Category: English

After my grad school application failed, my hands started shaking. My stomach burned with a constant, dull ache, and I couldn’t sleep for weeks. My boyfriend, Julian, told me I just needed to stay busy. He pushed me to apply for jobs. I lost twenty pounds before I finally landed an offer. But the night before my first day, Julian gave my job opportunity to his first love, Emily. “If Emily’s parents hadn’t given me the seed money for my startup, I’d still be broke,” Julian reasoned. “I would’ve never been able to help pay for your college tuition.” “We both owe her. Just let her have this one, Georgina.” From that day on, my emotions spiraled completely out of control. Sometimes I would laugh hysterically for no reason; other times I would sob until I couldn’t breathe. Later, I picked up my paintbrushes again. Only when I buried myself in colors did I feel like I was actually alive. Today, Julian walked up to me again, his face cold. “I called you for dinner three times. You ignored me every single time.” The noise in my ears began to screech. My chest tightened. I habitually reached out to grab my brush and paintbox, but my hands met empty air. He looked at me with an annoyed sigh. “Looking for that trash again? I threw it out. I burned your paintings too.” “Emily is the employee of the month now. She just won first place in sales, and she needs space for her trophy. She’ll throw a fit if there’s no room.” “Don’t be so dramatic. Once I’m done with this busy season, I’ll take you on a trip.” With trembling hands, I pulled open the cabinet. There were only faint stains of acrylic paint left. It was completely empty. Three years. Over a thousand paintings. All gone. At that moment, I felt something deep inside my soul die.

“Why do you look so awful?” Everything around me felt like it had been blurred a thousand times. I hesitated for a long time, only snapping out of it when Julian called my name for the third time. I forced a smile that felt more like a cry. “Oh. What’s wrong?” Julian frowned and reached out to touch my forehead. “Well, at least you don’t have a fever.” “The doctor told you to get out more. You just lock yourself in the house all day painting, and your depression isn’t getting any better.” I opened my mouth, but my throat felt like it was stuffed with wet cotton. So you burned my only lifeline in the name of ‘helping me’? “Look at Emily. She never overthinks things. That’s why she’s always happy.” “Cheerful girls always have good luck. You’re just too timid and weak.” A bitter wave washed over my heart. Someone like Julian, who had always sailed smoothly through life, would never understand. Without a loving family or a healthy body, how hard it was for someone like me to just survive. Seeing my eyes turn red, he threw his hands up in defeat. “Fine, fine. My bad. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” “Anyway, some friends and Emily are coming over for dinner tonight. A crowded house will be good for you.” After all these years together, Julian never remembered that I loved quiet. He never cared that I hated when he brought strangers into our home. Or maybe he did remember. He just didn’t care about me enough to bother. I opened my closet and picked out a faded dress. It was the most decent piece of clothing I owned. The doorbell rang, and plates of food were brought to the table. Emily, wearing the latest designer dress, sat right next to Julian at the head of the table. She laughed as she stabbed a wing with her fork. “These spicy Buffalo wings are amazing!” I sat in the farthest corner, quietly chewing on a small piece of dry bread. I was severely allergic to spicy food. Julian knew this from the day we met. Yet, for Emily, he still made a whole table of spicy dishes. After a few drinks, the conversation turned casual. “Emily is such an overachiever. She had straight A’s in college, and now she’s killing it at work.” “She’s already so successful, yet she still works so hard. How are ordinary people like us supposed to compete?” Emily smiled, raising her glass in mock modesty. “You guys are exaggerating. I just got lucky.” My heart was ripped to shreds. That job was supposed to be mine. Emily and Julian had literally stolen my life. “By the way, how is Georgina doing lately?” Emily suddenly looked at me, the mockery in her eyes barely concealed. “I remember back in school, your grades were always at the top of the class too.” Dozens of eyes focused on me like burning magnifying glasses. My mind went completely blank. “I… I…” Julian took over the conversation with a sigh. “Georgina is just resting at home. She’s sick.” He went into the kitchen and brought out a small plate, pushing it toward me. “I made baked potatoes just for you. No spice. Eat up.” Before I could even take a bite, I heard him sigh. “She worked so hard to get into a good college, but now she just lies around all day. I even have to bring her food to her face.” “She used to be so full of life. Now… I feel sorry for her.” Emily let out a dramatic, pitying sigh, her eyes lingering on my faded collar. “I remember Georgina used to love dressing up. Why are you dressed so… simple now?” Julian looked over, his voice laced with annoyance. “Seriously. Don’t I give you enough allowance every month? Why don’t you take care of yourself?” Before my condition got this bad, I had wanted to buy a new dress with the money I saved from my freelance work. But Julian had only given me a cold look. “You don’t even go out. There’s no point in buying pretty clothes. Save the money. We’ll need it later.” And now, he was embarrassed by me. My stomach churned violently. I grabbed my stomach and stood up abruptly. “I don’t feel well. Excuse me.”

The dining room immediately filled with whispers. “Is that the scholarship girl, Georgina? I heard she used to be the star student.” “Life is cruel. Such a bright girl, ending up like this.” Someone looked at Julian, trying to be kind. “Georgina must be really anxious. Julian, you should comfort her more. Make her happy.” “Yeah, the job market is brutal right now. Just let her rest for a while…” Julian frowned, slamming his fork onto his plate. “What? You guys think I’m treating her badly?” “No, that’s not what we meant—” He took a gulp of wine, his face darkening. “Since Georgina lost her job, she’s been home. I’m the one taking care of her, paying her medical bills, and taking her on trips to clear her head.” “I know how to love my wife. I don’t need you guys to tell me what to do.” “Today is Emily’s celebration dinner. Let’s not talk about other things.” Even strangers could see my worth and understand my pain, but Julian couldn’t. I let out a bitter laugh and closed my bedroom door. The laughter and noise from outside slowly swallowed me whole. When I opened my eyes again, Julian was shaking me awake. He snatched the pill bottle from my nightstand, shaking it. When he felt how light it was, his face turned pale with rage. “How many times do I have to tell you? Do not take this many sleeping pills at once!” “Do you really not care about your life at all?!” The angrier he got, the harder he kicked the nightstand. “You want to die that badly? Do you really think my heart won’t break?!” In all our years together, I had rarely seen him lose control like this. It felt like my childhood all over again—being screamed at, being helpless. My vision blurred, my body shook uncontrollably, and I couldn’t squeeze out a single word. Seeing me like this, Julian seemed to realize his mistake. “I’m sorry, Georgina. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.” He went to the kitchen. Half an hour later, he came back with a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup. “This is your favorite. Eat slowly.” He blew on a spoonful of soup to cool it down, then fed it to me. “I was just so worried about you. Your health has been so bad, and taking that many pills… I was scared…” Looking at the guilt on his face, my heart ached with a dull pain. Julian’s love was like a wet wool coat. Wearing it made me freeze, but taking it off made me cold. I swallowed the soup, but I couldn’t taste a thing. “I’m fine. There were just too many people yesterday. I wanted a good night’s sleep.” He pulled me into a tight hug. “Emily was spoiled growing up, she doesn’t think before she speaks. I apologize for her.” “Tomorrow, once I wrap up my work, I’ll take you on a trip. Just the two of us. We’ll relax.” The next day, after we got off the plane, Julian covered my eyes. He said he was taking me to a beautiful place. My memories drifted back to the past. In college, he used to do this too. He was always bringing me good food and little gifts, giving me surprises. But when he took off the blindfold and I saw what was in front of me, my excitement shattered. “Georgina, don’t you love roses?” “We made it just in time for the rose valley bloom. This will make you happy, right?” I let out a hollow laugh. “Julian, we’ve been together for so many years. Have you ever once bought me a rose?” He froze. I was allergic to roses. The one who loved roses was Emily. “I’m sorry. I forgot.” He scrambled to explain, but I didn’t have the energy to listen. That suffocating, familiar wave of panic rushed over me again. My chest felt like it was being squeezed by a giant fist. Julian reached out to hold me, but his phone rang. “Julian? I saw your Instagram post. Are you in town too?” He instantly pulled his hand back, his voice turning professional and polite. “Yes, Mr. Wilson. If you’re free, can I buy you lunch?” “Sure. I have a new project coming up, and I was thinking of giving it to you.” “Let’s meet at the downtown cafe at three this afternoon.” Then, the voice on the other end changed its tone. “By the way, how is that sick wife of yours?” “You used to take so much time off work just to nurse her.” “Take it from me, Julian. Emotional men don’t make it far in business. A burden like that… you should drop her when you need to.” Julian shot me a frustrated look. “Yeah, she is a drag. But what can I do? I love her, so I spoil her.” My brain was buzzing. In everyone’s eyes, because I was sick, I was a burden, a piece of societal trash. But no one saw how hard I tried to exercise every day, how much I read, how hard I tried to keep up. My entire struggle against my fate meant nothing to them. To Julian, it was a joke. All my bottled-up emotions exploded. I spoke up, my voice shaking. “Mr. Wilson, you might be a successful businessman, but that doesn’t give you the right to erase my hard work or show off your superiority over someone who is sick.”

Julian grabbed my shoulder hard. “What the hell is wrong with you? This is my client! Apologize to Mr. Wilson right now!” “Mr. Wilson, I’m so sorry. She has mental issues, please don’t mind her…” I wiped my tears and looked straight at Julian. “Julian, I have a mental illness, but that doesn’t mean I am useless.” “You work hard every day, but I’ve been running my online shop and doing freelance work too.” “I am contributing to our home!” “Why do you have to call me a burden?” The man on the other end of the line lost his patience. “Forget it, Julian. You can’t even manage your own wife. Don’t bother showing up for this project.” “You two can sort out your own mess. Don’t come this afternoon.” Julian tried to speak, but the call went dead. His eyes were terrifyingly red. He suddenly pushed me away with immense force. When I fell to the ground, he panicked and reached out to help me, but I flinched away. My knees were scraped, and blood was oozing out. But the pain in my chest was ten thousand times worse than my knees. Julian’s chest heaved. He finally pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do you have any idea how many all-nighters I pulled for this project? How much overtime I worked? And you ruined it with one sentence.” He pointed at me, his voice piercing my ears. “Who hasn’t struggled? Emily drank three cups of coffee a day during exams. I lived on instant ramen when I started my business.” “Why didn’t we get depressed? You’re just drama!” “Don’t try to scare me with suicide anymore. Next time you want to die, do it somewhere else. Don’t dirty my house!” After that, Julian and I entered a cold war. He came home very late every day. He went straight to the study without even looking at me. On the coffee table in the living room lay a credit card. That was my monthly allowance. Other than that, we lived in two different worlds. No connection. Two weeks later, he stopped coming home altogether. During those days, my headaches grew worse. When people spoke, it sounded like they were shouting through thick glass. I even started forgetting what I had just read. A few times, I wandered to abandoned buildings, half-conscious, wanting to just jump and end it all. The day I stood outside the safety railing, a black-and-white stray cat ran over. It wrapped its tail around my leg. I thought, Maybe it doesn’t want me to die. So, I brought it home. I named him Phoenix. With Phoenix around, the days didn’t seem so unbearable. One day, Emily showed up at our house again. “Julian has been in a horrible mood lately.” “He won’t even reply to my texts. Did your pathetic, depressing self do this to him?” I ignored her insults and kept stroking Phoenix’s fur. She suddenly leaned in closer. “Have you ever wondered why you’ve tried everything for years but could never get pregnant?” “The supplements Julian gives you every month? They’re birth control pills. He’s terrified you’ll pass your crazy genes down to a kid.” My head went numb. I instinctively snapped back, “That’s impossible. Julian loves kids. Stop trying to mess with my head.” “Impossible? If you don’t believe me, go to the hospital and get tested. See if you can ever have kids in this lifetime.” The last bit of my self-delusion shattered. Seeing my pale face, Emily smiled triumphantly. “What was the point of getting good grades in school, Georgina?” “You’re still a nobody. Living like a piece of trash.” Before she could say another word, Phoenix suddenly pounced on her. “Get off me, you filthy beast!” Emily screamed, clutching her bleeding arm. Just as I picked Phoenix up, Julian walked through the door.

He had a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a grocery bag in the other. Emily immediately threw herself into his arms, sobbing. “I was worried Georgina was depressed. I came to check on her, but she let her stray cat attack me!” “What if I get rabies?!” Julian already hated pets. Hearing this, his face darkened instantly. He snatched Phoenix out of my arms. “Georgina, I came back hoping to make things up to you.” “I didn’t realize you were this malicious. I am completely done with you.” “No wonder you failed your grad school application. People like you deserve to fail!” He raised Phoenix high above his head and threw him hard against the floor. A sickening splash of red and a sharp, choked cry exploded in front of my eyes. I watched Phoenix twitch, his little body slowly going completely still. It felt like my last thread of connection to this world had snapped. I stood frozen for a few seconds. Then, a huge rush of warm blood poured from my mouth. Before I lost consciousness, I saw Julian rushing toward me in a panic. “Georgina! Georgina, what’s wrong?!” “Call 911! Now!” When I woke up again, I was in the hospital. The whispered conversations around me made me feel like I was buried in ice. “She actually woke up. How does someone like that still have the nerve to live?” “Exactly. Real mental illness isn’t like this. She’s just faking it for sympathy. It’s disgusting.” With shaking hands, I pulled my phone from my pocket. It took three tries to type my passcode. I opened Instagram. #Abuser Georgina# #Faking Depression As A Fashion Trend# #Bipolar Or Just Evil# Several tags were trending. I clicked on the top post. Emily had posted my photo with a long caption. “This is my high school classmate, Georgina. She has always been paranoid and hostile.” “Lately, her behavior has been extreme. She abused her pet cat and drove her husband out of the house.” “She claims she has bipolar disorder because she failed her exams, but we all know she’s just a toxic person.” The attached photo was Phoenix lying in a pool of blood. The comment section had thousands of replies. “She’s giving actual depressed people a bad name. Can she just die?” “How could she do that to a cute little cat? Monster!” I wanted to defend myself, but my hands shook so badly I couldn’t even type. The screen blurred. Everything around me felt stretched out. What finally snapped me back to reality was a medical chart being slammed onto my bed. “Dr. Lucas, please calm down. Don’t waste your energy on someone like her.” “Calm down? I was the one who diagnosed her!” Dr. Lucas hissed, glaring at me with pure disgust. “I can’t believe I actually helped such a monster. I feel sick.” My phone kept buzzing. Emily had posted photos of my pill bottles, videos of my manic episodes, and all my personal information in the comment section. Soon, I was completely doxxed. People made memes out of my photos, and someone found my old school. My email was flooded with hate, and my DMs were a swamp of slurs. A text from an unknown number came through: “Julian knows about all of this.” “He told me to teach you a lesson. Don’t think just because you’re ‘sick,’ everyone has to bow down to you.” “Since you loved that beast so much, why don’t you go join it?” Looking at the words on the screen, a smile slowly spread across my face. She’s right. At 3:00 AM, I dragged myself to the hospital’s utility closet, a blind spot for the security cameras. I slowly pulled out the bottle of sleeping pills from my pocket. I opened it and poured all of them into my mouth. The pills, which used to taste bitter, now tasted sweet. As I closed my eyes, I thought I heard a faint meow. Phoenix, I’m coming to find you.

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A sudden fire broke out in the underground archives. My boyfriend of three years, Alfred, kicked away the fire extinguisher I was using to prop up a heavy steel bookshelf—all just to protect Vivian, an intern who had only sprained her ankle. “It’s just a stupid metal can. Don’t let it trip Vivian.” He carried Vivian in his arms, rushing out of the raging fire without once looking back. He left me pinned under a shelf weighing hundreds of pounds, suffocating in the thick, black smoke. I dragged myself out of the fire and spent three days and nights fighting for my life in the ICU. Meanwhile, he posted a photo on Instagram of Vivian eating imported organic cherries in a luxury private hospital room. The caption read: “A false alarm. Thank God I protected my girl.” He even stole the core architectural blueprints I had stayed up for three months to draw, using them to kiss up to the global architectural giant, “Asterion Group.” My coworkers mocked me, calling me a pathetic charity case with no family backing who deserved to be abandoned. Looking at the painkillers scattered all over the floor, I smiled coldly. They had no idea. The Asterion Group—the ultimate powerhouse they were all desperately trying to claw their way into—was actually owned by me.

The air in the underground archives was as thick and hot as boiling asphalt. An electrical fire had sparked an explosion. Within minutes, the narrow aisles between the bookshelves became a sea of flames. Choking black smoke clawed at my throat, making it impossible to breathe. I was pinned to the concrete floor by a row of collapsed heavy steel bookshelves. Hundreds of pounds of metal crushed my chest. Every single breath sent a sharp, agonizing pain through my broken ribs. The intense heat blistered my skin, and I could smell the sickening scent of my own hair burning. Less than ten feet away, through the shimmering waves of heat, I saw Alfred. For him, I had worked three jobs at once just to pay for his master’s degree. I had stayed up countless nights drawing blueprints to pave his career path, single-handedly turning him into a rising star in the architecture world. But right now, he didn’t even look at me. His entire attention was focused on the woman clinging tightly to his neck. Vivian, the new intern at our firm. She was the type who always wore innocent white dresses and spoke in a sweet, helpless voice. “Alfred… I’m so scared. The fire is too big. My ankle hurts so bad…” Vivian buried her face in Alfred’s chest, crying like a helpless victim. I could see her ankle. The one she claimed was “sprained” didn’t even have a scratch on it. But her tears completely wiped out any logic Alfred had left. “Don’t worry, Vivian. I’m here. I’ll get you out of here right now.” Alfred’s voice carried a tone of panic and tenderness I had never heard before. He swept Vivian up in his arms, cradling her like she was some priceless treasure. “Alfred…” I squeezed a broken, raspy plea out of my throat with the last of my strength. I reached out with a hand covered in black ash and blood, blindly searching the hot floor. I needed leverage. If I could just prop the shelf up by a few inches, I could crawl out. My fingers brushed against a cold, cylindrical object—a dry chemical fire extinguisher that had fallen off the wall. This was my only lifeline. I grit my teeth, ignoring the blinding pain, and slowly dragged the heavy red canister toward the edge of the shelf. “Alfred… help me…” I coughed up a mouthful of bloody phlegm, looking desperately at his back. Alfred heard me. He turned his head. For a split second, I thought he finally saw me. I thought he would put Vivian down and rush over to lift this damn shelf off my chest. But he only frowned. His eyes were filled with pure, unadulterated annoyance. Vivian followed his gaze, saw me, and suddenly let out an exaggerated, dramatic shriek. “Oh my God! Alfred! That red thing is blocking the way! I’m scared it’ll trip us!” Alfred looked down at the fire extinguisher I was desperately clutching—the tool that was supposed to save my life. He didn’t see a dying partner who had sacrificed everything for him. He only saw an obstacle that might trip the delicate little bird in his arms. Without a single second of hesitation, he raised his foot. He was wearing the custom leather shoes I had spent three months of my salary to buy him. Thud! Alfred kicked the fire extinguisher with full force. The red canister slipped from my fingers, rolling heavily across the concrete floor before disappearing into the deep flames. “It’s just a stupid metal can. Don’t let it trip Vivian. Useless trash.” Alfred threw those cold words over his shoulder, tightened his grip on Vivian, and stormed toward the emergency exit. He didn’t look back. Not even once. The fire extinguisher was gone. My leverage was gone. My only lifeline was cut off by the man I had loved for three years. The flames greedily licked the paper files around me, making a terrifying crackling sound. My vision began to blur. The oxygen in my lungs was completely gone. Right before I lost consciousness, I didn’t cry. I just stared blankly at the direction where Alfred had disappeared, carving his cold, heartless face deep into my soul. Alfred, if I, Valerie Padilla, survive today… I will make sure you taste what real hell feels like.

