rest of my life with her. I looked at myself in the mirror and clenched my fists. They were the reason I had fought so hard, the finish line for all my ambitions. And then they stabbed me in the back. Why? I took out my phone and dialed a number I hadn’t called in a long, long time.

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1 At a college reunion, my boyfriend’s freshman flame draped herself over his shoulder, drunkenly suggesting a real-life partner swap game. The room fell quiet. Everyone exchanged uneasy glances, their eyes darting toward me. But Jax couldn’t stand to see her look disappointed. Before I could even open my mouth, he shot me a look, his eyelids lifting lazily. “It’s just a game, Ivy. Don’t be a buzzkill.” And just like that, his best friend became my new boyfriend. His old flame became his new girlfriend. They went on dates, held hands, and hugged right in front of me. Then, behind my back, they moved into the house we were supposed to share, kissing, their passion igniting. No one took my objections seriously. Seeing the blood drain from my face, Jax just took a drag from his cigarette, unconcerned. “You agreed to this, Ivy. Don’t be a sore loser.” The day the game was supposed to end, he came back to me, telling me it was time for us to get married. But I slipped my hand from his grasp and turned to kiss his best friend on the lips. “Is that right? Because my game has just begun.” The world went white for a second when Jax pushed me into Cole’s arms. “Sorry,” I mumbled instinctively, trying to push myself up, but I felt a light tug on my palm. It was the faintest touch, but it made my heart skip a beat. The man didn’t even look at me. His large hand steadied my arm as he leaned in, his voice a cool whisper against my ear, laced with a distinct thread of mockery. “After leaving me, Ivy, you still end up with guys like this?” The memories I had buried so deep, the ones I’d tried so hard to forget, suddenly burst forth. Dark, humid rainy days. The sticky heat of bodies pressed close, our breath mingling with every turn. Our eyes meeting, then melting into another kiss. Everything converged on the man in front of me. Before me were Cole’s eyes, so dark they were almost cold. Behind me, the crowd was chanting, “Kiss, kiss, kiss!” And then there was Jax, the man who had physically pushed me away. I bit my lip and looked away, scrambling to get out of Cole’s embrace. When I turned back, Jax and Sienna were already holding hands, their fingers intertwined. It had been less than three seconds since Sienna had proposed the twisted game. It took Jax two years into our relationship before he reluctantly let me hold his hand. A thick film of plastic seemed to wrap around my chest, suffocating me. Someone, always eager to stir the pot, sidled up to Cole. “So, what do you think, man? Ivy was the star of our department back in the day. This is a win for you.” Cole lifted a finger to his nose, inhaling its scent for a moment before his gaze flicked to me. My mind flashed back to a summer in our sophomore year, another one of those dark, sticky rainy days. An endless downpour raged outside the window. He had me pinned against the wall with one arm, his other hand bringing a single finger to my lips. “Want a taste, Ivy?” The memory shattered. I hastily looked away. A small smirk played on Cole’s lips. “I’m in.” All eyes turned to me. “Come on, Ivy, you’re the last one.” My hand, resting on my lap, clenched into a fist. Before I could speak, Jax leveled that same dismissive gaze at me. “It’s just a game, Ivy. Don’t be a buzzkill.” There it was again. Growing up, Jax always made the decisions. He never once asked for my opinion. When we started college, he decided it was inconvenient for me to live in the dorms if I was going to run his errands, so he had me move in with his best friend, Cole. The year we graduated, he suddenly said, “Ivy, let’s try dating.” And today, it was, “It’s just a game, Ivy. Don’t be a buzzkill.” But we were supposed to get married in two weeks. My dad died in a car crash when I was five. My mom was bedridden, and I was sent to live with Jax’s family. They were my lifeline, paying for my mother’s medical bills, for my college. So, my entire life, I had never said no to Jax. This time was no different. I looked up, forcing a smile. “I’m in, too.” The room erupted in cheers, as if they’d just won a championship. “Scoot over, Ivy,” Sienna said, pulling Jax toward me. “For the next two weeks, Jax is my boyfriend.” She nudged me with the toe of her designer heel. “Cole’s your new man.” I followed her gaze. Cole was sitting alone on the two-seater sofa, his expression a mask of cold indifference. 