When I finally opened my eyes, the first thing that hit my ears was the sharp, rhythmic beeping of an EKG monitor. I squinted against the blinding, cold white light of the room. My throat felt like it was lined with razor blades. Every breath was excruciating. I was hooked up to multiple IV drips, and my chest was wrapped in thick, heavy bandages. I was alive. The hospital room was completely empty, smelling strongly of bleach and antiseptic. Alfred wasn’t there. A nurse pushed the door open. Seeing me awake, she let out a huge sigh of relief. “Oh, Miss Padilla! You’re finally awake! You suffered severe carbon monoxide poisoning and multiple fractured ribs.” “You were in the ICU for three whole days. We even had to use the defibrillator on you. It’s a miracle you’re alive.” Three days and nights. I pulled the oxygen mask off my face, my voice sounding like sandpaper. “Who… brought me here?” The nurse looked at me with deep pity. “The firefighters. They found you pulled under the debris after they put out the fire.” “You weren’t breathing when they got to you.” It wasn’t Alfred. He hadn’t even called 911 to tell them someone was still inside. He hadn’t sent anyone to look for me. He had truly left me in that fire to die. “My phone…” The nurse took my cracked phone out of a plastic bag on the nightstand. I plugged it in and turned it on. Countless notifications flooded the screen, but not a single missed call or text was from Alfred. I opened our work group chat on WhatsApp. Rachel, a senior designer at the firm, had sent a voice note. Her tone was dripping with venom. “Honestly, we are so unlucky. Valerie is always so careless. How do you manage to start a fire just by looking for files in the basement?” “She almost got Alfred and Vivian killed!” Another coworker, Chris, immediately chimed in. “I know, right? I heard Vivian was traumatized. Her ankle is still swollen.” “Thank God Alfred risked his life to carry her out.” “As for Valerie, she made her bed, now she has to lie in it. She’s probably hiding in some corner too embarrassed to show her face.” I stared at the screen, my dry, cracked lips curling into a mocking laugh. I started the fire? I’m hiding because I’m embarrassed? I closed WhatsApp and opened Alfred’s Instagram. His latest post was from yesterday afternoon. The photo showed a luxurious VIP room in a private hospital. On the nightstand were expensive imported organic cherries and a massive bouquet of pink roses. Vivian’s hand, featuring a fresh, expensive manicure, was in the frame, holding a cherry. The caption read: “A false alarm. Thank God I was able to protect my girl when it mattered most.” “As for those who only cause trouble, I hope they learn to reflect on themselves.” My girl. Those who only cause trouble. A sharp, stabbing pain hit my chest—far worse than my broken ribs. But it lasted for only a second before it was entirely consumed by a cold, burning hatred. Three years. For three years, I worked three jobs, ate expired bread, and spent every penny to enroll him in the most expensive architecture seminars. I ruined my eyesight rewriting his blueprints so he could be the star of the firm. And in the end, my life wasn’t worth Vivian’s fake ankle pain. Suddenly, the door to my room was pushed open. Rachel and Chris walked in, carrying a cheap, sad-looking plastic fruit basket. Seeing me awake, surprise flashed across their faces, quickly replaced by their usual arrogant disdain. “Oh, look who’s awake. Valerie, you really are like a cockroach, aren’t you? Still alive.” Rachel slammed the fruit basket onto the nightstand and crossed her arms. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused?” “Do you know how many priceless paper archives the firm lost because of you?” I stared at her coldly, saying nothing. Chris rolled his eyes. “Don’t look at us like that.” “Alfred hasn’t slept in days because he’s been taking care of Vivian.” “Vivian has nightmares and cries every night because of you! And here you are, hiding in the hospital playing the victim.” “Playing the victim?” My voice was incredibly raspy. I slowly raised my arm, which was covered in IV lines and nasty red burn marks. “You call this… playing the victim?” Rachel sneered. “Cut the drama, Valerie. The doctor said you just inhaled a little smoke.” “Alfred said that once you’re discharged, you need to write a formal apology letter.” “You also have to publicly apologize to Vivian at the next all-hands meeting. Otherwise, consider your career in this industry over.” Apologize to Vivian? I stared at Rachel’s smug face. Suddenly, I snatched the cheap fruit basket from the nightstand and hurled it at the door with all my strength. Crash! The plastic basket shattered, and bruised apples and oranges rolled all over the floor. “Get out.” I stared at them, my eyes completely dead and cold. Rachel shrieked and jumped back, pointing a shaking finger at me. “Valerie! Have you lost your mind?!” “You’re just an orphan living off Alfred’s charity! How dare you tell us to get out?” “Alfred can get you kicked out of Los Angeles with a single phone call!” “I won’t say it again,” I said, my voice completely devoid of warmth. “Get. Out.” Maybe the sheer hatred in my eyes scared them. Rachel and Chris swallowed hard, shut their mouths, and slammed the door as they left. The room fell silent again. I leaned back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. The naive, pathetic Valerie who begged for love had died in that thirty-nine-degree basement fire. The Valerie who survived was going to burn their lives to the ground.

It wasn’t until I was moved to a general ward the next day that Alfred finally showed up. He was wearing a perfectly tailored designer suit, his hair styled flawlessly. He still smelled faintly of the sweet, cloying perfume Vivian always wore. He stood by my bed, looking down at me. His brow was furrowed. There wasn’t an ounce of guilt in his eyes—only annoyance. “Stop acting so weak now that you’re awake,” he said. His first words were like poison. “The doctor said you’re out of danger. You made such a scene, Valerie. It’s embarrassing.” I looked at the face I used to adore, and a wave of intense nausea hit me. “A scene?” I asked quietly. “I was pinned under a steel shelf in a burning building. I spent three days in the ICU. And you call that a scene?” Alfred tugged at his tie impatiently. “Can you stop being so dramatic?” “The fire was huge, and Vivian sprained her ankle. Of course I had to save the weaker person first.” “Aren’t you always boasting about how tough you are? Why couldn’t you just climb out yourself?” “You had to stay inside and play dead. Are you trying to guilt-trip me into proposing to you?” He actually thought I stayed in the fire to force a proposal out of him. “Alfred,” I said, looking him dead in the eye. My voice was as quiet as a whisper. “When you kicked that fire extinguisher away, were you thinking the same thing?” Alfred’s face instantly froze. His pupils dilated, and he quickly raised his voice to cover his guilt. “What fire extinguisher? I didn’t see anything!” “The smoke was so thick! How could I see what was on the ground?” “Valerie, don’t you dare try to pin this on me!” “Really?” I picked up my phone and opened a video file. “The security cameras in the archives sync directly to the cloud in real-time.” “The camera eventually burned, but the high-definition footage from the first five minutes of the fire was saved perfectly.” Alfred’s face went dead white. He took a sharp step back. “You… you watched the footage?” His voice started to tremble. “I didn’t just watch it. I backed it up,” I said coldly. “I saw everything. I saw you look at me while I was pinned under the shelf. I saw you kick away the fire extinguisher I was trying to reach. And I saw you carry Vivian away without a single backward glance.” “The audio is very clear too, Alfred. Especially when you called me ‘useless trash’.” Alfred completely panicked. He rushed to the bedside, trying to grab my hand. “Valerie… it wasn’t like that… I was terrified.” “I didn’t realize you were trapped! I thought the canister was empty…” “Don’t touch me. You disgust me.” I slapped his hand away. I sat up, staring at the pathetic, hypocritical man before me. “Alfred, we’re done. We are over.” I thought saying those words would break my heart, but in this moment, I felt nothing but pure, intoxicating relief. Alfred stunned. A few seconds later, the panic on his face vanished, replaced by a arrogant, mocking sneer. “Over? Valerie, did the smoke damage your brain?” He shoved his hands into his pockets, returning to his usual condescending self. “You’re breaking up with me? You’re an orphan who had to take out massive student loans just to get through school. Without me, do you think you can even survive in LA?” “The only reason you have this job is because I fought the partners to get you onto the project team. You think you got here on merit?” He truly believed he was my savior. “And another thing,” Alfred leaned down, his eyes gleaming with greed and ambition. “Asterion Group’s ‘Sky City’ bidding process is about to wrap up. My design has already been selected as the number one finalist.” “Vivian’s father is a massive venture capitalist. He’s already agreed to invest ten million dollars in my startup.” “Once I land this multi-billion-dollar project, I’ll be made a senior partner immediately.” He pointed a finger at my face. “When that happens, even if you beg me on your knees, I won’t give you a second glance.” Sky City? I repeated the name in my mind, a dark smile playing at the corners of my lips. That design was mine. I had spent six months, pulled countless all-nighters, and rebuilt the model over a hundred times to perfect it. I had planned to give it to him on his birthday as a gift to help him get his foot in the door of the elite world. But while I was fighting for my life in the ICU, he had hacked my encrypted laptop, stolen my life’s work, and put his own name on it. “Great,” I said, looking at him like he was already dead. “I can’t wait to see you land ‘Sky City’.” Alfred sneered. “Crazy bitch.” He turned and strode out of the room, his posture radiating the confidence of a man who thought he was about to conquer the world. Once the door shut, I pulled out my phone. I dialed a number at the very bottom of my contact list—a number I had blocked for three years. It rang only once before a trembling, highly respectful voice answered. “Miss Padilla.” “Arthur,” I said, looking out at the glittering Los Angeles skyline. My voice was terrifyingly calm. “Send a car to pick me up. Also, notify the board of Asterion Group. My leave of absence is over. I am taking full control of the company tomorrow.” “Yes, Miss Padilla! But… how is your health?” “I’m not dead yet,” I replied, closing my eyes. “Have the legal department prepare a lawsuit against Alfred Miller for intellectual property theft and corporate espionage.” “And one more thing. I will personally chair the final bidding meeting for ‘Sky City’.”

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After my daughter fell ill, my mother brought over a small muslin bag filled with wild Appalachian herbal. She had foraged it herself up in the Vermont woods, nearly fracturing her ankle on a steep ridge in the process. I felt incredibly guilty and deeply touched. I carefully tucked the bag away in the pantry and repeatedly warned Garrett not to touch it. But when I came home from work, the pantry shelf was bare. Garrett had given the precious roots to his client’s young secretary. When I confronted him, Garrett didn’t even look up from his phone. His voice was entirely dismissive. “Oh, that little red bag?” he said. “Chelsea liked it, so I let her take it. I have so much on my plate at work, Hannah. I can’t be expected to remember every single little thing you say. Besides, it’s just some dried roots. If you want them so badly, I’ll buy you another bag online.” He was always like this. My words never seemed to register, always drifting right past him. In the past, I would have made excuses for him. I would have told myself he was under immense pressure, that he was working late nights to provide for our family. After a decade together, we owed each other grace, didn’t we? But tonight, something inside me shifted. Looking at that empty shelf, I felt a sudden, hollow ache. It was as if my heart had been emptied out along with it. … That herbal wasn’t just a wellness trend. It was a piece of my mother’s devotion. Desperate, I began rummaging through the cabinets, hoping he had just misplaced it. As I shoved boxes aside, a small pink journal slid off the top shelf and clattered to the floor. Garrett, lost in his gaming headset, didn’t even blink. He was completely dialed into his screen, muttering lazily: “It’s just a bag of weeds, Hannah. Why do you have to turn everything into a federal case? It’s embarrassing. You’re acting like a pauper who’s never seen a dollar bill.” They weren’t weeds. They were wild-harvested roots my mother had spent months searching for, specifically for her granddaughter. Just as I opened my mouth to snap back, Maisie emerged from her bedroom, her face pale and slick with sweat. “Mommy,” she whimpered, clutching her stomach. “My tummy hurts so bad…” Her gastritis was flaring up again. Panic spiked through my anger. I rushed to the medicine cabinet, my hands shaking. “Garrett! I told you Maisie has a delicate stomach. She can’t eat that greasy junk food! Why can’t you remember anything I tell you?” He finally pulled off his headset, his face twisted in annoyance. “Will you stop screaming? Why is everything a crisis with you? I’m in the middle of a Discord call with a major client. Can you please stop bothering me with these trivial things?” Trivial. Last month, leaving Maisie behind at the after-school program in the pouring rain, causing her to run a fever for three days—that was trivial. Yesterday, completely forgetting my severe shellfish allergy and ordering seafood takeout, sending me to the ER in the middle of the night—that was trivial. And now, giving our eight-year-old daughter greasy fast food that triggered an acute gastric spasm—that was trivial, too. It seemed that anything involving me or our child was a minor inconvenience to be brushed aside. The bright red takeout bag on the floor felt like a slap in the face. But looking at my daughter trembling in pain, I couldn’t waste time arguing. I scooped her up and drove straight to the hospital. Maisie was diagnosed with acute gastric spasms. The doctor said she had been in agonizing pain for five or six hours. Any longer, and she could have faced severe complications. I felt a sickening mixture of rage and guilt. Then Maisie looked up at me from the sterile hospital bed. “Mommy, I told Daddy my stomach hurt,” she whispered. “But he said he was too busy with work and told me to go to my room. Mommy… is Daddy really that busy, or does he just not like being around me?” Her small, innocent voice felt like a sledgehammer striking my chest, shattering the last of my fragile illusions. For the past year, Garrett’s life had revolved around an endless cycle of “work.” Late nights, business trips, weekend errands, gaming sessions. As long as he played the “provider” card, he was exempt from every domestic responsibility. I wanted to defend him, to spin the same tired lies I always did to protect her heart. But looking into her pure, searching eyes, the words died in my throat. I pulled out my phone and dialed his number. Once. Twice. He declined. I kept dialing, desperate and relentless. On the twelfth call, he finally picked up. “What now?” he groaned. “I told you I’m buried in work. What is so urgent that you have to harass me during office hours?” “Maisie is in the emergency room, Garrett. Because of that takeout you fed her.” There was a brief silence on the other end. When he spoke again, his tone had softened, though only slightly. “The takeout? Come on, that’s impossible. Her stomach can’t be that weak. Fine. Text me the location. I’ll head over.” The line went dead. But right before he hung up, the audio of his video game flared up, followed by his muffled voice speaking to someone else in the room: “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it. Married women are just exhausting. She loves making a mountain out of a molehill.” If I heard it, Maisie did too. She stared at me, her expression eerily calm. It was a kind of numbness no eight-year-old should ever possess. No tears, no expectations. Just flat acceptance. “Daddy isn’t coming, is he?” We both knew the answer. I swallowed the lump in my throat, leaning down to pull her fragile body against mine. “It’s okay, baby. Mommy is here. Even if it’s just the two of us, we’re going to be just fine.” Maisie didn’t ask any more questions. Exhausted by the pain and her father’s cold indifference, she drifted off to sleep a few minutes later. Three hours passed. Garrett was still a no-show. Unable to look at my phone without feeling sick, I reached into my purse to find a hair tie and pulled out the small pink journal I had scooped off the floor earlier. I opened the cover, and the name “Chelsea Ward” leapt off the page. I knew Chelsea. She was the young account coordinator at the client firm, the one handling Garrett’s accounts. What I hadn’t known was the level of devotion Garrett had poured into her. The pages were filled with her details in Garrett’s neat handwriting. Her career goals, her favorite coffee orders, her menstrual cycle, even random, passing comments she had made, preserved like sacred text. No wonder Garrett never remembered a word I said. He had given all his mental capacity—and his heart—to another woman. It felt like a slow-acting poison dripping into my veins. I sat in the dim hospital light, reading every single page. By the time I closed the book, the clock read 2:00 AM. Garrett finally strolled in, carrying a grease-stained paper bag. “Sorry, got caught up with some urgent things at the office,” he said, his voice casual. “You and Maisie probably haven’t eaten. I grabbed some of those Szechuan crawfish from that spot downtown. Let’s eat.” Maisie had a severe gastric condition; she couldn’t touch spicy food. And I was violently allergic to shellfish. Garrett had completely forgotten both facts. He expertly peeled a crawfish and held it up to my mouth. “Try it. I specifically told the chef no cilantro, extra chili oil, just the way you like it.” No cilantro. Extra chili. Those were Chelsea’s preferences. The pink journal had an entire entry dedicated to it: “Chelsea loves spicy Szechuan, hates cilantro. Chelsea hates peeling shellfish because she doesn’t want to ruin her manicures. Her acrylics cost $150 a set; Venmo her $1,000 for ‘office expenses’ to cover her spa days.” Garrett wasn’t incapable of care. He was just incapable of caring about “me”. A profound, crushing exhaustion washed over me. I didn’t want to argue. I didn’t want to hear his practiced excuses. I took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. “I found the pink journal in the pantry, Garrett.” His hand froze mid-air, the peeled crawfish dangling from his fingers. He stared at me, his eyes widening. Then, as if on cue, his guilt manifested as defensive anger. “You went through my things?” he snapped, his voice rising. “Hannah, how many times do I have to tell you to stay out of my work files? Everything I do with Chelsea is to secure this contract—for us! To give you and our daughter a better life!” Secure a contract by Venmoing her thousands of dollars? Secure a contract by booking boutique hotels and buying strawberry-flavored condoms? He had even documented her favorite positions in bed. The depth of his betrayal was beyond anything I had ever feared. In her sleep, Maisie whimpered. I gently pressed my hands over her ears to block out his voice. Seeing our daughter, Garrett let out a long sigh. He opened and closed his mouth, searching for a lie that would hold water. Finding none, he muttered something about needing to wash his hands and walked out of the room. A minute later, my phone buzzed. He had sent me a screenshot. “I’m sorry about earlier. I bought the organic herbal supplements online. Duty calls at the office, so I can’t stay.” The subtext was clear: “I apologized. Now get over it.” I opened the screenshot. Below a receipt for a $19.99 jar of generic herbal powder was an order confirmation for a $900 La Mer skincare set addressed to Chelsea’s apartment. He didn’t even have the decency to crop out his mistress’s gift. He was so secure in my silent endurance that he didn’t think he needed to hide it anymore. He assumed that as long as we had a child, I would never leave. I would always bow my head and accept his scraps. But he was wrong. I could tolerate his disdain for me, but I would never forgive what he had done to our daughter. My heart hardened into stone. I blocked Garrett’s number on my phone, pulled up my email, and sent a message to my family lawyer. “How quickly can we draft divorce papers and a custody agreement?” The reply came back almost instantly. “Three days.” Three days. Ten years of building a life together, reduced to a three-day filing process. But some things are meant to be broken quickly. The next afternoon, Garrett still hadn’t shown his face. He hadn’t even realized I blocked him. Instead, Chelsea Ward walked into the pediatric ward, carrying two gift bags of high-end organic fruit. She was wearing a tailored designer blazer, her manicured fingers sparkling. Her face bore a smug, triumphant smile. “Mrs. Mercer, I am so incredibly sorry,” she said, her voice dripping with mock sympathy. “I had no idea your daughter was so fragile that a simple takeout meal would put her in the hospital.” Then, her smile turned cold. She reached down and tapped Maisie’s forehead with a sharp, painted fingernail. “But honestly, you can’t blame me. The world is highly competitive. Weak, useless children like her… well, sometimes they’re just a drain on a family. On Garrett.” Maisie’s face went white. My heart shattered. I grabbed Chelsea’s wrist and yanked her away from the bed, pushing her out into the hallway. Chelsea scoffed, brushing off her sleeve as if I had contaminated her. “Am I wrong?” she raised her voice. “Little Maisie didn’t inherit any of Garrett’s drive. She’s sickly, timid, and completely unremarkable. How is a child like that supposed to inherit what Garrett built?” “My child will be different,” Chelsea continued, placing a hand over her flat stomach. “Garrett has already lined up the best private preschools. From the moment he’s born, he will have the best education—and Garrett’s undivided love.” Chelsea was pregnant. She was carrying Garrett’s child. A horrifying realization struck me. My voice trembled. “That takeout… you did that on purpose, didn’t you? Maisie has a sensitive stomach, but chili extract alone wouldn’t do this. What did you put in her food?” Chelsea shrugged, her eyes shining behind her designer sunglasses. “Why don’t you ask Garrett? After all, he knew exactly what was in that box. He doesn’t love you, Hannah. Why would he care about your little defective prototype?” My chest burned, the pain so intense I could barely breathe. The cruelest part was that I couldn’t even refute her words. Garrett’s neglect had been staring me in the face for years. When Maisie was three, I was in a terrible car accident. Terrified that a nanny wouldn’t care for her properly, I wrote out a detailed, hour-by-hour schedule and begged Garrett to watch her. But he claimed he was too busy with work and fed her nothing but instant ramen for weeks. By the time I was discharged, Maisie was skeletal and had developed chronic gastritis. I had screamed at him, demanded a divorce. But he begged on his knees, crying that our daughter needed a father, that he would change. For the sake of a complete family, I forgave him. But that fragile peace lasted only five years. Now, he had allowed another woman to poison our daughter just to please her. I leaned against the hospital corridor wall, gasping for air. Chelsea smiled, satisfied with her performance. She adjusted her sunglasses. “I’ll be honest with you,” she whispered. “Garrett and I have been together much longer than you think. We were going to keep it quiet, but you’re just so incredibly dense. Just like your daughter. Instead of fighting me, maybe you should ask yourself when your husband actually stopped coming home to you.” When? I couldn’t remember. The memories were too tangled, the betrayal too deep. I sank onto the hard plastic chairs of the waiting room, my body entirely numb. Then, a tiny, warm hand slipped into mine. Maisie was standing beside me, reaching up to wipe the tears from my cheeks. Her voice was quiet but steady. “Don’t cry, Mommy. I’m here. I’ll always be here with you.” Her small, fragile frame radiated warmth. Looking at my daughter, I finally let go. I pulled her into my arms and sobbed. For Maisie’s sake, I pulled myself together. I drove straight to Garrett’s office. He was in the middle of a team meeting, and his face darkened the moment he saw me. “What are you doing here?” he hissed, stepping out of the conference room. “I’m in the middle of something. Go home. We’ll talk later.” I marched past him, slammed his leather-bound portfolio shut, and looked him dead in the eyes. “When did you and Chelsea start? And what did you put in Maisie’s food?” A flicker of panic crossed his face, but he quickly masked it with cold indifference. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. If you’re having a mental breakdown, go to a clinic. Don’t embarrass me at my workplace!” I nodded slowly. “Fine. If you won’t tell me, I’ll call the police right now and report an attempted poisoning. Let’s see how well your little mistress handles a criminal investigation.” The mention of the police—and Chelsea’s potential ruin—shattered his composure. He quickly ushered his assistant out, closed the door, and let out a sharp sigh. “It wasn’t a big deal, Hannah. It was just… some pure capsaicin extract. Chelsea saw a prank video online and wanted to see if it worked. I didn’t think it would actually hurt her. We just wanted to see what would happen.” “We just wanted to see what would happen.” My daughter, whom I had carried for nine months and cherished with every fiber of my being, was nothing more than a lab rat for his mistress’s amusement. The rage inside me boiled over. I swung my hand and slapped him hard across the face. His head snapped to the side. He stared at me in absolute shock, which quickly curdled into fury. “Hannah! Are you out of your mind? Maisie is fine now, isn’t she? Why do you always have to blow everything out of proportion? I apologized! What more do you want from me?” Even now, he felt no guilt. He hadn’t even asked how our daughter was doing. To him, she was as insignificant as my feelings. My eyes burned with tears. “She is your daughter, Garrett! She has your blood running through her veins! How can you watch her suffer and feel absolutely nothing? What kind of monster did you let that woman turn you into?” Garrett sneered, his mask completely slipping. “Don’t lecture me about family. I never wanted that kid anyway. You were the one who trapped me, remember? You were the one who threw yourself at me, got pregnant, and forced me to marry you. What kind of child do you think a desperate woman like you is going to raise? If Maisie’s sick all the time, maybe it’s because of whatever garbage you were doing before you met me!” The room felt entirely cold. I stood frozen, the breath knocked out of me. For ten years, I believed Garrett simply didn’t know how to express his love. I never imagined that beneath his silence lay such deep, venomous contempt. He didn’t see my sacrifices as love. He saw them as desperation. The house I sold, the career I paused to support his startup—it was all just a pathetic woman clinging to him. I had wasted the best decade of my life on a man who despised me. There was nothing left to save. I looked at him, my voice barely a whisper. “I want a divorce, Garrett. We’re done.”