2 He was looking at me, too. I broke eye contact, got up to give them my spot, and forced myself to sit down next to Cole. Sienna perched on Jax’s lap and giggled. “I know Cole’s a catch, but don’t forget this is just a game, Ivy. Try not to fall for him for real.” Jax smiled, playfully tapping her nose. “What are you talking about? Ivy lived at Cole’s place for four years and nothing happened. You think a guy like Cole would actually be interested in her?” “You never know,” Cole said. His two words silenced the entire room. My breath hitched. Jax’s gaze darkened as he stared at Cole. Without looking up, Cole flicked his lighter open and shut, his voice flat. “It was a joke. Don’t take it seriously.” The tension remained thick in the air until the class president tried to smooth things over. “It’s just a game, guys! Let’s just have fun.” “Right, and speaking of rules,” he added, “no real kissing or, you know, doing it.” The words had barely left his mouth when Jax cupped Sienna’s chin and crashed his lips onto hers. “If you’re going to play,” he said, pulling back for a second, “play to win. Don’t be a sore loser.” In that instant, all the color drained from my face. A chorus of gasps and whoops filled the room as they fell into another desperate, clinging kiss. I felt like a clown. I quickly looked away, blinking back tears as I reached for a drink. Cole intercepted, swapping the glass of whiskey for a glass of orange juice. “Don’t cry,” he said softly. In that moment, a profound exhaustion washed over me. After the party, we all headed toward the parking garage. Sienna glanced back, a sly grin on her face. “Ivy, you and Cole are standing so far apart.” Jax turned at the sound of her voice. The others followed suit. Cole and I were on opposite sides of the lane, a sea of space between us. “Even if you can’t bring yourself to kiss,” Sienna laughed, “you could at least hold hands for show.” The others chimed in. “Yeah, you’re already in the game, drop the act! Hold hands, hold hands!” My fingers twitched. Cole stood in the shadows, his expression unreadable. He didn’t move. The catcalls grew louder, their teasing gazes feeling like needles on my back. I took a deep breath and slowly shuffled toward him, hesitantly reaching out my hand. Just as my fingertips were about to touch his, his pinky finger curled slightly. Suddenly, Jax strode over and pulled me back. “If you don’t want to play, don’t force it,” he sighed, reaching up to stroke my hair. “When the game’s over, the wedding’s still on.” Cole’s jaw tightened, his eyes glinting with a sharp, chilling light. Everyone else just looked at each other, the teasing mood broken. Jax led me to his car and opened the passenger door. As I bent to get in, Sienna blocked my way. Her tone was sharp. “Did you forget, Ivy? The game isn’t over. Jax is my boyfriend now, and he’s taking me home.” I froze, looking at Jax. He chewed on his cigarette and glanced at Sienna, who just huffed and shoved me aside, climbing into the car. The door slammed shut with a deafening thud. Jax rubbed his nose, his voice softening. “Ivy, just stay at Cole’s for a few days.” “Don’t worry, it’s just for a little while. And if you don’t want to play, that’s fine. I know Cole. He won’t try anything.” Just like every other time, Jax didn’t ask for my opinion. He just decided. With that, he got into the driver’s seat. The Maybach peeled out of the garage, and the others soon left as well, leaving me alone in the echoing concrete space. In the end, I got into Cole’s car. We hadn’t seen each other in three years. I thought he would ask me why I’d vanished without a word during our senior year. I thought I would ask him why he was engaged to Sienna. But neither of us did. The drive was silent. Half an hour later, as we were on the freeway, my phone buzzed. When I saw the screen, my mind exploded. It was a photo from Sienna. The background was the master bedroom of the house Jax and I had bought together. On the bedsheets I had just put on yesterday, there was a single crimson stain amidst a chaotic mess. [Sienna]: A little reunion gift for Jax. My first time. [Sienna]: Don’t worry, Ivy, it’s just a game. I’m telling you this so you don’t get the wrong idea. [Sienna]: Jax was chasing me all through college. If we wanted something to happen, you would have never even been in the picture. The year we graduated, Jax had suddenly asked me out right after Sienna had rejected his confession. That’s why he agreed to this twisted game at the reunion today. Sienna was his unattainable prize. I was his consolation prize. I knew all of this. But seeing that stain… it felt like a million ants crawling up my throat. I felt sick. A large hand reached over and took the phone from my grasp. Cole tossed a pack of tissues onto my lap. “Wipe your tears.” 