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I took a speeding, out-of-control truck to the skull to keep my wife and daughter from being crushed. When I finally woke up, the doctors told Rachel that my cognitive function was permanently capped at the level of a five-year-old. At my bedside, Rachel wept, clutching my hand and swearing to the heavens that she would spend the rest of her life protecting me. Our daughter, Lucy, held my pinky in her tiny palm, her voice high and sweet: “Don’t worry, Daddy. Lucy will keep you safe now.” For the first two years, they actually did. Then, in the third year, Brandon arrived. He was the kind of guy who could fix a leaky kitchen pipe without calling a plumber, the guy who sat at the dining table patiently explaining long division to Lucy, the guy who had a warm, home-cooked meal waiting on the stove whenever Rachel stumbled home after a grueling double shift. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, they fell in love with having him around. Rachel began giving him the prime cuts of the roast. Lucy drew a new family portrait for art class and sketched him right in the middle, standing where I used to stand. On Lucy’s eighth birthday, I stood outside her bedroom door, clutching the gift I had spent a month crafting with my stiff, fumbling fingers. Through the crack in the door, I saw her snuggling into Rachel’s lap. “Mommy,” Lucy whispered, her eyes wide. “Daddy is so silly. Why can’t Brandon just be my real daddy?” Rachel didn’t correct her. Her silence cut deeper than any words could have. I crawled back into my bedroom and cried until my chest ached. Finally, with trembling hands, I dialed a number I had kept memorized from a lifetime I could barely recall. It belonged to my old mentor. “You once told me you could make me smart again,” I whispered into the receiver. “Does the offer still stand?” A heavy silence stretched over the line. Finally, he spoke, his voice thick with gravity. “It does, Thomas. But you know the cost. You will lose everything else. You will forget them.” … “I’m not afraid of forgetting, Professor,” I whispered. The old man let out a long, heavy sigh, telling me to wait while he made the arrangements and that the surgery would be scheduled soon. I hung up, staring down at the hand-carved wooden pony in my palms. It was Lucy’s eighth birthday present. I had spent a month scraping away at a block of pine with a dull pocketknife, my fingers now covered in circular Band-Aids. They stung at the slightest touch. But I had kept telling myself: “Lucy will smile when she sees this. Lucy will be happy.” Laughter erupted from the living room, loud and bright. “Brandon! What did you get me?” Lucy’s voice was full of pure excitement. “Ta-da! The limited-edition Barbie dreamhouse set you’ve been begging for,” Brandon replied, his voice rich and easy. “Oh my gosh, Brandon! You’re the best! I love you so much!” I heard the distinct, wet sound of Lucy planting a kiss on his cheek. A dull, heavy ache settled in my chest. I stood up, pushing my bedroom door open. In the kitchen, Rachel was setting the table. Brandon was wearing my favorite linen apron, holding a spatula, laughing as he ruffled Lucy’s hair. The three of them stood there, framed by the warm kitchen light, looking exactly like the families in the commercials. I squeezed the wooden pony tight and shuffled over to Rachel’s side. “Rachel, I’m hungry.” The smile on Rachel’s face faltered. She turned to me, her voice dropping into a hushed, exasperated whisper. “Thomas, go back to your room for a little bit, okay? It’s Lucy’s birthday, and we have a guest.” “A guest.” I didn’t understand. If Brandon was a guest, why was he wearing my apron? I held the wooden pony out toward Lucy, offering it like a peace offering. “Lucy, happy birthday. Daddy carved this pony for you. Remember? You used to love the carousel.” The joy instantly drained from Lucy’s face. She took a step back, hiding behind Brandon’s leg. “I don’t want that. It’s ugly,” she said, pointing a finger at my hands. “And your fingers are all bandaged and gross. Don’t touch my new dolls with those dirty hands.” My hand froze in midair. It wasn’t ugly. I had sanded it down for hours, making sure there wasn’t a single rough edge that could hurt her. Brandon knelt down, pulling Lucy into a protective hug, and looked up at me with a patronizing smile. “Tom, kids don’t know how to filter themselves. Don’t take it to heart. But honestly, raw wood can be a bit splintery. We wouldn’t want Lucy getting hurt, right, Rachel?” He looked up at my wife. Rachel frowned, stepping over to push my hand down. “Thomas, stop making a scene. Brandon was nice enough to cook for us today. Can’t you just behave for once?” “But Rachel,” I muttered, looking at her. “You used to say that as long as I made it, Lucy would love it.” Rachel’s eyes darted away, her guilt quickly hardening into irritation. “That was before. Lucy is older now. She has real interests. Go back to your room with that block of wood. You’re ruining the mood.” “A block of wood.” My eyes stung, hot tears blurring my vision. I looked down at the cuts on my fingers. They really, really hurt. Brandon stood up, gently tugging Rachel’s arm. “Rachel, don’t be so harsh. He has the mind of… well, he’s like a kid. Maybe we should let him sit at the table? I can whip up another side dish.” Rachel sighed, her gaze softening as she looked at him. “You’re too patient, Brandon. He doesn’t appreciate it anyway. He just causes trouble. Let him eat in his room so he doesn’t knock things over and ruin Lucy’s night.” I understood. They didn’t want me there. I clutched the pony to my chest and turned back toward the hallway. “I won’t eat at the table. I’ll eat in my room.” As I closed the door behind me, I heard Brandon asking Lucy, “So, birthday girl, what did you wish for when you blew out your candles?” Lucy’s voice carried clearly through the thin drywall. “I wished that Brandon could stay with us forever and be my real daddy.” This time, Rachel didn’t say a word. She didn’t protest. I leaned against the door, and the tears finally spilled over, hot and silent. They really didn’t want me anymore. I wanted to be smart again. I wanted to leave this place. I pulled out my phone and typed a clumsy message to my mentor. “Professor, can we do the surgery sooner?” “Yes, Thomas. I will arrange it as quickly as possible,” the reply came. I stared at the glowing screen, then buried my face in my knees. The next morning, the apartment was dead quiet. Rachel and Lucy were already gone, and Brandon was nowhere to be seen. On the kitchen counter sat a couple of stale, cold breakfast biscuits. Beside them was a note from Rachel. “Took Lucy to the amusement park with Brandon. Stay inside and don’t wander off.” My stomach growled. I picked up a biscuit and took a bite, but it was dry and hard as a rock. I couldn’t swallow it. Rachel never used to let me eat cold food. She used to tell me my stomach was sensitive and that cold food would give me cramps. She used to wake up early to simmer warm, fragrant chicken porridge for me. If I didn’t want to eat, she would coax me like a child, holding the spoon to my lips. “Just one bite, Tommy. One bite, and I’ll give you a kiss.” Now, she couldn’t even bear to look at me. I wanted to go to the amusement park, too. They had promised me that after Lucy’s birthday, we would all go together and ride the Ferris wheel. But they took Brandon instead. I put the biscuit down and drank a glass of tap water. I didn’t understand why Brandon’s arrival meant I had to lose everything. Around noon, the front door clicked open. Rachel and Lucy walked in, with Brandon trailing closely behind. But Lucy wasn’t happy; she was sobbing hysterically. Brandon’s arm was wrapped in heavy white gauze, seeped through with fresh, bright red blood. Rachel was holding onto his good side, her face pale with panic and tenderness. “Careful, watch your step,” she murmured. “The doctor said to keep the stitches dry.” I ran over, looking at them. “Rachel, what happened?” Rachel snapped her head up, her eyes flashing with pure fury. She shoved me back, hard. “Don’t touch him!” I stumbled backward several steps, my spine slamming into the sharp edge of the shoe cabinet. A dull ache bloomed across my back. “Rachel, I just wanted to ask…” “Ask what?” Rachel’s voice shook with rage as she pointed a finger at me. “If you hadn’t thrown a fit yesterday and ruined Lucy’s birthday, she wouldn’t have been in such a terrible mood today! She wouldn’t have run away from us at the park!” “If Brandon hadn’t shielded her from that shattered glass, Lucy would be the one in the hospital right now!” I froze. I didn’t understand how Lucy running away at a park miles away was my fault. I had been home all day. Lucy peeked out from behind Brandon, pointing her little hand at me. “It is your fault! You’re a dummy! You always make Mommy mad. All the other kids have smart daddies, and I have you. I hate you!” The words felt like physical needles piercing my chest. I knelt down, trying to meet Lucy’s eyes. “Lucy, Daddy didn’t mean to… Daddy saved you once, remember? The truck—” “Shut up!” Rachel screamed, cutting me off. “Thomas, are you going to hold that accident over our heads for the rest of our lives? Yes, you saved us. But I have spent the last two years bathing you, feeding you, and putting up with you. Haven’t I paid my debt?” She looked at me, her eyes filled with nothing but cold exhaustion. “I am so sick of this. I am tired of taking care of a giant toddler. I deserve a normal life, a normal family.” The words crashed over me like stones. So that was it. Caring for me was just paying a debt. She had been sick of me for a very long time. Brandon let out a soft sigh, placing his uninjured hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “Rachel, don’t. Tom doesn’t understand what he’s doing. As long as Lucy is safe, a few stitches don’t matter.” Rachel looked up at Brandon, her eyes shining with tears. “I’m so sorry, Brandon. We always drag you into our messes.” Brandon smiled, gently tapping Lucy’s nose. “I’d do anything to keep you two safe.” Watching the three of them console one another, I felt like a piece of discarded trash left in the corner of my own home. I stood up, slowly backing away. “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “I won’t make you mad anymore.” I turned and ran back to my room, locking the door behind me. I crawled under the blankets and pressed my hands over my ears, blocking out the murmur of their voices. My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a message from the Professor. “Grace’s restoration surgery was a complete success. Are you ready, Thomas?” Grace was another patient, a young girl who, like me, had suffered severe brain trauma. She was smart again. I wiped the tears from my face and typed out four words: “I am ready, Professor.” “Come out and eat,” Rachel called, knocking curtly on my door later that evening. Her voice was flat, as if the screaming match from earlier had never happened. I opened the door and walked out. The dining table was crowded with dishes—slow-roasted ribs, pan-seared salmon, and a pot of rich chicken soup. It was all Brandon’s handiwork. I sat down and reached my fork toward the ribs. They used to be my favorite. But before my fork could touch the meat, Rachel’s fork blocked mine. “The ribs are for Brandon,” she said coldly. “He’s injured and needs to recover. Don’t touch them.” She picked up two large ribs and placed them gently in Brandon’s bowl. My hand hovered in the air. I looked at Rachel, then at Brandon, who gave me a performative, apologetic shrug. “Rachel, come on, let Tom have some,” Brandon said smoothly. “I don’t need all of this.” “Absolutely not,” Rachel countered, her eyes narrowing. “You bled so much for Lucy today. You need to replenish your strength.” She turned back to me, pointing her chin toward a plate of plain sautéed greens. “Eat the vegetables. They’re better for your digestion anyway.” I bit my lip, slowly drawing my fork back, and took a single green leaf. It tasted incredibly bitter. I remembered how Rachel used to cook ribs for me. She would always pick out the tenderest, most flavorful pieces and slide them onto my plate. “Tommy is a growing boy,” she would tease. “You need your protein to stay strong.” Now, I wasn’t even allowed a single bone. Lucy took a sip of her soup, pointing at the pot. “Mommy, I want to give Brandon the chicken drumstick. Brandon is a superhero. He protected me.” Rachel smiled, brushing a hand through Lucy’s hair. “That’s very sweet of you, baby.” Lucy fished out the drumstick, dropped it into Brandon’s bowl, and then shot me a disdainful look. “Daddy is a coward. He doesn’t do anything but hide in his room.” I kept my head down, chewing on plain white rice. I wasn’t a coward. The day the truck came hurtling toward us, I hadn’t run away. I had pushed them both to safety. My skull had fractured, and there had been so much blood. It had hurt so bad. But Lucy didn’t remember any of that. After dinner, Rachel left me in the living room to watch TV while she went to wash the dishes. Brandon sat on the rug, helping Lucy with a puzzle. I sat on a small wooden stool in the corner, watching them from the shadows. Brandon suddenly turned his head. His eyes locked onto mine, and a cruel, tiny smirk touched the corner of his lips. He leaned slightly closer, dropping his voice so low that only I could hear. “You know, Thomas,” he murmured, “Rachel told me last night that marrying you was the biggest mistake of her life.” My fingers dug into my jeans. “You’re lying,” I whispered. Brandon let out a soft, mocking chuckle. “Lying? Look at the way she looks at you. There’s nothing left but disgust. You’re just a heavy, useless anchor. Without you, the three of us would be a perfect family.” “A perfect family.” He meant him, Rachel, and Lucy. I stood up, glaring at him. “This is my house.” Seeing my anger, Brandon’s eyes gleamed. He suddenly gripped his bandaged arm and let out a sharp cry of pain. “Ow! Tom, please don’t push me! My stitches!” He threw himself backward onto the sofa, wincing dramatically. Rachel burst out of the kitchen instantly. “What happened?!” She saw Brandon clutching his arm, and her face turned incredibly dark. She marched over and stood directly in front of me. “Thomas, have you lost your mind?!” “I didn’t push him,” I shook my head, desperate to explain. “He’s lying! He was talking to me and then he just threw himself down!” Rachel didn’t believe a word. She raised her hand. “Slap.” The force of the blow snapped my head to the side. A sharp, burning sting flared across my cheek. The living room went dead silent. Lucy shivered, burying her face in Brandon’s chest. I held my burning cheek, staring at Rachel. Once, if I so much as scraped my knee, she would cry from worry. Now, she had slapped me across the face for the sake of a stranger. “Thomas, when did you become so malicious?” Rachel’s voice shook with disgust. “Brandon has done nothing but help us, and you try to hurt him? Go to your room. Do not come out until I tell you to.” I didn’t cry. I just looked at her, studying her face with absolute intensity. I wanted to commit this version of her to memory—so that after the surgery, I could wipe it away completely. “Okay,” I said quietly. “I’ll go.” That night, Rachel didn’t call me for dinner. I was too hungry to sleep, so I sat on the floor and began packing my things. There wasn’t much to take. A few clothes, a pair of sneakers, and two photographs. One was taken before the accident—me in a white lab coat, looking sharp, capable, and intelligent. The other was a family portrait taken shortly after Lucy was born. Rachel was smiling so beautifully. I stared at the family portrait for a long time. Then, very slowly, I tore it down the middle. I threw the half containing Rachel and Lucy into the trash can. I only needed the version of myself that was whole. At dawn, my phone lit up with a message from the Professor. “Your flight is booked for 3:00 PM. A car will pick you up at 1:00 PM.” I typed back a simple: “Okay.” I walked out of my room. Rachel and Brandon had already gone to work, and Lucy was at school. The apartment was hollow and quiet. I went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. There were plenty of ingredients. After a moment of hesitation, I pulled out some tomatoes, eggs, and a cut of pork. These were the only two dishes I knew how to make. Tomato scrambled eggs and stir-fried pork with peppers. After I had lost my mind, I had spent months trying to learn how to cook them just to surprise Rachel. I used to burn my fingers constantly back then, and Rachel would always tear the spatula from my hands in a panic. “Tommy, you don’t need to cook. I’ll cook for you for the rest of our lives.” She had broken her promise. I clumsily chopped the ingredients, turned on the stove, and began to cook. A drop of hot oil splattered onto the back of my hand, leaving a stinging red blister. Ignoring the pain, I plated the two dishes and set them on the dining table. Then I took out a piece of paper. I wanted to write something, but my child-mind only knew how to write my own name. In crooked, childish letters, I wrote: “Thomas is gone.” I slid the paper under the plate. At exactly 1:00 PM, a car horn honked outside. I slung my small black backpack over my shoulder and walked out of the door. When the door clicked shut behind me, I didn’t look back. Sitting in the backseat of the car on the way to the airport, I watched the city skyline recede. Goodbye, Rachel. Goodbye, Lucy. At 6:00 PM, Rachel walked through the front door, holding Lucy’s hand. Brandon followed behind them, carrying a small bakery box. “Rachel, let’s go out for dinner tonight to celebrate my promotion,” Brandon suggested as he kicked off his shoes. Rachel scanned the quiet living room. “Why isn’t Thomas out here watching TV?” She frowned and walked further inside. “Probably still throwing a tantrum in his room. His temper has been getting so strange lately.” As she approached the dining table, she stopped. On it sat two cold plates of food. Tomato scrambled eggs and stir-fried pork. Beside them was a slip of paper. She pulled it out and stared at the uneven, struggling handwriting. “Thomas is gone.” Rachel stared at it for a second, then let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Unbelievable. He’s actually trying to run away now. He’s getting bolder.” Brandon walked over, looking at the plates with disgust. “Look at this mess. The eggs are practically burnt. Who could eat this?” “Rachel, let’s just throw it out. It’s an eyesore.” Rachel nodded, picking up the plates and walking into the kitchen. With two heavy thuds, the food I had spent all morning preparing was scraped into the garbage bin. Rachel washed her hands, walked down the hallway, and pushed open my bedroom door. “Thomas, stop playing these childish games. Get out of—” The words died in her throat. The room was completely empty. The closet doors were wide open, and several hangers were bare. On the nightstand sat my medical file. Rachel walked over and picked it up. Underneath it lay a crisp, white surgical consent form. At the top, the details were clearly printed: “Patient: Thomas.” “Procedure: Irreversible Selective Neurosurgery (Memory Ablation and Emotional Severance).” “Warning: This procedure will result in permanent, irreversible memory loss and emotional detachment.” Rachel’s hand began to tremble. Her eyes locked onto the words “permanent, irreversible memory loss”, and her breath caught.

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On the day of our engagement, Ward vanished. He didn’t answer my calls, and my texts went completely ignored. My parents and I were frantic, terrified that he had been in a horrific car crash on his way to the venue. We were on the verge of calling the police when, after dozens of attempts, we finally reached his driver. The man stammered on the other end of the line, sounding incredibly uncomfortable. “Mr. Ward is… he’s currently with Ms. Lacey, helping her pitch a new client. The client is proving difficult, and Mr. Ward can’t step away right now.” I swallowed the rising tide of anger, opening my mouth to demand that he put Ward on the phone, when a series of text messages from Ward popped up on my screen. “Our families have known each other for over twenty years, Izzy. Don’t sweat the formalities today.” “This is Lacey’s first time pitch-meeting a client on her own. The guy is a notorious shark, and I need to make sure she’s safe.” “I’ll add another thirty thousand dollars to our wedding fund. Don’t be mad.” My dad’s face fell as he read the messages over my shoulder. Without a word, he turned his back to me, staring out the window, his hands trembling slightly as he lit a cigarette. My mom’s eyes welled with tears. She looked at me, her voice thick with emotion. “Sweetheart, are you absolutely sure you want to marry him? I’ve watched that boy grow up, but familiarity shouldn’t give him the right to treat you like an afterthought…” Seeing my parents’ heartbreak cut through me like a knife. I squeezed my mom’s hand, forced a bright smile, and turned to our gathered family and friends. “Everyone, please, let’s eat! The engagement is off. Let’s celebrate my return to single life!” … Throughout the dinner, hushed whispers echoed around the private dining room. My parents kept brave, smiling faces until the last of the guests had been sent off. Watching their retreating figures, a burning pressure built behind my eyes. They had worked tirelessly their entire lives, looking forward to this day, dressing up in their finest clothes to host this celebration—only for it to end in public humiliation. The crushing weight of guilt broke me. “Mom, Dad, I’m so sorry. I embarrassed you both.” My mom turned, tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear, and smiled gently. “What are you talking about? You are our greatest pride. Whatever you decide, we’re right behind you.” My dad, a man of few words, gave a firm nod. “Your mother is right. No matter what, we’ve got your back.” With that, he pulled out his phone and immediately wired back the wedding funds Ward had sent. Worried I hadn’t eaten enough, they went to the grocery store to pick up some of my favorite ingredients to cook at home. Shortly after we returned and I changed into my loungewear, Ward let himself in. Our families had been neighbors since childhood. After his father passed away and his mother remarried and moved, leaving him alone, my parents had practically adopted him, always inviting him over for family dinners. Over the years, he’d memorized our front door keypad code. He had used it for over a decade without it ever being changed. Seeing me in sweatpants on the sofa, his brow furrowed. He opened his mouth to speak, but seeing my parents busy in the kitchen, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me into my bedroom, slamming the door. His face was twisted with anger. “Izzy, what the hell is this?” he snapped. “You turned our engagement dinner into a single-life party? Do you have any idea how that makes me look to all our relatives?” I stared at him, letting out a soft, hollow laugh. “Oh, so now you care about the relatives? You didn’t care when you stood me up, leaving my parents to swallow their pride in front of everyone. What was your excuse again? Ward, if you didn’t want to get married, nobody was holding a gun to your head.” It was likely the first time he’d ever heard me stand up to him. He blinked, momentarily caught off guard, a flash of panic crossing his features. He knelt down, taking my hands, his tone softening. “Izzy, I’m sorry. It was poor judgment on my part. But have you forgotten what happened when you first started working? That client who tried to touch you?” He looked at me pleadingly. “You cried so hard. And your boss didn’t even support you; they blamed you for losing the account. I just didn’t want Lacey to go through the same nightmare you did. Can’t you understand that?” I looked down at the faint scar on the back of my hand, a dull ache blooming in my chest. Of course, I hadn’t forgotten. The client back then had been a notorious predator in the industry. The moment the project was assigned to me, I had warned Ward. We made a pact: if things went south during the dinner, I would text him three specific numbers as a distress signal, and he would come in to rescue me. But when the night came, I sent dozens of messages, and not a single one was answered. Ultimately, it was a pot of scalding water on the table that saved me. Amidst the client’s screams, I stumbled out of the room and ran downstairs, only to find Ward fast asleep in the driver’s seat of his car. I didn’t wake him. With trembling hands, I called the police myself. It wasn’t until the sirens wailed that he finally woke up. At the hospital, he wept and begged for forgiveness, claiming he’d been running on no sleep due to a major company launch and had only closed his eyes for a second. Seeing his dark circles and deep exhaustion, I forgave him. But now, he was using that unresolved guilt to justify rescuing another woman. And he expected me to just understand. Sensing my silence, he assumed I was softening. A relieved smile touched his lips. “Don’t be mad, Izzy. I’ll apologize to your parents properly, and we’ll pick another date. I promise I’ll be there for every second of it…” “Don’t bother,” I interrupted quietly, pulling my hands from his grasp. “We’re done. Check your bank account. The wedding money has been returned. Once you see it, please leave my house.” Ward’s face hardened as he checked his phone notifications. He stood up abruptly. “Izzy! We’ve been together for eight years. You’re seriously throwing all of that away over this?” Before I could answer, a soft, sniffling cry echoed from the living room. I bypassed him and opened the bedroom door. Lacey was standing in the entryway, clutching a basket of fruit and a carton of organic milk. My mom was sitting on the couch, and my dad stood by the kitchen door, his expression grim. Lacey’s fingers were tightly laced together, her eyes red and tearful. “I’m so sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Miller,” she whimpered. “Today was entirely my fault. I shouldn’t have begged Ward to come with me. Please don’t be angry with him.” I turned to Ward. “You brought her here? Ward, are you out of your mind?” Lacey rushed forward. “Izzy, please don’t blame Ward. I came here on my own. I swear I had no idea today was your engagement party. If I had known, I never would have asked for his help. It won’t happen again…” “Again?” I let out a bitter chuckle. “What’s next? The wedding day? Or maybe our wedding night? If you’re so dependent on your boss, why don’t you just move in with him?” Lacey looked up, her tears finally spilling over. “Izzy, I know you’re angry with me, but that’s not fair. This was my first business trip out of town, and it was in Ward’s hometown. I didn’t know anyone else…” Before she could finish, Ward stepped in front of her, shielding her from me. He glared at me, his voice dropping an octave. “Izzy, there’s a limit to everything. Why are you taking this out on a kid?” “I’m taking it out on her?” “Yes,” he said defensively. “Apologize to her. If you don’t…” “If she doesn’t, what exactly are you going to do to my daughter?!” My dad stormed out of the kitchen, putting his trembling, aging frame between Ward and me. A man who had never raised his voice in his life was now shouting in pure rage. “Ward! As long as I am breathing, you do not get to threaten my child!” My mom stood up from the couch, wrapping her arm tightly around my shoulder. Ward took two steps back, his composure crumbling. “Mr. Miller, Mrs. Miller, that’s not what I meant…” Lacey shook her head, biting her lip. “This is all my fault because I’m incompetent. I should be the one apologizing.” To our horror, she reached onto our entryway console, grabbed a bottle of high-proof whiskey my father had saved for years to toast our wedding, uncorked it, and began chugging it straight from the bottle. She choked on the first gulp, coughing violently and clutching her chest. Within seconds, her fair skin began to break out in bright red hives. “She’s allergic to alcohol!” Ward gasped. He snatched the bottle away and threw it onto the hardwood floor. It shattered into pieces, filling the room with the sharp scent of aged liquor. He swept Lacey up into his arms, grabbing her purse from the entryway hook, and rushed toward the door. Just before stepping out, he glanced back. “Izzy, I have to get her to the ER. You and your parents need to cool down. I am not agreeing to a breakup. Wait for me to come back.” Then, he was gone. Staring at the shattered glass and spilled amber liquid, a profound bitterness washed over me. I turned to my parents. “Mom, Dad, remember how you wanted to rent a cabin in Charleston for a while? A friend of mine just opened a branch office there and offered me a director position. If you’re up for it, we can book a flight tonight. I’ll finish my wrap-up work here and join you in a few days.” My parents exchanged a look. My mom nodded gently. “Let’s do it. Your father and I have worked our whole lives; it’s about time we took a real trip.” While my dad quietly returned to the kitchen to pack up the food and my mom began packing their bags, I swept up the broken glass. I texted my friend to accept the position, asked him to help coordinate my parents’ arrival, and changed our front door keypad code. After seeing my parents off at the airport, I caught a flight back to the city where my job was based. I landed around 8:00 PM. Outside the airport, a young college couple walked ahead of me. The girl was sitting on her rolling suitcase while the boy pushed her, wearing her pink backpack and holding her half-finished boba tea in one hand. They were laughing effortlessly, drawing fond looks from passersby. Watching them, my mind drifted back to my early college years with Ward. We were nineteen. His mother had just had a child with her new husband, cut off all contact, and stopped paying his tuition and living expenses. Ward worked back-to-back part-time jobs while juggling classes. Since we were dating, our expenses naturally went up. Knowing he was drowning in stress, my parents quietly gave me an allowance so I could cover our dates. But Ward was proud; he quickly caught on. From then on, whenever we dined out, he’d make an excuse to use the restroom and secretly pay the bill beforehand. He would hold my hand, his eyes burning with absolute sincerity. “Izzy, I’m your boyfriend, and I’m going to be your husband. I know you’re trying to protect my pride, but providing for you is my job. No matter what gifts I buy you, you don’t need to match their price. It makes us feel like strangers, and I want us to be closer than anyone else.” When his college startup finally took off, he showered me with everything that was trendy. We rented a tiny apartment together after graduation. Because of his devotion, I allowed myself to fully lean on him. We had our share of petty arguments, but we always took the time to learn each other’s love languages. As the years bled together, however, I noticed his attentiveness drifting. His emotional bandwidth for me grew narrower. Back then, I convinced myself that adult relationships required compromise, and that over-analyzing these shifts would only tear us apart. So, we kept walking until we reached the age where marriage was the natural next step. I had envisioned a beautiful wedding this year and perhaps a baby the next. But my mother’s words at the canceled dinner had shattered my denial: “Familiarity shouldn’t give someone the right to treat you like an afterthought.” I quickened my pace, bypassed the young couple, and hailed a cab. As soon as I closed the cab door, Ward’s name popped up on my screen, accompanied by a little red heart. I let it ring. He tried four more times; I declined every call. Finally, a local, unrecognized number called. Thinking it might be my landlord or a delivery service, I answered. Before I could speak, Ward’s voice barked through the speaker, thick with irritation. “Izzy, have you lost your mind? You changed the door code and ignored my calls?” He let out an exhausted sigh. “I brought Lacey here to apologize to your parents. Open the door.” “I can’t,” I said quietly. “And that door will never open for you again.” He scoffed. “Are you seriously doing this right now? How old are you, Izzy? You’re going to throw our entire relationship away because of a stupid engagement dinner? You even dragged your parents into this. Don’t you think you’re being ridiculous?” “It isn’t just about the dinner, Ward,” I said, watching the city lights blur outside the window. “It’s about who you used to be.” Silence fell over the line. “Who I used to be? What is that supposed to mean?” I toyed with the engagement ring on my finger. “Remember in college, when you said you wanted us to grow closer and depend on each other? I did that for eight years. You didn’t. Instead, you let our history become an excuse to treat me with contempt.” He let out a dry, dismissive laugh. “Izzy, is that what this dramatic speech is about? Who stays head-over-heels after eight years? Stop reading those trashy relationship blogs. You’re turning thirty soon. Aren’t you embarrassed to be throwing a temper tantrum like a teenager and humiliating your family? Let’s just end this drama. We’re getting our marriage license tomorrow. I’ll meet you at the city clerk’s office at two.” Even though I had already checked out of this relationship, his words still managed to squeeze the air from my lungs. A sharp pain bloomed in my throat. Before the tears could fall, a bitter laugh escaped my lips. “I will never marry you, Ward.” I hung up, rolled down the window, slipped the diamond ring off my finger, and flicked it into the darkness. The taxi pulled up to my apartment complex. The driver, an older woman around my mother’s age, looked at me in the rearview mirror, her eyes soft and understanding. “Sweetheart, half-baked love only leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I admire your courage to close the book. Don’t ever settle.” My throat tightened. “Thank you,” I whispered, nodding. Inside the apartment, the first thing I saw was our Polaroid photo wall in the living room. Seven years of memories. Looking closely, I realized that from year one to year seven, our physical gap had widened—from our cheeks pressed together to a stiff elbow’s distance apart. This year’s photo was supposed to be taken at the courthouse. There was no point now. I pulled every single photo off the wall, fed them into the paper shredder, and watched seven years turn into confetti. I opened my laptop and submitted my formal resignation letter to HR. Within minutes, my phone vibrated. It was Becca, my close friend in HR. “Izzy! Aren’t you supposed to be celebrating your engagement? Why am I looking at a resignation letter? Tell me you’re not pregnant because I’m not ready to be an aunt!” I managed a weak chuckle. “You’re safe. The engagement is off, we broke up, and there’s no baby on the way.” “What? What did that bastard do?” I told her everything. Becca was practically vibrating with rage through the phone. “I knew he was a piece of work! Thank God you got out. Remember that massive rainstorm last month? You went back to the office to grab some files and got stranded. I had to come pick you up because you couldn’t get a ride. Well, on my way home, I drove past his office building. I saw him carrying a girl on his back across the flooded street…” My heart seized. “Are you sure it was him?” “I took a video. I’m sending it to you right now.” The video arrived a second later. Outside Ward’s corporate office, the water was shin-deep. Ward was carrying Lacey on his back, her arms wrapped around his neck, her colorful slip-on shoes dangling as she laughed happily. I watched it on a loop, feeling a slow, cold numbness spread through my chest. That night, I had been trapped in the lobby for over an hour, unable to secure an Uber. When I called Ward, he told me he was stuck on a highway outside the city. He Venmoed me $500, telling me to use it for a premium ride-share. By midnight, my clothes were soaked, my period had started early, and I was in agonizing pain. I had no choice but to call Becca. When Ward finally got home in the early hours of the morning, he stayed up to make me chamomile tea, prep a heating pad, and bring me Midol without even changing out of his damp clothes. I had been so deeply moved by his care back then. Now, it just felt pathetic. “Izzy… Izzy, are you there?” Becca’s voice was soft, laced with worry. “I’m here. Thanks, Becca. I appreciate you.” I hung up, packed the remainder of my things, booked a moving service, and notified my landlord of my immediate move-out. The next morning, I handed in my keycard at the office. Just as I walked out of the building, an Instagram notification popped up. It was Ward. He had posted a picture of his car parked outside the city clerk’s office, with Lacey sitting in the passenger seat. The caption read: “Waiting for our turn at the courthouse. Lucky number 13.” The post was thirty minutes old. We shared dozens of mutual friends, yet there wasn’t a single like or comment. There was only one explanation: he had customized his privacy settings so that only I could see it. I smiled faintly and got into my airport ride. As the flight attendant requested we switch our phones to airplane mode, I opened Instagram, pulled up the post, and left a comment: “Congratulations. Wishing you a lifetime of happiness.”