3 Just like seven years ago, Cole gave me a room of my own, separated from his by a single wall. Seven years ago, we found a stray Ragdoll cat together. We named him Milo. Cole had brought him all the way from his old city to this one. Now, Milo was an old man. But he hadn’t forgotten me. As soon as I held out my hand, he nudged his head against it, purring contentedly. “He’s missed you.” I didn’t know when Cole had appeared. He handed me a glass of water, leaning against the doorframe, his voice quiet. I took the glass and sipped, my lips pressed together. The words, “And what about you?” died on my tongue. I had no right to ask. We had never put a label on it. Back then, when I first moved in with Cole, we kept a careful distance. We barely spoke. That winter break during our sophomore year, Jax had promised to go home with me for the holidays. But on the day we were supposed to leave, he bailed to drive Sienna to the airport instead. I stood in the snow for three hours before Cole found me and took me back to his place. He brushed the snow from my hair and put a warm mug in my hands. Then, he stood behind me, his fingers combing through my hair as the hairdryer hummed. The distance between us shrank. Hormones, the perfect atmosphere… I can’t remember who made the first move. We kissed. We ended up in bed. That was the first time, and it was just the beginning. The study, the floor-to-ceiling windows, in front of the mirror, the shower… we left our mark everywhere. One restless night, I tentatively texted him: “Want to try making this official?” Cole never replied. He responded to every other message, but that one he left hanging. No yes, no no. Our undefined relationship lasted until the second semester of our senior year. Then I moved out, cutting off all contact. And now, here we were. He was Sienna’s fiancé, and I was Jax’s. I didn’t sleep at all that night. After that, Jax didn’t contact me for a long time. Sienna, however, posted on her Instagram story every day, and Jax was always in the frame. He took her to movies, bungee jumping, rock climbing. They kissed at the top of the Ferris wheel. Meanwhile, the only time Cole and I spoke was when we were feeding the cat. I found some time to go to the bridal shop. The wedding dress was the last thing my mother designed for me before she passed away. Whether Jax and I got married or not, I had to get it back. But when I got there, the consultant who had helped me before looked at me with a pained expression. “Miss Shaw, your fiancé was here this morning. He picked up the dress.” “He was with another young woman,” she added, her voice dropping. “He said she was… his girlfriend.” Her words were like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head. I fled, their sympathetic gazes burning into my back. On the way back, Jax called. He asked how I was doing at Cole’s, if I’d eaten, what I wanted for lunch tomorrow. He offered to buy it and bring it to my office. I answered every question robotically. Then I asked, “Jax, where is my wedding dress?” Silence on his end. On the video call, I could see him sitting in a living room, a cigarette dangling from his fingers. His shirt was unbuttoned, and a constellation of red marks dotted his neck. After a long moment, he blew out a smoke ring. “Let’s just get a new one, Ivy.” My heart sank. Just then, a video popped up from Sienna. In the video, she was wearing my wedding dress, pressed against a floor-to-ceiling window by Jax. They were locked in a passionate kiss. Then, Jax’s hands moved, and he began to rip the delicate fabric, piece by piece, letting it fall to the floor in a stained, ruined heap. [Sienna]: Is this the dress you were asking about, Ivy? So sorry, Jax and I got a little carried away last night. 😉 [Sienna]: Don’t be mad. I’ll pay for a new custom one for your wedding. It’s no big deal. [Sienna]: It’s just a game, after all. Don’t be so sensitive. You and Cole can play like this too, you know. Rage, pure and hot, tore through me. I couldn’t stop myself from screaming into the phone. “That was my mother’s design! Jax, how could you take it? HOW COULD YOU!” But Jax just sounded annoyed as he stubbed out his cigarette. “That’s enough, Ivy. It’s just a game. You agreed to this, so stop being a sore loser.” “We’re getting married in a few days. Can you please not ruin the mood?” Then he hung up. When I tried to call back, I found he had blocked me. My anger, my hurt, my helplessness—it was all a joke. I closed my eyes, wiping away tears as I pulled up the number for the wedding planner, ready to cancel everything. But my finger hovered over the screen. Instead, I went to my block list and unblocked a number that had been there for three years. “Cole, this partner swap game… is the offer still on the table?” The silence on the other end stretched on for a long time before he finally spoke. “It is.” “Wait for me at home.” I wiped my eyes and hailed a cab. When I got back, Cole was waiting, a pack of tissues in his hand. He saw me and let out an almost inaudible sigh. “Why are you crying again…” I walked straight up to him, wrapped my arms around his neck, and crushed my lips against his.