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Lauren was allergic to romance. Ever since we got together, anniversaries were just another square on the calendar. I did my thing, she did hers. So on our seventh anniversary, when my phone stayed silent all day, I didn’t think twice about it. I was used to the quiet. But when she came home that night, she did something completely out of character. She handed me a small, wrapped box. I froze for a couple of seconds, my eyes instantly stinging with a sudden, ridiculous warmth. The stubborn, practical woman I loved had finally turned a corner. I eagerly took a dozen photos of the box, trying to find the perfect angle to post on my Instagram. But right before I hit upload, my feed refreshed. It was a post from her new personal assistant, Tony. “100 days at the firm! Thank you so much for the sweet surprise, Boss~” In the photo, the handsome, sharp-featured kid was standing next to an open car trunk overflowing with beautifully wrapped gifts, fairy lights, and expensive-looking boutique bags. When I tapped the live photo, the sound of Lauren’s voice played. It was soft, carrying a rare, gentle laugh I hadn’t heard in years: “It suits you.” I looked down at the cheap, flimsy five-dollar plastic trinket in my hand—the kind of throwaway item you buy in bulk off Temu. Suddenly, the last seven years felt entirely pointless. … My phone buzzed on the coffee table. It was a string of texts from my close friend, Zach. You could practically feel his excitement vibrating through the screen. “Did Lauren finally turn a corner???” “Seven years! A literal miracle!” “I know the box looks a little small, but a gift is a gift! She finally learned how to be romantic.” I let out a dry, humorless laugh and forwarded him Tony’s Instagram post. “This is what she gave her assistant today.” Zach’s side of the chat went dead silent for a few seconds. Then, a barrage of question marks and exclamation points flooded my screen. “That new kid, Tony?” “Doesn’t he know about you and Lauren?” “She bought him an entire trunk full of gifts?!” “Are you kidding me? This is messed up, Matt.” I stared at the messages, a slow, aching burn rising in my throat. In the past, whenever Zach tried to stick up for me, I’d always scramble to make excuses for her. She’s stressed. She doesn’t think about these things. She didn’t mean any harm. But this time, I couldn’t find a single word to defend her. When Lauren came out of the shower, I was still sitting on the sofa. She rubbed her damp hair with a towel, glanced at the unopened gift on the coffee table, and then looked at me. “Why aren’t you in bed yet?” Instead of answering, I opened Tony’s post and held the screen out to her. “Did you buy him this?” She barely glanced at it, her expression entirely flat. “The kid reached his hundred-day mark. I wanted to keep his morale up.” I stared at her indifferent, casual posture and spoke softly. “Lauren, do you know what today is?” The hand drying her hair paused. “What?” “Our seventh anniversary.” The room fell into a heavy, suffocating silence. Lauren looked at me, a flicker of irritation crossing her features. “Matt, really? We’re not in college anymore. Why are you suddenly obsessing over these trivial things? Can’t we just focus on building our lives together?” She draped the towel over her shoulders and turned to walk away. Watching her retreating back, I called out, my voice barely above a whisper. “Lauren, I’m turning thirty next month.” She stopped. “Most of my friends are already settling down, having kids. When… when are we getting married?” She sighed, turning back to face me with a pinched, exhausted expression. “The company is in a critical growth phase right now. Just give it some time.” “How much more time?” Lauren didn’t answer. She pinched the bridge of her nose, her face darkening. “Matt, I had an incredibly long day. Stop starting fights.” With that, she walked into the bedroom and shut the door behind her. I sat alone on the dark sofa, staring at the cheap box on the table. The wrapping paper was wrinkled and torn at the edges, looking like something pulled from a clearance bin. Late that night, my dad called me from London. “Hey, Matty. You still up?” “Yeah, Dad.” “I just wanted to check in. Have you thought any more about what we talked about last time?” I gripped the phone, staying silent. Five years ago, my parents had relocated to the UK for my dad’s work. They had begged me to come with them. But because of Lauren, I had stubbornly insisted on staying behind. For seven years, I had stayed by her side. I was there when we lived in a cramped, drafty studio apartment, and I was there when we moved into this luxury high-rise. I had helped her build her company from a tiny, two-person operation into a thriving business. I had always told myself that once the hard part was over, marriage would be our natural next step. But looking at the closed bedroom door, I realized I had been lying to myself the entire time. “Matty?” my dad’s voice was gentle, filled with a quiet concern. “Don’t take this the wrong way, son. But if she wanted to marry you, she would have done it years ago. She wouldn’t keep you waiting in the wings for seven years.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I know, Dad. Give me a few days. I’ll make a decision.” After hanging up, I sat in the quiet living room for what felt like hours before finally heading into the bedroom. Lauren was already fast asleep. I carefully climbed into my side of the bed, turning onto my side to look at her. When we first started dating, she had nothing. Every time she got paid, the first thing she did was transfer her paycheck to my account so we could save. If I hesitated to buy something for myself because of the price, she would drag me back to the store and buy it anyway. She wasn’t big on sweet talk, but her actions always made me feel like I was her entire world. I had never doubted her love for me. Until Tony arrived. One hundred days was all it took to dismantle seven years of devotion. The next morning, the office was buzzing when I arrived. A small crowd of coworkers had gathered around Tony’s desk. “Come on, Tony, what was that post about last night?” “An entire trunk! The boss really went all out for you.” “Spill the details. Is there something going on between you two?” Tony cupped his hands over his red cheeks, his voice dripping with performative shyness. “Oh my god, guys, stop! Don’t make assumptions. Lauren was just celebrating my hundredth day at the firm, that’s all.” “Oh, really? Then why didn’t the rest of us get a trunk full of gifts on our hundredth day?” “Exactly!” The teasing grew louder. Tony caught my eye from across the room. A small, smug smile touched his lips, but he quickly looked down, playing the part of the innocent junior. Just then, Lauren walked out of her corner office. Ignoring the knowing looks exchange among the staff, she gestured to Tony. “Tony, in my office, please.” “Right away, Lauren!” Tony piped up, practically skipping toward her door. Once the door clicked shut, a few colleagues drifted over to my desk. “Hey, Matt. You’ve been with the company since the beginning. What’s the actual deal with Lauren and Tony?” I kept my eyes on my monitor. “I wouldn’t know.” They looked disappointed but didn’t push further, quickly moving on to whisper about something else. I gripped the folder in my hands, a familiar tightness squeezing my chest. Lauren had always been incredibly sensitive about keeping her professional life professional. For years, we had kept our relationship strictly underground to avoid office gossip. Once, early on, I had left a homemade sandwich on her desk because I knew she had skipped breakfast. She had lost her temper, accusing me of being unprofessional, and didn’t speak to me for an entire week. From that moment on, I kept my distance. We never rode in the same elevator, never ate lunch together, and barely made eye contact in the hallways. But apparently, those rigid rules didn’t apply to Tony. It was a grueling day, and by the time I finished wrapping up my work, it was nearly midnight. The trains had stopped running. After a moment of hesitation, I swallowed my pride and walked down to the parking garage, hoping to catch a ride with Lauren. But as I reached her SUV, the elevator doors slid open. Lauren walked out, and right behind her was Tony. When she saw me standing there, she froze, her brow furrowing immediately. “What are you still doing here?” My voice was quiet, stripped of any emotion. “I had to finish the quarterly reports. I missed the last train.” She stared at me for a couple of seconds before letting out a sharp sigh. “Get in.” The headlights flickered on. I walked over to the passenger side and reached for the door handle. But before my hand could make contact, Tony slipped right in front of me and pulled the door open, sliding into the front seat. “Oh, sorry, Matt,” Tony said, blinking up at me with an innocent, wide-eyed look. “Lauren promised me I could always have shotgun. My motion sickness is really bad at night.” My hand hovered over the empty handle. I didn’t move. Lauren tapped the horn, her face tight with impatience through the windshield. I let go of the handle, walked to the back, and silently got into the rear seat. The SUV merged into the late-night traffic. Tony chattered the entire way, his voice high and animated. “Lauren, that client today was so hilarious, he kept telling the worst dad jokes…” “Oh, and did you see that new sushi place that opened down the street? Some of the girls said it’s amazing. We should definitely try it sometime!” Lauren offered soft, amused replies, occasionally laughing at his jokes. I leaned my head against the cold window, watching the city lights blur into streaks of gold and red. The silence in the back seat felt like an ocean. When we finally dropped Tony off at his apartment building, the car fell into a heavy, suffocating silence. Lauren kept her eyes on the road, driving in silence until we pulled into our garage. She unbuckled her seatbelt and reached for the door handle, but I spoke before she could open it. “Lauren.” She paused, turning her head slightly. “Yeah?” I took a slow, steady breath. “Let’s break up.” The air in the car turned freezing. Lauren stared at me for a long moment, then let out a soft, dismissive chuckle, shaking her head. “Matt, are you seriously throwing a tantrum over a car seat?” I didn’t say anything. Her tone softened slightly, condescendingly. “Tony is just a kid, and it was late. As his boss, making sure he gets home safely is just basic responsibility. Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.” I looked directly into her eyes. “Lauren, it’s been seven years. Every single time I worked past midnight, I walked to the train station alone.” “That’s completely different—” “How?” I interrupted, my voice cracking slightly. “Am I not allowed to want someone to care about me?” She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. “I’m serious, Lauren. We’re done.” Her brow furrowed, her voice sharp with irritation. “Matt, this is getting ridiculous. Are you really going to throw away seven years over this?” I kept my gaze steady, refusing to back down. Eventually, she sighed, reaching out to pat my cheek. Her touch felt incredibly heavy. “Fine. I’m sorry, okay? Let’s just go inside. I have a flight tomorrow morning, and I need to get some sleep.” She opened her door and walked toward the elevator. I remained in the back seat, watching her figure disappear around the corner. The last lingering ember of warmth in my chest went entirely cold. I pulled out my phone and texted my dad. “Dad, I’ve made up my mind. As soon as I wrap things up here, I’m coming to London.” The reply was almost instant. “Good. Your mother and I will have everything ready for you. Just come home.” The next morning, the sound of sizzling oil woke me. I walked into the kitchen to find Lauren standing at the stove, frying eggs. I stood in the doorway, momentarily stunned. It had been at least five years since she had cooked anything. When she noticed me, she gestured toward a pot on the counter. “There’s oatmeal. Help yourself.” Then, my eyes drifted to two neatly packed lunchboxes on the counter. “Who are those for?” “Oh, those are for Tony,” she said, her focus entirely on flipping the eggs. “He always skips breakfast, and his blood sugar drops. He’s passed out at work a couple of times.” Before I could even process the words, she checked her watch and hurriedly wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Shoot, I’m going to miss my flight. I have to go.” She grabbed her suitcase by the door, then paused, stepping back to give me a brief, obligatory hug. “I’ll be back in a few days. Take care of yourself.” The door clicked shut. I stood alone in the messy kitchen. If this had been any other day, I would have immediately started cleaning up her mess. But not today. Today, I had an appointment at the consulate. The wait at the visa office was long, but my paperwork was processed without any issues. By the time I returned to the office, the sun was already starting to set. The hallways were quiet, most of our colleagues having already left for the day. I knocked on the HR door. Katie was still at her desk. “Matt? What are you doing here so late?” “I’m here to submit my resignation.” Katie’s jaw dropped. “What? Why? You’re a founding member of this place. Lauren was literally talking about setting up your equity package next quarter.” I offered her a polite, tired smile. “I’m ready for a change. I want to go spend some time with my family overseas.” She saw the look in my eyes and didn’t press further. “Alright. If you’re sure, I’ll start processing it.” She turned to her computer, her fingers flying across the keyboard. “Once we finish the offboarding paperwork, your last day will be next Tuesday.” I nodded. “Thank you, Katie.” As I turned to leave, I paused. “One more thing. Please keep this between us. I’d prefer if Lauren didn’t know until after I’m gone.” Though confused, she gave me a reassuring nod. “Understood. I’ll keep it under wraps.” Over the next few days, I threw myself into wrapping up my projects. Lauren sent me several text messages, but I left every single one of them on read. On Friday night, I finally dragged myself back to the apartment, completely exhausted. I was just taking off my shoes when my phone rang. It was Lauren. I stared at her name on the screen for a long time before finally picking up. “Matty…” her voice was thick, slurred, and carried that soft, clinging tone she only used when she was completely drunk. “I drank way too much… Can you come pick me up?” My heart gave a painful, familiar thud. She hadn’t called me “Matty” in years. Normally, it was just a blunt “Matt.” She continued to mumble into the receiver. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing down the sudden wave of emotion. “Send me the address. I’ll be there.” The city was wrapped in a heavy midnight fog when I arrived at the restaurant. But as I approached the entrance, my steps faltered. Lauren was leaning heavily against Tony, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck. When Tony spotted me, he stiffened, taking a hurried, awkward step back. “Matt… I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” his voice was panicked, his eyes wide with a performative fear, as if I were about to strike him. The movement shook Lauren awake. She blinked, her instinct immediately driving her to step in front of the kid, shielding him from me. “Matt, don’t start with him,” she mumbled, her eyes glassy. I let out a soft, bitter laugh. Even completely wasted, her first instinct was to protect him. Tony clutched Lauren’s arm, his eyes shining with tears. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let her drink so much. I’m so sorry, Matt.” Lauren reached up, gently patting his hair. “It’s not your fault, Tony. Don’t apologize to him.” Unable to watch another second of it, I stepped forward, pulling her dead weight away from him. “Let’s go. We’re going home.” She mumbled incoherently against my shoulder the entire ride back. I didn’t say a single word. By the time we got back to the apartment and she finished throwing up in the bathroom, she had sobered up significantly. She walked into the bedroom, a sheepish smile on her face, and tried to wrap her arms around my waist. I stepped back, letting her arms fall into the empty air. She blinked, confused. “What’s wrong?” I sat down on the edge of the bed, looking up at her. “Next Tuesday is my birthday. I want you to have dinner with me.” She hesitated, her eyes darting away. “I think I have a client dinner that night…” “Lauren,” I interrupted. “In seven years, you have never once spent my birthday with me.” She stared at me, the silence stretching between us. Finally, she nodded. “Okay. I’ll clear my schedule.” On Tuesday evening, I put on a tailored charcoal shirt—the one she used to tell me made me look handsome. When she walked into the restaurant and saw me, a flicker of genuine appreciation crossed her face. “You look nice tonight.” I offered a polite smile but didn’t reply. Make it special, I told myself. A proper goodbye to the last seven years. At the table, Lauren ordered several of my favorite dishes without even looking at the menu. But then, she turned back to the waiter. “And could you prepare a duplicate order of these to-go, please?” Seeing my questioning look, she explained, “Tony’s been talking about wanting to try this place for weeks. Since we’re already here, I figured I’d grab some for him.” I didn’t say anything. I just lowered my eyes and took a slow sip of water. The food had barely arrived when Lauren’s phone lit up on the table. She glanced at the screen, and her face immediately tightened. She set her fork down. “There’s an emergency at the office. I have to go. Go ahead and eat without me.” Without waiting for my response, she grabbed the takeout bags the waiter had just brought over and rushed out the door. I sat alone at the table, looking at the steaming dishes. I had completely lost my appetite. I paid the bill, walked out into the cool night air, and went home. I spent the next hour packing my life into two suitcases. At the bottom of the closet, I found an old shoebox. Inside were all the tiny mementos I had saved over the last seven years—movie ticket stubs, concert wristbands, and the annual photo booth pictures I had practically begged her to take with me. I stared at them for a few seconds, then carried the box to the trash chute and let it go. As I was wrapping up, my phone buzzed. It was a text from Tony. No words, just a single image. It was a close-up of his hand. Slid onto his ring finger was the thin silver band I had given Lauren for our first anniversary. My stomach dropped. I stared at the screen for a long, quiet moment. Then, I reached down, slid my own matching silver band off my finger, and set it gently on the coffee table. I took one last look at the apartment we had shared for years. There was nothing left here for me. The airport terminal was bright and loud, filled with families and travelers rushing to their destinations. I sat at the gate, opened my phone, and went through my contacts. One by one, I deleted and blocked Lauren’s number, her social media accounts, and her email. I was finally cutting the cord.