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1 The car crash three years ago derailed my entire existence. My mother passed away on the spot from a stress-induced heart attack. I lost my unborn baby. I was stripped of the PhD I was months away from earning. Overnight, I plummeted from a promising academic with a bright future to a convicted felon. It was not until today, the day of my release, that Victor dropped a bomb that shattered my reality. He picked me up from the prison gates and calmly confessed that I was never the one behind the wheel that night. He had drugged my drink, knocked me out cold, and dragged my unconscious body into the driver’s seat to take the fall for Daisy. He claimed Daisy had just gotten accepted into college and he could not let a DUI destroy her bright future. He actually had the nerve to say that since I had sponsored Daisy’s education for years, I surely would not have wanted to see her life ruined either. My mind went entirely blank. All the blood drained from my face until I looked like a drowned corpse. So in his eyes, my mother’s life, my baby, and my entire future were worth less than Daisy’s precious potential. “Pull over.” My voice was a violent tremor, sounding more like a pathetic whimper. I could not share the same oxygen as him for another second. But the luxury sedan kept cruising down the highway. Victor barely glanced at me as he laid out the real reason he came to get me. “Daisy and I had a baby. Today is his first birthday party. I need you to show up and pretend to be his mother.” My hand, which had been clawing blindly at the door handle, froze mid-air. I stared at him, feeling like a grotesque clown. “Why…” The word slipped out, weak and broken. Victor’s face softened into something resembling pity. He let out a heavy sigh. “Audrey, I am a man. You were locked up for three years. I have physical needs.” “So you slept with the girl I treated like a little sister. And then you locked me in a cage.” I forced myself to look at him. Boiling tears threatened to spill over my eyelashes. Victor’s eyes darkened, his tone shifting back to cold steel. “You are a thirty-year-old ex-con. I have been paying for your father’s medical bills the whole time you were inside. You have absolutely no right to question me.” The tears finally broke free. This nightmare was entirely his doing. If he had not drugged me, I never would have believed I committed the crime. He was the one who held me in the interrogation room, crying and swearing on his life. “Do not be scared, Audrey. I will wait for you. You are the only wife I will ever have.” During the thousand nights I spent shivering on a hard cot, surviving the humiliation of prison, he was busy playing house with another woman. “Audrey! Welcome home!” By the time I registered my surroundings, Victor had dragged me up the steps to my own house. Daisy immediately shoved a squirming baby into my arms, flashing a sickeningly sweet smile. “The guests are already here. Let’s go inside.” She was directing me around my own home, acting like the lady of the manor. Moving like a reanimated corpse, I walked into the grand living room. Instantly, a dozen pairs of eyes locked onto me. Shock. Pity. Pure disgust. I had not even taken three steps before the vicious whispers started. “That is her. The drunk driver who killed someone. I cannot believe she has the nerve to show her face.” “She has zero shame. Everyone knows Noah is not her kid. How can she wear those horns so proudly?” “What else is she going to do? You think an ex-con has the guts to cause a scene?” They exchanged knowing smirks and let out low, mocking laughs. It felt like walking on broken glass. Every step left me bleeding invisibly. In that room, I was nothing but a pathetic punchline. Noticing my arms shaking violently, Daisy reached out to take the baby. But the millisecond her fingers grazed the blanket, the infant let out a bloodcurdling scream. Daisy’s eyes instantly welled with tears. She violently snatched the boy out of my grip, looking at me like I was a literal monster. “Audrey, I know you hate the fact that Noah is here, but you cannot pinch him! He is just a baby!” My arms were still frozen in the air. I stared at her, utterly paralyzed by the sheer audacity of her lie. I took a step forward to defend myself. Before I could even speak, a massive force slammed into the side of my face. The room spun violently. I crashed hard onto the marble