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Before the surgical lights flickered on, I slipped my hand-written suicide note beneath my brother’s pillow. “Wes, I wanted so badly to stay by your side forever.” “But Mom and Dad work too hard to make a living. I can’t bear to watch them pour every last cent into my treatments.” “Besides, the chemo hurts so much. My hair is entirely gone, and I’m not pretty anymore.” “I saved up some allowance—it’s in the envelope. Please use it to buy Mom and Dad that orthopedic massage chair they need. Their lower backs are always in so much pain.” “The rest of the money is for you. Thank you for taking such good care of me, Wes. From now on, you’ll have to look after Mom and Dad for me.” Two years. More than six hundred days and nights of excruciating agony. I had long since made up my mind to find my own release. As I lay there, quietly waiting for the poison I had swallowed to take effect, I heard my brother’s low, muffled voice echoing from the hallway: “Double the dosage. Once the Juilliard early-admission slot is officially transferred to Ivy’s name, I’ll find the best specialists in the country for Lucy. We will save her, I promise.” My mother’s voice broke as she choked back a sob, hitting his chest. “You’re going to destroy her! This past year has been pure torture for her. She’s nothing but skin and bones!” Wes’s voice trembled slightly. “Mom, Ivy doesn’t have Lucy’s raw talent. If we don’t let Lucy endure these two years of struggle, Ivy will never have a chance to stand out. I’ll hire the most elite physical therapists for Lucy’s rehabilitation afterward. If her health takes a turn, I’ll give her my own blood, my own kidney. I’ll even sign over both of our lakefront estates in Tahoe to her.” So. My parents were actually incredibly wealthy. And I didn’t have leukemia. I wasn’t paralyzed. But Wes… I’ve already swallowed the poison. There is no saving me now. 1 I lay perfectly still on the freezing operating table. The anesthesiologist inserted a sharp needle into my vein, murmuring softly, “Don’t be afraid, sweetheart. Just close your eyes and go to sleep. It’ll all be over when you wake up.” I nodded. In truth, fear was the furthest thing from my mind. All I felt was a profound sense of relief. Because right before they wheeled me in, I had swallowed an entire bottle of industrial weedkiller. I never planned on surviving today. My parents didn’t know. They had stroked my hollow cheeks with tear-filled eyes, whispering words of encouragement. “Don’t be afraid, Lucy. Mom and Dad will be right outside waiting for you.” Wes didn’t know, either. He had gently squeezed my frail, skeletal arm, his eyes red and brimming with unshed tears. “Our little princess is the strongest girl in the world. When you get out, Wes will take you wherever you want to go.” I swallowed my tears and forced a faint smile. “Okay,” I whispered. But inside, I was apologizing over and over again. “Mom, Dad, Wes… I’m so sorry.” “I’m not as strong as you think I am, and I can’t bear to drag this family down any longer.” I let my gaze linger on the three faces I loved most in this world, committing every line to memory. I wanted their faces to be the last things I took with me. I had always believed that my parents and brother loved me more than anything else. We weren’t well-off, but my parents never hesitated to give me whatever I wanted. They were so frugal with themselves, yet they never looked at the price tag when it came to buying me pretty dresses or cute stuffed animals. I had wanted to dance, but knowing how expensive ballet school was, I never dared to ask. Still, my parents gritted their teeth and sent me to the finest instructor in the city. That summer, Dad worked construction, his back so stiff from hauling bricks that he could barely stand upright at night. Mom ran her fishmonger stall at the local market by day, and woke up at five in the morning to prep breakfast pastries to sell, her eyes perpetually bloodshot with exhaustion. Even when I cried and lied to them, saying I hated ballet and didn’t want to dance anymore, Mom had only wrapped me in a warm, gentle embrace. “Lucy, we named you Lucy because you are the light of our lives,” she had whispered. “Whatever our little princess wants, Mom and Dad will work ourselves to the bone to give you. It’s our joy, sweetheart. It’s never a burden.” Wes had spoiled me just as much since we were kids. He always gave me the best pieces of food. Whenever my feet ached on the walk home from school, he would carry me on his back without a single complaint. “You’re my little sister,” he’d say, as if it were the simplest truth in the world. “Of course I’m going to spoil you.” When we grew older, he would stay up past midnight writing out study guides for me so my grades wouldn’t slip. He worked odd jobs to buy me birthday gifts he could never afford for himself. So when I overheard the truth… My mind went completely blank. I honestly thought I was hallucinating. We were wealthy. Their struggle, their desperate toil to raise me, was nothing but a carefully orchestrated performance. And those expensive medications they “sacrificed everything” to buy for me weren’t meant to cure me. They were the very things pushing me into this living hell—all to clear the path for Ivy’s future. Two years ago, I began feeling chronically ill. Dad had carried me on his back all the way to the clinic, where they diagnosed me with leukemia. I had broken down sobbing. My parents cried with me, holding me tight. “It’s okay, Lucy. We’ll get you the best treatments. We will never give up on you, no matter how much it costs.” Wes’s hand had trembled as he held mine, though his voice remained steady and reassuring. “Don’t worry, Lucy. I’m here. Mom and Dad are here. We won’t let anything happen to you.” Looking back now, of course nothing fatal was supposed to happen to me. Because I never had leukemia in the first place. But the “treatment” began anyway. Over the next two years, countless injections left my once-pale skin bruised and mottled, covered in a web of dark needle marks. I swallowed handfuls of bitter pills that burned my throat and made my stomach churn with nausea. For someone who used to be terrified of pain and hated medicine, I never uttered a single whimper. I swallowed every pill without hesitation, all to spare my family any extra grief. Whenever I saw their eyes redden, I would squeeze out a cheerful smile. “I’m okay, Mom. I’m strong. I can handle this.” But the monthly chemo sessions made me vomit violently. I couldn’t keep anything down; even when I forced myself to swallow a few spoonfuls of broth, I would end up purging it in the bathroom, spitting up bile and blood. My hair began falling out in thick clumps. Eventually, I had to wear a beanie to hide my bald head. I lay awake night after night, my body wracked with a deep, throbbing ache. But to keep them from worrying, I would bite down on my blanket to muffle my tears. They were sacrificing so much for me, I thought. The least I could do was be brave. But even though I did everything the doctors asked, eating nothing but bland porridge and clear soups, my body continued to waste away. I used to be a little swan, full of life, leaping across the stage. Now, I couldn’t even stand. I was confined to a bed, watching my muscles atrophy. The schoolwork I had fought so hard to master began to blur; letters twisted into incomprehensible shapes on the page, leaving me with blinding headaches. I lost my health, my hair, and eventually, my friends, who gradually stopped visiting as the months dragged on. My world shrank to the size of a hospital mattress, surrounded by sterile walls, endless medications, and my family. One evening, after a particularly brutal session that left me dry-heaving until my throat bled, I finally broke down.

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On our eighth anniversary, my boyfriend and I joined a tour group to visit a remote mountain range, only to be caught in a sudden avalanche. Amidst the chaos and panic, our group scrambled into a narrow cave. As the hours ticked by, hopelessness settled over us like a suffocating shroud. Eventually, the guide handed out scraps of paper and pens, telling us to write our final letters. I leaned in, my heart aching, wondering what beautiful, tragic final words he would write for me. But as his pen touched the paper, the first name he wrote was my best friend’s. “Grace. It took facing death to finally see clearly: you are, and always have been, the quiet moonlight of my soul.” “If I don’t make it out of here alive, and if someone ever finds my remains, please take this letter—and my ashes—to her.” What followed were pages of tender, agonizingly detailed instructions. “You have low blood sugar, remember to keep a piece of chocolate in your coat pocket.” “Your cramps get terrible; always keep a heating pad in your purse.” “You struggle with insomnia, so keep your phone far from the bed before you sleep.” Three whole pages. 1,537 words. And not a single mention of my name. In the face of death, his deepest truths had finally spilled onto the page. But they were not meant for me. My voice trembled as I confronted him, whispering, “Why?” “At the end of my life, I don’t want to lie to myself anymore,” he said, his eyes casting downward. “Besides, you get to die right here by my side. What more could you possibly want?” Nobody expected the rescue team to find us. But they did. In a flurry of tears and hysterical laughter, everyone tore up their final letters, scattering the scraps like confetti. I didn’t follow suit. I quietly folded the paper covered with my boyfriend’s and best friend’s names and slipped it into my pocket. My prognosis was grim anyway; whether it was a sudden departure or a slow fade, I figured I could always rewrite it later. It might still come in handy. … When our flight finally touched down in the middle of the night, the rain was pouring like a deluge. Grace was waiting at the terminal. The moment she saw us, she sprinted forward. Austin quickened his pace to meet her, catching her in a desperate, crushing embrace. The stoic tension he had maintained throughout the entire ordeal finally shattered, and he began to sob openly against her shoulder. “Grace, the only reason I held on… the only reason I kept breathing was because of you.” Her face buried in his chest, her voice cracked with emotion. “You two scared me to death. I thought I’d lost you forever. Promise me, no more climbing. No more snowy mountains.” She used the words “you two,” but her eyes were locked entirely on him, brimming with a devotion that excluded the rest of the world. He gently stroked her back, his voice softening to a soothing whisper. “Okay. Anything you say.” Outside, the rain lashed against the glass as they held each other in the crowded terminal, looking for all the world like a pair of star-crossed lovers reunited by fate. I stood a few paces behind, struggling with our heavy luggage, soaked and utterly pathetic. I didn’t know whether to step forward or disappear into the crowd. I was a ghost, a redundant bystander in my own life. It seemed the desperate longing in Austin’s letter was far from one-sided. Grace finally noticed me. She flinched as if burned, pulling back from his arms. “Chloe, are you okay?” She reached out to take my hand. I took a step back, letting her fingers grasp empty air. Her hand froze in midair, a flicker of panic crossing her face. “Are you mad at me for ignoring you? I… I was just so overwhelmed…” “How long has this been going on?” my voice was quiet, stripped of any anger. Grace’s face went entirely pale. She whirled her head toward Austin, her eyes wide with terror. Austin rubbed the bridge of his nose, exhaling a heavy sigh. “She knows.” “You told her?” she cried, hitting his chest in a panic. “We agreed to keep it a secret forever! How… how am I supposed to look her in the eye now?” “When did it start?” I interrupted, keeping my voice steady. She froze, her eyes welling with fresh tears as she stammered, unable to find the words. “Chloe, do you really have to make a scene here?” Austin interjected, smoothly pulling Grace behind him. His face hardened. “She drove all this way in a torrential storm just to pick us up. Don’t be so unreasonable.” He took Grace’s hand and guided her toward the exit. “I’ll drop her off first. You can take a cab.” Grace tugged on his sleeve, whispering, “Maybe I should take an Uber. There’s so much luggage, how is she supposed to handle it all by herself?” “She’s fine, she’s always been independent,” Austin said, his tone casual and unbothered. “Besides, she needs some time alone to clear her head.” I watched the two most important people in my life walk away together, their figures blurring into the rainy night. I stood frozen for a long time. My chest felt hollow, a cavernous space where the cold wind blew right through, leaving only ice in its wake. By the time I hauled all the bags through the rain and into our apartment, I was soaked to the bone. Within hours, my body temperature spiked to over a hundred and two. I dialed Austin’s number. “I have a fever.” “Don’t waste your breath making up excuses, Chloe. I’m not coming home tonight,” his voice was sharp with impatience. “And even if you do have a fever, go to the clinic. What do you expect me to do about it? I’m not your nurse. Grace said our dynamic doesn’t have to change. You should be grateful for that. Stop bothering me over nothing.” I listened to the dial tone, staring blankly at the screen. A strange, surreal numbness washed over me. For years, I had been conditioned to call him first, for absolutely everything, big or small. Eight years ago, when he asked me to be his girlfriend, he had made a solemn vow: “From this day on, if you call, no matter where I am or what I’m doing, I will answer. I will always come to you.” And for a long time, he kept that promise. Whether I was caught in a sudden downpour without an umbrella, or away on a business trip just missing his voice, he would fly to my side. How could that Austin vanish so completely overnight? A notification lit up my phone. Grace had posted an update. It was a photo of a steaming bowl of spiced ginger tea, rich with honey. “No matter how fierce the storm, there is always someone to keep me warm.” But that tea was supposed to be mine. It was always my remedy. “Chloe, you’re the only person in this world I’d ever step into a kitchen for.” Outside, a sudden crack of thunder shook the windowpanes, making the whole world feel incredibly fragile. I sat in the darkness, unable to tell if the dampness on my face was leftover rainwater or my own tears. There was nothing left to deny. He hadn’t changed; he had simply packed up all his tenderness and devotion and moved them into someone else’s heart. The last lingering shred of hope evaporated into the night air. A sharp, blinding spasm of stomach pain tore through my thoughts, jolting me back to reality. Cold sweat beaded on my forehead as I forced myself to sit up and unlock my phone. I composed a text to a contact I hadn’t messaged in months. “I agree to go abroad for the clinical trial of the new treatment. I accept all the risks and consequences.” The reply came almost instantly. “Are you absolutely sure, Chloe? Under palliative care, we could stretch this out for a few more months. If the experimental surgery fails, you might never wake up from the table.” “I’m sure,” I typed back. I had once wanted to spend my final days by Austin’s side, holding onto whatever time we had left. Now, there was no point. “Understood. I will come get you in three days.” It wasn’t until the third day of my raging fever that I saw Austin again. It happened at the hospital, right outside the OB-GYN wing. He was standing there with Grace. My hand shook as I signed my own discharge papers, and a sudden, quiet tear escaped down my cheek. Grace caught sight of me and hurried over, reaching up to gently wipe my tear away. “Chloe, please don’t get the wrong idea. I had some terrible menstrual cramps, and he just brought me in to get checked out.” She threw a quick, meaningful glance over her shoulder at Austin. “Right, Austin?” Austin offered a low, murmured assent, but the raw worry in his eyes when he looked at her was impossible to hide. I stared at Grace through my blurred vision, my gaze fixed on her. I was terrified that if I blinked, the girl who used to cry whenever I cried would vanish forever. When we were five, a boy at the children’s home tried to steal my bread roll. Grace had charged at him, shoving him away and standing in front of me like a tiny, fierce shield. At twelve, when a group of older girls cornered me in the school bathroom, she had burst in, grabbed my hand, and run. Her palm had been slick with sweat, but her grip was unyielding. At eighteen, she had secretly skipped the college entrance exams. When I wept over her ruined future, she had shrugged it off with a grin. “I’m not cut out for college anyway, Chloe. It’s just a waste of money. I’d rather start working double shifts to help pay for your tuition. Besides, you have Austin to look after you now. I’m not worried.” Having Grace as my best friend was the proudest achievement of my youth. I never could have imagined we would end up in a place this humiliating. Yet, she looked at me now with genuine worry, acting as though nothing had ever changed between us. “Why are you at the hospital, Chloe? Are you sick?” “Just a cold,” I muttered, not wanting to say more as I turned to leave. But she slipped her arm through mine, laughing just like she used to. “Oh, good. Austin is taking me to the theme park today. Come with us!” That theme park. I had begged Austin to take me there dozens of times, but he had always been “too busy.” I figured before I left the country—and maybe this life—I might as well cross one last thing off my list. After days of ceaseless rain, the sun finally broke through the clouds. Austin immediately opened an umbrella to shield Grace from the heat. She paused, pulling me under the shade as well, offering a mock scolding. “Why are you letting Chloe stand in the sun? Don’t do that again.” He blinked, offering a helpless, affectionate smile. “Got it, princess.” The look in his eyes was pure, unadulterated devotion. I didn’t know what kind of peaceful illusion they were trying to maintain. Did they truly believe that acting as if everything was fine would make it so? Inside the haunted house, when Grace shrieked in fear, Austin instinctively threw his arms around her, shielding her with a desperation that laid his feelings completely bare. When a passing actor accidentally knocked me to the ground, scraping my elbow until it bled, I looked up only to see the back of his jacket as he rushed after her. He protected her with his front; he abandoned me with his back. The math of love was cruel and incredibly simple. Once we emerged into the daylight, Austin suddenly got a playful glint in his eye. He snuck up behind Grace and yelled, scaring her so badly she laughed and punched his arm. He raised his hands in mock surrender, both of them dissolving into giggles, their eyes locking with an intimacy that I had spent years refusing to see. Whenever they had been overly close in the past, I had always rationalized it. We grew up in the same group home; they were childhood friends. But standing there, I realized my entire life had been a masterclass in self-delusion. The scarf he “happened to grab” for her when he brought me a coat. The birthday gifts he bought her to “keep things fair” on my special day. The photos of meals he would text her, promising to take her there next time. Every single detail had been a breadcrumb, pointing to the truth. When we got tired, Austin went to buy drinks. Grace pulled me down onto a park bench, her smile strained. “Chloe, I want to be your maid of honor next month. Austin is actually really invested in the wedding. He’s been asking me for advice on all the details. Don’t be mad at him, okay?” I managed a faint smile. So he actually remembered we were getting married. Yet, only this morning, the wedding planner had called me: “Ms. Foster, we need to secure the deposit for the venue. Mr. Ward hasn’t replied to any of our messages. Are we rescheduling?” I took a deep breath, a profound, crushing exhaustion settling deep into my bones. “Chloe, we’re still best friends for life, right?” she asked, her eyes pleading. I remained silent. She wrapped her arms around me, her voice trembling with unshed tears. “We are, right? Nothing changes between us.” I looked over her shoulder. Austin was walking back toward us, holding Grace’s favorite ice cream and a bottle of tea. There was nothing in his hands for me. “Everything has changed.” My hands curled into tight fists at my sides. I didn’t hug her back. Grace let out a choked sob. Hearing her cry, Austin rushed forward, shoving me aside so hard I fell off the bench. He pulled her into his chest, carefully wiping away her tears. When he looked down at me sitting on the gravel, his face was contorted with disgust and blame. “Chloe, it’s been three days! Have you still not gotten over this?” he hissed. “For the sake of her friendship with you, she was willing to ask for nothing, to stay in the shadows as the other woman just so she wouldn’t lose you. How can you be so cruel to her? The wedding is still happening. What more do you want?” Staring at his furious face, he felt cold and entirely unfamiliar. This wasn’t the boy who had beaten up my bullies in high school. This wasn’t the man whose face had flushed red when he asked me out, or who had knelt on one knee, swearing that I was the only woman he would ever love. The old Austin had loved me with a fierce, undivided heart. The man standing before me had split his soul in two. And I had no interest in a tarnished love, or a marriage built on scraps. A sudden spasm of pain clawed at my stomach. I pushed myself up from the gravel, my voice dry and hollow. “The wedding is off. We’re done, Austin.” For a second, Austin’s face went entirely blank. “What kind of game are you playing?” Grace broke away from his embrace, sobbing. “It’s my fault. I never should have come back to the States. I’ll leave. I’ll go back.” His expression shattered. He frantically grabbed her hand. “Chloe, what is this cheap reverse-psychology trick? Are you trying to ruin her life again?” He glared at me, his jaw clenched. “Do you have any idea why she left the country back then? It was because I confessed my feelings to “you”. She couldn’t bear to watch us, and she fled because she loved me too much to stay.” I froze, a high-pitched ringing filling my ears. Back in college, right after Austin and I started dating, Grace had suddenly married a wealthy older man and disappeared overseas. None of us knew that the man already had a family in Europe. She spent years trapped in a lie before discovering the truth. When she confronted him, he kicked her out onto the street with nothing but a one-way ticket back home. A year ago, if I hadn’t spotted her, disheveled and scavenging for food near a dumpster, she would have starved to death. The apartment she lived in now was paid for with my money. The funds in her bank account came from my paychecks. I had never asked for anything in return. I did it because she was my sister, the only family I had left, and I wanted to give her the world. I had thought Austin felt the same way, helping her out of shared history. How naive of me. For him, it had started as guilt, turned into pity, and festered into love. Looking at the wreckage of our lives, I couldn’t even tell whose fault it was anymore. We were just pieces caught in the gears of a cruel machine. I forced a dry laugh. “Then I wish you two a very happy life together.” As I turned to walk away, a flash of movement caught my eye. A feral, foaming dog was hurtling toward us, its bared teeth snapping. In a split second, I remembered a local news alert about rabid strays in the area. I was terrified of dogs, but instinct took over—I lunged forward to shield Grace. But in my panic, my foot caught on a root, and I stumbled heavily toward her. At that exact moment, Austin’s furious roar clashed with the dog’s vicious barking. “Chloe, what the hell are you doing?!” Before I could steady myself, I was violently shoved aside. I hit the dirt, and a searing, white-hot agony tore through my right calf. The stray had clamped its teeth into my leg, tearing at the flesh. Screaming in pain, I kicked out wildly, hitting the dog’s snout until it released me and fled into the bushes. Austin was already standing over Grace, holding her tightly. He glared down at me, chest heaving with rage. “When did you become so malicious? You tried to push her in front of you as a shield?!” It was only as the words left his mouth that his gaze drifted down to my mangled, bloody leg. His pupils contracted in horror. “Chloe… you…” He froze, slowly bending down to reach for me. Suddenly, Grace let out a sharp cry of pain, clutching her abdomen as she collapsed onto the grass. Austin froze. He instantly spun away from me. “Grace! What’s wrong?!” He scooped her into his arms, frantic, and began sprinting toward the street to hail a cab. I watched his retreating figure, my voice barely a whisper in the wind. “Austin… it hurts so bad…” But his entire universe was centered on Grace. My cries never reached his ears. Behind him, another pool of blood began to seep into the dry earth. It wasn’t coming from my leg. I hacked violently, coughing up thick, dark blood. The agonizing fire in my stomach flared to life, hotter and sharper than before. I lay there alone, gasping for air like a fish stranded on dry land, watching the yellow taxi speed away, kicking up a cloud of dust that settled over my face, my clothes, and my broken heart. It was a kind stranger who eventually drove me to the emergency room. The doctors patched up my leg and administered a rabies shot, but when they saw me coughing up blood, their expressions turned grim. While waiting for my lab results, I spotted Austin in the hospital corridor. He was pacing back and forth outside an examination room. The moment the door opened, he lunged forward. “Doctor, how are my wife and the baby?” The doctor adjusted his glasses. “The mother and fetus are stable for now, but we need to keep her for observation. I suggest admitting her.” Austin let out a massive sigh of relief and hurried off to fill out the paperwork. I sat on a plastic chair nearby, my entire body turning to ice. Six months ago, Grace had been dragged into an alley by a drunk. I had run to find her, stumbling right into the nightmare. The man had raised a knife to slash her, and I had thrown my body over hers. The blade plunged into my lower abdomen, releasing a torrent of blood. I survived the ICU, but the damage was irreversible. I had to undergo an emergency hysterectomy. When Grace wept by my bedside, I was the one comforting her. “It’s okay, we’re alive. The worst that happens is I’ll just be the godmother to your kids.” Austin had stood in the corner, his face pale and unreadable. Later, I found him sobbing in the hospital stairwell. I had tried to lighten the mood. “What, are you going to dump me now because I can’t have kids?” “Don’t talk like that,” he had choked out, holding me so tightly I could barely breathe. “I almost lost you… I don’t care about kids, Chloe. I only want you. I will never have a child with anyone else.” His vow had felt so solid, so incredibly warm. I had believed him. I didn’t know then that promises carry an expiration date. His had lasted exactly six months. The lab results finally came back, and the doctor’s face instantly dropped. “It’s gastric cancer, and the trauma has triggered an acute stomach perforation! We need to operate immediately!” he turned to the head nurse. “Our hospital doesn’t have the specialized equipment for this complex of a case. There’s a brilliant young specialist who just got back from Europe—he has the expertise we need. Quick, get her family to sign the transfer papers! If we wait any longer, she won’t make it!” The nurse leaned over my gurney. “Ma’am, where is your family?” The pain in my abdomen was a white-hot blade. I curled into a ball, coughing up another dark splatter of blood. “I don’t have any family…” I whispered. “Search her phone for emergency contacts!” the doctor urged. The nurse found the number. It took thirteen consecutive calls before the line finally clicked open. “Hello?” Austin’s voice sounded exhausted. “Hello, this is the municipal hospital emergency room…” “I’m already at the hospital,” Austin interrupted, his voice spiking with panic. “Is there something wrong with Grace’s lab results?” “Grace? No, we’re calling about Chloe Foster,” the nurse said rapidly. “Are you her next of kin? Her stomach cancer has progressed rapidly, and she has a perforated stomach. We need you to sign her transfer papers immediately!” “Chloe? Cancer?” Austin’s voice instantly turned cold. “She had a scrape on her leg. Now she’s inventing stomach cancer?” In the background, I could hear Grace’s whimpering voice. “Austin, my stomach hurts so bad… can you call a nurse? Go check on Chloe, really, I’ll be fine by myself…” “Nurse! I need a nurse!” Austin shouted into the room, ignoring the phone. Then, his voice softened into a gentle, soothing coo. “Don’t worry, sweetie. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.” Once the nurse in their room reassured him, he spoke back into his phone, his tone dripping with disgust. “Tell Chloe to stop acting. I don’t have time for her drama.” “Sir, this is not a drill!” the nurse yelled back, her voice cracking with desperation. “The patient is in critical condition! We just need your signature—” “Why does she always have to be so incredibly high-maintenance?” Austin snapped, his patience entirely gone. “Tell her that once her leg is bandaged, she needs to stay in her room. I’ll drop by when I have a minute. If she keeps pulling these pathetic stunts, the wedding is off. And let her know—since she doesn’t know yet—Grace is pregnant with my child. If Chloe behaves herself, she can still be the godmother. Unless she’s literally dead, don’t call me again.” The call went dead. The nurse stared at the screen, then looked down at me with profound pity. I stared up at the sterile, white ceiling, a tear of blood and sorrow leaking from the corner of my eye. More than twenty years of shared life, and it ended like this. He had blinded himself to my agony, completely indifferent to whether I lived or died. As my vision began to darken, I closed my eyes, letting the blackness take me. Grace eventually drifted off to sleep. Austin stepped out into the quiet hallway and answered a call from the wedding planner. “Mr. Ward, are we moving forward with the ceremony? The venue’s hold expires in an hour.” “Yes,” he replied without a second thought. “I’ll wire the deposit right now.” After completing the transaction, Chloe finally crossed his mind. He walked down the corridor to her room and pushed the door open. The bed was empty, the sheets stripped. He frowned, pulled out his phone, and typed a quick, annoyed text. “Why can’t you just stay put? Do you really need me to cause a scene and hunt you down to feel special?” The message went through, but there was no read receipt, no reply. A strange, cold prickle of worry brushed against his chest. He grabbed a passing nurse by the arm. “Where is the patient from this room?” The nurse, recognizing his voice from the phone call earlier, gave him a freezing look. “She’s dead,” she said flatly, pulling her arm away. Austin’s face drained of color, turning instantly white.