floor, my cheek burning like it had been held to a hot stove. “You sick psycho! Taking your anger out on an infant!” Victor stood over me, his face purple with rage, glaring at me with absolute revulsion. He pointed to a faint red mark on the baby’s thigh. Looking at it, a hysterical, broken laugh ripped from my throat. “My hands were literally holding his back the entire time. How could I…” “Shut up. I am sick of your lies.” Victor cut me off with the precision of a knife. He scooped the crying baby out of Daisy’s arms and stormed upstairs. Victor’s relatives immediately swarmed me like vultures. “Since you are out, keep your head down. You are an old woman with a criminal record. Stop causing drama.” “Victor was gracious enough to let you back into this house. Get on your knees and be grateful!” “Grateful?” I dragged myself off the floor, using the wall for support. My cheek was throbbing, but I was laughing so hard tears streamed down my face. “You think he is a good man? Do you have any idea that he was the one who put me in…” “Audrey!” Victor thundered from the top of the stairs, silencing me instantly. He marched down, grabbed my arm with bruising force, and plastered on a fake smile to usher the guests out the door. Once the heavy oak door clicked shut, he turned to me. His eyes were devoid of humanity. “I put you in that cell once. I can easily do it again.” “Noah needs a mother on paper. And you are not going to ruin my family.” The tears on my face felt absurd. I looked at my legally wedded husband, a man burning the world down to protect his mistress’s child. I smiled bitterly. “Your family?” “Victor. Who exactly is your wife?” “Do you even remember the baby I was carrying?” During the trial, I was the monster. The drunk driver. I sat at the defense table, head bowed, weeping in shame. Suddenly, a relative of the victim bypassed security and lunged at me with a fist. But Victor did not shield me. He threw his body over Daisy, who was sitting safely behind the railing. I took the hit. I bled out on the courtroom floor. As the paramedics loaded me onto the stretcher, my husband simply covered Daisy’s eyes. “Do not look. It is disgusting. You will get sick.” At that moment, I wanted to die. I wanted to fade away with the child I had just lost. “Audrey, it is all my fault. Blame me. I stole your life.” Daisy fell to her knees, sobbing hysterically, her body shaking as she begged for my forgiveness. Looking down at her, reality seemed to glitch. Suddenly, the bizarre feeling I had when I first walked in the door made perfect sense. Daisy was wearing my vintage diamond necklace. Her hair was styled in the exact French twist I wore to every gala. From head to toe, she had meticulously cloned herself to look exactly like me. She did not just want my husband. She had been planning to steal my identity for years. Years ago, when her mother died, I took her in out of pity. I gave her a room. One day, I caught her digging through my closet, wearing one of my custom dresses. It hung loosely on her frame. The cut was entirely wrong for her body. But she was staring at herself in the mirror, completely mesmerized. I had gently called out to her. “Daisy, we can buy you clothes that actually fit your style.” She gripped the fabric tighter, whispering something to her reflection. I had not heard it then. But I knew what it was now. “Whatever is yours, is the best.” “Audrey, you have every right to hit me. Hit me!” Daisy stared up at me through a veil of tears, looking like a shattered angel seeking redemption. I let out a soft laugh. Then I laughed harder, doubling over until my ribs ached. She watched me, her facade slipping into genuine annoyance, thinking I had actually lost my mind. I abruptly killed the laugh and stared dead into her eyes. “Daisy, do you not feel sick to your stomach?” She flinched, a flash of irritation crossing her face. Before she could open her mouth, I leaned down and finished my thought. “Your mother was driven to suicide by a homewrecker. And here you are, doing the exact same thing to me. If she were watching from hell, she would probably crawl back up just to strangle you.” All the color vanished from her face. She froze, the perfectly constructed victim routine shattering into a million pieces. She was no longer the one in control. Victor’s face hardened. He stepped protectively in front of her. “Audrey, you are crossing a line. I told you, this was all my fault. You should