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With our wedding just weeks away, I found a stack of toll receipts on my boyfriend’s phone. Every single one showed a midnight departure, a grueling twelve-hour drive, and a frantic return the very next morning. To keep me from noticing his absence, he had pulled off these brutal, back-to-back road trips, running on pure adrenaline and desperation. Looking at that exhausting, dangerous schedule, my friends tried to soothe me over brunch. “It’s normal,” they said, offering sympathetic smiles. “Cold feet. Guys freak out before the wedding. He just needs to get it out of his system, he’ll snap out of it.” But I didn’t believe them. So, that very night, I booked a ticket and followed him to Chicago. And there, in the passenger seat of his car, I saw the girl. They got out together and walked into a boutique motel off the highway. Panic, hot and sudden, blinded me. I lunged forward, desperate to catch him, to scream his name, but I didn’t see the oncoming traffic. The bumper of a sedan clipped me, sending me sprawling onto the wet asphalt. Through a haze of white-hot pain and blurring vision, my fingers shook as I typed a desperate text. “Pick up the phone. I’ve been in an accident.” A few yards away, Luke stopped. I saw him pull out his phone and look at the screen. I held my breath, waiting for him to spin around, to run to me. Instead, he swiped the notification away, shoved the phone back into his pocket, and guided the girl inside. I blacked out. It wasn’t until seven that evening, dragging my fractured leg in its fresh plaster cast, that I finally made it back to our apartment in New York. Only then did Luke’s name light up my screen, his voice laced with practiced panic. “Oh my god, Freda! What happened? Are you okay? Which hospital are you at? I’m coming to get you.” “Don’t bother,” I said. My voice was hollow, entirely flat. No need to pick me up. And no need to get married, either. … My silence must have made him uneasy. “My phone died this afternoon,” Luke explained quickly, his voice soft and placating. “It was so hectic, I didn’t have a chance to charge it.” For the past three months, this had been his go-to excuse. If I hadn’t seen him with my own eyes, I would still be entirely in the dark, shielded by my own naivety. “Okay,” I murmured. “How bad is the leg? What did the doctor say?” His voice sounded genuinely worried. I looked up at the wall clock. It was 7:40 PM. It had been nearly eight hours since I sent that text. I snapped a photo of my heavy plaster cast and sent it to him. A compound fracture. Luke looked at the photo but didn’t ask any more questions about the pain or the diagnosis. Instead, he sent over a few photos of pink blossoms framing a lakeside path. “They’re in full bloom here,” he wrote. “It’s a literal sea of pink. Photos don’t do it justice.” I stared at the image for a long moment before typing back: “Is Chicago really that beautiful?” Beautiful enough to drive twelve hours for, four times in a single month? He had sent me the exact same photos four times now. The same angles. The same composition. He was so lazy with his deceit that he couldn’t even bother to take a new picture. There was a long pause on his end, as if he hadn’t expected the question. “It’s nice,” he said, his tone turning guarded. “To be honest, half of it was just helping a friend move her things. I was doing a favor.” He didn’t name the friend, and I didn’t ask, because I already knew he wouldn’t tell the truth. It was Giselle. I had scrolled through her Instagram earlier. She had posted a photo of herself looking radiant, standing under those exact crabapple blossoms. The photographer had clearly adored her, waiting for the perfect golden-hour light to hit her face before clicking the shutter. It was nothing like the photos Luke took of me. Nine times out of ten, his photos of me were blurry or off-center. Whenever I complained, he would just laugh helplessly. “I’m just a typical guy, babe. I don’t know how to work a camera.” But looking at Giselle’s profile, I finally understood. It wasn’t a lack of skill. It was a lack of care. Seeing that I wasn’t responding, Luke assumed I was tired. “You should get some rest. I’ll be back first thing in the morning.” “Okay,” I said, and hung up. I clicked on Giselle’s caption again. It was a sweet, bubbly update: “Grad school is officially over! Four trips back and forth, but so lucky to have had a dedicated helper. Thank you, you know who you are.” She went four times. He went four times. He hadn’t missed a single trip. Meanwhile, our caterer, the florist, the tux fittings—he hadn’t shown an ounce of interest in any of them. My head throbbed, a dull ache matching the tight pressure of the cast. After sending an email to cancel the wedding venue, I finally fell into a fitful sleep around 2 AM. When I woke up, Luke was already home. The apartment smelled of rich herbs; he was in the kitchen brewing chicken broth. Seeing me awake, he walked over and gently brushed a hand against my cheek. “How did you manage to get hit by a car?” I stared at him for a moment. “I went out, saw someone I recognized, and tried to catch up with them.” Luke offered a mild, distracted nod. “Well, be more careful next time.” He didn’t ask where I had gone, or who the person was. Because he didn’t care. My train ticket to Chicago was sitting right there on the entryway table, fully visible. He didn’t even glance at it. My eyes stung for a brief second. I grabbed my crutches and dragged myself out of bed. After a quick wash, I hobbled over to the dining table and reached for a bowl of the soup. “Don’t touch that!” Luke suddenly yelled, lunging forward, his voice cracking with panic. I froze, the ladle hovering in mid-air. “It’s not for me?” He cleared his throat, trying to soften his tone. “A friend of mine has a terrible flu. I promised I’d drop some homemade soup off. But I mean… if you really want some, go ahead.” Though he smiled, the reluctance in his voice was sharp enough to cut. I didn’t argue. I looked down at my heavy plaster cast, then quietly put the ladle back down. Luke immediately sealed the thermos and packed up a few side dishes. Once everything was neatly packed into a tote bag, he finally looked at me. “What do you want to eat? I can whip up some quick food before I go?” “Who is this friend?” I asked. Our voices collided in the quiet kitchen. “Just someone from school. You don’t know them,” he said, his voice perfectly smooth. “Male or female?” The easy smile vanished from Luke’s face, replaced by a flicker of annoyance. “Freda, what is this? It’s just a normal friend. Are you just stressed about the wedding?” I didn’t push further. He turned back toward the stove to put a pot of water on, but his phone suddenly buzzed on the counter. He glanced at it, and within seconds, he was ripping off his apron and grabbing the thermos. “Something came up, I have to run. Make sure you eat something, okay?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. He was out the door before the lock could even click back into place. He rushed out to care for his ex-girlfriend’s mild flu, completely disregarding his fiancé with a broken leg. My phone vibrated with a text. The bridal boutique confirmed that the cancellation of my wedding dress order had gone through. I tapped to confirm the refund, then ordered myself some takeout. After eating, I took a cab to the clinic to pick up my pain medication. And there they were, walking right toward me in the lobby. Luke was carrying Giselle’s designer tote bag in his left hand, and the empty thermos in his right. The moment his eyes met mine, his smile froze. But he quickly adjusted his expression, smoothing over the cracks. “What a coincidence,” he said. Yes. A coincidence that we were at the same clinic, and a coincidence that she had already finished my soup. Giselle didn’t offer any explanation. Instead, she gave me a sweet, polite smile. “Freda, go grab your prescription first. We’ll wait for you outside.” She sounded so poised, so entirely at home, as if she were the one hosting the afternoon. Luke naturally nodded along with her suggestion. I didn’t say anything. When we got to the parking lot, I instinctively reached for the passenger door. Giselle was already standing there, looking at me with a soft, apologetic expression. “I’m so used to sitting up front. Do you mind if I take it, or do you want me to move?” She didn’t make a single move to step aside. The seat’s angle and distance from the dash were already adjusted perfectly to her petite frame. Before I could speak, Luke opened the rear door. “Freda, why don’t you sit in the back? There’s more legroom for your cast.” Throughout the drive, they laughed and chatted easily. I sat in the back, isolated behind an invisible wall, watching them exist in a world that didn’t include me. Suddenly, Luke pulled over by a roadside farm stand. Without a word, he jumped out of the car and ran toward the stalls. Seeing me lower my window, Giselle turned back with a smile. “Don’t worry, he just went to get fresh cherries. There’s a specific orchard stand he always stops at.” My chest tightened, but before I could say anything, Luke was running back, panting, his face bright with excitement. “Giselle, look, they had the sweet ones!” The moment the words left his mouth, he seemed to remember I was in the back. “Freda, do you want—” Before he could finish, Giselle plucked a cherry, pulled the stem, and popped it directly into his mouth. “Told you they’d have them!” Her finger lingered on his bottom lip for a fraction of a second before she pulled away. Luke’s face flushed red. He shot a quick, guilty glance at me in the rearview mirror, then cleared his throat and shifted into drive. “Let’s get going.” Giselle sat back, perfectly relaxed, as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. In the reflection of the mirror, my expression was entirely blank. When Luke met my eyes, trying to gauge my reaction, I actually let out a quiet laugh. The car’s speed gathered abruptly. After we finally dropped Giselle off at her apartment, Luke immediately turned around to explain. “Don’t take her seriously, Freda. She’s always been a tease, it doesn’t mean anything.” “Do you even remember you’re getting married?” I asked quietly. The question was too sharp, and Luke’s face darkened. He didn’t answer. I turned my head to look out the window, my mind drifting. Luke and Giselle had been the classic college sweethearts. They were the golden couple—the debate partners, the honor students, the ones who traveled together every summer. But they were both too stubborn, constantly fighting, breaking up, and making up. When they finally called it quits after graduation because of differing career paths, Luke had wept as if his world had ended. I had never seen a man break down like that. I remembered walking up to him on that rainy evening, pulling my own beanie over his head to shield him from the cold, and running off before he could see my face. We reconnected a year later, and our relationship had progressed naturally. It was comfortable, steady, and peaceful. There was no screaming, no devastating heartbreak. And because of that, he had grown bored. “Don’t overthink this. Nothing happened between us,” his voice was stiff now, cold. I met his eyes in the mirror. “The sick friend was her, wasn’t it?” “Yes,” Luke admitted, his tone defensive. “She was sick, and I looked after her. That’s all it was.” He had built a thick, protective wall around himself. But I was the one left standing outside of it. We drove the rest of the way in silence. When we reached the parking garage, my leg was throbbing from the day’s movement. I wanted him to help me, to offer a shoulder. Instead, Luke walked over and simply hoisted me onto his back. I was too exhausted to fight, so I closed my eyes and rested my head against his shoulder. While we were waiting for the elevator, his phone buzzed in his hand. He paused, glancing down at me. “Freda?” I didn’t move, pretending to be asleep. Luke opened the notification. It was a photo from Giselle. She was wearing a tiny, black string bikini. “Does this look good? Thinking of posting it on Facebook.” I felt Luke’s breath catch. He typed rapidly: “Don’t you dare post that.” “Why not?” Luke’s grip on my thighs tightened. “Because you’re mine.” “I know. But you’re still getting married.” Luke didn’t reply to that. The elevator doors chimed open. He carried me into the apartment with careful, gentle steps, laying me down on the sofa. Then, he immediately hurried into his study, desperate to check if she had posted the photo anyway. He didn’t notice the tear tracking down the side of my face. He didn’t notice the damp patch of moisture on the shoulder of his shirt where my head had rested. It was nearly two hours later when he finally came out of the study, looking entirely at ease. Seeing me “awake,” he walked over and patted my head. “What do you want for lunch, babe?” “Fried rice is fine,” I said, shifting my weight and pulling my hand away from his touch. Luke froze, his eyes dropping to my bare ring finger. “Where is your engagement ring?” I had taken it off the moment I got home from Chicago. “It’s annoying to keep on with the cast when I wash up,” I said simply. “Did you put it somewhere safe? You can’t just lose a wedding ring, Freda.” “Is it really that important?” Luke’s brow furrowed. “What kind of question is that? Of course it is. It’s the symbol of our commitment to each other.” The very commitment he had been trading away in his study just minutes ago. Seeing my silence, he took a deep breath, kneeling down to take my hands in his. “Freda, you need to have more faith in us. You’re the only one I want to marry.” Yet he couldn’t bring himself to let go of his ex. I looked at him, genuinely wondering if he wasn’t exhausted by his own performance. How did he manage to split his heart so easily between two women? After lunch, I went into the bedroom to start quietly packing my things. When I came out, Luke was putting on a jacket. “Where are you going?” I asked. “An alumni mixer,” he said. Then, as if sensing my skepticism, he added, “Do you want to come?” “Yes.” Meeting his startled gaze, I offered a small smile. “I’ll go with you.” It was the first time in our three years together that I had ever insisted on joining him for an alumni event. The look on his face was far from happy. When we arrived at the restaurant, Giselle was already waiting at the entrance. Her smile faltered for a fraction of a second when she saw me, but she quickly masked it. “Freda, so glad you could make it!” “Thanks,” I said, but my eyes were drawn to her outfit. She was wearing a dusty blue knit dress. Beside her, Luke was wearing a matching dusty blue button-down. Even the leather-strapped watches on their wrists were from the same brand. Walking in beside them, I felt like the intruder. As soon as we walked into the private dining room, a guy near the head of the table stood up, waving a beer. “Luke! Heard you’re finally tying the knot! Man, when did you and Giselle get back together? You guys always were the perfect match.” Luke’s entire body went rigid beside me. Giselle, however, kept her face perfectly composed, even turning to look at me to see if my expression would crack. A friend nearby quickly tugged the guy’s sleeve, whispering loudly, “Shut up, you’re drunk. That’s his fiancé over there.” The guy’s face went bright red. He looked at me, stammering, “Oh, man, I’m so sorry. My bad, truly.” I smiled politely. “Don’t worry about it.” From beside me, Giselle let out a sharp, mocking laugh. It was brief, but loud enough to cut through the sudden quiet of the room. This time, I turned to look at her directly. “What’s funny, Giselle?” She clearly hadn’t expected me to call her out so bluntly. The tight, practiced smile on her face began to slip. “Nothing, Freda. Honestly, you’re just being so sensitive.” “Am I?” I said, my voice steady and clear. “Is it sensitive to care that you sent my fiancé a bikini photo yesterday? Or was that just another one of your little jokes?” The entire room went dead silent. Giselle’s face went completely white. Within seconds, she collapsed against the table, burying her face in her hands as she began to sob. Luke’s expression turned utterly hostile. He grabbed my wrist, his grip painfully tight, and dragged me out into the hallway. “Freda! Have you lost your mind? What are you doing?!” As he pulled me, my cast-bound leg clipped the sharp corner of the wall. A wave of agony shot up my spine, making me gasp. When the pain finally subsided, I looked at him and felt a sudden, bitter urge to laugh. I had just exposed his betrayal, and he was standing here, demanding to know what was wrong with “me”. “What are you so defensive about?” I asked. “I’m not defensive!” Luke hissed, his face dark with anger. “It was just a photo. Don’t be so provincial.” I nodded slowly. “Right. So I can send a bikini photo to my ex, too? And tell you it’s just a photo?” Luke rubbed his temples, looking thoroughly exhausted. Inside the room, Giselle’s crying was growing louder, drawing more attention. He had no interest in continuing this fight with me. “Just go home, Freda. We’ll talk about this at home.” Whenever there was a conflict, his first instinct was always to cast me out. Through the crack of the door, his classmates were looking at me with a mix of pity and discomfort. Behind them, Giselle had lifted her head, resting her chin on her hands, watching me with a smug, victorious little wave. I turned and walked away. When I got back to the apartment, my parents were already there waiting for me. They had already loaded the last of my boxes into the trunk of their car. My mom looked at me, her eyes quiet and steady. “Are you sure about this, sweetie?” I nodded. “I’m sure.” Before we drove away, my parents sent out a group text to all of our relatives, formally cancelling the wedding. On the drive back to my hometown, my phone buzzed with an Instagram notification. Giselle had posted a photo from the reunion. “The perfect reunion. Can’t wait for next year, guys!” In the group shot, Giselle was pressed tightly against Luke’s side, her arm wrapped possessively around his. But I had already left the battlefield. At 8 PM, Luke unlocked the door to the apartment, expecting to find me waiting for him. Instead, he was met with nothing but silence, and a sudden, cold dread began to settle in his chest.