be mad at…” Smack. I swung my arm with everything I had and slapped him dead across the jaw. I finished his sentence for him. “Oh, I know it is your fault.” The veins in Victor’s neck bulged. He grabbed Daisy, who was lunging forward to claw my eyes out, and threw her behind him. He glared at me, panting heavily. “What do you want? Money? Real estate? Sign the divorce papers, and name your price.” My ears started ringing. I suddenly saw him as he was eight years ago. A broke college kid, kneeling on the worn carpet in my parents’ living room, refusing to get up. “Please let me marry her. You took care of her for the first half of her life. Let me protect her for the rest of it. If I break this vow, let lightning strike me dead.” Now, he could not even stand to look at my face. I was just a stain he needed to bleach out of his life. There was no point in holding back. “Fine. I want every single property in your name, and fifty percent of your liquid assets.” Daisy gasped, grabbing Victor’s arm in sheer panic, terrified he might actually agree. Victor paused. He looked almost surprised that I had caved so easily. He stared at me for a long minute, then nodded. “Done.” Daisy’s teeth audibly ground together. She dragged him into the hallway. A muffled, vicious argument erupted. A few minutes later, Daisy stormed back into the room, her face twisted with fury. “You think you deserve that kind of payout? What the hell are you going to do with all those houses? Have you no shame? You are going to throw a baby out onto the street?!” I shoved past her and walked into the master bedroom. I dragged my old suitcase out of the closet and started tossing my jewelry boxes inside. Daisy’s eyes were bloodshot. She stood in the doorway, hurling every insult she could think of. I completely ignored her. Suddenly, her ranting stopped. A twisted, psychotic smile spread across her face. “Hey Audrey. Do you know how your mother really died?” My hands stopped moving. I slowly turned to face her. A wave of sick satisfaction washed over her face. She had finally found the knife to twist. “The day after you went to prison, your mom walked into the bedroom and caught Victor and me in bed. The shock literally stopped her heart.” A deafening roar filled my head. It felt like someone had driven a spike right through my chest. Daisy was still smiling. “She collapsed right there on the rug. She was gasping for air, rolling around in agony. Honestly, if I had just picked up the phone and called an ambulance, she would have made it.” “But she looked at me with this absolute disgust. Like I was trash. So I just…” My vision went completely red. I launched myself across the room, tackling her to the hardwood floor. I pinned her down and rained fists onto her face. Daisy shrieked, a high-pitched, terrified wail. “Get off me! Help! Help me!” Blood burst from her nose. Her perfect skin began bruising purple and black. I wrapped both hands around her throat and squeezed tight. “Die.” “Audrey!” A thunderous voice shattered the chaos. A pair of hands grabbed my shoulders and violently hurled me backward. I crashed into the bedside table. Victor stood over me, his chest heaving, looking at me with pure, unadulterated hatred. “Get the hell out of my house! I actually felt bad for you! I wanted to compensate you, but you are just a violent psychopath! You do not deserve a damn thing!” He grabbed me by the back of my collar and physically dragged me down the stairs, throwing me out the front door. It was pouring rain outside. Within seconds, the freezing downpour soaked me to the bone. Through the massive glass window, I saw Daisy standing inside, wrapped in a cashmere throw, smiling as she watched me shivering like a stray dog. Blind rage took over. I screamed into the rain, reaching for my pockets to call the cops, only to realize I did not even have my phone. Rain mixed with the blood and tears on my face. The world tilted, went black, and I hit the pavement. When I opened my eyes, I was staring at a sterile hospital ceiling. Between severe malnutrition and the intense emotional trauma, my body had shut down. An ambulance had brought me in. Whether out of guilt or paranoia, Victor showed up at my room every single day. Even though I refused to look at him or speak a single word, he kept coming. “I wired half a million dollars to your account. I feel terrible about what happened to your mother, which is why I have been paying for your father’s care.” “Audrey, let’s just sign the papers and walk away.” “Walk away?” Victor froze. He slowly met my dead, hollow stare. I let out a dry scoff. My voice was colder than the IV fluid dripping into my veins. “You think half a million dollars erases three years in a concrete box? You framed me to protect your mistress. You murdered my mother. You killed my baby. That is three lives.” “Before you locked me up, I was making six figures. Do the math, Victor. Figure out exactly how much blood money you owe me.” “Pay up, or I will drag you down to hell with me.” The room fell into a suffocating silence. Victor frowned. After a long minute, a dark, calculating look flashed in his eyes. “Fine.” “You will have another million and a half in three days. Once the wire clears, this is over.” He turned and walked out. The moment the door clicked shut, I reached under my pillow and clicked off the digital voice recorder. Then, I dialed the one number I knew by heart. The man who had been waiting for this call. “Three years ago, I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have left you. The favor you offered… is it still on the table?” The text back was instantaneous. Always. The day I was discharged, the wire transfer cleared. One point five million. A few hours later, my phone buzzed. It was a text from Daisy. She asked if I wanted to come pick up a box of my mother’s remaining belongings. I knew it was bait. But I called a cab and went anyway. The second I stepped into the living room, Daisy dropped to her knees, her eyes swollen from crying. “Audrey, I am so sorry. Everything is my fault. But Noah did not do anything wrong! He is my entire world. Please, just tell me where he is. Give him back, I am begging you!” She slammed her forehead against the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. Every alarm bell in my head went off. This was a setup. I spun around to sprint out the door, only to crash directly into Victor’s chest. He was hyperventilating, his face ashen, looking like a demon crawling out of a nightmare. “Where is my son?! Where the hell did you hide him?! I gave you the money! Why won’t you let this go?!” My chest heaved in panic. I backed away, shaking my head. “I did not take him! Look at the security cameras! Call the police!” Daisy lunged forward and slapped me across the face. Her scream was deafening. “Give him back! If you want someone to die, take me! I will die for him!” She yanked a small kitchen knife from her pocket and pressed the blade against her own throat. Victor’s eyes practically bulged out of his skull. He slapped the knife out of her hand. When he looked back at me, his eyes were dead. I stumbled backward, turning to run for the side door. Victor moved faster. He clamped a hand over my mouth, dragged me into the garage, and threw me into the trunk of his SUV. He bound my wrists with zip ties. I thrashed against the floorboards, screaming through his hand, asking what he was doing. Victor grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking my head back. He spoke slowly, emphasizing every word. “You always hated the sick bastards who hurt women, right? Let’s see how much you hate them when I dump you in a remote, off-the-grid cabin where no one will ever hear you scream. You are going to rot in the mountains.” My eyes blew wide. I bit down on my tongue so hard I tasted copper. A flash of a repressed childhood memory hit me. Being snatched off the street at six years old. The filthy basement. The man with the rotting teeth. The putrid mattress. Starving in the dark. Tears poured down my face. I thrashed violently, begging him to listen. “I swear to God I did not touch your son! Check the cameras! It was not me!” “The cameras are dead! Cut the innocent act!” Victor slammed my head against the carpet, slammed the trunk shut, and peeled out of the garage. I lay curled in the pitch-black trunk, suffocating in pure terror. But as the SUV took a sharp corner onto the mountain road, a massive black tactical truck surged out of a side street. It swerved directly into Victor’s lane, blocking the road entirely. A deafening crash shook the SUV as Victor slammed on the brakes, rear-ending the barricade. Before Victor could even process the airbag deploying, his driver-side door was ripped open. A pair of hands hauled him out of the vehicle and slammed him face-first onto the wet asphalt like a rabid dog.

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