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In the middle of the scorched-earth apocalypse, the impossible happened: I got a video call from myself, ten years in the future. “When does this end? Are Mom and Dad going to make it back with the water? What about Toby? Is my brother safe?” The questions poured out of me, desperate and breathless. But the face staring back at me from the screen didn’t look like mine. It was a nightmare. He was covered in weeping, infected sores, his scalp entirely bald and raw. His eyes, sunken deep into a hollow skull, were yellowed and threaded with dark purple veins. He was so gaunt he looked like a skeleton draped in graying skin. “Apocalypse?” My future self let out a rasping, bitter laugh. “There is no damn apocalypse, Sean. This is a cage. An underground tomb your parents custom-built just to appease their golden boy, Toby.” My breath hitched. “For ten years, they’re going to bring you a single piece of moldy, expired bread every day, and you’re going to wag your tail like a dog, crying with gratitude. To stay alive, you’ll drink your own filtered urine. When the hunger gets too sharp, you’ll gnaw on the wooden frame of your cot…” He leaned closer to the screen, his skeletal face filling my vision. “And Toby? He isn’t missing. While you’re down here on your knees, licking condensation off the filthy concrete, he’s sitting in the air-conditioned mansion directly above your head. He’s drinking iced sweet tea, holding your fiancée, and whispering with your parents about how many more heating elements they can install to make your life a living hell.” I froze, my mind completely short-circuiting. He pulled his cracked lips back into a agonizing, hollow smile. “I traded my last breath to get this call through to you, Sean.” “They forgot to lock the heavy bulkhead door today. If you don’t believe me, push it open. See for yourself. The apocalypse only exists for you.” … The call cut out, leaving a wall of dead static. My hands shook so violently that my phone slipped from my grasp, clattering onto the cold concrete. All I could see was the reflection of my future self—broken, ruined, stripped of any humanity. “No… it can’t be…” I looked up at the reinforced skylight. Through the thick glass, I could see the desolate street. Scorched, skeletal trees. Cars melted into puddles of metal. Not a single living soul. The world outside was supposed to be a blistering, 120-degree wasteland. Ignoring my trembling knees, I scrambled on all fours toward the heavy bulkhead door. The door was lined with state-of-the-art thermal insulation. To ensure my “safety,” my mother had stuffed every seam with fireproof stripping. My father, a renowned meteorologist, had told me himself that the surface temperature had surged past critical levels. He said the streets were crawling with desperate, murderous scavengers. He warned me that without a tactical hazmat suit, I would burn to death within ten minutes. This door was the only barrier between me and a living hell. I placed my palm against the heavy brass handle. It was supposed to be scalding, hot enough to sear my skin off. I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and braced myself for the pain as I twisted my wrist. I barely had to apply any pressure. The door swung open. There was no blast of white-hot air. No suffocating heatwave. Instead, a cool, gentle breeze washed over me, carrying the faint, sweet scent of rain-soaked gardenias. Soft drops of summer drizzle fell onto my parched, cracked face. I stood there, paralyzed. A cold dread pooled in my stomach, making my knees buckle. My brain refused to process the sensory reality of the world before me. There was no apocalypse. It was a meticulously crafted stage play, designed by my own parents, just to soothe Toby’s bruised ego. This basement wasn’t a fallout shelter. It was my coffin. “Toby, sweetheart, come eat some of this chilled watermelon I just sliced.” The familiar, warm voice of my mother drifted through the air. A violent shiver ran down my spine. I instinctively shrank back, slipping behind the shadow of the villa’s brick siding. The house was beautifully, freezing cold. My mother, who supposedly had been missing for three days on a perilous run for canned goods, was sitting on the plush sofa. She had her arm wrapped around Toby, sipping a glass of cabernet while they watched a talk show. My father walked over, gently placing a piece of perfectly seared ribeye into Toby’s mouth with a fond smile. “Our sweet boy,” my father said softly. “Right now, Sean is either weeping over your photograph or staring at his skylight in despair.” “He still doesn’t realize you didn’t run away because of some stupid argument. He actually believes the sky is falling. He has no idea that skylight is just a high-definition LED screen.” “That boy had the nerve to embarrass you at school and try to steal your girlfriend. He deserves to learn what happens when he crosses you.” Embarrass Toby? Steal his girlfriend? I had done none of those things. But my parents had taken a handful of Toby’s venomous whispers and used them to sentence their own flesh and blood to ten years of psychological torture in a dark hole. Hot, bitter tears spilled over my cheeks, dripping onto my hands. Just ten minutes ago, I had forced myself to drink half a cup of stagnant, yellow water to save a single moldy crust of bread for my parents. I had starved myself so they could live. I had truly believed that if I just endured, if I was just strong enough, our family would make it to the other side of the end of the world. I caught my reflection in the patio glass. My knees gave out, and I nearly collapsed onto the wet grass. My lips were split and bleeding. My skin was yellowed with dirt, and my hair was falling out in clumps near my temples. I looked like a gutter rat. And according to the video call, this was just the beginning. I was going to get so much worse. I was going to die down there, believing their lie until my very last breath. I bit my own arm, squeezing my eyes shut to stifle the sob clawing its way up my throat. On the living room wall, a new family portrait hung in a gilded frame. I wasn’t in it. In my place stood Toby, flanked by my parents, with his golden retriever sitting at their feet. “Ah.” I swallowed the suffocating grief, turning silently toward the garden hose lying in the flowerbeds. I grabbed the nozzle and let the cool, clean water gush into my mouth. Over the past year, my parents would occasionally bring back half a plastic bottle of lukewarm, brackish water. Drinking a single capful of that felt like a gift from heaven. I had been pampered for twenty years; I never knew plain tap water could taste so sweet. But the image of my future, skeletal self remained burned into my retinas, cold and unyielding. My hand trembled against the plastic hose. “Fine.” “You want a post-apocalyptic wasteland?” “Since you went to all the trouble of building this beautiful stage… I’m going to make sure you get to play your parts to the very end.” I slipped quietly back into the basement. I pulled the heavy bulkhead door shut, sealing myself back in. The stifling, stagnant air of the cellar instantly wrapped around me, threatening to suffocate me. The cool rain outside felt like a dream I had already forgotten. I crawled back to my spot in the corner, pressing my face against the thumb-sized ventilation pipe, and watched the simulated red dust swirl on the LED skylight until sleep finally claimed me. In my dreams, I lived those ten years. I dreamed of the simulated “deaths” of my parents during a scavenge run. I dreamed of surviving on their meager, pre-staged rations. The hunger and thirst were constant, gnawing monsters. The basement walls in my dream were covered in desperate messages written in my own blood. Several times, I had tried to throw myself open to the “scorched air” outside just to end the misery. But the bulkhead door’s handle had been rigged to run scorching current, searing my flesh whenever I touched it. It was locked from the outside. And even then, in my madness, I had believed my parents locked it to protect me from the savage survivors outside. I dreamed of the day the food ran out. I was eating dirt and splinters. Then, the door opened. Toby stood there, looking down at my broken body, howling with laughter. “You absolute moron! You actually believed the world was ending?” Behind him stood his wife—Bridget, my former fiancée—looking at me with profound disgust. “How pathetic. He looks like a hairless mole rat. Is this really the great heir of the family?” My father grabbed me by the few remaining strands of my hair, dragging me out into the light. “Stop playing dead. The rations I left were more than enough to keep you alive!” “If you hadn’t bullied Toby, we wouldn’t have had to go to such lengths…” “Slap!” The sharp sting across my cheek snapped me awake. I opened my eyes to see my father looking down at me, his expression tight with irritation. He was wearing a heavily scuffed, spray-painted hazmat suit. Fresh, synthetic blood was smeared across his shoulder. “Sean! Why do you have a fever?” Perhaps it was the sudden intake of clean water, but my body had gone into shock. My forehead was burning. My father looked exhausted, his eyes performing a perfect imitation of paternal despair. “Sean, your mother and I are putting our lives on the line out there just to bring you a single bite of food.” “It’s a wasteland out there! A literal wasteland!” “Because you fought with your brother and drove him out of the house, he missed his chance to get to the shelter. We can’t even find his body! I’m begging you, stop making things harder for us, okay?” If this were yesterday, I would have wept with guilt. I would have fallen to my knees, begging for his forgiveness. Now, looking at his sweat-streaked, theatrical makeup, I felt nothing but a cold, heavy disgust. “You love acting so much?” “Let’s see how well you perform.” I lowered my head, letting my shoulders slump in manufactured shame. “I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to get sick. Maybe… maybe I should go out there with you next time. I can help scavenge. I can help keep us alive.” My father’s face went stiff for a fraction of a second. He quickly masked his panic with a heavy, theatrical sigh. “The survivors out there are desperate beasts, Sean. You wouldn’t last five minutes.” “Besides, we only have two functional suits. If anything happens to you, your mother and I wouldn’t be able to go on.” “Get some rest. I’ll go see if I can find some fever reducers in the ruins.” He stood up, turning his back on me without another word, and heavy-handedly shut the thick bulkhead door. “Click.” The tiny piece of sheet metal I had wedged into the strike plate earlier rattled softly. I crept over, carefully manipulating the metal shim to keep the latch from fully engaging, and pulled out the small garden trowel I had hidden down my trousers earlier. I pried the door back open. I crept up to the glass pane of the back patio, moving like a shadow. Inside, my father was peeling off the stiff hazmat suit with a look of deep revulsion. He grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol, scrubbing his hands raw. “Useless brat,” he muttered, spitting his words. “How did I end up with a son like Sean?” “Always causing problems, always a burden. I swear, he needs another ten years down there to finally fix that rotten attitude of his.” Toby stepped up, affectionately wiping the dark theatrical grease from my father’s cheek. He wrapped an arm around my father’s shoulders, cooing playfully. “Dad, you’ve worked so hard!” “It looks like Sean still hasn’t learned his lesson. We should seal up his main ventilation pipe. If he has a fever, he can just sweat it out!” “Or we can turn up the heating rods. Let’s see how cocky he is when it’s 104 degrees down there.” “Oh, and we should add some zombie-dog sound effects to the LED sky screen! We can just tell him the virus mutated and the infected are roaming the streets.” Toby gushed about his plans to torture me, his eyes gleaming with excitement. My parents hesitated for a moment, but then nodded with indulgent, doting smiles. The blood in my veins turned to ice. If it hadn’t been for that video call, I would have been subjected to these monstrous cruelties for ten agonizing years. My mother turned on the television, pulling Toby down to sit beside her. She handed him a bowl of freshly peeled grapes, her eyes warm and tender. “We’ll take it one step at a time,” she said softly. “This isn’t just about making you feel better, Toby. It’s about correcting his character.” “Your father and I have calculated his rations perfectly. He won’t starve, but he won’t have the strength to act out. Until he learns how to be a proper, humble brother to you, we cannot afford to be soft-hearted.” “Brother?” I would never be a brother to a parasite. Toby was my mother’s favorite student. After his own parents passed away, she had brought him into our home. In the beginning, I had been happy to welcome him. I wanted to share my family. But he had repaid me with a campaign of systematic ruin. He framed me for burning his school projects, claimed I orchestrated his bullying at school, and accused me of hiring thugs to assault Bridget just so I could “possess” her. At the mention of my name, my mother’s expression hardened. “Once he’s broken and goes back to being the obedient, quiet boy he used to be, we’ll let him out.” She tapped a button on the smart remote, but as she glanced at the security feed, her brows knit together. “Where did that boy go? Why isn’t he on the camera?” My heart leaped into my throat. Toby leaned closer, gasping. “You’re right! He’s completely gone from the main feed!” “Did he… did he figure it out? Did he escape?” Cold sweat broke out across my back. I gripped the wooden handle of the trowel tightly. But my father let out a dismissive snort. “Escape? The master key is in my pocket. How could he get out?” “Besides, that insulated door gets hot enough to peel his skin if he tries to tamper with it. He’s far too soft to even touch it.” “He’s probably crying in the blind spot of the bathroom.” My father swiped the screen, bringing up yesterday’s footage. “Remember how picky he used to be? Yesterday, I threw him a half-eaten piece of dry salami, and he bolted it down like a stray dog.” “Your plan is working beautifully, Toby. He’s nearly tamed.” My mother pinched her nose in disgust, as if she could smell the stench of the cellar through the screen. “Tamed? He looks like an animal. No dignity at all. It’s embarrassing.” I let out a silent, cold laugh. What was I to them? A dog to be trained? Toby rested his head on my mother’s shoulder, sighing softly. “Since Dad told everyone I was lost in the wasteland, I wish I could go down there and see his face myself.” His eyes gleamed with sadistic anticipation. Naturally, my parents couldn’t bear to deny him. “That’s easy enough,” my father said warmly. “Put on a respirator mask. I’ll tell him you’re a survivor who helped us forage for his fever medicine. He’ll be weeping with gratitude at your feet.” “We can even bring Bridget along. Let her see what a pathetic worm her former fiancé has become. It’ll give her peace of mind.” To please their adopted darling, my parents were willing to utterly destroy me, body and soul. My initial instinct was to call the police. But now, I had a better plan. I was going to give them the exact apocalypse they had built. I slipped backward, quietly returning to the dark of the basement. I needed to be ready before they arrived. I had spent months studying the bulkhead door. My father had installed an emergency safety latch on the exterior—a standard heavy-duty fallout door mechanism. I remembered reading the manual in his study when I was younger. Once the manual override lock was engaged from the outside, no key, no electronic code, and no amount of physical force could open it from the inside. Come on down. Since you built the trap, you might as well see how it feels to be the prey. I dragged myself into the dirty bathroom corner, curling my body into a tight, shivering ball. Suddenly, the LED skylight flickered, displaying a horrifying image of a mutated golden retriever with half its skull exposed, clawing frantically at the glass. Before I could react, the alarm system blared, and the entire basement began to shudder violently under a simulated blast wave. The heavy door was thrown open. My parents, accompanied by two figures in bulky hazmat suits, came tumbling into the room in a state of orchestrated panic. My father frantically ripped off his respirator, his back drenched in sweat. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a handful of dry dog kibble, and shoved it into my trembling hands. “The fallout is spreading! The surface is crawling with mutated beasts! The neighbor’s dog turned and slaughtered its owner!” “This is all the food we could salvage. Your mother and I had to eat wild rats to survive out there. Keep this dog food—it’ll keep you alive!” The dry kibble was covered in dried saliva. I recognized it instantly; it was the leftover food from Toby’s dog bowl. When I didn’t move, my mother’s temper flared. She snatched a crushed, dusty tablet from Toby’s hand and forced it past my lips. “Eat it! Sean, you aren’t some delicate prince anymore! We are in the end times; you don’t have the luxury of being squeamish!” “These two saviors risked their lives to bring you this medicine. Eat it!” “I raised you to show gratitude. Once you swallow it, get on your knees and thank them for saving your miserable life!” Even behind the heavy plastic visor of the hazmat suit, Toby’s eyes danced with sadistic glee. Bridget looked down at my filthy, skeletal frame and visibly gagged. I watched their performance in absolute silence. Then, with a cold smirk, I spat the pill onto the dirty floor. “Dad, Mom… it’s a lawless wasteland out there. How can you trust strangers so easily?” “What if this is poison? What if they followed you to steal our bunker?” The room went dead silent. Bridget was the first to react. She snatched the discarded pill off the floor with her gloved hand, turning toward the exit. “Ungrateful trash. We shouldn’t have bothered.” My mother, humiliated and furious, raised her hand and delivered a stinging slap across my face. The crack echoed off the concrete walls. “You spiteful, arrogant little monster! I swear, you are utterly irredeemable! You deserve to rot down here—” She caught herself, cutting her own words off as she realized she had almost broken character. Toby stepped forward, picking up the pill and grabbing my hand, forcing it into my palm. “The surface pharmacies are gone. We salvaged this from a frozen warehouse; it’s the last dose. Survival is all that matters, Sean.” But as he spoke, his grip suddenly tightened on my arm. With a sharp, sudden jerk, he threw himself backward, crashing heavily against the sharp iron frame of my cot. He let out a sharp cry, looking at me with wide, terrified eyes. “You… you tried to push me onto the exposed bolts?” “I risked my life to save you, and you try to murder me?” Before I could even speak, my father’s massive hand gripped my collar. He hoisted me off the floor and threw me violently into the bathroom corner. “I knew you hadn’t changed!” “Stay in there and rot! Don’t you dare come out until you’re ready to beg for forgiveness!” “Slam!” I was thrown into the shallow pool of grey water on the bathroom floor. The stench of stagnant waste filled my nose, making my stomach heave. My fever made my skull feel like it was cracking open. But my mind had never been clearer. The bathroom was the closest point to the exit. Through the cracked door, I could see Toby holding up his phone, snickering as he took photos of my pathetic state. My parents and Bridget stood by, their faces filled with doting amusement. “Now.” “This is the moment.” Adrenaline surged through my veins, hot and electric. With every ounce of strength left in my starved body, I lunged from the floor and bolted toward the bulkhead door. A furious, stunned roar shattered the quiet behind me. “Sean! What the hell are you doing?!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “512300”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel